100 Visionaries

I had a watershed moment yesterday. I was pacing, writing notes and just
simply amped.

The 100 Visionaries Mission came to me.

Our mission is to work to create a better future for our young people
through local and national activism and policy lobbying.

The strategy for achieving this is a five pronged effort. The first is
having regular one on one interactions with young people through
reflection retreats.

The second is supporting local members who share our vision,
and are running for office such as city council or the board of education.

The third is lobbying around policies that effect their lives such as
ending mandatory minimums, creating a national Prop 36 legislation,
eliminating zero tolerance in schools, and ensuring that public school
funds are equitably distributed within the school district.

The fourth is through supporting and promoting artists, writers, musicians,
who are our vision of a better world for young people.

The fifth is by working with other organizations who are doing related work.
One of us may not have an impact. But, 100 hundred of us is a Movement.

Our organization is a learning organization. Nimble, eager and ready to take
action. Contact me directly with further questions at m.dotwrites@gmail.com.

Click on the Widget on the left to donate to cover the cost of incorporating
the non profit.
100 Visionaries will be the 501 (c) (3). Cost. $75
100 Visionaries Fund will be the 510 (c) (4). Cost. $75

I seek to build this with you all, with "buy in" on the ground from
all the folks who have commented and said they want to contribute
and support.

Moveon.org is a 501 (c) (4). This kind of organization has far more leeway than
a (c) (3) when it comes to lobbying. Read more about it here.

501 (c) (3) will be 100 Visionaries.
501 (c) (4) will be the 100 Visionary Fund, similar to Moveon in terms of
action and scope with a bit more urban focus. Early.

Who knew that what began as a conversation on, "who raises the kids
the mommas or the rappers", would bring us to this?

The Problem or The Solution: 100 Visionaries

I AM SEAN BELL, black boys speak from Stacey Muhammad on Vimeo.

"I'm already scared in New York, because of all this crime on the
street, but now theirs cops are killing us, that means are hero's
are the murderers, like the bad guys now."

It all started with the watching people debate whether
Rihanna deserved to be hit.

As a Black feminist who writes about violence and rage,
I was particular intersted in how this conversation has played out
in pop culture in general and in the Black community specifically.

When you are a thinker, with a sense of obligation, it can
be hard. It has been hard for me. Hard but not impossible.

I see myself as being beholden to the young men in the video above.

I wasn't sure what I was suppose to do, but I knew it was something.

So I re-sent Ann another design for 100 Visionaries. She was open
and we worked out a project schedule.

Then I saw someone twit, "Don't let the need to be perfect
stop you from doing something."

I am always interested in what stops me and us from acting.
Perfection and fear are the two main sources.

Then things started to happen.

The first thing is that I read that the bloggers and the
unions were getting together to start a political action
committee that would elect local politicians
and hold President Obama accountable. I thought, awesome,
that is what I want for 100 Visionaries.

WASHINGTON — A group of liberal bloggers said it was teaming up
with organized labor and MoveOn.org to form a political action
committee that would seek to push the Democratic Party
further to the left.

I began to think that if I got our 100 Visionary infrastructure running
then we could poly with them and try to make some REAL change.

The second thing was the firing of Liz Smith from The Post.
I figured if she got the ax, then there was truly a new day in
publishing. The day after I learned that I decided to publish an
online anthology of essays on hip hop, masculinity/femininity.
My rationale was, why go through a gate keeper, when
I know enough people who would be willing to contribute?
I also thought it would be the first of its kind.

The third was that in sketching the 100 Visionary site,
I decided to make an issues campaign spread sheet.
It is hard to think both big and small picture simultaneously.

I need your help with doing so.

Issue

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Spreadsheets issues 100 visionaries

I invite any of you who are interested, and want to make a
contribution to e-mail me any suggestions.

If you are on gmail, e-mail me, and I can
add you to the google documents list. This will allow you to
update the spreadsheet on your own time.

I am excited about the idea of those of us who care
and want to take an action on a a systemic and local level.

This is the change we can believe in. It feels good to be
a part of the solution.

Focused Anger in '09 Love.

What do you think it will take to get folks to move from
talk to action?

What are you excited about this year?

Did you work on the Obama campaign?

We Are The Leaders We Need: 100 Visionaries [UPDATE]

For my long time readers, you know that Court Bear and I
have been working on a non profit, 100
Visionaries, that came out of the "Who Raises the Kids,
the Momma's or the Rappers" discussion on this blog.

