Today’s Photo of the day is Sean Bell and his beautiful family. Like I said, give it a few weeks and the hype would die down but the truth remains that in today’s world a black man can be gunned down by those who are supposed to serve and protect him and they can walk away scott free. We all should still be outraged by this hypocrisy disguised as American Justice. So not only can we “NEVER FORGET”, but we have to educate ourselves about our rights and the system so that we can effectively combat these atrocities. NEVER FORGET, SEAN BELL REST IN PEACE!

Photo courtesy of Bossip

SWAY from MTV and his cronies have lost all credibility. Like it was bad enough that the list of hottest mc’s was horrible. Like how is Rick Ross 5 spots above Andre 3000. How is Common not on the list at all? And how do you have a lengthy discussion about Soulja Boy. Like for real now Soulja boy is considered rap, what were the lyrics to that song again! GTFOH

How is the deciding factor, LYRICS? Seriously Sway I had a decent amount of respect for you but to allow this trash to be representative of the hottest MC’s is really disheartening. It just furthers that the merging of Hip Hop and mainstream is the death of Hip Hop as an art form and the creation of a very lucrative business.

So I click back to MTV.com and I see that they have an honorable mention list. TRASH! Like Kick Rocks MTV and your cronies who know nothing about what Hip Hop is, or what it means to be an MC. This should be the hottest ringtones list, like just because you create a buzz with some bubble gum rap does not mean you are an MC.

Like Talib Kweli put out an amazing album this year, I knew he wasn’t going to get any love because he’s under the radar. But for Common to not even get an Honorable Mention, all of you so called Hip Hop heads lose your credibility. Kanye West, just how you have spazzed about your own injustices in the past, I need for one of your tirades right now about fellow G.O.O.D. Music artist Common. Sway, get some balls and put a real squad of hip hop heads together and make a real list. You have to man, you have to save your credibility on this one fam, Hip Hop needs You!

MTV SUCKS SUCKA FILLED RATHER THAN SUCKA FREE!

4 of the Philadelphia cops involved in the beating of 3 gentlemen on a Philadelphia street will be fired from the force. Others involved will face disciplinary actions such as a demotion and suspensions. Is this justice or should criminal charges be filed against these police officers?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJGaseCU3xE&hl=en]

Today I was watching the video below of a young girl who is using youtube to rile people up to help her. The video is really sad and it reminds me of a piece I wrote about how the court systems treat women like prostitutes and are not helpful to rape victims. The piece is below as well!

Sadly this young woman is looking for justice after dealing with this terrible ordeal and when the courts hear her they may not give her the justice she deserves. It’s a sad system!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfg3w11_A_E&hl=en]

Treat Her Like A Prostitute
Think of North Philadelphia, think of the abandoned row homes; already I can see the drug addicts standing around outside waiting for their daily fix. The cops aren’t paying much attention to this block; this is a typical block in the heart of North Philly where abandoned homes stand in desolate neighborhoods; a criminal’s safe haven. Inside this fateful house a young woman is being RAPED, she is being forced to have sex with four men at gunpoint. On this lonely block I can see this young woman fearing for her life. While in this house these men are beating her and taking her womanhood from her forcefully. Wait……. This story is biased, did I mention our victim is a prostitute! Does that matter? Or, because she is a prostitute is this merely an occupational hazard? Let’s take away our moral judgment and rely solely on the law, which is meant to protect the citizens of this country. Well according to Judge Teresa Carr Deni in Philadelphia, a woman who was raped in late September in North Philadelphia experienced such an occupational hazard. Things that make you go hmmmmmmmmmm…

So what type of message are we sending, I remember hearing NO MEANS NO! Rape victims are already not supported by the criminal justice system, which is why so many sexual assaults go unreported every year. Moreover, essentially what the courts are saying is that if you are a prostitute then you are not a credible citizen and your rights can be violated because you put yourself in that situation.

I am not here to defend prostitution as a viable means of income but I am concerned with how people are treated in this country. Now to give the whole story without any bias I will give you the information as provided to me by the local newspaper, The Philadelphia Daily News. As the story goes, the woman was working as a prostitute, she charged two men $200 to have sex with them. They refused to pay her, and here is where this story gets ugly. A gun then comes out and two more men rape the woman at gunpoint. The 5th man saw the woman crying and decided to help her get dressed so that she could leave the house without further harassment from the other individuals. Unfortunately, the judge said that she would not waste her time on such a case because there are real rape victims out there. Again I ask does No not mean No? I mean, I’m just curious, or are we letting our moral judgments affect who the law will protect and whom it will dismiss as this poor young woman was dismissed in Philadelphia?

