You never know what you’ll see walking through a random antique store. I’m speechless
Saturday, April 30, 2011
The Reality of Being a Football Star
Watch as YBW’s Eshe White interviews a former football star about the realities of playing in the NFL
Friday, April 29, 2011
Report Says that Obama’s Father Was Forced Out of Harvard University
BOSTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's father was forced to leave Harvard University before completing his Ph.D. in economics because the school was concerned about his personal life and finances, according to newly public immigration records.
Harvard had asked the Immigration and Naturalization Service to delay a request by Barack Hussein Obama Sr. to extend his stay in the U.S., "until they decided what action they could take in order to get rid of him," immigration official M.F. McKeon wrote in a June 1964 memo.
Roland Martin Has a Back and Forth with Donald Trump on Twitter
Roland Martin has begun calling out Donald Trump on his Twitter page. This is what Martin had to say:
"Do not support Trump's #CelebrityApprentice. He's a travesty. I refuse to stay at Trump hotels; will NOT watch #CelebrityApprentice or buy products that continue to advertise on his show. He's pathetic."
Donald Trump Then Replied:
“I am the least racist person on the planet. I have a great record on that, especially in terms of my friendships. And I have never heard of Roland Martin.”
Detroit’s NAACP Honors Kid Rock and His Confederate Flag
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Your Black World – Scholarship in Action
The NAACP of Detroit has committed what appears to be an incredibly sad act by giving it's Great Expectations Award to Kid Rock during it's annual Fight for Freedom Fund Dinner. It's ironic that the NAACP is giving an award to someone who regularly uses the Confederate flag during his concerts. The civil rights supporter in me doesn't understand the NAACP's actions, but the Finance Professor in me understands their actions perfectly.
Here are some questions for the NAACP as they honor one of their greatest heroes, Kid Rock:
1) If Kid Rock were not a donor to your organization, would you have given him this award? Probably not.
Black Americans Not Getting Good Financial Advice
by TEWire
Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Afro American Newspapers
Originally posted 4/27/2011
Only two out of every 10 African-Americans are on a path to achieve their retirement goals, according to a six-month-old survey of Blacks conducted by a major wealth manager.
Dr. Boyce Watkins on the Huffington Post – 4/29/11
Rocky Clark Is Dying From a Lack of Health Insurance
Posted April 26, 2011 | 06:25 PM (EST)
I woke up thinking about a person I met just two weeks ago. I was thinking about this man because he is going to die unless we find a way to help him. He is paralyzed from the neck down, has one working lung and that lung has enough blood...
Fighting the Arrest of Tanya McDowell: Educating Your Child Should Not Be a Crime
773 Comments | Posted April 24, 2011 | 10:28 PM (EST)
When I heard about the case of Tanya McDowell, the homeless mother sent to jail for sending her 5-year-old son to the "wrong" school district, I immediately thought back to the case of Kelley Williams-Bolar not long ago. I wondered how the world has gone mad...
Dr. Boyce: Why I don’t Care about the Royal Wedding
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, YourBlackWorld.com – Scholarship in Action
I had to keep myself from getting sick when I turned on the TV this morning to see some random people walking down the street wearing clothes too expensive for nearly all of my friends to afford. I wondered why the world has become captivated and frozen over such a disgusting exercise of extravagance. So, I thought I would list at least four of the reasons that I won’t be watching the royal wedding:
1) Because I simply don’t care and neither do most of the people reading this article. It’s one wedding, for one couple across the world. I honestly just don’t get it.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Teen Mothers in Detroit Face Police brutality when Trying to save their School
From the Voice of Detroit
DETROIT – In an interview with VOD, Ashley Matthews, 17, described the heroic student-led occupation of her school, Catherine Ferguson Academy on April 15. She spoke of the wholehearted support the young mothers received from the community, as well as the vicious physical and verbal brutality police visited on them during their arrests.
She said two toddlers, there with their mothers, watched the events.
Oil Companies are Making Less Gas but Much Higher Profits
Gasoline prices are skyrocketing — and so are oil company profits.
Exxon Mobil Corp. earned nearly $11 billion in the first three months of the year, a rollicking 69% increase over its performance for the same period last year. That's on sales of $114 billion.
