Ugly election incidents show lingering U.S. racism

Two weeks before an election that could install the first black U.S. president, scattered ugly incidents have reflected a deep residue of racism among some segments of white America.

A cardboard likeness of Barack Obama was found strung from fishing wire at a university, the Democratic presidential nominee's face was depicted on mock food stamps, the body of a black bear was left at another university with Obama posters attached to it.

Though the incidents are sporadic and apparently isolated, they stirred up memories of the violent racial past of a country where segregation and lynchings only ended within the last 50 years.

And some feared that Obama could be a target for people who reject him on racial grounds alone. The Illinois senator leads Republican rival John McCain in polls ahead of the November 4 election and has a big following in many sections of Americans, from liberals to conservatives, black and white, poor and wealthy.

"Many whites feel they are losing their country right before their eyes," said Mark Potok, who directs the Southern Poverty Law Center that monitors hate groups. "What we are seeing at this moment is the beginning of a real backlash."

Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod said the incidents were disappointing but he said there were fewer than some had predicted.

"We've always acknowledged that race is not something that's been eradicated from our politics," said Axelrod. "But we've never felt that it would be an insuperable barrier and I don't think that it will be."

The latest incident occurred on Monday when the body of bear cub was found on the campus of Western Carolina University in North Carolina. Obama campaign signs were placed around the dead animal's head. School officials said it was a prank.

Earlier a cardboard likeness of Obama was strung up with fishing wire from a tree at a university in Oregon and an Ohio man hung a figure bearing an Obama sign from a tree in his yard. The man told local media he didn't want to see an African-American running the country.

ANGRY INDIVIDUALS

Potok said the displays of racism did not appear orchestrated as part of a campaign of racial intimidation, but were rather the acts of angry individuals. Their voices are often heard in radio call-back shows or letters to editors.

Many Americans "see the rise of minority rights, gay rights, women's rights as a threat to the world they grew up in and that their parents grew up in. They see huge demographic changes," he said.

"They see jobs disappearing to other countries, and now they see a man who is African American and who will very likely become president of the United States. For some of those people that symbolizes the end of the world as they know it."

He estimated there were as many as 800 white supremacy or nationalist groups in the United States, with at least 100,000 as "an inner core" of membership and many more on the fringes.

One such group, the League of American Patriots, last month distributed literature about why a "black ruler" would destroy the country.

Michigan State University professor Ronald Hall, writing in his new book "Racism in the 21st Century," said racism remains one of the most pressing U.S. social problems, though it now takes forms that are more subtle than the lynchings and mob violence seen decades ago in some parts of the country.

Some groups tagged with racist acts deny the charge.

In California, a Republican group said it intended no racial overtone when its October newsletter depicted a fake food stamp bearing a likeness of Obama's head on a donkey's body surrounded by fried chicken, watermelon and other images evoking insulting stereotypes about African-Americans.

Some acts have targeted not Obama's black heritage -- his father was Kenyan and his white mother was from Kansas -- but the false notion that he is a Muslim.

A derogatory billboard in West Plains, Mo., went up last month showing a caricature of Obama wearing a turban.

"There are a lot of Republicans and McCain supporters who find it hard to believe that a black guy whose middle name is Hussein is going to be the next president of the United States," said David Bositis, senior research associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

David Wolff, a 52-year-old white Pennsylvania voter who plans to cast his ballot for Obama, said he commonly hears racist comments and thinks such sentiments are deeply rooted across America.

"One thing that could speed up the eradication of racism would be to have a charismatic, inspirational, transformational, generational black president," he said.

Obama, Watch Your Back!

Newsmax.com – Hillary's Campaign Against Obama Continues:

By: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann Article Font Size



"Every speech should contain a line [saying that] you were born in the middle of America to a middle class family in the middle of the last century."

On May 10, 2007, Time magazine reported that Hillary's stump speech included the lines: 'I was born into a middle class family in the middle of the country in the middle of the last century.'

After Penn's memos were released to the media this week, Hillary's people spread the word that she did not take Penn's advice. But it is evident that she did."

The strategy Penn recommended was ridiculous. He somehow thought that by stressing Hillary's normalcy, Obama's unusual name, race, origin, parents, and skin color would redound to his detriment. In fact, the exact opposite proved to be the case. It has been his very novelty that has underscored his appeal. Penn missed the point.

