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Here’s an audio/video mixtape from some of the best MJ mixes I’ve heard recently. How many times can we say “RIP Michael?!”

SIDE A : The MJ Warm Up

Track 1. Come On Come On Come On/Lemme Show You What It’s All About: Love the five-part Minding Michael podcast series from Qool DJ Marv Aural Memoirs & da Buttamilk Archives. Featuring the MJ hits I had forgotten along with those beloved pop standards, this podcast is not to be missed. My favorites are Part One, “A Good Time,” for its melancholy, and Part Three, “Grab Your Belt Buckle/Music’s Taking Over” for the disco hits that make you move even when you’re sitting down. “Roughly 75 percent of these songs, I’ve never played in public,” Qool DJ Marv wrote about Minding Michael. “This is my translation of Michael as a fan and DJ, as a boy who grew up with stronger together black family vibes and Black is Beautiful all up in my head, and as a man who still embraces that exuberant idealism by perpetuating it and sustaining it through the magic of the music in the mix.” (Ranging from 47 mins. to over an hour long)

Track 2. Shake It, Shake It, Baby: Eclectic Method’s The Michael Jackson Video: Don’t be deterred by the Peter Jennings intro to this MJ memory lane video mix. For my money, the highlight comes midway through the video when London-based Eclectic Method mashes up “Blame It On the Boogie” with “Black or White,” and then moves seamlessly into “Rock With You” on top of “The Way You Make Me Feel.” Favorite parts of this video show not one, but TWO Michael Jackson videos that stream simultaneously. Shows just what a versatile dancer and performer Michael really was! (4:51 mins)

Track 3. You Can’t Run Away From/This Love I Got: Can’t even remember hearing Jackson Five do “Ready or Not Here I Come,” but you can groove to it here on Norwegian DJ and Producer Teddy Touch’s Memories MJ Tribute mix. Love mixing freestyling and beats with MJ’s classics. (40:04 mins)

SIDE B (The Flip Side)

Track 4. And Don’t Go Around Breaking Young Girls’ Hearts: If you like it when Michael Jackson goes all electronic on you, check out this Billie Jean remix from Philadelphia’s DJ Apt One. Guaranteed to make you move! (6:06 mins)

Track 5. Let Us Realize that a Change Can Only Come/When We Stand Together As One: Believe it or not, there are a handful of viral music videos out there that feature performances by inmates from the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center, a maximum security prison in the central Philippines. (The prison management has inmates do choreographed dances there for exercise.) The CPDRC did a Thriller video remake in July of 2007, and a “We Are The World” Michael Jackson Tribute just days after Michael passed away. Neither performance needs any introduction. (4:26 and 3:39 mins)

Track 6. Never Can Say Goodbye: DJ Ayres did this Michael Jackson Mix for The Rub, a party that creates long lines around the block of Brooklyn’s Southpaw the first Saturday of every month. The mix is a great chronological history of Michael’s music from “Maybe Tomorrow” (the ’70s) to  “Butterflies” (2001). (53:47 mins) –AFS

Abbie Fentress Swanson is a freelance radio radio reporter (and music addict) based in Brooklyn, New York.

New York-based writer, publicist, and activist April Silver says she continues to get feedback about a piece she wrote in response to this performance by Lil’ Wayne and Drake at the BET Awards 2009. Director Byron Hurt also responded, and wrote the following to BET’s Debra Lee on June 29:

“Sunday night’s BET Awards show was a disgrace. It’s sad and unfortunate that your network, owned by Viacom, continues to crank out mediocrity and perpetuate negative stereotypes of black men, women, and children. Although you likely received high ratings for the awards show, there is no honor in reinforcing the status quo’s opinion of black people. Your tribute to Michael Jackson and the overall show had its great moments, however, BET failed to deliver a solid, quality show. Rather than “raising the bar” and presenting African-Americans as a creative, proud, dignified people, BET lowered the bar for the entire world to see. The BET Awards drew a huge audience to watch a tribute to Michael Jackson, but left millions of viewers feeling disappointed, embarrassed, and reduced to classic stereotypes.

“During the most blatantly sexist performances of the night, the executives at BET failed to act and display intelligence, courage, and leadership. Show executives watched, approved, and applauded as artists Lil’ Wayne, Drake, and Cash Money brought young, under-aged girls onto the stage to dance and serve as window dressing while they performed ‘Every Girl,’ a song that reduces girls and women to sex objects. In a culture where one out of four girls and women are either raped or sexually assaulted – and where manipulative men routinely traffic vulnerable women into the sex industry – it is not okay that BET allowed this to happen. BET owes its entire audience – particularly girls and women around the world – an apology for its failure to intervene. BET should also take immediate steps to ensure that this kind of sexist performance does not happen again. Sunday night’s show epitomizes why so many black people worldwide are fed up with BET and feel strongly that your network inaccurately represents black men and women.”

# # #

“Last night, live at the BET Awards in Los Angeles, a room full of head-bobbing, consenting adults bounced to Drake and Lil Wayne’s back-to-back performances of the hit songs “Best I Ever Had” and “Every Girl.” I watched, underwhelmed. I wanted more “Michael” in what was supposed to be this award-show-turned-Michael-Jackson-tribute. I watched, ever puzzled by the Lil Wayne phenomena that has captivated the music industry. I watched, wondering when the set was going to end.