It's the same story for the other big oil companies. Royal Dutch Shell turned a profit of $6.3 billion in the first quarter, and BP — despite lingering costs from the Gulf Coast oil spill— made $7.1 billion.
My Visit to See Rocky Clark
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Your Black World – Scholarship in Action
Today, I stood in the presence of a true soldier. I went to the hospital in Chicago to visit Rasul “Rocky” Clark, the young brother who was paralyzed 10 years ago in a football accident at the age of 16. Rocky was paralyzed from the neck down, only able to move his head and nothing else. His legs and arms are thinner than anything I’ve ever seen, he can barely breathe, and he’s dying right now because his insurance company decided to kill his policy.
Rocky’s mother, Annette, has stood by her son day-in and day-out every single day since the accident. She has a bed right next to him in the hospital and repeatedly told me that “I’m not gonna leave my baby.” Every normal day seems to be abnormally tragic, with nurses cleaning bacteria out of Rocky’s one remaining lung, and the young man quietly repeating the words, “Mama, I can’t breathe.”
Whoopi Goldberg Calls Donald Trump Out for his Racism
Your Black World Reports
It appears that Whoopi Goldberg has had enough. The host, who normally defends men accused of racism (i.e. Mel Gibson and Ted Danson), found herself highly offended by Donald Trump’s reference to President Obama playing basketball and then stating that Obama was not qualified to get into Harvard.
Oprah Winfrey Asks President Obama about the Birth Certificate
Your Black World Reports
On a recent appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show, President Barack Obama was asked about the birth certificate issue. The president recently released his birth certificate to the public in order to squash growing controversy about his birthplace.
"Why did you wait so long, though?" Oprah asked. "When it first came up, were you thinking, I hope I was born here?"
Should You Need a License to Braid Hair? A Woman Files a Lawsuit Over the Issue
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Your Black World – Scholarship in Action
Jestina Clayton is a woman in Utah who is originally from Sierra Leone in West Africa. She does African braiding part-time in order to make extra money. She is now being confronted with the loss of significant income, since a law in the state of Utah claims that you must have a full cosmetology license in order to braid hair.
Clayton filed suit this week in the court of law. She is being backed by the Institute for Justice, a Virginia-based organization that helps people like Clayton challenge unjust laws.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Black Unemployment Reaches Depression Levels in Many Major Cities
by Janell Ross, Huffington Post
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- In the decade leading up to the Great Recession, Wanda Nolan grew accustomed to steady progress.
From an entry-level job as a fill-in bank teller, she forged a career as a commercial banking assistant, earning enough to become a homeowner. She finished college and then got an MBA. Even after the recession unfolded in late 2007, her degrees and her familiarity with the business world lent her a sense of immunity to the forces ravaging much of the American economy. Nolan was an exemplar of the African American middle class and the increasingly professional ranks of the so-called New South.
But in September 2008, everything changed.
A bank human resources officer called her into a private conference room. “All I heard was, ‘Your position has been eliminated,’” says Nolan, 37, who, despite being one of the more than 13 million officially unemployed Americans, still spends most days in her self-styled banker’s uniform of pearls and pants and practical flats. “My mind started racing.”
More than two years later, Nolan is still looking for a job and feeling increasingly anxious about a future that once felt assured. Her life has devolved from a model of middle class African American upward mobility into an example of a disturbing trend: She is among the 15.5 percent of African Americans out of work and still looking for a job.
For economists, that number may sound awful, but it’s not surprising. The nation’s overall unemployment rate sits at 8.8 percent and the rate among white Americans is at 7.9 percent. For a variety of reasons -- ranging from levels of education and continuing discrimination to the relatively young age of black workers -- black unemployment tends to run twice the rate for whites. Yet since the Great Recession, joblessness has remained so critically elevated among African Americans that it is challenging longstanding ideas about what it takes to find work in the modern-day economy.
Millions of people like Nolan, who have precisely followed the oft-dictated recipe for economic success -- work hard, get an education, seek advancement -- are slipping backward. Even as they apply for jobs and accept the prospect of a future with less job security and lower pay, they remain stalled in unemployment.