But the larger point in his memos is that Hillary sought, from the beginning of the 2008 campaign, to use race as an issue against Obama. Her early willingness to wrap herself in the flag and marginalize Obama as an outsider bespeaks her efforts to inject race into the campaign. As soon as Obama emerged as her chief opponent, Hillary and Bill Clinton tried to make the election about race and to contrast her American roots with Obama's otherness.

It would be a mistake to think that Hillary's campaign against Obama is over. She and Bill both realize that if McCain wins, she would be the likely Democratic nominee against him in 2012.

At the age of 76, McCain might make easy pickings. Hillary's argument to win the nomination would be simple: I told you so. Her warnings that Obama was unelectable would have proven to have been prescient, and Democrats are likely to feel chagrined that they rejected her in 2008.

How will the Clintons undermine Obama? Not by any overt statement. In public, they will appear to be his biggest fans. Hillary does not dare incurr the wrath of Democratic voters by abandoning her party's nominee in the general election. But the Clintons will do what they do best: They will hog the spotlight. By speaking on Tuesday and Wednesday, this former first couple will spread themselves over the convention, usurping media, taking face time, and making the convention appear, for its first three days, as a Hillary Clinton gathering.

Remember how in 2004, Bill Clinton timed the release of his memoir "My Life" to coincide with the start of the John Kerry campaign. His swings through the nation, attracting lines and crowds at bookstores drew attention away from Kerry. His strategy of distraction culminated when he scheduled a book signing in Boston during the Democratic Convention, drawing mobs and pulling the spotlight away from Kerry.

By hogging the publicity at the Democratic Convention and by keeping the spotlight away from Obama, the Clintons are going to do all they can to stop the Democrat from getting a bounce from his Convention appearance. How will they hurt Obama down the road? Bill will make off-handed comments, seemingly mistakes. A lose cannon, he will appear to be undisciplined as he follows a game plan to undermine the candidate. Hillary will do her best to avoid campaigning for Obama and will undercut him in any way she can without getting caught.

Obama: Watch your back!

My response:
I absolutely agree with this assessment of the Clinton's and their plan to derail Obama's efforts. I sincerely hope that Barack supporters would come out in droves and vote for him. But regardless of the outcome of this election, Hillary Clinton has "torn her drawers" with me. And y'all know I was pulling for her. I thought Barack was stepping into the ring before his time and he should wait his turn. After all, the Clinton's had been our allies. Child please. As soon as the race got tight, THEY pulled the race card showing their true colors. If she had bowed out gracefully then she perhaps could have run again in 2016. But she didn't bow out gracefully and as far as I'm concerned, she has ruined her political career. Boo to her and her horny husband.

Condi says Obama speech is "important"

Sometimes touted as a contender for the Republican vice-presidential slot, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has aired her thoughts on race in the United States, a prominent issue in the presidential election campaign.

Rice, the top ranking African-American in President George W. Bush's cabinet, told The Washington Times she had watched Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama's major speech on race last week.

"I think it was important that he (Obama) gave it for a whole host of reasons," said Rice in a transcript of the interview released by the State Department on Friday.

Obama would be the first black U.S. president if he wins the Democratic nomination and beats Republican candidate John McCain in the November election to succeed Bush.

While saying repeatedly she did not want to talk about the election campaign -- "I don't do politics" -- and also reiterating her lack of interest in the vice presidential slot, Rice said the United States had a hard time dealing with racial issues.

Rice said her own father, grandmother and great-grandmother had endured "terrible humiliations" growing up in the segregated south and yet they still loved America.

Read the rest here.

Obama set to deliver speech on race

Far from putting the controversial issue of race behind him, Barack Obama has decided to address the issue head on in a speech Tuesday.

"I am going to be talking not just about Reverend Wright, but the larger issue of race in this campaign — which has ramped up over the last couple of weeks," Obama told reporters in Monaca, Pennsylvania.

The article goes on to say "He will address the broader questions of race and politics, these are complex issues that transcend Barack Obama, and are fault lines in our politics and society, and, ultimately, can be a barrier…They’re easily exploited, and hard to address," he said.

My response:

Ut oh.

Farrakhan...thanks, but no thanks

In his first major public address since a cancer crisis, Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan said Sunday that presidential candidate Barack Obama is the "hope of the entire world" that the U.S. will change for the better.

The 74-year-old Farrakhan, addressing an estimated crowd of 20,000 people at the annual Saviours' Day celebration, never outrightly endorsed Obama but spent most of the nearly two-hour speech praising the Illinois senator.

