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Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud.
SOPHOCLES
Editor's Note: I DO NOT solicit information about the local
NAACP and its leadership. Truly, folks just come up and tell
me stuff. I am just minding my own business then...
I
heard the love doctor ...Donna (she is encouraging me to take the
high road) says that I can't tell what I heard. Everyone appears
to know and she insists that the latest antics with a high-profile
woman speaks for itself and really takes things to an all time
low.(9-14-04)
I have received many comments on my choice
of the Most Embarrassing Black Person in Newark. Most comments
have been positive and they have agreed with my choice and my
position.
A few comments didn't approve of my frank and candid views. Some
felt that I shouldn't try to embarrass a Black politician and that
problems in the Black community should stay in the Black
community. (For the most part, it was the same critique that
Bill Cosby got for commenting on the parenting skills and
educational support of some Black parents.) I do believe that what
is wrong in the Black community, the Black community can fix. With
that, I strongly contend that if the present Newark City
Schools Board President was bold enough not to support a program
that is assisting Black students achieve academic success, I am
bold enough to tell it, particularly when he foolishly put it in
writing. (He can't as he has in the past, call me a liar now!)
Enough on him, all that agreed with me have stated they will voice
their negative disapproving views of him in the ballot box.
(9-10-04)
The most
Embarrassing Black person is
Newark City
School Board President Jeremy Blake.
As Board President, he was asked to write a letter of support for
a grass-roots summer reading program that caters to Black students
on Newark's East Side. The program was writing a proposal for
funding. Mr. Blake refused to write a letter to support the
program because he was mad at the founder and coordinator of the
program.
Previously, he was a supporter of the program and often used the
program for photo opportunities. The summer reading program
founder has made negative but true comments about his character in
the past so Blake took his personal feelings out on the children
the program serves.
Thus, in my opinion he doesn't have the maturity or integrity to
hold public office. For the record, all other elected
officials who were asked to penned a letter did with the exception
of school board member Karen Kreager, but then I have been told my
numerous folks that she and her sister stole my campaign yard
signs and she probably takes direction from Blake. What kind
of Black man doesn't earnestly support a program that helps Black
children, especially when there appears to be a wide gap in the
achievement rate of students of color. He's a bootlicker,
who's interest isn't in the children in our community.
He is a politician who is looking out for his career.
Back by popular
demand!
The second annual Most Embarrassing Black Person in Newark
Award. Last year's winner was Rita Jackson, Newark City
Schools Diversity Coordinator and President of the pitiful Licking
County NAACP. She has sold Black folks out for personal gain
and local media attention. The runner up was Anita
Waters. Cast your votes today, just drop me an email.
I'll put my list up tomorrow. It will be interesting reading
and my picks may surprise you. 5/27/04.
Was yesterday's
Newark Advocate article on the NAACP comedy or what?
"First we need to define the problem."
LOL The
problem is the NAACP is a joke and as diversity coordinator and/or
multicultural specialist for Newark City Schools and the chapter
president (who had a conflict of interest from day one. you
can't
monitor or police your
pay source.) sat on her ass, got paid and did absolutely NOTHING.
So she doesn't need to look very far, because actually SHE is
apart of the problem. It is apparent the Licking County
NAACP is a snake without fangs. Pretty useless as the
forum's attendance numbers and school district participation
reflect. 5/26/04
What rock has the
NAACP been under? Oh yeah, they have been busying planning social
events, banquets and giving awards to themselves. What do they do
with all the money they raise? The achievement gap, curriculum and
discipline rates for Black children have been issues within Newark
City Schools for years. As a parent, I have been asking
questions for the past 10 years. I read the reports the district
produces and it's the primary reason why I sacrifice (I would
rather drive the newest Volvo wagon. It's cute! I would rather
have a bigger house.) and send my Black kids to private
schools. A good education is priceless. It's valuable. We can't
give our children a better gift. It's also the reason why I work
really hard to to establish programming to tutor/mentor the
children in our community and encourage summer reading. My
children are fortunate to attend good schools. My advocacy and
commitment to the Newark's children is to make sure all kids
achieve academic success. 5/26/04.
I have always said,
"If Tyrone can't read in school. Tyrone can't read at home
either."
What's wrong in the Black community, the Black community can
fix!
5/24/04
Cosby's remarks challenge us to discuss race honestly
By LEONARD PITTS JR.
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Maybe somebody spiked his Jell-O.
I bet the audience seriously considered the idea when Bill Cosby
performed last week in Washington at a commemoration of Brown v.
Board of Education.
