The Black Plague

“The leading cause of death among black males between the ages of 15 and 24 is homicide. Every 4 out of 5 black victims of violent crimes identified their assailant as another black person,” says Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. This quotation appears in the video “You Will Know,” a song performed by Black Men United back in 1994. So here we are in 2010, facing the same issues from almost a generation earlier. The death of Robert Freeman, a thirteen year old boy from the South Side of Chicago on Wednesday evening reinforced the need for us as a people to truly address the way we live on day to day basis and our relationships with one another. This was yet another senseless murder that took the life of one of our children.

Over the past 30 years, there have been countless examples of us murdering each other at astronomical rates. Many deaths can be attributed to gang activity, drug related, robberies or just random acts of sheer brutality against your brother or sister due to the frustrations that this life can bring most of us. Some will say this can be traced back to socio-economic status, which can be true, but it may go deeper than just socio-economic status. Societal integration occurred in the late 1950s in the South where racism was king. Many blacks were being treated as second class citizens and the same could be said for the entire United States. The Civil Rights movement was in full effect and this brought out seas of black people fighting to be recognized in a country that for too long rendered us as barter and stock to be freely exploited at any cost.

It was during this pivotal point in history that black pride and love were at its zenith. There were captivating and revolutionary leaders guiding our race to reach unprecedented levels. Then slowly, one by one, they started to be gunned down by the powers that be and the outcome of their voices being ghosts in the wind is where we are today as a people. As the Civil Rights movement came to a close, the foundation of black love still resided in us. It shined through in the music and the most apropos song from that era had to be James Brown’s “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud” and many records that came out in the late 1960s through the mid 1970s were centered on uplifting our black queens and calling each other kings. This trend reemerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s hip-hop and rap scene, but was an anomaly compared to what was about to dominate the airwaves in the years following.

It is important to note here before societal integration blacks owned businesses and we supported our local community merchants and stores. Our neighborhoods were places to unite and socialize. Sure, there were instances we’re some violence occurred, but for the most part the love for your brother or sister was palpable. Due to the circumstances presented by the larger society, it was ingrained in our psyche since the days of slavery that together we were a strong force. This was evident in the culture we produced from the ground up. At the center of our evolution was our faith in a higher power and our faith in each other. Yes, there have been instances in history where the crab-in-the-bucket mentality has stunted our overall growth as a people, but it was our love for each other that allowed leaders such as Harriet Tubman succeed in the underground railroad, Frederick Douglass to press President Lincoln for Emancipation, and countless others who sacrificed their lives to the cause of uplifting our people out of enslavement and impoverished conditions.

After integration, many of us forgot to support our neighborhood businesses and it led to them being taken over by larger business chains without making them invest money in our neighborhoods. Once the government opened the door through the enactment of legislation to acquire better job opportunities, we left our friends and families behind for greener, middle-class pastures. Meanwhile, our aunts, uncles and cousins were left to fend for themselves in what became the projects and/or slums. There has been a plethora of events that has led to the decline in black love, but the Vietnam War and the Ronald Regan presidency are two events which stand out like a sore thumb.

The introduction of crack, cocaine, and heroin into our neighborhoods played an integral role in the decimating of our love for each other’s existence. For three decades, we’ve stood by and watch our culture be crucified and have done absolutely nothing about it. We keep on glorifying these acts of violence in our communities. Hollywood, lack of parenting skills, and mainstream hip-hop and rap must shoulder most of the responsibility for the purveying of this troubling trend of promoting and perpetrating violence.

Compared with other countries, the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. As of 2006, a record 7 million people were behind bars, on probation or on parole, of which 2.2 million were incarcerated. The People's Republic of China ranks second with 1.5 million. The United States has 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's incarcerated population.

Blacks were arrested more than any other race for murder in 2008, making up 36% of all arrests. African Americans, constituting approximately 12% of the general population, were significantly overrepresented in the total arrests made. African Americans were also significantly overrepresented in victimization, representing 47% of all murder victims. White Americans and individuals of Other race were significantly underrepresented in cases of murder and non-negligible homicide in 2008. Murder in White American and African American populations were overwhelmingly intraracial, with 83% of all White victims and 90% of all Black victims having been murdered by individuals of the same race. When will the madness stop and we finally address this black plague?

