R.I.P. Michael Jackson

I know that I'm days late with a post about Michael Jackson but I just had to wrap my mind around his sudden death. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. It just seems surreal. Death is part of life but it always seems unimaginable when it's your favorite artist.

See, I'm an 80's baby so his death affected me in a different kind of way. His music is the soundtrack of my childhood. I had school supplies and posters with Michael's images on them. I tried my hardest to mimmick his dance routines. I could recite the lyrics to all his songs. I caught every one of his award show performances. Nobody was touching Michael. Not even Prince ;-)

Michael's videos were played on regular network channels. People would lose their damned minds over him. Fainting and everything. He still has the best-selling album in music history. People still can't touch Michael. My man shut down Twitter, Facebook, and Google because of the reports surrounding the conditions leading up to his death.

What I loved most about Michael was his ability to appeal to people multiculturally, multiracially, and most importantLI, multigenerationally. I can't think of one artist as of late that has multigenerational appeal.

I'd like to wrap this post with some amazing videos and songs by and including Michael Jackson. Rest in peace, Michael. You're in a better place.

"Can You Feel It" by The Jacksons:



"Beat It" by Michael Jackson:



"Got to Be There" by Michael Jackson:

More Proof That Elisabeth Hasselbeck Is a Mindless Twit

Props to Jesse Ventura for the bold, and much-needed questioning.

H/T to Macon D.

Why Don't I Feel Sorry for Them?

For Christine Cameron, the recession became real when the financial analyst she had been dating for about a year would get drunk and disappear while they were out together, then accuse her the next day of being the one who had absconded.

Dawn Spinner Davis, 26, a beauty writer, said the downward-trending graphs began to make sense when the man she married on Nov. 1, a 28-year-old private wealth manager, stopped playing golf, once his passion. "One of his best friends told me that my job is now to keep him calm and keep him from dying at the age of 35," Ms. Davis said. "It's not what I signed up for."

Peep the mission statement:

Are you or someone you love dating a banker? If so, we are here to support you through these difficult times. Dating A Banker Anonymous (DABA) is a safe place where women can come together - free from the scrutiny of feminists- and share their tearful tales of how the mortgage meltdown has affected their relationships. DABA Girls was started by two best friends whose relationships tanked with the economy. Not knowing what else to do, we did what frustrated but articulate girls have done since the beginning of time - we started a blog. So if your monthly Bergdorf's allowance has been halved and bottle service has all but disappeared from your life, lighten your heart with laughter and email your stories to dabagirls@gmail.com. Warning all stories sent will be infused with our own special brand of DABA Girl humor.

SOURCE

Two words of criticism: Plum foolery. One word of advice: Reevaluation.

B#tch Please.

I love how out-of-touch White Americans assume some pseudo authority on race relations. I love how they conveniently ignore the "One Drop Rule" when convenient. I love how they pretend that we're all holding hands across the nation singing "Kumbayah" while dishing racist vitriol. I love how they can be unhealthily obsessed with people of color and dehumanize us at the same time.

And I also love how they can rely on antiquated and ruled-out research that feminizes and racializes poverty. I also love how they can run off at the mouth without offering any solutions. Bitch please.

Negro Please

*SMH* Is this what Nas was talking about on Hip Hop Is Dead? The fact these wet-behind-the-ears rappers pop shit and have no regard for their elders who've paved the way for their asses? His album better be a classic.

C. Hamilton needs to humble himself cuz he could easily find his way back to his old cardboard mat. You ain't been off the streets that long, homie.

H/T to I.G.O.D. over at the9elements.

Barack Obama Elected POTUS

Never did I think I'd see this day. I was prepared for this election to be stolen with all of the reports of faulty touch screen voting machines.

A Black man and his family in the White House. Amazing. It's really empowering to know that we can now honestly tell young Black children that they can be president. This is so surreal. I'm speechless and all cried out over this joyous moment.

See you at the inauguration :-)

"Vote for Me"

Please get out and vote. Be informed and vote the issues and vote your interests. I don't care who you vote for. Actually I do ;-) but still, vote.

Condi Rice Admits to White House Torture Talks

I just heard this on The Rachel Maddow Show.

