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That's accurate. I've been sitting into his easy chair for exactly 2 years this month. It's been a blast chopping it up with you all. 😎

True True....we do not NEED to, but should emulate what has worked, and choose from that pool of characteristic that which to emulate that best suits us given our current situation. True. Yes....but now we will be in a more economically stable position from which to deal with those issues. I will not worry about this as an issue it is a situation of "damn if you do and damn if you don't". They are those who are already claiming that the race issue has been solved since the sixties. True. Yes we will have to guard against Corporate America stealing under False Pretense and Color of Law and Process We do not NEED it.....We are Owed it

Lol.... As soon as I read the title of the thread I thought of Dr. Claude Anderson. I didn't even know the thread was going to be about him, but I thought of him because he's said that before and in just THAT way. He's the only person I know who phrases it like: "Obama didn't do a "durn" thing for Black folks.".....lol. I'm not the biggest fan of President Obama but I wouldn't go as far as to say he did NOTHING for us. 1. I would say he did nothing SPECIFICALLY for Black folks. He did do a few things for the country in general that INDIRECTLY benefitted Black America but nothing for us directly. 2. Just him BEING IN OFFICE and being elected twice actually benefitted us to a certain extent because: a) It showed the world that AfroAmericans are qualified to run one of the strongest and wealthiest nations in the world. b) It showed AfroAmerican children that if you did good in school and stayed out of trouble you COULD eventually become President of the United States. He broke the barrier. 3. And importantly......what did we DEMAND that he do for us? Did we have a Black agenda read for him to check off and execute or did we just vote for him HOPING he'd give us some jobs and money and clean up the ghetto? Frederick Douglass said power concedes NOTHING without a demand. If we wanted President Obama to do more then we should have DEMANDED it.

Troy Well if you grew up in THAT neighborhood during THAT time, I don't know whether to feel sorry for you or be amazed that you made it out....lol. That 'hood looked hard core and run down even at the beginning of the video with the little boy running through it.....then got progressively WORSE as the video continued, lol. Not sure how you felt like even going to school and getting an education let alone good grades and going to college coming from a community like that where you could walk down the street and anything could happen to you at any time. I probably would have either became an outlaw or radical community organizer determined to clean up the place....lol. Growing up to go to college would be one of the last things on my list to seek. Another thing I noticed about Heron's video was the sizeable number of Puerto Ricans I saw in it. I knew New York had a large Puerto Rican population but I thought they lived separately in their own barrios like East Harlem and the Bronx. The few times I've been to Harlem I barely saw any Puerto Ricans (unless they were Black and I didn't hear them speak) unless they were driving through to get to another neighborhood. Seems to me that in Harlem at that time they lived pretty integrated in with the AfroAmerican population.

Well, we need to have set and established standards that most of us can agree on in order to measure progress. Unfortunately, the only human civilization in this world that is advanced enough to compare ourselves with is Western/European civilization. Western medicine, schools, buildings, militaries....are the institutions most nations measure themselves by to determine how developed they are. Is it the best? Obviously not. However what are we in America or those in Africa producing that is better? I'm not talking shit....I SERIOUSLY believe that if we just focused on it and put a decent amount of effort to it and UNIFIED for it....we could produce a civilization far more superior than Western/European civilization. And we could do so in less than 100 years.....easily. But as a group we need to get our minds straight and focused and stop it with juvenile criticizing of White institutions WHILE not having even one comparable to them of our own. You don't like the White man's criminal justice system or the police....understandably. But we don't have a decent reliable one of our own as an alternative. Who do Black women in America or African women run to or call on when criminals, murderers, and rapists try to victimize them? Niggas running wild and loose in the ghetto and in many parts of Africa, killing families and sometimes entire villages with nobody (outside of White folks who pretend to help) to check them on it and bring them to justice. You have some police departments and militaries copied after the White folks ones....but many of them do a shitty job or protecting and enforcing law and order. Outside of the Nation of Islam and a few other scattered Black groups, how many qualified Black policing organizations are in effect today? You don't like the White man's medical system.....understandably. It often makes more diseases and problems than it cures. But do we have one BETTER? How many hospitals do Black folks operate where if you get sick you can lay up in a clean bed and get cared for by qualified Black doctors who will cure you and qualified Black nurses who will give you tender loving care and bathe you as you recooperate? Here OR in Africa? I haven't seen PICTURES of clean and well organized Black doctors and nurses since the days of Marcus Garvey. Where are the team of Black nurses like we had under Marcus Garvey back in the 1910s and 1920s???? We need to get on the ball.

Given your judgemental response, if you don't care now, you will very likely care soon, once you understand the underlying message that Jay-Z and the entire hip-hop ecosystem is sending. From the way it at least looks right now and under deeper scrutiny, Jay-Z's journey through life may be commendable in some respects, but in others, his entire personal and business lifestyle and the cultural carnage those lifestyles have left behind appears to have both promoted and elevated his success to a level that will never be achieved buy even the .001% of the underprivileged.

