BlackPerspective.net

Dr. Watkin is an eloquent Black professor at syracuse University, and sometimes television commentator. He’s also and Aphrosphere Blogger and even does videos, I remember he had a good Jena 6 video when that story was starting to break last August.

You can visit Dr. Watkins and see his response to O’Reilly at blog.boycewatkins.com/

So anyway, O’Racistly is going after Dr. Watkins because he called Waun Williams, whom I’ve laid off of all these years, an “eternal happy Negro” for giving people like O’Racistly racial cover. And then right after O’Rasictly hit job segment tonight therer was Waun Williams by O’Rielly giving cover to his race suppression efforts, and proving Dr. Boyce right - only tonight he was an indignant eternally angry Negro; but only angry at the Black man. Only if he ever got so angry at O’Reilly and Sean Hannity’s racist antics.

O’Reilly did one of his ambush jobs, this time on Syracuse Chancellor Nancy Cantor. She would not engage except to repeat that Dr. Boyce’s words were his private words and that he was not speaking for the University; and the “reporter” and camera man stalked her all the way to her building.

You can disagree with Boyce Watkins opinion about Williams, but he doesn’t deserve to be labeled a racist for them as he said nothing racist; and he doesn’t deserve to have his boss stalked (and of course she doesn’t deserve to be ambushed and stalked), nor to have his job put in jeopardy.

This reverse claim of racism anytime a person of color speaks up strongly against racism, or about our own racially pandering to the majority for self advancement; is a full bore intential tactic by the defenders of the status quo, of white privelege, or racial discrimination to try to suppress strong voices against racism; and to cut down and try to discredit those standing up for the victims of racism so that the status quo might be maintained.

Support Dr. Watkins

1. I’d say for one, go to his site and leave words of encouragement as I did.

2. Call Syracuse and leave messages of support for Dr. Cantor in support of Dr. Boyce, and to congratulate her on how she handle O’Reilly’s thugs, and didn’t unfairly throw Boyce under the bus: 315-443-1870

Check out this video response by Boyce

[There were technical difficulties with the original post going to an error page when you try to comment, so here it is again]

With yet another blogger list that disrespects bloggers of color, where white is the default for anything good; I’ve decided to get into the fray of blogger recognition.

Villager has come up with the anecdote for Black bloggers being consistently left off of Best blog list, and being highly underrepresented on the blogs sites of popular netroots sites like MYDD and Daily Kos - DO OUR OWN.

For several months now he’s conducted Villager’s Best Black Blog Rankings monthly, based on Technorati Authority and Rank

Open Entrance recently did a Top Black Bloggers List, based solely on traffic

I want to create a list that takes in popularity, influence authority, and subjective quality criteria. To that end I’m holding a contest to create BlackPerspective.net’s Best Black Blogs List.

The process will go as follows:

1. We will take the top 50 blogs from Villager’s most influential list that’s based on Technorati Authority

2. From those 50 we will have a popular vote, and we will take the top 20 vote getters as finalist.

3. From that list of 20, we will personally examine all 20 blogs to determine a top 10 list, and the other 10 will be awarded Honorable Mention.

The criteria for examination are as follows with number 1 being the criteria to carry the most weight and descending in importance from there:

1. The veracity of the content of the blog; including use of multimedia
2. The creativeness and uniqueness of the perspective or twist on the information provided
3. How well written the content is
4. The diversity of content
5. The balance of informative versus entertainment or engagement value
6. The readability of the text area
7. The presentation via the layout

This will provide for a more comprehensive Black Blog list. It will go beyond the often use popular vote; which tells you more about which blogs have more mass appeal and less substantive material, more than it tells you the quality of the blog.

BlackPerspective.net’s Best Black Blogs List will start with its basis being the influence level of the blogs then taking the popularity pulse of those blogs, and yet finish with a human taking stock of the actual quality of the blogs based on some criteria.