Trading down has become a painful truth for much of working America, but this truth becomes particularly stark when seen through the prism of race. Only 12 percent of all Americans are black, but working-age black Americans comprise nearly 21 percent of the nation’s unemployed, according to federal data. The growing contrast between prospects for white and black job-seekers challenges a cherished American notion: the availability of opportunity and upward mobility for all.
The Obama’s Stop to See Oprah on their Way to NY
CHICAGO -- President Barack Obama flew home to Chicago on Wednesday to help his pal and supporter Oprah Winfrey close out her syndicated talk show with a "big get" – an interview with him.
Obama and his wife, Michelle, took turns answering Winfrey's questions during a taped interview at her studio, her first in 25 years with a sitting president and first lady.
McJobs Are Not the Cure for An Ailing Economy
Editor's note: Annette Bernhardt is policy co-director of the National Employment Law Project, a national advocacy group for the rights of lower-wage earners. She was lead researcher on NELP's recent report, "A Year of Unbalanced Growth: Industries, Wages, and the First 12 Months of Job Growth After the Great Recession."
(CNN) -- We are starved for signs that the economy is picking up. So when McDonald's threw its doors open to hire 50,000 workers nationwide, media networks scrambled to film applicants lining up across the country for that increasingly elusive piece of the American dream -- a job.
Lawmakers Start Asking Questions about the Tanya McDowell Case
HARTFORD -- State lawmakers are wondering why a homeless Bridgeport woman is being prosecuted on felony charges for enrolling her son in a Norwalk school.
Rep. Bruce V. Morris, D-Norwalk, said Wednesday that since Tanya McDowell's 5-year-old son A.J. was withdrawn from Brookside Elementary School in January she should be held accountable for no more than half the $15,000 she has been charged with stealing.
The Impact of Fatherless Homes
Please watch this PSA that shows the devastating impact of fatherless homes on the African American community. The video is incredibly powerful.
Forbes.com: Tanya McDowell Pleads Not –Guilty
NORWALK, Conn. -- A homeless single mother who lives in her van pleaded not guilty Wednesday to stealing nearly $16,000 worth of education for her son by enrolling the kindergartener in her baby sitter's school district.
Tanya McDowell, 33, was arraigned in Norwalk, where she was arrested April 14 on felony charges of committing and attempting to commit first-degree larceny.
Prosecutors say McDowell used her baby sitter's address to enroll her son in Norwalk schools in the fall but should have registered the boy in nearby Bridgeport, a significantly poorer urban district and the location of her last permanent address.
NY Mayor Goes Nuts After Finding Out that Diddy Got a Police Motorcade
Your Black World Reports
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg went on a tirade after finding out that the NYPD gave the rapper Sean “Diddy”Combs a police motorcade to make a $75,000 event in New Jersey. The mayor launched a probe into the incident, stating that it is unacceptable for anyone to receive police assistance with taxpayer dollars. Officers from NYPD internal affairs went to the Midtown South precinct to go through logs, records and work schedules to find out who was responsible for what happened. They are also reviewing videotapes from 35th Street and Times Square to find out more information.
Students Fight to Save HBCU in Louisiana
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Eye-level watermarks, gutted buildings and rows of mobile classrooms linger as reminders of the flooding from Hurricane Katrina that nearly wiped out Southern University at New Orleans in 2005.
Now the predominantly African-American university faces what students and administrators view as a new threat: Gov. Bobby Jindal's proposal to consolidate the school with the nearby, mostly white University of New Orleans.
President Obama Releases His Official Birth Certificate
Your Black World reports
President Barack Obama has officially released the long form of his birth certificate in response to the questions about whether or not he was born in the United States. Originally, the president had only released the short form copy, which led to speculation that he was born abroad.
Things I Learned about Tyler Perry While Being Interviewed by Mo’Nique
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Your Black World – Scholarship in Action
I watched Tyler Perry last night on the Mo’Nique Show on BET. It was an interesting interview, with Mo’Nique fawning over Tyler’s brilliance in the way you would expect an actress to kiss up to one of the most powerful filmmakers in the world. I fully expect that Mo’Nique will get some coveted roles in future Tyler Perry films.
