Howard Stern Dogs Oprah For Kissing "Will & Jada's Butt"
Monday, June 28, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Dr. Boyce Watkins Talks About Single Parenting with Tamika Mallory and Alexis Stodghill on AOL Black Voices
Dr. Boyce Watkins Talks About Single Parenting with Tamika Mallory and Alexis Stodghill on AOL Black Voices
Dr. Boyce Watkins Talks About Social Issues with Dr. Marc Lamont Hill and Lola Adesioye on AOL Black Voices
Dr. Boyce Watkins Talks About Social Issues with Dr. Marc Lamont Hill and Lola Adesioye on AOL Black Voices
Dr. Boyce Watkins Talks About Immigration with Dr. Alan Aja and Dr. R. L'Heureux Lewis on AOL Black Voices
Dr. Boyce Watkins Talks About Immigration with Dr. Alan Aja and Dr. R. L'Heureux Lewis on AOL Black Voices
Dr. Boyce Watkins Talks About "President Obama's father's day speech" with Rev. Al Sharpton on Keeping it Real.
Dr. Boyce Watkins Talks About "President Obama's father's day speech" with Rev. Al Sharpton on Keeping it Real. ;
Is Obama's Fatherhood Commercial Too Feminine for Black Men?
Obama's fatherhood.gov commercial is, shall we say, not the most masculine thing in the world. ;
Monday, June 21, 2010
Hip Hop Artist Fat Joe Detained in Alleged Rape
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, AOL Black Voices
The rapper Fat Joe was detained by police Sunday night after he and his entourage were accused of sexually assaulting a woman in Madison, Wisconsin. According to TMZ, the woman is 33-years old and claims the assault occurred in a Cadillac Limousine after a concert at the Orpheum Theater.
Fat Joe (a.k.a.Joseph Antonio Cartagena) and his entourage were held for questioning, but he was released and not arrested. The details of the case are still being sorted out in the investigation. Relative to most artists, Fat Joe doesn't get into very much trouble. The 39-year old married father of two has not, to my knowledge been accused of any sexual assault, so I'd be surprised if he waited this long to get started. He has been arrested in some of the typical rapper non-sense in the past: In 1998, he and the deceased rapper Big Pun were arrested for assaulting a man with a baseball bat and stealing his gold chain. I'm not even going to try to explain that one.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Boyce Watkins: Black Daddies - Let's Stand Up
by Dr. Boyce Watkins - The Institute for Black Public Policy, Syracuse University
Father's Day usually occurs on my birthday, which is both exciting and a little bit sad. With each birthday, I feel like I'm on a slow ship to an unforeseen destination, with each birthday reminding me that I've passed another landmark. I keep wondering why birthdays show up around the same time every year, and I'm still hopeful that the trend will discontinue at some point. Wait, let me rephrase that.....if my birthdays stop coming then I'll be, well..... you know.
At any rate, when my birthday hits, doubled-up with Father's Day, I am led to evaluate my life and myself. I evaluate my life to see if I am the same man this year that I was last year; the truth is that I should have grown in some meaningful way or achieved something positive. I also evaluate myself as a father to see if I am getting at least a little bit better at making myself the kind of man that my kids need me to be.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Billy Hawkins: NCAA is Actually a Plantation for Black Male Athletes
by Dr. Boyce Watkins
Professor Billy Hawkins of The University of Georgia has released a controversial new book that describes the experiences of NCAA athletes by comparing them to slaves on a plantation. According to the research of professor Hawkins, black athletes are exploited by the NCAA physically, financially and intellectually.
Hawkins cites the massive revenue earned by the NCAA via March Madness, which includes a 14-year, $10.8 billion contract with CBS sports. In spite of seemingly unlimited revenues to encourage athletes to stay focused academically, Hawkins notes that nearly one-fifth of the 64 teams participating in the NCAA tournament had graduation rates of less than 40 percent. Across the 36 sports monitored by the NCAA, men's basketball has the lowest graduation rates, where less than two-thirds of the players earn degrees.
The dismal graduation numbers for the NCAA support Dr. Hawkins' research, in which he argues and shows that black athletes at predominantly white institutions are being exploited while being neglected academically. In his book, "The New Plantation," the well-respected Professor of Sport Management and Policy uses a plantation model to present the black male athletic experience as part of a broader historical context.
Dr. Julianne Malveaux Speaks on the BP Crisis
William Butler Yeats did a good job of capturing a harrowing pandemonium in his poem, The Second Coming. He wrote, in 1919
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
I was twice introduced to the poem in college, first in a class that required the study of English poets, then in a class that examined African literature, including the powerful novel of Nigerian colonization by Chinua Achebe, ironically titled, Things Fall Apart. The poem is so emblazoned on my brain that from time to time it comes to mind, most recently when I contemplate the BP oil spill, its damages, its consequences, and its handling.
