Black Jesus .com

Black Slavery: Should White Decendents Today Pay Reparation For Slavery?

First-time filmmaker Katrina Browne makes a troubling discovery — her New England ancestors were the largest slave-trading family in U.S. history. She and nine fellow descendants set off to retrace the Triangle Trade: from their old hometown in Rhode Island to slave forts in Ghana to sugar plantation ruins in Cuba. Step by step, they uncover the vast extent of Northern complicity in slavery while also stumbling through the minefield of contemporary race relations. In this bicentennial year of the U.S. abolition of the slave trade, Traces of the Trade offers powerful new perspectives on the black/white divide. An official selection of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and starting Tonight, June 24 on PBS.

Nelson Mandela Celebrates 90th Birthday

Birthday wishes for Nelson Mandela

Celebratory messages have been arriving from around the world for Nelson Mandela, who is celebrating his 90th birthday in London.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born in Transkei, South Africa on July 18, 1918. His father was Chief Henry Mandela of the Tembu Tribe. Mandela himself was educated at University College of Fort Hare and the University of Witwatersrand and qualified in law in 1942. He joined the African National Congress in 1944 and was engaged in resistance against the ruling National Party's apartheid policies after 1948. He went on trial for treason in 1956-1961 and was acquitted in 1961.

After the banning of the ANC in 1960, Nelson Mandela argued for the setting up of a military wing within the ANC. In June 1961, the ANC executive considered his proposal on the use of violent tactics and agreed that those members who wished to involve themselves in Mandela's campaign would not be stopped from doing so by the ANC. This led to the formation of Umkhonto we Sizwe. Mandela was arrested in 1962 and sentenced to five years' imprisonment with hard labour. In 1963, when many fellow leaders of the ANC and the Umkhonto we Sizwe were arrested, Mandela was brought to stand trial with them for plotting to overthrow the government by violence. His statement from the dock received considerable international publicity. On June 12, 1964, eight of the accused, including Mandela, were sentenced to life imprisonment. From 1964 to 1982, he was incarcerated at Robben Island Prison, off Cape Town; thereafter, he was at Pollsmoor Prison, nearby on the mainland.

During his years in prison, Nelson Mandela's reputation grew steadily. He was widely accepted as the most significant black leader in South Africa and became a potent symbol of resistance as the anti-apartheid movement gathered strength. He consistently refused to compromise his political position to obtain his freedom.

Nelson Mandela was released on February 11, 1990. After his release, he plunged himself wholeheartedly into his life's work, striving to attain the goals he and others had set out almost four decades earlier. In 1991, at the first national conference of the ANC held inside South Africa after the organization had been banned in 1960, Mandela was elected President of the ANC while his lifelong friend and colleague, Oliver Tambo, became the organisation's National Chairperson.

From Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Prizes 1993, Editor Tore Frängsmyr, [Nobel Foundation], Stockholm, 1994

Soweto Gospel Choir Sing Happy Birthday To Nelson Mandela

Barrington Irving 23 Year Old Black Role Model Makes Black History

This is a true role model for young black teens to show what you can accomplish when you put your mind to it! Where was his record breaking story in the national news?

Blacks In Miliary- After 60 Years Few Black Officers

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sixty years after President Truman desegregated the military, senior black officers are still rare, particularly among the highest ranks.

Blacks make up about 17 percent of the total force, yet just 9 percent of all officers. That fraction falls to less than 6 percent for general officers with one to four stars, according to data obtained and analyzed by The Associated Press.

The rarity of blacks in the top ranks is apparent in one startling statistic: Only one of the 38 four-star generals or admirals serving as of May was black. And just 10 black men have ever gained four-star rank — five in the Army, four in the Air Force and one in the Navy, according to the Pentagon.

The dearth of blacks in high-ranking positions gives younger African-American soldiers few mentors of their own race. And as the overall percentage of blacks in the service falls, particularly in combat careers that lead to top posts, the situation seems unlikely to change.

Still, officials this week can point to some historic gains by blacks in the services as the Pentagon commemorates Truman's signing of an executive order on July 26, 1948, mandating the end of segregation in the military.