A Black Prof Discusses Racial Bias in Financial Decisions
Your Black World reports
Have you ever tried to get a loan, and felt that you weren’t being treated the same as if you were white? What about watching that promotion at work being given to the white guy down the hall when you were the one slaving night and day for 20 years? Well, this feeling is not uncommon. A recent survey at YourBlackWorld.com showed that nearly 90% of African Americans feel that they’ve experienced some kind of discrimination in the workplace. In spite of our having a black president and attorney general, new laws have not been introduced to help people of color fight discrimination in the workplace.
Another prominent type of discrimination is the racial bias in other kinds of financial decisions. Millions of black people were victims of predatory lending during the recent financial crisis, leading to a massive decline in black family wealth over the last decade. Additionally, the ability to build a business, get government contracts or do other things to create financial security for your family can be impacted by the color of your skin. Prof. Stephanie Yates Rauterkus at The University of Alabama Birmingham speaks on the topic in the video below.
Click here to watch the video
To join the Your Black World Coalition, please visit YourBlackWorld.com.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Rocky Clark is Dying: Unless We Find a Way to Help
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Syracuse University – Scholarship in Action
To join our coalition for Rocky, please visit SaveRockyClark.com
I woke up thinking about a person I met just two weeks ago. I was thinking about this man because he is going to die unless we find a way to help him. He is paralyzed from the neck down, has one working lung and that lung has enough blood clots in it to kill him.
Meet Rasul “Rocky” Clark, a 27-year old man living in Illinois. Rocky was once a promising young high school athlete at Eisenhower High School in Blue Island, Il. His future came to a halt when he took a bad hit on the football field that left him with the inability to ever use his arms or legs again. As you can probably imagine, the earth-shattering transition from being a healthy 16-year old boy to becoming a quadriplegic is beyond daunting, and many of us could never recover from this kind of devastation.
Judge Says Kelley Williams-Bolar Can’t Visit Tonya McDowell
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Your Black World – Scholarship in Action
I just spoke with Kelley Williams-Bolar, the mother in Ohio who’d been arrested for sending her child to a school outside her district. Her goal had been to go to Connecticut this week to support Tonya McDowell, the second black mother in months to be prosecuted for the same offense. To our surprise, the judge in Kelley’s case, Patricia Cosgrove, denied Kelley the right to travel across state lines.
I find it interesting that this law-abiding mother, who simply wanted a better life for her children, finds herself forced to go through life with a probation hanging over her head, having her freedom restricted by judges and prosecutors who are determined to perpetuate the nightmare for Kelley and her family.
NAACP Signs On to Help in Tonya McDowell
PRESS RELEASE:
(For Immediate Release)
CONTACT PERSON: Scot X. Esdaile: tel. 203-668-4562
WHAT: Press Conference
Where: Crosland Attorney-Law Firm
1150 Summer Street, Stamford CT – (for directions call
(203) 921-1782
When: Tuesday, April 26, 2011 at 6:30 p.m.
Why: See below
NBC: School Says They Weren’t Responsible for Charging Tonya McDowell
From NBC Connecticut
A homeless, unemployed mom from Bridgeport has gained a lot of attention after she was arrested for sending her 6-year-old son to school, and now the school is saying they did not go after her.
Tanya McDowell, 33, has been accused of stealing $15,686 worth of education for her son from Norwalk when they were staying in Bridgeport.
McDowell told police she was living in a van and occasionally sleeping at a Norwalk shelter or a friend's Bridgeport apartment when she enrolled her 6-year-old son at Norwalk's Brookside Elementary.
Dr. Boyce Spotlight: Dr. Tyrone Bledsoe Works to Save the Black Male in America
As I mentioned last night on the Bev Smith Show, saving the black male in America is one of the most critical problems being faced by our community today. Over the last 30 years, black males have been subject to mass incarceration (mostly due to drug felonies after the Reagan Administration opened the door for the crack cocaine epidemic), subject to massive handgun violence (as guns followed the flow of drugs), and poor educational systems (we know how bad inner city schools are in America). As a result, many of these men are poorly equipped to become good husbands and fathers later in life, leading to the suffering of an entire community. The majority of black homes are fatherless, and our boys are bombarded with media that tells them to emulate the behavior of self-destructive hip-hop stars, or to toss away educational opportunities in exchange for an athletic lottery ticket. Something needs to be done.