A couple of days ago, I was tired and frustrated. Sore throat,
no health care, and my knee hurt.

I have started slanging burgers and margarita's to pay
for fall school expenses.

I have worked retail and cafe's before. But the corporate
food industry is a whole other animal. Two things have
become clear to me:

>How do parents with children manage to be there
for their children when they work wage labor job's?

>How can the masses meaningfully participate in a
democracy when their weeks are made up of two or three
double shifts?

I would imagine it's lightweight impossible.

As a worker, you have no control over your schedule and
if you wait tables, the wage is below the state minimum because
the expectation is that you will make more than the
difference in tips.

I use to think that I had an understanding of class and
class mobility because my family was working middle
class before the crack epidemic and then on public
assistance during the crack epidemic.

While it is true that I had an understanding of class, it is far more
nuanced now.

Experiencing what I have now termed, adult onset poverty,
has forced me to think about the ways in which 100 Visionaries
would both educate and advocate on the behalf of families.

If I have learned anything, it is one thing to call myself a
feminist it is another one to serve food and wash dishes
to pay my rent while having a theoretical understanding
of labor, wages, race and the law.

I am a zombie when I get home. I don't want to eat, or talk.
I just want to sit and for my knee to stop hurting.

This is material because I really like to cook and I like to eat even more.

In some ways, I needed to have this experience in order to think:

>How different would our labor laws be if every Senator
had to work and pay rent with fast food minimum
wages for a few months every year?

>Our system produces far too many graduates
for the number of jobs available and a just, sustainable
Democracy requires this issue to be addressed head on.

Saturday morning I woke up with the Senate subcommittees
on my mind. While I have a cursory idea of how bills are passed,
I wasn't sure of the nuts and bolts.

On Friday, I was reading Baldwin, and I am sure
that influenced me. One of the things that Baldwin said was
that Black people don't want to be white, they want what white
people have, power.

Late last week read that the health care reform will be difficult, for
many reasons, one of which is that many senators and
senators family members have financial ties to the health care
industry. With all this floating in my mind, I guess I woke up thinking
about power. I wanted to know who the different committees
were, who the members were, and the nuances of getting a
bill passed.

When I found the senate committee site, it became clear
to me that we are the leaders that we need.

Joseph Stiglitz won the Pulitzer prize for something
called the asymmetry of information, which deals with
the study of decisions in transactions where one
party has more or better information than the other.

We have the information. We have the people. We just
need the will and a mission. The asymmetry of information
and arguably power can no longer stop us. API's and
the internet have changed or at least had a huge impact on all this.

100 Visionaries Ideas On the Table:

>Political Education for Children and Adults
>Issues- Crime, Poverty, Education, Labor, Eco Justice,
Entertainment
>Eco Justice - Sustainable Local Green Economies
>Labor - Living Wage Advocacy
>Poverty- Reclassification of teen prostitution from
a criminal issue to a public health issue
>Education - Equitable distribution of funds within
urban school districts
>Crime - Re-establishing Pell Grants for prison inmates
>Entertainment - Media Literacy and Race, Gender
Sexual Awareness in Pop Culture

Ann (programmer extraordinaire) and I are working on the
relaunch of Model Minority and my homie site for her production
company, Hot Comb Pics. We just finished up Brooklyn Magic.

There are three more sites in the pipeline, which are the
100V site, a site on Black women and another on Black book clubs.

This post feels like the beginning of a new year.

Awesome.
What are you working on?

Doesn't it feel good to think, We are the leaders we need.

Why do site relaunches take so much work?

100 Visionaries-Fear-Failure-Support

I had an interesting "internet moment" earlier this week.

I came across an online social justice group, and reached out to one of
its members because their work is closely aligned with what I envision
100 Visionaries to be.

The group had a conference a few years ago, a list serve and people.

I came across their list serve archive Thursday morning, right after I placed
those fund raising widgets in the sidebar.

Because the group is not very active I was curious as to what happened
and whether their lack of activity corresponded was an early indicator of
the to the lack of activity, with my fund raising widgets.

I wondered, if folks really WOULD rather talk about Imus, Jay Z, David Banner,
Obama, Jesse Jackson and The Wackness than actually do something.

So I decided to take action.

I sent an e-mail to a woman I had been in contact with via twitter who
was, ironiclly on the list serve and her point blank, "What happened?
You all seem to have had a lot of traction and now there is very little
activity".