Best known among the four-stars is retired Gen. Colin Powell, who later became the country's first black secretary of state, under President Bush. Another is retired Gen. Johnnie E. Wilson, who in 1961, at age 17, spied an "Uncle Sam Wants You" poster and joined the Army.

The second of 12 children, Wilson grew up in a housing project outside Cleveland. Enlisting in the Army, he said, was the only way he'd get a college education.

As a young recruit, he found that the older, black noncommissioned officers were eager to guide him, and they urged him to try for Officer Candidate School. Over the next 38 years, he rose through the ranks to become a four-star general.

Why haven't more done the same?

For one thing, Wilson said, "it's hard to tell young people the sky's the limit when they look up and don't see anyone" who looks like them.

According to Pentagon data, as of May:

_ 5.6 percent of the 923 general officers or admirals were black.

_ Eight blacks were three-star lieutenant generals or vice admirals.

_ Seventeen were two-star major generals or rear admirals.

_ Twenty-six were one-star brigadier generals or rear admirals.

_ Three of the black one-stars were women.

The Army has led the way with black officers, with nearly double the percentage at times over the past three decades as the other services. Blacks represented 11 percent to 12 percent of all Army officers during that time, compared with 4 percent to 8 percent in the Navy, Air Force and Marines.

The reasons for the lack of blacks in the higher ranks are many and complex, ranging from simple career choices to Congress and family recommendations. Most often mentioned is that black recruits are showing less interest in pursuing combat jobs, which are more likely to propel them through the officer ranks.

"Kids I've spoken to, who choose to do supply, who choose to do lawyer, who choose to do admin, have the impression that 'If I go to Army and become an infantry person, that is not a skill that I can carry to the civilian work force,'" said Clarence Johnson, director of the Pentagon's Office of Diversity Management.

Wilson — who specialized in logistics and did not take the combat route — said he does not believe ROTC programs or the military steer black recruits to the non-combat jobs — although that may have been a problem many years ago.

Instead, he said young black officers choose other fields because "they want to prepare for a future outside of the military, and they believe that being in communications, being in logistics will provide them a better opportunity to succeed."

In 1998, nearly a quarter of all active duty black officers were in various combat fields. As of this month, that had fallen to 20 percent, compared with nearly 40 percent for non-blacks, according to Pentagon data.

This year, roughly half of all black active duty officers gravitated toward supply, maintenance, engineering and administrative jobs — almost double the rate of non-black officers.

"That tells me, honestly, over the years the pipeline for those blacks going to general officer is not going to be markedly improved above what it is now," Johnson said.

He said he hears recruits say, "I'm joining this ROTC thing, so that when I get out in four years or eight years, whatever time frame it is, I want a skill I can use."

Army Lt. Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, echoes those pipeline concerns.

"It's all about how many people you put in the front end of the pipe," Austin said in an interview from Baghdad. "It's very difficult for anybody to get to be a colonel or general in any branch of the service if you don't have enough young officers coming in."

Austin took the combat path to his three-star rank, starting as an infantryman and tactical officer. Later — as a general officer — he commanded troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The forces he sees now, he said, are far more diverse than when he graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1975. Then, he said, blacks made up only about 2.5 percent of the Army's officer corps.

"We treasure diversity because it brings in a lot of different viewpoints and blends in a lot of cultures," he said. "It makes us better."

To achieve that diversity, he said, the military must encourage more blacks to join, highlight the successes of those who have done well and "talk about the opportunities that are offered and how those opportunities can help them in their quest to be successful people."

Another stumbling block is getting more members of minority groups into the military academies.

While white cadets often come from families steeped in military history, black students may not have that long line of ancestral officers.

A review of congressional nominations to the military academies shows that black and Hispanic lawmakers often recommend fewer students.

The fewest appointments to the academies came from Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y., who forwarded just three names for the classes of 2009-2012. Two other members of Congress — Massachusetts Democrat Michael Capuano and New York Democrat Jose Serrano_ sent up five names.

