A new book 10 years in the making examines how many major U.S. universities — Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, Dartmouth, Rutgers, Williams and the University of North Carolina, among others — are drenched in the sweat, and sometimes the blood, of Africans brought to the United States as slaves. In "Ebony & Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities," Massachusetts Institute of Technology American history professor Craig Steven Wilder reveals how the slave economy and higher education grew up together. "When you think about the colonial world, until the American Revolution, there is only one college in the South, William & Mary ... The other eight colleges were all Northern schools, and they’re actually located in key sites, for the most part, of the merchant economy where the slave traders had come to power and rose as the financial and intellectual backers of new culture of the colonies," Wilder says.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
HBCU Presidents at a New Crossroads - Higher Education
Only three months into the academic year and headlines have been littered with announcements about HBCU leadership turnover. There have been a plethora of reasons, including university presidents being fired, being encouraged to leave their posts by their boards of trustees or opting for retirement. Gone are the days of decades of top-down leadership, now replaced by a need for charismatic personalities who are well-skilled at fundraising while navigating internal needs and external stakeholders, as well as politics and long-standing traditions.
The burning question that remains is about the fate of HBCUs and how to stop the trend that’s making it difficult for presidents to lead.
Monday, October 28, 2013
Is Glenn Greenwald the Future of News? - NYTimes.com
John H. Armwood
"Much of the speculation about the future of news focuses on the business model: How will we generate the revenues to pay the people who gather and disseminate the news? But the disruptive power of the Internet raises other profound questions about what journalism is becoming, about its essential character and values. This week’s column is a conversation — a (mostly) civil argument — between two very different views of how journalism fulfills its mission."
Is Glenn Greenwald the Future of News? - NYTimes.com
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Bill de Blasio for Mayor - NYTimes.com
The rise of Bill de Blasio, New York City’s public advocate, has been remarkable. In a clamorous primary campaign against better known, more seasoned candidates, he won the Democratic nomination without a runoff, by appealing directly and doggedly to struggling New Yorkers who see a city of lofty wealth rising out of their reach. With the election only 10 days away, Mr. de Blasio is polling so far ahead of the Republican, Joseph Lhota, that commentators have already anointed him leader of a national rebirth of left-wing populism.
The Slavery Reparations Calculations - The Numbers Guy - WSJ
Scholars dispute the best way to calculate reparations. “One must first ask how much the damaged parties would have accepted (or been awarded by a court) at the time of the injury,” Franklin M. Fisher, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote in an email. “Then one brings that to the current time using the safest interest rate.” He added, “However you do it, the result, I think, is bound to be mind-bogglingly large.”
Saturday, October 26, 2013
GOP Senator Breaks Ranks From Tea Party: 'I'm In The Take-Charge-Of-The-Government Crowd'
Less than two weeks removed from 2013's government shutdown, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) was clear about where he stands within the Republican Party on that strategy.
In a wide-ranging interview with the Washington Post published Friday, Alexander offered an inside look into how he worked to help broker a deal to reopen the government, distancing himself from the tea party in the process.
1 Black Man Is Killed Every 28 Hours by Police or Vigilantes: America Is Perpetually at War with Its Own People | Alternet
From the war on drugs to the war on terror, law enforcement's battle against minorities serves as pacification
Friday, October 25, 2013
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Is The Tea Party Racist? What Some Actual Racists Think
Stormfront -- whose motto is "White Pride World Wide" -- is among the most popular white nationalist (WN, in the community's lexicon) gathering spots online, and discussion of the tea party is a regular part of the chatter. One thread, started in 2011 and still active recently, debates just how racist the tea party is. In the evil, upside-down world of white supremacy, the label of racist is meant as a compliment and, to many Stormfront posters, the tea party earns high marks.
Sunday, October 20, 2013
12 Years a Slave (2013)
A true story of the brutally and barbarity of America history of slavery. It puts in a clear light America's failure to pay damages for slavery, segregation and discrimination' intentional torts which unjustly enriched and continues to unjustly enrich generations of Americans while leaving the victims of these evils and their descendants without their legal right to compensation. Reparations for these torts are long overdue.
Saturday, October 19, 2013
Bloomberg: Lack of Housing Is a ‘Good Sign’ -- Daily Intelligencer
Who raised this callous, cold hearted man? "
Mayor Bloomberg has never been known for his tact, but he's really letting his out-of-touch rich guy flag fly now that his twelve-year reign is almost at its end. Back in September, he repeatedly expressed his desire to "get every billionaire around the world to move" to New York, which he believes would be "a godsend" for the city. Yesterday, on his weekly radio show, Bloomberg addressed the topic of affordable housing for New Yorkers of more modest means. "Somebody said that there’s not enough housing. That’s a good sign," he explained. "As fast as we build, more people want to live here. Doesn’t mean it isn’t a problem. But there are no vacancies. And that will bring in investment for people to build at all income levels different kinds of housing."
