Gay Union Sparks Chocolate City Church Lawsuit

It’s only Monday but there’s still a lot of residue floating in my ticked off wave: BP’s oil spill, teenybopper Justin Beiber billed as the modern-day Michael Jackson, rampant unemployment plus the Spanish language requirement that cancels out English-speaking African-Americans as if not’s the USA.

Of all things, the CNN news clip, which features a native Floridian and former Covenant Baptist Church parishioner in Washington, D.C., is the mutha of all muthas. If those holier than thou would consult someone who’s studied the Bible from a critical perspective, they’d know homosexual hatred isn’t the Christian way. Regardless of where you sit on the gay marriage fence, sister is a sho 'nuff Hatorade sipper. The song is still sung in a loud voice but truly, when will we overcome?

Sidebar: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/02/AR2009060203403.html.

Shake-up Shuts Shakedown for Now

If only for a hot minute, President Obama’s ouster of General McChrystal succeeded in fanning the BP oil’s spill’s flames. Let’s be clear: had you launched a vitriolic rant against your superiors in work’s real world, you, too, would’ve felt a kick comparable to USA’s Landon Donovan’s foot making soccer ball contact. Although the General had been lauded for militaristic brilliance throughout his career, Rolling Stone’s record of insubordination revealed how tactless McChrystal is. He picked the wrong time and the wrong place to fire his most powerful weapon. And WTF if Obama hadn’t shown the four-starred mighty military dog that his black balls are bigger?

Holy Jalapeño: White v. Brown Boils

Small town Nebraska Follows Arizona’s Big and Bad

Long revered for its agriculture, Nebraska may cultivate a reputation more bitter than its corn is sweet if voters sign-off on an illegal immigration measure today. Residents of Freemont, a Cornhusker city 20 miles west of Omaha, aligned to push the issues of barring businesses and landlords from employing and extending illegal immigrants rental agreements to the ballot. As the Justice Department’s prepares its legal case against Arizona, I predict the ante will probably encourage rather than dissuade the current white power extreme.

Dark Politics Fail to Lighten Art

If Nebraska’s move flipped your wig, the restoration of a mural created to promote diversity at an Arizona elementary school to its original hue should realign it. Last month, white residents pitched a bigoted fit because the mural’s most prominent face belonged to a paper bag-brown youth. In a state where the population is less than 5% black, socially dusty Arizonians aren’t exactly enamored with our kind either.
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/04/arizona-elementary-school-mural_n_601436.html.

Territorial Terrible
As expected, Obama’s change platform hasn’t been palatable to everyone. The following email I received adds proof that bigotry bandwagon’s rolls on ignorant wheels. Didn’t Native Americans have a foothold in this country prior to Columbus’ arrival?

Map of My Country

My great grandfather watched as his friends died in the Civil War, my father watched as his friends died in WW II, and I watched as my friends died in Vietnam.
None of them died for the Mexican Flag.
Everyone died for the U.S. flag.
Just this week, here in Texas, a student raised a Mexican flag on a school flag pole; another student took it down.
Guess who was expelled… the kid who took it down.
Kids in high school in California were sent home on Cinco de Mayo because they wore T-shirts with the American flag printed on them.
Enough is enough.

The below e-mail message needs to be viewed by every American; and every American needs to stand up for America.
We've bent over to appease the America-haters long enough. I'm taking a stand.
I'm standing up because the hundreds of thousands who died fighting in wars for this country, and for the U.S. flag can't stand up.
If you agree, stand up with me.
If you disagree, please let me know.
I will gladly remove you from my e-mail list.
And shame on anyone who tries to make this a racist message.
A Map Of My Country: Let me make this perfectly clear!

This Is My Country!
And, because I make this statement DOES NOT mean I'm against immigration!!!
You are welcome here, in my country! Welcome! To come through legally:
1. Get a sponsor!
2. Get a place to lay your head!
3. Get a job!
4. Live By OUR Rules!

5. Pay YOUR Taxes!
And
6. Learn the LANGUAGE like immigrants have in the past!!!
AND
7. Please don't demand that we hand over our lifetime savings of Social Security Funds to you.
If you don't want to forward this for fear of offending someone, then YOU'RE PART OF THE PROBLEM!
When will AMERICANS STOP giving away THEIR RIGHTS???
We've gone so far the other way… bent over backwards not to offend anyone.
But it seems no one cares about the AMERICAN CITIZEN that's being offended!