“Then the little girls came onstage…literally the little girls. “Are those children?” I asked out loud, in disbelief. Then the camera panned the audience. Everyone was still head-bobbing as the little Black girls huddled around these superstars.

“‘Are those little girls on stage…for this song?!?!‘ I, still in disbelief, lost breath and forced myself to exhale. ‘Why are these little girls featured on this performance? Is somebody going to stop this?’ Again, the show was live, though for a nano-second, I was hoping that a hunched-over stage manager would bust through from back stage to scoop up the children, rescuing them from harm’s way…from being associated from this song. But instead, what those girls witnessed from the stage was hundreds and hundreds of adults (mostly Black people) staring back at them, co-signing the performance. These girls, who all appeared to be pre-teens, were having their 15 minutes of glam on one of the biggest nights in televised Black entertainment history, with two of pop culture’s biggest stars at the moment, with millions of people watching. They must have been bubbling with girlish excitement, shimmering like princesses all night. Pure irony: one of them wore a red ballerina tutu for the special occasion. And we applauded them.

“But did no one care that Lil Wayne’s song Every Girl is about grown men and their sexual escapades with women? Did the meaning and intent of the song matter to anyone, this song whose hook and other lyrics required a re-write in order to get air play? ‘I wish I could love every girl in the world.‘ That’s the radio-friendly version of ‘I wish I could f–k every girl in the world.‘ But Lil Wayne’s BET performance was the clean edit of the song. Perhaps he (and the show producers) thought that there was nothing wrong in featuring the children in the clean version. Perhaps we were supposed to see the whole bit as cute and innocent. Absolutely not. There’s no other way to cut it: in presenting little girls in a performance of a song that is about sex, group sex, and more sex, BET and Lil Wayne set the stage for child pornography. It doesn’t matter what version of the song was played, much like a man who batters women is still an abusive man, even if uses flowery phrases while battering.

“In the song, Lil Wayne mentions superstar Miley Cyrus, but Cyrus gets a pass on this lyrical sex escapade because, as he acknowledges, she is a minor. Huh? Why, then, is he comfortable with featuring four minors, these four little Black girls, in the show? How deep exactly is this inability of some men to respect women, and how deep is Lil Wayne’s disregard for the safety of little girls?

“I’m told that one of the girls is Lil Wayne’s daughter. That doesn’t matter. In fact that makes it worse. Last night we were reminded that there are few safe spaces for our little girls to be children; that some of us are willing to trade their innocence for a good head nod. BET and Lil Wayne are beneath low because, in effect, they have given premium assurance to these and other little girls that their best value, their shining moment, their gifts to display to the world, all lie within a context that says they are fuckable.

“The programming at BET has been heavily criticized by artists, concerned citizens, college students, parent groups, social justice organizations, media reform activists, and many others for over a decade now. Their programming seems hell bent on broadcasting the worst pathologies in the Black community. Some have joined the anti-BET movement by simply tuning out. Others have been more pro-active. National letter-writing campaigns and other activities designed to shame and/or pressure the network into improving its programming have been in play for some time now. Boycotts have been called as well. Two years ago, for example, the network found itself in the line of fire as it planned to air the very controversial series “Hot Ghetto Mess.” Advertisers, such as State Farm Insurance and Home Depot, responded to pressure and requested that their ads be disassociated with the series (though, their ads could be placed in other programming slots). None of this has made a difference. In fact, it seems to have emboldened the network, for it is now expanding. In the fall, BET is due to launch another channel.

“As a social entrepreneur and activist, my entire life/work has been dedicated to standing up for what’s right, especially within the culture of hip hop. When identifying what cancerous elements exist within the Black community, many fellow activists agree with Chuck D (of Public Enemy), and even Aaron McGruder (of The Boondocks), when they targeted BET as one of those elements. That said, I didn’t think that we would ever have to take the network to task for what amounts to child pornography.

“But millions of Black people are not offended by the network and welcome anything BET has to offer, no matter how much it continues to unravel the fabric of our community. Imagine, if you will, BET as a human being and the viewers as the community. You would have to imagine BET as a drug dealer, with his swag on…perhaps outside standing atop a truck, the community crowded beneath him. Imagine him throwing nicely wrapped gifts into the crowed, or giving away turkeys at Thanksgiving. Or maybe it’s Mother’s Day and he buys dinner and teddy bears to all the single moms and grandmothers around the way. Despite his best efforts and despite the approval of his fans, he is still a drug dealer, pimping death to the masses.

“Proverbs is full of sacred text that teaches us that there will always be fools amongst us. Some of them will be highly paid, protected, and given world-wide platforms to show off what they do best. And these fools (be they performers, corporate executives, or others), will have fans and loyal supporters, and a place to call home, like a BET.

“But as long as there will be fools amongst us, there will also be wise ones – a small group of people concerned about the long term health and well being of the community. This small group will often go unheard and they will be outmatched. They will struggle over which problem to address first: the child pornographer, the batterer, the pimp, the prostitute, the thief, the slumlord, or the system that enables it all. They will get tired and their defense will pale in comparison to the almost crushing offense. And they will be betrayed from within. Historically and universally, this is what happens in the struggle for what is right. But eventually, with continued pressure, something will shift. A radical new thinking will emerge, and the fools will lose their stronghold.