This was a risk for me, because she didn't know me from a stick
of gum and could have said, yo- go kick rocks.

She responded, candidly saying "Yo- do I know you?"

She then went on to say that it became clear to her that, in the
organization, people were more interested in talking about the problem
than doing something about it.

That had me stuck because it is what I feared would happen
with 100 V.

Then I also thought about how our kids need to watch us
struggle, fail, succeed and go through personal transformation.

And for that matter we need to watch one another do it.

It makes it feel like its possible.

I got sad. My rationale is that if this group couldn't do, what makes
me think I can?

Then things started to happen.

This dude in Cali e-mailed me on some, yo- is this going to be a virtual
org, are you going to have a board of directors, what's the plan?

I sent him an outline of the next 9 months and he shot
me back an e-mail on his background. When it became clear that
he was type thorough- grad school, undergrad in the trenches
with the young bucks, college counseling, I began to
try and bring him into the fold.

Then another blogger said, I can't do a reflection retreat, and I
responded, thats cool, can you write about how you and your
son deal with pop culture? He agreed.

And I began to see that this is going to work relationship by relationship.

I stepped out on faith and bought the url yesterday.

I see it as one of A million little steps. A million little steps.

Bart Police Kill an Unarmed Man, Oscar Grant, on New Years Day

Video

Oakland haunts me.

Last week, I started trying to convert my essay's on the
crack epidemic into a memoir and the above sentence
came to mind.

As many of you know, on early New Years day , the BART
police killed an unarmed man, Oscar Grant.

I felt my heart flip in my throat when I heard the woman say
they just shot him.

Oakland haunts me.

I hate that moment. The moment in the hood where the violence
sparks and we have no fucking idea of what is going happen next.

Richard at Fem-men-ist captures it when he writes about being at the riots,

I head down 14th street towards Webster... and that's as far as i get. A couple blocks further down, the crowd looms, and its a riot crowd. i can smell something burning, and Broadway is obscured with smoke that could be the source of the smell, or tear gas. A metal hulk slowly rolls out of a backlit cloud of smoke. it is a paramilitary tank with a mounted water cannon. Is this my neighborhood?

It is really easy to think of Oakland as the home of side shows, The Black
Panthers, the spiritual seat of pimp mythology. It is easy to think of Oakland
as San Francisco's pathologized other. However, there is a very
strong thread of Wild Wild West street justice that permeates
the culture of Oakland. A shoot first and maybe ask questions later
steelo that is both reflected in how the police and how the hood
resorts to violence to deal with rage and retribution. Furthermore
there is a shoot first and ask questions later attitude associated
with American foreign policy. Operation Iraqi Freedom anyone?

In fact the confluence of rage, revenge and retribution is palpable
in Oakland.

I shuddered when I read the account of a woman, Nia Sykes,
wax matter-of-factly about violence at the riot. She sounds cool as a fan,
but I know rage when I see it. Demian Bulwa and others from the San Francisco
Chronical write,

"I feel like the night is going great," said Nia Sykes, 24, of San Francisco, one of the demonstrators. "I feel like Oakland should make some noise. This is how we need to fight back. It's for the murder of a black male."

Sykes, who is black, had little sympathy for the owner of Creative African Braids.

"She should be glad she just lost her business and not her life," Sykes said. She added that she did have one worry for the night: "I just hope nobody gets shot or killed."

Lets be clear, the riots didn't happen until a week passed without a word
from BART executives.

Lets also be clear that it wasn't until the riots occurred that national
news took an interest in what happened.

It is also important to note that the BART police are not OPD.
They are officers specifically hired, trained and compensated
by Bay Area Rapid Transit. This merits being noted simply
because they earn $64K per year, at the entry level. This is an important
distinction because they are not under compensated $32K/year
NYC cops.

That being said, Oscar Grants death is clearly personal to me. December
28th 2003, at approximately 5am the Oakland police tried to kill my brother.

I had just came home from New York, fresh with my new engagement ring.
Ambivalent, proud, scared. In many ways, I felt grown.

My mother got the call at that deadly time of the morning. The
it could only be bad news time. My brother was at Highland Hospital.
That we needed to come. We piled in her boyfriends truck and headed
to Oakland's public hospital, Highland. The sun was coming up.
The sky was orange sherbert and periwinkle blue. Gorgeous, the way
that the Oakland sky is notorious for.

