Inspiration from "Al-Rad"

"Verily never will Allah change the condition of a people until they change it themselves (with their own souls)."

Revolutionary change does not happen by accident. We can remake ourselves by defeating apathy and disinterest in equality, justice, and freedom for all.

Onward!

Citation: Qur'an, Al-Rad (Chapter 13), Verse 10.

Bad mothers? Bad children?

This is a horrible story out of South Carolina. (No, not Lindsey Graham yapping off about amending the 14th Amendment.) Two infants drown in a car while strapped into their child seats, and a mother leaving the scene of the tragedy to.. ahem, ahem, call the police.

"The two were recovered from the North Edisto River after the car was found near a rural boat landing, Orangeburg County Sheriff Larry Williams said.

County Coroner Samuetta Marshall identified them as 18-month-old Ja'van T. Duley and 2-year-old Devean C. Duley, both of Orangeburg. She would not speculate on a cause of death until autopsies are completed Tuesday.

The boys' mother, whose name was not immediately released, was being held Monday on a charge of leaving the scene of an accident, Williams said.

He said the Highway Patrol was notified about 6:15 a.m. Monday about an accident and a woman who needed help getting her children out of the car.

The children were still strapped in their child seats when divers found them and recovered their bodies about 45 minutes after being called to the scene.

"Early in the investigation, the state patrol felt there was not enough indicators to substantiate that there was an automobile accident," Williams said. "We are looking into all possibilities as to what happened."

The woman, who did not have a cell phone, had walked some distance down the country road by the boat landing and flagged down a passing motorist to call the Highway Patrol..." [Story]
Wow! I guess lightening can strike the same place twice. Didn't something similar happen to another South Carolina woman a few years back? I am reserving judgement until I get more from the po po. But right about now it ain't looking good for Mommy.

And, speaking of Mommy: One of my fellow field hands from Ohio will have to tell me what's so great about the cheeseburgers in Buckeye country.

"A Toledo teen is behind bars for allegedly stabbing his mother over a cheeseburger.

The altercation happened at 425 West Bancroft around 1 a.m. Friday morning.

Aaron Dean, 18, is accused of stabbing his mother over the burger.

Detectives say the teen's mom came home with food for herself. Her son apparently got upset because she didn't bring him a cheeseburger.

Police say he choked her, grabbed a butcher knife, and stabbed her in the right arm before running away.

We talked with Vergie Dean, Aaron's mom, today. She told us she grabbed a cheeseburger from Rally's and headed home.

She says her 6'3" 300-pound son got upset because she didn't bring one for him. "He was like 'Where's my food at?' and I'm like 'I'm not gonna give you anything' so he smacked my sandwich and he pushed me or something and it escalated from there."

Aaron allegedly grabbed and choked her. "He had me in the corner. I took a knife and I stabbed him in his finger. He ran in his room and grabbed a big ole butcher knife. He came back and was like 'You cut me, you cut me.' He was standing right there. He just took the knife and stuck it in my arm. "

Detectives took the butcher knife as evidence.

They say Aaron Dean took off after the stabbing. He was arrested a block from his home, on Prescott Street. "

WTF is wrong with you Negroes? You stab your mama over a cheeseburger? Negro you weigh 300 damn pounds! It looks to me like your mama has given you plenty of cheeseburgers in her day. And why wasn't your ass fixing your own meal? You are 18 years old! Your poor mama was probably too busy to fix you a meal because she was out trying to work to feed your big ass.

But let me stop, apparently the boy suffers from some mental issues, so I am going to leave him alone.

"His mother blames her son's behavior on his mental illness. "He's a paranoid schizophrenic and he ain't been taking his medicine for one because he flips off. He be good sometime, then he get bad."

OK, my bad....but wait...

"Police charged the teen with felonious assault, false information, and drug abuse.

His mother says her son would rather buy drugs than food. "So to keep him from going in the streets to do the bad things, I give him money everyday."

She says she doesn't want him to stay in jail. "It's not a good place for him there. He need to go to a mental hospital somewhere so he can get his head right.."

Yes, and where they can feed his ass. [Story]

We want you Negroes in the party, but you have to work.

"Field, are you going to post about violence in the black community tonight, or are you going to keep posting about [so called] racist conservatives? If you are going to post about the problems in your community, I have some stories for you. In fact, you could start right there in your own hometown."

Hmmmm, let me think about it for a minute.......Nope, I think I am going to do another post about my republican friends.