"This young man is the hope of the entire world that America will change and be made better," he said. "This young man is capturing audiences of black and brown and red and yellow. If you look at Barack Obama's audiences and look at the effect of his words, those people are being transformed."

Farrakhan compared Obama to the religion's founder, Fard Muhammad, who also had a white mother and black father.

"A black man with a white mother became a savior to us," he told the crowd of mostly followers. "A black man with a white mother could turn out to be one who can lift America from her fall."

Here's the rest: http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/farrakhan_saviours_day/2008/02/24/75173.html?s=al&promo_code=45CE-1

I love Louis Farrakhan. I do. But the worst thing he can do to Barack is openly support him. Remember that Jesse Jackson fiasco?

Mainstream America does not like Farrakhan and mainstream Americans are needed to win the general election

I know you mean well, Minister, but if you want Barack to win, support him in secret. Love you. :-)

What You Say!

So Barack whipped Hillary and 'nem in Iowa yesterday.

Obama, 46, told a raucous victory rally his triumph showed that in "big cities and small towns, you came together to say, 'We are one nation, we are one people and our time for change has come.'"

Senator Chris Dodd and Senator Joseph Biden dropped out of the race. My response to that is...WHO?

I must say I am shocked. I expected him to do well, but I honestly didn't expect him to win. Even with Oprah's backing. Hmmm...perhaps Oprah is seated right next to God.

I guess Barack is sayin' "How ya like me now?"

Congratulations are in order but as I'm sure everyone knows, Barack can't get too excited. Hillary is not dead yet. And if Edwards drops out of the race, she could get his supporters too.

Barack, time to step up your security, bruh. You are now an official threat. Program Farrakhan and the NOI in your speed dial. Tee hee.

Oh, yeah, and Huckabee won for the GOP...<>

More protestors in Jena

But this time, there's a twist...

A white separatist group planning a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade in Jena is suing the town, claiming officials are violating the Constitution by asking participants not to bring firearms, changing the parade route by one block and requiring the posting of a bond.

The Nationalist Movement filed the federal lawsuit Dec. 14 and is seeking a temporary restraining order to keep the town from interfering with the Learned, Miss.-based group's "Jena Justice Day" rally. Group officials claim the town's rules violate their 14th Amendment rights to due process.

The planned Jan. 21 march is in response to the thousands who rallied on Sept. 20 in Jena in support of six black teens who have become known as the "Jena Six," and against what they claimed was disproportionately harsh treatment of blacks by prosecutors.

The Jena High students were initially charged with attempted murder in connection with a Dec. 4, 2006, attack on a white student. All charges were later reduced to aggravated second-degree battery or second-degree battery.

"When a group of, say, minorities or homosexuals want to have a parade, they aren't usually required to put up a bond or pay for police or pay for cleanup," said Barry Hackney, a spokesman for the organization.

The ordinance, Mayor Murphy McMillin said, has been in place for "many, many years." All seven of the organizations that participated in the September rally complied with all the guidelines, town officials said.

There were no reports of arrests or vandalism after more than 20,000 rallied in support of the Jena Six.

Hackney said the Nationalist Movement will not come to Jena if their concerns are not resolved by Jan. 21.

Walter Dorroh, attorney for Jena, said the community would follow the laws and let due process work.

The Nationalist Movement has among its missions revoking integration at the University of Mississippi, and has called on its football coach to de-integrate the team.

In an Oct. 15 letter to McMillin, Richard Barrett, an attorney for the Nationalists, asks the town for electricity for loudspeakers and electronic equipment, "adequate security," restroom facilities, access to drinking water, "adequate and secure parking" and no noise from hecklers.

In McMillin's Nov. 27 response to Barrett's requests, he asked Barrett to fill out the permit application and provide proof, as is required in the ordinance, of a $10,000 bond. He also pointed out that the town doesn't have responsibility for and wouldn't be providing restrooms, water, food, on-site emergency medical care or electricity.

McMillin said these services were provided by the parish for the September rally, and he encouraged Barrett to contact the LaSalle Parish Police Jury about those needs.

The Nationalists say Jena's rules governing public demonstrations are invalid and unconstitutionally over-broad.

The Nationalist Movement successfully sued York, Pa., over fees the city tried to charge it for a rally the group held in 2003. That rally drew five members of the movement.

Black Like Me

So, remember my "Race Row' post? Well, apparently, he opened a can of worms he should have left closed.