‘Ebony and Ivy,’ About How Slavery Helped Universities Grow - NYTimes.com
Mr. Wilder, a history professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has a new book, “Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities,” which argues provocatively that the nation’s early colleges, alongside church and state, were “the third pillar of a civilization based on bondage.”
Friday, October 18, 2013
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Belafonte Sues Heirs of Martin Luther King Jr. - NYTimes.com
At issue are three documents that used to be in Mr. Belafonte’s collection of memorabilia, along with other photos and letters on the walls of his apartment, chronicling his long friendship with Dr. King. Mr. Belafonte says the papers were given to him by Dr. King himself; by his widow, Coretta Scott King; and by Dr. King’s close aide Stanley Levison.
Dr. King’s heirs — Dexter, Bernice and Martin Luther King III — have said the documents were taken without permission and belong to the estate.
Mr. Belafonte, who often supported the King family financially during the civil rights struggle, said the dispute pains him. He said in his view, Dr. King’s children had drifted away from their father’s values. “The papers are symbolic,” he said. “It’s really about what happened to the children, and I feel that somewhere, in this one area, I really failed Martin.”
The Racist Redskins - The Daily Beast
There’s a debate brewing—yet again—about whether the name of Washington’s football team is racist. Of course it is, says Michael Tomasky
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Democracy After the Shutdown - NYTimes.com
Here’s the question we should be asking ourselves right now: What next?
Even if the immediate crises — the partial shutdown and the looming debt default — are resolved, we will still be living in a dangerous political moment. The danger in question is because of the recent emergence of a political philosophy — and I mean that in the loosest sense — which threatens to unravel our joint commitment to a common democratic enterprise.
Senate agrees to a bill to end government shutdown.
The agreement represented a victory for Obama and Democrats over conservative Republicans, who had tried to use the shutdown and debt ceiling deadline to wring concessions on spending cuts and dismantling the Obama's signature health care reforms.
The Real Rebels of the Civil War
"Frederick Douglass wasn’t fooled by white Southerners’ rhetorical illusion. In 1862, he declared: “I really wish we had some other expressive title for the traitor and rebels who are now striking at the heart of the country which has nursed and brought them up. REBELS and TRAITORS are epithets too good for such monsters of perfidy and ingratitude. Washington, Jefferson, John Jay, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and many other brave and good men have worn those appellations, and I hate to see them now worn by wretches who, instead of being rebels against slavery, are actually rebelling against the principles of human liberty and progress, for the hell-black purpose of establishing slavery in its most odious form.”
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Dr. Ben Carson “Jumps Jim Crow” | Black Politics on the Web
"Does Dr. Carson really believe that the ACA is worse than the Tuskegee syphilis experiment of 1932? This infamous clinical study was conducted by the U.S. Public Health Service on 399 African American men from 1932 to 1972 to trace the natural progression of untreated syphilis. These human “laboratory animals” thought they were receiving free health care from the U.S. government. By the end of the experiment, 28 of the men had died directly of syphilis, 100 were dead of related complications, 40 of their wives had been infected and 19 of their children had been born with congenital syphilis.
Would Dr. Carson have us believe that the ACA is worse than the government sanctioned, racially motivated attack on the Greenwood district of Tulsa Oklahoma in 1921? The Greenwood district of Tulsa, also know as Black Wall Street, was the wealthiest African American community in America. During a 16 hour period from May 31 and June 1, 1921 whites rioted, attacked the community and burned it to the ground based upon the rumor that an African American shoeshiner named Dick Roland touched a white female elevator operator named Sarah Page.
An estimated 10,000 African American residents were left homeless and 35 city blocks composed of 1,256 residences were destroyed by fire. The official death count by the Oklahoma Department of Vital Statistics was 39, but other estimates of African American fatalities have been up to about 300.
From 1920 – 1970 the state of North Carolina forcibly sterilized more than 7,600 women. Most of these women were poor and African American. This eugenics program began as a means to control the birth rates of poor white woman and quickly expanded as an attack on African American woman. Woman were being sterilized like cats and dogs are spayed and neutered. Dr. Carson wants us to believe that the ACA is worse than this?
