Black Teen Smacked In The Face Over A Jaywalking Ticket By White Cop - Was It Justified?

A 17 year-old female was tagged by a Seattle cop who was simply attempting to cite the teen and her 19-year-old cousin for jaywalking. When the girls resisted, watch the video and then decide who was in the wrong.



Thoughts???

Harlem Becoming Less Black Every Day - You Got A Problem With That?

672 Whites in 1990. Today It's Almost 14,000

For nearly a century, Harlem has been synonymous with black urban America. Given its magnetic and growing appeal to younger black professionals and its historic residential enclaves and cultural institutions, the neighborhood’s reputation as the capital of black America seems unlikely to change soon. With that said...

But the neighborhood is in the midst of a profound and accelerating shift. In greater Harlem, which runs river to river, and from East 96th Street and West 106th Street to West 155th Street, blacks are no longer a majority of the population — a shift that actually occurred a decade ago, but was largely overlooked.

By 2008, their share had declined to 4 in 10 residents. Since 2000, Harlem’s population has already grown more than in any decade since the 1940s, to 126,000 from 109,000, but its black population — about 77,000 in central Harlem and about twice that in greater Harlem — is smaller than at any time since the 1920s.

In 2008, 22 percent of the white households in Harlem had moved to their present homes within the previous year. By comparison, only 7 percent of the black households had.

“It was a combination of location and affordability,” said Laura Murray, a 31-year-old graduate student in medical anthropology at Columbia, who moved to Sugar Hill near City College about a year ago. “I feel a community here that I don’t feel in other parts of the city.”

Change has been even more pronounced in the narrow north-south corridor defined as central Harlem, which planners roughly define as north of 110th Street between Fifth and St. Nicholas Avenues.

There, blacks account for 6 in 10 residents, but native-born African-Americans born in the United States make up barely half of all residents. Since 2000, the proportion of whites living there has more than doubled, to more than one in 10 residents — the highest since the 1940s.

The Hispanic population, which was concentrated in East Harlem, is now at an all-time high in central Harlem, up 27 percent since 2000.

Harlem, said Michael Henry Adams, a historian of the neighborhood and a local resident, “is poised again at a point of pivotal transition.”

Harlem is hardly the only ethnic neighborhoods to have metamorphosed because of inroads by housing pioneers seeking bargains and more space — Little Italy, for instance, has been largely gobbled up by immigrants expanding the boundaries of Chinatown and by creeping gentrification from SoHo.

But Harlem has evolved uniquely.

Because so much of the community was devastated by demolition for urban renewal, arson and abandonment beginning in the 1960s, many newcomers have not so much dislodged existing residents as succeeded them. In the 1970s alone, the black population of central Harlem declined by more than 30 percent.

“This place was vacated,” said Howard Dodson, director of Harlem’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. “Gentrification is about displacement.”
Meanwhile, the influx of non-Hispanic whites has escalated.

The 1990 census counted only 672 whites in central Harlem. By 2000, there were 2,200. The latest count, in 2008, recorded nearly 13,800.

“There’s a lot of new housing to allow people to come into the area without displacing people there,” said Joshua S. Bauchner, who moved to a Harlem town house in 2007 and is the only white member of Community Board 10 in central Harlem. “In Manhattan, there are only so many directions you can go. North to Harlem is one of the last options.”

In 1910, blacks constituted about 10 percent of central Harlem’s population. By 1930, the beginnings of the great migration from the South and the influx from downtown Manhattan neighborhoods where blacks were feeling less welcome transformed them into a 70 percent majority. Their share of the population (98 percent) and total numbers (233,000) peaked in 1950.

In 2008, according to the census, the 77,000 blacks in central Harlem amounted to 62 percent of the population.

In greater Harlem, the population peaked at 341,000 in 1950. The black share hit a high of 64 percent in 1970. In 2008, the comparable figures were 153,000 and 41 percent, respectively.
About 15 percent of Harlem’s black population is foreign-born, mostly from the Caribbean, with a growing proportion from Africa.

