abagond etc

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Wed, 22 May 2013 03:42:03 +0100

What Yahoo Bought with a Billion Dollars: Hope

Wed, 22 May 2013 02:46:34 +0100

It’s too early to say whether Yahoo will screw up Tumblr—by making it ugly, by introducing terrible advertising, by obscuring its wealth of adult content, or by simply casting a pall over it so great that the site’s fickle younger users abandon it. It’s also too early to say whether Yahoo screwed up by buying Tumblr, whose explosive growth has slowed of late, according to Quantcast numbers. Or, more hopefully, maybe Yahoo made its first wildly successful acquisition and the two companies will grow together; Instagram, for example, has in many ways (though not all) been a model acquisition, with the majority of its users having signed up after its purchase by Facebook. The outcome may depend almost entirely on how happy Yahoo makes Karp. (Tumblr’s co-founder, Marco Arment,writes that “Tumblr is David, and David is Tumblr.”) Regardless, Yahoo’s acquisition further concentrates social networking in the hands of a few companies, leaving Twitter and Pinterest behind as the only big, independent social networks of their ilk aside from Facebook.

—Matt Buchanan on Yahoo’s acquisition of Tumblr: http://nyr.kr/10JTYog

charliemack4094: oooooooooowweeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...

Wed, 22 May 2013 01:51:12 +0100

charliemack4094:

oooooooooowweeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Photo

Wed, 22 May 2013 00:55:45 +0100

thepeoplesrecord: Jamel Mims on facing two years in prison for...

Tue, 21 May 2013 23:04:58 +0100

thepeoplesrecord:

Jamel Mims on facing two years in prison for protesting Stop & Frisk
October 23, 2012

New York City teacher Jamel Mims faces up to two years in prison for nonviolently protesting the most controversial racial profiling policy in America today. Last year, he was one of the key members of a civil disobedience campaign to stop Stop-and-Frisk that boasted the iconic academic Cornel West as one of its leading advocates. Today, he stands on trial along with 12 other campaigners.

As discussed in last week’s State of the Left, the NYPD policy involves 1,800 instances of stopping and frisking citizens every day; in the last decade, 87% of people who are stopped are black or Latino; and about 9 of 10 are innocent of any wrongdoing. There is not even a hint of exaggeration in saying that certain sections of New York City are turned into police states for minority youth.

Enter Jamel Mims:

On Tuesday October 23, I will be on trial along with Carl Dix, who, with Cornel West, initiated the 2011 campaign of nonviolent protest to stop Stop-and-Frisk. We are facing up to two years in jail for non-violent protest at the NYPD 103rd precinct in Jamaica, Queens last year.

The stakes are undoubtedly high: this is the second stop-and-frisk protest mass trial resulting from the culminating action of the civil disobedience campaign that sparked citywide resistance to the policy. The Queens District Attorney added a serious misdemeanor charge on us last month, and re-wrote our charges last week so that we’re charged with ‘acting in concert’ rather than as individuals.

The action last November was the third such protest at New York City precincts with the most stop-and-frisks, this one taking place in the borough of Queens. We held a community rally and march through Jamaica, Queens, which ended at the 103rd Precinct. As our march arrived at the precinct, it was completely barricaded on all sides – on lock-down in anticipation of the protest. An officer slides open one of the metal grates and motions us inward so that we may protest at the precinct doors. After minutes of chanting and singing outside of the precinct steps, 20 of us were arrested, quite quickly, but held for hours late into the next day. For less than ten minutes of protesting stop-and-frisk outside of the doors 103rd precinct, which houses the NYPD officers who put fifty shots into Sean Bell, 12 co-defendants and I now find ourselves facing two years of jail time.

If anyone think this is just an empty threat, and they won’t convict or send us to jail, let me reiterate—the DA has twice bumped up the charges in the last month, and has made it very clear that the prosecutorial apparatus intends to place us behind bars. A year ago, those who had no first-hand experience of the humiliation of being illegally searched barely knew the practice occurred. Those who got stopped and frisked thought there was nothing one could do about it. Now, the stop-and-frisk policy and the horrors it inflicts are going viral in mainstream society. Copwatch and videos of NYPD stops garner thousands of views, and nearly every day there are articles or opinion pieces about stop-and-frisk. Potential mayoral candidates have even had to confront this, as politicians line up to claim their opposition to the policy, or express their desire to reform or modify it in the ongoing pursuit of public opinion.