According to the Washington Post, Cosby's routine ridiculed
"lower-economic people" in the black community for their values,
their mannerisms, their dysfunctions. He described them as
"knuckleheads," complained that they'll buy $500 sneakers — "and
won't spend $200 for Hooked on Phonics. ... They can't speak
English. I can't even talk the way these people talk: 'Why you
ain't? Where you is?'" There was more, but you get the gist.
The Post reports that Cosby's rant elicited "astonishment,
laughter and applause." A "stone-faced" Howard University
president H. Patrick Swygert went onstage afterward and pointedly
reminded the crowd that many of the black community's problems are
not self-inflicted. Which is true. It's also beside the point.
Have you ever wondered why it's almost impossible for blacks and
whites to discuss race honestly? This episode is an answer in
microcosm.
Blacks seldom publicly concede that some of the dysfunction
suffered by the black underclass is self-inflicted for fear of
giving aid and comfort to bigotry. So when analyzing racial
progress or the lack thereof, black folk tend to emphasize racism.
Whites, on the other hand, are often loath to concede that racism
remains the great ball and chain of black life for fear the
admission will besmirch their benign self-image or be used to make
them feel guilty. So they tend to emphasize dysfunction instead.
Blacks and whites have a way of talking past each other.
The fact is, Cosby said nothing about black underachievement that
black people have not said before. His mistake, if you want to
call it that, was in speaking publicly. Because publicly, we —
black and white — prefer to stick to the script that makes it
easiest on us, demands the least from us.
So let me say
something for the record. Much as some white folk pretend
otherwise, racism didn't vanish one fine day long ago. It lives,
here, now, still. And it isn't something black people can cure
through self-improvement. Racism doesn't care how educated,
wealthy or decent you are. It will still call you ignorant, deny
you a loan and throw you in jail. It will still give white people
unearned advantages on the basis of their whiteness.
And yet this also is true: For all the woe it brings, racism is
not the proximate source of all the ills that beset the black
underclass. We do not need white people's approval or even their
involvement to correct much of what ails us — to require that our
children spend less time with BET and more with BOOK, to reconnect
our fathers with their families, to abandon the misbegotten
mind-set that equates ignorance and thuggery with authentic
blackness.
Poverty and miseducation are a petri dish for dysfunction, no
matter what color you are. If you don't believe that, go hang
around a neighborhood of poor and miseducated white people
sometime.
So we ought to be able to raise these issues without it being seen
as a sop to bigotry. In pitting racism against self-inflicted
dysfunction, we embrace a false dichotomy. These are not
contradictory truths but the indispensable halves of a complex
whole.
Yes, Cosby's comments were stereotypical, maybe downright mean.
But for all that, his routine also reflected a willingness, rare
in black people and white ones, to confront the obvious and raise
issues that require more of us than the ability to feel put upon.
Maybe somebody did spike his Jell-O. Maybe they should spike ours,
too. (5/24/04)
HAPPY
BIRTHDAY MALCOLM X!
(5/19/2004)
Hopefully your messages will inspire us
Today
to better our
community for our children and our futures!
By Any Means Necessary (Audio Speech)
About Malcolm X
"…I always
had a deep affection for Malcolm and felt that he had a great
ability to put his finger on the existence and the root of the
problem. He was an eloquent spokesman for his point of view and no
one can honestly doubt that Malcolm had a great concern for the
problems we face as a race." Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in a
telegram to Betty Shabazz after the murder of Malcolm X.
“Here – at this final
hour, Harlem has come to bid farewell to one of its brightest
hopes – extinguished now, and gone from us forever…. Many will ask
what Harlem finds to honor in this stormy, controversial and bold
young captain – and we will smile. …We will answer and say unto
them, ‘Did you ever talk to Brother Malcolm? Did you ever really
listen to him? …For if you did you would know him. And if you knew
him you would know why we must honor him.’” Ossie Davis, actor, in
his eulogy at Malcolm X’s funeral
What made Malcolm X
Shabazz a great man, is that he had the guts to say what
nine-tenths of American Negroes would like to say but don't have
the guts to say.
a Chicago doctor
Quotes from Malcolm
o
Without
education, you're not going anywhere in this world.
o
The
only way we'll get freedom for ourselves is to identify ourselves
with every oppressed people in the world. We are blood brothers to
the people of Brazil, Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba -- yes Cuba too.
o
Education
is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people
who prepare for it today.
o
Student's
all over the world today are standing up for their rights and
fighting for their rights, but here in America, the so-called
Negro students have allowed themselves to be maneuvered under a
tag of "sit-in". The word sit itself is not an honorable tag,
anybody can sit, and old woman can sit, a coward can sit, a baby
can sit, anything can sit, but it takes a man to stand.... Rather
than to force our way into someone else's restaurant or public
place that they have established, we should get our own. Once we
have our own, we're respected for the fact that we can create our
own. That's equality right there.
o
You're
not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality.
Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.
o
I'm
for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who
it's for or against.
o
There
was two kinds of slaves. There was the house Negro and the field
Negro. The house Negroes - they lived in the house with master,
they dressed pretty good, they ate good 'cause they ate his food
-- what he left. They lived in the attic or the basement, but
still they lived near the master; and they loved their master more
than the master loved himself. They would give their life to save
the master's house quicker than the master would. The house Negro,
if the master said, "We got a good house here," the house Negro
would say, "Yeah, we got a good house here." Whenever the master
said "we," he said "we." That's how you can tell a house Negro. If
the master's house caught on fire, the house Negro would fight
harder to put the blaze out than the master would. If the master
got sick, the house Negro would say, "What's the matter, boss, we
sick?" We sick! He identified himself with his master more than
his master identified with himself. And if you came to the house
Negro and said, "Let's run away, let's escape, let's separate,"
the house Negro would look at you and say, "Man, you crazy. What
you mean, separate? Where is there a better house than this? Where
can I wear better clothes than this? Where can I eat better food
than this?" That was that house Negro. In those days he was called
a "house nigger."
And that's what we
call him today, because we've still got some house niggers running
around here.
o
We
didn't land on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock landed on us.
o
Dr.
King wants the same thing I want. Freedom.
o
I
am not a racist. I am against every form of racism and
segregation, every form of discrimination. I believe in human
beings, and that all human beings should be respected as such,
regardless of their color.
o
You
don't have to be a man to fight for freedom. All you have to do is
to be an intelligent human being.
o
Nobody
can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or
anything. If you're a man, you take it.
o
The
political philosophy of black nationalism means that the black man
should control the politics and the politicians in his own
community; no more.
o
Look
at yourselves. Some of you teen-agers, students. How do you think
I feel and I belong to a generation ahead of you - how do you
think I feel to have to tell you, "We, my generation, sat around
like a knot on a wall while the whole world was fighting for its
human rights - and you've got to be born into a society where you
still have that same fight ." What did we do, who preceded you ?
I'll tell you what we did. Nothing. And don't you make the same
mistake we made.
All of us are black first, and everything else second.
Thanks
to ALL teachers. We really appreciate your efforts!
The things you hear in the beauty shop. First of all, my hair
looks good. I heard that the public officials (mayor, police
chief and school officials) were AGAIN duped by the local NAACP.
Rumor has it that they didn't know what the topic of discussion
was going to be at the recent "emergency" meeting. They received
a phone call a few hours before the meeting and were told it was
imperative that they attended. Some cancelled previously scheduled
engagements. I still don't get why anyone would trust a liar.
You don't trust a thief with money. Anyway, this probably
explains why many sat red-faced. They were unprepared and
deceived. 5/3/04
Question of the Day:
If Newark
City School officials contend that there is a race issue within
the District and particularly on the high school campus, why are
they eliminating the District's Diversity Coordinator position?
Although since it's inception there hasn't been a professional in
the position (being "elected" president of a civil rights
organization by a bunch of white people from Granville doesn't
count as professional experience). Who within the District will be
assigned to this important task? Previously the District hasn't
taken students of color and their issues seriously. In the last
school levy campaign for example, the communication department and
director felt it appropriate to depict a group of school children
in printed materials, minus students of color. A picture is worth
a thousand words. (I called to complain and suggested
establishing an advisory group help communicate to the entire
community. No response. They just don't it get! In my marketing
and public relations classes, we learned that consumers respond to
ads that reflect their values, cultures and to folks that look
like them. Again this speaks to the respect NCS gives to
the Black community.) 5/3/04
Well they have seen
the light... I have been voicing the same sentiments penned by the
Hills since the NAACP and the NCS diversity position were
co-mingled. I have repeatedly questioned officials on why the NAACP
has an active presence on campus. Additionally, I have questioned
why Newark City School resources (equipment, phones, long
distance, computers, paper and time) are being used to promote the
local NAACP. A January diversity newsletter had 3 articles on
NAACP fundraising activities.
http://www.newarkadvocate.com/news/stories/20040429/opinion/320710.html
People are talking on
the internet and now in the local paper. I wonder who she is
going to report the Advocate to for personally identifying
information about her, her boss and their organization in their
newspaper without her written consent. 4/30/2004
I still don't get why
Newark City Schools is in bed with the NAACP. Why didn't the
district have its own forum to communicate with parents and
citizens on the threats made against Black students? Many in the
community, particularly the Black community, do not respect the
local NAACP. This was not the best vehicle to communicate.