Dr. Tyrone Bledsoe and his organization are working to solve these problems. Fighting for the black male is not popular in a society that is designed to destroy us. But even if society wants to see us dead and gone, that gives us no excuse to endorse the idea of killing ourselves and each other. It is for his outstanding work in the black community that Dr. Bledsoe is today’s Dr. Boyce Spotlight on Your Black World:
1) What is your name and what do you do?
Tonya McDowell in ColorLines magazine
From Colorlines Magazine
A homeless Connecticut mother has been arrested and charged with larceny for allegedly stealing her son’s education from a public school police say he had no right to attend. Tanya McDowell is a 33-year-old Bridgeport resident who used her babysitter’s address in Norwalk, where the schools were better, so her five-year-old son Andres Justin Paches could go to school. A.J. was enrolled in Brookside Elementary School’s kindergarten from September to January. They’ve been living out of her van.
CNN Kills the Birther Movement Once and For All
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, YourBlackWorld.com
Let’s hope that the Birther Movement is on its way out the door. If it isn’t completely out the door, it’s on its death bed. CNN has engaged in an all-out assault on the Birther Movement by doing a detailed investigation on whether or not President Barack Obama was born in the United States.
In the video below, the network goes to the extreme to settle the question once and for all. Personally, I found the investigation to be quite compelling. There are others, however, including Donald Trump, who’ve spent all of their time engaging in their own investigations and coming to “very interesting” conclusions.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Tyler Perry Speaks on Spike Lee…..Again
Your Black World Reports
Tyler Perry keeps answering questions about Spike Lee, who has been critical of his films as of late. After his latest film, “Madea’s Big Happy Family,” Perry had this to say about Spike:
Yahoo News Writes about The Tonya McDowell and Kelley Williams-Bolar Cases
From Yahoo News
Education activists are rallying around a homeless woman who may face jail time for enrolling her son in kindergarten under a friend's address. Supporters say the woman's story is yet another dismaying example of inequality in the U.S. education system.
Tanya McDowell, a homeless single mother from Bridgeport, is charged with first-degree larceny and conspiracy to commit first-degree larceny for signing up her 5-year-old son to attend nearby Norwalk schools under the address of a friend. (Her son went to the school for four months. Her friend has been evicted from public housing for letting McDowell use her address.) McDowell may face up to 20 years in prison and a $15,000 fine if convicted.
Gwen Samuel, a Connecticut education activist, is organizing a press conference to try to get the charges dropped and raise awareness about parents who are criminally prosecuted, rather than dealt with individually by the school district, for using false addresses.
Tavis Smiley Breaks His Silence About Obama
Your Black World reports
Talk show host Tavis Smiley spoke publicly about President Obama this week on the Today Show, as he promoted his new book about how to overcome failure. The host, Ann Curry, gave Smiley an opportunity to discuss his concerns about the Obama Administration, and this is what he had to say:
Diamond Breland: Spike Lee vs. Tyler Perry
Listen to Your Black World’s Diamond Breland give her take on the battle between film icons Tyler Perry and Spike Lee. The video is below!
Huffington Post: Women Should Not Be Arrested For Sending their Children to School
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Huffington Post – Your Black World Coalition
When I heard about the case of Tonya McDowell, the homeless mother sent to jail for sending her 5-year-old son to the "wrong" school district, I immediately thought back to the case of Kelley Williams-Bolar not long ago. I wondered how the world has gone mad enough to somehow think that it should be against the law for mothers to find ways to get their children access to a high quality education.
As a result of this homeless single mother having the audacity to get her child into a good school, she is being charged with first-degree theft and also being asked to repay the $15,686 it allegedly cost to educate her child in the Norwalk, Conn. school district. No one cares that this family has no home. No one seems to care about what will happen if this child grows up without the only woman on earth wired to love him unconditionally. No one seems to care about the massive costs to the state of prosecuting this mother and eventually the child, as we deliberately trap them in an intergenerational cycle of poverty and criminal justice. All that seems to matter is that they keep this little boy out of their school.