The onus must fall on us to get our houses in order and begin the process of healing these deep wounds we carry internally and externally. The American way of life does us no favors, but we MUST start addressing this epidemic before our culture is lost forever. There’s a war going on outside and that no one is safe from. We have to do this for Derrion Albert, Robert Freeman and the thousands of young black lives we’ve lost along the way.

This is an impassioned plea from an observer who loves our culture profoundly. We can and need to do better.

Let us start the process to find a cure to end this plague.

BP stands for Big Payout

For the past ten weeks, a grandiose ecological problem exists in the waters located in the Gulf of Mexico. On April 20, 2010 the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill took place in the Gulf of Mexico. British Petroleum (BP) has claimed responsibility for this environmental disaster, but has blamed Transocean Ltd. and Halliburton for their hand in building the rig and the well casing exploding and causing the oil to leak out into the Gulf at an unfathomable estimate of 5,000 barrels to 100,000 barrels a day.

This isn’t the first instance of incompetence from BP; in 1999 one of their US subsidiaries, BP Exploration Alaska, finally agreed to resolve charges stemming from their involvement from 1993 to 1995 in the dumping of hazardous wastes on Endicott Island, Alaska. In 2005, there was the Texas City Refinery explosion where one of its largest refineries exploded causing 15 deaths and injuring 180. The incident was a culmination of other accidents at the refinery, and the engineering problems were never properly addressed by the management. As a cost-saving measure, the maintenance and safety departments at the plant had been drastically downsized. The responsibility ultimately fell at the feet of the company’s executives in London, England. In the summer of 2006, BP had to dismantle its oil operations in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska due to corrosion in pipelines leading up to the Alaska Pipeline. BP had spilled over one million liters of oil in Alaska's North Slope. There were estimates that about 5,000 barrels of oil were released from the pipeline. In comparison to the Gulf of Mexico debacle, this Alaska incident seems miniscule.

BP has a long history of committing transgressions against nature sanctuaries and paying dubious fines for their disregard of policies and regulations protecting these valuable commodities. Mother Jones Magazine named BP as one of the "ten worst corporations" in 2001 and 2005 based on its environmental and human rights records. According to Sharon Beder, 'bp: Beyond Petroleum?' in Battling Big Business: Countering greenwash, infiltration and other forms of corporate bullying “In 1991, BP was cited as the most polluting company in the US based on EPA toxic release data. In July 2000, BP paid a $10 million fine to the EPA for its management of its US refineries.” According to PIRG research, “between January 1997 and March 1998, BP was responsible for 104 oil spills in the Arctic alone.” As recently as October 2007, four BP energy traders in Houston were charged with manipulating prices of propane and as a result they settled with the US government for a record breaking $303 million.

How are they still in business?

Over the past nine weeks, numerous citizens have been asking the same question. This incident speaks to a larger issue with big corporations lying in bed with our government. It’s been acknowledged as fact that Minerals Management Service (MMS), a branch of the Department of the Interior has turned a blind eye to the activities of these corporations (BP, Halliburton, Transocean, Ltd., Enron) since the start of the Bush administration. MMS is the department of our government that directly handles offshore drilling. The Bush administration allowed for big corporations to play more of an expanded role in making regulations and laws that suited their endeavors. It has become more evident to engaged citizens that this type of behavior has been going on previous to the Bush administration, but in a more pronounced fashion since his arrival into the oval office in 2000. The onus also falls on President Obama for keeping these same people in place and continuing these measures after his election in 2008 when their performances warranted otherwise.

Despite all of the fines incurred by BP from our government they’re still allowed access in our most precious waters to drill for oil. One of the reasons for their ability to maintain a working relationship within the US government hierarchy is due to the campaign contributions they’ve made to prominent political figures. They were the biggest monetary contributor to President Obama’s campaign among others. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, “BP is the United States' hundredth largest donor to political campaigns, having contributed more than $5 million since 1990, 72% and 28% of which went to Republican and Democratic recipients, respectively. BP has lobbied to gain exemptions from U.S. corporate law reforms. In 2009, BP used nearly US$16 million to lobby US Congress, breaking the company's previous record (from 2008) of $10.4 million.”

