This past weekend, I admired Forrest Whitaker’s brilliant portrayl of Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland. The Oscar talk is well-deserved (though Ghost Dog is still my favorite Whitaker vehicle), but Amin’s brutality was disturbing. And he isn’t the only African tyrant who is guilty of such abuses.

“Africa has had far too many dictators like that,” my wife remarked as we walked out of the theater.

James McAvoy also did a fine job as Nicholas Garrigan, Amin’s personal physician and “closest advisor”. In the film, Amin turned to Garrigan for advice on dealings with his ministers, his family and with the media.

Ultimately, Ugandans relied on him to tell the story of the despot’s attrocities. A Ugandan doctor tells Garrigan in the movie, “They’ll believe you. You’re a white man.”

And that line reveals the truth, doesn’t it? The character of Garrigan is fictional, created for the book by Giles Foden and adapted for the movie. Was the white man added to the story to make it more “believable”, or is he there to make an African tale more “marketable” to a white audience? (more…)

Last Chocolate City contributor and resident football fanatic Tommy Gibbs is convinced that ESPN is up to no good. The titles of his two recent posts (ESPN is Racist I and ESPN is Racist II) are blunt and to the point.

I don’t know if ESPN.com columnist Gene Wojciechowski is aware of Tommy’s accusations, but his column about Fritz Pollard, the NFL’s first Black player and head coach, is significant in the way it discusses (or doesn’t discuss) Pollard’s legacy.

Lovie Smith, one of the first two Black coaches to lead NFL teams to the Super Bowl and the lowest paid head coach in the league, works for the Chicago Bears, a team founded by the legendary George Halas.

Remember the cement block-sized piece of hardware Smith hoisted after winning the NFC championship a few days ago at Solider Field? It was the Halas Trophy, and it was held tightly by, technically speaking, the first black head coach to lead a team to the Super Bowl.

“That is ironical,” says 85-year-old Eleanor Pollard Towns, one of two Pollard daughters who live in the Chicago area.

Ironical, she says, because Halas was no friend of Fritz Pollard or his causes. Ironical because Halas has always been linked to the 1934 unwritten edict by NFL owners that banned black players from the league until 1946, as newspaper reports at the time detailed. (more…)

Okay, this is about ridiculous.

After Mel Gibson’s anti-Jewish tirade, he went to rehab for alcohol problems. Michael Richards couldn’t explain his niggardly attack on a couple of hecklers, and though he insists he doesn’t have a drug or alcohol problem, he checked himself into rehab.

Now Isaiah Washington uses the word “faggot” to describe his Grey’s Anatomy castmate, T.R. Knight, and after first denying he said it, Washington later admitted his transgression.

“I can neither defend nor explain my behavior,” he wrote in the public apology he issued. “I can also no longer deny to myself that there are issues I obviously need to examine within my own soul, and I’ve asked for help.”

So Isaiah Washington checked himself into rehab for psychological treatment. (more…)

Two weeks ago the San Diego Chargers took the field against the New England Patroits in one of the best playoff games this post season. The Chargers had the best record in the NFL this season without the help of their leading tackler and defensive captain, Steve Foley.

Foley was out for the season recovering from injuries after being shot by an off-duty police officer. ESPN has failed to provide the facts in this story, and most of the sports media have ignored developments in the case. Foley’s story is a blatant example of how police officers target athletes, rappers and Black men in general.

Sunday, Sept. 3, 2006, Steve went out with his girlfriend, Lisa Maree Gaut and after a night on the town, a 23 year-old off-duty rookie cop named Aaron Mansker felt that Steve appeared to be driving under the influence. (more…)

Three days ago with the country in the wraps of war, and the sports world caught in the grips of the games that will decide our nation’s Superbowl contenders, ESPN couldn’t produce enough coverage of Falcons Quarterback Michael Vick and his marijuana charges.