Some experts say the decline in the black population may be overstated because poorer people are typically undercounted by the census, and Harlem has a disproportionate number of poor people.

Others warn that proposed development and higher property values may force poor people out and say that when the city was the neighborhood’s leading landlord it should have increased ownership opportunities for Harlem residents .

“Gentrification — the buying up and rehabilitation of land and buildings, whether by families or developers, occupied or abandoned —means a rising rent tide for all, leading inevitably to displacement next door, down the block, or two streets away,” said Neil Smith, director of the Center for Place, Culture and Politics at the City University of New York Graduate Center.

The story continues...

Are Anti-Obama Protestors One Step Away From Calling The President A N-Word?

The Water Line Keeps Rising, And All We’re Doing Is Standing There

by Erin Aubry Kaplan

Worst thing first: the loosely confederated but commonly paranoid, almost proudly malevolent anti-America forces that pass for a conservative movement in this country is about two seconds away from calling our shining President Obama a nigger.

But that’s not the worst thing—actually, it may be best thing.

My husband is an American history teacher who’s been arguing for years that the racism that’s supposed to be such a thing of the national past has always stewed just below our surface, give or take an inch or two. The virulent resistance to Obama’s health-care reform efforts—and increasingly to Obama himself-- exposes this inconvenient truth more effectively than any argument that my husband or anybody else could make.

The big conservative march on Washington this past weekend paraded a grab-bag of grievances that all reduced down to one thing: Obama is an Other who doesn’t think like Us.

I wish this was so much political theater staged solely for the benefit of Fox News, et al, but I’m afraid it’s more than that. How else is it possible that the very centrist senator from Illinois, momentarily demonized as a liberal, was very quickly made into a socialist/fascist dictator with an oily smile and even oilier words who was trying to sneak Big Brother government past the loyal watchdogs of liberty and individual rights?

For many true and overwhelmingly white believers, Obama is Hitler meets the mythical black trickster Br’er Rabbit, a dread colored Communist who must be kept from power at all costs, because of course Negroes were most in need of social and economic redress, and must always be barred from the inner sanctums of capitalism.

Electing Obama was one thing, realizing we all must now follow the path he defines, whether we like it or agree with it or not, is entirely another.

The panic is setting in. Even the white folks who voted for him are rethinking their position, wondering seven months into this experiment if it was such a good idea.

It reminds me of a dynamic that black people know all too well—you get hired for a job in a burst of white generosity, but as soon as the going gets tough, you’re the first to be let go. Except that in the case of the President, he can’t be fired, at least not right away. So a certain segment of the population, including certain members of Congress, are trying to neutralize Obama with panic and character assassination.

I should have known this was coming, and I did. But I’m disheartened nonetheless.

I hardly agree with all that Obama’s doing, starting with ramping up the war in Afghanistan; I’m one of those disaffected progressives that he still calls friends. But to see him not even being treated like a president, when so much unearned respect was accorded George W. Bush for so long, is painful. It’s personal.

And it’s not just Republicans and conservatives colluding on the diss, it’s Obama’s fellow weak-kneed Democrats who either are blue dogs or who have no stomach for racial matters, and therefore say nothing; in not regularly calling out the bullshit of the opposition, they are standing with them.

Alas, President Obama looks as isolated right now as black people in high places have always been—isolation is the price of their success. The irony is that a president is elected to lead, not to be the prominent but innocuous face of affirmative action.

That’s the change Obama assumed came with the mandate of his election.

He was wrong.

ERIN AUBRY KAPLAN is the first African American in history to be a weekly op-ed columnist for the Los Angeles Times. Her musings continue to appear in the Times, Essence magazine, and on the blog 3 Brothers and A Sister. Among her many projects, Kaplan is currently working on her much anticipated book.

Obama Is My Slave?????

By Jayar Jackson

It’s August of 2008 in America. The horrific atrocities that embodied American slavery officially ended at the end of 1865. After 143 years of freedom from the institution of slavery, leading to the struggle of racial equality and eventual opportunity for everyone, we still have Americans that don’t care enough about the country that gave them the opportunity to live free, to respect it.

