Cynique

Name-calling and articulating an intelligent argument are not mutually exclusive and all name-calling isn't profane or vile, As long as it is creative and accurate in the context of making a legitimate comparison it is not a sin. Many intellectual wits down through the ages have engaged in name-calling and their quotes are famous.

LOL I, for one, am not suicidal. But I do have an external struggle with being black because the race itself seems to be suicidal, bent on destroying its young via violence. The longer you live, the more disappointed you become with the situation that never seems to go away. Or am I consumed with self-hate which I consider a psycho-babble term thrown around by those who want to put people in boxes. I don't hate myself and I also have no desire whatever to be white. I just want my people to get it together and not burden themselves with a lot of extra baggage by dropping out of school and having more children than they can manage. Racism is of course pretty entrenched so you have to arm yourself with the tools that will allow you to co-exist with it. Such is life.

No,Troy, I don't think Rupert Murdoch gives a damn about black people. And neither did black billionaire, Robert Johnson who sold BET. Ebony Magazine is black-owned, Blacks still hold the controlling interest in the all-black Chicago Defender newspaper, Oprah is a media mogul and owns a magazine, and Tyler Perry has his own movie studio. Has any of this made a big difference?? And the reason why I roll my eyes about this "next step being a race of producers instead of one of consumers" postulation is because this totally unoriginal idea apparently has no legs. For me, it dates back 60 years ago when Malcolm X was repeating what his leader Elijah Muhammad said it about blacks creating their own businesses. And Elijah was echoing what blacks who came before him said. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to realize the importance of blacks controlling what other blacks consume, including the printed word. Perceptive black thinkers have even applied this principle to Christianity and the role it played in slavery, arguing that no people should've worshiped a savior who looked like their oppressor, or revered a bible not written by their own hands. Money, of course is the bottom line so the immediate goal for blacks is to get rich enough to become movers and shakers who will channel some of their wealth into the publishing media. Black people do have a monopoly on hoping things will get better. So hope on.

I am presumably what you all would refer to as a consummate consumer, a status I acquired about 10 years ago. I no longer own anything, which means that I am not burdened with high property taxes or utility bills, I do not have to worry about maintenance and repairs on my yard and my house, The same with a car; no note, no repair bills, no insurance payments, no output for gas. I do pay rent, but at a price I can afford at a place which supplies free heat and air conditioning, Transportation? it's just a phone call away. I am catered to by those who want me to buy what they are selling and I luxuriate in all the conveniences that have replaced the hassle of the ownership which entailed having to do for myself. The pension I collect is a result of the money I worked to earn and now use to finance the things that take the drudgery out of life. When I die, my children will not be fighting over property, they can divide up whatever money I will leave to them. There is something to be said for simply being a consumer. If we somehow become a race of producers instead of consumers, will this really benefit the average black person? Or will it just create black capitalists to ascend into the one percenter ranks as the rich get richer and the poor stay poor. (We are already a race of producers, our product being a surplus supply of fatherless babies that will grow up to meet the demands of the prison industry.) LOL. I say all of this because it is my nature to question everything. Why? Because Life is so uncertain.