“The sure expectation of victory, however, can not be understated. It is a concrete ingredient in the struggle against the death that is being paraded in our community…as necessary as letter writing campaigns, economic boycotts, symbolic and actual protests, and other pressure-oriented activities. It is indeed possible to bring more life into our community.

Copyright 2009, by April R. Silver. Silver is a social entrepreneur, activist and writer/editor. She is also founder of the communications agency AKILA WORKSONGS, Inc. Her first book is the critically acclaimed anthology “BE A FATHER TO YOUR CHILD: REAL TALK FROM BLACK MEN ON FAMILY, LOVE AND FATHERHOOD.” Contact Info: silver@aprilsilver.com or www.aprilsilver.com.

###

BET responded July 3 in a statement to AllHipHop.com:

“BET Networks deeply regrets the performance by Young Money at the BET AWARDS ‘09 (featuring Lil Wayne, Drake, Gudda Gudda and Mack Maine). Elements of the performance were unplanned and should not have happened.”

BET also said it found viewers’ opinions, like Hurt’s and Silver’s, useful. “We have edited Young Money’s performance for all BET Awards ‘09 encore presentations,” a representative said.

BET Awards 2009

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“Dude should come clean and tell the truth” … That’s what Jump Smokers say in effort to make moolah from the Brown/Rihanna hoopla in their latest song “My Flow So Tight (Anti-Breezy).” According to the Jump Smokers’ official Web site, part of the proceeds of the unflattering Breezy track will be going to “various organizations for battered women.” Mmkay, if that’s what you say.

On the other side of the respectable spectrum … New York hip hop legends Run DMC, along with Metallica and Jeff Beck, are the latest to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Only the second hip hop act to received the achievement (Grand Master Flash and The Furious Five were first), Run DMC was honored by a speech from contemporary rapper Eminem, stating the rappers “grabbed hold of my ears and changed my life.”

FOB join another scene, the political one … Scenester band Fall Out Boy pulled another in-crowd during the launch of the “Believers Never Die, Part Deux” tour in Mesa, Arizona Friday night. Dressed in suits, Donald Trump wigs, and black eyes, the band made a decent attempt to put corporate America on blast for their recent bust for wrongdoings. Needless to say, the getup didn’t last long, as they followed the rest of the night in their typical skinny jeans and guyliner. Gag.

Guess who’s back … Lauryn…Lauryn Hill, is that you? It is! Ms. Hill will be one out of 1,000 artists performing at Europe’s prestigious Montreux Jazz Festival in the Swiss Stravinski Auditorium. She will be joining Dianne Reeves, Lizz Wright, and Angelique Kidjo for an all-out tribute to soulful jazz legend Nina Simone. The festival, which stretches from July 3-18, will also feature artists like BB King, Black Eyed Peas, and Herbie Hancock.

“Coldplay” and “free” in a sentence, huh?… British band Coldplay have announced that they will be giving a free live album to fans who will be attending their “Viva La Vida” summer tour. The album LeftRightLeftRight will be a 9-track collection of recordings from different cities over time, and will also be available for download beginning May 15 (the start of their tour). “Playing live is what we love,” said Coldplay in a statement. “This album is a thank you to our fans – the people who give us a reason to do it and make it happen.”

What about “John Legend’ and “eco-friendly?”… John Legend is putting out a more believable offer by teaming up with REVERB, a nonprofit environmental organization, to make his “Evolver” tour as green as possible. According to Billboard, this includes “coordination with venues and local caterers to ensure and facilitate the use of green products and practices, along with neutralizing CO2 emissions from venue energy use, hotels, flights and touring vehicle.”  Last month, Legend topped Billboard’s Green 10 list for his increased efforts on behalf of various environmental causes. Go ‘head, Johnny!

De La Soul is “just doing it” … Rap trio De La Soul is teaming up with Apple and the NIKE+ campaign to produce a 45-minute track made for runners to jam to. “We’d worked with Nike before, designing kicks and playing some of their marathons,” says Kelvin Mercer, aka Posdnuos. “We were excited when they approached us because we’re the first actual band to do one of these tracks.” This is the first time the rappers have made new music in five years. De La Soul are planning tours of Australia, Europe, and the UK and will be working on a new full-length album this year.

I’ve been a journalist for 20 years– through full-time jobs at Newsweek, MTV, CNN, ABC, Oxygen, and NPR; part-time ones at One Economy, KALW, and WNYC; the founding and (ongoing) rebuilding of PopandPolitics.com; and three non-fiction books on race, politics, and media. I’ve rolled with the punches and thrown a few. But now more than ever, the business that I entered at the age of sixteen, with my first national publication, is, well, in a hell of hurt. Many of my highly skilled friends who report, edit, or run newsrooms are unemployed, underemployed, or just plain scared.

I say this to set the table for a series of blog pots/musings. I’m a practitioner of journalism; a consumer of journalism; a critic… sometimes a journalism educator; sometimes an entrepreneur. I’m worried, and not just for myself. (I would be lying if I said I don’t have many jobs and opportunities; and disingenuous if I said I was calm.)