These are news results that I've found so far:
http://news.google.com/news?sourceid=navclient-ff&rlz=1B3GGGL_enUS247US254&um=1&tab=wn&hl=en&scoring=n&q=condi+rice+admits+torture+talks&btnG=Search+News

It's always safe to 'fess up on your way out *Rolls eyes* Disgusting.

Why Is Georgia Rushing to Kill Troy Davis?

What’s the Rush?
By Bob Herbert

Troy Davis, who was convicted of shooting a police officer to death in the parking lot of a Burger King in Savannah, Ga., is scheduled to be executed on Tuesday.

There is some question as to his guilt (even the pope has weighed in on this case), but the odds of Mr. Davis escaping the death penalty are very slim. Putting someone to death whose guilt is uncertain is always perverted, but there’s an extra dose of perversion in this case.

The United States Supreme Court is scheduled to make a decision on whether to hear a last-ditch appeal by Mr. Davis on Sept. 29. That’s six days after the state of Georgia plans to kill him.

Mr. Davis’s lawyers have tried desperately to have the execution postponed for those few days, but so far to no avail. Georgia is among the most cold-blooded of states when it comes to dispatching prisoners into eternity.

So the lawyers are now trying to get the Supreme Court to issue a stay, or decide before Tuesday on whether it will consider the appeal.

No one anywhere would benefit from killing Mr. Davis on Tuesday, as opposed to waiting a week to see how the Supreme Court rules. So why the rush? The murder happened in 1989, and Mr. Davis has been on death row for 17 years. Six or seven more days will hardly matter.

Most of the time, the court declines to hear such cases.

If that’s the decision this time, Georgia can get on with the dirty business of taking a human life. If the court agrees to hear the appeal, it would have an opportunity to get a little closer to the truth of what actually happened on the terrible night of Aug. 19, 1989, when Officer Mark Allen MacPhail was murdered.

He was shot as he went to the aid of a homeless man who was being pistol-whipped in the parking lot.

Nine witnesses testified against Mr. Davis at his trial in 1991, but seven of the nine have since changed their stories. One of the recanting witnesses, Dorothy Ferrell, said she was on parole when she testified and was afraid that she’d be sent back to prison if she didn’t agree to finger Mr. Davis.

She said in an affidavit: “I told the detective that Troy Davis was the shooter, even though the truth was that I didn’t know who shot the officer.”

Another witness, Darrell Collins, a teenager at the time of the murder, said the police had “scared” him into falsely testifying by threatening to charge him as an accessory to the crime. He said they told him that he might never get out of prison.

“I didn’t want to go to jail because I didn’t do nothing wrong,” he said.

At least three witnesses who testified against Mr. Davis (and a number of others who were not part of the trial) have since said that a man named Sylvester “Redd” Coles admitted that he was the one who had killed the officer. (More Stuff...)

For more information on Troy Davis, visit http://www.troyanthonydavis.org/

Anti-Racism Activist Tim WIse

I'm fairly familiar with Wise's work. He's an author, essayist, and lecturer on anti-racism. After reading this blog entry of his, you'll see that his last name's very fitting.

This is Your Nation on White Privilege
By Tim Wise

For those who still can’t grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.
White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because “every family has challenges,” even as black and Latino families with similar “challenges” are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.
White privilege is when you can call yourself a “fuckin’ redneck,” like Bristol Palin’s boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll “kick their fuckin' ass,” and talk about how you like to “shoot shit” for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.

White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.
White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don’t all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you’re “untested.”

White privilege is being able to say that you support the words “under God” in the pledge of allegiance because “if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it’s good enough for me,” and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the “under God” part wasn’t added until the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.


White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you.


White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was “Alaska first,” and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she’s being disrespectful.


White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor--and people think you’re being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--you’re somehow being mean, or even sexist.


White privilege is being able to convince white women who don’t even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a “second look.”


White privilege is being able to fire people who didn’t support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.


White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God’s punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you’re just a good church-going Christian, but if you’re black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you’re an extremist who probably hates America.


White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a “trick question,” while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O’Reilly means you’re dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.


White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it a “light” burden.


And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren’t sure about that whole “change” thing. Ya know, it’s just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain…


White privilege is, in short, the problem. (Source)

Preach it White man! Preach it!