I’m anti-mainstream media practices  but this is extreme!

James L. Lee, 43, expressed his rage against Discovery Channel’s programming by showing up armed and taking three hostages. I’m sure he got the attention the he was seeking, but not the results – he was shot by policemen on the scene. This was not his first action against the media company. According to Associated Press, Lee protested outside the company and charged with disorderly conduct in 2008.

Now, this is action! I’m not mad at Lee’s courage for standing up for what he believes in. I am a little disturbed by his method of handling the situation was a bit off. Everyone escaped safely, which is a blessing, but there are more civilized ways to get your point across.

What do you think of Lee’s actions? What could he had done differently?

The DEA is hiring black people to snitch on other black people.  This is how slavery got started – using black people to catch other black people.  Today, tricks are paid in cash.

What qualifies someone to be a traitor, er, translator?  Will they actually hire someone from the streets or do they just only have to understand street? I’m sure the highly educated, qualified black people with “ethnic” names that cannot get hired elsewhere because of their names are running for this position!

Didn’t the DEA see the Thank You For Not Snitching episode of The Boondocks?  I know they watch the news every day and see that black people don’t tell on each other.  Unless there’s a price involved.  What’s the going rate of snitching these days, anyway?

2. Nine translators are being hired.  This really puts a dent in the high unemployment rate in the African American Community.  The overall unemployment rate is 9.5 % with total  rate of black people being 15.6%.  The rates for black men and women are 16.7% and 12.9% respectively.  I feel the progress already!

3. Translators are needed for “undercover drug investigations.”  What happens when if they find out their targets are not black?  Will they get fired?  I guess they’re not good enough for white collar crimes of Wall Street. No translation needed, there.

4. Ebonics was not recognized as a language, but it’s acknowledged at the government’s convenience. This is the same entity that said that black slaves were not human; they have to vote to determine if black people should have the right to vote; and they used Negro on the 2010 census.  I guess now that the government has acknowledged Ebonics, Microsoft will include the translation in the next Office upgrade.

5. “…The ideal candidate would be a native speaker who also has had some linguistics training.” Translation: Ebonics is my first language with English running a close second.  When they can understand me, knowwhatimsaying?

I could go on and on with this one. Just had to humor myself a bit.

Straight from the Associated Press:

“ATLANTA – Federal agents are seeking to hire Ebonics translators to help interpret wiretapped conversations involving targets of undercover drug investigations.

The Drug Enforcement Agency recently sent memos asking companies that provide translation services to help it find nine translators in the Southeast who are fluent in Ebonics, Special Agent Michael Sanders said Monday.

Ebonics, which is also known as African American Vernacular English, has been described by the psychologist who coined the term as the combination of English vocabulary with African language structure.

Some DEA agents already help translate Ebonics, Sanders said. But he said wasn’t sure if the agency has ever hired outside Ebonics experts as contractors.

“They saw a need for this in a couple of their investigations,” he said. “And when you see a need — it may not be needed now — but we want the contractors to provide us with nine people just in case.”

H. Samy Alim, a Stanford linguistics professor who specializes in black language and hip-hop culture, said he thought the hiring effort was a joke when he first heard about it, but that it highlights a serious issue.

“It seems ironic that schools that are serving and educating black children have not recognized the legitimacy of this language. Yet the authorities and the police are recognizing that this is a language that they don’t understand,” he said. “It really tells us a lot about where we are socially in terms of recognizing African-American speech.”

Rickford said that hiring Ebonics experts could come in handy for the DEA, but he said it’s hard to determine whether a prospective employee can speak it well enough to translate since there are no standardized tests. He said the ideal candidate would be a native speaker who also has had some linguistics training.

Read the full story here.

The  KKK leader stepped to the podium, his hood lowered around his shoulders and a look of disgust  on his face. He said, “Sorry guys but this will be our last meeting; we’re going out of business.”

A member stood up in back. “But why sir?”

The leader sighed, “Well, reverend, the Blacks are doing a better job getting rid of themselves than we ever did, so we are no longer needed.”

There were rumblings and protest. The leader raised his hand to silence the Klan members, and said, “Their rap music says more vile things about Black women than we ever thought of.”

The members grudgingly nodded in approval. The Imperial Dragon continued: “And their women write books and make songs that demean black men better than my two speech writers ever could, looking down at two men seated in front who lowered their heads.

