by Dr. Boyce Watkins, YourBlackWorld.com – Scholarship in Action
Donald Trump and Barack Obama will be in the same room tonight. The White House Correspondents dinner has Trump on the guest list, with President Obama delivering a stand up routine that pokes fun at himself and his presidency. While almost no topics are off limits during the dinner, Trump doesn’t expect the president to talk about him.
"I wouldn't think [Obama] would address me" during his speech, Trump said to ABC News.
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, YourBlackWorld.com – Scholarship in Action
Roman Caple is a senior at St. Augustine’s College. He was set to graduate this weekend until he was informed by the school that he wouldn’t be allowed to walk with his classmates. Caple says that his punishment was due to a Facebook post that allegedly "jeopardized the integrity of the college."
Caple argues that the reaction of school administrators came as a result of his posts following a tornado that hit Raleigh, NC two weeks ago. But he says that most of his comments were meant to be uplifting. One of his posts said the following:
"We all need to set our differences aside and help one another. Falcons we will continue to fly high because that's what we do. Help your neighbor, if need be, Falcons are one."
Watch as YBW’s Eshe White interviews a former football star about the realities of playing in the NFL
BOSTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's father was forced to leave Harvard University before completing his Ph.D. in economics because the school was concerned about his personal life and finances, according to newly public immigration records.
Harvard had asked the Immigration and Naturalization Service to delay a request by Barack Hussein Obama Sr. to extend his stay in the U.S., "until they decided what action they could take in order to get rid of him," immigration official M.F. McKeon wrote in a June 1964 memo.
Roland Martin has begun calling out Donald Trump on his Twitter page. This is what Martin had to say:
"Do not support Trump's #CelebrityApprentice. He's a travesty. I refuse to stay at Trump hotels; will NOT watch #CelebrityApprentice or buy products that continue to advertise on his show. He's pathetic."
Donald Trump Then Replied:
“I am the least racist person on the planet. I have a great record on that, especially in terms of my friendships. And I have never heard of Roland Martin.”
Tuscaloosa, Alabama (CNN) -- President Barack Obama toured rubble-strewn Tuscaloosa, Alabama, neighborhoods on Friday, declaring the devastation brought by a series of powerful storms and tornadoes was beyond anything he had ever seen.
The storms killed at least 316 people in six Southern states and left entire neighborhoods in ruins. Obama promised expedited federal aid to states affected by the tornadoes.
"We're going to do everything we can to help these communities rebuild," he said.
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Your Black World – Scholarship in Action
Like nearly every other black man in America, I’ve been taken aback by the manner through which Donald Trump has used racist code language to undermine the presidency of Barack Obama. After first wondering if he was born in the United States, Trump has made reference to Obama playing too much basketball to pay attention to the price of gas and even questioned whether or not he truly earned the grades necessary to get into the Harvard Law School.
“The President invited the living participants in the Memphis Sanitation Strike to honor their courage, and their fight on behalf of all workers for safe conditions, respect in the workplace and a better life for themselves and their families. As workers across the country continue to face challenges to their rights, the issues for which these men fought continue to be relevant and the President remains committed to the causes for which they marched.” – from the White House
By Dr. Boyce Watkins, Your Black World – the picture above (left) is from the press conference held for Father Pfleger in Chicago
I went to the press conference being held on behalf of Father Michael Pfleger, the respected Catholic Priest on the Southside of Chicago. In case you don’t know, Father Pfleger’s church, St. Sabina, is a predominantly black church and his members love him. He has served the South Side of Chicago with the kind of courage only shown by a true spiritual soldier. He has stood strong with mothers as their sons have died and has put himself in the middle of nearly every kind of devastation that plagues inner cities across America.
In this episode of Your Black Love, Deborrah Cooper and I ask whether or not black women have a preference for dating men that are not good for them.
Do you know a woman who dates one bad guy after another and then seems to spend all of her time whining about the fact that she can never find a good man? Yea, I have too. Well, it seems to me that, at some point, we must all have some degree of accountability for our relationship choices.
By Jason DeCrow, AP
NEW YORK — At least one major question about Cam Newton has been answered. The lights shined on Cam Newton after the Panthers made him the first overall pick on Thursday.
The lights shined on Cam Newton after the Panthers made him the first overall pick on Thursday.
