Tavis Smiley criticism of Barack causes firestom

Tavis Smiley, the bestselling author of the "Covenant With Black America," is in a world turned upside down. He said he's being "hammered," "barbecued," and is "catching hell" from black Americans for suggesting that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) made a major mistake by declining to speak at the State of the Black Union event that Smiley plans to host next week in New Orleans.

"There's all this talk of hater, sellout and traitor," Smiley said to me in a telephone interview. Smiley even mentioned getting death threats, but wouldn't elaborate. He said his office has been flooded with angry e-mails. "I have family in Indianapolis. They are harassing my momma, harassing my brother. It's getting to be crazy," Smiley said.

Smiley's problems started early this month after he invited Obama to speak at the State of the Black Union, an event Smiley founded nine years ago. Held annually during Black History Month and broadcast by C-Span, the event gathers a Who's Who of black intellectuals, pundits, activists, entertainers and politicians to discuss and brainstorm about where black America is and where it is headed. This year's topic is "Reclaiming Our Democracy, Deciding Our Future."

The State of the Black Union has grown into a key event for black people since its start, but as Smiley has discovered, Obama's presidential run is far more highly regarded.

As the first black person to have a legitimate shot at a presidential nomination, defeating Sen. Hillary Clinton's rich campaign juggernaut, Obama is virtually a third civil rights movement, the manifestation of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream. His candidacy has produced a fervor in black America born of centuries of wanting. Nearly every black vote that Clinton thought was hers at the beginning of the race has been siphoned by Obama.

Each of the presidential candidates were invited to speak, but only Sen. Hillary Clinton accepted. Clinton is desperate to bolster her flagging campaign with a larger share of the black vote after losing all but a small percent to Obama. Smiley said he wants the candidates to focus on the issues that black Americans care about.

If the blogosphere is any reflection, however, black America believes Smiley should check his ego. Commenters would much rather see Obama campaigning against Clinton in Texas and Ohio than at Smiley's confab in Louisiana, a state he's already won. Critics burned up Internet chat rooms, taking turns at denouncing Smiley. Pundit Melissa Harris-Lacewell, an Obama supporter, authored a biting anti-Smiley opinion on TheRoot.com (which is owned by Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive), entitled, "Who Died and Made Him King?"

A fan of Smiley commented on one blog, saying, "Tavis, Ya Killin' Me, Man." An angrier writer headlined his comment, "This is just dumb." "This man is involved in the fight of his life for the presidency of the UNITED STATES, not black states," he wrote of Obama. "I don't know if Tavis got the memo, but Hillary is leading in Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania, where the governor said that his white folks won't vote for a black." Other comments would likely be blocked by Net Nanny and can't be printed on the Web pages of a family newspaper.

For Smiley, the tumult is a major turnabout. Until now he was a darling commentator in black America. His passion for the people endeared him to many. People listened to his commentaries on the popular Tom Joyner Morning Show, and snapped up so many copies of the "Covenant" that it made the top ten lists of the both the New York Times and the Washington Post. When Smiley talked, black people listened.

"One of my friends said, 'you are being barbecued in the blogosphere,'" Smiley said. He told Black America Web writer Michael Cottman's that "I'm catching hell." In our interview, Smiley said: "This is the first time in my entire career that I have found myself in this kind of relationship with some folk in black America. I now know what it feels like to have the weight of the Internet world bearing down on you. Man, it's an eye opener when you get caught in the middle of it."

Obama's campaign said he called Smiley twice on his cell and office phones. Smiley said he returned the calls but got no response.

On the Tom Joyner Morning Show recently, Joyner brought up the controversy during an interview with Obama, relating how Smiley was taking heat for saying he thinks Obama doesn't want to talk about issues black people care about.

Obama chastised Smiley, but spoke as if the two were friends. "I'm going to have to call Tavis up and straighten him out on this," Obama said. He said he's addressed issues that Smiley cares about, such as health care and eliminating the legal sentencing disparity that allows judges to send mostly black crack cocaine offenders to prison with sentences that are five times longer than powder cocaine offenders who are mostly white and Latino.