Is Oprah Winfrey a Religious Icon?
From the Huffington Post
A Yale professor’s book argues the talk show queen not only focuses on self-improvement, but also uses speech patterns of a preacher and a sermon-like structure for her shows.
NEW YORK – Oprah Winfrey’s success is, at least in part, due to her use of the techniques and language of a preacher, according to a new book from a Yale religion professor.
Winfrey became more than a daytime TV show host when she transformed herself into the equivalent of a religious icon, Yale professor Kathryn Lofton argues in her book Oprah: The Gospel of an Icon, the New York Post reported in time for Good Friday.
"Gospel is a word that means 'good news’," Lofton, who claims to have studied nearly every episode of Winfrey’s show as well as her print publications, told the paper. "Oprah says that the good news is 'you'."
Richelle Carey: Thanks for Your Support on Tonya McDowell
From Dr. Boyce Watkins
I just spoke this morning with Richelle Carey from CNN HLN. Richelle mentioned that she has a strong interest in the Tonya McDowell situation and wants to remain updated. I appreciate Richelle, for she has always been conscientious in her desire to keep the world aware of critical issues that face black people across the country.
Meet Rocky Clark: His Insurance Company Has Left Him to Die
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Your Black World – Scholarship in Action
The story of Rasul "Rocky" Clark is a cautionary tale to all the mothers who send their sons to the football field on Saturday afternoon. Ten years ago, Clark was living the dream of many African American males: he was one of the stars of his high school football team, playing the game as running back.
Rocky's dream came to an end with one hit too many. The player was paralyzed from the neck down, rendering him unable to move, walk, stand up, or use his arms for the rest of his life. He will never run down the field, experience sex, wash himself or even breath properly again. He has one lung, and his life expectancy dropped dramatically on the day of his horrible injury. In fact, part of the reason his family is now broke is because medical experts and insurance companies didn't expect him to last for even a decade.
Rocky just found out that his $5 million dollar insurance policy has reached the lifetime maximum, meaning that his insurer is not going to pay anymore of his expenses.
Your Black News – 4/25/11
- 3 bombs in northeast Nigeria city, deaths reported
- Bloomberg to Trump: Drop 'birther' issue
- Getting past the 'birther' myth
- Rap music inspires Libyan rebels to defeat Gadhafi
- Ohio governor looks to expand minority business share
- Bishop Long sends message to accusers during Easter sermon
- NY mom who killed 3 kids in Hudson is laid to rest
- When MC Hammer talks, Silicon Valley startups listen
- Report finds banks neglecting REOs in minority neighborhoods
- NYC officials defend choice to cuff first-grader
- President Obama suffered racist abuse, says biography
- Who owns the rights to African genomes?
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Tupac Shakur’s Lost Jailhouse Interview
Your Black World reports
The late Tupac Shakur Spent a lot of time in jails and prisons before his death. In the interviews below, he candidly discusses life as a prison inmate, the inspiration for his music and life as a young black male in America. Check it out.
Rep. Allen West’s Sloppy Words about President Obama
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Your Black World – Scholarship in Action
Below you can watch the video of Allen West, a black Republican, engaging in a highly-disrespectful attack on President Barack Obama. West seems to swim like a happy little pig in the attention he is receiving from Fox News for his willingness to undermine the credibility of another black man in ways that would be maligned if he were white. Because he’s black, it’s hard to accuse West of racism. But he can certainly be accused of being a tool for racists to promote an agenda built on sloppy, malicious rhetoric feeding on white American fears of black men in true positions of power.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Kelley Williams-Bolar Reaches Out to Support Tonya McDowell (Video)
From Dr. Boyce Watkins, The Your Black World Coalition
This week, I spoke with Kelley Williams-Bolar, the mother who was arrested in Ohio for sending her child to the wrong school. The fight is not over for Kelley (who I am going to speak with again on Monday). The state is still working to prosecute her father, an aging man who had a stroke. She says that in spite of her father’s health condition, local prosecutors are still trying to harm their family on their malicious charge.