Posted April 26, 2011 | 06:25 PM (EST)
I woke up thinking about a person I met just two weeks ago. I was thinking about this man because he is going to die unless we find a way to help him. He is paralyzed from the neck down, has one working lung and that lung has enough blood...
773 Comments | Posted April 24, 2011 | 10:28 PM (EST)
When I heard about the case of Tanya McDowell, the homeless mother sent to jail for sending her 5-year-old son to the "wrong" school district, I immediately thought back to the case of Kelley Williams-Bolar not long ago. I wondered how the world has gone mad...
Watch the video below to understand the nature of Fox News Racism. There’s a historical context to all of this, whether we’re talking about the Birther Movement, the Tea Party or any of the other activity coming from the Right Wing. Check it out below or click here to watch.
I’m sitting here watching this MTV show "Son of a Gun," about a rapper, Cory Gunz, who is deciding which hip-hop label to join. I admittedly become annoyed with media feeding these bullsh*t dreams to black men, when 99.9% of them never end up making money as rappers or athletes. Brothers please understand this: Your best options for success are education and entrepreneurship - not busting rhymes and dribbling basketballs.
Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Your Black World – Scholarship in Action
Auburn University’s Cam Newton capped off his stunning win of the Heisman Trophy by being the #1 draft pick by the Carolina Panthers in this year’s NFL draft.
I’d like to make some quick recommendations for Cam as he begins his life of fame and fortune:
1) Save your money: Most of your fellow NFL players were sweating out the lockout because they weren’t able to make payments on all the cars and houses that they can’t afford. Get a good financial manager you can trust, learn to start your own business, and make sure you’re educated enough to understand what other people are doing with your money. If you lose everything, no one is going to care.
To have Dr. Boyce Watkins commentary delivered to your email, please click here.
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, YourBlackWorld.com – Scholarship in Action
Republican State Rep from Oklahoma Sally Kern seems to think that black people don’t work as hard as whites and that we are more likely to go to prison because we think the government will take care of us.
“We have a high percentage of blacks in prison, and that's tragic, but are they in prison just because they are black or because they don't want to study as hard in school? I've taught school, and I saw a lot of people of color who didn't study hard because they said the government would take care of them."
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by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Your Black World – Scholarship in Action
Today, I stood in the presence of a true soldier. I went to the hospital in Chicago to visit Rasul “Rocky” Clark, the young brother who was paralyzed 10 years ago in a football accident at the age of 16. Rocky was paralyzed from the neck down, only able to move his head and nothing else. His legs and arms are thinner than anything I’ve ever seen, he can barely breathe, and he’s dying right now because his insurance company decided to kill his policy.
Rocky’s mother, Annette, has stood by her son day-in and day-out every single day since the accident. She has a bed right next to him in the hospital and repeatedly told me that “I’m not gonna leave my baby.” Every normal day seems to be abnormally tragic, with nurses cleaning bacteria out of Rocky’s one remaining lung, and the young man quietly repeating the words, “Mama, I can’t breathe.”
by Frank Igwe – Your Black World
"Appeasement is like feeding the crocodile, hoping that it will eat you last.” -Winston Churchill
As Hitler’s Third Reich expanded across Europe, and leader after leader sought to placate and temper his appetite for war by surrendering territory in the hope for peace, Winston Churchill took a stand, and stated: "Appeasement is like feeding the crocodile, hoping that it will eat you last.”You see, Churchill understood a basic truth that has been around since the beginning of time: A bully will continue to be a bully, until you take a stand and fight. Hitler’s aggression was built on a platform of racial superiority, of dividing the world into “in-groups” and “out-groups”, the chosen and “the others”, slaves and slave masters. He may have succeeded in his quest for world domination, and global ethnic cleansing had it not been for one courageous leader who said, ENOUGH!
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Redskins defensive lineman Albert Haynesworth allegedly slid his credit card into the bra of a waitress and then touched her breast, according to court papers filed Wednesday offering Haynesworth a plea deal in the sexual abuse case.
Haynesworth's lawyer, however, said the deal was not one he'd take and that his client would fight the charge. Prosecutors filed paperwork in Superior Court in Washington saying that if Haynesworth agrees to plead guilty to simple assault they would drop the misdemeanor sexual abuse charge. Both charges carry the same maximum penalty, however, up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $1,000.