As Carson is being promoted in conservative political circles as an informed spokesman on the talk circuit he has quickly become a political minstrel show. He’s jumping Jim Crow. Jump Jim Crow is a song and dance that was performed in blackface by a white comedian named Thomas Dartmouth around 1830, the early minstrel era of American entertainment. It made a mockery of African Americans; lampooning them as dim-witted, lazy, and buffoonish. The expression to Jump Jim Crow came to mean “to act like a stereotyped stage caricature of a black person” usually by a white person.
Dr. Carson has once again put his black face on political ideology that is contrary to the interests of the African American community and validates denigrating stereotypes perpetuated by its enemies. Earlier this year Carson told a CPAC audience that “Nobody is starving on the streets (of America). We have always taken care of them. We have churches which actually are much better mechanisms for taking care of the poor because they are right there with them. This is one of the reasons we give tax breaks to churches…”
He is lending his voice and using his personal narrative to validate the conservative “blame the poor” political agenda and undermine the social safety net in America"
Rupert Murdoch calls for Google to be 'exposed' | Technically Incorrect - CNET News
Utter Stupidity
So I am imagining Rupert Murdoch on Sunday night, slurping on a glass of fine, golden beer, seated in a red velvet smoking jacket.
Clutching his phone, filled with the kind of irritating news a boss often receives, he cast his frustrations to the wind. Or, rather to the Twitterati.
For Sunday night, News Corp.'s heart and soul offered: "'Please expose Eric Schmidt, Google' etc. Just wait!"
There is so little here, and yet so much. Firstly, what secrets can possibly be hidden by the always open government of Google? What dark insinuations are being proposed here?
Is it merely to do with the alleged theft of all the world's news? Or might there be something even more menacing and filled with acronyms such as NSA, LSD, or LOL?
And why single out Executive Chairman Schmidt? Why not Google's true self-driving force, Larry Page? Is there something of a personal nature that Murdoch would like exposed?
Monday, October 14, 2013
D.C. protestors wave Confederate flag, tell Obama to “put the Quran down” - Salon.com
I oppose the death penalty but I do believe in self defense. These people and their brethren ha killed many more of us than AL Qaeda. It is time we wake up to our biggest enemy.
Sunday, October 13, 2013
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - Medican't - "Taker" States If statehood was health care, moocher states like Mississippi and Missouri would be rejected as having a preexisting condition.
Fox News' Ed Henry Walks Out Of White House Briefing (VIDEO)
Who with any common sense watches Fox News? It is appalling how they play to the lowest common denominator, lie an deceive for profit and then call it news.
Sources: Cash-Strapped FreedomWorks In State Of Financial Disarray - BuzzFeed Mobile
The tea party group had to take out a $1 million line of credit, and its fundraising efforts have tanked this year, sources say. FreedomWorks dismisses the accusations as claims made by “bored former employees.”
Modern GOP Still The Party Of Dixie How the South poisons American conservatism and sabotages our politics
Rand Paul at Black Pastor Conference: Democracy Hurts Minorities
This cynical piece of human horse dung, who opposes the section of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that prohibits private businesses from blocking access to Blacks has the nerve to seek support from Black pastors in his 2016 run for the Presidency.
Saturday, October 12, 2013
O'Reilly's Grave Warning For Republicans
Bill O'Reilly: Republicans Will Lose In 2014, 2016 If They Don't 'Solve Problems'
HUFFPOLLSTER: Reviewing Ted Cruz's Poll "Unskewing"
POLL BEARS BAD NEWS FOR THE GOP - An NBC/WSJ poll released Thursday night found Republicans taking a drastic hit. Per Chuck Todd, both members of its bipartisan team of pollsters described the results as "jaw dropping." HuffPost: "The Republican Party has been 'badly damaged' by the government shutdown, according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released Thursday evening, which finds public opinion souring on the GOP and some of its core positions. Americans blamed Republicans over President Barack Obama for the shutdown by a margin of 22 percentage points, with 53 percent saying the GOP deserved more blame, and 31 percent saying Obama did….Voters were 8 points more likely to say they'd prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress over a Republican-controlled Congress, a 5-point shift toward the Democrats since last month. Support for the new health care law, the touchstone of the government shutdown, rose a net 8 points from September, while the belief that government should do more to solve problems was up 8 points from June."
Millionaire GOP Congressman Tells Furloughed Workers To Take Out Loans To Pay Bills
WASHINGTON -- Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) has a suggestion for any of the hundreds of thousands of furloughed government workers worried about being able to pay their bills: take out a loan!
In a post on his personal Facebook page that was later deleted, Pearce urged government workers to call their banks and take out a short-term loan if money is tight.
Bachmann Makes Curious Claim About GOP
Bachmann failed to see that divide, saying Republicans were "excited" about the government shutdown.
