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Archive through August 03, 2006

The TVClubHouse: General Discussions ARCHIVES: Apr. 2007 ~ Jun. 2007: Black History (ARCHIVES January 2006 ~ June 2007): Archive through August 03, 2006 users admin

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Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Tuesday, July 25, 2006 - 10:20 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
How did I miss this story? Smh

Dragging death highlights black community's distrust of justice system in Louisville, Ky.
By DYLAN T. LOVAN, Associated Press Writer
Sunday, July 23, 2006 1:15 AM PDT
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- The death of Anthony Graham -- and what happened in the days after his murder -- has roiled the black community.

Graham, a black man, was dragged seven city blocks by a car driven by a white man. The car then struck a brick wall and Graham's head hit a utility pole, killing him.

The driver, Thomas Sewastynowicz, fled the scene but turned himself in the next day. He was permitted to stay out of jail while awaiting trial -- even though he was charged with murder.

Sewastynowicz's release has underscored a perception that Jefferson County's judicial system doesn't always give blacks a fair shake, and findings from a recent report appear to support some of the complaints.

A local commission investigating racial bias in the court system issued a report that said blacks make up a larger portion of the county's jail population than whites, even though more whites are booked into the jail.

Community activists say mistrust of the city's justice system has festered since the fatal shooting of a young black man by a white detective here two years ago.
link

Pamy
Member

01-02-2002

Tuesday, July 25, 2006 - 10:51 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Pamy a private message Print Post    
That is just so sad.

Vacanick
Member

07-12-2004

Tuesday, July 25, 2006 - 10:56 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Vacanick a private message Print Post    
Oh my g/d it's 2006 .. this should not be happening!! So, so sad!! Makes me angry!!

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Tuesday, July 25, 2006 - 11:02 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
No it shouldn't but it does. How can this person be out roaming free until the trial? How can there still be so much hate because we're a different color?

Pamy
Member

01-02-2002

Tuesday, July 25, 2006 - 11:19 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Pamy a private message Print Post    
I never understood that either.

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Tuesday, July 25, 2006 - 11:43 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Ladytex a private message Print Post    
what the heck? unfreakingbelievable ... and there are those trying to say that this war is over ... pffftttt

Heyltslori
Moderator

09-15-2001

Tuesday, July 25, 2006 - 11:52 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Heyltslori a private message Print Post    
That is horrible. I can't wrap my mind around how someone could do that. And the fact that that murderer is allowed to walk free until his trial is beyond belief.

"....perception that Jefferson County's judicial system doesn't always give blacks a fair shake"

What an understatement.

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - 7:16 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
Mo'Nique Speaks Out: Her Airline Drama!

July 26, 2006

Comedienne MO'NIQUE is speaking out about how she says she was mistreated by airline personnel over an incident on Sunday, when the actress says she was asked to leave a United Airlines flight.

The star of the big screen's 'Phat Girlz' and host to the small screen's "Mo'Nique's F.A.T. Chance" (a television beauty pageant for large women) said she boarded a flight to New York in first class when, she alleges, flight attendants threw her off the plane without giving her a reason why, referring to her as a "threat."

"I'm in disbelief that it happened to me," she tells ET.

According to Mo'Nique, a flight attendant approached her and addressed her in a rude and unprofessional manner. "The flight attendant comes up to me and says, 'Listen, you need to let your people know ... if they don't straighten out their attitude I'll have them thrown off this flight,'" she said from her hometown of Baltimore this morning. "And I said, 'No, you're not gonna speak to me like that. You're not gonna be rude and disrespectful.' [He said,] 'Well, you know what, I'll have you thrown off, too.' He snapped his fingers and walked away."

She says that the flight attendants were upset that a member of her support team -- who was sitting in coach -- put Mo'Nique's hairdryer in first class where the star was sitting. After she voluntarily got off the plane, a United employee told her that since 9/11, they don't take threats lightly.

"If I am such a threat," Mo'Nique points out, "why am I not being taken out of the airport? Why are you trying to get me on any flight if I posed a terrorist threat? That's not making sense to me."

"They felt it was okay to mistreat me and pull me out of my seat, simply because I would not allow them to be disrespectful," Mo'Nique says. "I'm angry, I'm in shock. It was incredibly humiliating and embarrassing for me. Police were everywhere."

The actress was attempting to fly to New York in order to guest host "The View." She did make that engagement, sitting down with the ladies Monday morning.