Your Black World Reports
On a recent appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show, President Barack Obama was asked about the birth certificate issue. The president recently released his birth certificate to the public in order to squash growing controversy about his birthplace.
"Why did you wait so long, though?" Oprah asked. "When it first came up, were you thinking, I hope I was born here?"
*A federal judge has sided with NFL players and granted their request for a preliminary injunction to lift the lockout imposed by team owners.
The ruling gives the players an early victory in their fight with NFL owners over a new collective bargaining agreement in the $9-billion business.
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Your Black World Reports
Jason Hunter of the Denver Broncos was stabbed by his girlfriend Wednesday morning, according to police. Hunter is currently in stable condition.
"There case is still being investigated, so there are a lot of details we don't have yet," Detroit Police Sgt. Eren Stephens said.
by Janell Ross, Huffington Post
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- In the decade leading up to the Great Recession, Wanda Nolan grew accustomed to steady progress.
From an entry-level job as a fill-in bank teller, she forged a career as a commercial banking assistant, earning enough to become a homeowner. She finished college and then got an MBA. Even after the recession unfolded in late 2007, her degrees and her familiarity with the business world lent her a sense of immunity to the forces ravaging much of the American economy. Nolan was an exemplar of the African American middle class and the increasingly professional ranks of the so-called New South.
But in September 2008, everything changed.
A bank human resources officer called her into a private conference room. “All I heard was, ‘Your position has been eliminated,’” says Nolan, 37, who, despite being one of the more than 13 million officially unemployed Americans, still spends most days in her self-styled banker’s uniform of pearls and pants and practical flats. “My mind started racing.”
More than two years later, Nolan is still looking for a job and feeling increasingly anxious about a future that once felt assured. Her life has devolved from a model of middle class African American upward mobility into an example of a disturbing trend: She is among the 15.5 percent of African Americans out of work and still looking for a job.
For economists, that number may sound awful, but it’s not surprising. The nation’s overall unemployment rate sits at 8.8 percent and the rate among white Americans is at 7.9 percent. For a variety of reasons -- ranging from levels of education and continuing discrimination to the relatively young age of black workers -- black unemployment tends to run twice the rate for whites. Yet since the Great Recession, joblessness has remained so critically elevated among African Americans that it is challenging longstanding ideas about what it takes to find work in the modern-day economy.
Millions of people like Nolan, who have precisely followed the oft-dictated recipe for economic success -- work hard, get an education, seek advancement -- are slipping backward. Even as they apply for jobs and accept the prospect of a future with less job security and lower pay, they remain stalled in unemployment.
Trading down has become a painful truth for much of working America, but this truth becomes particularly stark when seen through the prism of race. Only 12 percent of all Americans are black, but working-age black Americans comprise nearly 21 percent of the nation’s unemployed, according to federal data. The growing contrast between prospects for white and black job-seekers challenges a cherished American notion: the availability of opportunity and upward mobility for all.
Editor's note: Annette Bernhardt is policy co-director of the National Employment Law Project, a national advocacy group for the rights of lower-wage earners. She was lead researcher on NELP's recent report, "A Year of Unbalanced Growth: Industries, Wages, and the First 12 Months of Job Growth After the Great Recession."
(CNN) -- We are starved for signs that the economy is picking up. So when McDonald's threw its doors open to hire 50,000 workers nationwide, media networks scrambled to film applicants lining up across the country for that increasingly elusive piece of the American dream -- a job.
HARTFORD -- State lawmakers are wondering why a homeless Bridgeport woman is being prosecuted on felony charges for enrolling her son in a Norwalk school.
Rep. Bruce V. Morris, D-Norwalk, said Wednesday that since Tanya McDowell's 5-year-old son A.J. was withdrawn from Brookside Elementary School in January she should be held accountable for no more than half the $15,000 she has been charged with stealing.
Your Black World reports
Ron Artest of the Los Angeles Lakers won the NBA’s J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award this week. His teammate, Lamar Odom, was named the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year.
"I think it's great recognition that the NBA sees what I've been doing outside of basketball," Artest said. "I'm definitely grateful for the award.
"It's something that's not on people's minds as far as me getting a citizenship award, but it was something that I wanted and I'm definitely happy I got it."