Doron Braunshtein, also known as Apollo Braun, owner of a New York City boutique, claims he was recently attacked in his store by two African American men for selling his line of “Obama is My Slave” T-shirts.

According to an account from his publicist, the two men worked together - one grabbed Braun's hands while the other kicked him in the testicles. Now, after experiencing the physical fallout for himself, the shirt peddler is reconsidering his merchandise. "I don't want to be killed for my t-shirts. I am still shocked about what happened today but there is a big chance that I will stop selling my anti-Obama merchandise after what happened today. I mean, tomorrow someone can show up at my store with a gun, and I don't want that to happen."

Though he's considering halting the sale of the inflammatory shirts, Braun calls the tees "art" and defends his right to make them. Someone should educate this imbecile on the horrors of slavery since he was never taught in school.

Humans like Braunshtein disgust me. While he cries out for tolerance and understanding, his feeble mind fails to understand that his shirts are inflammatory speech, meant to incite violence and threats towards the Democratic nominee for President, and in this case, himself. This fact can’t be denied as the rest of his line of anti-Obama shirts that sell for $69 carry slogans like, “Jews Against Obama,” “Obama=Hitler,” and “WHO KILLED OBAMA?” Is this garbage supposed to be funny?

I don’t believe that Braunshtein is so stupid to believe that his shirts shouldn’t cause a stir, that they wouldn’t incite violence toward him or anyone else. He’s a business man, smart enough to open his own boutique and keep himself afloat. What I don’t believe he possesses is an understanding or desire to understand what America is.

I like to think that virtually everyone that enjoys the great things America offers has enough of a thought process to be talked to, regardless of how opposite their opinion is of mine. I welcome opportunities to see other people’s point of view as long as I know I am getting the same courtesy in return. Apollo Braun is one of few human beings I’d never like to speak with. His reaction to his assault solidifies his blatant lack of reasoning and provincial mindset.

This reaches beyond my support of Barack Obama for President. I wouldn’t advocate violence upon John McCain simply because I believe he will keep this country I love on its downward path. We forget that we’re dealing with real life when we support our respective candidates. If Braun has something he doesn’t like about Obama, and wants to spread some truth he may have stumbled upon, he has every right to do that. What is it about plastering hate speech on a shirt, advocating assassination, and a regression to a slavery mindset to the country that would make someone vote for his choice, John McCain?

To those that look to defend Braunshtein’s hate speech, think about how quickly someone is booed and shunned when they simply challenge John McCain’s military record. Because he spent time as a P.O.W. and exhibited courage and dedication to his fellow soldiers, it is immediately considered taboo to bring up anything negative he did while serving. Anyone that does is considered unpatriotic and in denial about the courageous things he did while being tortured.

With this mentality firmly in place, I can safely assume that Doron Braunshtein and anyone that thinks his t-shirts are okay to sell are advocating the murder of Presidential nominees; including John McCain, long for the days of oppressive and gruesome slavery, and wish for another Holocaust to occur. Since Braunshtein hates America so much, why doesn’t he just go live somewhere else?

Justin Timberlake Edited for Joke at 2008 ESPYs

By Jayar Jackson

Now that everyone has had the chance to see the ESPYs 15 times in the last few days, the controversy of Justin Timberlake's hosting performance has made its rounds.

Boy bander turned all-around entertainer JT seems to be making a living off of his sports related performances needing a tape delay.

How could anyone forget his role in the infamous wardrobe malfunction at the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime performance with Janet Jackson, forcing CBS to implement a tape delay to avoid the FCC the next time around?

Well, our man Justin has now brought his line pushing to the doors of ESPN.

While joking about the Celtics' NBA Champion Paul Pierce's knee injury from Game 1 of the Finals this year, Timberland described his dramatic return as "shucking and jiving" back onto the floor. Although he had been getting laughs all evening, reports say that this joke evoked crickets from the audience of celebrities and professional athletes.