“They shoot each other constantly,” he continued;” And as a group, they spend a huge amounts of money on cars, liquor, that stuff they call bling bling, and the proliferation of rap music – as they talk about all that in their magazines — and nobody needs us to talk about how a lot of their sorry butts keep playing the race and victim cards while complaining that other groups are surpassing them in economic development and supposedly getting more attention in schools.

Hell, they even support a so-called “Black Hair” DVD that a white man is making money on, in four sequels at $20.00 a pop, talking about how Koreans have taken over the “black hair” industry without acknowledging that Black entrepreneurs had 100 years to get a monopoly or entrenchment in the industry that Madam C.J Walker founded 100 years ago, but got out-hustled and out-strategized while spending investment capital elsewhere.   Let’s face it, they’re being hoisted by their own petards.”

Some members went looking for dictionaries, while most members nodded as it hit them that their job was finished; that Blacks had become their own worst enemy.

The leader shook his head. “It’s time to go back to our regular lives as policemen, judges and congressmen, and leave the business of getting rid of Blacks to Blacks. They are just better at it than us.”

He then threw his hood on the ground and walked off the stage.  Thus ended the last KKK meeting.

The portrayals I found were:

1. Court shows are full of mothers suing fathers  for nonpayment of child support.
2. The father either doesn’t work or is a street hustler and pays when he can or not at all.
3. Maury Povich…I have no words.

The bad thing is, black men as a group are judged as deadbeat dads based on the images of the few ignorant people shown on TV.  It’s not fair, but that’s life.

TVs and movies rarely show RESPONSIBLE black fathers as the primary caregivers of their children (Pursuit of Happyness with Will Smith is an exception).  They also rarely show how mothers intentionally do things to keep their children away from fathers who are willing to provide and care for their babies.  They choose to highlight the negative.

Well, I would like to commend two of my friends who have spent countless hours in court and loads of money fighting for their children.  I have much love and respect for both because I personally know their struggles.  Allow me to introduce Demond Fagan and Leon Green (Charles) .

Demond has gone through his challenges with few complaints.  There were trying times, but through it all, he only complained about the situation.  He has missed work; left early and arrived late to get custody of his children.  Even when he thought it was over, he was back there again.  I’m pleased to report that he was victorious, and he has emotional bumps and bruises as well as a huge bill from his lawyer as proof, but he is a happy father with his babies.

Charles is still going through drama, but he refuses to back down.  He always says, “I want my kids,” and he’s doing what he can to get them.  He loves his boys, but their mother is scandalous. She’ll make plans for the boys when Charles have scheduled to pick them up.  She took away the oldest son’s phone so he couldn’t speak with his dad. It’s a trick.  But, Charles is being a responsible man by putting up with the mess.  He has even more fight because of his challenges with his daughter.

I just had to share Demond and Charles’ stories because I know they would probably never be seen on TV as they do not fit the deadbeat dad images shown on TV and in movies.  And, they are truly exceptional on so many levels.

Media sources thrive on stereotypes and inaccurate portrayals.  I feel that the media sends out negative images and messages to viewers about African Americans.  Thus, following are reasons why I think watching TV and movies is bad for Black people and the people who believe what they see.

1. They tell black people how to think, live and act
2. They tell black people what to buy
3. They teach black people how to hate themselves
4. They tell black people that they are not important
5. They show that black people are only good at entertainment, sports and comedy
6. They show black people more as sexual objects and not intelligent beings
7. The show that black is not beautiful
8. They do not show images of healthy black families
9. They show single mothers struggling and on welfare
10. The lack of black actresses in leading roles in large Hollywood films says that they are not worthy of the position
11. Black people are typically portrayed as gun-toting criminals
12. They show black people in lower paying jobs instead of executives and professionals
13. Black actresses are not good enough to star in movies with leading black male actors
14. They show many black youngsters in gangs
15. They rarely show successful black people with successful black mates
16. They rarely show leading black actors in films

That’s all I came up with.  What else can you think of?

First, there were reports that the NFL is going to punish him for the results of his latest party.  Then, there were the stories of why he should be in Philadelphia.  All of the reports I read were written between July 1st and July 18th.

What are these contradictory reports saying to the young people keeping up with Vick’s stories?  In my opinion, it’s telling them that it’s OK for athletes to get into trouble because they are probably still going to have a job anyway.  Nice paying jobs.  And,they can pay their way out of trouble.