You know you’re old if when Black History month rolls around, in addition to celebrating the remarkable accomplishments of your race, you find yourself remembering past events in your life which could now, themselves, be classified as historical. Being born during the Great Depression in 1933, the year Prohibition ended, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected for the first of his 4 terms, I was told that my mother rolled me around in one of the baby strollers provided for visitors to Chicago’s Great World’s Fair, an exposition being held on this city’s famous lake front, and whose theme was “a century of progress“, and where she toured one of the exhibits showcasing the progress of the American Negro. This was when my journey through one of the most compelling eras in the American spectrum began, providing the back drop for events that became chapters in the history book of my life. So much of my history centered around my college days because this was when I ventured out into the world and was on my own for the first time and the campus of the University of Illinois was my testing grounds. In the pre-civil rights year of 1951, during my freshman days there, Alpha Kappa Alpha with whom I was affiliated, decided to break precedence and run one of its sorors for Homecoming Queen, something no “negro” girl had ever done. Our candidate was an attractive 19-year-old named Clarice Davis, a good choice who was poised and personable. The panHellenic council which represented all the sororities and Fraternities was one of the organization who oversaw the the voting for this prestigious honor. apparently all the black soririties and fraternities had formed a voting bloc and And damned if it didn’t pay off. When the campaigning was over and the votes were tallied Clarice had won! A fluke? Maybe. But nothing could dampen the joy that filled the ranks of black Illini! We had made history! We had broken the color bar. The rest of the campus was either too miffed or stunned to do anything but accept the result. On homecoming day our regal winner rode in the parade on a float, surrounded by the court of white runners-up. During the half-time ceremonies, however, the tradition of having the captain of the football team crown the queen and plant a kiss on her before presenting her to the crowd, deferred to racial taboos. This honor was instead delegated to Don Stevens, the football team’s star half-back, who because he, too, was black, made him acceptable. Which also made the memorable moment twice as nice! And the following semester when I relocated from the AKA sorority house and again participated in history by being among the first blacks to integrate the womens' dormitories. I always found it ironic how, while Rosa Parks was growing tired of sitting in the back of Montgomery, Alabama’s buses, and Emmett Till was yet to travel down south to meet his doom, and the idea of sit-ins to protest Woolworth’s Jim Crow policy of “whites only” lunch counters, was not yet formulated, I and the rest of my black dorm mates were living in a residence hall with white maid service, eating in a dining room where white waitresses and waiters served us, and having late night hen parties which pesky white coeds wanted to be included in. This quiet before the storm soon erupted. Time marched on and during the turbulent '60s, as part of the mourners that included an honor guard from one of Chicago's most notorious street gangs, The Blackstone Rangers, I found myself staring down into the coffin of Fred Hampton, my lived in my hometown and who'd become Chairman of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party, a martyred young man murdered in his sleep, shot to death by “pigs” in blue uniforms. This tragedy from the past has never lost its relevance in light of Chicago’s ongoing record of police misconduct. In my position as the first black female columnist of the Chicago daily newspaper where my articles appeared, I wrote about such things from a black perspective. Although certain events are just foot notes, I like to think I participated in history by being among the millions to vote for JFK, the first Catholic president, and later for the first black president whose hand I had shaken and grin I’d returned when Barack Obama was still the junior state senator from Illinois. ,I'd seen my brother become our town's first black Chief Electrician, and shared his pride when he was invited to Washington, DC where President Bill Clinton and The Secretary of the Navy belatedly awarded special medals to him and other members of the first all black-manned ship whose outstanding crew performed bravely under combat in the North Atlantic during World War 2. Now, I make history by just waking up in the morning. Hurry, November! Before I croak, I'm curious to see if I will participate in history one last time, perhaps by being a member of a black voting bloc that elects the first woman president. Meanwhile, pardon me Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells,George Washington Carver, Hattie McDaniel , Paul Robeson, Martin Luther King , Julian Bond, Condoleeza Rice, Toni Morrison, Richard Wright, Jackie Robinson, Serena Williams, and alllll the rest! I’m just trying to squeeze past y’all so I can find a little seat in the back row.

Hummm. I have a problem with this promo - naturally. For one thing the kid looks too young to have voted, and the fact that a black man was elected president twice kinda takes the impact out of the question posed which is actually a non sequitur. Also, the line "Pre-sales in Amazon marketplace is CRUCIAL" is another red-flag. That sentence is grammatically incorrect. It should be are CRUCIAL, not Is CRUCIAL. Sorry, but I am a purist when it comes to language which is why I have such a hard time with the "black lives matter" slogan. If it is a true statement then why is there a need to mount a movement. If it is a reprimand then the movement should be equally concerned with black-on-black crime.