Almost every commentator aired out their heartfelt convictions against Vick, accusing him of being an unfit leader and a classless guy. The Falcons General Manager actually held a press conference expressing his disgust toward Vick. Today Vick was found innocent, with no weed in his system or in the mysterious water bottle he held, and it’s a blurb scrolled across the bottom of ESPN.

Hmmmmmmmm. Accused is a headline. Not guilty is a short mention.

(more…)

Nathaniel Abraham, the nation’s youngest convicted murderer, was released a day before his 21st birthday. At 11 years-old he was tried as an adult and found guilty of second-degree murder. The judge sentenced him as a juvenile, however, and as a result, Abraham has a new lease on life as an adult.

From the moment he stepped outside the court room for hopefully the last time, the media has been buzzing about Nathaniel. Are they concerned about how he will make the transition to life on the outside after spending his formative years in prison? Do they wonder what type of education he received in jail and how it will help him become a productive member of society?

No. Everyone is talking about his suit. (more…)

Last week, DJ Drama was arrested in Atlanta for selling mixtapes. It seems the Recording Industry Association of America is taking this mixtape stuff real serious. DJ Drama was charged with some RICO-type racketeering, felony stuff…

RIAA is cracking down. The recording industry isn’t taking this petty bullshit thievery anymore–file sharing, downloading, mixtapes….all that.

Kids, don’t try this at home.

NYTIMES

From the New York Times:

The Bush administration, in a surprise reversal, said on Wednesday that it had agreed to give a secret court jurisdiction over the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program and would end its practice of eavesdropping without warrants on Americans suspected of ties to terrorists.

The Justice Department said it had worked out an “innovative” arrangement with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that provided the “necessary speed and agility” to provide court approval to monitor international communications of people inside the United States without jeopardizing national security.

It’s about damn time! If they had done this in the first place, there would have been no issue, right?

Well, don’t get excited just yet… The “Justice” Department is trying to pull a fast one.

But senior lawmakers said they were still uncertain Wednesday, even after the administration’s announcement, about how the court would go about approving warrants, how targets would be identified, and whether that process would differ from the court’s practices since 1978. (more…)

Mike Wilkinson’s Detroit News article on the exodus of students from Detroit Public Schools paints a glass-half-full portrait of the city’s failed school system. Wilkinson notes that parents are taking advantage of “school choice,” and are sending their children to charter schools in Detroit and public schools in the suburbs.

What Wilkinson doesn’t discuss is the tragedy that results from the miseducation of Detroit’s students. The hardships that families must endure by transporting their children across town or to the suburbs are often too difficult to bear in the nation’s second poorest big city. Many students who can’t find a way to a new school in a region without quality public transportation simply drop out.

Diane Bukowski’s article in the Michigan Citizen tells the grimmer side of the same subject. Diane analyzes the losses that Detroit families endure, not the gains of surburban school districts.

At Chadsey High School, one of the schools again targeted after being saved from the 2005 round of closures when students walked out in protest, students reacted with dismay and anger.

“My whole thing, if they close Chadsey, I know half of the students are going to drop out,” said Satin Johnson, 14. “Some of them get a chance here. Where will the students from Munger Middle School [next door to Chadsey] go if they close Chadsey? Those are our brothers, sisters, cousins and friends.” (more…)

Even though Michigan suffers a $1 billion budget deficit and a potential $2 billion revenue loss from the elimination of the single business tax, the state is going to pay $300 million to Ford Motor Company to help the struggling automaker upgrade aging equipment in six Michigan plants.

Where will the money come from? Does this mean Ford will keep more of the workers it previously planned to lay off or even better, will the automaker create new jobs??? Uh, no.

Half of the $300m will come from the state government, which will borrow $150m against an already-swollen budget deficit.

The other half will come in the form of property tax abatements, where the plants’ home towns will forego additional taxes that Ford would have normally had to pay on its investments.

Ford cannot guarantee that it will create any new jobs, nor offer a guarantee that it will continue to employ all of its existing workforce.

This is in contrast to similar deals where states offer car companies incentives to build car factories specifically to create new jobs.

