This is pretty deep! F*ck when a woman is fed up, when a community is fed up, there is nothing you can do about it!

“Today is the wrong day to be on the wrong side of the law” says the President of the “Detroit 300.”

Brown and black people from Milwaukee’s North and South side unite on the bridge that separates them to discuss issues that they all face. This was a powerful experience that brought plenty of emotions. #OccupyTheHoodMKE #Unity #Peace

Check the whole album of powerful photos here.

Just last week Kanye West supported #OccupyWallStreet. Now this week we have Bun B, David Banner, and Tom Morello. Bun B feels that he should be a part of this because their are not enough celebrities and hip-hop artists that talk about the issues we have in America. Watch these videos and see what they have to say for yourself….

Hoods all over the U.S. are getting together and starting there own movement. Occupy The Hood is a movement ran by people of color. Black and Latino Americans lack participation in the #Occupy movement, so Occupy The Hood is a movement started by Malik Rhasaan and Ife Johari Uhuru after participating in the #OccupyWallStreet protest.

They believe that people of color don’t know how Wall Street effects them and by starting Occupy The Hood, they will bring more people of color involved in the movement.

Check out one of our blogroll partners, Black Youth Project‘s website.

I wonder if Jay-Z has ever been called a nigga in Paris. Or if Martin Margiela referred to Kanye as a nigga, would he still associate himself with that brand? I came across some young people in Cali that weren’t letting the N-Word slide at all when verbally assaulted at the Super Uno Market on the corner of Vernon and Van Ness. They didn’t even resort to violence, which is something that we don’t hear enough of.

Are you afraid to take stake in your community?

"I am society's child, this is how they made me, and now I'm sayin what's on my mind and they don't want that. This is what you made me, America."

Just months ago I was blogging on how Tupac’s profound messages still remained relevant today. As a young adult, I vividly recall being in middle school and hearing him say,” WE ARE THE VOICE OF THE VOICELESS.”

Regardless of your origin, gender or age when 2Pac spoke…we ALL listened. His lyrics spoke to real issues that all communities could relate to, yet failed to make a priority . In my opinion, my generation loved him because of his ability to creatively express his views in a manner that we could comprehend; and what our elders appreciated about 2Pac was the fact that he was a Black Man with the power to mobilize and influence youth through his music, which had both substance and purpose.

The League of Young Voters  is keeping Tupac’s vision alive by organizing and getting youth invested in their communities from Wisconsin, Georgia , Texas , Ohio, California, New York and Maine. The League is about empowering low-income and communities of color- we train non-collegiate youth on how to become civically engaged and understanding the importance of knowing what’s happening in their neighborhoods. The grind can be seen 365 days a year to bridge the gap from the White House to the Hoods.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

S/o to Kali Akuno for the assist

(Oakland, CA) – Three groups who have actively been working toward justice for Oscar Grant – ONYX, The New Years Movement and the General Assembly for Justice for Oscar Grant – are denouncing an announcement today by the defense team for former BART officer Johannes Mehserle that they are seeking a retrial in the shooting death of unarmed Oscar Grant, III.

Citing a 2008 case from Kentucky, Michael Raines said that Prosecutor David Stein was inaccurate in saying that “in a million Taser draws”, there had never been a mistake like this one. But Prosecutor David Stein was right on the money.

“The question raised here, is did this officer pull his Taser out two times before accidentally shooting the man in Kentucky?” asked Cephus Johnson A.K.A Uncle Bobby. “In the case of Oscar, Mehserle took out his Taser twice. Oscar took a picture of him holding that Taser, so Mehserle knew exactly where it was and he knew where his gun was too. He chose to pull his gun. There is no comparison here.”

At every junction in this case, there have been attempts by the defense to justify the actions of Mehserle and blame the victim for the crime of the perpetrator. And although Mehserle was convicted of mere involuntary manslaughter, the family of Oscar Grant – and indeed the community at large continues to believe he was murdered.

“He is comparing apples and oranges,” said Lesley Phillips, a member of the New Years Movement. “The man in Kentucky didn’t die, he wasn’t beaten by the police prior to the shooting as Oscar was and we have no way of knowing if that shooting was an accident either.”

America has a long history of looking the other way when innocent civilians are wounded or killed by police – particularly if those innocent civilians are of color. In fact, Johannes Mehserle is one of only two police officers in the history of California to ever be convicted of killing a civilian in the line of duty. A gross imbalance when compared to the hundreds of innocent lives lost at the hands of law enforcement each year across the nation.