The mission statement of AAFCA does a very good job of expressing the goals of this organization altho it could've been summed up in 4 words: "Fuck The Academy Awards". The young African actor who played in "Beasts of No Nation" was given a standing ovation at the NAACP Image awards televised last week but lost. (He was also nominated for best supporting actor by SAG and lost out to another actor.) An NAACP Image award for best movie was awarded to "Straight Outta Compton", the art-imitating-life film that glorified misogyny and violence, - one more reason why the name of this award needs to be changed to something with more credibility. Too often what it rewards does not exemplify positive images, but simply boosts ratings for the televised ceremony. And the inclusion of "Carol" and The Danish Girl" in AAFCA's nominations once again demonstrates how the LGBT community rides the coattails of Blacks when, actually, these 2 minorities aren't that comparable.. IMO.

Xeon did not make the statement, "Every child born as the result of a Baby Daddy/Baby Mama hook up is just cannon fodder for future inner city violence." I did. But we can always depend on you to distort and cherry pick in an effort to craft your obfuscated rebuttals. The "black self hate" label you try to pin on others is no worse that the self-love your inflated ego has created in order to deny you the realization that you are not infallible. BYE.

You can call your obstinacy in the face of the obvious a "realm of ideas" if you want to. More like the "sound and fury of an idiot saying nothing". ( "Name-calling"? Yes. "Mud slinging"? No.The Bard 's prose is language at its best.)

Presumably these "voodoo" calculations have been around a while but obviously have had no great impact on the status of black women, probably because the reasoning is too specious, and Society-at-large couldn't care less about this "information". Whatever. Hopefully all these black female college attendees whom Sara insists are in the majority, are not educated fools like she is. Where did this Wacko come from and where did she get the idea that posters on this site would benefit from her presence? Does RAID work on gnats??? OK, Sara. Trot out your favorite quote and try not to choke on the baloney that's your favorite snack.

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As usual, you are off point, somewhere out in left field. None of the irrelevant subterfuge you're spouting has anything to do with the ghetto culture that enables the black-on-black crime which represents fodder for the preponderance of gun violence that occurs in the inner city. All you are doing is making a case for white privilege, proving that white people don't have to go around chanting "white lives matter" because The System already knows this and excuses whites from the crimes that black are disproportionately stigmatized with and punished for. Black lives don't matter, which is why the protesters and demonstrators need to find a less ambiguous slogan. BTW, how do you like your baloney? With mayo or mustard?

As somebody just dropping in, I personally find all this extrapolation of figures boring, especially since it's common knowledge that statistics can be manipulated to represent a desired result. I'm curious about the name of Sara's white-anointed book gathering dust on library shelves all over the globe, the publication she keeps crowing about in between touting her friendship with oodles of black female authors. Watta resume! And I can just picture a self-help book about a subject on which she is a foremost authority, its title emblazoned across the cover. DUPLICITY FOR DUMMIES ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

You obviously think if you throw that phrase against the wall enough times, it will stick. Not a chance. No matter how thin you slice it, it's still baloney. LMAO

Bettie WHITE??? LMAO. You can't even get names straight much less figure out which cop is being called a rogue, when actually "rogue" can apply to any trigger happy cop. It's Bettie JONES. And who, besides you, thinks there's anything intellectual about your discourse which consists of nothing more than cliched rhetoric, and age-bashing. My using allegory to describe your devious behavior is done in addition to responding aptly to your remarks, not instead of.

In a recent interview, Cicely Tyson responded to a question about her relationship with Miles Davis, by saying she wouldn't change one thing about their time together and for people to not believe everything they read. Of course she made these remarks on the occasion of her 90th birthday so maybe she just forgot, or maybe she was a masochist. The thing that always impressed me most about Miles was that, allegedly, in the throes of his heroin addiction, he retreated to his childhood home in Alton, Illinois, locked himself away in his bedroom, and kicked the habit cold turkey. I was also amused when Miles said in an interview during the period he was accused of being a sell-out for immersing himself in the 1980 music scene, making videos, wearing a jeri curl and playing his version of current hits. In his inimitable manner he scowled and shook his head, drawling about how when he listened to his old albums, he found them boring and their appeal was lost on him. (Maybe he was back on drugs) ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