This provides a more balanced level of objectivity with a level of critical judgment; rather than just going by raw numbers.

We’ll run this contest either bi-annually or quarterly, I haven’t decided yet.

The post to start your voting with the list of candidates will go up soon, so stay tuned.

Arrested along with Sharpton was Bell’s fiance’ Nicole Paultre Bell and the other two shooting victims in the car with Bell, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield.

Black America Web has the story:

Sharpton, Dozens Arrested in Bell Case Protest
Date: Wednesday, May 07, 2008
By: Tom Hays and David B. Caruso, Associated Press

NEW YORK - (AP) The Rev. Al Sharpton was among dozens arrested Wednesday as demonstrators blocked traffic at the height of the evening rush hour to protest the acquittal of three detectives in the 50-bullet shooting of an unarmed black man on his wedding day.

Police estimated that about 190 people were arrested, including Sharpton, two survivors of the shooting and the slain man’s fiancee. They lined up and put their hands behind their backs as police arrested them on disorderly conduct charges.

Sharpton, the two survivors and the fiancee were released about four hours later, said Sharpton spokeswoman Rachel Noerdlinger…

…The protests were part of a coordinated campaign to urge federal authorities to investigate the shooting of Sean Bell in November 2006.

The three officers were acquitted of state charges last month in a case that from the start ignited protests and spurred criticism of police tactics. One of the officers fired 31 shots, emptying his clip two times in a few short seconds.

Sharpton has said Wednesday’s “pray-in” protest was a preview of potential future demonstrations designed to paralyze the city…

U.S. attorney spokesman Robert Nardoza said the case was under review, but he declined to comment further about a possible federal case.

[see more first hand pictures like this at majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/ - thanks to Cooper for the heads up]

Sharpton, shooting survivors Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, and Bell’s fiancee, Nicole Paultre Bell — who legally took his name after his death — linked arms as they blocked a street at the Brooklyn Bridge’s base.

They were trailed by at least 200 demonstrators who kneeled in prayer in the road and counted to 50 in a reference to the barrage of gunfire that killed Bell.

The arrested protesters were expected to be issued tickets for misdemeanor offenses.

On the opposite side of lower Manhattan, an ethnically diverse crowd of about 80 demonstrators chanted, “We’re fired up; we won’t take it no more,” and held hands as the Rev. James E. Booker Jr. blessed the crowd. After marching to the Holland Tunnel behind a “Stop the Brutality” banner, the protesters blocked two entrances…

There were also protestors into the hundreds at the Queensboro Bridge and Triborough Bridge in Harlem. Read the full story here

I’m still covering the Jena 6 at The Jena 6 Blog - just posted an update today

This post experienced technical difficulties. Please see the repost here:

www.blackperspective.net/index.php/blackperspectivenet-best-black-blogs-contest/#comment-2548

Previously I’ve asked, Do Police Have A License To Kill ? Well, I guess once again the question has been answered in the affirmative. Three unarmed Black men shot 50 times by cops for no specific reason, and they are aquitted. Yet again, the New York “law enforcement” system renders police harming Blacks as lawful.

The fact that two of the three killer cops were Black doesn’t belie the point. Actually that’s what’s so insideous about the fabric of many police departments in this country and how they are rooted in certain mentalities. Blacks who put on the uniform become Blue, incorporating the mentality of the shield as described rather succinctly in a 1988 Ice Cube lyric:

“don’t let it be a Black and a white one
Cause they’ll slam you down on the street top
Black police showing out for the white cop”

But we have to “Respect the verdict”, in other words; except the police’ right to shoot citizens down in the street with impunity.

Disappointment in Jamaica after Sean Bell verdict
BY CARL MACGOWAN | carl.macgowan@newsday.com
12:45 AM EDT, April 25, 2008

On Liverpool Street, as the noontime hour approached and word of the officers’ acquittals spread on Friday, anger was directed toward the Police Department.