Another disturbing statistic is since 2000, BP's repurchased approximately 60% of its own stock. This essentially means when you want to change from a publicly traded company to a privately held company, buying back your own stock is what a company will do. Once you become a privately held company nothing stands in your wake as you can operate freely within the marketplace. In 2006, BP bought back $1.3 billion of its own outstanding stock that is the most in history. Instead of investing in exploring other energy sources, BP, Exxon and other oil companies have all been investing in themselves. By 2024, Exxon will own all of its stock. Each year they’ve been spending about $30 billion a year on repurchasing their own stock. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) “the world will need about $20 trillion to meet energy demand in the near future.” The profits in the energy market will be the biggest in modern history.

There is a difference in holding a corporation accountable and stripping them of their privilege of working on American soil to increase their profit margins. During President Obama’s most recent State of the Union speech, he called for more offshore drilling to begin later this year with many of his Republican colleagues in Congress applauding this decision. The expression of “Drill Baby Drill” by those on the right wing of the Republican Party is now slowly being drowned by the oil swimming onto the respective shores of Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Texas and Florida.

On May 11, 2010, Congress called the executives of Halliburton, Transocean Ltd., and BP to a hearing on Capitol Hill and they each resembled the maturity level of a 3rd grader by pointing fingers at each other while refusing to accept their share of the blame in this calamity. At first, there was a “miscalculation” of how much oil was secreting to top of the Gulf’s waves in order to protect those responsible for infesting our American waters. Watching the live internet feed of the oil leaking from the busted pipeline 5,000 miles below sea level on www.bp.com and the news every evening is enough to make a person cry. CNN political contributors James Carville and Donna Brazile gave impassioned pleas to the President early on to go down to the Gulf to speak with the people who are having their livelihoods and lives forever altered by this inconsequential situation. He eventually relented and traveled down to the Gulf to encourage and uplift the spirits of the people. He personally vowed to hold BP responsible and as a result BP mutually agreed to pay out $20 billion for all damages they incur from this tragedy.

Many analysts have questioned the preparation of precautionary measures by BP if an accident of this magnitude would occur. It has been revealed that they were inadequately prepared, thus leading to their grave mishandling of this paroxysm. The seafood industry and wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico has become endangered from this epic failure and the devastating outcome could affect generations and beyond. There are forecasts from some of the top environmentalists in the country that if this oil spill isn’t halted soon the Gulf’s oil infested waters could submerge into the Atlantic Ocean and then this problem could become even more significant and long-lasting.

Enough damage has been done and the top executives of BP, Halliburton, and Transocean Ltd. should be brought up on charges for what they’ve done to one of most valuable water regions in the US. Carol Browner, the director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, said that this is the worst oil spill in the history of the United States surpassing the Exxon Valdez atrocity in 1989. So the vexation and pugnacity of the people from the Gulf towards BP is rightly justified when their figureheads such as CEO Tony Hayward keep referring to the oil spill as “relatively tiny” and saying “I want my life back.” The corruption and lies must be ended immediately. In recent days, the government has taken BP to task and Tony Hayward has been removed from his duties and given an $18 million golden parachute for his troubles. Nothing says punishment more than rewarding egregious behavior. The frustration and anger is palpable nationwide and it grows by the day.

BP now stands for Big Payout.

The Albatross of Race

Throughout the history of the United States, the issue of race has been at times our undoing or our unifying factor in helping bring about the process of change in our society. To this day, the motif of race evokes certain emotions in all of us. It often goes unaddressed due to the stances taken from different sides of the conversation. The lack of comfort can be attributed to the lack of education we have about other cultures. Race, creed and color are three things that continue to define all of us much to our chagrin.


Race is looming larger in growing political debates across the country regarding many sectors of our everyday lives. The usual suspects of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin among others chimed in with their virulent, separatist rhetoric regarding these issues. They all have one thing in common, they love hearing their voices all over various media outlets and having nothing of consequence to back up their statements. On immigration reform, the former maverick John McCain who once stated during a televised 2008 presidential debate “the United States is still that shiny city upon a hill where everyone is welcome.” But in a recent 2010 campaign ad for his reelection campaign in Arizona he is seen with a police officer stating that we will finish the damned fence. This is a direct correlation to the fence being built in Arizona keep illegal Mexicans from crossing the border.