4/30/2004
By popular demand I am
posting the false police report filed against citizens who
attended a Newark City Schools diversity forum. Nothing was done
as no criminal activities were committed.
·
(Yes,
NAACP materials were made available at a public school event.) For
the record, after reporting the incident to school officials and
the school board, NOTHING was done. Those falsely accused didn't
even get the courtesy of a written acknowledgement of receiving
the complaint. The district's response. "You talk about her on
the internet." For the record, comments were made about the
local NAACP on the internet, but what does that have to do with
Newark City Schools? Again, co-mingling Newark City Schools and
the local NAACP. 4/30/2004
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Page 1 (pdf format) or
Page 1 (jpg format)
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Page 2 (pdf format) or
Page 2 (jpg format)
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Oct 7 email (pdf format) or
Oct 7 email (jpg format)- does this sound threatening? Since
when can't citizens attend public school meetings? The police
blocked out the emails addresses. Those cc'd included Jeremy
Blake, Keith Richards and Cara Riddel.
§
My response to the police (pdf format) or
jpg format (page1)
jpg format (page 2)
§
My response to Keith Richards or
jpg format (page 1)
jpg format (page 2
The big talk around town is racism. Everyone is going around
discussing whether people are racists. The reality is that
America is RACIST. There are two Americas. One Black and one
white. There isn't a white person in the country who would
switch skin tone and live as the average black person.
The country's founding principles are based on a racial hierarchy.
Great wealth was created off of the free labor of slaves and
subsequently the oppression of Blacks. Things haven't changed
much. White privilege, unearned benefits and opportunities based
solely on skin tone, is alive and well. Today, banks and
insurance companies still redline. Law enforcement racially
profiles citizens. Our judicial system disproportionately
prosecutes and incarcerates Black and brown people. Employers
tend to hire people who look like them. In the Newark City
School District, Black students are disciplined more often than
white students. Judging people simply on appearance and skin tone
is a reality.
The beauty of being an American is that people can think and
believe whatever they chose. The issue isn't whether or not people
are racist. The issue is whether or not their actions
impede on others rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness.
As a Black woman, I could care less whether racist white people
like me. But in public places and establishments that receive
public dollars, I am to be respected. All Americans have a right
to feel and believe what they chose. I have always taught my
children that those who chose to use racial slurs are actually
demonstrating THEIR character, spirituality and intellect
-- not yours.
4/25/04.
Are the people of color who live in this community abnormal, in
that we don't live in a community with large numbers of similar
ethnicities? (I really can't believe educated white people
implying this. How can white men comment on the life experiences
of Black people? For the record, most Black people want the same
American Dream as whites. I want to live in a good crime-free
neighborhood, pay less in taxes and send my kids to good
schools. These traits aren't exclusive to the white community.)
Additionally, I don't consider myself a minority because I have
Black skin. Worldwide, there are more people who look like me than
those that have white skin. The term minority marginalizes and
often has a negative tone.
4/25/04.
My phone rang off the
hook after yesterday's NAACP emergency meeting. I almost missed
the best parts of The Bachelor. I can't believe Trish is still in
the running. Some of the comments about the meeting included,
·
"Rita
is so out of touch with the Black kids. She tried to put a good
show on for the few in attendance, but I feel that she should
take some of the blame for the incidents. Isn't she the
district's multicultural specialist? "
·
"Since when did Newark PD become friends of the Black
community? The same guys that harass and profile Black men are
now standing up saying they will protect our children - PLEASE!"
·
"The
meeting should be a wake-up call to Rita. Where were her
supporters? Only about 30 people were in attendance. It is a
shame that the NAACP couldn't rally the community around this
important event. Every Black person in town should have been
there, but who considers Rita Jackson their leader?"
·
"Yes,
Rita tried to sell NAACP memberships at her emergency meeting."
·
"The
School officials in attendance were pitiful and on occasion very
red-faced. How could they not know if multiculturalism is
included in the curriculum? Celebrating Black History month and
Martin Luther King's birthday is not enough. Are Black folks
only included in social study lessons?
·
After
hearing the comments and reviewing the news accounts of the
emergency meeting, I am really glad that I made the wise decision
to send my high school students to very good college-prep schools
(The Wellington School and The Columbus Academy). The responses of
the administrators are totally unacceptable. WAKE UP! I
would rather make the sacrifice and flip hamburgers after hours to
help pay tuition at private schools to get my children a good
quality education in an environment that RESPECTS all, has 100%
graduation rate and where everyone goes to college after
graduation.
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