Tuesday, April 28, 2015

BOBBEE BEE: Why is Baltimore Burning?

By Kevin Powell
            
I am from the ghetto.

The first 13 years of my life I grew up in the worst slums of Jersey City, New Jersey, my hometown. If you came of age in one of America’s poor inner cities like I did, then you know that we are good, decent people: in spite of no money, no resources, little to no services, run down schools, landpersons who only came around to collect rent, and madness and mayhem everywhere, amongst each other — from abusive police officers, and from corrupt politicians and crooked preachers — we still made a way out of no way.

We worked hard, we partied hard, we laughed hard, we barbecued hard, we drank hard, we smoked hard, and we praised God, hard.

And we were segregated, hard, by a local power structure that did not want the ghetto to be seen nor heard from, and certainly not to bring its struggles out in plain sight for the world to see.

Indeed, my entire world was the block I lived on and maybe five or six blocks north south east west. A long-distance trip was going to Downtown Jersey City on the first of each month so our mothers — our Black and Latina mothers — could cash their welfare checks, buy groceries with their food stamps and, if we were lucky, we got to eat at Kentucky Fried Chicken or some other fast-food restaurant on that special day.

When I was about 15, I was badly beaten by a White police officer after me and a Puerto Rican kid had a typical boy fight on the bus. No guns, no knives — just our fists. The Puerto Rican kid, who had White skin to my Black skin, was escorted off the bus gingerly. I was thrown off the bus. Outraged, I said some things to the cop as I sat handcuffed in the back seat of a police car. He proceeded to smash me in the face with the full weight of his fist.

Bloodied, terrified, broken in that moment, I would never again view most police officers as we had been taught as children: “Officer Friendly” –

Being poor meant I only was able to go to college because of a full financial-aid package to Rutgers University. I did not get on a plane until I was 24-years-old because of that poverty, and also because I did not know that that was something I could do. These many years later, I have visited every single state in America, every city big and small, and every ghetto community you can name. They all look the same.

Abandoned, burnt-out buildings. Countless churches, funeral parlors, barber shops, beauty salons, check-cashing places, furniture-rental stores, fried-chicken spots, and Chinese restaurants.

Schools that look and feel more like prison holding cells for our youth than centers of learning. Playgrounds littered with broken glass, used condoms, and drug paraphernalia. Liquor stores here, there, everywhere. Corner stores that sell nothing but candy, cupcakes, potato chips, soda, every kind of beer you can name, loose cigarettes, rolling paper for marijuana, lottery tickets, and gum — lots and lots of gum.

Then there are also the local organizations that claim to serve the people, Black and Latino people. Some mean well, and are doing their best with meager resources. Others only come around when it is time to raise money, to generate some votes for one political candidate or another, or if the police have tragically killed someone.

Like Rekiya Boyd in Chicago. Like Miriam Carey in Washington, D.C. Like Tanisha Anderson in Cleveland. Like Yvette Smith in Texas. Like Aiyana Stanley Jones in Detroit. Like Eric Garner in New York City. Like Oscar Grant in Oakland. Like Walter Scott in South Carolina. Like Freddie Gray in Baltimore….

Yes, we have the first Black president in the White House but it feels like open season on Black folks in America once more. One hundred years ago this year, the Hollywood image machine was given a huge boost by a racist and evil film called “Birth of a Nation,” a movie so calculating in the way it depicted Black people it set the tone, quite literally, for how we were portrayed and treated in every form of media for decades to come. One hundred years ago, it was common to see photos of African Americans, males especially, lynched, hung from trees, as the local good White folks visibly enjoyed their entertainment of playing hangman.

One hundred years later, “Birth of a Nation” has been replaced by a 24-hour-news media cycle still obsessed with race, racism, racial strife, racial violence, but no solutions and no action steps whatsoever, just pure sensationalism and entertainment. One hundred years later, the lynching photos have been replaced by cellphones capturing video of Walter Scott running away from a police officer, like a slow-footed character in a video game, only to be shot in the back — pop! pop! pop! pop! pop! pop! pop! pop!