Lots of people are worried about the fate of reporting and media in America. Organizations are going bankrupt or out of business, including scores of America’s daily newspapers. Tens of thousands of journalists are being given their walking papers and finding they cannot re-enter the industry. We have created ways that entirely new forms of media can upend “old media,” but that digital victory is without a clear profit model. Yes, in the short term, media is the crushed anthill: damage, death, panic, rushing disorder. But I believe that journalists, like our smaller, more resilient, and far more numerous insect cousins, are prone and programmed to rebuild.

Rebuilding is great. But is it enough? What if we put the profit back in media? What if you can build new media empires that make the owners rich or the foundation heads lauded; the employees comfortable; and the consumers reasonably satisfied? What then? Do we in the business breathe with relief, pay off our credit card bills, and settle in for another round of who-gets-the-corner-office? We’re worried about the means and the method of rebuilding media. But judging from my personal on- and off- the record discussions with for- and non-profit media businesses, as well as interactions at an endless numbers of “whither this/whither that” panels and conferences (and looking at the demographics of who’s in the room)… we’re not ready to face our biggest demon. That demon is exclusion: the way many Americans are cut out of media production and consumption, and the way many of us in the business are sanguine about it.

We in the media are not “the people,” nor do we represent them as fully as we often claim to. “Citizen journalism,” as we now call it, may be valuable and produced by non-traditional journalists. But most of the people who create it are still more educated, more technologically skilled, and more likely to be white than the demographics of the overall U.S. population. (By and large, “citizen journalists” are also less skilled at tasks like investigative reporting and historical research than traditional journalists.)

When forty percent of Americans are of limited literacy, let alone whatever digital divide still remains, then we have a much bigger problem than trying to build innovative blog rings, aggregators, local news sites or content engines. When the ranks of non-white journalists, already limited, are falling faster in the era of cutbacks than they were before–we have a problem. When organizations question the objectivity of people who fall outside of institutional norms… in some newsrooms, say, gays and lesbians; in others, Southerners or rural people … but they DON’T question the means and motives of people who fit the majority: that is a problem. When the journalism organizations designed to champion diversity have drawn so many checks from corporations that they cannot afford to challenge business owners… or only realize too late (once the checks are gone) that they should be… that too is a problem.

We are only as good as our willingness to change. And while the journalism industry is willing to rebuild itself, I am not convinced we’re challenging ourselves to provide an ethical context around reporting on a diverse society in transition.

Recently I met in a newsroom with a younger journalist who said: “It’s ridiculous that the newsroom is this white in a city this diverse.”

I shrugged and nodded. It wasn’t a “you’re wrong” shrug and nod. It was more a “yeah, been there, done that, wrote the book, fought the layoff, got my butt whipped, still standing, what did you expect?” gesture. The reality is, I didn’t want to talk about it because I didn’t have anything to say that would have inspired this person.

Now, after much reflection, I do. I say to myself as much as to anyone else in media: “Keep fighting for your ideals… if you don’t win, you will at least know why you are in the game.” I believe good journalism usually comes from a mix of vocation, or personal calling, and avocation– the latter in the sense of having a “day job” rather than having a hobby. Most successful journalists I know are, as one college student who recently interviewed me put it, “hustlers”– people whose mix of skill, institutional memory, luck, and self-promotional tendencies make them formidable at staying in the game.

Most of us will have not just several jobs but several careers in our lifetime. I don’t count on being a working journalist forever. (No, I’m not planning to leave the profession any time soon.) I believe journalism has changed me, mainly but not always the land before time ii the great valley adventure dvd for the better. I will always have the eyes and ears of a journalist, which is a valuable skill but sometimes puts me in an alienating social position.

This series of blog columns, “The Journey of the Journalist,” is my attempt to think and write at the same time. It’s not a finished product in the same sense a magazine article or television piece is, but rather a data point for a conversation. My motivation is to share some of my journey and simultaneously record and reflect on it; to share and to learn; to listen and learn from others.

I don’t know what form this will ultimately take, but I’ve set off the journey.

See you on the road.

Peace,
Farai

@faraichideya
www.faraichideya.com

One of the primary reasons I voted for Barack Obama, was my hope that any judge President Obama selects for appointment to the Supreme Court would be smart, precise thinking and equipped with a deep knowledge of our Constitution and legal precedent. I am still hopeful that that will happen. But for now, in an ironic twist, it’s unlikely that our Commander-in-Chief, whose self-identified race has certainly raised the volume in discussions of how race is lived in America, will have the opportunity to fill any Supreme slots before the next racially charged Court session begins on April 20th. Over the next two weeks, the Supreme Court will hear cases that cut to the heart of most current discussions and arguments taking place in coffee rooms, living rooms, locker rooms and in chat rooms, including: immigrant rights, affirmative action and predatory lending.

The Supreme Court has an opportunity to reaffirm or reshape the nation’s civil rights laws as it faces a rare confluence of cases over the next two weeks, including a high-profile challenge brought by white firefighters who claim they lost out on promotions because of the “color of their skin.”

The cases also touch on the Voting Rights Act, the need to provide English classes for immigrant children and, more tangentially, discriminatory mortgage lending.