According to Pentagon data, the number of lawmakers who failed to nominate at least one candidate to each academy increased from 24 in 2005 to 38 this year. Of the 75 lawmakers overall who did not nominate someone to each academy in all four years, 40 were either black or Hispanic.

Senior black officers say they work hard to mentor younger troops, and they can all recall the people who helped shape their careers. And not all of them were black.

Navy Rear Adm. Sinclair Harris vividly remembers his white commander on the frigate USS Jarrett — a tough, Pittsburgh Steelers fan from western Pennsylvania.

"Tough love," said Harris, who was a lieutenant at the time. "He insisted I take my command qualifications test, and when I didn't do good, he had me take it again."

Harris, deputy director for expeditionary warfare for the Navy chief, said networking and relationships are critical. But he cautions that mentoring is a two-way street that hinges on what the recruits do with the help they get.

"You can't get lazy in this man and this woman's Navy," he said. "You have to keep learning to stay ahead."

Nonetheless, blacks have come a long way since Truman, with the stroke of a pen, ordered the integration of the military. Before that, the Army had segregated black units and the Navy had minority members assigned to particular, lower-level jobs.

His mandate was aided by the Korean War, when a shortage of soldiers forced American commanders to begin integrating their units.

Defense officials say the Pentagon is now colorblind, offering the same opportunities, promotions and jobs to all races.

Compared with the corporate world, the military appears to provide a bit more high-level opportunities. As of late 2007, just five of the Fortune 500 companies were headed by black chief executives — or just 1 percent.

While the percentage of black recruits has grown during the past 60 years, it peaked at almost 26 percent in 1979. That year, they represented nearly four in 10 of all Army recruits and almost three in 10 for the Marines, both all-time highs for the services that see the most battlefield combat.

The Air Force and Navy, meanwhile, peaked in later years, with blacks accounting for roughly 20 percent of enlistees.

Since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began, the percentage of blacks coming into the Army has plunged from 22 percent to 13 percent. Also, the percentage of blacks in military overall has dipped in the past 10 years, from more than 20 percent to 17 percent today.

The decline has come in part because family members and other adults who influence young people have become less likely to recommend military service.

Still, Johnson points to positive indicators. Over the past decade, the percentage of black officers has grown slightly, including the share of black women at higher grades.

The military, Wilson said, has worked hard to create mentoring and outreach programs that identify and encourage minority officers. But, he said, the services have to do more marketing and recruiting.

"We as a military just have to find a way to tell our story," he said, adding, "If I had it to do all over again, I would still join the Army. It has paid off for thousands of us. If it had not been for the U.S. Army, I'm not be sure what our station in life would be."

ilson said, has worked hard to create mentoring and outreach programs that identify and encourage minority officers. But, he said, the services have to do more marketing and recruiting.

"We as a military just have to find a way to tell our story," he said, adding, "If I had it to do all over again, I would still join the Army. It has paid off for thousands of us. If it had not been for the U.S. Army, I'm not be sure what our station in life would be."

Did The Proud Black Family Unit Begin Dying With Integration?

My wife's grandfather, a proud, independent Black man,  repeatedly said that Black people will come to regret some aspects of integration because he felt we would loose the important essence of who we really are. It seems that for all the success so many of us experience individually, we as a people are slowly dying. If we are to avoid being a footnote in the history books, we must realize that we are our brother's keeper and the keeper of our history.We must put family and our women first. We must change how and who we spend our $500 billion with. We must save and invest. We must demand educational excellence from our children, eat less, exercise and trust one another more. We must spread the truth about Jesus Christ. Our very survival depends on it.

Legacy: Being Black in America looks at the lives of African-Americans today set against the story of the Civil Rights Movement. The film explores the historical background for current race relations and what the lessons are for America and democracy.

Legacy features a dinner tribute to the civil rights generation hosted by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) and profiles of ABC News correspondent, Deborah Roberts, the rapper and single mother, Madam Madon, Harvard University’s National Book Award winner, Orlando Patterson, Newsweek magazine’s entertainment correspondent, Allison Samuels, and Bill T. Jones, this past year’s Tony Award winner for best choreography. 