Quote of the day: "The birthers are now going to have to change their name since the birth certificate has been release. Instead of being called 'the birthers,' they are now going to be called 'the after birthers," because they simply aren't going to quit." - Mark Thompson, host of “Make it Plain with Mark Thompson”
Please watch this PSA that shows the devastating impact of fatherless homes on the African American community. The video is incredibly powerful.
Your Black World Reports
Deion L. Sanders retired as a professional football player in 2001, but is scoring big points off the field for NFL Network’s Keep Gym in School Program. Sanders is conducting a press conference in New York today with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and 4 middle school kids who will be receiving awards for their participation and improved dedication to fitness. The announcement shines a spotlight on The Keep Gym in School Fitness Program, which was developed in association with the National Association for Sport and Physical Education.
Your Black World Reports
It looks like the phrase “Too legit to quit” doesn’t quite apply to Luther Campbell. The former leader of “2 Live Crew” has raised a reported $250 for his campaign to run for Mayor of Miami. Campbell was hoping that a recent fundraiser would bring him $5,000 to $10,000, but he was wrong. Campbell is now $150,000 behind the fourth-highest fundraiser, Jose "Pepe" Cancio.
Your Black World Reports
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg went on a tirade after finding out that the NYPD gave the rapper Sean “Diddy”Combs a police motorcade to make a $75,000 event in New Jersey. The mayor launched a probe into the incident, stating that it is unacceptable for anyone to receive police assistance with taxpayer dollars. Officers from NYPD internal affairs went to the Midtown South precinct to go through logs, records and work schedules to find out who was responsible for what happened. They are also reviewing videotapes from 35th Street and Times Square to find out more information.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Eye-level watermarks, gutted buildings and rows of mobile classrooms linger as reminders of the flooding from Hurricane Katrina that nearly wiped out Southern University at New Orleans in 2005.
Now the predominantly African-American university faces what students and administrators view as a new threat: Gov. Bobby Jindal's proposal to consolidate the school with the nearby, mostly white University of New Orleans.
In the episode below, Your Black World Coalition founder, Dr. Boyce Watkins and Rev. Al Sharpton of the National Action Network discuss the Birther Movement and whether or not it’s racist. They also discuss the case of Tonya McDowell, the homeless mother who was arrested for sending her child to the wrong school.
In 2008, the NBA Players’ Association claimed that 60 percent of pro basketball players go broke within five years of retirement. It’s not hard to see why. In the annals of “easy come, easy go,” few people see it come and go like professional athletes.
While it’s true that many take their salaries and invest them in sensible and enduring business ventures, many others squander their multimillion-dollar salaries on expensive cars, jewelry and mansions, and when the checks stop coming in, they have little to show for it.
From the Associated Press
Rapper Jim Jones has made a return to a venue he'd rather avoid: a New York City courthouse.
"I'm trying to stay out of this place!" the hip-hop artist said with a smile as he left court after his arraignment Tuesday on charges of driving with a suspended license. In 2009, he pleaded guilty in the same courthouse to a misdemeanor assault charge for a punching a friend of R&B star Ne-Yo in a Louis Vuitton store.
Your Black World reports
President Barack Obama has officially released the long form of his birth certificate in response to the questions about whether or not he was born in the United States. Originally, the president had only released the short form copy, which led to speculation that he was born abroad.
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Your Black World – Scholarship in Action
I watched Tyler Perry last night on the Mo’Nique Show on BET. It was an interesting interview, with Mo’Nique fawning over Tyler’s brilliance in the way you would expect an actress to kiss up to one of the most powerful filmmakers in the world. I fully expect that Mo’Nique will get some coveted roles in future Tyler Perry films.
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Your Black World – Scholarship in Action
Tricia Fraser filed suit last Tuesday against a Texas-based pro-life group that used her daughter’s face on a billboard that ran in Harlem earlier this year. Beneath the face of her child were the words “The most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb.”
In the lawsuit, Fraser claims that the use of her daughter’s image was “defamatory, unauthorized and offensive.” She also said that it was racist. The image was obtained legally, however, as Fraser had allowed her daughter to be photographed by a modeling agency.
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Syracuse University – Scholarship in Action
To join our coalition for Rocky, please visit SaveRockyClark.com
I woke up thinking about a person I met just two weeks ago. I was thinking about this man because he is going to die unless we find a way to help him. He is paralyzed from the neck down, has one working lung and that lung has enough blood clots in it to kill him.