Jan Brewer, the interim governor of Arizona struck an accord with her party but not nationally when she signed into law the SB 1070 bill. The law essentially creates unprecedented parameters to allow racial profiling on levels never seen in the United States. The bill reeked of remnants from the apartheid system in South Africa and reconstruction era policies held up in the Southern states after the Civil War. It has allowed Blacks and Hispanics to rally in a unified fashion to fight against this racist law. The fallout from this legislation being passed is almost assured to go the Supreme Court to get a final ruling to see if it will be struck down or upheld.

In Texas, the State Board of Education has decided to rewrite history. Their desire is to demount Thurgood Marshall’s influence and him from the Supreme Court in their textbooks. They’ve also called on removing the term Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade’ and replacing it with the ‘Atlantic Triangular Trade,’ which will undoubtedly minimize the impact that the slave trade had on the United States. What makes this an enormous problem is 75 percent of textbooks for grades K-12 that are bought and produced around the country are from Texas. It makes Texas the second largest buyer of textbooks behind the state of California.


This wretched assault on our history has the potential to become a catastrophic brainwashing of our next generation. In Arizona, their government is strongly considering banning Ethnic Studies at their state colleges and universities fearing that what is being taught in these classes are anti-American. It’s blatantly apparent Texas and Arizona are trying to one-up the other when it comes to setting the country back to the 1950s. Governor Rick Parry – Texas threatened secession from the United States during his election campaign and State Senator Russell Pearce – Arizona has strong Neo Nazi affiliations and their constituents are blindly loyal, which poses another problem entirely.


Since taking office in January, Governor Bob McDonnell and his attorney general Ken Cuchinelli have done their damnedest to set the state of Virginia back to the days of Jim Crow. Their assault on the previous administration’s groundbreaking legislation has been indefensible to say the very least. The fact they purposely left out slavery when Gov. McDonnell revealed his proclamation to make April Confederate History Month was troubling. The half hearted apology they issued made evident their true agenda of turning the clock back. This was only one in a series of missteps by this administration.


It is clear the country as a whole is sick and tired of the same old partisan politics going on in the halls of Congress. Many stalwart incumbents in the House and Senate have been dismissed by their constituents due to their perceived ineffectiveness during their time in Congress. This next election cycle has both Democrats and Republicans worried. The Tea Party and extreme militia movements have been a barometer for the disappointment and anger towards our government. Many proponents representing these movements will say that their cause is justified because of their worry over defense, immigration, and the outlandish governmental spending. Others view the movements as spectacles of privileged, middle-class and poor whites refusing to be told what to do by a Black President.


Tea Party candidate Rand Paul from Kentucky has stormed onto the national scene like a category 5 hurricane. His comments regarding the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show and the criticism of President Obama’s besmirching of BP and their culpability in the cleanup of their massive oil spill left him back peddling faster than an NFL cornerback. Paul is under the impression that we still reside in the 1940s. Although, he later retracted his statements and said he would have voted for the historic Civil Rights bill, he is yet another example of how the issue of race keeps rearing its head in the political discourse of this country.


The latest incidents citing race happened in South Carolina when Rep. State Senator Jake Knotts referred to gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley and President Barack Obama as ‘ragheads.’ ‘Raghead’ is a racial slur geared towards a person of Indian descent. Perhaps, the biggest racial incident of 2010 besides the Oscar Grant trial verdict, occurred this week when former USDA administrator, Shirley Sherrod was fired supposedly over racist remarks in a speech she gave at an NAACP event in 2008 about not delivering monetary assistance to a white rural farmer. This clip was provided by right wing extremist Andrew Breitbart and little did everyone know that the clip was edited and distorted to make Mrs. Sherrod appear as a racist. But after viewing the footage in its entirety, she was telling a heart wrenching story about how her perception of race changed during this exchange with this poor, white farmer. Everyone from the Obama administration to the major media news outlets were culpable in throwing her under the bus before understanding the full scope of the situation. Every week, this disturbing trend continues to reappear into our national conscience.


But the albatross of race is still hanging around the country like a storm cloud. It makes one wonder if we’ll ever address it or if we’ll keep letting it rain until we drown in our own dysfunction.


“A fully functional multiracial society cannot be achieved without a sense of history and open, honest dialogue.” – Dr. Cornel West