“This was a travesty. This tells black males that our lives are devalued,” said Antoine Johnson, 43, of Jamaica. “It tells NYPD that you have a license to kill black males.”

Johnson, who said he had known Sean Bell and also was acquainted with shooting victims Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, called Justice Arthur Cooperman’s decision “racist.”

He described the message sent to the black community in these words: “If you are white, you are right. If you are black, stay back.”

“The court is not going to help us,” Johnson said.

Supreme Court Justice Arthur Cooperman found that the state’s case was riddled with problems and that the prosecutors had failed to defeat the cops’ claim that they fired in self-defense on Liverpool Street the night of Nov. 25, 2006. The 50-shot barrage killed Bell and wounded two of his friends.

“The prosecution has not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that each defendant was not justified” in using deadly force, Cooperman said.

After the verdict, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said “there are no winners in a trial like this.”

www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-nystre0426,0,3138952.story

Sean Bell’s wife to be, since the shooting; changed her last name to Bell, and is raising their two young children.

Another example of why we must stringently oppose the injustice system, and not fall into the trap that accused automatically means guilty.

Here are a couple of previous post that bolster why this is especially true for Black people:

1. Black Teens SIX Times More Likely to be Sentenced to Jail than White Teens and
2. Another falsely convicted Black man is freed by DNA

26 Year Lie
From Staff & Wire Service

Posted April 21, 2008 – Alton Logan, 56, was a young man when he was sent to prison for a murder he never committed.

On Friday, following the death of the real killer, Logan was released from the Cook County Jail after more than a quarter-century behind bars.

“Nobody deserves to be locked away for 26 years for something they didn’t do,” said Alton ’s brother, Eugene Logan, 48, of Portland , Oregon . “It’s a blessing today that my brother’s been released. He’s not been exonerated yet, but we’re going back to court, and it will happen”

It took the misfortune – or good fortune, depending on whose eyes you see it through – of another inmate’s death before the truth came out.

Two attorneys knew all along that it was their client, Andrew Wilson, who had killed security guard Lloyd Wickliffe at a McDonald’s fast-food joint in 1982. But attorney-client privilege had barred them from revealing it. When Wilson died, they were no longer bound by the credo.

“Poor Mr. Logan was locked up all these years for something he didn’t do, and that’s unfortunate that it worked out the way it did,” said Dale Coventry, one of Wilson’s attorneys. “I wish [the release] had happened a lot sooner, but unfortunately, there was no way to do anything.”

Read the rest of the article here

Deadlocked jury forces 2nd mistrial in Miami terrorism
By CURT ANDERSON, Associated Press Writer Wed Apr 16, 6:06 PM ET

MIAMI - The second trial of six men accused of plotting attacks on Chicago’s Sears Tower and FBI offices ended with a second hung jury Wednesday, an embarrassing blow to a case the Bush administration had cited as an example of nipping a devastating terrorist attack in the bud.

U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard declared a mistrial when jurors reported they were deadlocked after 13 days of deliberations in the case of the so-called “Liberty City Seven.”

The first trial ended in December in a hung jury for the same six defendants and the acquittal of a seventh. Lenard set an April 23 hearing where federal prosecutors say they will announce whether they will pursue another trial.

“There’s no way to spin this other than to say this is another stunning defeat for the government,” said Matthew Orwig, former U.S. attorney in Texas who served on a Justice Department terrorism and national security panel.

The defendants were arrested in a June 2006 operation hailed by the Bush administration as a prime example of the post-Sept. 11 strategy of preventing terrorism plots in the earliest possible stages. Yet there was no evidence the group ever acquired explosives or took concrete steps toward staging the attacks; they did have a handgun and a few machetes.

What the fuck! They’re going to take down the Sears Tower with a pistol and some long knives?