In case you're wondering, Pierce is Black and the term "shuckin and jivin" is a racially offensive way to describe Black people in trouble. It dates back to slavery days in America where a slave may try to quickly come up with a story to tell a White authority figure to get himself out of some mischief.

If it's still not sinking in, the negative imagery that comes to my mind is a Black man, fumbling and stuttering over his words, obviously lying to avoid some sharp and severe punishment for stepping outside of his box. He thinks he's smart, but he'll never fool the wiser White guy.

Unsurprisingly, ESPN utilized their 4 day gap between taping and broadcasting the event to edit out the controversial joke.

Should fans be annoyed and upset over Timberlake's irresponsible use of the term? Definitely. Should Timberlake apologize and move on with his life? Of course, that's what celebrities do. Should people assume that he is a racist that harbors negative thoughts and feelings about Black people? Hell no.

First of all, no one even knows who wrote that joke, and even if Timberlake did, it's pretty apparent that it was misplaced. The images of Pierce bouncing back onto the basketball court after being taken out on a wheelchair probably looked a little like a dance to some. The "jiving" of Timberlake's lame joke seemed to fit in his mind, not realizing that the term has origins of hate, ridicule, and mistreatment.

Pierce wasn't explaining anything, he wasn't coming up with a story to get himself out of any trouble as the term requires.

Bottom line, let him go; stop calling him a racist, a "wigger," (a term I happen to hate) and just keep buying his music every guy tries to hate, but secretly loves. Go ahead, play "FutureSex/LoveSounds the next time your boys come over (because you know you secretly have it). You'll get clowned at first, but they'll soon subconsciously start bobbing their heads!

Can Obama Bring The Races Together? So Far...No.

Americans are sharply divided by race ahead of the first presidential election in which a black candidate will represent a major party, a New York Times/CBS News poll showed on Tuesday,

In the survey, 83 percent of blacks had a favourable opinion of Obama, compared with 31 percent of white voters.

Obama will face John McCain, a white Republican senator from Arizona, in the November 4 presidential election.

On the status of race relations, 59 percent of black respondents they were generally bad, compared with 34 percent of whites who thought the same way.

The nationwide telephone poll of 1,796 adults showed that 39 percent of blacks said there had been no real progress in recent years in getting rid of racial discrimination. Only 17 percent of whites said the same thing.

Twenty-seven percent of whites said too much had been made of problems facing black people, while half of blacks said not enough had been made of racial barriers faced by black people.

The poll was conducted July 7-14 and had a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.
Source: JoAnne Allen; Editing by John O'Callaghan

Intellectually Challenged Black British Brotha Has The Audacity To Claim That Obama Win Will Prolong US Racial Divide

WHEN A BEATDOWN IS THE BEST WAY TO SILENCE INSANITY

"I love Black people", Chris Rock is famous for saying. "But I hate me some niggas!"

Exhibit A: Trevor Phillips, one of Britain’s most influential Black figures. Today this mo-fo accused Barack Obama of cynically exploiting America’s racial divide and gave warning that he could prolong, rather than heal the rift. Where's my can of whup-ass? I know it's around here somewhere!!!

Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, claimed that the Democratic front-runner would ultimately disappoint the African-American community and dismissed the notion that he would be "the harbinger of a post-racial America" if he becomes the country’s first black President.

Writing in Prospect, the monthly current affairs magazine, Mr Phillips suggested that guilt over transatlantic slavery was behind Mr Obama’s support from middle class whites.

"If Obama can succeed, then maybe they can imagine that [Martin Luther] King's post-racial nirvana has arrived. A vote for Obama is a pain-free negation of their own racism. So long as they don't have to live next door to him; Obama has yet to win convincingly in white districts adjacent to black communities," he wrote.

Mr Phillips compared Mr Obama to Bill Cosby and Oprah Winfrey, prominent black “bargainers” – those who strike a deal with white America not to make an issue of historical racism if their own race is not used against them.