I was in shock because we had just taken my niece to see Bad Santa
at the Metreon in San Francisco on 27th.

The police knocked teeth out of his mouth. Cut his lip open.
Opened his head. Handcuffed him to a fence and beat him, in front
of a group of eye witnesses in the heart of deep East Oakland.

I didn't feel so grown anymore. I was scared of what the police
had done to my brothers face.

My brother ran from the police that night. Had been running for years.
They caught him, and commenced to letting him know the
consequences of his actions.

I wrote the FBI, OPD's internal affairs and John Burris
(the attorney for The Rider Trails.) Burris's office ultimatly
told me that while my brother suffered from being harmed
by the police, a jury would not be particularly
receptive to a formerly convicted D-Boy, albeit even if he
wasn't hustling anymore.

I also became intimately acquainted with Bay Area
Police Watch, which is a program ran by the Ella Baker Center
for Human Rights. They were the only institution that listened to
me. They ultimately found an attorney to take my brother's case
pro bono, however, by that time the statue of limitations had ran.
In many ways Ella Baker has inspired me to start 100 Visionaries.

Back to Oscar Grant. This video reminds me of both the
historical worthlessness of the Black body, as it pertains
to the state. Of lynchings, of Tuskegee syphilis experiments,
the bombing of Black little girls in churches, of Sean Bell, of, of, of.

It reminds me of 1989, Task Force in my living room,
my brother handcuffed, and feeling incredibly powerless.
It reminds me of how that situation on the BART platform
could have gotten even further out of hand had someone
else on that platform had guns and decided to use them.
You see, I was raised to believe that everyone had a gat.
In the flat lands of Oakland many people do.

Let's be clear about how this is a teachable moment about who
does and doesn't have power in our society.

When you live in a society where the people who taken an oath
to serve and protect you, can conceivably smoke a person
who looks like you in front several witnesses. You feel powerless.

Furthermore, it is reasonable for you to feel powerless and
want smash the symbols of the power that you do not have.

Rage can only turn to violence when unchecked.

In many ways, rage is violence.

For many young folks, the idea is to carry a gat, because it is
clear that no one will protect them. This means always staying
strapped.

15 years ago, Ice Cube said on Death Certificate, "I would rather
be judged by twelve than carried by six." This is the code of the
streets that I know.

Yes, there are major fallacies to this argument. To put it simply,
it invites that eye for an eye logic, which is incredibly harmful,
because if we all do an eye for an eye, we will all be blind.

But think about this, power is the ability to restore yourself after you
have suffered a set back in life. To right a wrong.

What power do the people in this situation have?

BART possesses and has and exercised the power to be silent.

Some folks in Oakland exercised their power to burn property
and be destructive.

Think about this as well.

What does an Obama presidency mean to Oscar Grant,
Oscar Grants family, or the people who were in Downtown
Oakland on Wednesday night saying "We Are All Oscar Grant."

I know that some of you may balk at my bringing Obama in this.
Think about it this way. Where does Oscar Grant fit in our
"post racial" society?

I ask you all this question because last year it was
revealed to me that part of my purpose is to ask the
uncomfortable questions. Not just affirm what you already know.

On Wednesday morning, someone Twittered me a message
asking if I was going to the protest. I responded saying
that I was not in Oakland, and that I don't do protests.

However, I also thought, if the BART police will smoke a man
on a BART platform in front of arguably 20 to 30 witnesses,
then what would stop the OPD from smoking other people
at a rally/protest riot?

That being said.

Oakland haunts me.

But I am not only just haunted. Courtney stays on me about
100 Visionaries. Last week, I sketched the website and now
I am just looking for a template and finalizing a color scheme.

Shooting incidents like these remind me that so much work
has to be done. As individuals we can stand and be reactive,
bumping gums all day about how horrible the police are.
Or, we can be reflective, strategic and decide exactly which
part of the system we are going to come together to analyze
and change.

I ride for the analyze and change approach, because while
Oakland still haunts me, my goal, god willing, is to be able to
rest assured that at the end of the day I contributed something
other than just hot air.

If you want to get involved contact the Ella Baker Center for
Human Rights. They are on the ground. They are organized
and they can use your help. Below I have attached an excerpt of
and e-mail I just received from them.

This week, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights joined the call for justice in the shooting of Oscar Grant III, a 22-year old unarmed man shot dead by a BART police officer on January 1st, 2009, at the Fruitvale BART station. As an organization that has tackled the issue of police brutality and accountability for the past 12 years, we share in the anger, sadness, and frustration this tragedy has stirred within our community and beyond.