Obama followed up with a letter to Smiley, dated Feb. 13. In it, Obama explained why he declined the invitation, saying that he needed to campaign in states that Clinton must win to in order to topple her candidacy.

"I will be on the campaign trail every day in states like Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin talking directly to voters about the causes that are at the heart of my campaign and the State of the Black Union forum such as affordable housing, economic opportunity, civil rights and foreign policy," Obama said in his letter. He had offered to have his wife, Michelle, speak in his stead at the State of the Black Union, but Smiley had declined. "I ask that you reconsider," Obama wrote. "Michelle is a powerful voice for the type of reach change America is hungry for."

Smiley responded in a commentary on the Tom Joyner Morning Show, condemning Obama's decision with his usual strong, passionate, rapid-fire delivery. He recounted the gist of his statement in the interview. "I think it is a miscalculation on his part not to appear and a missed opportunity."

"I love Barack Obama and I love black people," Smiley said. "I celebrate his past accomplishments and I celebrate his future aspirations. I never wanted to stand in the path of his growth."

However, he said, "My job is to ask the critical question, to raise these issues and keep these guys focused. There are some people who are disappointed that I'm not jumping up and down saying, 'Vote for Barack Obama.' That's not my role as a journalist. That's not what I do."

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The reason I'm against the Death Penalty

I am against the death penalty for a couple of reasons, one being there are flaws in our legal system. For instance there is an AP story
today in which a Texas man was freed after being in jail for 26 years. The entire time he was in, he maintained his innocence. Here is a piece from the story:

A man who contended throughout his 26 years in prison that he never raped a woman who lived five houses down from him was freed Thursday after a judge recommended overturning his conviction.

Charles Chatman, 47, was released on his recognizance as several of his eight siblings cheered. He was freed on the basis of new DNA testing that lawyers say proves his innocence and adds to Dallas County's nationally unmatched number of wrongfully convicted inmates.

"I'm bitter. I'm angry," Chatman told The Associated Press during his last night in jail Wednesday. "But I'm not angry or bitter to the point where I want to hurt anyone or get revenge."

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Chatman was 20 when the victim, a young woman in her 20s, picked him from a lineup. Chatman said he lived five houses down from the victim for 13 years but never knew her. At the time the woman was assaulted, Chatman said he didn't have any front teeth; he had been certain that feature would set him apart from the real assailant.

Now I know this was not a death penalty case but what if it was? What if the victim would've been killed in the process, being in Texas, who lead the nation in executions every year, He would've been most likely tried and put to death. Mr. Chapman would've been able to appeal for a few years but the appeal process would not have been allowed to go on for 26 years. He would have most likely been put to death before his innocence was proven and the case would have been closed.

Another reason I'm against the death penalty is because it's not handed out equally. If a rich man and a poor man both were charged with first degree murder, who do you think is most like to be sentenced to death? I doubt the rich man will because he can go hire a team of high priced lawyers and get off on some technicality or get the sentenced reduced where as, the poor man would get some lawyer appointed and probably end up on death row.

So the reason I'm against the death penalty is because there are holes in the legal system which could lead to innocent people being put to death and the class issue. The death penalty is overwhelmingly handed out to people that can not afford descent representation.

What’s behind the American Gangster?

Black Entertainment Television (BET) has won higher ratings and critical acclaim for its “American Gangster” series on the rise and fall of Black criminals. But in the wake of the docudramas and a hit movie of the same name, many are concerned about the portrayal of Blacks and images they believe help inspire youth to destructive behavior.

BET initially indicated the show’s purpose was to “explore without glorifying and investigate without celebrating” the criminal minds of the infamous men featured during the weekly, one-hour shows, which are broadcast at several different times.

According to executive producer Nelson George, dope dealers and criminals like “Freeway” Ricky Ross, Leroy “Nicky” Barnes, Troy and Dino Smith, the Chambers Brothers and Lorenzo “Fat Cat” Nichols were chosen because of legendary crimes with national and sometimes international dimensions.