“There is no logical reason for a new trial,” said Michael Walker, a member of ONYX and active on the Oscar Grant case. “A new trial will be looked at by the community as another attempt by the defense to manipulate the facts of the case and allow Mehserle to go free for his crime. It will also be viewed as a slap in the face to the remaining survivors of that night – the friends of Oscar Grant who were on the platform to witness the unprovoked and unwarranted execution of their friend.”

I get a personal joy from registering young people to vote for the first time. I am always excited when I come across 17 year-old young people and I get to let them know that they can vote as soon as they turn 18.  Since President Barack Obama has been elected, it seems as if the consensus among young people has changed from apathy to excitement.  This leads me to believe that the political and social change we envision is happening with the young people. Yesterday, I realized that half the people that I spoke with and registered were under the age of 20.  In several years, these young people will be the policy-makers, legislators, and law enforcers.  On the other hand, those who choose not to engage will be the victims of the process. My job is to remind them that even being a victim is a choice.

I realized then that the political process can start with voter registration and dialogue about the political process.  From the conversations that I have had with various young people, I have realized that they are not regularly in practice of speaking about the political process or what is encompassed in the realm of politics.  Based upon my conversations with young people during the voter registration campaign, I realized that young people are not being engaged on their level by policy makers or adults who understand the process. They are, however, being engaged by music videos and popular culture. I am curious about how to blend the two because the ones who resist engagement are the ones who embrace the false reality created by pop culture and mainstream media. My question is this: how do we as community organizers engage the young people who are in opposition to the very process that determines the projected quality of life for us all?

On a typical day for me, a 20-year old who is a longtime hip-hop fan, I’ll flick through the TV channels searching for something related to hip-hop music. I flick through the channels and land on BET’s 106^th and Park video countdown hoping to be updated on the new hot hip-hop songs.

While watching, I notice a startling trend in the videos. I see that nearly all of the songs have either violent or sexual content in their lyrics and in their videos. What is alarming about this realization is that a great deal of 106’s and Park’s viewers are young teens.

Now don’t get me wrong I enjoy seeing videos with beautiful women, flashy cars, and not to mention a catchy song. However, when only these types of videos and songs become the majority of what’s played on the radio and TV, that can be a problem.

Within the last 25 years there has been a great deal of discussion of the content of hip-hop music. We’ve all heard the negative words which people commonly associate with hip-hop music and its culture. The words “violent” and “misogynistic” seem to be two of the most commonly used terms when describing the content of the music.

There have been numerous efforts to address and condemn the negative themes in hip-hop throughout its history. One of the most memorable efforts was that of former Vice-President Dan Quayle who spoke against artists such as Ice-T and Tupac Shakur, whose lyrics he perceived to promote violence against police.

Ironically, even people who once considered themselves freedom fighters for African-Americans through the civil rights movement have been vocal in speaking against hip-hop, which is considered one of the treasures of African-American culture. Figures like C. Delores Tucker, Rev. Calvin Butts, and Rev. Jesse Jackson have all at one time or another have publicly criticized hip-hop music for its content

Even some hip-hop artists and fans themselves criticize the music which they perceive to have grown more commercialized, being less about the art and more about the money. Many of these types of hip fans believe that artists should show more complex lyricism, speak on social issues and try to uplift their communities with more positive messages.

Although many people address the problems of hip-hop music, few realize that hip-hop’s problems are mere representations of society’s problems. Like any art form, hip-hop music reflects the environment in which it is cultivated. This means that the world of hip-hop is just a reflection and sometimes an extension of our society.

Many critics of the music make the mistake of implying that since hip-hop’s content is correlated to society’s problems such as violence and misogyny, that it must be the cause. However, as the scientific rule goes: Correlation does not imply causation. History shows us that societal problems such as sexism, misogyny, and violence have existed in this country long before people were complaining about rap lyrics.

The insightful MC, Mos Def once commented on people’s illogical views on hip-hop in his song, “Fear of Not Man” where he stated “People talk about Hip-Hop like it’s some giant living in the hillside coming down to visit the townspeople. We are Hip-Hop… So Hip-Hop is going where we’re going.”

Therefore it should not be an outrage when Lil’ Wayne makes a song describing his wishes to have sex with “every girl in the world” when American culture teaches men that sexual conquest is a part of masculinity.

It shouldn’t surprise us when Nicki Minaj, who is undoubtedly the most popular female MC, has lyrics which have overly-sexual themes when in this country many women are valued based upon their sexual appeal rather than their talent, personality or intellect.