I am writing from the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition Conference, 55 days after the Deepwater Horizon explosion that killed 11 people and started an oil leak that apparently continues. While BP says that the leak was only 5000 barrels of oil a day, scientists estimate that between 20,000 and 40,000 barrels of oil leaked each day between April 22 until June 3. If you use the midpoint of 30,000 barrels and a period of 42 days (assuming all leaking stopped when a dome to catch some of the leak was installed on June 3), we are talking at least 1.2 million barrels of an oil leak.
BP CEO Tony Hayward outwardly seems to take this matter much less than seriously. At one point (he later apologized) that he couldn't wait for "this" to be over. "I want my life back", he said with some insensitivity, given the fact that eleven people actually lost their lives. In addition, millions are losing a way of life, fishermen with nowhere, now to fish, all of the industries supported by fishermen with nothing to do, a delicate ecological balance upset, with pelicans, turtles, fish and crabs drowning in oil. And with BP stalling on paying claims, or only paying them to those who can document their income through ledgers and tax returns. So many fishermen live in an informal economy that the BP standard is one that has motivated more than 200 lawsuits already.
On his Sunday radio program, Rev. Jesse Jackson had a conversation with Billy Nungesser, who is the President of Plaquemines Parish in coastal Louisiana. Mr. Nungesser talked about the many ways his parish had been affected by the BP oil spill. One of his most harrowing stories was about a 94 year old man who earns money catching minnows as bait for fishermen. Now, even if he can catch the minnows, there are few fishermen who are fishing. So what does a 94-year-old man do now, Nungesser asked? The way he made his living, the way he organized his life, has completely changed. Things fall apart, the center cannot hold.
Was this just an accident? Exxon Mobil has had just one safety violation in the past three years. BP has had a whopping seven hundred and sixty safety violations. While no one thinks that Tony "life back" Hayward and his team deliberately caused this massive disaster, their safety record suggests there was always a good possibility that something like this would happen. But BP is whining that when people say "British Petroleum" (which is what BP stands for), we Americans are being "Anglophobic". They have whined so long and so hard that President Obama has spoken with the British Prime Minister to assure him that nothing could be further from the truth. Again, this matter brings Yeats to mind, "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
BP has been shilly shallying for nearly two months. President Obama has been to the coastal area 4 times, visiting Louisiana, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi, all affected states. What really needs to happen, as former Labor Secretary Robert Reich has said, is that the US operations of BP need to be put in some kind of receivership. This is a public sector problem, now, not a private sector problem. Our government must more forcefully contain the predatory capitalism and utter greed that precipitated this crisis.
The tea party folks (full of passionate intensity) are calling the BP spill "Obama's Katrina". That's not accurate. The policies of deregulation that allowed this to happen are Reagan/Bush policies, not Obama's. Still President Obama has the opportunity to be forceful and focused as things fall apart, and to respond to the people British Petroleum feels so free to ignore. What will happen if there is still oil in the water when a hurricane comes? Why is our entire nation not more outraged? How can we all sit silent and complacent while things fall apart? Billy Nungesser asked that all of us push our Congressional representatives to pass legislation containing BP. That is the absolute least we can do.
Dr. Julianne Malveaux is an economist, author and commentator, and the Founder & Thought Leader of Last Word Productions, Inc., a multimedia production company.
Last Word Productions, Inc. is a multimedia production company that serves as a vehicle for the work and products of Dr. Julianne Malveaux. For the last 10 years the company has centered its efforts on Dr. Malveaux's public speaking appearances, her work as a broadcast and print journalist, and also as an author. Currently, Julianne Malveaux is President of Bennett College For Women in Greensboro, North Carolina.
To find more of Dr. Julianne Malveaux's columns, work and appearances please visit:
www.juliannemalveaux.com
# # #
Friday, June 18, 2010
Study Says Gates Was Probably Not Profiled
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, The Institute for Black Public Policy
A recent report to be published Thursday in the Boston Globe is set to show that the Cambridge Police Department does not use racial profiling, as it was accused of doing during the controversial case last summer involving Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates. The report, compiled by the New England Center of Investigative Reporting, analyzed 392 disorderly conduct arrests between 2004 and 2009. During that time, 57 percent of those arrested were white, and 34 percent were black. These numbers almost directly mirror the percentages in the community in which the arrests were made.
I did a great deal of CNN commentary on the Henry Louis Gates case, and to the ire of some of my fellow black scholars at Harvard, I firmly held the position that the Gates case was not about racial profiling. Not to say that the officer didn't violate procedure, but the truth is that there was almost nothing about that case that made me believe that Professor Gates was arrested because he was black.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Video Taken of Officer Punching Black Girl in the Face
Someone videotaped a police officer punching a black girl in the face - was this police brutality? ;
Dr. Boyce Watkins and Rev. Al Sharpton Talk About The Black Music Industry and Other Current Event
Dr. Boyce Watkins and Rev. Al Sharpton Talk About The Black Music Industry and Other Current Event
Monday, June 14, 2010
Jeff Johnson and Dr. Boyce Defend Black Athletes on CNN
Dr. Boyce Watkins and Jeff Johnson stand up for black athletes to be educated and paid. ;
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Slim Thug Attempts to Defend His Comments about Black Women
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, AOL Black Voices
Many of you may already know about the "interesting" comments made by the rapperSlim Thug, and his frustration about the lack of loyalty among black women. His comments were met with resistance by myself and Dr. Marc Lamont Hill from Columbia University, who gave him the stable advice to keep his mouth shut. I say that "Slim Thugga" needs to be quiet, not because he's wrong, but because this is a battle he can't win and still sell records. Getting every black woman in America to hate you is simply not good for business. Even Talib Kweli, a fellow hip hop artist, had something to say about Slim Thug's remarks.