BET’s “American Gangster” debuted last November with the second best numbers in the network’s history with a 1.6 rating and 1.6 million viewers in 1.3 million households, according to Nielsen Media Research.

“American Gangster” the movie, starring award-winning actor Denzel Washington as Frank Lucas, a 1970s New York drug kingpin, opened number one in November with $16.5 million.It ranked seventh among the all-time top 10 openings for R-rated films and by its first weekend, brought in more than $47 million, despite being released early via the Internet and bootlegged DVDs, which were of unusually high quality.

“Someone high in that access wanted this to be widely seen amongst people, who maybe couldn’t have afforded to go and see it in a first run theater, not only amongst the national populations but in particular amongst the so-called urban or ghetto youth,” said Keidi Obi Awadu (aka the Conscious Rasta), of LIB Radio, an internet broadcasting company and media literacy organization.

Mr. Awadu believes the American media is obsessed with the notion of a “Black gangster.” People should remember that historically Black heroin distributors were working in league with White drug lords, but were given license to operate only if their lethal products were distributed to Black people, he said.

The lack of visible, vocal protest against the project’s negative impact on Black male youth was suppressed by love for the movie’s leading man, Mr. Awadu argued.“We know that the choice of Denzel Washington as the character to play this is going to make us particularly vulnerable to assault.We loved Denzel Washington in his portrayal of Malcolm X, Steven Biko—two characters in our pantheon of heroes,” he said. That love and credibility transfers even when he portrays lesser characters, such as those in “American Gangster” and “Training Day,” where Mr. Washington won an Oscar for his portrayal of a crooked cop, argued Mr. Awadu.

“American Gangster” the series, proves now that BET is White-owned, it will continue to undermine the core fundamental values of Black youth, critics charge.

Five minutes of fame on TV and in movies is enough glory for young men thirsty for attention, no matter how they achieve it, said Fareed Thomas, who was recently released from a California penitentiary. The BET episodes showcase the money and so-called good times the gangsters enjoyed, but a fraction of the time was spent on how they went to jail, Mr. Thomas said.

Historically, American gangsters have been European and portrayed in films like “The Godfather,” “Scarface,” “Bugsy,” “King of New York,” “Casino,” “Gangs of New York” and “Good Fellas.”

The problem, said Mark, a L.A.-based gang member, comes with the BET series singling out Black men and ignoring the criminal history of gangsters of various ethnicities.

“It is hypocritical to a point.If BET just didn’t do it as Black, that would be one thing, but if you’re going to showcase one gangster, then showcase them all.Why is BET only stopping at the Black gangster?Do only Black gangsters go to prison?” he said.

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Latino gang accused of targeting blacks in Los Angeles

In a murderous quest aimed at "cleansing" their turf of snitches and rival gangsters, members of one of Los Angeles County's most vicious Latino gangs sometimes killed people just because of their race, an investigation found.

There were even instances in which Florencia 13 leaders ordered killings of black gangsters and then, when the intended victim couldn't be located, said "Well, shoot any black you see," Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca said.

"In certain cases some murders were just purely motivated on killing a black person," Baca said.

Authorities say there were 20 murders among more than 80 shootings documented during the gang's rampage in the hardscrabble Florence-Firestone neighborhood, exceptional even in an area where gang violence has been commonplace for decades. They do not specify the time frame or how many of the killings were racial.

Los Angeles has struggled with gang violence for years, especially during the wars in the late 1980s and early '90s between the Crips and the Bloods — both black gangs. Latino gangs have gained influence since then as the Hispanic population surged.

Evidence of Florencia 13, or F13, is easy to find in Florence-Firestone. Arrows spray-painted on the wall of a liquor store mark the gang's boundary and graffiti warns rivals to steer clear.

The gang's name comes from the neighborhood that is its stronghold and the 13th letter of the alphabet — M — representing the gang's ties to the Mexican Mafia.