“It’s exactly what we wanted, and we got it," Bachmann told the Washington Post ahead of the Oct. 1 shutdown.
Friday, October 11, 2013
The Only Hope For The GOP Is To Be More Like Chris Christie
Business Insider Christie's openness to Democrats has created openness to him. Dozens of local Democratic officials have endorsed him for re-election. Many polls show him drawing about a third of the black vote, an unheard of level for a Republican candidate.
The latest Fairleigh Dickinson poll shows him ahead by 8 points among non-white voters. Where else on this planet do Republican candidates win among non-whites?
I spoke with Michael Blunt, a black Democrat who has endorsed Christie. Blunt serves as mayor of Chesilhurst, a middle-class suburb of Philadelphia, which is about 50% black and gave 82% of its votes to Barack Obama in 2012.
Blunt had a simple explanation for how Christie has made inroads with black voters: "He talks to them. He makes them feel comfortable."
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Wednesday, October 09, 2013
Tuesday, October 08, 2013
Monday, October 07, 2013
But this time around Boehner is all tell and no show. He says he doesn’t have the votes, but he’s not proving it by putting a bill on the floor.
And there’s a good reason: the math’s against him.
As many as 22 Republicans could support a “clean” funding resolution according to NBC News, which sifted through tweets, official statements, and news reports for the whip count.
“My very strong suspicion is there are enough votes there” to pass a clean funding bill, President Obama said on Monday. “Hold a vote. Call a vote right now. Let’s see what happens.”
The White House has said they believe 24 House Republicans will vote for the bill, too—a top administration official told NBC Boehner’s warnings are “not true.”
Sunday, October 06, 2013
Conservatives' Biggest Fear: Being Called Racist | Mother Jones
John Armwood
Extended circles1 minute ago
For Black conservatives it would be Uncle Toms but if the shoe fits...
In Pacific Standard, Tom Jacobs writes about a new study that tries to figure out why so many people love to watch and listen to "outrage-based radio and television programs." After conducting a series of in-depth interviews, their answer, in a nutshell, is that unlike conversations with actual friends and neighbors, these programs provide a safe space where you don't have to worry about saying something that might get you ostracized:
But why is their pull apparently stronger among conservatives, who gravitate to such programming in much greater numbers than liberals? Based on their interviews, the researchers believe the answer lies in the fact those on the right have more to fear in terms of social condemnation for their views.
In conversation with conservatives, liberals risk being called naïve or willfully blind to potential threats—not very pleasant labels, but not especially damaging ones, either. In contrast, conservatives risk accusations of racism—and “being called a racist carries a particular cultural force,” the researchers write.
Police arrest suspect in slaying outside billiards hall | www.wsbtv.com
Police arrest suspect in slaying outside billiards hall | www.wsbtv.com
“Scandal’”s racially charged motto: “You have to be twice as good as them” | Black Politics on the Web I heard this all of my childhood but this is only the first part. The second part is "to receive half as much"
Saturday, October 05, 2013
Wrong Side of History - NYTimes.com
Sarah Palin finally got her death panels — a direct blow from the Republican House. In shutting down the government, leaving 800,000 people without a paycheck and draining the economy of $300 million a day, the Party of Madness also took away last-chance cancer trials for children at the National Institutes of Health.
And now that the pain that was dismissed as a trifle on Monday, a “slimdown” according to the chuckleheads at Fox News, is revealed as tragic by mid-week, the very radicals who caused the havoc are trying to say it’s not their fault.
It’s too late. They flunked hostage-taking. About 30 or so Republicans in the House, bunkered in gerrymandered districts while breathing the oxygen of delusion, are now part of a cast of miscreants who have stood firmly on the wrong side of history. The headline, today and 50 years from now, will be the same: Republicans closed the government to keep millions of their fellow Americans from getting affordable health care.
Friday, October 04, 2013
Thursday, October 03, 2013
Police place Capitol on lockdown after shots are fired
Shots were fired outside the U.S. Capitol Thursday afternoon and Capitol police were telling people to shelter in place. The incident appeared to begin around 2:19 p.m. and Capitol police say the Capitol was locked down.
Officers with semi-automatic weapons were seen running for the exits on the first floor of the House side of the Capitol. Reports of shots inside were unconfirmed.
Wednesday, October 02, 2013
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - March of the Dumbs.
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - Political Comedy - Fake News | Comedy Central
Tuesday, October 01, 2013
The Enigma of Chinese Medicine - NYTimes.com
The Enigma of Chinese Medicine - NYTimes.com
U.S. Reckons With Impact of Shutdown - NYTimes.com
U.S. Reckons With Impact of Shutdown - NYTimes.com