On his twitter page, Slim Thug went out of his way to try to protect his image in the face of all the backlash:
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Paterson NJ Cop Videotaped While Macing a Black Man
This video is storming the web - a cop in Paterson, NJ is caught on tape macing a black man on the ground. ;
News: NBA Gets a Good Diversity Report Card
To view the entire report card for the NBA on race and gender, Please click here
Highlights from the Report (released by the press representative for the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport):
· In the NBA, 82 percent of the players were people of color, remaining constant from last year’s totals. This ties the highest percentage of players of color since the 1994-95 season. The percentage of African-American players also remained constant from last year’s report at 77 percent. The percentage of Latinos and Asians remained constant, at three and one percent respectively. The percentage of international players stayed steady as well at 18 percent.
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Friday, June 11, 2010
What Hip Hop Needs to Do Now
The age of the Hoochie Mama is over
by Dr. Boyce Watkins | TheLoop21 in Culture & Society
It's time for hip hop, and its audience, to grow up.
Alvin Greene: The Dumbest Political Candidate Ever?
Some believe that this brother was planted by the Republicans to switch the vote - what do you think? ;
Dr. Boyce Watkins Talks About Elena Kagans' Supreme Court Nomination on WPR
Dr. Boyce Watkins Talks About Elena Kagans' Supreme Court Nomination on Wisconsin Public Radio
Thursday, June 10, 2010
News: Oscar Grant Trial Has No African American Jurors
by Dr. Boyce Watkins
On New Year's day of 2009, Oscar Grant was shot in Oakland, California. The shooter was a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) officer by the name of Johannes Mehserle. Grant was 22-years old at the time of his death, and the shooting was captured by cell phone cameras and disseminated throughout the Internet. Adding insult to injury, the Grant family just found that there will be no African American jurors in the trial of grant's shooter.
Jack Bryson, whose sons were with Grant the night he was killed, was angry about the jury selection.
"This is like a slap in the face," Bryson told The Associated Press. "This case came all the way to Los Angeles after the judge in Alameda County said they couldn't get a fair and impartial jury there.
"This is the best you can do, and you did this in two days. We could've stayed back in Oakland for this."
Black Scholars Kept From Getting Jobs at White Universities
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Syracuse University
Dr. M. Cookie Newsom
is the Director for Diversity Education and Assessment at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is also a trouble maker and an angry black woman, which is likely going to cause her serious problems with her colleagues (we talked yesterday about how being angry can get a black person into serious trouble). Dr. Newsom, however, has good reason to be angry. In a recent interview with Diverse issues in Higher Education, Dr. Newsom stated in plain language that most major universities are not serious about diversifying their faculty and that this hurts all students, especially students of color.
"The dismal truth is academe doesn’t really want a racially-diverse faculty," Newsom said during a faculty diversity presentation at the American Association of University Professors’ (AAUP) annual national conference in Washington, D.C. "It’s totally a myth."
Dr. Newson based her conclusions on statistics and data she collected which shows that most major universities are good at documenting plans to increase faculty diversity, but most of it’s nothing but lip service.
What Do We Make of Nelson Mandela and the World Cup? Quite a Bit
Author and Finance Professor at Syracuse University
World Cup may be Mandela's last great goal for South Africa
8:03 AM on 06/10/2010
OPINION - To say that this event has significance to Mandela would be a tremendous understatement...
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Wednesday, June 9, 2010
President Obama and the "Angry Black Man" Critique
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Obama's "Angry Black Man" Criticism: Isn't He Also Half White?
9:36 PMJun 9
Source: Blackvoices Main
In light of all of the interesting analysis that others have done regarding why President Barack Obama can only get so angry about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, I was wondering if any of this analysis makes sense. In fact, most of the ... Read More
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BP Shares Get Hammered as Firm May Face Bankruptcy Due to Spill
7:46 PMJun 9
Source: BV Black Spin
Today, the shares of British Petroleum (BP), the company responsible for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, plunged 16 percent in heavy trading. There were nine times more shares traded in the company today than the average daily volume. The added ... Read More
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Rev. Jesse Jackson Says Congress Ignoring Jobs Crisis
7:05 PMJun 9
Source: BV Black Spin
In a piece on The Huffington Post, the Rev. Jesse Jackson stated that he is concerned that Congress is ignoring the jobs crisis in America. Over 300,000 teachers are facing layoffs this year, and teen unemployment is the highest its been since 1948, ... Read More
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