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Beanie Sigel, Bill Cosby March For Peace

By Chris Richburg

Rap star Beanie Sigel generated talk of a different kind during Philadelphia’s Peace Week 2007, when he walked hand-in-hand with actor/comedian Bill Cosby, during an anti-crime march.

The pair, who marched alongside each other on Thursday (December 20), spoke earlier that day to 30 at risk youths at William Penn High School in Philadelphia.

The event allowed Sigel the opportunity to help direct youth towards positive options that he was not able to fully utilize.

"I come from these things, the streets," said Sigel. "I'm at a time in my life where I'm trying to make the transition from something negative to something positive."

Sigel, Cosby and men’s outreach group Men United for a Better Philadelphia are working to help keep Philadelphia’s murder rate below 400.

The rapper will continue to raise awareness by embarking on an ongoing tour of local high schools, juvenile facilities and jails.

Additionally, Sigel will encourage youths to exercise their minds and stop the violence through local public service announcements.

The effort comes on the heels of the recent release of the rapper’s new album The Solution.

The project, which finds Sigel addressing the issues of crime, teen pregnancy and personal struggles, is in stores now.

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Banner Sounds Off On Hip-Hop Lyric Controversy

Excerpt

September 27, 2007, 12:25 PM ET
Mariel Concepcion, N.Y.
On Sept. 26, David Banner joined fellow MC Master P, music industry executives and scholars to discuss offensive language in hip-hop music before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Reading from a statement, the 33-year-old Mississippi rapper/producer tenaciously defended hip-hop from its detractors.During his testimony, Banner said, "If you fix our communities, we'll fix our lyrics." Asked how that would affect change, he tells Billboard, "In the Katrina hearing, one congressman asked, 'Haven't we done enough for Katrina?' They live in a world that we don't live in, and it's hard to speak for a majority when you don't live under the same conditions. People don't sing happy songs if they're broke.""Rap music does for us the same thing gospel did for the slaves," he adds. "We communicate our anger through our music."

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Gangsta Rap, Dying in the Street

If I were a gangsta rapper, I'd be changing my tune. Not because congressional hearings on misogynous rap lyrics are slated for next week. And certainly not because a group of church folk held a protest last week at the home of a Black Entertainment Television executive who lives in the District.

No, what would concern me is the money. The hustle and flow are getting too slow. Rap album sales have fallen far faster than those for the music industry as a whole, plummeting 43.6 percent since 2000, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It's getting hard out here for a pimp.
Here's my rap on why: Gangsta rap is contemptible, the lyrics indefensible. The rapper isn't credible, just plain old irresponsible. And the public stopped being gullible.

Check out the results of a recent national survey of black, white and Hispanic youths by the University of Chicago. Among the findings:

72 percent of black youths agree that rap videos contain too many sexual references.

41 percent of black youths say rap music videos should be more political.

Majorities of all young people agree that rap music videos portray both black women and black men "in bad and offensive ways."

About 58 percent of black youths (ages 15 to 25) say they listen to rap music daily and watch rap music videos several times a week, compared with 45 percent of Hispanic youths and 23 percent of white youths. That's still a lot of youths. But interest in the genre is clearly waning. In 2006, rap sales were down 21 percent from 2005 and 27 percent from 2004.

This steady decline in demand has been all but obscured by anti-rap protests and misguided calls for censorship.

"We want media and music companies to develop universal creative standards for the music and videos they produce, market and distribute," says the Rev. Delman L. Coates, pastor of Mount Ennon Baptist Church in Clinton and leader of an anti-rap group called Enough Is Enough.

On Saturday, Coates and about 500 others, mostly church members, staged a protest in front of the home of Debra Lee, chief executive of Black Entertainment Television. They want BET to ban any show that "objectifies, degrades or promotes violence against women" and "portrays black and Latino men as gangsters, pimps, thugs and players."

And they plan on returning to Lee's home every weekend until BET meets their demands.
Nice try, Reverend. But we call that kind of censorship "Taliban-ing." And it doesn't sit well with the spirit of the First Amendment, either.