It also shouldn’t be a surprise that a young talent like Waka Flocka Flame, a rising star in hip-hop, has a song which he blatantly labels “drug-dealing music” in its hook when drug dealing is a reality for many young African-American men growing up in poverty.

However, it also shouldn’t be shocking when rappers like Lupe Fiasco, who is the son of a Black Panther, and Talib Kweli, the son of college professors, actually speak on social issues instead of making party songs. These artists simply represent the realities of their lives.

America has to realize that the only way that hip-hop is going to change is if society changes. Instead of criticizing the rappers who make songs with negative themes, we need to look at what causes rappers to voice these types of thoughts in the first place. If we want to see some changes in the music that our children listen to lets put less energy into criticizing rappers and more energy into fighting for change in our communities.

This is one of those things that’s just like. . .”Oh, god . . .really? No. Stop that. You can’t mean that”.

A big rally is being planned to protest the construction of a Mosque and Islamic Community Center near the site of Ground Zero.

One of the opponents is quoted as saying “‘If the Japanese decided to open a cultural centre across from Pearl Harbour, that would be insensitive. If the Germans opened a Bach choral society across from Auschwitz, even after all these years, that would be an insensitive setting.”

Considering that Bach died in 1750, I have a feeling that few Polish Jews are holding him personally responsible for World War II. But even that’s not the point.

Obviously, building a mosque near ground zero, as stated by the leader of the project, “sends the opposite statement to what happened on 9/11″. It shows that American Muslims are working as hard as they can to disprove the crazy stereotypes about Islam that have become rampant since 9/11. This protest is a depressing sign that they have a pretty big mountain to climb if that’s going to happen.

The near east side of Columbus, Ohio, more recently known as the King-Lincoln District, is an area of historical importance in the city. The historically black community was once a thriving area of town until the construction of I-71, which cut off access to downtown.

Poindexter Village was one of the first federally funded apartment complexes in the nation. It was once one of the cornerstones of the community but has recently been at the center of talk about being demolished. The stage has already been set, as several smaller apartment complexes in the area have been knocked down and replaced with upscale condos.

Poindexter Village is a representation of the future for people of color in my city and indeed my country. If we do not collectively stand together now and fight for what we have, we will no longer have anything to fight for. As the King-Lincoln District goes so goes the rest of our nation. In the words of the late great Dr. Martin Luther King, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

The neighborhood I live in has a reputation for being the hippest- and also the most apathetic- part of Brooklyn. This dubious honor was confirmed by a recent NPR report documenting that the “hipster enclave of Williamsburg” has the lowest census return rate in all New York City.

The reporter asked a few token hipsters why they didn’t participate. One’s thoroughly academic response was “I guess it’s laziness and like, what’s the point?” Another sunk further into nihilistic futility, saying “maybe some people, they figure what’s the point to be counted if you don’t count for much anyway? If we don’t count, why be counted?”

Come on guys. If you know how to read a billboard (and God knows you’ve read Nietzsche), you should know that filling out the census will bring important resources to your community. This is not a ‘does-one-vote-count’, debatable sort of question. Everyone’s census form makes a difference; the city’s estimating that each form filled out will bring NYC an extra $3000 in federal funding.

Maybe the problem is that young, cool people don’t really feel like they’re part of a community. It’s hard for the values of strong community to be present when the whole neighborhood is young; no kids making it necessary to show up at the school board meeting, no parents saying we have to go to the lame Community Day parade. So we end up seeing ourselves in a void, just us and our friends and nobody much mattering outside that.

But Williamsburg is a community. Hipster kids share many key values; the importance of art, love of music, the need for access to sustainable transportation and healthy ways of living. We congregate in masses for kickball games, free shows, street fairs.  But we get stuck before the realization that the group of all of us together means something real and needs our active involvement to keep it going.

So Williamsburgers, I beg you: Before you throw out the census form, think for a minute about what your values are. Why do you live in Williamsburg? For most of us, it’s not just because it’s “cool”; this is a community that formed because young people with shared values wanted to live together, work together, organize and play together.  This community needs to get its fair share of government resources, so we can have great transportation, schools, parks, education; even funding for the arts! Think about it before you shrug it off. Fill out the form.

While surfing the web I ran across an article from Las Vegas Action News via ABC that was titled “You Ask: Why am I getting duplicate census forms.” I was immediately interested because I received two forms myself.