Why is the state using money it doesn’t have to subsidize a company with poor management practices that is firing workers instead of hiring them?

The BBC

Despite universal criticism, George Bush’s efforts to destabilize the Middle East continue unabated. With a precarious situation in Afghanistan, US and Israeli troublemaking in Lebanon, and a week of airstrikes in Somalia, Bush predictably announced his plans to escalate the FUBAR in Iraq.

Bush’s “New Way Forward” speech was falsely advertised as “a change in direction”. It could have been more accurately described as “stay the course with more guns.”

The result of his new strategy - adding 21,500 new troops in Iraq - will be like dropping 21,500 troops into a quagmire. In fact it will be exactly that. Five brigades, roughly 17,000 American men and women, will go to Baghdad to combat the growing resistance to American occupation.

It’s all in the name of the “War on Terror”, protecting America’s “vital interests” and “homeland security”. If his buddies in the oil, weapons and banking industries happen to get a little richer in the process, then so be it. (more…)

James Brown’s celebrated legal woes will follow him to the grave.

That is, if he is ever buried.

Over two weeks after his death on Christmas day, the Godfather of Soul has not been laid to rest.

From the AP:

The body of soul singer James Brown has yet to be buried as attorneys and his children work to settle issues surrounding his estate, including where he will be laid to rest.

For now, his body lies in a sealed casket in his home on Beech Island, said Charles Reid, manager of the C.A. Reid Funeral Home in Augusta, Ga., which handled the services.

Once again the cry should ring throughout the land, FREE JAMES BROWN!!!

Associated Press

VH-1’s new show “Egotrip’s White Rapper” is a lot of fun. And it is even more fun to know that Ego Trip is behind it.

If you DON’T know, Ego Trip is a multimedia production company. In the 90’s they produced a hip hop magazine by the same name…and if you haven’t heard of the group of writers, thinkers and cultural consigliares, you better ask somebody. They have produced some of the best pop culture products in the last twenty years including “Ego Trip’s Big Book of Racism” and other hip hop bibles.

That is what makes “White Rapper” so funny. Too often we see Black characters powered by white producers, directors, writers…Ego Trip switches the game up a bit. That is why in the first episode we saw the white rappers introduce themselves to their Bronx neighbors with a box of crackers and a rhyme. Silently hoping their new neighbors–who actually live in the hood–don’t laugh at them.

Ego Trip is Sacha Jenkins, Jeff Mao, Gabriel Alvarez, Brent Rollins and Elliot Wilson…pay attention.

White Rapper Show

For those Jennifer Gratz types who think some underserving African American is keeping them from getting into a top tier school…think again. It is probably some deserving Asian student. The NY Times, in their special Education News supplement, has some surprise news for those MCRI-types who are always bitching about merit-based admissions. If admissions are only based on merit, Asian folks are getting in.

Currently FORTY SIX PERCENT of the students at University of California Berkely are of Asian descent.

“Here, many people speak Chinese as their primary language,” says Mr. Hu, a sophomore. “It’s nice. You really feel like you don’t stand out.”

Smarting from the sting of globalization and the loss of those good ole’ industrial wage jobs, Michigan voted to end affirmative action. Voters said ‘no more preferential treatment.’

Yet, can the majority of Michigan deal with this new world order? Can white America really deal in a merit based world? One day soon, affirmative action could have saved your behind.

NYTIMES “Little Asia on the Hill”

New York magazine has a profile on Pam Grier in this week’s issue. And if you think it is hard out here for a pimp…it is really hard out here for a Black actress.

“Back in 1975, Grier was a newly minted curiosity, the jaw-dropping, jaw-breaking star of blaxploitation flicks such as Coffy and Foxy Brown—subversive, explosive movies that weren’t so much about introducing the mainstream to black urban culture as they were about declaring that black urban culture couldn’t care less what the mainstream thought.”

The article also has a link to her 1975 interview with the same magazine.

New York Magazine