Except all of this is mad real. Black people in America — the self-proclaimed greatest democracy on earth — are being shot here, there, everywhere, by the police, in broad daylight, with witnesses, sometimes on video. And with very few exceptions, nothing is happening to the cops who pulled the triggers. No indictments. No convictions. No prison time.

And every single time one of these scenarios occurs, we are handed the same movie script: Person of color is shot and killed by local police.

Local police immediately try to explain what happened, while placing most of the blame, without full investigation, on the person shot.

Police officer or officers who fired shots are placed on paid “administrative leave.” Media finds any and everything they can to denigrate the character of the dead person, to somehow justify why she or he is dead. Marches, protests, rallies, speeches.

Local police show up in military-styled “riot gear.” Tensions escalate. Folks are arrested, people are agitated or provoked; all hell breaks loose. The attention has shifted from the police killing an innocent person to the violence of “thugs,” “gangstas,” “looters.”

The community is told to be nonviolent and peaceful, but no one ever tells the police they should also be nonviolent and peaceful.

Whites in power and “respectable Black voices” call for calm, but these are the same folks who never talk about the horrific conditions in America’s ghettoes that make any ‘hood a time bomb just waiting for a match to ignite the fury born of oppression, marginalization, containment, and invisibility.

These are the same people who’ve been spent little to no time with the poor.

If you aren’t from the ghetto, if you have not spent significant time in the ghetto, then you would not understand the ghetto….
No matter. Big-time civil rights organizations, big-time civil rights spokespersons, and big-time church leaders are brought in to re-direct, control, and contain the energy from the people at the bottom. Started from the bottom now we here…. But they really cannot, because the people have seen this movie a million times before. They know it is madness to be told to let justice take its course.

 They know it is madness to wait out a legal system that rarely if ever indicts and convicts these police officers who’ve shot and killed members of their community. They know it is madness to be told to stay cool, to be cool, when they have no healthy outlets for their trauma, their pain, their rage.

 They know it is madness to hear pundits and talking heads of every stripe on television and radio and via blogs analyze who they are, without actually knowing who they are. They know it is madness when middle-class or professional Black folks speak the language of the power structure and condemn the people in the streets instead of the system that created the conditions for why the people are in the streets.

They know it is madness that so-called progressive, liberal, human-rights, or social-justice people of any race or culture have remained mightily silent as these police shootings have been going down coast to coast. And they know it is madness that most of these big-time leaders and big-time media only come around when there is a social explosion.

So they do explode, inside of themselves, and inside their communities. They would love to reach areas outside their ‘hoods, but the local power structure blocks that from happening. So they destroy their own communities. I understand why. I am they and they are me. Any people with nothing to lose will destroy anything in their way. Like anything. Any people who feel as if their lives are not valued, like they are second-class citizens at best, will not be stopped until they’ve made their point. They, we, do not care if our communities have not rebounded from the last major American rebellions of the 1960s. We care that we have to live in squalor and misery and can be shot at any given moment by each other, or by the police, and no one seems to care. A rebellion, a riot, are pleas for help, for a plan, for a vision, for solutions, for action steps, for justice, for God, someone, anyone, to see our humanity, to do something.

Condemning them is condemning ourselves. Labeling the Baltimore situation a “riot” because it is mostly people of color is racist, given we do not call White folks behaving violently after major sporting events “rioters” or “thugs” or “gangstas,” and Lord knows some White folks have destroyed much property in America, too. It ain’t a democracy if White people can wild out and it is all good; but let people of color wild out and it becomes a state of emergency with the National Guard dropping in, armed and ready.
Black lives matter, all lives matter, equally. I believe that, I believe deeply in peace and love and nonviolence.

