Thursday News

One point about the Freedom Side individuals is that they certainly have courage. They have protested and they have been arrested for speaking their minds. The youth have every right to outline their dissatisfaction with how things are going in America presently. One key point that this organization should promote is political independence. In the final analysis, we should never worship the mainstream, corporate funded two party system. We ought to maintain our own independent political thinking. It is good for them to talk about the corruption in the prison industrial complex. Privatized prisons have exploited the lives of black people and others. Also, we all know that the criminal justice system is corrupt and revolutionary change must exist in order to rectify the situation. Numerous innocent people still are in prisons worldwide. Voting rights is a very important right to advance and protect as well. This is a new generation. We have to talk about issues of economic justice, improving our families, and dealing with developing our communities. Nothing changes until we improve our morality (that means that we have to advance standards of ethics, respect, and self love in our people. WITHOUT THE KNOWLEDGE OF SELF, NOTHING CHANGES. Our elders taught us that fundamental truth) and deal with the social conditions involving our society. We should confront the capitalist power structure (which has used this country on the backs of black African slaves & the extermination of millions of Native Americans). This group should expose how police brutality, imperialism, austerity, and discrimination as all functions of the ruling class (which are executed by the capitalist elite as a means for them to dominate the poor & the working class). Power has been centralized into a few hands. We have the right to fight for power to be in the hands of the people. We have to keep on fighting. We have to fight not only police brutality, but crime in general and we should believe in protecting our civil liberties. I wish the best for the youth in the Freedom Side movement. It is the progressive tradition of fighting for liberation that I respect. People like Dr. King, Malcolm X, Paul Robeson, Kwame Ture, Cabral, and others wanted those of black African descent to experience freedom and justice. Certainly, we are in solidarity with the poor, the disinherited, and the dispossessed. We are in a righteous struggle for social justice. I am anti-imperialist, and I believe in democratic freedoms for humanity. I will never be ashamed of my views at all. In the end, the truth will prevail.


I head of this issue before. I read one article on this issue entitled, “Race, Class, and the World Cup in Brazil” by Mike LaSusa. Another article that I have read was written by Nicole Froio too. I think that Pele is an excellent player. He is a talented man. Yet, there are forces worst than him in Brazil. Instead of focusing on one man alone, we should be focusing also on the political repression that Brazilian government forces have done against protesters (and the overall racial oppression confronting Afro-Brazilian peoples). Many protesters have expressed disagreement with income inequality and the Brazilian government bulldozing of the fevalas or the housing complexes. Brazil have spent millions of dollars to develop the World Cup at the expense of the lives of the poor and suffering. Regardless of your views on the World Cup, the anti-World Cup demonstrators don’t deserve to be repressed of their political right to protest. The social needs of 200 million Brazilians take precedence over the 11 billion dollars spent on the World Cup building. There has been many militarized police occupying the favelas too near the games. Now, Pele is not perfect either. He has said that the Brazilian population should quit protesting and he said that corruption has nothing to do with the World Cup (when racist signs have existed in the World Cup games, etc.). I am in solidarity with the protesters wanting Brazil to have more investments in education, workers’ rights, health, transportation, and real freedom for all Afro-Brazilians. Romário de Souza Faria has accused Pele of not having awareness of the political events in his country. I believe that Pele with his stature should do more to talk about political matters in Brazil (and to fight oppression more overtly). Yet, I don't believe that he should be called out of his name and so forth. He is not my enemy. He is a Brother who made great accomplishments in his life and he has imperfections. Also, he can improve his life with motivation not ridicule. We should improve our lives too.


The news reporter Sean Bergin (from New Jersey) is wrong on so many levels. I found so many errors that he said that I lost count. First, the media has talked about the issue of fathers in the black community. I have looked at programs, movies, books, the Internet, etc. that talk about the issue of black fatherhood. Also, much of the anti-cop mentality has existed as a product of police brutality. I see no evidence that anti-cop mentality is totally a product of young black men without fathers at all. Plenty of people have been strong and successful in their lives (and they have been raised with two parents and many have been raised by one parent). Police brutality is an abomination and it ought to be opposed with strength and vigor. Not all single parent households are monolithic. There is nothing wrong with a father and a mother raising children. That is cool, but not all families in the black community will be nuclear families. People have to get with that fact. Some of our families will be extended, single, or otherwise. Some single families exist because of divorce, death in the family, and other reasons not because single families collectively are one way. Not all single families are corrupt. So, the reporter used an over oversimplification of the situation when crime is complex. Poverty has complex reasons (like socioeconomic factors) on why it exists nationwide. Also, his job should be to report on the fact and not to issue his political, social commentary on air when describing a criminal act. Not to mention that white supremacists have been killing the police for years and decades. He doesn't talk about this. We should express no sympathy for any criminal (regardless of their color). Many of the same ones that try to lecture black people on “family values” don’t live up to their own expectations on their views on how families should exist. Many reactionaries have labeled certain white crimes as a product of mental illness or anomalies while some of them label black crime as a social pathology (or proof of black inferiority). This is not the case at all. Crime exists because of many factors. Criminals can exist from both single parent households and 2 parent households. So, this reporter used stereotypes and he is just wrong. The reporter promoted an oversimplification of the problem. This has nothing to do with a white man saying it. If a black man said what he said, I would express my disagreement too. The issue that he was talking dealt with anti-cop sentiment. Anti-cop sentiment exist because of many factors. So, that is the truth. There is no deflection. Black people have the right to have responsibility and so forth. Black men should stand up and improve the black community. Black men have every right to express his strength and leadership qualities. Yet, we have to do more than that. We need to improve our morality, improve our families, and to fight the imperfections found in society. We need to confront discrimination, the War on Drugs, poverty, and imperialism. Universal truths still exist in the world.