The most emotionally charged case is from the New Haven, Conn., firefighters, whose complaints define the real-life quandary that sometimes accompanies government efforts to ensure racial equality.

The firefighters accuse city officials of violating civil rights laws and the Constitution by throwing out a promotions test on which they performed well but no blacks scored high enough to be eligible. The city responds that relying on test results with such wide racial discrepancies could have violated federal law and left them open to being sued by minorities. Source – Washington Post, High Court Poised To Closely Weigh Civil Rights Laws

Full reliance on standardized tests is a slippery slope. So much of our problem solving talents and skills lie in the must more difficult to measure nuance of our abilities. I still clearly remember when I had my IQ tested. I was about 8 or 9 years old. Following the test I was tracked “gifted” because I answered about 10 questions correctly they included: Who is the author of ‘Winnie the Pooh.’? A series of analogy questions including a reference to “as cup is to saucer…” And the ability to correctly punctuate the following:

it that is is it that is not is not is that not it it is

I am still not convinced that those and other questions had anything to do with intelligence. I grew up in a home awash with books. Books were purchased for me at any time even when we had little money. My books were lined up on shelves and I would retreat to my room and read. I am not sure I would have been somehow less intelligent if I had not had the spines of ‘Winnie the Pooh’ series staring out at me for so many years of my childhood.

But fast forward to now and to standardized testing for adults. Of course a basic knowledge of technical firefighting knowledge is essential. And if the prep materials are standardized and widely available at a not exorbitant cost, I believe evaluators could expect for the outcomes for a fair test to not skew in any particular racial direction. However, if the rules are established that a specific score will result in a specific outcome, a managerial position for example, I believe it is patently unfair to change the rules when you don’t like the complexion of the outcome. Perhaps modification of future tests would be more appropriate. More details:

The lead plaintiff, Frank Ricci, is a veteran firefighter who said in sworn statements that he spent thousands of dollars in preparation and studied for months for the exam. Ricci said he is dyslexic, so he had tapes made of the test materials and listened to them on his commute.

The firefighters’ longtime attorney, Karen Lee Torre, did not allow her clients to talk to reporters — other than for a segment on conservative commentator Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News — but Ricci said in a sworn statement, “I relied in good faith on the promise that effort and not race would determine who would be promoted.”

When the results of the 2003 exams came back, only white firefighters, including one who is Hispanic, scored high enough to be considered for the openings for lieutenants and captains. All 27 black firefighters who took the test were below the cutoff.

After tumultuous public hearings, with minority groups arguing that the tests were flawed and the white firefighters saying officials were caving to political pressure, the city’s Civil Service Board voted not to certify the results. The promotions remain in limbo.

Source – Washington Post High Court Poised To Closely Weigh Civil Rights Laws

I suggest you read the entire ‘Washington Post’ article for yourself. The story of ‘The New Haven 20′ and commentary is riveting.

Still, if recent rulings are any indicators, the Supreme Court is unlikely to provide any definitive judicial answers to these most passionately argued racial issues.

This article originally appeared on Carmen Dixon’s blog All About Race.

Far be it from me to oppose a good passionate grassroots movement. Maybe I’m dating myself here, but I still remember big, huge marches and demonstrations that energized the heart and focused our nation’s gaze on high ideas—at least for the day. I support the scattered message tea partiers who have every right to take to the streets, distort history, wave their offensive signs and spout misinformation about the “inevitable” consequences of the proposed Federal tax increases.

And believe it or not, I don’t think the anti-spending battle cry is primarily about race per se. Although the prevalence of racist ideas promoted at some rallies was pretty un-American I’d say. I actually think the overarching motivation is something more fundamentally democratic than that. I think the tea parties are about people trying to find a way to push back on feelings of powerlessness. I think the tea parties are a fear-based reaction to change that many just cannot digest. Reasons vary, I suppose. It’s ironic given that the tea party people are now calling for ‘revolution’. [As an aside, I just would like to know exactly what this imagined “revolt” would lead to exactly? If anyone knows what America would look like the day after a successful “tea party revolution,” please explain in the comments section.]

With the election of President Obama, and our economy in the pooper, I think many of the protesters are finally facing the fact that “the land of their fathers” is gone – for good. What mystifies me is that it is impossible for some tea party protesters to acknowledge that a particular brand of American Dream has been pulling away from most of us at an alarming pace for the past eight years.

And to those who are genuinely panicked and taking to the streets out of concern for our country’s fiscal health? I would suggest that those within your ranks who compare Barack Obama to Hitler or Stalin, or who make light of the Holocaust by calling taxpayers “Jews for Obama’s ovens” are making your movement look tone deaf and hostile to independents like me. Their prominence, and your acceptance of them stepping into your movement, clouds and diminishes any argument you make. You simply cannot see President Barack Obama as Hitler, after 90 days in office, and not be suffering from extreme color arousal disorder, otherwise known as racism.

Protesting Obama as Overspender-in-chief? I get it. I, too, have mixed feelings about the federal stimulus price tag. Protesting against Obama because he’s the new Hitler or Stalin? Crazy.

This article originally appeared on Carmen Dixon’s blog, All About Race.