James D. Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA and winner of the Nobel prize, raised a storm recently when a British newspaper quoted him saying that black Africans are not as intelligent as whites. But his own brilliant DNA seems to blur the lines.

A new analysis of Dr. Watson’s genome shows that he has 16 times the number of genes considered to be of African origin than the average white European does — about the same amount of African DNA that would show up if one great-grandparent were African, said Kari Stefansson, the chief executive of deCODE Genetics of Iceland, which did the analysis.

And you know if you have one drop of black blood then you are all the way black. How you like them apples? LOL. I love when ignorance is exposed.

Read it here.

FSU retaining and graduating black students

Tallahassee, FL.: "Florida State and the University of Florida have long run neck and neck in the race to see who could graduate a higher percentage of black students within four to six years. This year, for the first time in nearly 10 years, FSU has come out ahead. FSU has retained and graduated 70.9 percent of the black students who came in as freshmen in 2000, according to the Florida Board of Governors."

My response:

Well, that's good. Personally, I don't understand why anybody black would send their children to the University of Rosewood...I mean, the University of Florida. But, hey, that's just me.

Go Noles!

BlackNews.com - Allen Watty's New Song "Sometimes I Wish I Was White" Stimulates Discussion

BlackNews.com - Allen Watty's New Song "Sometimes I Wish I Was White" Stimulates Discussion: " Independent singer Allen Watty has just taken controversy to another level. Watty is best known as the singer of the 'Hurricane Song', which won rave national reviews from ABC News, MSNBC.com, and CNN. Now, he's back with another tune called 'Sometimes I Wish I Was White'. In the song, Watty reveals that he's not at all ashamed of being Black - but that he has learned that you have to be white to be treated 100% equally. Producer and songwriter Irvin Lee, comments, 'First off, we have no self-hatred issues. The purpose of this song is not to say that Blacks should want to be white. Rather, the intent is to make people think and converse about the continuous mistreatment of Blacks in this country.' "

BAW: Commentary: If You Want To Highlight Problems in the Criminal Justice System, There Are Plenty of Valid Examples

BAW: Commentary: If You Want To Highlight Problems in the Criminal Justice System, There Are Plenty of Valid Examples: "I admit that when Black Entertainment Television recently elevated two of the Jena 6 defendants from being lucky to becoming luminaries, I was a bit conflicted. Not that I didn’t agree that Carwin Jones and Bryant Purvis – who escaped facing several years in prison on an attempted murder charge over a schoolyard beatdown – didn’t deserve some attention. They are, after all, symbols of the systematic racism that has far too many black men doing time for punishments that don’t fit the crime. "

What worried me, though, is whether their being hailed as celebrities when they are accused of beating a kid unconscious could send the wrong message to other impressionable black youths. I worried whether Jones and Purvis’ turn in the BET spotlight would obscure what the real message should be; that it is far smarter to avoid getting entangled in the criminal justice system in the first place if it means you have to count on national outrage to free you.

Yet if BET wants to use its award shows to trot out black people who have been wronged by the criminal justice system, I’m all right with that. I’m all right with that because there are lots of those people to go around – and many with cases more compelling than that of the Jena 6.
One of those people is Michael Anthony Williams.

Williams is 43 now. Like the Jena 6 he lives in Louisiana. Like the Jena 6 he was a teenager when he was accused of a crime; he was accused of raping and beating his high school tutor.
Unlike the Jena 6, though, he did wind up in prison - Did 24 years hard time in the notorious Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, in fact.

But unlike the Jena 6, Williams didn’t do the crime.

After spending several years trying to clear his name, he was exonerated two years ago by DNA testing. As it turned out, Williams had spent half his life in prison based largely on the testimony of a woman who didn’t even see her attacker. His tutor’s head was covered during the attack, but she told prosecutors that she recognized Williams’ voice.

That was enough to persuade a jury to lock him away for life without parole. At age 16.
But now, according to The Wall Street Journal, Williams is struggling to adjust to life on the outside. He had to fight to get a state representative to write a bill to compensate him for $150,000 – or around $6,300 a year for each year he spent in prison.

That’s a pittance. A pittance that has done little to help Williams get back a life that he never had a chance to develop. He has virtually no job skills. He was imprisoned before he learned to drive – a time-honored teenage rite of passage. He had never seen a cell phone, or used a computer.

He has to sleep with the lights on because he can’t get used to sleeping in the dark.