See, I and many other Black folks suspected that this was bullshit from day one. These guys seem like some brothers trying to do some good in the hood, and because they’re Black militant minded, the government simply went cointellpro on them just like J. Edgar Hoover did the Panthers.

They didn’t like these brothers politics so they used them to score political points in their “tough on terrorism” game. They’re not securing our ports, securing the border, scanning cargo that goes on planes, or doing any real national security; nor have they captured Osama Bin Laden, so instead they went and captured some boys in the hood for PR.

Now true enough, these guys were flirting with some government informant claiming to be Al Qeada; but he waved 50,000 dollars in their faces. You might not be willing to blow up a building, but someone starts throwing around 50 long your likely to at least talk to them and see if there’s something you can do to make some money.

This is a letter from Color of Change about the latest injustice at the Louisiana State Prison at Angola; once a plantation and still is.

Dear Friend,

After a week of intense public pressure, officials at Angola prison moved Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox out of solitary confinement for the first time in 35 years. But they’re still locked up, for a crime everyone knows they didn’t commit.

ColorOfChange.org members have helped turn things around by making it a political liability for the authorities at Angola to keep Wallace and Woodfox in solitary confinement. I’ve joined them to keep the pressure on by forcing federal and state authorities to intervene and release these innocent men who have been punished for challenging the violence and segregation at Angola.

Will you join me?

www.colorofchange.org/angola3/?id=1456-138198

Prisoners picking cotton at Angola in 1999

When ColorOfChange.org spoke up about the Jena 6, it was about more than helping six Black youth in a small town called Jena. It was about standing up against a system of unequal justice that deals an uneven hand based on the color of one’s skin. That broken system is at work again and ColorOfChange.org is joining The Innocence Project and Amnesty International to challenge it in the case of the Angola 3.

“Angola”, sits on 18,000 acres of former plantation land in Louisiana and is estimated to be one of the largest prisons in the United States. Angola’s history is telling: once considered one of the most violent, racially segregated prison in America, almost a prisoner a day was stabbed, shot or raped. Prisoners were often put in inhumane extreme punishment camps for small infractions. The Angola 3 - Herman, Albert and Robert - organized hunger and work strikes within the prison in the 70’s to protest continued segregation, corruption and horrific abuse facing the largely Black prisoner population.

Shortly after they spoke out, the Angola 3 were convicted of murdering a prison guard by an all-white jury. It is now clear that these men were framed to silence their peaceful revolt against inhumane treatment. Since then, they have spent every day for 35 years in 6×9 foot cells for a crime they didn’t commit.

Herman and Albert are not saints. They are the first to admit they’ve committed crimes. But, everyone agrees that their debts to society for various robbery convictions were paid long ago.

NBC News/Dateline just aired a piece this week about the plight of the Angola 3. And it’s time to finally get some justice for Herman and Albert. For far too long, court officials have stalled and refused to review their cases. Evidence of prosecutorial misconduct and constitutional violations have not swayed them.

It’s now time for the Governor of Louisiana and the United States Congress, which provides the funding for federal prisons like Angola, to step in and say enough is enough. Please join us in calling for Governor Bobby Jindal and your Congressperson to initiate an immediate and full investigation into the case of the Angola 3.

www.colorofchange.org/angola3/?id=1456-138198

Thanks.

Yesterday Barack Obama delivered a remarkable speech on race, elevating the public dialog on the subject by tackling it with an honesty and a forthrightness almost never seen by politicians, and seldom seen from even writers or activist in the greater public realm.

Though a political speech, visa via having to address his Jeremiah Wright problem (sort of speak) it was a wonderful social speech where he acknowledge concerns of all communities in general, including those racial concerns of the group that has perpetrated the racial oppression in this country; being quite conciliatory and even generous towards those who’ve racially slighted him; such as contributing Geraldine Ferraro’s campaign of gender-baiting and race diminishing to being just a “gaff”.