But, in a warning to the Democratic candidate, he added that Cosby now cut a “sad and lonely figure” because he had abandoned the moral weapon used by figures such as Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X and Jesse Jackson in insisting that “in the end, salvation for blacks won’t depend on the actions of whites.”

"In truth, Obama may be helping to postpone the arrival of a post-racial America and I think he knows it," Mr Phillips wrote. "If he wins, the cynicism may be worth it to him and his party. In the end he is a politician and a very good one: his job is to win elections."

He added: "If he fulfils the hopes of whites, he must disappoint blacks – and vice versa."

Mr Phillips said that there was no “British Obama” in part because the black British community was much smaller and therefore less likely to produce such high-achievers, and because “Black Britons can't bring centuries of white guilt to bear with the devastating impact that African-Americans have done for two generations”.

The equality chief, a former Labour politician and broadcaster said he did not expect Mr Obama ultimately to win the Democratic nomination, although he conceded it was possible. However, if he did come to power, Mr Obama would not emulate JFK, he predicted, but Bill Clinton, with all the "charm, skill and ruthless cynicism" that entailed.

Mr Phillips is no stranger to controversy, having drawn criticism for past comments on multiculturalism in British society. Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, once said he was a prime candidate for the far right British National Party and his appointment to the CEHR was bitterly opposed by a number of black organisations.

By Hannah Strange [Timesonline]

Racist Renault Ad?

By Jayar Jackson

The French car company Renault recently found itself dealing with a very touchy subject after pulling a UK ad campaign that used the phrase "N-word" over fears it may cause offense. The print ad states, “For ten days, we can’t use the ‘N’ word.” It was designed to promote a limited-period promotion where dealers were supposedly not allowed to say "NO" to customers, but it received a number of complaints immediately.

From as far back as anyone can remember there have been rules, written and unwritten, that just need to be followed in order to stay out of trouble. Mom used to always say, “Don’t run in the house.” “Stop hitting your brother.” “Stay away from that hot oven.” She wasn’t trying to spoil your fun, she just didn’t want to see you run your head into the corner of the couch or treat that burned hand you laid on the stove.

After learning those painful lessons the hard way, but still wanting to freely live adult life, a natural action vs. consequence meter develops in the mind. It's the unwritten rules that have a great deal of gray area and need some explanation.

Race relations and the historically negative use of the word nigger in the world is one subject that has so many unwritten rules to it that a different author “writes” a new version of it every day. Can rappers say it and not rock musicians? What about nigger vs. nigga? What if this one White guy is singing along to his favorite song that happens to say the word about 30 times?

What if an anchor on television is explaining the story of the infamous Kramer-from-Seinfeld rant where he exhibited deeply suppressed negative feelings towards Black people? If they use the term “N-Word,” are they in the clear? What actually happens to Black people when the word enters their ears? If a hunter says the word in the woods and no on else is there to hear it, did he actually ever say it?

When discussing such a controversial and damaging issue such as this, where virtually everyone from the Black community has an opinion and reason to despise the word, we have to realize the reasons why we condemn it. Its usage is born and bred in hate, oppression, brutal murder, and exclusion; those are the consequences we must look to evade.

Celebrities, public figures, and companies that use the word for hateful discourse get into so much trouble for it because they are often influential to many of their followers. A majority of these fans mindlessly follow their lead, causing them to develop irrational and prejudiced beliefs about Black people. Coincidentally, these irrational beliefs lead to abhorrent actions such as hate crimes, limitations of rights, or unfair treatment in everyday life, from police stops to restaurant service.

When trying to rid the world of such despicable behavior, we have to clear our minds and correctly charge each offense for the correct crime. Utilizing a play on words which is very well known throughout the world the way Renault did doesn’t automatically incite the ignorant behavior that historically comes with its usage. You can get hurt running through the house, but why can’t you run in an open, grassy field? Let this French company run, frolic, and jump in this ad. There’s no couch in sight, all they can do is get a grass stain on their knees.