At this critical crossroads in the history of race relations, when the clarity and cohesion of the civil rights generation have given way to ambivalence and apathy, when progress has been stalling and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream has finally come within reach only to be in danger of slipping away, Legacy looks at how our present has been shaped by the past and how it is the legacies of past African-American heroes like Dr. King and Malcolm X, among many others, who help to clarify what it means to be black in America today and what the prospects are for the future.

In a nation deeply divided not only by race but also by politics, religion, and class, Legacy is about the ongoing need for integration and wholeness as part of Dr. King’s beloved community. It is about a new model of leadership forged from the black experience in America and poised to finally make the promise of democracy and pluralism in America a reality.

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Listen To What Life Was Like On Greenwood Avenue In Tulsa Before Black Wall Street Was Burned To The Ground.

Black In America: HBO Documentary Lets the Stories of Black Luminaries Speak for Themselves

What Is It Really Like Being Black In White Dominated Societies? Do You Really Want To Know?

Growing up Black in America means that you become sensitive and aware as to how the term black is used in contrast to white as explain in Wikipedia:

Symbolic dualism with white Black magic is a destructive or evil form of magic, often connected with death, as opposed to white magic. This was already apparent during Ancient Egypt when the Cush Tribe invaded Egyptian plantations along the Nile River.

Evil witches are stereotypically dressed in black and good fairies in white. In computer security, a blackhat is an attacker with evil intentions, while a whitehat bears no such ill will. (This is derived from the Western movie convention.)

In many Hollywood Westerns, bad cowboys wear black hats while the good ones wear white.

Melodrama villains are dressed in black and heroines in white dresses.

Historical events A "black day" (or week or month) usually refers to a sad or tragic time.

The Romans marked fasti days with white stones and nefasti days with black. E.g., the Wall Street Crash 1929, the stock market crash on October 29, 1929 which is the start of the Great Depression, is nicknamed Black Tuesday, and was preceded by Black Thursday, a downturn on October 24 the previous week.

Black Monday, stock market crash on October 19, 1987. Black Wednesday caused Britain to pull out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.

Black Friday, various tragic events. (Exception: See Black Friday (shopping).) Black months include: the Black September in Jordan, in which thousands were killed.

Black July killing of the Tamil population by the Sinhalese government in Sri Lanka. Black Spring 2001 (Printemps noir), in the Berber region of Kabylia (Algeria), when the police shot and killed more than 100 people.

The Black Death, also known as the Black Plague, was a pandemic in Europe which killed tens of millions of people.

The Black Hole of Calcutta was the overcrowding of an impromptu prison cell in which many died. [edit] Expressions A black-hearted person is mean and unloving.

A blacklist is a list of undesirable persons or entities (to be placed on the list is to be "blacklisted"). Black comedy is a form of comedy dealing with morbid and serious topics.

A black mark against you is a bad thing. A black mood is a bad one (cf Winston Churchill's clinical depression, which he called "my black dog").[3] black market is used to denote the trade of illegal goods, or alternatively the illegal trade of otherwise legal items at considerably higher prices, e.g. to evade rationing.

Black propaganda is the use of known falsehoods, partial truths, or masquerades in propaganda to confuse an opponent.

Blackmail is the act of threatening to reveal information about a person unless the threatened party fulfills certain demands. This information is usually of an embarrassing or socially damaging nature. Ordinarily, such a threat is illegal.

If you sink the black eight-ball in billiards before all others are out of play, you lose. The black sheep of the family is the ne'er-do-well.

To blackball someone is to block their entry into a club or some such institution. In the traditional English gentlemen's club, current members vote on the admission of a candidate by secretly placing a white or black ball in a hat. If upon the completion of voting, there was even one black ball amongst the white, the candidate would be denied membership, and he would never know who had "blackballed" him.

This HBO documentary's aim is show 'Positively Black!'

HBO ON Tuesday, September 2, 9 p.m. HBO

“They think I’m Jewish,” he says. “I’m in the Jewish book of famous people. But as far as, you know, on the professional level, I think it’s pretty common knowledge that I’m half black or whatever. I was never really fazed by the, sort of, the color barrier, you know?”