In this watershed moment, when stop-and-frisk is opening a window into the daily plight of thousands, the very people who put their bodies on the line to put this issue into the spotlight and openly call out for its abolition are vigorously prosecuted and threatened with incarceration. I refuse to accept this. It’s unthinkable that the Queens District Attorney, who couldn’t make a case against the cops who murdered Sean Bell, is now throwing the book at nonviolent civil disobedience protesters. In this light, the intended effect of this prosecution is insidiously transparent: to send a chilling effect through the movement against mass incarceration, and dampen the spirit of resistance it has ignited. To put it quite simply: don’t speak up, and certainly don’t fight back.

Well, I’m speaking up. And not just as someone who is passionate about the issue. I speak as a target of police abuse, as a Fulbright Scholar whose scholarship was almost denied after being assaulted by Boston police while trying to leave a party. I speak to you as an artist and teacher whose work in New York City public schools has me witness the humiliation and degradation of the youth by the NYPD on a daily basis. I speak to you as a committed opponent of the New Jim Crow, a system of mass incarceration that has 2.4 million mostly black and Latino men warehoused in prisons across the nation, with stop-and-frisk as a major pipeline into that system.

Most of all, I speak to you as someone who has cast their lot with those at the bottom of society: with those thousands of youth who are brutalized, targeted, harassed, and shuffled off behind bars — and is now facing years in prison for standing with them.

We fully intend to stop this railroading by bringing the political battle into the courtroom and putting Stop and Frisk on trial. If we are allowed to be convicted and jailed without a massive fight, then the battle against stop-and-frisk and the spirit of resistance it has engendered will be seriously dampened. On the other hand, if people stand with us in this legal battle–if we meet and defeat their attempts to silence and punish us–then the movement will gain further initiative and pull many more people into the struggle against mass incarceration.

Source
Photo 1, 2

The United States police state imprisons all dissidents, from police brutality activists to government whistleblowers.

klovers: African American Female Biopics: Diana Ross as Billie...

Tue, 21 May 2013 22:09:55 +0100

klovers:

African American Female Biopics:

Diana Ross as Billie Holiday in “Lady Sings The Blues”

Lynn Whitfield as Josephine Baker in “The Story of Josephine Baker”

Angela Bassett as Tina Turner in “What’s Love Got To Do With It”

Halle Berry as Dorothy Dandridge in “Introducing Dorothy Dandridge”

writeswrongs: Black Man to Lose Scholarship For Refusing Racist...

Tue, 21 May 2013 21:14:52 +0100

writeswrongs:

Black Man to Lose Scholarship For Refusing Racist Assignment

Timothy McNair is a graduate student of opera at Northwestern University’s famed Bienen School of Music. McNair is at the school on a full scholarship, but the 25-year-old is standing up to his school after his professor, Donald Nally, gave him an assignment to perform a song created by a racist American poet named Walt Whitman. McNair asked his instructor if he could be assigned to perform the work of other artists but Nally denied him the opportunity and told him if he didn’t turn in all of his completed work by Friday, May 17th he’d receive a failing grade. McNair refused.

“Certainly I do not deserve to fail this class. I have a 3.7 GPA. I’m an officer on three committees of this university. So what is deserving for me? Is to be able to perform two pieces and have the third piece removed because of the insensitivity,” McNair told Chicago’s WGN news station. Although the piece McNair is instructed to perform does not contain any blatant racism, McNair believes it is still offensive that he was asked to complete the works of a devout racist. “We know (he) was historically racist. He’s called African Americans ‘baboons’ and was for oppressing voting rights,” McNair said of Whitman.

There are far too many instances when African-Americans at predominantly White institutions are expected to compromise their integrity to fit into the mold of the institution. Just last month students, community leaders, and alumni of Temple University challenged Dean Teresa Soufas for decisions she made regarding the school’s prestigious African-American studies program. Protestors believed she was attempting to diminish its profound reputation. Black Blue Dog readers called and emailed Soufas and voiced their concerns. Less than a week later, she finally made the decision to listen to the concerns of the protestors and complied. This week we must contact Richard Ashley, the chair of Bienen School of Music, and let him know about Nally’s insensitivity towards Black history. McNair should not be forced to lose his scholarship for respecting Black history.

Let Ashley know that Nally may not see the value in Black history, but we stand in solidarity with McNair in asking that he receives a replacement assignment that does not insult his integrity as an African-American man.

Tell Richard Ashley that Timothy McNair deserves another assignment. He can be reached at 847-491-5720 or

via email at r-ashley@northwestern.edu

findingupsidedown: imagine This is something very few...

Tue, 21 May 2013 07:23:21 +0100

findingupsidedown:

imagine

This is something very few Americans understand. The country is way richer than they suppose.

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Tue, 21 May 2013 06:28:02 +0100

lovelyandbrown: Your #Naturalhair, your soft skin, your big a$$...