It’s very interesting how we vilify the media, Hip-Hop, movies and all other proponents of misogyny when it comes to the mis-representation and treatment of women. However, here is our sacred criminal justice system picking and choosing who deserves to be protected under the law and who does not. I just wonder if this is a sign of things to come. A woman has one to many drinks, she’s forced to sleep with several men and the argument goes something like this; “well she’s normally a very promiscuous girl, she had on a short skirt, or the infamous, she wanted it”!

It’s our time to stand up and have our voices heard if only to protect our sisters, cousins and mothers and ourselves in the future. If we are outraged by the way women are treated in the media, we should be equally outraged at how women are being victimized by the criminal justice system. It is not ok for a man or a group of men to maliciously rape a woman no matter what her occupation is. If we continue to allow this type of behavior to persist than we will continue to get the same results that depict women as sexual objects who are not deserving of respect. We have allowed the media to say this for far too long, now it has spilled over into the law of our land. We can not allow our women and their presence to be belittled, lets fight to preserve their image and their constitutional right as human beings that deserve the right to be protected in this country. We can start by sending letters to our Congressmen and the Philadelphia Bar Association to let the powers that be know that we will not take this type of injustice sitting down. Let’s Make It Happen!

13 of the 15 cops that brutally beat down 3 black men last week have been placed on a leave of absence from the Philadelphia Police Department. It is believed that the police officers acted this way because they “thought” the men they pulled over were those who recently killed a police officer. A case of mistaken identity in Philly gets three black men brutally beat down - physically and mentally.

The physical abuse is apparent just by watching the 1:32 clip. However the mental anguish these young men are dealing with is immeasurable. What does it feel like to be terrorized by the people who your taxes pay to serve and protect you? How does it feel to know that this type of injustice is only tolerated because of your racial make up and socio-economic background? I hope the Philadelphia Court System does more for justice than the New York Court system was willing to do in light of this recent tragedy.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzFEY8u1rRw&hl=en]

And I saw something else under the sun: In the place of judgment—wickedness was there, in the place of justice—wickedness was there. I thought in my heart, “God will bring to judgment both the righteous and the wicked, for there will be a time for every activity, a time for every deed.” Ecclessiastes 3: 16-17

I attempted to start writing the Pardon me this morning at 5am. I was in a daze, and I felt that it was my way of speaking to God and channeling what I was feeling. Well it is now 1pm and I can’t even find that message which may be a good thing. I found this scripture below the scripture I originally intended to use. The last line spoke to me, it spoke of a blind faith to me. A blind faith that God will correct things, that he will make things right despite the negative we see before us. As I prayed for a friend of mine, I prayed with a belief that the Lord would bless this person and that although the path may be dark right now. I knew for certain in my heart that this person would be blessed beyond measure and the dark days would turn to well lit skies.

The bible talks about there being a time for everything. In the place of justice, in the face of doing right we can somehow be wronged. Immediately we will ask why would God allow this wrong but I believe despite the wrongs we call life. When we remain faithful to the Lord, he corrects the wicked and wrong that others try to impart on our lives. No scripture or words of encouragement seem to suffice when a tragedy hits. We all lose the ability to find words to comfort one. But we never lose the ability to support. We never lose the ability to be an ear, a shoulder to cry on, or just a friend when our friends are in need. God will bring judgment to the wicked and he will place justice in our lives as a blessing to us for being his faithful children. Peace and Grace be unto you.

Vengence is mine sayeth the Lord

According to Allhiphop.com Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter is in the process of establishing a trust fund for the children of our fallen soldier Sean bell, who was brutally murdered by the New York Police Department.

I am thankful for this news and pray that other entertainers follow suit not just in the case of Sean Bell but in other cases of injustice for young men and women of color. It is important that i note that support for the struggles of our people are not necessarily always meant to be in a monetary form. Often people who have a voice can utilize their platform and speak for many on the ground whose voices often go unheard. Shout out to Jay and all of the other brothers in Hip-Hop who are standing up for their communities. It is crucial that in times like this we band together to create change rather than chopping each other down.

For more information check out:
http://allhiphop.com/stories/news/archive/2008/05/02/19773445.aspx

Photo courtesy of New York Times

Wear all black on Monday for the injustice verdict in the Sean Bell case Please pass this on to anyone who can receive a text.