I believe in my heart that we’ve got to be human and compassionate and civil toward one another, as sisters and brothers, as one human race, as one human family. I believe that our communities and police forces everywhere have to sit down and talk and listen as equals, not as enemies, to figure out a way toward life and love, not toward death and hate; a way toward a shared community where we all feel safe and welcomed and human.

Yes, I love people, all people. But I also believe in justice, for all people. And I know that what has been happening in America these past few years not remotely close to any form of justice, or equality. Imagine, if you will, White folks being shot and murdered by the police like this, what the reactions would be?
Imagine if George Zimmerman had gone vigilante on a White youth with a hoodie in that gated Florida complex. Imagine White parents having to teach their children how to conduct themselves if ever confronted by the police. Imagine that Aiyana Stanley Jones was a little 7-year-old White girl instead of a little 7-year-old Black girl, shot by the police as she slept on a sofa with her grandmother, in a botched raid?

It would be a national outrage.
Baltimore is burning because America is burning with racism, with hate, with violence. Baltimore is burning because far too many of us are on the sidelines doing nothing to affect change, or have become numb as the abnormal has become normal.

Baltimore is burning because very few of us are committed to real leadership, to a real agenda with consistent and real political, economic, and cultural strategies for those American communities most under siege, most vulnerable. Policing them to death is not the solution. Putting them in prison is not the solution. And, clearly, ignoring them is not the solution.

Kevin Powell is a cofounder of BK Nation, a new national organization and blog website. He is also an activist, public speaker, and author or editor of 11 books. His 12th book, The Education of Kevin Powell: A Boy’s Journey into Manhood, will be published by Atria/Simon & Schuster in November 2015. You can email him, kevin@kevinpowell.net, or follow him on twitter, @kevin_powell               Follow Kevin Powell on Twitter:             www.twitter.com/kevin_powell         

BOBBEE BEE: THE DEATH OF FREDDIE GRAY

arrest-800x430
When you have police officers who abuse citizens, you erode public confidence in law enforcement. That makes the job of good police officers unsafe” ― Mary Frances Berry

A man injured after being arrested by the Baltimore police died today, according to The Baltimore Sun.

Freddie Gray had to undergo a double surgery on three broken vertebrae and an injured voice box on Tuesday, after he was released by the police.

He died today after days of remaining in a coma.



The 25-year old was arrested last week for an undisclosed violation.

The police said that he was restrained on the ground by an officer during the arrest, but appeared to be fine when he was taken to the district station.

However, a cell phone video shows that the arresting officers used force that some may seen as “brutal.”
 
Protests have broken out in his neighborhood since Gray was sent to the hospital.
 
What happened to Freddie was unnecessary and uncalled for,” the Rev. Jamal Harrison Bryant of the Empowerment Temple said to protestors on Saturday.

“All of those police officers involved need to be held accountable and answer for what they did, and need to be terminated from their positions,” he urged.
 
The case is pending a review by a “blue-ribbon” panel commissioned by the police.


UPDATE:

A court document obtained Monday morning by The Baltimore Sun says that Gray “was arrested without force or incident.” He “fled unprovoked upon noticing police presence,” and officers later found the knife in his right pants pocket, according to the authorities.

Monday, April 27, 2015

BOBBEE BEE: Lessons From Steel Magnolias

1. Pain Does Not Discriminate.
When we meet Shelby she seems like a spoiled princess with every advantage. Then she nearly falls into a diabetic coma at the beauty parlor and we feel like jerks for misjudging her.  That one early scene reveals the heart of the whole film: everyone suffers; try not to do it alone.

2. Holidays & Events Are Meant To Be Celebrated.
 
And unless that celebration can be seen from space, it doesn’t count.

3. ‘Thirty Minutes of Wonderful’ Is Better ‘Than A Lifetime Of Nothing Special’.
4. ‘Personal Tragedy [Should] Not Interfere With [The] Ability To Do Good Hair’.
 