Tue, 21 May 2013 05:33:00 +0100

lovelyandbrown:

Your #Naturalhair, your soft skin, your big a$$ in that sundress #WHOA ✊ (at CRAVE Restaurant LaSalle Plaza)

fckyeahprettyafricans: Eritrea

Tue, 21 May 2013 04:37:25 +0100

fckyeahprettyafricans:

Eritrea

rhavynsrose: I don’t take pics of myself very often but I found...

Tue, 21 May 2013 03:41:49 +0100

rhavynsrose:

I don’t take pics of myself very often but I found this one. I kinda like it! #selfie #ilovedarkeyeliner #blackismyfavoritecolor #random

Photo

Tue, 21 May 2013 02:46:32 +0100

if there is one thing radicals/progressives/liberals have failed to get right in the new age

Tue, 21 May 2013 01:51:24 +0100

navigatethestream:

its the notion of boycotts

you wanna know why the bus boycotts of the civil rights movement were so successful?

because an alternative black run transportation system was created for those who couldn’t walk to work or whatever they had to go

they didn’t just tell people “oh the bus enforces racist policies so don’t take it and FUCK if you can’t get to work on time or where you need to be!”

they said “hey you’re paying to get on the bus and not even being given a seat let alone being ejected if a white passenger needs your seat. here’s a potentially better alternative where you pay to sit down and get to where you need to go”

all this “boycott Target, Walmart, Monsanto owned companies” comes from a notion of boycott located in the politic of privileged white people

and that’s why they are largely unsuccessful

its why Obama just gave Monsanto the green light to commit even more fuckery to your food

its the reason why cooperation are considered people

its the reason why Walmart is allowed to usurp safety and labor regulations in their factories, and underpay their American workers

because you say “don’t spend your money there” and that’s the end of the story

you expect people to locate their survival in a politic of “abstaining from unethical choices”

and then from there those unethical choices are somehow supposed to magically disappear. when really only a small percentage of people are able to boycott so many things

there wouldn’t be a movement located around the “99%” if 99% of people could really afford to stop shopping at the unethical places and stop buying the unethical brands

good luck with your hocus pocus activist logic

sheilastansbury: (via The Doors’ Ray Manzarek dies at 74 -...

Tue, 21 May 2013 01:22:18 +0100

sheilastansbury:

(via The Doors’ Ray Manzarek dies at 74 - CNN.com)

gradientlair: The late great Shirley Chisholm, as photographed...

Tue, 21 May 2013 01:08:30 +0100

gradientlair:

The late great Shirley Chisholm, as photographed by the legendary Richard Avedon. Look…Shirley was THAT Black woman. Feminist. Humanist. Unbought. Unbossed. WORD.

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Mon, 20 May 2013 22:42:17 +0100

edithshead: Oluchi Onweagba by Oliver Spiesfor Jalouse...

Mon, 20 May 2013 22:09:47 +0100

edithshead:

Oluchi Onweagba by Oliver Spies
for Jalouse magazine

wretchedoftheearth: basednkrumah: nosdrinker: thewolfspirit: ...

Mon, 20 May 2013 21:14:10 +0100

wretchedoftheearth:

basednkrumah:

nosdrinker:

thewolfspirit:

http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/

someone was asking the other day about how to go about boycotting Monsanto so here’s a good place to start

Girl, bye

I think I would literally be throwing out most of the shit in my kitchen

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Mon, 20 May 2013 09:13:58 +0100

abagond etc

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What Yahoo Bought with a Billion Dollars: Hope

charliemack4094: oooooooooowweeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...

Photo

thepeoplesrecord: Jamel Mims on facing two years in prison for...

Enter Jamel Mims:

klovers: African American Female Biopics: Diana Ross as Billie...

writeswrongs: Black Man to Lose Scholarship For Refusing Racist...

Black Man to Lose Scholarship For Refusing Racist Assignment

Tell Richard Ashley that Timothy McNair deserves another assignment. He can be reached at 847-491-5720 or

via email at r-ashley@northwestern.edu

findingupsidedown: imagine This is something very few...

Photo

lovelyandbrown: Your #Naturalhair, your soft skin, your big a$$...

fckyeahprettyafricans: Eritrea

rhavynsrose: I don’t take pics of myself very often but I found...

Photo

if there is one thing radicals/progressives/liberals have failed to get right in the new age

sheilastansbury: (via The Doors’ Ray Manzarek dies at 74 -...

gradientlair: The late great Shirley Chisholm, as photographed...

Photo

edithshead: Oluchi Onweagba by Oliver Spiesfor Jalouse...

wretchedoftheearth: basednkrumah: nosdrinker: thewolfspirit: ...

Photo