"Keith Carter, who joined the NRSC in 1995, has charged Republican officials with creating a hostile environment for the two African-American employees who worked at the committee.
Carter, who is black, said he was referred to as “boy” and forced to clean up the feces of dogs white employees had brought to work." [Story]

Typical Negro. Whenever things don't go his way on the job he sues and plays the race card. "Hostile working environment"; those are code words for I want to play the race card. How could republicans create a "hostile work environment" for black folks when they love us so much? Look at all they are doing in terms of legislation to try to help us with some of our problems. Problems such as poor public schools, lack of funding for higher education, teenage pregnancies, the availability of cheap handguns, the lack of affordable housing, the lack of business investments and funding for minority owned businesses. Don't you see them reaching out to democrats to work on these problems?

"He (Carter) filed a lawsuit in D.C. Superior Court on Monday.
Brian Walsh, a spokesman for the NRSC, disputed the charges.
“This is an unfortunate action taken by a disgruntled former employee,” said Walsh. “The suit is meritless, and we look forward to its resolution.”

Carter was hired as a building engineer. He managed "the building" and says he was "often invited to participate in management meetings." He says his good relationship with NRSC ended in 2009, as he was "stripped of his supervisory responsibility and ordered to perform menial tasks."

The NRSC termination letter said Carter did not obey instructions, left work early and smoked in the basement:

Carter claims that when one Republican official asked him and his co-worker to do a job, he would often say: “Boys, we need you to … ”
Carter alleges he was instructed to clean up trash after political events, a task not previously included in his job description." [Story]

See, this is what's wrong with you Negroes; we give you a job and you think that you are too good to pick up trash.

I swear it's getting harder and harder to find good Negro help these days. But I have a solution: Maybe the NRSC can put out a want-ad in one of those fine black conservative blogs.

When the WSZ gets hit.

"Woman hold her head and cry,
Cause her son had been shot down in the street and died
From a stray bullet. "~Bob Marley~

Lots of women are crying these days, because a lot of sons (and daughters) have been dying.

Here in Killadelphia we are at 192 murders and counting, and the summer isn't even over yet.

There is a little town not far from here called Chester. It's known for producing great basketball players like Orlando's Jameer Nelson. But it's also known for something else: Murders.

Right now that small city is under siege, and they are thinking about reinstating a curfew that they had earlier this summer .

But it's not only the urban centers of A-merry-ca that are reliving the days of the Wild Wild West. Just take a quick look across the globe: Some groom at a wedding in Greece accidentally kills three of his own family members; Some poor softball player is shot in Venezuala; and in Mexico....well, it's Mexico. 24,800.00 in three years! That number, I am sure, is jumping as I type this. So don't think that you will run away from A-merry-ca and escape Mr. Smith and Mr.. Wesson.

And then there was that shooting in Buffalo. Eight people shot and four of them killed in a drive by. All of this in a WSZ no less. (For those of you not familiar with field speak, that would be White Safety Zone.) Some place called the City Grill. (There is a real creative name for you. Only in Buffalo.) I swear Mr. Charlie is going to start banning you Negroes from the WSZ. You just don't know how to act.

But this isn't funny. It's serious business. I keep telling folks that pretty soon these hoods who re deep in the streets are going to start killing folks they aren't supposed to kill. And, they are going to be in neighborhoods that they are not supposed to be in. That is when folks are going to see that we have a real problem. See, it's like this: It's cool when these types of individuals prey on each other and kill each other in certain areas where we feel comfortable having them away from us. We know that they are killing each other, but who cares? It's just the law of the jungle taking over. Nature playing itself out. Another dead thug who was in the game and who knew that the wages of his sins could -and would- eventually lead to his death. No big deal. Young black men are expendable, we have too much of them now any damn way. What are we going to do with them? It's not like we can send them on the front lines to fight for us. Most of them have records and half of them didn't even finish high school. And, sadly, we don't have enough professional athletic teams to get them jobs. As a result we are left with more killings in the hood. But just remember, those killings could be be coming to a WSZ near you.

Even Doctors know the "N" word.

*

Thirty thousand Negroes burning in the sun while they line up for affordable housing. Third World African country? Nope, Atlanta, Georgia. It always takes something like this to remind me how f*&^%d up life can be for some folks here in A-merry-ca.