Hell, what is it saying to Vick?  This dude has already been in trouble, served his time, and is wrapped up in mess again.

I have three thoughts or questions about Mr. Vick:

1. Why would he throw a public admission party? I’m questioning his ability to think rationally.
2. What type of people does he has in his life that would allow him to throw such a party knowing that his name is already tarnished?  These are not real friends.
3. Why is Vick not willing to let his past go?  This is the root of all his evil.
4. When will this guy learn?

These are just my thoughts on Michael Vick.  I’m not hating on this man by any means.  However, I do have a problem with the contradictory messages that are being sent to young people as a result of his bad judgment and his continuing career.

I don’t want him fired because he has to eat, but he also needs to know that insanity is doing the same thing over and expecting different results.  As long as Vick continues to hang around the same people he did prior to the NFL, and think the same way he did in his early years, his name is going to continue to be associated with mess.

When is he going to learn?

Whenever we look at TV or movies, you always see people coming up with inventions or interesting concoctions.  If my memory serves me correctly, none of these people were black except Steve Urkel, played by Jaleel White, on Family Matters.  If you do recall seeing black people creating things, were they practical, and not silly or simple?  If you can recall seeing these images, let me know.  I know I missed it.

Believe it or not, black people invented many things we use and take for granted today.  Traffic signals, lawn mowers, elevators, pencil sharpeners, mops, and dustpans are just a few of the creations resulting from the genius of black people.  Unless you research these things on your own or watch PBS or the History Channel, this information would not be known.

What’s my point? Black inventors are still expressing their creative genius today.  And, they are still NOT Seen on TV.

I had a chance to experience black inventors firsthand at the Chicago’s First Black Inventors Entrepreneurs Organization (CFBIEO). Who knew such an organization existed?  I was impressed by the number of current and inspiring inventors there are, and the diversity was encouraging, too.  I met a board game creator; product marketer; and intellectual property attorneys.

Calvin Flowers is the Founder, Chairman and Executive Director of CFBIEO.  He has served in this role since 2004.  Prior to starting the organization, he invented, patented and sold his invention, Tel-Lock to stores such as Walgreens and Supervalu.  A legal battle ensued and he won, but the situation set him on a mission to help others to avoid such mishaps, if possible.

I just wanted to let you know that contrary to what is seen on TV, black inventors do exist.  You can meet them at Chicago First Black Inventors and Entrepreneurs Organization.  Visit their website for more details about the organization, their meeting schedule, and the prices and benefits of membership and the cost to join.

Let’s work on getting this organization and its faithful inventors the proper recognition they deserve so they can be seen on TV.

Fredrick Douglass’ speech, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” He delivered it in 1852.

Fellow Citizens: Pardon me, and allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today?  What have I or those I represent to do with your national independence?  Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us?  And am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits, and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?

Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions.  Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful.  For who is there so cold that a nation’s sympathy could not warm him?  Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would no thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits?  Who so stolid and selfish that would not give his voice to swell the halleluiahs of a nation’s jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs?  I am not that man.  In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the “lame man leap like a hare.”

But such is not the state of the case.  I say it with a sad sense of disparity between us.  I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary!  Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us.  The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common.  The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is brought stripes and death to me. The Fourth of July is yours, not mine.  You may rejoice, I must mourn.  To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony.  Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today?  If so, there is a parallel to your conduct.  And let me warn you, that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying the nation in irrecoverable ruin.  I can today take up the lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people.

“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down.  Yes! We wept when we remembered Zion.  We hanged our harps upon the willow in the midst thereof.  For there they that carried us away captive, required of us a song; and they who wasted us, required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.  How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?  If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.  If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.”

Fellow citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions, whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are today rendered more intolerable by the jubilant shouts that reach them.  If I do forget, if I do not remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, “may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!”  To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world.  My subject, then, fellow citizens, is “American Slavery.”  I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave’s point of view.  Standing here, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on the Fourth of July.  Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting.  America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.  Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion.  I will, in the name of humanity, which is outraged, in the name of liberty, which is fettered, in the name of the Constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery-the great sin and shame of America! I will not equivocate; I will not excuse”; I will use the severest language I can command, and yet not one word shall escape me that nay man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just.

