The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was founded in October 1966 - 40 years ago - largely in response to police brutality, oppression and poverty in urban communities.

The battle for civil rights and civil liberties was at a turning point. American soldiers were fighting an unpopular war of aggression against people of color in a far away land. The nation’s Texas-bred president was under great pressure from citizens to end the war and from business leaders to keep the war on track. Government agencies were cracking down on dissent by spying on anti-war protestors and other American citizens.

But Huey P. Newton isn’t around anymore, and any sense of deja vu that you have is misplaced. Comparing Iraq to Vietnam is like equating a quagmire in the middle of the desert to a swamp in the heart of the jungle.

This is the message of police advocates like Darrell Ross and David Klinger, who claim that despite the recent rash of violent police incidents that have been reported in the media (and showing up on YouTube), police brutality and the use of excessive force are much better than they used to be. (more…)

Spring Break is so over for the Bush twins! Oh wait, it isn’t spring!?!

President Bush’s daughters, Jenna and Barbara, have been celebrating their 25th birthday in Argentina. Yet, the U.S. Embassy has suggested the partying sisters should return home amid reports of the twins runnning naked down the hall of their hotel. Barbara also got her purse ’stolen’….

(Was this the same ’stolen’ that happened when Jenna got drunk in New York a couple of years ago?)

The U.S. Embassy in Argentina has said they should return to the U.S.

But the Bush twins are like, ‘OMG…I am soo not coming home early, Dad.’

It is clear when you watch the racist rant by Michael “Kramer from Seinfeld” Richards at LA’s Laugh Factory that he “went into a rage” at “Afro-American” heckler Kyle Doss and lost his ever-lovin’ mind. What isn’t clear from the cellphone video is what Doss said to provoke his tirade.

Still there is no excuse. As a public figure and performer, Richards can’t lose control like that in a public setting. Was he drunk? Was he coked up? Or was he just having a bad night that turned into a nightmare after what Doss calls “good-natured heckling”?

This could be a career ender for Richards who has been struggling with the so-called “Seinfeld curse” since that show was cancelled years ago. If he had turned the whole thing into a joke, as most comedians do with hecklers, this would be a non-story. Instead he let the jibes get the best of him, lost his sense of humor and perhaps ruined his life in the span of three minutes.

Watch Richards’ apology on David Letterman
(Notice how quickly the machine got golden boy Jerry Seinfeld out to do damage control. We must save those DVD sales and syndication dollars!)

Richards banned from The Laugh Factory
Paul Rodriguez: “The audience came expecting to see Kramer, and they got Mark Furman!”

Despite the publishing mania for anything tell-all or confessional…it seems O.J.’s confession is a bit too much.

News Corporation just sacked O.J. Simpson. The parent company for Fox News and HarperCollins pulled the plug on Simpson’s TV interview AND book release “If I Did It.”

His publisher Judith Regan said the book described how he would have committed the 1994 slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman, “if he were the one responsible.”

America has been outraged ever since the announcement.

Ronald Goldman’s sister, Kim Goldman, told CNN: “He’s snubbing his finger to the system, to the community again. He’s telling us one more time, ‘I’m gonna continue to get away with killing your family members and I’m not gonna honor the judgment and look at me, ha, ha, ha.”‘

FOX

A UCLA a student says he was racially profiled on campus and then tasered with a stun gun.

If minorities united to fight similar ills, we’d be a bad shut yo mouth.

Yahoo! News

The frenzy of the Playstation 3 console is egregious. Some one was shot in line at Walmart in Connecticut. In Kentucky people were pelted with BB guns. A man in California ran into a pole when he was racing to get into a Super Walmart.

Saturated with high definiton images and fake real world adventures, America - no, the world - is loosing it.

Those standing in line are the same ones who need addiction counseling.

Getting shot for the sake of our sanity –Yahoo! News

Mayor Frank Melton of Jackson, Mississippi was elected in 2005 with a tough-on-crime campaign platform. Sure the city of 184,000 has a crime rate that is double the national average, but perhaps the mayor has taken it a little too far.

After gaining national attention for taking part in police raids and roadblocks, Melton pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges for carrying a weapon into a park and a church and no contest to a reduced charge for what would have been a felony - carrying a gun onto the campus of the Mississippi College School of Law. He received a six-month suspended sentence on each count, a year’s probation and a $1500 fine. The plea deal on the reduced felony charge allows the mayor to stay in office.