But enough of that. Tonight I want to talk about my girl, Laura. The good doctor with the Ivy League Ph.D, who gives relationship advice with a conservative twist. You Negroes know that we have been down this road before, and we have been down it so often that we don't even need directions anymore. Once again another white person has a public meltdown because they just can't hold it in anymore. Hell they say "Nigger" so often at home and when they are hidden from you Negroes, that it becomes damn near impossible to hold it in when they are not around folks they trust.

"I, myself, realized I had made a horrible mistake"

No you didn't Laura, you said exactly what you wanted to say. Your mistake was saying it, publicly.

Now the funny part is that folks like Dr. Laura blame you Negroes for their use of the word. You blacks say it to each other, so why can't we? I don't know about the rest of you, but I have friends from other ethnic groups, (stop laughing, yes I do) and I swear to you that I have never called one of my Italian friends the "G" word or one of my Jewish friends the "K " word or my Irish friends the "M" word. And I guarantee you that you have never heard anyone on the radio- from another ethnic group- saying that stuff. If they did, it would be their last gig. You know it and so do I.

BTW, did you notice that I simply used the letters to describe the slurs, but I could spell out the slur reserved for us black folks? That's because I am black. But I don't belong to those other groups so I can't take those liberties with them. So when Dr. Laura's ignorant ass trots out the same bullshit line that "they do it so why can't we", it only exposes her as someone whose intelligence level is no higher than a trailer park lifer with a 10th grade education.

Oh field stop it. In that very broadcast Dr. Laura said that one of her very best friends is black and she has fun with him when they play basketball.

"SCHLESSINGER: Jade, welcome to the program.

CALLER: Hi, Dr. Laura.

SCHLESSINGER: Hi.

CALLER: I'm having an issue with my husband where I'm starting to grow very resentful of him. I'm black, and he's white. We've been around some of his friends and family members who start making racist comments as if I'm not there or if I'm not black. And my husband ignores those comments, and it hurts my feelings. And he acts like --

SCHLESSINGER: Well, can you give me an example of a racist comment? 'Cause sometimes people are hypersensitive. So tell me what's -- give me two good examples of racist comments.

CALLER: OK. Last night -- good example -- we had a neighbor come over, and this neighbor -- when every time he comes over, it's always a black comment. It's, "Oh, well, how do you black people like doing this?" And, "Do black people really like doing that?" And for a long time, I would ignore it. But last night, I got to the point where it --

SCHLESSINGER: I don't think that's racist.

CALLER: Well, the stereotype --

SCHLESSINGER: I don't think that's racist. No, I think that --

CALLER: [unintelligible]

SCHLESSINGER: No, no, no. I think that's -- well, listen, without giving much thought, a lot of blacks voted for Obama simply 'cause he was half-black. Didn't matter what he was gonna do in office, it was a black thing. You gotta know that. That's not a surprise. Not everything that somebody says -- we had friends over the other day; we got about 35 people here -- the guys who were gonna start playing basketball. I was going to go out and play basketball. My bodyguard and my dear friend is a black man. And I said, "White men can't jump; I want you on my team." That was racist? That was funny."

Yes Jade, that was funny. See Jade, what she is saying is this: I call my black friend Nigger all the time, and he doesn't mind. He is a conservative, just like me, we are not sensitive about those types of things.....let me stop.

Anyway, all is well that ends well. Dr. Laura, like so many before her, has apologized. And, I suspect, the apology tour will start any day now. Her bodyguard and "dear friend" will be by her side on all those talk shows and he will tell A-mery-ca what a good woman she is. Don't judge her for one little slip in judgement, he will say; I know what's in her heart. Ahh field, it was more than just one; she used the word Nigger six times! Six, one, what's the difference? You Negroes are so sensitive.

"I had made a horrible mistake, and was so upset, I could not finish the show."

Don't worry Dr. Laura, you can finish the show next week. And, fortunately for you, your sponsors will be there, and so will your listeners. In fact, I am betting that your listenership will double because of this little misstep. Isn't A-merry-ca beautiful?

* Pic courtesy of From the Left.

The bourgeoisie Of Process

I am beginning to wonder if there is a place of advance in post-apartheid South Africa that is not hampered by the bourgeoisie of process.

Allow me to explain by beginning with Frantz Fanon's remark in his book The Wretched of the Earth that post-colonial state institutions are severely hampered by what he called the "bourgeoisie of the civil service".

These folks are the ones who live in-between the spaces occupied by the former masters and the downtrodden.