This action by the charter school (from Arizona) is not only a violation of separation of church and state, but it is total reactionary propaganda. Many of the Founding Fathers were slaveowners, rich land owners, and hypocrites (like Thomas Jefferson wrote the words “all men are created equal” as found in the Declaration of Independence), but he owned slaves. Jefferson held ignorant, racist views about black people. I am glad that the Brother Benjamin Banneker wrote a note that refuted Jefferson's racist ideologies. Jefferson also took advantage of Sally Hemmings. So, charter schools are funded by our tax dollars, so the history shown in such schools (or any school for that matter) should be accurate. A white supremacist distortion of the Civil War is commonly embraced by neo-Confederates and bigots today. Slavery is totally unjustifiable and evil period. Also, many of the Founding Fathers were not Christians and blatantly disagreed with mainstream Christianity like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson (he said that the author of the book of Revelation was created by the mind of a lunatic), and others. Ultimately, the Civil War started by many reasons, but without slavery, the Civil War wouldn’t of existed in the first place. Southern racism existed long before the abolitionist movement came about. The Maafa and slavery should never be disrespected by that school’s indoctrination. People involved in teaching students blatant indoctrination should be held accountable for their actions. I heard of Cleon Skousen before. Cleon Skousen was a Mormon who believed in eliminating the minimum wage, wanted to eliminate unions, and he desired other extremist proposals. Skousen was a long time John Bircher and a supporter of cult leader Sun Myung Moon. If we want to teach the students real history, we have to teach them about the courageous actions of Fannie Lou Hamer, teach them about the actions of the heroic Haitian revolutionary leaders, and teach them about the evils found in the system of white supremacy. Many should teach the children about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. being a man of the left. He wanted to end right to work laws, he was anti-imperialist, he expressed pro-Third World sentiments, and he expressed great sympathy with democratic socialism. At the end of the day, we have every right to speak up for our real legacy as Brothers & Sisters.


Maya Angelou lived a revolutionary life. In 1961, Maya Angelou met the South African freedom fighter Vusumzi Make. He was a freedom fighter who lived with Maya Angleou in Cairo, Egypt. They parted ways in 1962. Maya Angelou worked in Africa a lot. She was an administrator at the University of Ghana and she was active in the African American expatriate community. She was a feature editor for “The African Review.” She was a freelance writer for the Ghanaian Times, she wrote and broadcast for Radio Ghana, and she was worked including performed for Ghana’s National Theatre. She performed in a revival of “The Blacks” in Geneva and Berlin. Maya Angelou and Malcolm X became close friends during Malcolm X’s visist in Accra during the early 1960’s. She helped Malcolm X to build up his new human rights organization called the Organization of Afro-American Unity in 1965. After Malcolm X was assassination, Maya Angelou mourned and lived in Hawaii for a time. She worked as a market researcher in Watts and witnessed the riots in the summer of 1965. She continued to work in the civil rights movement throughout her entire life. She lectured at UCLA and wrote, produced and directed "Black, Blues, Black," a 10-part public television series on African American culture that aired in 1968. Maya Angelou also helped in the planning of the Poor People’s Campaign in Memphis. The Poor People’s Campaign was about giving justice to the poor and the oppressed in American society. It was about giving the poor economic justice. The day that the Brother Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, the Sister Maya Angelou experienced her 40th birthday. She wrote a great autobiography entitled, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” in 1969. The book was a great outline of the black experience. The book was honest, unapologetic and strong. Her literature and poetry was exquisite, powerful, and inspiring. She had a great gift to write literature, to express oratory, and to do performance.


By Timothy