Although Epic Records apologized for an offensive Lil Wayne rap lyric back in February, the rapper has not issued a formal statement until this week.In the Future remix called “Karate Chop,” Wayne compared the 14-year-old civil rights icon Emmett Till, murdered in 1955, to a sex act.Wayne sent a letter to Till’s family recently, saying he “acknowledged” the hurt caused by the lyrics:Dear Till Family: As a recording artist, I have always been interested in word play. My lyrics often reference people, places and events in my music, as well as the music that I create for or alongside other artists. It has come to my attention that lyrics from my contribution to a fellow artist’s song has deeply offended your family. As a father myself, I cannot imagine the pain that your family has had to endure. I would like to take a moment to acknowledge your hurt, as well as the letter you sent to me via your attorneys. Moving forward, I will not use or reference Emmett Till or the Till family in my music, especially in an inappropriate manner. I fully support Epic Record’s decision to take down the unauthorized version of the song and to not include the reference in the version that went to retail. I will not be performing the lyrics that contain that reference live and have removed them from my catalogue. I have tremendous respect for those who paved the way for the liberty and opportunities that African-Americans currently enjoy. As a business owner who employs several African-American employees and gives philanthropically to organizations that help youth to pursue their dreams my ultimate intention is to uplift rather than degrade our community. Best, Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr. Lil WayneContinue Reading… … Read More
Google celebrates Cesar Chavez, not Easter
If you used Google on Sunday, March 31, 2013, you may have noticed the above Google Doodle, a type of drawing Google uses frequently to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, or historically relevant days. On any other day, the above doodle celebrating the birthday of American labor rights activist Cesar Chavez, who would have been 86 today, may have gone unnoticed.However, for millions of people, that date celebrates something else: Easter Sunday. Several conservatives and Christians alike took issue with Google’s decision to honor the rights icon over their holiday:[embedtweet id="318363269742088195"][embedtweet id="318422401123774465"][embedtweet id="318310786684571649"][embedtweet id="318226211543326721"][embedtweet id="318437180290781184"]Continue Reading… … Read More
NYPD make 5 millionth stop-and-frisk under Bloomberg
According to an NYCLU announcement Thursday, the NYPD have now carried out over 5 million stop-and-frisks under Mayor Bloomberg, over 86 percent of which on black or Latino individuals. The analysis of police data also revealed that 88 percent of the stops did not result in an arrest or summons (and of course an even smaller proportion ever lead to a conviction).Via the NYCLU:“This disturbing milestone is a slap in the face to New Yorkers who cherish the right to walk down the street without being interrogated or even thrown up against the wall by the police,” said NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman. “The NYPD’s routine abuse of stop-and-frisks is a tremendous waste of police resources, it sows mistrust between officers and the communities they serve, and it routinely violates fundamental rights. A walk to the subway, corner deli or school should not carry the assumption that you will be confronted by police, but that’s the disturbing reality for young men of color in New York City.” To stop a person lawfully, a police officer must have reasonable suspicion that the person has committed, is committing or is about to commit a crime.This year the racist stop-and-frisk practices have come under increasing scrutiny. Monday will see the beginning of a landmark trial — a federal class-action lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights challenging the constitutionality of stop-and-frisk practices. As HuffPo’s Matt Sledge noted, the lawyers bringing the suit against the police believe it will be the “trial of the century.”Continue Reading… … Read More
In defense of open borders
Eric Hobsbawm called the 19th century “a gigantic machine for uprooting countrymen.” He believed that the reason for mass migrations of people was straightforward. For the immigrants of the 1800s, the United States “was not a society but a means of making money,” often in the hope of “returning home, rich and respected, to their native villages.”Those immigrants began their American lives by and large doing low-wage, back-breaking, monotonous manual labor and domestic work, which was still better than what was available from in their homelands. In the old country, they’d starved; in the new one, they’d strive. The United States was to forge a national identity out of the collective national identities of millions of foreigners.In the age of globalization, however, the nation state has retreated as the locus of world power. Multinational free trade agreements, supranational financial institutions, and transnational corporations ensure that capital can float between nations with all the ease of a monarch butterfly. Labor, on the other hand, remains under the jurisdiction of border-obsessed states.Continue Reading… … Read More
Fed up with online trolls, author pledges $5 to to women’s, LGBT groups for every insult
‘Racist Sexist Homophobic Dipshit’ will cue rewards for civil rights and LGBT groups by attacking John Scalzi The internet might have given unprecedented freedom to writers, but with it comes inevitable exposure to trolls. Now one US author has decided to tackle online baiting head-on,…
The white South’s last defeat
In understanding the polarization and paralysis that afflict national politics in the United States, it is a mistake to think in terms of left and right. The appropriate directions are North and South. To be specific, the long, drawn-out, agonizing identity crisis of white Southerners is having effects that reverberate throughout our federal union. The transmission mechanism is the Republican Party, an originally Northern party that has now replaced the Southern wing of the Democratic Party as the vehicle for the dwindling white Southern tribe.
As someone whose white Southern ancestors go back to the 17th century in the Chesapeake Bay region, I have some insight into the psychology of the tribe. The salient fact to bear in mind is that the historical experience of the white South in many ways is the opposite of the experience of the rest of the country.
Mainstream American history, from the point of view of the white majority in the Northeast, Midwest and West Coast, is a story of military successes. The British are defeated, ensuring national independence. The Confederates are defeated, ensuring national unity. And in the 20th century the Axis and Soviet empires are defeated, ensuring (it is hoped) a free world.
Rosa Parks: “I had been pushed as far as I could stand”
“Whites would accuse you of causing trouble when all you were doing was acting like a normal human being instead of cringing,” Rosa Parks explained. “You didn’t have to wait for a lynching.” Such were the assumptions of black deference that pervaded mid-20th century Montgomery, Ala. The bus with its visible arbitrariness and expected servility stood as one of the most visceral experiences of segregation. “You died a little each time you found yourself face to face with this kind of discrimination,” she noted.
Blacks constituted the majority of bus riders, paid the same fare, yet received inferior and disrespectful service — often right in front of and in direct contrast to white riders. “I had so much trouble with so many bus drivers,” Parks recalled. That black people comprised the majority of riders made for even more galling situations on the bus. Some routes had very few white passengers yet the first 10 seats on every bus were always reserved for whites. Thus, on many bus routes, black riders would literally stand next to empty seats. Those blacks able to avoid the bus did so, and those who had the means drove cars. Black maids and nurses, however, were allowed to sit in the white section with their young or sick white charges, further underscoring the ways that bus segregation marked status and the convenience of white needs, and did not simply regulate proximity.