Nevada’s Census liaison David Byerman, who I had the opportunity to meet last month, told ABC that duplicate forms were sent to zip codes that had poor response rates in the past. Maybe that’s true, seeing that 10 years ago my zip code did not exist.

However, many Nevada residents have not received their Census forms — residents that live in hard to count communities. After speaking with Ms. Diane Ireland, the African American Partnership Specialist for the U.S. Census Bureau, I learned that in one of Las Vegas’ hard to count zip codes, mailboxes had been removed due to vandalism and no action had been taken to get forms out its residents. That may or may not still be the reality.

Be that as it may, Action News reported that for Nevada residents who have not received a Census form, it could be coming soon, but there is no certainty. Most likely you will have a Census worker (or volunteer from the League of Young Voters Education Fund) knocking at your door between now and June.

The most recent statistics on Nevada’s return rate rank the Silver State at 47%, according to the Clark County Democratic Black Caucus. Remember to take our Census pledge!

This morning, Clark County Democratic Black Caucus Chair Member Yvette Williams penned an open letter about the 2010 Census and where Nevada ranks in return rate.

Greetings,

Yesterday was the date the Census Bureau asked for us to return our form.  It is sad to say that I’ve heard early reports that Nevada ranks around 47%.  That means that we need 53% of our community to return their census form.

PLEASE, if you have not taken a few minutes to complete your form, PLEASE do so this weekend.  Your participation represents almost $10,000 per person in additional funding for our State.  We desperately need these funds if we’re going to improve the quality of our education system, provide much needed community services, repair our highways and roads, etc., etc., etc.

If we would each call our family and friends and make sure that they have returned their completed form, it would go a long way in improving these current numbers.  It is particularly concerning that members of our low income and minority communities are participating at a much lower rate than the more affluent neighborhoods. These neighborhoods desperately need these resources and we should do all that we can to make sure that they get counted.

Can we count on you to sound the alarm and get your neighbors, friends, and family to be “counted.”  Your answers are confidential.  This means that the Census Bureau CANNOT give out information that identifies you or your household.  Your answers will only be used for statistical purposes, and no other purpose.

This is our opportunity to empower our community for the future.  It’s not too late. Mail your census form today.  Please!!!

Kindest Regards,

Yvette Williams

CCDBC Chair

As a Las Vegas apprentice representing Clark County, I felt compelled to share this letter on 99problems.org. Between now and June my volunteers and I will be going door to door collecting pledges – also calling residents, attending community events and encouraging young people online to fill out their Census forms and mail them back.

Remember to also fill out our Census pledge form!

You prolly don’t know this because your high-school civics class most likely wasn’t worth sh#t, but every ten years the US government counts every human being within its borders. Over the next several months, we are going to be talking a lot about the 2010 Census because it’s pretty effin important. Billions of your tax dollars are spent on schools and other important community projects. And were not talking fake rich rapper money either; the census adds up to big paper for local communities.

Of course, most times young people and people of color don’t fill out the form.  Were too busy doing other cool sh#t like filling out unemployment forms or waiting in lines at the emergency room. That’s why the good folks at the Census Bureau spend so much money producing commercials that attempt to speak directly to our demographic.

We’re not sure if these commercials have always been successful because the one above sucks really bad.  Maybe were too young to remember, but its hard to imagine that dancing that hard in ugly clothes was ever cool. After the jump is an example of a census commercial from 2000 that is much less likely to make you want to punch someone in the face.

This is a few days old i.e. another epoch in internetz time but I bet when society crashes and we burn our laptops for plastic scented warmth, we’ll kill for the chance to one more snarky blog post, to tag one more pic of the person we were before Nature takes our headphones off and smacks us back to the Ice Age.

By which I mean, is anyone really surprised that not only do we have to confront the awesome, shame-on-us specter of global destruction as a simple truth – we are consuming the world, will we do anything about it? – but also as a classic opportunity for government conspiracy, what we don’t know will kill us, of course the Man is savvy to the fact that famine and hedonism are mutually exclusive and you’ll catch more of us flies if you act like the honey is gonna flowwwww forever.

Turns out “[t]he world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit,” with the United States quite specifically called out for encouraging a false representation of 1.) how much oil is undiscovered [how do they know?!] and 2.) how much we’ve got left in our fields.