Dumbphone: More Text Than Talk

When cell phones first arrived, portable talk’s panache was highly touted. Roll the clock some 20-years forward and voila, technology has handily transformed the device into something beyond its original utility.

Under the modern crush of communication connectivity, many cell phone users would rather text than talk. There are many theories circulating, from Chatty Cathy conversation avoidance (some consider 10 minutes a marathon) to sheer convenience, as to why the mechanical mode has gained favor. No doubt, keeping the stream going or cutting it off sans guilt suits control freaks just fine.

However ugly the truth, I must highlight the obvious: texting has catapulted to the preferred option because there are some people with whom, at times, we’d rather not converse. Admittedly, I have a few contacts relegated to the minimum talk time file. I think we all do. Although we don’t need another excuse for talking less, email also deserves death by execution for murdering phone and face-to-face conversations.

Yet, when new technology meets old school etiquette, shouldn’t the original communication courtesies apply? What more could we ask for since texting lifts the emotional energy some phone conversations and sexting sessions require? How about, brothers and sisters, can you at least spare a few clicks to reply?

Sidebar flashback: “Romancing the Phone” at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704312104575298590730890292.html?KEYWORDS=romancing+the+phone.

WTF? A Hot Hair Mess

While former H-P Queen Bee Carly Fiorina, California’s Republican Senate nominee, has been blasted for dismissing opponent Barbara Boxer’s ’do as “so yesterday,” a Seattle student continues to reel from a more harried situation. Literally.

A biracial 8-year old was ejected from an all-white Thurgood Marshall Elementary honors class when her colorless teacher attributed her nausea to the girl’s hair product. Give me a preventive hair break because Organic Root Stimulator’s Olive Oil Incredibly Rich Oil Moisturizing Lotion is only the tip of the racial 'berg. If the consequences are harsh, the teacher's Thurgood Marshall cluelessness will be forever cured.

Inflamed like nappy heads smothered in overcooked relaxers, the girls’ parents have since sought legal counsel and NAACP guidance.

And you thought biracial always ensured "good hair?"

Stay tuned and check out the father’s blog but do so privately: http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/my-daughter-her-hair-and-the-seattle-school-district/Content?oid=4180400.

Media Slap: Post Racial, My Ass

To let mainstream media tell it, America plunged into post racial mode when a rainbow coalition elected its first biracial president. Fast forward to 2010, with Tea Partiers stranded at the intersection of race and politics and Arizona gone illegal immigrant wild, color is back on the consciousness block. Granted, the signage pictured may be circa 1960’s but the race restrictive notice made its way into a Massachusetts publication just last month: http://www.bvblackspin.com/2010/06/08/real-estate-firm-puts-up-a-sign-for-whites-only/.

Another swing of the racial pendulum and the Pew Research Center pipeline spewed the 411 that interracial marriages are at an all-time high. The least of the statistical shockers was the fact that 1 out of 5 African-American men married nonblack women in 2008. The surge in ethic intermingling, easily attributed to integration, assimilation and immigration, however, discredits headlines written in stark contrast to the post racial society news dispatchers attempted to sell.

If race no longer mattered, wouldn’t headlines render signs of minimizing racial differentiation by now?

White-hot about the post racial society hype, I couldn’t resist slinging some snarky comments regarding the headlines below:

1. What's killing African Americans?
Source: www.beliefnet.com on 6/4
BG: In headlines, do we ever see “What’s or who’s killing Whites?
Re: Who’s killing whites? African-Americans aren’t because sadly enough,we’re still embroiled in killing one another.

2. The Magnificent Migrants
Extraordinary photos of ordinary Mexicans.
Source: Foreign Policy Web site on 5/28
BG: Mexican is so PI (politically incorrect). Ordinary Hispanics, por favor.

3. Why do Latinas avoid the doctor? Study investigates
Source: CNN on 6/4
BG: Latinas don’t have a lock on medical care avoidance. Poor people of all colors and men in various income brackets have long been prone to this behavior.

4. The New Poor: Blacks in Memphis Lose Decades of Economic Gains
Source: NYT 5/31
BG: Of course, slow progress hasn’t hampered whites the way it has blacks but foreclosures and unemployment have also sliced and diced white wealth. Just ask anyone who was financially raped repeatedly by Bernie Madoff until their life blood trickled.