Slash, the former lead guitarist of Guns N’ Roses, is talking. The son of a black mother and a white father, he is the first among the 23 renowned people who muse, confess and tell stories in “The Black List: Volume 1,” a 90-minute documentary scheduled to have its television premiere on HBO on Monday night. A collaboration between the portrait photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, who directed it, and the film critic Elvis Mitchell, who did the interviews, it consists of a series of portraits capturing the range of what is often called the black experience.

The subjects include Sean Combs, Lou Gossett Jr., Vernon Jordan, Toni Morrison, Bill T. Jones, Serena Williams, Chris Rock, the Rev. Al Sharpton, Colin L. Powell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Suzan-Lori Parks and Keenen Ivory Wayans.

Not everyone is as well known to the general public. Zane, a best-selling author of erotic fiction, gets a turn here, as does Mahlon Duckett, a former Negro league baseball player. Thelma Golden, the director and chief curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem, says: “One of the funniest experiences I had when I began working in the art world is that people always assumed I worked for Thelma Golden, not that I was Thelma Golden. The kind of dismissal that comes from just people’s sense that they don’t imagine you are who you are actually has been one of the most powerful and liberating things for me in my work.”

A minimalist film, without narration and with very little on the screen except people talking, “The Black List” (which had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year) derives its considerable energy and elegance from its subjects. Mr. Mitchell, the host of the new TCM interview series “Elvis Mitchell: Under the Influence” and a former film critic for The New York Times, is never on screen. Rather, Mr. Mitchell said, he and Mr. Greenfield-Sanders played their hands behind the scenes.

The title “The Black List” is a play on words, meant to overturn the negative connotations of the term “blacklist.” This month the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, began an exhibition by Mr. Greenfield-Sanders of his “Black List” series of photographic portraits. Mr. Greenfield-Sanders, widely known for his portraits of artists and celebrities, which often appear in Vanity Fair, also photographed the wounded Iraq veterans featured in the HBO documentary “Alive Day Memories: Home From Iraq.”

The “Black List” portraits will eventually be shown in 10 cities around the country, with a stop at the Brooklyn Museum in November. Next month the 25 portraits, along with first-person essays by their subjects, will be brought together in a book, “The Black List,” to be published by Atria, a division of Simon & Schuster.

The film shows Richard D. Parsons, the chairman of Time Warner, recalling the time he accidentally burned down his house when he was a child, something that won him extra attention from his grandmother. Mr. Sharpton talks about his favorite scripture and what he learned from James Brown about embracing controversy. (“I learned manhood from James Brown,” he says.) Faye Wattleton, a women’s rights advocate, laments that her daughter missed growing up with the solidarity and values exemplified by an all-black community in the days before desegregation.

“You’re always black,” Mr. Rock says. “There’s always going to kind of be an overreaction one way or the other regarding your presence, be it good or bad.” A few beats later, he says that the “true, true equality” is the equality to be as bad as “the white man,” adding, “That’s really Martin Luther King’s dream coming true.”

Mr. Mitchell said he envisioned “The Black List” as a response to past documentaries about race that tended to be soaked in politics and sociology, with victims and experts front and center. He simply asked the subjects all the things he wanted to know about them, he said.

“What you tend not to see are films on black people radiating in the pleasure of their success and telling their stories,” he said. “You come to the point whenever you see a black person on television, it’s either a comedy or some tragic issue being spoken to. You wouldn’t think that black people could get through a competently managed day, let alone being successful at it.”

Not that Mr. Mitchell buys into the notion of a so-called postracial society, as evidenced by Senator Barack Obama’s political ascendancy or the rise of a black middle class. Mr. Powell, in the film, speaks to that issue.

“It can’t be all over as long as we have young African-American boys and girls who are not able to get the quality education they need,” he says, “or are still being held back because people are looking down on them.”

Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Greenfield-Sanders spoke in an interview at the table in Mr. Greenfield-Sanders’s kitchen, a sun-filled room in his East Village town house (a converted rectory), which doubles as his studio.