And what did much of white America do with this speech, no not some hooded rednecks representing a minute portion of the population, but NPR listeners and Television pundits; they continue to devolve the conversation into “gotch ya” political point scoring, and continued racial acrimony.

Joe Scarborough of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program says he doesn’t “buy it”. And he, and the say nothings on Fox and Friends, and the youtube posters claim that Wright spewed “hate against white people”.

That’s simply a damn lie! He did no such thing. He condemned white racism; and the question has to be asked, why are white people offended by that? The reality is that this whole episode shows white people actually defending white racism, and defending the status quo of race privilege which Wright rightly condemned.

I disagree with some of Barack’s capitulating characterizations of Wright’s words as I pointed out in yesterday’s piece “Barack Obama’s Speech on Race, Church and Former Pastor”; but I was willing to go with Obama on this, pull back from the acrimony and give more mutual understanding a shot as he’d laid such a nice framework for us all to do so.

But confirming what I already knew, which is why I take the stance that I do, and probably why Dr. Wright takes the stance that he does (and it’s not generational, I’m less than half Wright’s age); rather than take this opportunity to elevate the dialog on race, a great many white people instead are taking it as an opportunity to re-enforce propaganda, including pushing fake patriotic blind worship of the red, white and blue that has Americans claiming to honor the troops with their lips, but their hearts are far from it; as they refuse to put forth a dollar more of taxes to actually safeguard the troops in the field nor honor their service with adequate health and life services when they come back home. Instead, they stick a flag on their house on the 4th of July, and act like that means something. And secondly, instead of elevating the dialog, they’re trying to brow beat the Black conscious into submission behind white superiority and their demand of how we should feel and think.

I let things go for the past few days to let Obama handle it politically, he did, and we get this crap as a response. So now I’m tired of it!

The fact of the matter is Wright didn’t do nothing but tell the TRUTH. In five days I can’t get one person to point out one inaccuracy of fact that he stated, until finally today, one finally mentioned the thing that has barely been a source at all of the condemnation that’s led to all this, the AIDS claim which I will treat in a piece tomorrow. Not even on a youtube video entitled “Obama’s Rev is Wrong”, could the author point out to me even 1 factual inaccuracy. All they talk about is their feelings, their mis-characterizations of what he said; and spew obfuscations so that they don’t have to deal with the issues he raised.

What they mean to say is, “how dare you not be a skinnin’ and grinnin’ happy go lucky Negro, who soft peddles race for white folks (and their capitulators) comfort. Get your Black ass back in line.” Then they slander and demonize the brother in order that the truth dies with his slain reputation.

Also, as I pointed out yesterday, they did the exact same thing even to Martin Luther King. The fake revisionist history we get on t.v. every January and February conveniently leaves this part of the story out; but when MLK spoke strongly against American aggression (as Wright did); despite all the love we KNOW him to have continuously preached, he was still demonized in order that he be marginalized and that the truth he spoke be marginalized with him.

We, Black people, have every RIGHT to our viewpoint from our perspective, born of our experience. An experience America could well learn from if she were willing to listen; but again a great swath of the majority race has refused. Instead, they plug their ears, look for the evil devil blackie racist to demonize, and try to control and DICTATE to us how we should feel and see things - not reconcile our various racial points of views together; but dictate that we bow in ideological submission to their point of view.

Well, my answer is a resounding NO! It was NO yesterday, and it will still be NO tomorrow. I will be dealt with as the equal that I am, not some petulant little thing who just doesn’t quite have the moral constitution to understand why I should simply accept as sacrosanct white paradigmatic ways of thinking. You do not get to set preconditions to the dialog on race as if we’re a bunch of petty dictators of a tiny nation who you can deal with on terms as you will. You do not get to unilateral decide what views are valuable.

Barack Obama yesterday laid out a bridge, offered a grand olive branch, and much of White America swatted it away. Many more accepted it barely; but in away where they feel they are just generously giving the benefit of the doubt, as if blackdome really owes them an apology; but they’re going to let it slide.