Blacks are never the new poor. Being behind the economic 8-ball is our historical reality and we were moneyless long before “We Shall Overcome” was anointed our anthem. It’s not unusual for blacks who lacked silver spoons at births to abandon the hood once they taste their first nip of success but for other escapees, poverty’s familiarity lurks in the form of one missed paycheck and back to the hood they go.

5. Black Flight Hits Detroit
Source: WSJ 6/4
BG: “White flight” was first coined to capture the movement of whites to the suburbs when an influx of blacks moved into their urban neighborhoods back in the late 50s and early 60s. Instead of blacks fleeing Detroit because of whites, today’s relocation is spurred by the deterioration of inner city neighborhoods, an infestation of crime and decreased economic opportunity.

WTF? REALity or GAYality?

Just when you thought Bravo had steered its “Real Housewives” series into overkill, you better rethink because it’s time to make room for daddy. That’s Ken doll right when Logo’s “The A-List” reality show shines an intrusive light on New York’s gay socialites this fall. Amid the Big Apple glitz and glam served on a flaming platter, the usual fare of catfights and relationship disasters will likely be whipped into dramarati's mix.

If only to escape a banal B-List existence or indulge an imaginary caviar life, ratings off the chart for the “Real Housewives of Atlanta” series substantiate one cast member’s statement, “following fabulous people is a billion-dollar industry.” Although I hope the attached value is inflated, isn’t exaggeration par for the reality course? To tell the truth, some cast as housewives are nothing more than piss poor fabulous impersonators. Still, like Barry White, we can’t get enough.

Though “The A-List” will likely wear production’s staging suit, tune in for a swatch of guaranteed recockulousness. Do gays give it any other way?

For more 411, check out: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/around-town/events/Move-Over-Real-Housewives-of-New-York-Here-Come-the-Gay-Socialites--95517439.html.

BP's Oil Gush: Beyond the Gulf

BP’s oil spill in the Gulf topples Exxon Valdez and its effects are expansive, from Minnesota to Washington, D.C. On top of 11 lives lost in the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion, the uncapped rush has disrupted the ecosystem, snapped fishing as an industry, and sent illness racing through the bodies of workers and residents. With summer fast approaching, it pains me to think that the out of control spew stands to jeopardize our beloved beaches, a family favorite for warm weather entertainment.

High Demand, Short Supply

Over time, I absorbed all of that, however, I didn’t get why my college roommate was so perturbed until she mentioned patronizing Fabian Seafood, a company that delivers the Gulf fresh delicacy in refrigerated trucks to her northern state regularly. Though connecting with customers via word of mouth and Wide World Web kept loyalists lined up until the protein bounty arrived, the disaster could slash the Galveston-based business’s base. Living close to where seafood originates, I never contemplated the extent of the northerners’ southern seafood dependency.

Since her last seafood stock-up in early May Minnesota, local chain favorite Pappas Restaurants Inc., and 10 other Louisiana restaurants and a distributor, according to Nation’s Restaurant News, have filed suit against the British energy powerhouse for revenue endangerment due to reckless contamination. This is definitely the last thing an economy staggering to recover needs.

Blame Game

What I also don’t get is why the media has been spit-quick to castigate Obama as the bearer of the same responsibility in BP’s Gulf oil spill as W bore in Hurricane Katrina. The conclusion runs contrary to evidence that clearly suggests the bushwhacked administration played a budget wielding role in the structural neglect of New Orleans’ unstable levees.

As far as I can see, President Barack Obama’s hand was nowhere in BP’s drilling. Plus, under Bush, the Minerals Management Agency was assigned oversight which it seemingly took cavalierly. Many things gone wrong have been chalked up to Obama but BP’s negligence to heed safety first does not belong on the presidential blame list no more than Toyota’s sudden acceleration issue.

Blame BP, not BO

Thanks to a soggy track record soiled by numerous accidents in the past, of two things we can be certain regarding BP: their well-oiled PR machine won’t be able to realign its bent reputation fast enough nor can we rest assured that the fix going forward will do what top kill didn’t.

Bottom line, the technological incompetence reflects more negatively on BP than BO. However, just as we learned in the Texas Board of Education’s highly contested social curriculum controversy, for some, getting and keeping it twisted is politics per usual.

Link up here to learn what could happen to The Big Easy:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/orleans_faces_R73pgfxP3Oa1wxa23seSFO.