To ease his readjustment Williams said he hopes to join a community of exonerees who, like him, were freed through the efforts of the Innocence Project – an organization whose efforts have led to the release of more than 200 prisoners who have been proven innocent by DNA testing. But the project needs more money to help the former inmates – many of whom are black – who are struggling with depression and other psychological trauma after years of being locked up and then spat out into a world that, to them, might as well be Mars.

BET should champion that cause – and highlight someone like Williams on one of its award shows.

Sure exonerees like him may not be young anymore. They may not project the hip-hop generation aura that I’m sure Jones and Purvis projected – and that BET audiences eat up with a spoon.

But when it comes to the criminal injustice system, people like Williams illustrate something that transcends hairsplitting about whether black miscreants will receive equal justice compared to white miscreants. People like him illustrate the fact that in many cases, innocent black people don’t get any justice at all.

They show us that as we fume over black people who caught the short end of the stick after they got caught up in the system, there still are scores of black people who weren’t involved in the system at all, yet it managed to suck them in and beat them down.
Such people ought to be worthy of a BET moment too. Especially since what happened to Williams could happen to any of us.

Without us doing anything wrong."

'Race row' Nobel winner suspended

"Nobel laureate biologist James Watson was suspended Friday from his longtime post at a research laboratory and canceled his planned British book tour after controversial comments that black people are not as intelligent as white people."

Watson, 79, an American who won the 1962 Nobel prize for his role in discovering the double-helix structure of DNA, apologized Thursday for his remarks -- but not before London's Science Museum canceled his talk there, planned for Friday evening.
The museum said Watson's words had "gone beyond the point of acceptable debate.

Click the link to read the rest. Whatever.

BAW: Party Invite Creates Furor, Dialogue on Color Divide

Party Invite Creates Furor, Dialogue on Color Divide: "Yasmine Toney describes herself as a 'dark-skinned sista.' So when she heard about a recent club promotion in Detroit, allowing all-night free admission to black women with fair or light skin, she was incensed. 'It's offensive,' Toney said. 'It continues a negative stereotype.' 'I'm perceived to be aggressive, assertive, attitude-having ... a lot of things, because my complexion is darker,' said the 24-year-old receptionist. The party was canceled last week after its promoter, who is black, received dozens of complaints. But for Toney and other black women, the issue reopened old, deep wounds as word of the party spread through the Internet."

How black women are viewed -- and treat each other -- depending on the hue of their skin, eye color, and the length and grade of their hair has long been a point of contention for many in the black community.
Many women with lighter skin frequently are accused of believing they are better than those with darker complexions. Many women with brown or dark-brown complexions complain that they too often are not treated as well socially or professionally as those with fairer skin.
"I think they get to slide in a little easier," Toney, who is pursuing a master's degree in counseling, said of women with lighter skin. "They are assumed to be passive and nice and sweet. I feel I have to do a little bit more. Number one, I'm black. Number two, I'm dark and I have short hair."


Interesting.

Say That!

"You kill a dog and go to jail, you kill a little black boy and nothing happens."

-- Ben Crump, attorney for Martin Lee Anderson's parents.

What's Really Happening?

I tried not to say anything. I said I wouldn't comment. I've never been able to keep my mouth closed so why do it now?

Something is wrong with my beloved 'Noles. It leads me to ask the unthinkable. Is Bobby Bowden a racist?

I ask this question because I can not for the life of me understand why Drew Weatherford was sent into the game against Wake Forrest on Thursday night. Xavier did a good job in the first half and even with the interception that led to his being benched for a series, Drew''s insertion was unwarranted and baffling.

Nothing against Drew. I like him. He's a personable young man, but he had no business being allowed to go into the game. This is pure speculation, but if X, who had the hot hand, had been allowed to go in when Drew was sent in, we may have scored and perhaps even won the game. Instead, we went three and out.

Now, there were other issues. Number 98 ticked me off so bad I wanted to reach through the tv and bench him myself. He kept two crucial drives alive for Wake Forrest when they were about to have to turn it over. Dumb.

Then there was Greg Carr, whom I happen to like a lot, but in my opinion he was the one at fault for the interception. He let that little midget #2 get behind him. (Nothing against #2. The young man is good. He just made me mad when he caught a ball that was clearly meant for Carr).

Anyway, it seems to be that the coaches are looking for any reason they can find to bench Xavier. I don't know what the problem is. Did X make somebody mad? Can he read the play book? Are the boosters pressuring Bobby to play Drew? What is it? I'm looking for any explanation other than the one that so many say it is. I know God fearing Bobby Bowden can not be against playing a black quarterback.