Kelley also specifically mentioned to me that she would like to help Tonya McDowell, the homeless mom in Connecticut who was arrested recently for sending her five year old to a kindergarten outside her alleged home city. She chose the school in Norwalk Connecticut because it has a good reading program, while the schools in Bridgeport (where the state alleges that her child belongs) are among the worst in the state.
We are going to Connecticut to rally for Tonya sometime in early May, preferably before her court date. I’ll keep you posted. If you’d like to show support for Tonya’s case, please sign our petition by clicking here. You can watch the video below to hear the words coming out of my very own mouth.
Sincerely, Dr. Boyce Watkins
Friday, April 22, 2011
Malcolm’s Daughter Walks Off Interview When Asked About Her Father’s Sexuality
Your Black World reports
It appears that Malcolm X’s daughter did not take well to piercing questions from Michel Martin on a recent NPR segment. Ilyasah Shabazz walked off the interview after being asked one too many questions related to the release of a new book about her father’s life. The interview transcript is below:
MICHEL MARTIN, host:
You might have heard about a controversial new biography of Malcolm X, "Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention" was written by prominent African-American scholar, Manning Marable, who died on April 1st just days before the book was released. The book has gotten a lot of attention, in part, because of that unfortunate circumstance. But also because the book makes some provocative assertions about the activist's life and death, including some assertions about his early years, speculations about his personal relationships and the circumstances of his murder.
Gov’t Tells Snoop He Can’t Sell His Destructive New Drink
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Your Black World – Scholarship in Action
Sixteen separate states are stepping in the way of Snoop Dogg’s latest big money venture with the Pabst Brewing Company. Attorneys General from Arizona, Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Ohio, Tennessee, Washington, Utah, California, Idaho and Connecticut stood against the release of Snoop’s drink in their territories. Additionally, Guam's attorney general and the city attorney general of San Francisco all signed a resolution stating that the drink Blast by Colt 45 is dangerous and being marketed to young people.
The drink contains 12 percent alcohol and is sold in 23.5 and seven ounce containers. It is said to have as much alcohol as five beers in one can. There are several fruity flavors for the drink, including: grape, raspberry watermelon, strawberry lemonade and blueberry pomegranate flavors.
Black Republican Allen West Calls Obama a “Low Level Socialist Agitator”
Your Black World reports
Allen West, a Republican Congressman from Florida, engaged in some interesting black-on-black political crime this week by referring to President Barack Obama as a “low level socialist agitator.” During an interview with Laura Ingraham, West attacked the president in ways that are rare for an African American.
The Congressman referred to President Obama as a “low level socialist agitator” and said that he displayed “dictator like arrogance” during his budget speech last week. West then went on to Fox News and stood by his remarks:
Man Gets $85K for Being Falsely Accused of Rape
From Philly.com
Eugene Robinson wants the world to know that he is not a rapist.
Ever since police mistook him for a wanted sex offender in 2008, he's told anyone who would listen that they have the wrong guy.
Now, after a three-year struggle to clear his name, Robinson, 60, can breathe easier, even chuckle at the horrific mix-up that landed him in jail for a year and prompted his fiancee to leave. Earlier this month, city lawyers admitted that police made a mistake and agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by Robinson.
"I'm not an angel," Robinson said. "Don't claim to be an angel. I've done some things, but see, I would never violate a woman. Even in my worst days, I would never violate a woman."
Robinson's Kafkaesque nightmare began Aug. 4, 2008, when he opened up the Daily News and saw his mugshot under the headline "WEEK'S MOST WANTED."
Donna Brazile to Meet with Cornel West to Discuss President Obama
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Your Black World – Scholarship in Action
The black political grapevine recently informed me that respected political strategist Donna Brazile plans to meet with Professor Cornel West at Princeton University. The meeting was apparently arranged in response to the “moral outrage” that West has expressed toward the Obama Administration over recent weeks. The disappointment came to a head during a highly-publicized feud between Prof. West and Rev. Al Sharpton on MSNBC.
Dr. West’s outspoken demeanor couldn’t come at a worse time for President Obama and his party. As the Democrats work to smooth talk their way out of a year of tone deaf behavior toward a suffering African American community, West comes in as one of a small number of major black public figures willing to rain on the presidential party.