But you did make reference to Mel winning the bet about the last rogue cop in Chicago being indicted, and you did provide a link to try and back up this statement. Talk about a slippery eel. SMH And of course, you'll take nothing away from this discussion. The fact that it is a perfect example of why black unity is unlikely, goes right over your head like the arc you think leads to justice because you can't discern that it is a fax rainbow with a pot of fool's gold at the end of it. ROTFLOL ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

LaQuan McDonald's shooting took place over a year ago and his shooter was not the latest rogue cop in Chicago. And there is a possiblity that McDonald's shooter may beat the rap, on a technicality. The most recent unprovoked shootings by a trigger happy rogue cop who on 12/27/15, shot Quintonio LeGrier, an unarmed college student with mental problems, has not produced any indictments. The city has, however, voluntarily settled out of court, with the family of Bettie Jones, the innocent woman bystander who was killed in the crossfire. There are also more recent pending cases of cops killing unarmed Blacks that have not yet produced indictments. And your oblique remarks about people who don't support activists, as being a part of the problem is, itself, a problem. You continue to be in denial about the elephant sitting in the room: Black on Black Crime. Dealing with that is the alternative goal that your critics offer. And what's even more vexing is that a new study shows that young black folks are wantonly killing each other, not so much during gang warfare or drug deals but over minor personal vendettas, many of which originate on FaceBook. The movement to stop this is like marching in place. It goes nowhere. Maybe because it's not as high-profile and media-friendly or appealing to myopic visionaries who like to cast themselves as noble do-gooders. Bottom line, black lives don't matter. Black lives are very expendable. Every child born as the result of a Baby Daddy/Baby Mama hook up is just cannon fodder for future inner city violence.

Was he? Details, please.

OK. BTW, what is UIUC? University of Illinois at Chicago?(UIC) If so, this is the Chicago extension of the state university and many of its students are commuters. The "flagship" university of Illinois is a Big10 school known as the U. of I, and this is where I attended. it is located in the semi-rural area of central Illinois in Champaign-Urbana which is about a 3-hour drive from Chicago. In the tradition of all big 10 schools, it has been around since the 1860s. (Its sport teams are nicknamed The Fighting Illini.) There's a world of difference between the 2 campuses.

Yes! Did you know Theresa, Troy? Me and another friend who went to Illinois were just discussing this, amused that somewhere along the way, she knocked a couple of years off her age because we were all down at Illinois at the same time during 1951 so she couldn't have graduated from high school in 1953 as the article states, but should've been the same age as we are which is 82. But it's not unusual for women to lie about their age as they grow older. Which last line struck you as funny, Mel.