I received this text message numerous times throughout the course of the weekend and again I ask “Is wearing all black the new activism”. Has wearing all black taken the place of such notable activism as the Montgomery Bus Boycott. I remember back when the Jena 6 movement was thriving and we were all wearing black as a means to show the masses our “black solidarity”. I participated and heard many say that they felt good walking into their corporate offices and seeing other people of color representing the injustice that was being served in Jena. But does our action stop there, does what we wear really signify that an injustice has been done?

So today I woke up and threw on my black shirt and my black Chuck Taylor sneakers in memory of the brother Sean Bell. I walked into my classroom and unlike that glorious Jena day, barely any people of color were wearing all black. What does wearing all black mean anyway; do the people who we want to see our solidarity even know that we are wearing this color to represent the fact that a brother was murdered by the NYPD. That yet again the NYPD walked out of a court of law not guilty of all charges. My own Constitutional Law professor had no idea who Sean Bell was and that this verdict had drastically affected the lives of many people. He was unaware that many young brothers and sisters had taken to the streets and were seeking Justice for the loss of yet another young talented black man. He definitely had no idea why one of his students had on black today; all he wanted to know was if I was familiar with the material that will be on his exam next week.

I checked through my usual news media outlets hoping that I would see something in the headlines about the injustice the Bell family was served this past Friday. Instead, I was inundated with news of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright and the Democrat Primary’s, but there was no sign of any measures that would be taken towards the Bell family finding JUSTICE. And why should their be, a brother is dead and we all go back to our regularly scheduled lives. More concerned with celebrity gossip than the fact that black men can be killed in this country and their murderers receive absolutely no punishment.

The NY Times had a brief article about this issue however, and it largely dealt with the few people who were outraged by the verdict and were protesting in Harlem yesterday. One of the brothers on the bull horn asked “why aren’t more people out here”. The days of marching and blocking traffic for a day or two didn’t work then and they will continue not to work now. All the police do is re-direct the traffic and the protest becomes more of a nuisance than a movement that affects change. So what my generation has come up with as a means of fighting injustice is wearing all black; then we are really fighting institutionalized racism and brutality, we’ll show em!

Wrong, we need a strategic effort on a variety of fronts to fight the injustices that are facing our people. I refuse to believe that we are as lazy as the Civil Rights Guard of Leadership paints us. No we are not lazy at all, we are the internet generation; the text message generation. All of that to say we have the fastest and often most effective modes of communication to get messages across to our peers and move in a organized manner. We have to fight these different injustices on many different fronts. The Judge who rendered the verdict; we have to find out if he was elected or appointed; if elected we make sure that those who are eligible to vote in that district show up in record numbers to relieve him of his position.

Let’s take it back to the boycott days since the loss of revenue is the only thing that makes politicians and businessmen understand that we are angry about something and are seeking some type of remedy. This shouldn’t be hard to do because we are spawning into a recession anyway and people are already strapped for cash. We need to find out exactly what businesses that if we stopped patronizing would affect Michael Bloomberg the fastest. Once those major businesses are affected they will call up their high powered friends ad say “hey we have to do something about this’ its affecting my pocket”! You see when when we start to use our creativity and organize our efforts we begin to fall upon the ears who really create change in our cities. Maybe then the NYPD will stop believing that it is perfectly fine and legal to kill young black men. But if all we are doing is wearing black; trust me the courts, the politicians, the police and definitely the law are not hearing our voices.

We need to tap into the resources in our communities who have the know how and ability to propose legislation for stricter monitoring practices over the police departments who brutalize communities of color. All cops are not the scum who murder and harass people of color so we need to reach out to those who are fed up with their colleagues behavior and off the record find out what we can do to upset their internal situation that will help us make the changes we wish to see. I could write on for days about different measures that we could take however my one voice will not create this change. Our collective voice will not change these scenarios but our collective voices coupled with our strategic collective actions will create this change. In memory of Sean Bell and all of the other forgotten fallen soldiers; please let’s Make It Happen!

ps. I will be at the Black and Male In America Conference the weekend of June 15 - 17 in Brooklyn, NY. I think we all need to be there!

I use this song because Sean Bell and I were both in junior high school when this song came out. We both watched this video on BET’s Rap City! Now he’s gone and I’m here and no justice has been served in his honor (not violence) but Justice. Who are the real SHOOK ONES?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeuEGr_UTzg&hl=en]