Billed as the biggest sit down dinner in the world, the 52nd Annual NAACP Fight for Freedom Fund Dinner attracted 10,000 to Detroit’s Cobo Hall on April 29. Dinner itself was unremarkable. (Reports confirm that each entree - cajun beef, some unidentified fish or a mushroom pasta - was equally mediocre.)

What was most important about this dinner though was the guest list. The governor, both of Michigan’s US senators, several congress members, the mayor and other public officials, business and union leaders, entrepreneurs and preachers all joined grassroots activists to honor and support the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization.

During the three and a half hour event Lifetime Achievement awards were given to Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, attorney and politician Joel Ferguson and former NAACP head Ernest Lofton. But the main attraction was the keynote address from the man described by several of the night’s speakers as “our president”, William Jefferson Clinton.
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Embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales refuses to step down over the politically motivated firing of eight US attorneys. His boss, President George W. Bush, continues to support Gonzo despite bipartisan calls for his ouster. However, new information about the attorney firings may take on greater relevance in a post-Don Imus world.

Reports have surfaced that at least two attorneys in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division were fired because they failed to file charges that would have helped disenfranchise Black voters.
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Former Detroit Pistons Grant Hill and Darko Milicic sound a little bitter.

Both Orlando Magic players recalled bad memories of Detroit upon their return for the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs. Going back to Florida down two games to none certainly won’t help their dispositions.
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What’s up with these ‘R&B stars’ and young GIRLS?

This girl Akon’s dancing with on stage is only 14 years old and it’s no reason to ‘dance’ like that in the 1st place. Akon is on the list, very long list of disturbed stars. Eddie Murphy, Mike Jackson, R Kelly, Chuck Berry, and now Akon.

This link is not for the faint of heart. Please be warned Akon’s rather sick.

Google Video

YouTube

The Don Imus Incident brought out a lot of anger toward Hip Hop. In reality hip hop culture plays a very small role in the Imus controversy - Don Imus probably isn’t a fan of Snoop Dogg, and most Black folks didn’t know who he was until the controversy erupted - but his remarks inflamed the long standing debate that similar language has gotten out of hand in popular music.

Oprah even got into the act by devoting two shows to a town hall meeting where Russell Simmons and Ben Chavis (representing The Hip Hop Summit Action Network), joined by Common and Warner Music exec Kevin Lyle, were confronted by a host of detractors including longtime hip hop-hater columnist Stanley Crouch and a group of Spellman college students who appeared via satellite. The hip hop panel promised to convene a summit with the corporate music industry to discuss the problem and develop concrete solutions. That summit, held at the home of Warner Music’s Lyor Cohen, ended with no press conference and no statement about what was or was not accomplished. And no one is surprised.

The corporate media and the major labels who market the small percentage of music that is heard on most radio and video outlets should be held responsible for the content that they push on the public. Bay-area emcee Paris put it best in a post on GuerrillaFunk.com when he said:

The argument is often made by Russell Simmons and others that rappers are poets who simply report on what they feel and their surroundings, and that they shouldn’t be censored. As an emcee, on that point we partially agree — we shouldn’t be censored. But balance between the negative and positive needs to be provided, and it currently isn’t.

Most artistic integrity is questionable at best. My understanding is that artists are supposed to express what they believe in at all costs (if not, there’s work at the post office). But most don’t, and they mold their approaches to making music based on what they perceive major labels wanting. If Def Jam or Interscope or any of these other large culture-defining companies issued a blanket decree that they would only support material and artists with positive messages then 99% of those making music now would switch up to accommodate. That’s real talk.

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Right on the heals of Mitch Albom’s claims that the Duke lacrosse players will carry this “slander” with them for the rest of their lives (read Pidgin’s post from a couple of days ago), comes the news that team captain David Evans has just landed a six-figure gig on Wall Street working for Morgan Stanley.

What was it Albom said?

I’d like to follow them when they apply for a job, and the company interviewing them has a staff meeting and someone in that staff meeting says, “Maybe we should stay away from this guy. After all, that whole rape thing …”

Well, the New York Post says:

The high-powered hiring comes after Evans, 24, lost out on a job offer from JPMorgan Chase when he was accused last year of raping a stripper at a lacrosse team party. Last week, he and teammates Reade Seligmann of New Jersey and Collin Finnerty of Long Island were cleared.

The loss of the job was a bitter blow to Evans.

“This woman has destroyed everything I worked for in my life,” Evans told CBS’s “60 Minutes.” “She’s put it on hold.”

Apparently Evans’ life wasn’t on hold for long. He’s just received a lesson that many have to wait years to learn. A good lawyer can be a rich man’s best friend.

I wonder how the accuser’s job prospects will improve now that this case is behind her. I suppose Mitch Albom couldn’t care less.

The New York Post

I don’t use my mobile phone to access the Internet, so that may be why I haven’t become inundated with mobile ads yet.

But according to Business Week, if you are surfing on your cellular, you may begin seeing more commercials on your phone. Advertisers are gearing up to use targeted mobile ads in a big way. (more…)

Sports columnist, social commentator, bad writer extraordinaire Mitch Albom says the woman who accused the Duke lacrosse players of rape should be arrested. Albom says the three accused, Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans, will suffer for the rest of their lives for this slander.

I’d like to follow them when they apply for a job, and the company interviewing them has a staff meeting and someone in that staff meeting says, “Maybe we should stay away from this guy. After all, that whole rape thing …”

Now these guys may not be guilty but let’s not pretend the Duke lacrosse players are innocent. Drinking excessively, paying women to dance and perform lewd sexual acts? Like whoa!