SXSW Music underway … Eager music fans and performers alike have begun their invasion of the SXSW music festival in Wednesday, and the overwhelming abudance of music has been accompanied by none other than tweets. Since 2007, Twitter and Austin festival have become an unlikely (yet powerful) match of community and interaction, helping those solo loners make friends quickly while helping the SXSW vets find the most crackin’ parties. To view some of the diverse crowds from this year’s fest so far, check here.

Kanye West charged not once, not twice … But three times for misdemeanors stemming from the LAX incident in September 2008 where he went buck wild on TMZ paparazzi. Kanye will be arraigned April 14 on the counts of battery, vandalism, and grand theft charged by the Los Angeles City Attorney. If convicted for all three charges, the 808s and Heartbreak rapper could face up to two-and-a-half years in prison. That just might make him as hard as T.I.

Incu-who? … Four years after their latest release Light Grenades, alt-rock band Incubus is back and has announced a greatest hits set and an accompanying tour for the summer. The two-disc release, Moments and Melodies, is slated to drop on June 16 and will include memorable songs like “Megalomaniac,” “Wish You Were Here,” and “Nice To Know You,” while also featuring news songs “Black Heart Inertia” and “Midnight Swim.” The tour, which lasts seven weeks, kicks off July 9 in San Diego.

Fiddy and FOB-by… Fall Out Boy and 50 Cent are embarking on a tag-team tour this summer — enough to make any hipster, indie rocker, or plain ol’ pop hater gouge their eyes out. The rapper and pop-punk group will link up for the first time on April 14 for their “Believers Never Die” stint. But, like most of us “snooty” music appreciators, their own fans aren’t happy about the unlikely affair. One Fall Out Boy fan wrote, “I would rather eat my own crap literally than listen to 50 Cent.” You’re not the only one, dude.

If you’re searching for an example of what open hearts can achieve, then look no further than the story of Jennifer Thompson and Ronald Cotton.

When Thompson identified Cotton as her rapist in 1984, she was sure she had the right man. But she was wrong. Cotton, then 22, was convicted of raping Thompson and another woman on the same night in Burlington, N.C. He would spend the next 11 years behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit.

That’s not so uncommon, right? We now know how unreliable eyewitness testimonies can be. That was the tragedy; now for the remarkable part:

In 1995, DNA evidence cleared Cotton of the rapes and showed that another man who was in prison with him was the rapist, a case recently covered by CBS’ ‘60 Minutes.’ Now, Thompson and Cotton are friends and have written a new book together on their story called ‘Picking Cotton.’ Source

The two speak on the phone weekly and travel together to speak out on the problems with eyewitness evidence. Even their families are friends. Thompson said she felt horrible guilt when she found out Cotton was not her rapist. “Suffocating, debilitating shame,” she told ‘60 Minutes.’ She asked Cotton if she could meet with him at a local church. “I started to cry immediately. And I looked at him, and I said, ‘Ron, if I spent every second of every minute of every hour for the rest of my life telling you how sorry I am, it wouldn’t come close to how my heart feels. I’m so sorry.’ And Ronald just leaned down, he took my hands…and he looked at me. He said, ‘I forgive you,’” Thompson told CBS. “I told her, I said, ‘Jennifer, I forgive you. I don’t want you to look over your shoulder. I just want us to be happy and move on in life,’”Cotton said. Source

I hope none of us reading this will ever find ourselves in Cotton’s or Thompson’s position. But the path that these two chose to walk together stands as a beacon of conduct for all of us.

Is there someone YOU need to forgive to free yourself?

I was completely surprised by the number of commenters who were upset and angry that Cotton had chosen to forgive Thompson. It’s like some decided to hold the anger that Thompson has chosen to release. If you see the ‘60 Minutes’ piece, Cotton, most unfortunately, bears a strong resemblance to Thompson’s real attacker.

I fully understand that in another time, not so long ago, Cotton would have been savagely lynched on Thompson’s words alone. But I can also appreciate that we are not in that time anymore. I recognize that although people are still wrongly convicted, we live in a time when there is DNA analysis and sometimes wrongly convicted people will live to see freedom and some attempt to restore justice in their lives.

What do you think? Should Cotton have forgiven Thompson?

This post originally appeared on Carmen Dixon’s All About Race.

WOW.

Things are moving even faster than I thought in the re-ordering of the American economy. It’s four PM on Wednesday 3/18/09. Although many people don’t know or don’t yet understand, the link between government and finances has been totally changed.

Yes, we had AIG (see below), and the foreclosures.

But now… check this…. the U.S. government is buying a TRILLION DOLLARS in mortgaged backed securities in order to create instant liquidity in the markets (read: cash you can borrow to buy a home or a market.) I never thought the hip hop chant to “make money money, make money money mon-EEE” would become so literal.

Yes, I am a news geek; and a politics geek; and I am astounded. I linked from the NYT to this handy dandy URL you can share with your friends. tinyurl.com/USmakes-fakes-Money.

I wrote the article below earlier this morning. Already it seems dated. But bear with me as I breathe.

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I’ve been guesting on WNYC’s syndicated morning show The Takeaway with John Hockenberry. (Adaora Udoji is on maternity leave.) We’ve been talking a lot about branding. Some folks told us about the brands they missed (”Bit ‘o Honey” and the “Reggiebar” candy bars each got a vote).