Or wash your face. Or put on a pretty dress. Southern women understand half the battle to regain your footing is looking the part.

5. Perfection Is A Myth.
 
Also, boring. Every character in the film is his or her own brand of crazy, and as such, none seem crazy at all.  They seem human.  Which is why we love them so dearly.  We should be so kind to ourselves.
 

6. Old Southern Women Are ‘Supposed To Grow Vegetables In The Dirt’.
 
And wear silly hats. An utter off-color remarks. Eccentricity is our birthright.
for_0011
7. There Is No Such Thing As ‘Too Much’.
 
This applies to hair, jewelry, laughter, heel height, cake, cleavage, pulled pork, emotion, faith, persistence, and revelation.  Contrary to the old adage, less is actually less, and more is divine.
8. Busy Is Better Than Therapy.
 
Just as M’Lynn goes right on cooking as Shelby delivers the news of her health-threatening pregnancy, women know that when calamity comes knocking, you don’t sit on your fanny and do nothing.  Productivity beats wallowing every time.
 
9. Women Can, Should, And Do Share Everything.
 
TMI did not exist in the world of Steel Magnolias, and the women were the better for it.


10. Life Is A Joking Matter. 
 
Southerners know the more serious the situation, the more critical it is that we laugh.  Humor is as lifesaving as any flotation device in the rough sea.”
 

BOBBEE BEE: "The Optimist Creed"

bob_0024"The Optimist Creed"

Promise Yourself

To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.


To talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person you meet.


To make all your friends feel that there is something in them

To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.

To think only the best, to work only for the best, and to expect only the best.

optimist To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.

To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
To wear a cheerful countenance at all times and give every living creature you meet a smile.
To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others.
To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.
To think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world, not in loud words but great deeds. To live in faith that the whole world is on your side so long as you are true to the best that is in you.”
by Christian D. Larson, Your Forces and How to Use Them

BOBBEE BEE: BEWARE OF THE THOUGHT POLICE

The self-proclaimed # 1 cartoon on the Internet, Bobbee Bee "The Hater" is back to answer all the difficult questions everybody else is afraid to answer. Yes, the comeback kid, from the "City of Brotherly," is back with another episode of Here Comes "The Hater" on the Black Athlete Sports Network. www.blackathlete.net
1. With the all of these police killings and gang-shootings, do you think we should have another Million Man March?
NO!!!! I am TIRED MARCHING!!! It's time for some action!!!

2. Do you think Adrian Peterson will play for the Minnesota Vikings next year?

Not if Jerry Jones has anything to do with it. 

3. What would you like to tell ESPN's Skip Bayless?

A wise man never knows all and only a fool knows everything!!!


4. Why do you think Adrian Peterson beat is son?

That's easy.....He wants to be a Dallas Cowboy... 
 

5. What do you think about all the police brutality is an issue in America?

Yes. But, police do locally. What the government does internationally
 

6. What was the best advice you ever received outside the classroom?

Think, it is not illegal yet.
 
7. Can you believe the Philadelphia Eagles signed Tim Tebow?

Hey, God performs miracles all the time. Plus, Philadelphia Eagles head coach Chip Kelly thinks he is smarter than God.

8. Have you ever been stop by the police?

Of course....I am a Black male with a college degree, who listens to Hip-Hop.

 
9. What did you dream about last night?

I dreamed about revenging the deaths of Mike Brown, Jordan Davis, Travyon Martin, and other Black men, who were killed by the hands of a crooked cop.
 
 
10. What do you think Martin Luther King would say if he was here today?

Force begets force. Hate begets Hate. And, only Love can transform the hearts and minds of others.
 
 
Eric D. Graham is a graduate of Winston-Salem State University, where he received a B.A. in Mass Communication with a concentration in Radio and Television and a minor in History, with an emphasis in African-American Studies. Currently, he is the Managing Editor at BASN, where his articles appear daily, along with his controversial cartoon character Bobbee Bee “The Hater.”Graham can be reached at lbiass34@yahoo.com

Monday, April 20, 2015

BOBBEE BEE: THE SHOOTING OF WALTER SCOTT: WHO'S THE BLAME?