Meet Rasul “Rocky” Clark, a 27-year old man living in Illinois. Rocky was once a promising young high school athlete at Eisenhower High School in Blue Island, Il. His future came to a halt when he took a bad hit on the football field that left him with the inability to ever use his arms or legs again. As you can probably imagine, the earth-shattering transition from being a healthy 16-year old boy to becoming a quadriplegic is beyond daunting, and many of us could never recover from this kind of devastation.
PRESS RELEASE:
(For Immediate Release)
CONTACT PERSON: Scot X. Esdaile: tel. 203-668-4562
WHAT: Press Conference
Where: Crosland Attorney-Law Firm
1150 Summer Street, Stamford CT – (for directions call
(203) 921-1782
When: Tuesday, April 26, 2011 at 6:30 p.m.
Why: See below
As I mentioned last night on the Bev Smith Show, saving the black male in America is one of the most critical problems being faced by our community today. Over the last 30 years, black males have been subject to mass incarceration (mostly due to drug felonies after the Reagan Administration opened the door for the crack cocaine epidemic), subject to massive handgun violence (as guns followed the flow of drugs), and poor educational systems (we know how bad inner city schools are in America). As a result, many of these men are poorly equipped to become good husbands and fathers later in life, leading to the suffering of an entire community. The majority of black homes are fatherless, and our boys are bombarded with media that tells them to emulate the behavior of self-destructive hip-hop stars, or to toss away educational opportunities in exchange for an athletic lottery ticket. Something needs to be done.
Dr. Tyrone Bledsoe and his organization are working to solve these problems. Fighting for the black male is not popular in a society that is designed to destroy us. But even if society wants to see us dead and gone, that gives us no excuse to endorse the idea of killing ourselves and each other. It is for his outstanding work in the black community that Dr. Bledsoe is today’s Dr. Boyce Spotlight on Your Black World:
1) What is your name and what do you do?
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, YourBlackWorld.com
Let’s hope that the Birther Movement is on its way out the door. If it isn’t completely out the door, it’s on its death bed. CNN has engaged in an all-out assault on the Birther Movement by doing a detailed investigation on whether or not President Barack Obama was born in the United States.
In the video below, the network goes to the extreme to settle the question once and for all. Personally, I found the investigation to be quite compelling. There are others, however, including Donald Trump, who’ve spent all of their time engaging in their own investigations and coming to “very interesting” conclusions.
Your Black World reports
Flavor Flav will no longer be selling chicken. We know this is incredibly disappointing to you, but it’s true. Flav made the announcement recently, stating that the mismanagement of the organization was just too much for him to bear:
"Let me be straight up with you," Flav told TMZ. . "I found potato salad that expired on 28 February," he explained, "and it's then when I realized I can't do business [there] and I really hope no one ate those potatoes."
Flav is now removing his name from the franchise, citing the fact that he has to protect the reputation of his valuable personal brand.
"I have to do whatever is possible for me to save my name and that's to shut the business down," he told Iowa network WQAD. "[Manager] Nick Cimino isn't running the business right."
Your Black World Reports
Tyler Perry keeps answering questions about Spike Lee, who has been critical of his films as of late. After his latest film, “Madea’s Big Happy Family,” Perry had this to say about Spike:
Your Black World reports
Talk show host Tavis Smiley spoke publicly about President Obama this week on the Today Show, as he promoted his new book about how to overcome failure. The host, Ann Curry, gave Smiley an opportunity to discuss his concerns about the Obama Administration, and this is what he had to say:
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Your Black World – Scholarship in Action
It appears that Donald Trump just won’t give up. In an interview this week with the Associated Press, “The Donald” said that President Obama was a poor student who didn’t deserve to be admitted to Harvard University. Trump doesn’t actually have proof of his assertions, but that’s never stopped him before.
"I heard he was a terrible student, terrible. How does a bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard?" Trump said to the Associated Press. "I'm thinking about it, I'm certainly looking into it. Let him show his records."
The Obamas celebrate Easter Sunday at the historic Shiloh Baptist Church in Washington, DC.
Listen to Your Black World’s Diamond Breland give her take on the battle between film icons Tyler Perry and Spike Lee. The video is below!