In 1965 Malcolm X said “If the white people realize what the alternative is, perhaps they will be more willing to hear Dr. King.”

Maybe white America might want to reconsider dealing with the racial dialog program laid out by Barack Obama; Malcolm X’s disciples are the alternative.

See also Shawn Williams piece that also appears in todays Dallas Morning News: “Black pastors speak truth to power”

Alright, we must start with some precursor information as to who the perspective of this writing is coming from. I’m a 30 year old Black Man.

Now, to the issue:

My first point in backing my thesis that follow is that it’s not my refrain; but one that I’ve learned from Black womanist over the years, namely that the White Feminist Movement as a whole disregards the struggle against racism, disregards Black women’s specific identity as “Black” women, and are caught up in and blinded by their own white skin privilege; while fighting one ism, they often re-enforce another.

These factors have been well demonstrated by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and her feminist surrogates ever since Hillary’s late 2007 “inevitability” faded away, and a Black male became an equally likely contender to Clinton.

The gender baiting got started in earnest by Gloria Steinem once Hillary Clinton lost the first nomination vote. Just preceding the New Hampshire vote she unleashed her color arousal oped to move white women to vote for the white woman over the Black. The two latest examples of diminishing race simply to uplift white womanhood are Geraldine Ferraro’s lie that Obama is simply an affirmative action case who didn’t earn his way on the campaign trail, and is “lucky” to be Black; and loud mouth Roseanne Barr extolling Obama to Bow to the White Woman

The greater factor that builds on top of these factor goes to something Malcolm X pointed out in the Ballot or the Bullet speech. He prefaced the beginning of the speech by saying that we (black folk) should leave religion at home when we come out to discuss our agenda, because if we start talking about religion we’ll just end up fighting. He goes on to say, they don’t lynch you because you’re a Baptist; they lynch you because you’re Black. They don’t lynch me because I’m a Muslim; they lynch me because I’m Black.

When America socially, economically, and judicially lynches us still today, they don’t distinguish between our genders too much; and that includes white women and white female feminist in particular.

The white feminist judge will throw a Black mother’s ass in jail faster than you can say “hear me roar”, while giving a white woman probation for the same offense. When it comes down to the nitty gritty get down; they won’t see you as a woman, they’ll still see you as a nigger.

It’s like the old joke: “what do you call a Black Doctor? A nigger”. Well, those whites who are of that mind, including many feminist, they call Black men and women nigger alike.

It’s funny how it’s a gender loyalty litmus test for Black women to have to vote for Hillary, or you’re selling out womanhood according to many white feminist; but where was the vocalism for Carol Moseley-Braun in 2004? White feminist icons and groups gave the obligatory endorsement, and then white women proceed to vote for everybody but her. It’s funny how Moseley-Braun’s candidacy never got off the ground though women are the majority in the Democratic electorate; mostly white women. Why weren’t their loud pronouncements from white women that you must vote for Senator Moseley-Braun, and calls for Kerry to “bow to the woman”?

White feminist are quick to rant when white women ain’t being done right; but they were slow to get angry when a group predominately composed of African American women were called Nappy Head Hoes on national radio and t.v. Likewise, the white feminist world as a whole is practically silent on missing Black women and girl.

I’m not trying to speak at all to Black women’s agenda as far as fighting for gender equality, which I don’t think is my position; but I am saying that when push comes to shove white folks close ranks together, and white feminist are just that - white. They don’t forget it, and they don’t look at the Black race and say “well we have to stand with those Black people because they’re women.” In the end they take the same color-aroused perspective as white men.

This can be seen undeniably in both Gloria Steinem’s and Geraldine Ferraro’s efforts to diminish racism as a political strategic ploy to bolster a white politician.

They seem to me to only be concerned with Black women and other women of color when they want their support to bolster their own race-indifferent agenda.