After the story broke, United Airlines issued the following statement:

"The safety of all of our passengers and our crew is our top priority, and that we regret that Ms. Imes felt in any way that she was not treated with courtesy and respect. When a situation occurs on a flight that causes a delay, or disruption, we must act in the best interest of all of our customers. It was determined that the best course of action was to accommodate Ms. Imes on a later flight."

link

------------------------

Now this is some bulls----. She was on Steve Harvey talking about this and the article doesn't mention that United kept telling her there were no more flights yet when she went to another counter where a brotha was working, he was able to get her on the next flight and put them all in first class. Can you say hidden racism?

Vacanick
Member

07-12-2004

Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - 7:19 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Vacanick a private message Print Post    
I heard about this yesterday .. disgraceful!! I hope she sues!

Retired
Member

07-11-2001

Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - 10:42 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Retired a private message Print Post    
WTF??? I saw her on ET yesterday but didn't catch what it was about, but she was really upset. Part 2 is supposed to be on tonight. It is disgraceful and shameful she was treated so shabbily and hope she does sue!

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - 11:35 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Ladytex a private message Print Post    
and I hope she and her friends make sure everyone knows about this ... power of the pen and pocketbook, ya know ...

Vacanick
Member

07-12-2004

Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - 11:41 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Vacanick a private message Print Post    
... and United thought they had troubles before ...

Biloxibelle
Member

12-21-2001

Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - 2:16 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Biloxibelle a private message Print Post    
I hope it ok to post this here. A few months back I read some comments about housing projects and the people who lived in them that bothered me. As I was reading I was thinking about this special woman.

I first heard about the "Flower Lady" when the housing project began their fight with her. Not long after that I had to take Stephanie to the doctor close to her apartment. So I drove by. I swear it was truly beautiful. Not only did she have her flowers she had a gaggle of toys. I have since learned she wanted the children to play in and enjoy her yard.

Now she isn't famous and will never make national news. The only people that will ever know of her are her family, friends and her community. But to me she is one of the billons of unknown people that make Black History.
---------------------------

'Flower lady' to be laid to rest
Thursday, July 20, 2006
By NIKKI WITTNER

PASCAGOULA -- Family, friends and an entire community mourned the loss of a woman who became known simply as the "Flower Lady."

Ann Parsons, 78, died Friday and will be remembered as the lady who took on the Mississippi Region VIII Housing Authority. Parsons lived in the Bayou Casotte housing project in 2002 when she was given an ultimatum by the housing authority.

In an effort to clean up the housing project, the authority ordered all residents to remove flowers and trees. Parsons, who lived in the housing project for 18 years, received a letter from the authority citing her violations of the new code. She fought back.

At 68, the grandmother would not back down. She united with community members to fight the system. Diane Patterson, a family friend and former neighbor, said Parsons was a truly caring woman who simply enjoyed gardening.

"All Mrs. Parsons wanted to do was tend to her flowers and plants and make her surroundings beautiful," Patterson said.

The Mississippi Press was flooded with letters to the editor in support of Parsons' fight. According to her oldest daughter, Felicie Davis, the fight took its toll on the elderly woman. However, Davis said her mother would not back down.

"Mama firmly believed that you stand up for what you believe in and fight for what is right and just," Davis said. "I know Mama was relieved when the whole ordeal was over with, but she was glad she did it."

Parsons' daughter, Bernadine Magee, said the six-month battle was an emotional roller coaster for her mother. When the fight ended, and Parsons was allowed to keep her flowers, things returned to normal, Magee said.

After the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, Parsons was forced to uproot her precious flowers and plants, place them in pots and move them to a new location near Trent Lott Middle School. She lived the last 10 months of her life in a FEMA trailer on her daughter's property.

Today, dozens of flowers line the walkway, yard and interior of her daughter's home on Norwood Drive.

According to Patterson, Parsons did not intend to return to the housing project.

"Mrs. Parsons hoped to get her own house," Patterson said. "She was even planning out how she would plant her flower beds."

Davis said her mother's flowers will be divided among the children, grandchildren and family friends.

"They (the flowers) were mama's babies, and we want to keep them in the family," she said.

Parsons favorite flowers were roses, her daughters said.

link

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - 2:51 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
Amazing lady.

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - 7:43 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Ladytex a private message Print Post    
what an inspiration. thanks for posting that, Biloxibelle

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Thursday, July 27, 2006 - 7:48 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
The President has signed to extend the Voting Rights Act.