Mr. Greenfield-Sanders said he got the first whiff of the “Black List” idea as he sat there a few years ago chatting with Ms. Morrison for another photographic venture and she suggested that he shoot a book of black divas. He said her suggestion started him ruminating more broadly “about the black experience that I know” from friends like Ms. Wattleton, Ms. Golden and Mr. Jones, the choreographer.

He reached out to Mr. Mitchell, a neighbor as well a friend, and they traded ideas over lunch at a Thai restaurant around the corner. By the end of their meal they had 175 names on a napkin and a plan. They began contacting subjects, striving for a mix of disciplines, ages, perspectives. Mr. Mitchell did the interviews. Mr. Greenfield-Sanders did the portraits.

“The Black List” ends up capturing the feeling of watching and listening to people think out loud.

“Almost all of the African-American writers that I know were very much uninterested in one area of the world, which is white men,” Ms. Morrison says. “That frees up a lot. It frees up the imagination, because you don’t have that gaze, you know. And when I say white men, I don’t mean just the character but I mean the establishment, the reviewers, the publishers and the people who are in control. So once you erase that from your canvas you can really play.”

Serena Williams talks, too, about the uninformed gaze. “I said once I am the most underestimated eight-time Grand Slam champion ever,” she says.

“It’s a lot more than just hitting the ball as hard as you can,” she continues. “It’s all about strategy and moving your opponent and just really figuring them out. Like I never get credit for mental, and I just, it’s, you know, frustrating. But at the end of the day, I am very happy with me and I’m very happy with my results.”

The enterprise has been so much fun that Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Greenfield-Sanders have no intention of stopping just yet. HBO is sponsoring a “Who’s on Your Black List” contest, which invites the public to submit videos of people they nominate to be filmed, interviewed and photographed for more “Black List” volumes. Information is at whosonyourblacklist.com.

Their plan, Mr. Greenfield-Sanders said, is to keep churning out more lists of people — women, Hispanics — but to keep Volume 1’s look and template.

“It’s against every rule of modern cinema, in a sense,” he said of this new franchise. “This is just saying I trust this person’s story is interesting enough, that his or her face is interesting enough to look at for five minutes, and I’m going to be engaged.”

Racism In America: Why Can't Obama Close the Deal With Some?

We've heard throughout the presidential election campaign the constant question posed "Why can't Obama close the deal with rural white voters?" Those hard working, blue collar, white voters that the media describes as red blooded Americans. Black people know what the truth is and so do those whites who are willing to be honest with themselves. Now a recent Stanford University survey reveals what we all have known. Some of these white, blue collar Americans can't bring themselves to vote for a Black candidate, despite his qualifications, despite the poor economy and the $700 Billion bailout,a 750,000 job loss and the costly war. This excellent video series will help you to understand the anti Black brain washing that has taken place over time and is passed from some white rural blue collar generations to the next. This video series will also reveal why some whites in this recent Stanford University survey said African Americans could do better if they would only work harder. Hopefully, there will be enough fair minded whites, fed-up blacks, determined young people, unemployed joe six pack red necks and educated hockey moms, who realize that Obama represents a better future for all of America.

RACISM IN AMERICA. WHO KEPT IT ALIVE part1

RACISM IN AMERICA. WHO KEPT IT ALIVE part2

RACISM IN AMERICA. WHO KEPT IT ALIVE part3

RACISM IN AMERICA. WHO KEPT IT ALIVE part4

RACISM IN AMERICA. WHO KEPT IT ALIVE- Negro's Are Ugly Savages? part5

Many Whites Have Always Seen Themselves As The Only True Americans. Not Even the Japanese Could Be Included.

What Is Whiteness? East Indians, Asians Are Not White, Juris Ruled.

How Economic Racism Was Legislated By The US Government To Create All White Suburbs To The Exclusion Of Black GI's

Federal Programs Made Sure Housing Segregation Was The Law

Housing Segregation Ensured The Accumulation Of White Wealth From One Generation To the Next.

Slavery By Another Name :How Many Major U.S. Corporations, White House And US Capitol Building Were Build On The Backs Of Black Slaves.