I am not a fan of Kobe Bryant but look what happened to him? Where was Mitch Albom’s call to arrest that young woman?

The Imus/Rutgers insult and the furor that followed illustrate both the power of words, and the volatility of race as an issue in America and the world.

The remarks that he made have struck nerves on so many levels. The term “nappy headed” invokes Black hair politics; the reference to women as “hoes” is degradation; darker skinned Blacks are pitted against fairer skinned Blacks with the “jiggaboos vs. wannabes” comment; and all of it raises questions like Who has the right to call people names? Why is it okay that Blacks can use certain language while others can’t? How responsibile are Black people for the words that are used against us when we perpetuate the issue by continuing the use of those words?

On April 10 after the Rutgers Women’s Basketball team’s press conference, I submited a post titled, “Not a Nappy Head in the Bunch” on Last Chocolate City. The post pointed out that those beautiful women had responded to Don Imus’s comments with poise and grace. The title implied, though the article did not clarify, that none of the women had what most Black folks would consider, “nappy” hair. Unfortunately, some people were offended by my reference to the women’s hair.

I didn’t mean to offend anyone with that statement. I apologize personally, and on behalf of LastChocolateCity.com and The Michigan Citizen, Inc., I apologize as well.

Imus and his team had attacked the women for their physical appearance, and the women of Rutgers obviously did not fit the description of “nappy headed hoes” by any stretch of the imagination. My intention with my post was to emphasize the fact that Imus’s comments were not only hateful, but inaccurate. However, by stating that there wasn’t a nappy head in the bunch, I stirred up some deep seated animosities within the Black community.

For the record, I am a brother with waist length locs. My hair is nothing if not nappy. The comment I made was intended to be a humorous remark directed with love for my sisters on that team and for my people. But by making comments that were offensive to someone else, my intentions (and my hair) were not scrutinized. What mattered was the perception and that another human being was hurt by my words.
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The American National Socialist Workers Party, (not to be confused with the Westland, Michigan based American Nazi Party) are trying to stir up racial hatred in Cincinnati.

The group wants to celebrate Hitler’s birthday by marching through the Queen City’s Over-The-Rhine community - ground zero for Cincinnati’s 2001 rebellion which was sparked after Cincy police killed over a dozen Black men in five years.

Recognizing the provocative and potentially violent nature of the Nazi request, the city wants to find a legal way to move the march.
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The Rutgers Women’s Basketball team responded with class and poise to racist comments from Don Imus’s “Imus in the Morning” show at a press conference on Tuesday.

The radio/television host and his producer, Bernard McGuirk, referred to the Big East champions as “nappy-headed hoes” and “jiggaboos” last week after their loss to Tennessee in the NCAA Women’s National Championship game. Imus will serve a two-week suspension beginning on Monday, April 16.

Rutgers team members refused to comment on the severity of the punishment or on whether they thought it was just. The university used the opportunity to highlight the accomplishments of the group this season and to focus on their intellectual prowess. Rutgers has tough academic standards, and according to Coach C. Vivian Stringer

“These young ladies before you are valedictorians, future doctors, musical prodigies… these young ladies are the best this nation has to offer and we are so very fortunate to have them at Rutgers. They are young ladies of class, distinction. They are articulate. They are gifted.”

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A grandmother’s eyes beamed with pride Friday night at the Nataki Talibah Schoolhouse in Northwest Detroit as she watched her grandson belt out a beautiful song. She bobbed her head along and silently clapped as she sat near the edge of her seat waiting to be the first to stand and clap after he finished. I smiled and admired her support. In a later scene when it came time for him to dance she nudged me and whispered, “Now my baby is a singer, not a dancer”, we both laughed.
Fortunately, as I glanced around the room she wasn’t the only family member glowing with pride in the dark playhouse.
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After a long political battle, the council overwhelmingly approved the mayor’s proposed takeover of the city’s struggling public schools system.

No. This didn’t happen in Detroit. This school takeover may occur in the nation’s first official Chocolate City - Washington D.C.

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty’s plan would make the school system a cabinet level agency managed by the mayor and a schools chancellor. A Department of Education would watch over other aspects of the system, and the Board of Education would be reduced to a policy-setting role. Fenty’s proposal faces a second council vote, and if it passes, would be submitted to Congress for final approval.

According to the Washington Times, “the mayor has touted the takeover as a way to effect change in a school system suffering from declining enrollment and low test scores.”

Sound familiar?
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Circuit City is sinking to a new low.

Last week the nation’s second largest electronics retailer announced that it would fire 3500 of its sales and IT professionals and replace them with lower paid employees. Laid off workers can get their jobs back if they are willing to take the lower wages.

From AP:

The laid-off workers, about 8 percent of the company’s total work force, would get a severance package and a chance to reapply for their former jobs, at lower pay, after a 10-week delay, the company said.

This is cold blooded. It sets a dangerous precident that may well backfire. I certainly won’t be shopping at a Circuit City any time soon.

It is not uncommon for new workers to make less than more experienced employees, but firing good workers because they make too much?

What incentive do job seekers have to take a position at Circuit City? They may well find themselves on the clearance shelves someday.

Yahoo/AP News

The rice company is reviving the beloved Uncle Ben “character.” And in 2007, Ben has moved out of the kitchen and into the boardroom. He is chairman and he is providing “grains of wisdom” to all of you rice eaters. 

Madison Ave. decided Ben (who still has no last name) was an under-utilized branding opportunity. And wanted to revive the image of Uncle Ben in his new position as chairman.

And herein lies the question: Is it possible to erase the history of racism and discrimination by giving a brother a new suit and a job? What if his name is still Uncle Ben?