"I want the rest of you to come out and let the world know we are not pimps, gangsters and thugs and that our women are not sexual objects, not female dogs," Coates told the group. "We have to stand up and say we aren't taking it anymore."

But will anyone stand up against such movies as "American Gangster," which makes its premiere the first weekend in November? Will anyone be marching to protest Hollywood? Or will they all be inside the theaters watching Denzel Washington star as the gangster?
I'm betting on Denzel.

Excerpt

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To snitch or not to snitch

Michael Vick's co-defendants certainly didn't follow what is said to be the black community's code of not snitching. It seems they immediately got busy taking the deals they probably felt they couldn't refuse. So much for some parts of the myth, anyway. A segment of Sunday's "60 Minutes," a rerun, was about the anti-snitching propaganda promoted by some rappers, and allegedly embraced wholesale by young blacks. Sometimes parents or older siblings spend a great deal of time telling little kids not to tattle -- "nobody likes a tattletale." So, for some young people, not snitching might be viewed in the same context. The trouble a kid might get into by tattling on siblings is multiplied by the time he or she gets to school bullies and neighborhood thugs. By then the principle may be the same, but the consequences are far more serious.
When people talk about the anti-snitchers, we don't seem to hear much about the consequences of talking to the wrong people. We do, however, hear a lot about doing the right thing. But for whom? Because school bullies often grow up to be neighborhood thugs with a lot more at stake than being suspended from school, those who look the other way are often doing the right thing for themselves. Of course, the opposite seems to have been true for Vick's co-defendants. If Virginia was Hollywood and they were true gangsters, they would have assumed so much responsibility, there wouldn't have been anything left with which to charge Vick.
But as we see, that's not the way this incident will play out. The lesson in this for young people hung up on not snitching is not about ratting people out. It's about trying to hang with too many homies after you've moved on. No matter how this all ends, Vick might have saved himself a lot of grief and millions of endorsement dollars if he'd been collaborating with fellow athletes rather than people who had absolutely nothing to lose -- until law enforcement started searching the property. Law enforcement is another component in snitching we don't hear much about.
Inner city children don't typically grow up with coloring books containing pictures and phrases such as "the policeman is my friend." In fact, in some instances, police may be seen as just as much the enemy as the neighborhood thugs. There is an underlying cause of distrust of law enforcement, said Joe McCrea, a major in the Muscogee County Sheriff's Office and an adjunct criminal justice professor at Columbus State University. McCrea thinks everyone should take "Introduction to Criminal Justice" because one of the things talked about in that class is the relationship between law enforcement and the citizens it serves. "When it comes to the African-American community, there have been cases such as Rodney King and O.J. Simpson and several other similar cases, that created a lot of mistrust between law enforcement and the community," he said. "Although the cases don't necessarily reflect the same problems, what we've seen is the results of the mistrust created -- with juries and verdicts and things like that. There are statistics that show, proportionately there's mistrust between all different aspects of society and law enforcement, but it's greatest in the African-American community. A lot of that has to do, not only with history, but cases in the '80s and '90s that drew media interest on a large scale."

Why does the the backwards state of Texas love executing people?