You have no idea the degree to which many well known major corporations were determined to make money off of free Black people long after slavery was legally outlawed. Listen carefully to how the American capitalistic system was build on the backs of Black people from free labor.

A new book by award-winning journalist Douglas Blackmon uncovers the forgotten history of neo-slavery imposed on hundreds and thousands of African Americans that continued well after the Civil War and persisted right up to the 1940s. Using extensive archival sources, Blackmon uncovers the shameful system created to re-enslave African Americans. Under new laws, they were intimidated, arrested, charged with exorbitant fines, and then sold as forced laborers to corporations, mines and plantations or compelled into involuntary servitude.

Slavery by Another Name. GREAT INTERVIEW-2/2

Proof That America Could Not Have Been Built Without Slavery U.S.Capitol and White House Built By Slaves

Kwanzaa- We Must Validate Ourselves

I recently read a New York Times article describing how ashamed Jews were world wide of the Madoff $50 billion dollar financial scandal. I immediately thought  how most eithnic groups go out of their way to support their own spiritually and financially.

 Bernard Madoff

As you will read in an excerpt from this article below, Jews world wide feel a common bond and it is through this sense of one that they have been able to uplift all.

We as Black people in America today tend not to see this bond with one another, let alone with people of African decent in other countries.  Yet it is this bond that brought us through slavery and the Civil Rights Movement with the help of sympathic whites and Jews.

As American Blacks, we wonder why we remain at the bottom of the economic, social and educational ladder in the richest country in the world, while other foreigners come here and seem to thrive, while looking down at us.

At times, many of us avoid identifying and doing business with one another to our collective detriment. Other groups make no apology for looking out for one another first because they understand that united we stand and divided we fall.

New York Times article in full: In Madoff Scandal Jews Feel A Sense Of Betrayal.

"But Jews all over the country are already sending up something of a communal cry over a cost they say goes beyond the financial to the theological and the personal.

 Here is a Jew accused of cheating Jewish organizations trying to help other Jews, they say, and of betraying the trust of Jews and violating the basic tenets of Jewish law.

A Jew, they say, who seemed to exemplify the worst anti-Semitic stereotypes of the thieving Jewish banker.

So in synagogues and community centers, on blogs and in countless conversations, many Jews are beating their chests — not out of contrition, as they do on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, but because they say Mr. Madoff has brought shame on their people in addition to financial ruin and shaken the bonds of trust that bind Jewish communities.

“Jews have these familial ties,” Rabbi Wolpe said. “It’s not solely a shared belief; it’s a sense of close communal bonds, and in the same way that your family can embarrass you as no one else can, when a Jew does this, Jews feel ashamed by proxy.

I’d like to believe someone raised in our community, imbued with Jewish values, would be better than this.”

Listen and watch below the principles and beliefs of Kwanzaa.

President George Bush today sent out a public acknowledgement of the Kwanzaa Holiday. Its the first time I've heard the national media acknowledge his affirmation of the importance of  this celebration.

I wonder if it has anything to do with Obama's pending presidency:) Regardless, we must not wait for others to validate the importance of Kwanzaa before we, as people of African decent, realize that we share a common bond.  Unless we start to love and respect ourselves more, and support one another financially and emotionally, unless we define our own beauty and sense of self worth, unless we put our children, our women and our family first, then the rest of the world will continue treat us with disrespect.

Below are the 7 Principals of Kwanzaa. A Celebration Of Family,Community and Culture.

Read them to yourself, your child , your family and by all means do what ever you can to pratice them. Our future depends on it.

NGUZO SABA (The Seven Principles) --------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Umoja (Unity) To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race.

2. Kujichagulia (Self-Determination) To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.

3. Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility) To build and maintain our community together and make our brother's and sister's problems our problems and to solve them together.

4. Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics) To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together.

5. Nia (Purpose) To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.

6. Kuumba (Creativity) To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.

7. Imani (Faith) To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders and the righteousness and victory of our struggle. ­ Maulana Karenga

Obama's election has taught us a major positive lesson "Yes We Can!"