If you live long enough, some time you get to see things come full circle. After I enrolled as a Freshman at the University of Illinois in September of 1951, I soon became immersed in a tight little community consisting of about 300 black students on a campus whose total population was an eclectic mix of 25,000 or so young mid-westerners from the farms and villages, towns and cities all over the state of Illinois, fresh-faced sons and daughters of the heartland, venturing out into the world, eager to further their educations at the flagship state university whose alma mater statue towered over the campus broad walk, welcoming all comers with open arms. Among the black group who converged on this campus during this era was a contingency from Chicago, a confident, city-bred bunch providing a contrast to us small town squares from Chicago's various suburbs. But we co-existed and learned a lot from each other and the good and bad times we experienced remain imprinted on my memory. Once my college days ended and the civil rights movement began picking up momentum, it was not uncommon for me to run into friends I had attended Illinois with. We’d chat briefly and they’d always kid me about seeing the inflammatory letters to the editor and later a monthly column I wrote in my capacity as token black person hired by a Chicago newspaper to scold its racially prejudiced white readership. “Give em hell”, my old pals would always encourage and I was glad to be a position to do this. Among those ol college chums was a gal who I'd never hit it off with. I was reminded of those days when I started seeing her by-line in the famous Chicago Defender, the black newspaper where she held the position of society columnist, reporting about events and activities, gossiping about who was seen where with whom. By this time I was married, raising a family and working a regular job that had nothing to do with being a journalist. And I could just picture her gloating, and luxuriating in her glamorous career. Years passed and The Chicago Defender fell on hard times, its circulation plummeted, and poor management resulted in financial woes. Still it managed to stay afloat and cobble together a thin week-end edition and whenever I happened to pick up a copy I’d notice that the society columnist was still around, keeping readers informed of what was happening in Chicago's social circles. Earlier this week, roused from my hibernating, reading my morning newspaper skimming over its OpEd page, I noticed a letter , praising Chicago’s police force, portraying them as victims of political correctness, heroes who should be respected instead of reviled. I set the paper aside and thoughts began to converge in my head. Gradually something began to stir inside of me and a dim flame flickered. Slowing rising from the ashes of my lethargy, I headed for my computer, sat down in front of the console, placed my fingers on the keyboard and fired off an e-mail to the editor, responding to the cop apologist, informing him that the duty of a policeman was to serve and protect, and how every citizen had a right to expect that, where law enforcement was concerned, the punishment should fit the crime and the so-called good cops were guilty of covering for rogue cops who racially profiled and shot unarmed suspects in the back! Yesterday, once again, settled in with my morning newspaper, just out of curiosity, I checked to see if they’d run my letter to the editor. And much to my surprise there it was, word-for-word, leading off the reader feed-back section, leaving me to chuckle as the years fell away, and once again my pen was sharp. Smiling to myself, leisurely riffling through the rest of the paper, a small headline suddenly caught my eye and I paused to read what it announced. It turned out to be an obituary reporting, of all things, the death of The Chicago Defender’s long time society columnist, my old college acquaintance referred to in the article as a “grand dame” who left no survivors, only a legacy of scrap books and photo albums. I felt a little sad. No, I wasn’t a grand dame society editor, but beside being a wife, and a mother, I am not only a grand mother but a great grand mother whose irate letters still make it into to print. Guess we’re even. May the ol girl rest in peace. Me, I’ll opt to snooze in contentment. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

I agree with Troy. What some call, negativity, I call reality. The Black Lives Matter movement may not be lacking in enthusiasm but is political power really the answer to the problem or is it comparable to using anti-biotics to fight a virus? Bright-eyed young women can organize all they choose but they need to target the right culprit. This group seems focused on convincing white people that black lives matter when it's obvious that they don't matter due to the proliferation of black-on-black crime that is rampant in the inner cities of this country. This is not about politics it's about culture. The violence and disregard for human life that plagues black communities, is spawned by a baby-mama/baby-daddy, FaceBook, street gang culture that is very entrenched in the ghetto. This is where the movement needs to make inroads, where change needs to occur. And this is all but impossible because the self-destructive lifestyle that has broken down the family and made shame non-existent is passed down from generation to generation. Black unity is elusive because it requires the race to become a tribe with a cookie cutter mentality where everybody is going to walk in lockstep and adopt a herd mentality. Black folks are not monolithic enough for this to prevail. So what is the answer? Not all problems have solutions, mainly because by the time a solution has been settled on, the original problem has morphed into something else. But keep hoping for change, Ladies, even if Obama has proved that doing this is an empty pursuit. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

@Troy, Adam Clayton Powell was very charismatic, flamboyant and, not surprisingly, a ladies' man. He was a tragic figure in his final years and some would argue that his legislative legacy was besmirched by his personal excesses. His first wife, was piano virtuoso Hazel Scott, who was famous in her own right. @Xeon. Long time no hear from! The United States is the country of African Americans by default. We are its step children, just as Native Americans could be regarded as its orphans. I don't relate to any other country but when it comes to this nation, I'm certainly not patriotic. Hummmm. My ground hog day break is over and speaking of beady-eyed rodents, I loved Trump's defeat; hated Cruz's victory, and only give the first installment of the OJ Simpson saga **. Back to my cave. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