Other folks talked about what they would rename/rebrand “too big to fail/too small-minded to give up the multimillion dollar bonuses” insurer AIG as…

Amigos in Gold

Amateurs Implementing Guile

Anti Inflammatory Geeks

A**holes Invoking God

As If God

Appalling In Greed

(And that’s just from the journalists!)

Listeners wrote, among others:

Absolutely Insufferable Greed

Angry Investor Gross

But let me take a turn here.

Yesterday, I was invited to address the US Mission to the United Nations, now led by Ambassador Susan Rice. I was part of a panel that examined how and why then-Senator Obama won the Presidency; and what lay ahead. I spoke about Brand Black, or blackness as a mature political brand, just as hip hop is now a mature media brand. Every product/entity/person who wants market share starts out in the experimental, spaghetti against the wall.

Of all the people who start blogs, relatively few keep it up and even fewer find a longterm audience. If they do find an audience—not just bloggers but political candidates, preachers, musicians, etc.—then they enter the brand-building phase. They try to bring on a core constituency first, then expand that constituency. For hip hop, the core constituency was urban blacks/Latinos, adding graf artists, b-boys and b-girls, streetcorner wisemen…. and then multicultural urban youth… and then multicultural global youth. As hip hop has become a mature brand, you see stars like Ice Cube and Queen Latifah moving into mainstream family-oriented film; P. Diddy and Russell Simmons crossing onto Broadway; Simmons into philanthropy and spirituality; and Jay Z into the economic CEO/Beyonceed celebrosphere. My argument in the speech, which I will elide, concerned the use of hip hop as a feedback loop that helped make blackness a culturally mature brand that had political capital.

Since this is a blog post and not a dissertation, peep this:

First, check out Jay Z solo.

Then, Obama on the stump.

Then the remix:

When Obama first made the gesture, it split the world into three camps: people who thought he actually had dirt on his shoulder (maybe three people or less worldwide); people who got the intent of the gesture (back up off this; you don’t matter); and people who got the specific reference to hip hop and the 2003 hit by Jay Z.

The use of hip hop signifiers and metaphors, as well as support from the hip hop community, really drove the Obama campaign at first. The hip hop generation (or at this point, really two generations) were the “early adopters” of Brand Obama. The Civil Rights generation were later adopters of Brand Obama. And Brand Obama stood on…. the shoulders of the Civil Rights generation, who took blackness from an exiled/discredited “brand” among anti-integrationist whites to a nearly-mature brand that lacked one thing… the sense that a black man could be president.

I didn’t know that Obama would win. No one did. But Obama used hip hop to leverage early youth support, which in turn built numbers for what political scientist William Jelani Cobb of Spelman calls “The Black History Month Massacre” (Obama winning 10 Dem primaries and caucuses in a row), which in turn helped justify Civil Rights generation political figures/superdelegates like John Lewis switching their allegiance from Sen. Clinton to Sen. Obama.

In the end, Brand Obama leveraged hip hop to take the White House… a final signal that “Brand Black” is mature and thriving. What happens next? I don’t know. But I’m eager to see, hear, and write more, especially now that politics has a soundtrack.

The map reflects the exceptional (brown-red), extreme (orange) and severe (dark yellow) water problems in California, Nevada and Texas.

Richard Heim, a meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center told USA Today that the 2.69-inch average rainfall across the U.S. in January and February is the least amount of moisture in those months since NOAA began keeping records in 1895.

The current dry spell started in Central Texas in 2007, and hit California along with the rest of the Southwest in 2006. Los Angeles only received 3 inches of rain during 2006-2007, its driest year on record.

As a result of these prolonged drought conditions in California, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger issued a drought emergency in February 2009.  For the first time in 15 years, Los Angeles is planning to implement a water rationing system – achieved “through price-enforced household conservation and tough new lawn watering restrictions.”

“The level of severity of this drought is something we haven’t seen since the early 1970s,” Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said in unveiling his city’s drought plan, which also would put more water cops on the beat.

And to save endangered fish populations, the courts are reducing the amount of water taken from rivers (Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta water source in Northern California). Water officials also decided to cut their Sierra Mountains water source pumped to cities and irrigation districts by 85 percent according to Reuters. These measures highlights the growing tensions between farms/agricultural water uses and animals as well farms/agricultural versus urban/metropolitan water needs.

Thus, another major loser in the water fight are farmers and ranchers.

California farmers lost more than $300 million in 2008 and economic losses may accelerate to 10 times that this year as 95,000 people lose their jobs. Farmers will get zero water from the main federal supplier (Reuters).

As farms continue to suffer, major Southwest cities like Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Phoenix are growing in population. People are moving to the warm sunbelt.

“For the last few years, the driest states, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada, have been the fastest growing. And you know that can’t be sustained,” said James Powell to Reuters.  Powell is the author of “Dead Pool,” a book about global warming and water in the U.S. West.

It’s not surprising that California, the world’s eighth-largest economy, uses enough water to cover the state of Washington in a foot of water.  And approximately 80 percent of the water is used by farms growing crops like organic lettuce and rice. The drought induced water cutback to the farms will cause a dramatic decrease in California’s agricultural production —- which has serious economic implications as well as food supply ramifications.

And to make matters even worse, the droughts are making California more vulnerable to wildfires.  Last year, a record 500,000 Southern Californians had to vacate their homes because of fires.