Several Ella Baker Center staff members -- and many of you -- attended the January 7th rally at the Fruitvale BART Station. We were joined by hundreds of other activists from all over the Bay Area, a crowd that mirrored the incredible diversity of our region. Youth read poetry inspired not only by their pain, but also by their hope for justice; elected officials stood with the community; activists led chants and local performers shared their souls through song. It was a sight to behold.

As you may have heard, some people then led a march from Fruitvale to the Lake Merritt BART station. While most of the march was peaceful -- and at times even beautiful -- a small number of participants succombed to their overwhelming anger, rooted in a long history of police misconduct and lack of accountability, and lashed out with inexcusable behavior. The Ella Baker Center believes the fight for justice must sometimes be taken to the streets, and does not condone vandalism or the destruction of property while speaking truth to power.

That's why we must keep our focus on the issue of justice for Oscar Grant and his family. We'll need your help as we continue to speak out in protest to ensure that this case is handled with respect and urgency.

Specifically, we demand:

• A thorough, independent investigation into the training, supervision, and arrest procedures of BART police.
• A full criminal investigation to be conducted by the State Department of Justice of all officers involved in the shooting that evening.

In addition, we're joining forces with the Courage Campaign and ColorOfChange.org to support a bill by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano and Senator Leland Yee that would create a civilian oversight board for BART police. Senator Yee and Assemblymember Ammiano are ahead of the curve in calling for this kind of legislation, and they'll need our support to get it passed and signed into law. Click here to sign the petition:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/NeverAgain

Please also join us in helping turn this tragedy into hope for change by making a donation to Oscar's family. Checks should be made payable to "Wanda Johnson" (Oscar's mother), and sent to Ella Baker Center at 344 40th Street, Oakland, CA 94609. We'll then pass along all donations to Oscar's family.

We are all deeply saddened by this tragedy and express our deepest condolences to the family and friends of Oscar Grant III. In the coming months we hope you'll join us in demanding justice and continuing to work for peace and opportunity in our communities.

In solidarity,

Jakada Imani
Ella Baker Center for Human Rights

Attack of the Borderless Relationships

Flick from "Im Through With White Girls"

Borderless relationships are dangerous because there is
only a matter of time before a border is crossed and the entire
spot gets blown. This past weekend, I fell back from Filthy.
He decided to take the time to deal with the impact of a
borderless relationship with a lady friend that preceded me.

When we take part of borderless relationships we do so out of a fear
of being rejected. Think about it, if you don't have boundaries, you don't
have to worry about losing the person, or about being accountable
to a relationship. The upside of Borderless Relationships is that
they operate in that zone of the mushy middle. The down side
is that when it goes all bad, it has a tendency to be nuclear.

On Thursday Filthy told me he wanted to limit contact this
weekend, so that he could, pray, fast, reflect and I responded
saying that I understood. We also decided to put some plans
to take a trip on hold. I did understand, but I also missed my
friend. The notion of putting the trip plans on pause lighweight
scared me, as he had been talking about it for a few weeks.
But I took the highroad and agreed to play it by ear.

On top of that my road dog is in Chicago networking at a conference,
so I took it upon myself to go to a cafe and work on sketching the
100 Visionaries website.

Last night, I walked into a cafe, set my stuff down and I hear a
man clear his throat, yet I say nothing, but my mind registers
that it sounds familiar. I proceed to pay for my tea, and as I
look for the honey, I felt eyes on me.

I turn and look and it is The Graduate, sitting there, with a pretty Black
lady. He is smiling and staring.

I return the gaze. I don't blink.

I thought to myself, God has an amazing sense of humor.

I haven't seen The Graduate since May '07. All I could think was, man,
you can't write better scenes than these. In many ways, my relationship
with The Graduate was a borderless relationship. While I have spoken
to him recently about grad school, I deaded having contact
with him as a realized last year that he was interested in me,
but he wasn't interested in doing the work to be with me.
This of course is the recipe for the Borderless Relationship Syndrome.

The chickens came home to roost, kick it and freestyle last night.

I grabbed my tea. I spoke to him and walk and set my stuff down. He
mentions something about not receiving a hug, and I call him an "ass".
I give him a hug, speak and I introduce myself to his lady friend.

Then she says, "You must know him pretty well to call him an ass".