Consensus is growing that this roller coaster we call Life™ is already over the hump, we’re hurtling down hill to a NEW epoch the people at the Center for Egregiously Named Memetics call Peak Oil. When you hit Peak Oil, your oil production enters a phase called “terminal decline….” yeah, it looks kinda like this:

Now, I for one am sure the proud business and government leaders of the United States didn’t want to lie about the world’s oil reserves, no, that’s illogical! I’m sure it was a minor lie, really just a fib, that snowballed into a conspiracy, it was out of their hands – really – and now that the truth is out, wow, we can get right down to those “New Energy Solutions” that sound just so neat.

I don’t know about yall, but I say let’s burn it while we got it. It’s a cold Friday in Brooklyn, the leaves are off the trees…you know what would cheer me up?

Saw something crazy over on Huffington Post today about midwestern states and ten degree rises in temperature by 2010; farmers will be effed, oh they will be seriously effed (and what do farmers grow? Food. And who eats food? We do!), but the best part of the article is the classic regurgitation of what could surely be the epitaph on civilization’s uncelebrated tombstone: “[S]enators from Kansas, which will be most ravaged by climate change, are unlikely to support legislation addressing it.”

Let me try to understand. And yes, it has been said; I know I beat my head against it with nearly every environmental article I read. The planet is boiling, and our elected officials ‘are unlikely’ to support legislation addressing it?

What should we do to pull their heads out of the clouds and get them down here on the ground where the birds and bees are dying, crops are failing and all of Earth’s alarm bells are shrieking out our danger? Not that many of us can can hear, we’ve all got fingers in our ears, we use our chemically whitened teeth to rip the plastic off our burgers/ipods/American Apparel V-neck Summer Tees.

Feels kind of like life in an ivory tower; close the shutters, turn on your central air, and you can easily forget that your kids’ kids’ kids are gonna spend their days dressed in retro leather drinking irradiated water and scrounging pre-apocalyptic twinkies from the ruins of this little thing called Life.

This has to be the realization of a horrible Catch 22 situation: to accomplish anything in our society, one must amass power through cultural appeal, moderation and strategic alliance building; but the System is so far gone, our captains of industry and politics are so beyond the point of no return, that anyone who lets intuition drive his/her analysis of our environmental situation will end up ostracizing themselves because increasingly, horribly, it just doesn’t look like there’s a way out of this mess.

We’re on a super fast train riding magnetic tracks off a thousand foot cliff and we’re stuck arguing about a coal vs. solar powered caboose? We need to stop the effing train!

But no one wants to talk on that level, because 1.) it makes you sound crazy and 2.) the American zeitgeist says that ‘well, action is better than just words, so even though I just scratch the surface at least it’s something, right?”  Sure.  Ride the subway in New York City and marvel at Con Ed’s helpful tips for how to be a greener citizen.  I’m sure that deciding what you want to eat for your midnight snack before you open the refrigerator is the miracle for which we’ve all been waiting.

But I don’t know what to  do.  Real talk, I feel a horrible guilt ridden duality; I enjoy my job. I love the internet, I want freaking ipods and American Apparel, but I think our society is seriously messed.  We’ve sold the land out, and like a plane ride to a foreign country with a fake passport and a duffel full of cash, the baubles I’ve collected and the bullet points on my resume read like a sociopath’s sick manifesto. I’m a convicted convict.  So right to live in the age we live but there’s always a catch, ain’t there?

And this time, it’s the Climate.  It’s the air we breath.  We think we’re making major progress – civil rights, women’s rights, universal health care – but we’re still pushing the limits of what we can get wrong, and I’m afraid we’re going to take the whole planet with us.  And I know it sounds stupid, but that just doesn’t feel fair.

We’re humans, damnit; religion, space travel, 808s and heartbreak…all this time, I thought we were something special.  So why can’t we feel the world’s pain?

It’s unthinkable that a kid is killed in a drive-by while at an Anti-Violence Rally. Yet that’s precisely what happened to 13 year old Tamrah Leonard in Trenton, New Jersey last Sunday! Abomination! How is society not outraged at this heinous act?

Sadly, it was not an isolated incident.The economic recession has had an adverse affect on homicide rates, which are skyrocketing. Homicide is now the leading cause of death among young African American youth, and the number two cause of death for all other youth aged 10-24. Dire straits mean that desperate youth are becoming increasingly likely to resort to violence. At the same time, decreased funding means that many after-school programs–which have been proven to get youth off the streets and lower crime rates–are at risk of being reduced or eradicated entirely.

Thankfully, outreach programs provide hope that change is on the horizon. Find out more about these matters of life-or-death, and WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP, at http://www.campusprogress.org/fieldreport/4284/killing-the-programs-we-need-most.