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Thursday, July 27, 2006 - 10:44 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
Bar punished for no-blacks policy
Longueuil Venue must pay $25,000; Quebec rights tribunal sides with two men who were refused service due to skin colour

KAZI STASTNA, The Gazette
Published: Thursday, July 27, 2006

The Quebec Human Rights Commission has condemned the blatantly racist policies of a Longueuil bar that refused to serve two black men because of their skin colour.

In a July 7 decision, the commission ordered the Resto Bar Le Surf on Chambly Rd. to pay $12,500 each to Seydou Boubacar Diallo and Mamadou El Bachir Gologo. The two men, of Malian origin, were told Sept. 13, 2003, and again six days later, that the bar had a no-blacks policy.

"The barmaid refused to serve me. I asked why and she said, 'Because you're black.' It was as explicit as that," Diallo, 33, said yesterday.
Most of the $25,000 in damages is to be paid by co-owner Christian Lemyre, who instituted the discriminatory policy, and by the numbered company to which the bar is registered. Barmaid Anne-Marie Lyne Lussier, busboy Serge Tanguay and doorman Bertrand Fontaine are to contribute $2,000 each.

The commission also recommended the bar prohibit staff from engaging in any type of discrimination when dealing with customers.

The bar has until Aug. 4 to comply or decide to contest the decision before the Human Rights Tribunal.
link

Retired
Member

07-11-2001

Thursday, July 27, 2006 - 1:24 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Retired a private message Print Post    
smh over this. fine isn't big enough imo.

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Thursday, July 27, 2006 - 1:40 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
Yeah this was a lil shocking to me maybe because it's in Canada.

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Tuesday, August 01, 2006 - 8:03 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Ladytex a private message Print Post    
Clues to 'black Paul Bunyan' found
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060802/ap_on_sc/slave_s_life_3

By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer

Archaeologists excavating the 200-year-old graves of a slave family said Tuesday that they recovered several artifacts that could shed light on the life of a man dubbed "the black Paul Bunyan."

However, the scientists uncovered no genetic material from Venture Smith, who is depicted in tales as a 6-foot-1 lumberjack slave whose fabulous feats of strength helped win his freedom. They had hoped to find DNA that would trace Smith's life back to Africa, filling in the gaps of one of the earliest and most important slave biographies.

"We didn't get much," Nicholas F. Bellantoni, Connecticut's state archaeologist, said about Smith's grave. "Everything had been decomposed."

But teams found several items from the nearby graves of Smith's family that should help answer many questions, said Chandler Saint, president of the Beecher House Center for the Study of Equal Rights in Torrington, who is managing the excavation.

Remains were found in the other graves, though three to six months of testing will he needed to determine whether any DNA has been recovered, Saint said. Many artifacts were also found, he said.

"It's going to be possible to determine a time of death, causes of death, from bacterial deposits in the soil," Saint said.

He also said scientists will be able to determine the sizes of the family members from coffin dimensions and patterns.

"I'm really happy with what the various teams found," Saint said.

Weighing more than 300 pounds according to local lore, Smith is said to have split seven cords of wood each day. His biography describes him carrying a barrel of molasses on his shoulders for two miles and hauling hundreds of pounds of salt.

The biography, published in 1798, says his owner allowed him to work side jobs until he saved enough money to buy his freedom.

But slave biographies — particularly those told to writers, as Smith's story was — were sometimes embellished and family members hoped the excavation would reveal evidence that the man was as tall, healthy and strong as believed.

Bellantoni said the tales just might be true, based on a look at Smith's coffin.

"It's almost seven feet long, very wide and very deep," he said. "It's also not a poor man's coffin. It's a very nice coffin for the period."

The coffin was not removed but scientists will study nail fragments and wood attached to them.

Though the dig had the support of more than a dozen descendants, environmental activist Nancy Burton challenged it in court, saying it was disrespectful to a state hero. In a compromise Tuesday, a judge ordered digging to stop at Smith's grave but allowed it to continue at the nearby graves of his wife, son and granddaughter, Bellantoni said.

He said work on Smith's grave was already complete. He expected excavation of the other graves to wrap up Wednesday.

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Wednesday, August 02, 2006 - 5:49 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
Dang wish they were allowed to go into the coffin itself.