This week-Charleston and 50 year old Walter Scott.

Police have been taking all the heat for these killings but I would like to extend blame in all these cases.

I also blame America's best and brightest for fanning the flame of racism, fear and predatory behavior toward a Black population in America.

Police feel the heat the most, but I believe and feel in my soul that our Congressional Representatives, National media, (Rush Limbaugh,, Michael Savage, Glen Beck, et al.), Fox News, NRA's Wayne Lapierre, and yes Rand Paul,

"We are going to take our country back."

From whom Mr. Paul?

All these folks bare guilt in this hour.

Their minds are clear tonight, but I don't know how they sleep.



The election of Barack Obama and the onslaught of hate and race mongering originally initiated by Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, and company has been a perfect example of America's best and brightest surrendering their leadership and Constitutional responsibility to the worst and most base sentiments of a misinformed and mis-educated American populace.


This process starts before Obama even takes office and is fanned by all media and all NRA, gun toting, fools everywhere.

 If these folks want to shoot somebody, draft them at all ages and put them in military service and take them off of the American streets.

What about Black responsibility? I agree.

Black folks ought to learn that American culture has turned toward it's more base and racist sensibilities.

Many Americans in the majority have gone out of their minds with the fear generated by idiots like Limbaugh, Savage, Beck, Boehner and Company.

They have fallen prey to NRA rhetoric and a desire to "Take America back." If anyone has taken America, go find the Koch Brothers and Carolinian Art Pope's ilk.

Those folks have stolen your children's dreams and convinced a large portion of our society to blame any "Black guy."

Obama hate is an invisible tax all Black folks have paid.

Considering the obstruction carried out by Republican politicians and some Democrats, the absence of legislation achieved by the worst Congress in American history has been a tax and a treasonous imposition on all of the American people.

This has not been an attempt to stop Obama, this 7 years has been an insurance policy providing racist coverage against my Black children running for President.

Sound crazy to you.

I thought the same thing when McConnell promised obstruction weeks before the inauguration.

That's crazy!!!


Republicans delivered on their promise and the racial climate in the country became palpable, fearful and is still maintained through ignorance and fear.

During the last 7 years of absent legislation, including the response to Obama Care, the Congressional responsibility toward the American people, all of them, has been treasonous at least, malicious at best.

In the inimitable words of Malcolm X, "You been took, you been had, you been bamboozled." Done by our best and brightest and costing Black life and American progress, these last years will go down in history, eventually, as a Jimmy Carter-esque Presidency.

What American history will not record, and the reason I write at this moment, is to inform my children that they should not be fooled by America's capacity to heal itself.

These folks intentionally stirred the racial imaginations in America to divide and conquer the poor and ignorant so they could export jobs and support economic slavery imposed in third world nations and called the lie of "globalism."


I feel sorry for those front line policemen who go into gun stores and are convinced by Limbaugh and others that the world is, "Out to get you."

But this ain't just law enforcement.

Policeman, soldiers, school teachers, and college professors are dependent upon the largess of the State and Federal officials that make their paycheck possible.

What is that old cliché?

Evil will triumph when good people observe and remain quiet.

God help us all. Our best and brightest ain't worth shit.

They have no intention of maintaining democracy, Christian principle, moral will, or anything else.

Officer Slager is a stooge for the powerful.

And he ain't the only one.

Shame is, as the rappers say, "You don't even know it."

Logie Meachum is a graduate of N.C. A&T State University and Virginia Polytechnic and State University.

He has taught Theater, African American Studies, and English at Winston Salem State University and The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.


Logie is internationally known as a Storyteller and Blues Musician. Presently he is a parental caregiver and a gangsta gardener at what is called The Old Oak Stump Garden creating fresh vegetables in his home community.