Tuskeegee Airmen Will Proudly Watch Obama Make History

THE INAUGURATION

Tuskegee Airmen from Northeast Ohio to attend Barack Obama inauguration Friday, January 09, 2009 Brian Albrecht Plain Dealer Reporter Six decades ago they fought prejudice, discrimination, even threats of courts-martial to serve as the first black airmen in American military history.

On Jan. 20, the aging ranks of Tuskegee Airmen will be part of a second, similar historic event as invited guests for the inauguration of Barack Obama as the nation's first black president. "It's wonderful. Terrific. It's something I never thought I'd see in my lifetime," said Roy Richardson, 79, of Oakwood. Richardson is one of seven members of the North Coast Chapter of Tuskegee Airmen Inc. hoping to attend. The others are Joe Burrucker, 82, of Shaker Heights; Thomas Austin, 92, of East Cleveland; Arthur Saunders, 88, of Cleveland; Clarence Jamison, 90, of Shaker Heights; James Travis, 86, of Cleveland; and Edward Lunda, 85, of Akron.

During and shortly after World War II, from 1941 to 1949, they were among more than 16,000 black servicemen who joined an experimental program in the then-segregated American military to train in all aspects of aviation, as pilots, mechanics, bombardiers, navigators and support personnel.

The airmen initially trained at an Army airfield in Tuskegee, Ala., then at other bases across the country. Two fighter squadrons of Tuskegee Airmen served overseas in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, France and Germany, credited with shooting down or damaging 261 enemy aircraft.

Some 150 fliers were killed in training or combat. But their enemies were both overseas and at home, in battles against bigotry and discrimination, once reaching a point that 103 officer-airmen were arrested for trying to enter a segregated officers' club and were ordered to face courts-martial (charges that were subsequently dropped). "So there's been a change," chuckled Lunda, one of those arrested, referring to the difference in attitudes that made this inauguration possible.

Back then, "I imagine most African-Americans never really dreamed of this particular day coming. Maybe way down the line, but not this soon," he added. "We've come a long ways and still have a long ways to go, but this is a really great opportunity."

 

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Though these aviation trailblazers of the past have since aged - many now piloting canes and wheelchairs - they're scarcely deterred by the potential inauguration crowds and inclement weather. Uncomfortable? "Can't be any worse than it was 60 years ago," Richardson said. "It just makes it all worthwhile for me."

However, the logistics and costs facing the 235 Tuskegee Airmen expected to attend from across the country - finding transportation and lodging in a capital besieged by millions of well-wishers - can be daunting. Both the national Tuskegee group and local chapter are raising money and making arrangements to help ease those obstacles.

The local chapter is giving each member a $500 stipend, and donations can be made at any Charter One bank office. Bob Rose, first vice president of the national group, said inaugural arrangements are being made to transport the airmen from a central gathering area to a reserved seating area. He's also matching visiting airmen with offers from Washington-area residents and businesses for lodging and transportation.

Rose noted that this is the second presidential inauguration the Tuskegee Airmen have participated in as a group. The first was as parade marchers and flyover pilots for the 1949 inauguration of President Harry Truman, who desegregated the U.S. military in 1948.

Obama's inauguration is "one of the highlights of their dwindling years, next to the Congressional Gold Medal [awarded to the unit in 2007] and maybe in some cases, more important," Rose said. Former airman Burrucker still remembers the tears of joy that he and his family shed last August when Obama won the Democratic nomination. He expects more of the same come Jan. 20.

"Hopefully they won't freeze," joked Burrucker, who also hoped his granddaughter could join him for what he described as a "historic event in every sense of the word." But let the winter winds blow. "I'll just put on my long johns and weather the storm," he said. Just the way they did six decades ago, when they overcame the insults and a demeaning military-institutional attitude, said former airman Saunders. "We waded through all of that," he said. "Patience pays off."

The spirit remains unchanged, then and now. As Saunders said, "We'll tough it out. It means a great deal." Donations at local Charter One Bank offices can be made to: The Tuskegee Airmen North Coast Chapter Inauguration Fund. For additional details call 216-381-3266. To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: [email protected], 216-999-4853