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Thursday, August 03, 2006 - 8:25 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
From the Baltimore Sun

New attitude breaks through in Blige's performance
Superstar stays down to earth at 1st Mariner Arena concert

By Rashod D. Ollison
Sun Pop Music Critic

August 3, 2006, 10:34 AM EDT

There were thunderous bursts of sparks, shooting flames and five costume changes -- all grand trappings of a professional stage show befitting a superstar. But somehow Mary J. Blige, the unchallenged queen of hip-hop soul, brought it all down to earth. Her summer tour, the Breakthrough Experience, stopped at 1st Mariner Arena Wednesday night. This time out, Blige is on a musical mission to uplift sisters with songs whose titles sound like mandates: "No More Drama," "Enough Crying," "Be Happy."

The two-hour show felt like secular church: full of impassioned singing, joyous dancing and testimonies about old demons and new revelations.

"I'm a little messed up too," Blige told the near-capacity crowd of mostly black women. "But I'm getting there. I'm getting better."

Her well-publicized troubles with drug and alcohol abuse and toxic relationships lie behind her. The Yonkers, N.Y., native is happily married these days, thank you very much. And the music on her latest album, the double-platinum The Breakthrough, celebrates this newfound sense of emotional and spiritual security.

The moody, scowling singer of the '90s, who often hid behind large shades, emerged on a tabletop-like platform Wednesday night wearing a wide-brim hat and an ivory pantsuit reminiscent of Tamara Dobson in Cleopatra Jones. The shades were gone, and Blige's smile rivaled the stage lights. She opened with "MJB Da MVP," a boastful (and pointless) track from the new album. Then she slid into her first big hits, "Real Love" and "Reminisce," both from her widely acclaimed, if often flat, 1992 debut, What's the 411? She pulled mostly from The Breakthrough and 1994's My Life, a modern soul classic rippling with wrenching vocals and open-wound lyrics.

That album featured Blige's hit remake of Rose Royce's 1976 bluesy slow jam, "I'm Going Down." As the band launched into the sweeping first notes, the packed house immediately took over the song. So Blige surrended, held her mike to the crowd and grinned. The tearful, missing-my-man number with such lyrics as "the sound of the rain/against my window pane/is slowly, slowly driving me insane" seems like an unlikely sing-along. But Wednesday night, it somehow felt like a song of transcendental joy. A breakthrough indeed.
Copyright © 2006

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Thursday, August 03, 2006 - 8:26 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
Me and my co-worker/gf were singing so loudly we almost lost our voices. "I'm Going Down" is my jam. Whew.

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Thursday, August 03, 2006 - 10:26 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
Can't figure out how to get the link for this because the board I got it from has like a screen within the post with the article...
-------------------------------

Is Racism Behind Different Treatment for Haitians?
By PAULINE ARRILLAGA
AP National Writer

MIAMI (AP) -- The conference room at the law offices of Kurzban, Kurzban, Weinger and Tetzeli was crammed tight. Attorneys took turns at the microphone, their faces etched with frustration. The question they kept coming back to: Why? Why, they asked, are Haitian immigrants singled out by the U.S. government for unequal treatment?

On this day, earlier in the year, the topic was temporary protected status, a designation the federal government can grant to foreigners allowing them to remain part time in the United States because of political unrest or environmental disasters at home.

Central Americans have repeatedly been granted protected status following hurricanes and earthquakes in Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador. Immigrants from Burundi, Liberia, Somalia and Sudan also enjoy such protections. But Haitians have never obtained relief, despite decades of political turmoil, kidnappings and killings, and tribulations from tropical storms.

"Why aren't Haitians good enough for the same basic protections?" demanded Steve Forester, of the group Haitian Women of Miami.

The question has long haunted Haitians seeking refuge in the United States. But underlying it is a more provocative issue, one that some say reflects how ill-designed and blatantly discriminatory the U.S. immigration system has become:

Are Haitian immigrants treated differently simply because they are black?

<snip>

"Is it a crime to want to flee for freedom, for safety?" she adds. "Why is it a crime for Haitians?"

Nowhere are these inequalities more glaring than in South Florida, where even Haitians and Cubans arriving on the same beach at the same time in the same manner are treated differently.

In April, authorities detained 44 Haitians after they landed on a beach north of Miami in a 45-foot cabin cruiser. Also aboard was a Cuban man. The Haitians were processed for removal.

The Cuban, said Border Patrol spokesman Steve McDonald, "by virtue of the fact that he's Cuban and eligible to adjust his status under the Cuban Adjustment Act will ... have the opportunity to request to stay."


Created: 7/30/2006 1:16:09 PM
Updated: 7/30/2006 1:16:32 PM

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Thursday, August 03, 2006 - 11:33 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Ladytex a private message Print Post    
you should post this in the immigration thread, it's food for thought.