Here It Is

Posted on July 2, 2016 by The Soul Brother

by Alice Walker (2016)

Here it is
the beauty that scares you
-so you believe-
to death.
For he is certainly gorgeous
and he is certainly where whiteness
to your disbelief
has not wandered off
to die.
No. It is there, tawny skin, gray eyes,
a Malcolm-esque jaw. His loyal parents
may Goddess bless them
sitting proud and happy and no doubt
amazed
at what they have done.
For he is black too. And obviously
with a soul
made of everything.
Try to think bigger than you ever have
or had courage enough to do:
that blackness is not where whiteness
wanders off to die: but that it is
like the dark matter
between stars and galaxies in
the Universe
that ultimately
holds it all
together.

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The Depths Of Poverty In The Deep South

Posted on July 2, 2016 by The Soul Brother

By Scott Rodd

635933422445765072-1612481091_povertyAndrew sat a table in a bar with no sign outside drinking a Bud Light tallboy. The windows were boarded up from the outside and the only source of light was a bare light bulb sticking out from a fixture on the wall. Behind him, gray-haired men sat at the bar watching an old kung fu movie on a grainy television.

“I spent my whole life on the plantation around the corner,” Andrew* said, and took a drink from his tallboy. “My entire family worked on it—dad, brothers, uncles. Our family must’ve gone back three or four generations on Mr. Peaster’s farm.”

He remembered helping his father plant and harvest crops when he was a boy, steadily gaining more responsibility on the farm as he got older. After graduating from high school, he started working on the farm full time.

“Mr. Peaster liked having me around ’cause I was good with tractors and equipment. When something broke down, he was glad he had hands on the farm that could fix it instead of having to call a mechanic. Paid me a couple extra bucks whenever I fixed something, or let me take an advance on my paycheck if I wanted.”

For over 30 years, Andrew saw the farm as an idyllic, self-contained community. Much of his extended family lived on the plantation, and when Andrew was old enough to have a family of his own, Mr. Peaster worked with him to build a small house for his wife and children right beside the house in which he grew up. Mr. Peaster also ran a general store on the plantation, which carried all the groceries and supplies the families needed, so they hardly had any reason to leave the farm at all.

Read More  The Depths Of Poverty In The Deep South | ThinkProgress.

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Malcolm X – Speech at Ford Auditorium (Detroit)

Posted on July 11, 2015 by The Soul Brother

Brother Malcolm delivered this speech in Detroit later in the day after his house was bombed earlier. Think for a moment how physically tired he must have been. Yet, he was bound to his calling – to speak truth to power. Just like the Stokely Carmichael speech I posted earlier, Malcolm’s speech is not stale. It speaks to our intellect and soul today just as it did on February 14, 1965.

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Stokely Carmichael – Black Power

Posted on July 11, 2015 by The Soul Brother

As resonant today as it was then….

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Papa Pope vs. The Confederate Flag

Posted on June 24, 2015 by The Soul Brother

Joe Morgan as “Papa Pope” extemporizes his remarks to a Southerner who supports the Confederate flag on last night’s The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore. As always Mr. Morgan “drops the mic.” Can the church say, AMEN.

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Jon Stewart’s Remarks on Charleston

Posted on June 19, 2015 by The Soul Brother

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The 9 Things the McKinney Pool Party Reminds Us Black People Can’t Do

Posted on June 12, 2015 by The Soul Brother

By Danielle C. Belton

When I was 21, a police officer at the scene of a fire cursed me out.

It didn’t matter that I was there with a camera crew and working for a TV station in St. Louis. It didn’t matter that I was absolutely nowhere near the fire (I was standing across the street). He thought I, wearing a suit and carrying a reporter’s notepad, badge and pen, was some punk, teenage lookie loo.

The cameraman spoke up for me, explaining that I had a right to be there. The officer just yelled more and became belligerent. Realizing that I had no interest in being arrested, I agreed to go back to the news van. The cameraman, who went on to film the fire, said to me, quite succinctly, “What an a–hole.” But I knew the real crime.

I was “existing while black”!

Existing while black shouldn’t be a crime, but it sort of is. The bust-up over a black teenage girl in a bikini being thrown to the ground by a police officer in McKinney, Texas, is reflective of this. The fact that some on social media pointed out that “at least” the “police didn’t shoot anyone” as a result of the police-officer-pulls-gun-on-kids-at-pool mishap is a testament to the sad state of “existing while black.”

Below are nine things black people can’t do if they run into the wrong police officer, busybody stranger or racist sociopath on any given day.

1. Be Loud

Some people are loud. Some of those loud people are black people. But while loud people, in general, are typically seen as just mild annoyances, loud black people are routinely seen as threatening or sinister. This can be confusing for the black people being targeted for being loud because if they, or you, are anything like me and have a voice that carries, you don’t even know that you’re being loud until someone tells you. If you’re lucky, they’ll tap you on the shoulder. If you’re unlucky, they will call the cops on you for praying too loudly or issue warrants for your arrest for cheering at a high school graduation. But, hey, maybe they’ll find a middle ground and just post a rude note in your apartment building. The worst thing that can happen, of course, is that you will get killed for it. Which is what tragically happened to Florida teen Jordan Davis, murdered by Michael Dunn over loud music.