Thursday, April 09, 2015

BOBBEE BEE: MY LIFE MATTERS



 
“Cops are just doing their job” always struck me as weird because it implies that somehow the fact that they are harassing, killing, and imprisoning people, enforcing institutional racism, and destroying communities is less morally reprehensible if they do it for money. 
 

BOBBEE BEE: The Definition of Dunking!!!


by Eric D. Graham

NORTH CAROLINA- (BASN)

Black guys do it.

White guys do it.

Even girls can do it.

But no single play in sports can compare to it, not the homerun in baseball, the knockout in boxing, the hole in one in golf or the touchdown in football.

It is only worth two-points And for that reason alone, it is considered by many to be the most overrated shot in basketball.

As a result, many coaches despise it.

The league even tried to ban it because of “Lew” Alcindor.

But we fell in love with it.

And are still fascinated by it.

Matter of fact, we are obsessed with it.

Honestly, most of us started dreaming about it even before we were able to walk.

Even before we could dribble a ball, it gripped our imagination.

Hour after hour, long after midnight, early in the morning, we visualized ourselves dunking a basketball.

We practiced by jumping off of one foot, off of two feet, even barefoot in order to do it.

Why? Because it amazes us, leaves up bewildered, and defies the Laws of Gravity.


As a result, we awe at its acrobatics, cheer its creativity, and became dumbfounded by its devastation.

We love it so much; we even created contests to showcase it and named its ariel dynamics.

There is the Rock the Cradle, the 360, the Tomahawk, the Reverse, the Windmill, and the Double-Pump.

As children, it was all fun and games. But as we got older, it became a symbol of power, of coolness, of style, and of sexual prowess.

Why? Because…..It’s Orgasmic.
And leaves one breathless and speechless.

Quite frankly, it’s a religious experience, which causes some of us to shout… Oh my God!!

And Good God Almighty!!

Why? Because scientifically , it seems impossible.

I know on Sunday mornings in the pulpits of Black churches preachers preach about Jesus walking on water.

Well, I have seen it with my own eyes… Jordan walking on air.

Cedric Ceballos do it blindfolded.

Serge Ibaka glide from behind the free throw line.

(Sorry, Dr.J) Darryl Dawkins shatter a backboard.

Shaquille O’Neal pull down the goal.

Vince Carter spin counterclockwise.

J.R.Rider throw it down while taking the ball between his legs along the baseline.



Shawn Kemp make it rain.
Dominique Wilkins make it thunder and lightening.
Spud Webb climb the sky. Jacob Tucker do a summersault.
Antijuan Ball do a back flip.
Kenny become a “SKYwalker.”

Gerald Green blow out a candle on a cupcake.

Larry Nance do it with two balls.

Javon McGee do it with two balls in two goals at the same time.

The Air Up There do a 720.

Philly’s AO throw a lob off the shot clock, Nate Robinson jump over a man 7-foot tall, and Dwight Howard dunk a goal 13 feet high.


And just when, I thought, I had seen it all.

Blake Griffin jumped over a car.

Yes, Blake Griffin jumped over a car.

But before you get too excited, Guy Dupuy did it much better when he dunked over a car while going between his legs on the And 1 tour in Poland. …

Yes, one good one can psychologically change the outcome of a game.
And one great one, changed my life forever.
Man, what a Dunk!!

Now, Magic Johnson is willing to pay Lebron James $1 million to participate in next years Slam Dunk Contest
.
Eric D.Graham is a graduate of Winston-Salem State University, where he received a B.A in Mass Communications, with a concentration in Radio & Television, with a minor in History, with a concentration in African-American Studies. Currently, he is the Managing Editor of Black Athlete Sports Network, where his thought-provoking articles and cartoon Here Comes The Hater appears on a weekly basis. He can be reached at lbiass34@yahoo.com