But I fancy I hear some of my audience say it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother Abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind.  Would you argue more and denounce less, would you persuade more and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed.  But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued.  What point in the antislavery creed would you have me argue?  On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light?  Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man?  That point is conceded already.  Nobody doubts it.  The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government.  They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave.  There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia, which, if committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of these same crimes will subject a white man to like punishment.  What is this but the acknowledgment that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and responsible being? The manhood of the slave is conceded.  It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute-books are covered with enactments, forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read and write.  When you can point to any such laws in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave.  When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then I will argue with you that the slave is a man!

For the present it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race.  Is it not astonishing that, while we are plowing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver, and gold; that while we are reading, writing, and ciphering, acting as clerks, merchants, and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators and teachers; that while we are engaged in all the enterprises common to other men-digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hillside, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives and children and above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave-we are called upon to prove that we are men?

Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty?  That he is the rightful owner of his own body?  You have already declared it.  Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery?  Is that a question for republicans?  Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter of beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to understand?  How should I look today in the presence of Americans, dividing and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom, speaking of it relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively?  To do so would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding.  There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven who does not know that slavery is wrong for him.

What! Am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the last, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters?  Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood and stained with pollution is wrong?  No; I will not.  I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.

What, then, remains to be argued?  Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken?  There is blasphemy in the thought.  That which is inhuman cannot be divine.  Who can reason on such a proposition?  They that can, may; I cannot.  The time for such argument is past.

At  time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed.  Oh! Had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would today pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke.  For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder.  We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.  The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be denounced.

What to the American slave is your Fourth of July?  I answer, a day that reveals to him more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.  To him your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty an unholy license; your national greatness swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.  There is not a nation of the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through south America, search out every abuse and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.

Double Standard in Speech

Why are black people who speak on obvious racial differences considered militant? Yet white people who speak their ignorance of racial differences (on so many levels) are practicing freedom of speech.

Double Standard in Speech & Race

It is my opinion that no matter how educated, how cultured or how well spoken a black person is, he or she will always be considered a nigger or Negro to the white people who control America as evidenced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. According to Mr. Reid, President Obama had a good chance for his current  position because he is a “light-skinned’ African American ‘with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”  (And Negro is so 1960s, by the way.)

Would the statement about President Obama’s “dialect” had been made if Obama was not African American?

Did anybody say anything about former Prez. George Dub-ya’s inability to construct, let alone speak, an intelligent sentence in any dialect?

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Before any of the federal agencies come after me for this blog post, please note that I am not into politics; I can just spot bulls**t when I see or hear it.  And  if you are employed by the government, I am certain that you feel it more than I do.

America is chock full of double standards.

We’re the land of the free, yet slavery existed for over 400 years.  In Arizona, Latinos have to present proof that they are legal residents of the United States.

Being a country lead by men, women still cannot do what the opposite sex can do based on their lower status in society.

Non-white people can pretty much forget about justice in this country.

Unless you have lots of money, your best bet is to stay out of the legal system regardless of your color.

Why am I on this topic?  Because the playing field in American society will NEVER be even no matter how much people accomplish and progress.  The media play a major role in making sure that white people maintain their “superior” status in society by portraying all other races, nationalities, and colors “less than.”  This is done through misrepresentation, under-representation, or no representation.

Don’t believe me?  Read The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and Race in America by Robert M. Entman and Andrew Rojecki.

The authors reported on page 53 that “the continued power of prototypical thinking that considers whites the normal, and prototypical, human.”  They gave the example of how Time and Newsweek magazines used anonymous white images for their cover topics.  There were a total of 30 such covers over a three year period. The only black people that made the covers during this period were famous – Michael Jordan and Oprah Winfrey.

Television is horrible.  Just look at all of the reports about crimes in black communities on network news.  All black people are not bad.  However, anybody watching network news would get that impression.  The tragedy of the situation is that the negative images are all viewers have to go on because there are very few positive images about black people – period.  There are even fewer stories about bad things happening in non-black communities.

And “urban” radio is the devil’s playground with all of the songs about sexual acts, violence and disrespect to women.  They don’t have all of that on other stations.  I don’t listen to those stations, but I know women are not disrespected on that level, if at all.

To close, I just wanted to share my thoughts about the double standards in America.  Unfortunately, media portrayals do not help at all.  They create divisions instead of understanding.  While these topics may not be discussed on mainstream media, you can voice your thoughts about double standards in America here on As NOT Seen on TV.