In Fanon's thinking these bureaucrats pursue self-enrichment by playing agent for neo-colonial interests at the expense of the masses.

These are not revolutionary folk even though they may want to appear as such when the need arises.

Rather, the neo-colonial agent is a gatekeeper of process that is not about equitable and long lasting change.

I am thinking about the place of process and gatekeepers in post-colonial/post-apartheid South Africa more of recent.

I have come to the slow realization that the bourgeoisie in the civil service seek to process people constantly for the purpose of frustrating their expectations.

For this reason you will not find a moment in post-apartheid life that is not about processing, or rather, taking stock.

The post-apartheid bourgeoisie have forms you must fill out in order to raise you to the next level of other forms that will take you nowhere but still are necessary.

Some folks living in the developed West may say this is not unique to us.

Still, I think it is when you consider that the process is not aimed at an advance of function but rather at dysfunction.

The very act of bureaucratization and its processes is to freeze dissent and, thereby, it allows the agents to control the access to resources.

The "bourgeoisie of the civil service" is a counter democratic force in this sense.

The post-colonial state that then develops around their stunting processes is unavoidably alienating and corrupt.

The average citizen is left feeling insecure and even fearful.

I say fearful because the outcome of not complying with process and all its forms means you are in default of the system.

Being in default means that you must enter into other processes to meet the requirements of fulfilling the previous processes and so it goes on and on until ... well, death.

In this lopsided equation staying stuck and even going backwards in a collective sense is never the fault of the system.

The fault lies with you.

You should have known the processes to follow in order to meet the other processes that you must comply with even where those processes are not known.

Frustration is a precondition to alienation in more than just the Marxist emphasis on looting your labour and its worth.

The alienation of all these processes also, and perhaps more importantly, thwarts the very meaning of life and the universal quest to be free.

Onward!

Picture Credit

"N*****S & Cars"

I know us brothers love our whips more than our houses. (Hey, what's that saying? "You can live in your car but you can't drive your house." ) But come on now Birdman, a 2 million dollar whip? WTF? Two large? My man, do you know how much interest you could be getting on two million dollars every year? I guarantee you that the Bugatti you just purchased will be losing value with each passing day. Hey, it's cool to be "hood rich", but it's not cool to be stupid with your money. I have seen too many ballers go broke spending their money like it was made by Milton Bradley. And Birdman, you might want to give fellow producer, Swizz Beatz a call before you "let it rain" on some damn European car manufacturer.

I won't even go the you could give your money to charity route, because it's yours. Although, you are from New Orleans and, well, just let your conscience be your guide my brother.

"Ridin 2G 'llac on......dubs
Ounces....quarters....halves...bricks
Nigga I done sold all that shit
soon as....my, tour stop
Bought five Bentley Azures...props
TV's must...buttons must....
CMB...platinum plus
What the.....fuck...hold on
Everybody get yo' motherfuckin roll on"

"Birdman" if we are going to roll in a two million dollar whip, it had damn well better be rolling on air.

Will somebody tell Ben Quayle to STFU? I swear some people have no shame. You of all people should not be calling out the president of these divided states.

"In a new campaign ad, an Arizona congressional candidate accuses President Barack Obama of being “the worst president in history.”

"He might know a thing or two about how men in the White House are judged by the public; he’s the son of a vice president perhaps best known for enduring ridicule after he flubbed the spelling of the word “potato.”

Ben Quayle, the son of George H.W. Bush’s running mate, is one of 10 candidates in the GOP primary race in Arizona’s conservative 3rddistrict (It went for McCain by 15 points in 2008 and for Bush by almost 20 in 2004.) In a new ad, he says that “Barack Obama is the worst president in history” and promises to “knock the hell” out of Washington if elected. "

My man, your daddy was Dan Quayle. Let me repeat that: DAN QUAYLE! Nuff said.

Finally, many of you sent me e-mails today (thanks for that, you all keep me on top of things) and commented on this blog about the passing of Mitrice Richardson, a woman whose picture I had posted on my sidebar for weeks. No need to repeat the story, you all know what happened by now.

Still, it was amazing to watch the main stream media ignore a story that we all know would have been given wall to wall coverage from the day she went missing until her skeletal remains were found, if she had only been from a different demographic. The fact that foul play might have been involved and the disgraceful way that her family was treated should give us all cause for pause.

We still don't know what happened that night in Malibu, but hopefully we will find out soon. Until then, let's hope that this young lady and her family has finally found some peace.

I'm out.