I smiled.

He responds saying, "What, I didn't hear her call me that".

I responded playing it off- with, "Hey, Lisa, ladies gotta stick together,
moi, I said nothing of the sort ", and we all laughed.

Her statement was clever. She didn't know who I was, and she was letting
me and him know that she didn't know.

I spoke to young Filth about the run in and he responded, of course, saying,
"How you feel?" At the moment I was grateful that I was humble
enough to bring it up and for the fact that we have a friendship
where we can talk about ish like this. He responded saying, I been there
before, and it ain't pretty. We laughed.

This was a lot to deal with in one night. It many ways it goes to show
you how God tests you and provides challenges when you least expect them.

Been in any borderless relationships recently?

How do you deal with them?

Did it blow up?

BET's School for Nappy Headed Ho's: BET, Drake & Lil Wayne

The jump @ 3:55 sec

"I like a long haired thick red bone."
~Lil Wayne

No nappy headed ho's allowed.

I have been having a conversation with Moya and Nuala about
BET, Drake, and Lil Wayne.

The conversation has been interesting in that I have been
pushing hard against being reactionary. Its challenging, because when
you react you feel empowered.

But, we, the masses, always have the power, whether or not we use
it is another question. We outnumber the executives and the politicians.

Always.

Black Women
It is important to note that there are Black women who
are only angry because Drake's video features light skinned
Latina's and White women. From the Sandra Rose website,

"Sandra as a woman I am offended that this is all Kanye West, the director, could come up with for one of the hottest songs of the summer. He should be ashamed of this depiction of females. This video in a nutshell basically says a woman’s beauty is defined by how big her boobs are and light her skin is. And Kanye being a black man raised by black parents and Drake being bi-raicial (half black and half white) why are they only showcasing ALL Hispanic girls in this video? I don’t get it, they couldn’t get ONE pretty chocolate sister up in the video like Lanisha Cole, Jessica White, or Natasha Ellie to be in the video alongside the Hispanic girls?..."

I read this, thought about it, read it again then realized that,
getting more Black women to care about rap videos, simply takes
only featuring Latina's and White women. Hmmmp.

In fact, on Tuesday. I tweeted that in some ways the the only
way for Black women to be upset about rap videos is if they
are excluded. I was surprised that five people responded. We
have allies after all.

What does it mean, and what does it say about Black women,
and the recognition of Black beauty in mainstream media,
if we are only mad because a clearly sexist video doesn't have
any brown skinned women in it?


Apologies and Boycott's
BET and Drake have both apologized.

An apology without an action is worthless.

Especially when the apology does nothing to materially impact
harm that has been done.

Lets review the facts.

BET has received its ad dollars.

Advertisers commercials were exposed to 10M viewers.

Some Black people have written letter and a petition and get an apology.

The first two points have to do with an exchange of money,
the last one doesn't.

One question for BET? What is your apology worth?

In my conversation with Moya, we are talking about boycott's
and how they are reactionary. The idea is that if we spend
all of our time reacting to what some one is doing to us,
then we will have no energy left to advance our own agenda's.

The advertisers for the Bet awards were, Dodge, Procter & Gamble,
Target, CIROC Vodka, Ford, Coors, Pepsi, Verizon Wireless and Akademiks.
You know, in case you were wondering.

According to Target Market News, In a recent mulitmedia engagement of 5,000 African American adults, Simmons market Research Bureay found that BET viewers are 21% more ad receptive when they watch ads on BET, and 31% more ad rece[tive when they see ads on Bet.com, versus other networks.

[Sidebar. Why do corporations cause harm and governments
stay taking forced free labor and or ad dollars, and giving
us apologies? It's rhetorical]

While there are many people who are angry about
what BET has done, just because folks are angry,
does't mean that they care enough to take
non-reactionary action.

Take Imus, he was censored temporarily,
there was a big hullaboo, and he is back on the air.

Capitalism stay eatin', nothing stops it.

Imus nor Wayne, nor Drake, are the problem. They
are symptoms of a larger one.

Moya astutely pointed out we often say that "Them rappers
ain't talking about me", she then noted that, Wayne just said he
"wish he could fuck every girl in the world", that includes all of us,
you too Love.

BET?

What do you think of the women being angry because
no brown skinned women were featured?

You see the awards?

Have you thought of alternatives to reactionary
boycotts?

Thoughts?

100 Visionaries? Yes!