Somebody tell me what it is.

Jury takes 90 minutes to clear boot-camp defendants

An all-white jury found all defendants not guilty in the death of Martin Lee Anderson after 90 minutes of deliberations here today.

Anderson's mother, Gina Jones, stormed out the courtroom after the final verdict was read.

"I can't see my son no more, but everybody sees their family!" Jones shouted.

Six jurors cleared the seven former Bay County juvenile boot camp drill instructors and a camp nurse not responsible for the 14-year-old boy's death. They were seen on a video kicking, kneeing and punching the boy, but the defense proved he died from a benign blood disorder, sickle-cell trait, not by the guards' actions.

The case has been racially charged since five of the defendants were white, two black and one Asian.

"You kill a dog and go to jail, you kill a little black boy and nothing happens," said Ben Crump, attorney for Anderson's parents.

Jurors in the case were escorted out by sheriff deputies as they entered their vehicles, and were given escorts by deputies driving patrol cars.

A number of defense attorneys appeared on Court TV following the verdict, and Bay County Circuit Judge Michael Overstreet, who presided over the case, watched from a chair in the courtroom on a television, sometimes laughing at the commentary.

The three Hillsborough County prosecutors who tried the case left immediately after the verdict.

Defense attorneys were more than happy to give media interviews.

Hoot Crawford, who represented Henry McFadden Jr., said the prosecution's witnesses hurt their own case.

"Two experts having conflicting testimony," Crawford said. "Their witnesses killed them."

The prosecution had one medical examiner testify Anderson died from suffocation, while another disagreed and said the boy died from lack of oxygen.

My response:

This is bull! I am honestly in tears right now. I can't believe this.

Teachers Place Noose Around Kindergartner's Neck

Date: Wednesday, October 03, 2007
By: Jackie Jones, BlackAmericaWeb.com

"One veteran teacher has been suspended and the future of three first-year teachers at Grambling University’s laboratory school is in question as university officials investigate an incident in which a noose was placed around a kindergarten student’s neck as part of an impromptu lesson on racism.
According to the university, the teachers said the children in a combined kindergarten-first grade class at Alma J. Brown Elementary School on the Grambling campus were asking questions about the Jena Six case in Louisiana, in which six black high school students were accused of attacking a white classmate after a series of skirmishes that began after a group of white students hung nooses from a tree on the campus.
Grambling President Horace Judson told CNN Tuesday morning that the instructors decided on the spur of the moment that the case presented a “teachable moment” and at recess put together an impromptu lesson about “non-violent demonstrations to challenge racism” as part of a mock rally.
The incident took place on Sept. 20, the same day that thousands of protesters rallied in Jena to challenge the arrests on adult charges of the six black students."

Ummm...I don't know how I feel about this story so I reserve comment.

Commentary from Black America Web -- Mychal Bell Owes A Lot of People

Date: Wednesday, October 03, 2007By:
Tonyaa Weathersbee, BlackAmericaWeb.com

I hope that Mychal Bell understands that just because a kindly black physician put up $45,000 for his bail doesn’t mean he’s debt-free.
He owes a lot of people. Himself included.

Unless you’ve been living in a cave with Bedouin sheepherders for the past three months, you know that Bell, 17, is one of the Jena Six. He and four other black teenagers were charged with attempted murder -- a charge that had them facing up to 20 years in prison -- for a schoolyard brawl in which they beat up a white teenager who, according to some reports, had taunted them racially.

The plight of Bell and his friends has become the flashpoint for what may evolve into a new civil rights movement; one that centers on equal justice as well as equal access. More than 20,000 protesters descended on Jena, La. last month to show their outrage over a punishment that clearly did not fit the crime -- the white teenager who was beaten up was treated and released from the hospital in time to attend a ring ceremony that night."

Please Leave Bill O'Reilly Alone

Apparently, some people are in an uproar because after eating dinner with Al Sharpton at a restaurant in Harlem, Bill O'Reilly said he "couldn't get over the fact" that there was no difference between the black-run Sylvia's and other restaurants. http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/headlines/oreilly926

This is the kind of stuff that gets on my nerves about SOME not ALL black liberals. They are making a big deal out of absolutely nothing. The comments appeared to be innocent. There are far more important things for us to jump on than this.

UPDATE

O'Reilly comments here: http://www.accessatlanta.com/entertainment/content/shared-gen/ap/TV/TV_OReilly_Sylvias.html