Melton still faces unrelated charges for a case in which he and his two police bodyguards are accused of ransacking a duplex he claimed was a drug haven. The property owners deny this charge and have filed a lawsuit. The ACLU has also accused Melton of civil rights abuses and racial profiling.

It’s too early to tell whether the Wyatt Earp theatrics are reducing Jackson’s crime rate, but one wonders whether crime in Detroit would go down if Kwame Kilpatrick walked into Greater Grace or U of D Mercy with a shotgun.

I am not quite sure where author, NPR commentator and screenwriter, John Ridley is going with this one…

It sounds like one of those ‘being Black and worrying about Black folks can kill you’-type moments that some of us are known to have. His basic point is that “niggers” have forgotten what really matters in this world–accomplishment. And accomplishment is empowerment.

A little Bill Cosby-ish…a little neo-con…but worth reading.

“So I say this: It’s time for ascended blacks to wish niggers good luck. Just as whites may be concerned with the good of all citizens but don’t travel their days worrying specifically about the well-being of hill billies from Appalachia, we need to send niggers on their way. We need to start extolling the most virtuous of ourselves. It is time to celebrate the New Black Americans—those who have sealed the Deal, who aren’t beholden to liberal indulgence any more than they are to the disdain of the hard Right. It is time to praise blacks who are merely undeniable in their individuality and exemplary in their levels of achievement.”

Is John Ridley having a breakdown?

Nigger v. Queer: How gays got it right

There have been a lot of “snakes” slithering inside of America’s most holy of places — the church.

Who knew the evangelical saint Ted Haggard was a gay, two-timing meth user. Read the letter he sent to his church, New Life.

And former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley’s priest alledgely molested him as a child.

But there have also been snakes in churches–literally.

A woman who was bitten by a snake at church, that neighbors say practices serpent handling, died of her wounds hours later.

Handling reptiles as part of religious services is illegal in Kentucky, punishable by a $50 to $100 fine.

Yahoo! News

Heavy opposition to the Iraq quagmire has lead to the dismantle of the Republican regime on Capitol Hill.

Now, licking his wounds, Defense Secretary Rumsfield has resigned.

An administration that admits to almost no wrongdoing is sending some type of message to Americans and the world. Maybe, “It was all his fault that we lost.”

Read the story at Yahoo!

So Michiganders have spoken and they said ‘F’ affirmative action.

It can’t be used in public university admissions or in government contracting or hiring. Now we can just count on people to do the “right” thing.
Michigan has spoken and they don’t want me.

What disturbs me is people have this misconception that because you may get accepted to college with the help of affirmative action that must mean you take some affirmative action class where you only get A+’s and only you and the other “minorities” in your class are given the heads up on future job opportunities.

NO! Once you get into class you work your ass off against people who came from rich school districts who were better prepared for college because they had more books, more teachers and fewer students!

Who is going to protect the US military from its leaders?

Despite the chaos spiraling out of control in Iraq, despite international public and political opinion that the war is a mistake and its handling has been botched, despite numerous failures, George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld promise more of the same and no change in course.

Vice-Dictator Dick Cheney told George Stephanopolis that the upcoming elections and the American public’s hatred of the conflict will not sway the Bushies from their current disasterous course.

Decider King George says American troops will stay in Iraq as long as he is president. US soldiers and Iraqi civilians will keep dying even if Queen Laura, and Royal Mutt Barney, are his only support. The emperor also said this week that Offensive Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will stay on board to continue running the US military into the ground despite the unprecidented military mutiny against him. (more…)

“President of National Association of Evangelicals accused of 3-year sexual relationship with gay hooker, and of taking drugs“

Evangelical Fundamentalist Bushites keep giving queer love a bad name. Or, is the theatrical hypocracy just really hot?

It’s great to see love and not guns in the hip hop world….
And we see love displayed by New Orleans rappers Baby ‘Birdman” and Lil’ Wayne.

This picture is being circulated around the Internet.

Fans and some fellow artists are now questioning the relationship between the two Cash Money Millionaires. (more…)

Dionne Warwick has alot of friends — Reba McEntire, Da Brat and Angie Stone.

The Psychic Friends Network star is working with these artists and many more on her new album “My Friends and Me.”

Warwick ruined her career being “Friends” perhaps she should’ve chosen another name.

For a good laugh –Psychic Friends Network
My Friends and Me album –All Hip Hop