In less than three weeks Kenneth Foster, an African American man sentenced to death in 1997 for the murder of Michael LaHood, is scheduled to be executed in Texas.
LaHood's actual killer, Mauriceo Brown, was executed in 2006. Foster, who was in a car about 100 yards from the crime when it was committed, was convicted under the controversial Texas state "law of parties", under which the distinction between principal actor and accomplice in a crime is abolished. The law can impose the death penalty on anybody involved in a crime where a murder occurred. In Foster's case he was driving a car with three passengers, one of whom, Brown, left the car, got into an altercation and shot LaHood dead. Texas is the only state that applies this statute in capital cases, making it the only place in the United States where a person can be factually innocent of murder and still face the death penalty.
Foster maintains that he did not know that Brown would either rob or kill LaHood. According to an Amnesty International investigation, there is evidence not heard at trial that the murder was an unplanned act committed by Brown, as the latter himself claimed before his execution.
In 2005, a federal district judge found a "fundamental constitutional defect in Foster's sentence" and ruled that Foster's jury had not been asked to determine if he had any intent to kill LaHood, and that this failure represented a misapplication of the law. However, the state of Texas appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which overturned the decision.
The crazy thing about this case is that no one argues that Foster killed the victim. As the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's award-winning columnist Bob Ray Sanders wrote, the case "is further proof of how cruel, capricious, unjust and utterly insane our death penalty laws have become....Because of this tainted system, whether you believe in capital punishment or not, a man who did not plan or commit a murder will die August 30 unless somebody -- a judge, the Board of Pardons and Paroles and/or the governor-- has the heart and the guts to stop it."
You can help these folks get up the guts at freekenneth.com. Find updates on the case and urge members of the Texas legislature to stay Foster's execution and ask for a re-trial based on new evidence.

XM 169 The Power Fires Black activist Mark Thompson aka Matsimela Mapfumo

Black activist Mark Thompson calls former listeners to action
By Robert "Rob" Redding Jr.
Publisher
Aug. 1, 2007, 3:45 p.m. (Updated Aug. 2, 2007, 11:50 a.m.) - Black activist the Rev. Mark Thompson (Matsimela Mapfumo) today called on his former listeners to continue to fight after he was fired by Radio One-owned XM 169 The Power, ending almost 20 years with the company.
Thompson said he wants people to take what they leaned on the air and confront local injustices - like Martin Luther King worked in the trenches - to build a national movement.
"People at this moment should take everything that we have done and move from theory into action...right there in your locale," he said during an Internet radio interview.
Redding News Review last week exclusively reported that Lanham, Md.-based Radio One fired Thompson and three other XM 169 staffers. Radio One's Syndication One announced a new lineup the same day that includes "The Al Sharpton Show," "2 Live Stews" and "The Warren Ballentine Show."
Thompson, a key speaker at the "Million Man March," "Millions More Movement" and founder of the Umoja Party, made his call to action on the Black Coffee Program hosted by Cedrick Muhammad.
"We have gotten a lot of letters of love and support," he told Muhammad during a 15-minute interview. "I would like for people to continue to pray those prayers for my family and me."
Lee Michaels, national program director for Syndication One News/Talk and XM 169, declined to comment.

Redding News Review reported last Thursday that Thompson's show "Make it Plain" and Ambrose Lane's show "We Ourselves," along with their supporting staff, were eliminated.
Radio One has been running best of shows in the place of the two shows.
The cuts come as Comedian Sheryl Underwood decided not to sign a deal at the channel, after starting a daily show in March.
"We offered her a deal and she drug her feet about signing the deal," Michaels, said last week. Michaels, Thompson’s former boss, also cited her many scheduling conflicts.
The cuts also came as a source at Radio One had been complaining about delayed payments.
"That's absolutely untrue," Michaels said last week.
The company lost close to two-thirds of its value in the past two years earlier this year, according to a Washington Post report.
Sharpton's show will run from 1 to 4 p.m. and be followed by "The 2 Live Stews" from 4 to 7 p.m. Warren Ballentine, to air from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., will kick off the new XM 169 lineup.
Radio One programs XM 169 for XM Satellite Radio, which is in the process of merging with Sirius Satellite Radio. Syndication One, a joint venture of Radio One, Inc. and REACH Media, Inc., airs on 25 local news/talk stations across the country, according to the news release.
(Disclosure: Redding News Review's radio program was heard on XM 169 The Power's "We Ourselves").

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I think that was kind of foul, to fire my man Matsimela Mapfumo. The article doesn't say why he was fired but I'm sure it was because dude was raw and outspoken probably a little bit too much. In this Bush era they are axing left wing talkers and television personalities left and right, it seems everybody is running scared, even so called black owned radio stations. Maybe the owner are afraid being wire tapped I guess.