State officials are using prison inmate crews to clear away brush and create fire breaks around communities to reduce the risk of wildfires, said Daniel Berlant, spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (USA Today).

A water shortage, drought conditions, fewer crops and the potential for fires is a red flag for an impending disaster.

The artist formerly known as who? … Well, it’s Prince. The Purple Rain singer will be performing on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno for three nights in a row on March 25-27 in effort to garner support for the March 29 release of not one, but two albums. The albums, LOtUSFLOW3R and MPLSoUND, will be available for purchase with a third album from artist Bria Valente exlusively at Target for $11.98.  And if you can’t get enough of the guy, catch Prince for a fourth night on March 28 for Leno’s Tonight Show retirement.

What about the real King of Pop? … Michael Jackson has announced 26 new dates for his comeback “This Is It” tour, all of which take place in London alone. The concert series, which includes 10 shows in July and an additional 18 in September,  is speculated to be part of a bigger world tour that has yet to be revealed. Tickets have been priced between 50 and 75 pounds ($70 and $105), a seemingly decent price range compared to today’s pop stars (ahem, Jo Bros). This will be Michael Jackson’s first tour in 12 years.

And the other Jack? … Jack White shows no sign of exhaustion as the White Stripes and Raconteurs frontman has developed a third band along with a new album. The new group, The Dead Weather, will be debuting their first album Horehound in June on White’s label, Third Man. The band also includes Alison Mosshart of The Kills, Dean Fertita of Queens of the Stone Age, and Jack Lawrence of the Greenhornes. White reportedly says that the band will go on tour this year.

Speakin’ of new bands … Ben Harper and his new bluesy band Relentless7 have released the music video for their new single “Shimmer and Shine.” The track comes from their upcoming release White Lies For Dark Times, which is scheduled to drop later this year. Check out the video below.

Push past the “swagga”, the mind swirling name changes and the amped-up persona as the musical King of Bling, and you’ll that Sean Combs is brilliant. In a quietly riveting new interview pegged to the 12th Anniversary of the death of Notorious B.I.G., aka Christopher Wallace, blogger Barry Michael Cooper conducts a wide ranging interview that gives those of us watching an up close look at what excellence and creative vision looks like. We learn how Combs’ mind works and his process is illuminating. This segment on the Making of Ready to Die is getting the most hype because Combs confirms that on one of the interludes, Biggie is actually having sex. But I suggest you listen to how Combs guides Biggie’s music choices and why.

Again, in this segment listen to how Combs spends his spare time making beats, perfecting his ear and his producing skills. Combs closely studied how movies were put together and scored and the rules of storytelling. He says he didn’t want to wait for things to happen.

My constant frustration with so many high profile black entertainers and athletes is that they don’t emphasize the hard work, focus and discipline it takes to achieve success. Cooper’s interview is a great step in the right direction. I left a comment for Mr. Cooper and this is what I said: “This is a remarkable post and interview. This is what success looks like when the lights go down. I hope this interview inspires countless young people to hunker down and become excellent at something they love to do. Peace” Do yourself a favor, head on over and watch this entire interview. I found it inspiring on my own road to excellence, I hope you find the same.

Check It Out – Once Upon A Time in America: Sean Combs

This post originally appeared courtesy of Carmen Dixon’s All About Race.

Even though this bella is an avowed wearer of flat shoes, just for today I’m rockin’ a pair of red pumps — all in the name of a righteous cause.

Today is National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, in 2005, women represented 26 percent of new AIDS diagnoses (compared to only 11 percent of new AIDS cases reported in 1990).

Women of color are disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS, and AIDS is now the leading cause of death for black women ages 25 to 34.

I’m part of a team, 95 bloggers strong, who are rocking the red pump today in the name of HIV/AIDS awareness.

I am fortunate. I grew up in a loving, open, and supportive family, and also my father spent years working for CAREC, the Caribbean Epidemiology Center, which was primarily responsible for AIDS education and awareness in Trinidad and throughout the Caribbean. Needless to say, I’ve always been made aware of the importance of sexual safety, and the necessity of getting tested for HIV and other STDs.

Many other people are less fortunate, and far less informed.

I’ve met people who still choose to believe that AIDS is a disease that only afflicts the gay population. WRONG. And note I said “choose to believe,” because that can only be willful ignorance in this day and age. And I said “met” because I can’t be friends and hang out with folks who are that willfully ignorant.

I’ve known quite a few people who haven’t been tested for STD’s before having unprotected sex with people they hardly know.

And saddest of all, I’ve known people who have refused to get tested. They’re afraid of what they might find out.

Today, I implore them, and everyone else, to wake up.

AIDS doesn’t discriminate according to your race, gender, sexual orientation, class, or country of origin.

Today, I and the rest of the Red Pump crew encourage you to get tested and get the facts about HIV/AIDS.

If you live in Chicago or Kansas City, there are special Red Pump events taking place near you tonight! Click here for the details!

Bellas, fellas – if you’ve got something to say about the state of HIV/AIDS awareness in the community, please speak your piece! If you’re involved with or know about a great HIV/AIDS charity in your neighborhood, please share it with me!

This post originally appeared on Afrobella.com.