Read More  The 9 Things the McKinney Pool Party Reminds Us Black People Can’t Do – The Root.

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How to Lock Up Fewer People

Posted on June 12, 2015 by The Soul Brother

By Marc Mauer and David Cole

WHEN Hillary Rodham Clinton, Ted Cruz, Eric H. Holder Jr., Jeb Bush, George Soros, Marco Rubio and Charles G. Koch all agree that we must end mass incarceration, it is clear that times have changed. Not long ago, most politicians believed the only tenable stance on crime was to be tougher than the next guy.

Today, nearly everyone acknowledges that our criminal justice system needs fixing, and politicians across the spectrum call for reducing prison sentences for low-level drug crimes and other nonviolent offenses. But this consensus glosses over the real challenges to ending mass incarceration. Even if we released everyone imprisoned for drugs tomorrow, the United States would still have 1.7 million people behind bars, and an incarceration rate four times that of many Western European nations.

Mass incarceration can be ended. But that won’t happen unless we confront the true scale of the problem.

A hard-nosed skeptic would tell you that fully half the people in state prisons are serving time for violent offenses. And most drug offenders behind bars are not kids caught smoking a joint, but dealers, many with multiple prior convictions. We already have about 3,000 drug courts diverting those who need it to treatment rather than prison. Recidivism remains astonishingly high for those we release from prison, so releasing more poses real risks. And criminal law is primarily enforced by the states, not the federal government, so this is not a problem the next president can solve.

To move beyond symbolic sound bites to real progress, we need to address each of these objections in turn.

It’s true that half the people in state prisons are there for a violent crime, but not all individuals convicted of violent crimes are alike. They range from serial killers to minor players in a robbery and battered spouses who struck back at their abusers. If we are going to end mass incarceration, we need to recognize that the excessively long sentences we impose for most violent crimes are not necessary, cost-effective or just.

Read More How to Lock Up Fewer People – NYTimes.com.

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NAACP Statement on Rachel Dolezal

Posted on June 12, 2015 by The Soul Brother

For 106 years, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has held a long and proud tradition of receiving support from people of all faiths, races, colors and creeds. NAACP Spokane Washington Branch President Rachel Dolezal is enduring a legal issue with her family, and we respect her privacy in this matter. One’s racial identity is not a qualifying criteria or disqualifying standard for NAACP leadership. The NAACP Alaska-Oregon-Washington State Conference stands behind Ms. Dolezal’s advocacy record. In every corner of this country, the NAACP remains committed to securing political, educational, and economic justice for all people, and we encourage Americans of all stripes to become members and serve as leaders in our organization.

Hate language sent through mail and social media along with credible threats continue to be a serious issue for our units in the Pacific Northwest and across the nation. We take all threats seriously and encourage the FBI and the Department of Justice to fully investigate each occurrence.

Read More  NAACP Statement on Rachel Dolezal | Press Room | NAACP.

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This Restaurant Pays A $15 Hourly Wage With Health Insurance, A Retirement Plan And Paid Leave

Posted on June 12, 2015 by The Soul Brother

By Bryce Covert

Busy Zazie brunchtime

 

Jen Piallat, the owner of Zazie in San Francisco, knows what it’s like to work in the American restaurant industry. “I worked on the restaurant floor for 30 years before I owned my own,” she said. “I didn’t have savings or health insurance until I was 35.”

The story is very different for her employees today. She had already offered them 401(k) plans with a match, fully funded health and dental insurance, and paid sick leave. And now she’s gone even further, getting rid of tips in favor of increasing pay and offering even more benefits.

At the beginning of the month, the restaurant increased its prices across the board by about 20 percent. She noted some restaurants that have done away with tips have added a mandatory service charge at the bottom of the check instead. “I didn’t want to do that,” she said. “I like the all-inclusive model…of everything, not just service, not just a tip, it’s also full benefits.”

Her servers’ wages, which were already about $15 an hour, will now raise by 2 to 3 percent. But those who work in the “back of the house” in the kitchen or busing tables will get at least a 30 percent increase. Servers will also get a share of profits, receiving 11 percent of their individual sales every day on top of their wages.

And while she offered paid family leave on an informal basis, she said she’s now added it officially to the books. “We have basically full benefits,” she said.

She anticipates the changes will make a big difference for her employees. “Housing is so expensive here,” she noted. Housing costs in San Francisco are up 6 percent over the last year and have risen in some neighborhoods by 50 percent over the last decade. Three years ago, she says, all of her staff lived in San Francisco proper, but now at least a third live outside the city. She also noted that most restaurant workers have no savings, just as she didn’t before opening her own up. But she says that combined, her employees have over $1 million in their 401(k) plans.

Read More  This Restaurant Pays A $15 Hourly Wage With Health Insurance, A Retirement Plan And Paid Leave | ThinkProgress.

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