@Maurice I embedded the videos for you. I’m very familiar with both songs but never saw the videos. The one by of Gil Scott was nostalgic for me, because it showed the neighborhood I grew up in during the period I grew up into it. this image, from the video, shows the video from my window. I was a bit higher almost parallel to the train tracks. That is Park Ave in East Harlem. The same park Avenue where very wealthy New Yorkers live, only the train is underground there. The train was so loud and the windows so poorly insulated you could here your self think when the train was going by. @Croocked T any of MJ’s videos are classics, Earth Song was on another level

Kassahun Checole Has Been Named Winner of PEN Eritrea’s Freedom of Expression Award 2023! Publisher Kassahun Checole, the founder of the world-known Africa World Press and the Red Sea Press, has been named the winner of PEN Eritrea’s Freedom of Expression Award 2023. This year’s Awards Committee comprised Habtom Weldeyowhaness, Yirgalem Fisseha and Yonatan Tsighe (Dr), received a long list of contestants, and after an in-depth examination of the conditions, the judges selected Kassahun Checole as the winner of the Award. Kassahun’s colossal contribution to Eritrean and African literature requires another volume to give it full justice. Kassahun’s publishing activities, which he began in 1983, have enabled the voices of the subaltern to be heard. He produced books and magazines that inspired and continue to inspire many young, would-be African writers. Kassahun has published over 3,500 titles by thousands of authors in some 20 languages on various themes—African history, indigenous religions, and literature and art. He was one of the organisers of the January 2000 “African Languages and Literatures” conference held in Asmara, rightly named “Against All Odds”. He was also one of those who toiled for the political liberation of post-independence Eritrea— the G-13, a group of Eritrean academics and professionals— signatories of the “Berlin Manifesto”, in which they stated their grave concerns about the overall deteriorating situations and demanded genuine reforms in Eritrea. The Berlin Manifesto was a forerunner of the G-15, a group in Eritrea that opposed the policy of President Isaias Afewerki, his postponing of elections and his failure to implement the constitution. Kassahun has produced thousands of literature and hundreds of books – used as textbooks in various educational settings, in addition to his outstanding services in documentation for educational and research purposes. He has published books by many prominent Eritrean writers such as Abeba Tesfagiorgis, Alemseghed Tesfay, Ghirmai Negash, Bereket Habteslasie, Rev. Ezra Ghebremedhin and many others. Nobel laureates East Timorese José Ramos-Horta and the South African bishop Desmond Tutu, Kenyan writer Ngugi Wa Thiong’, Noam Chomsky, Sonia Sanchez as well as Basil Davidson are among the hundreds of international authors and laureates their works published by Kassahun. He is a strong supporter and activist of the Pan-African movement. Award committee chair Yonatan Tsighe said: “Checole’s efforts and achievements in documenting and researching indigenous knowledge of Eritrea is phenomenal. The Award committee members are honoured to present him with this Award on behalf of all member writers and journalists.” Poetess and journalist Yirgalem Fisseha commented: “Kassahun has devoted his prime and old age to publishing literary works, and his unremitting efforts and productivity stand exemplary to all lovers of literature and art”. The PEN Eritrea Freedom of Expression Award was established in 2019 by PEN Eritrea in Exile to recognise an individual, a group, or an institution with outstanding merits for advancing literature and freedom of expression in an Eritrean context. The Award is announced every year on September 18th to signify the date of the assault on freedom of expression and to champion the courageous journalists, writers and government critics languishing in inhumane conditions in Eritrean prisons since September 2001. The award winner receives a certificate of recognition, a medal and $1,000. Accordingly, the 2023 PEN Eritrea Awards Committee has unanimously decided that the world-class publisher Kassahun Checole will be the winner of the 2023 PEN Eritrea Awards for his contributions to printing and freedom of expression. Kassahun said, “I feel honoured because the award places me within the circle of those Eritreans who have paid and continue to pay a heavy price for acting on their patriotic duty to stand for democracy and freedom in our beloved country and Africa as a whole.” A graduate with distinction from SUNY Binghamton in Sociology and Political Economy, Mr. Checole has taught at Rutgers University and El Colegio de Mexico in Mexico City. He was one of the founders of the first graduate program in African Studies in Latin America. Kassahun will receive the Award at a ceremony hosted by PEN Eritrea on October 8th in Antwerp-Belgium, alongside its annual meeting, which will be held from October 7th to 8th. The event will be live on fb@PENEritrea Former winners of the PEN Eritrea Freedom of Expression Award are Abrar Osman (2022), Ghirmai Negash (2021), Saleh Gadi Johar (2020), Yirgalem Fisseha (2019)