 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Saddam versus Bush
By Chris Langley
The previous poll results show that President Bush s popularity rating continues to drop to all time lows. African Americans believe that America does not have a moral obligation to pay for the rebuilding of Iraq, especially considering important social needs that significantly impact their lives, such as education and health care.
African Americans also feel that the main reason for Saddam Husseins death is Bush family revenge They are losing confidence in America and feel that America will not be viewed as a superpower after the Iraq war.
Blackballot.com focuses on gathering African American opinions on various topics. Our research specialists develop surveys that help measure customer satisfaction and loyalty, brand equity, PR efforts, and public opinions. Whether you want a complete strategy toanalysis plan or a dozen questions answered quickly, weve got the expertise you need to get the job done.
For further information on research and polling solutions, please contact Vice President of Sales, Chris Langley, at chris blackballot.com.
|
 |
Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution 
By K.B. McDavid
 Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution was the last speech Martin Luther King Jr. made before the Amerikkka snuffed him out and altered his legacy. In his final days, Dr. King started to move in a more radical direction. Please take time out to read his prophetic words.
Questioning the morality of the Vietnam War, Dr. King became a threat to the military establishment and was eliminated. Just the title of the speech suggests why it has never been played on national television. You see, it helps the mainstream political establishment that Black America is stuck on the dream. After the political murders of Malcolm X, Dr. King, Fred Hampton, the Kennedy boys, and countless others, the political establishment incorporated the benign neglect policy of former New York Senator Patrick Monahan to rock Black America to sleep.
Affirmative Action, welfare, The Cosby Show, and the ability of a negro to make millions shucking and jiving has rocked Black America to sleep after Dr. King asked us to wake up and look at the world around us. This is why I created BlackBallot.com.
Dr. King said, There can be no gainsaying of the fact that a great revolution is taking place in the world today. In a sense it is a triple revolution  that is, a technological revolution, with the impact of automation and cybernation then there is a revolution in weaponry, with the emergence of atomic and nuclear weapons of warfare then there is a human rights revolution, with the freedom explosion that is taking place all over the world. Yes, we do live in a period where changes are taking place.
Dr. King understood that Black America could be a powerful vehicle for change. He led the challenge to the legitimacy of the Vietnam War and other questionable U.S. motives. He died as a result, and we were rocked to sleep with the false hope of becoming part of the American Dream. Dr. King started to witness and to speak out against the horrors the American Dream brings to the rest of the world and was silenced two days after making this speech. Politics is REAL. Politics is not about morality, it is about power.
Politics is hood and the following story is an example of how the establishment is still using political murder as a tool of social control.
On December 30th, 2006, in Westlake, Louisiana, Mayor Gerald Washington was found dead as a result of a gun shot wound to the chest.  The coroner and the police have ruled the death a suicide despite the fact that there was no reason for the healthy, 57 yearold Vietnam veteran who had spent twelve years as a city councilman and just won the race for mayor to kill himself. Black people just dont do that. As a Black man, I know all of the difficulties that Black men
have to deal with in life. I cant see how another Black man would work 12 years to achieve something, then when he finally achieves it kills himself. We as a people have issues, but this isnt one of them. We enjoy success, it is something that is quite hard to achieve in a racist world. Furthermore, why would Washington have gone to his old high school in a neighboring town to kill himself with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest. It just doesnt make sense.
Politics is about power. Westlake is a town that is 80 percent white. Gerald Washington won by 69 percent of the vote. Even though the majority of the white population believed in Gerald Washington the powers that be do not want a Negro running their nice lilywhite southern town, so they do what they have to do. Conjecture, but I would like to call it educated conjecture. Just like April 4th, 1968, a political murder, a modern day lynching. The following is more conjecture on my part, but I know it in my heart to be true the coroner and police work together to determine cause of death.
Murder to reinforce the power structure goes along with the rules of power, just look at history. Look at American History. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is the prime example. Just like the power that be did on April 4, 1968, political murder on December 30th, 2006. Wake up Black America, stop dreaming and seize your reality or at the very least honor the man by reading the LAST MESSAGE HE WANTED US TO HEAR WAKE UP.
|
 |
Achieving  The Dream at What Price?
By Justin Mitchell
In his famous I Have a Dream speech, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. eloquently articulated the fundamental purpose of the Civil Rights movement. Its goal was not only to allow AfricanAmericans to become full citizens with equal rights and privileges under the law, but also to change the hearts and minds of those who disavowed our humanity. It was not simply about being able to get a cup of coffee at a diner or being able to gain lodging in the motels of the highways. Kings dream,
which he claimed was intimately bound up with the American Dream, was to eradicate the cancer of racism from Americas institutions and citizens.
Almost fifty years later, who can argue that America hasnt made progress The overwhelming majority of AfricanAmericans live above the poverty line and many have reached positions of tremendous power and prestige. There are black folks in the upper echelons of politics, entertainment, and finance. Miscegenation is no longer illegal and, due to the recent rise in interracial marriage, there is now even a movement to shed light on the sociopolitical situation of multiracial
Americans. So, while racism may not have been eradicated, one could certainly make the case that Kings dream is on the horizon.
But am I the only one who, in light of all this progress, remains under the impression that Kings dream was woefully modest and narrow Integration has been achieved, at least in the larger sense, and I cant help but think that black Americans have sacrificed their souls. We achieved the  American Dream, but at what price
We can now be as shallow, venal, and prodigal as white Americans. What a privilege
King, avatar of many of the finest elements in AfricanAmerican culture that he was, did not have the foresight to see that a dream built on the metaphysical transformations of white Americans and mere institutional access was not enough to preserve the spiritual health of a people. It was Ralph Ellison, a committed integrationist, who really saw the potential danger of AfricanAmericans falling victim to a mainstream interpretation of the American dream. It was Ellison who recognized that the real battle was cultural. Today, as he suggested might be the case, most AfricanAmericans are middle income without being middleclass,
meaning that they have achieved the dream of the house with the white picket fence without improving their taste.
If you think that this statement is an exaggeration all you have to do is turn on the radio or look at BET. AfricanAmerican culture is at its alltime nadir. Slaves had far greater armature against the existential terror of the world than todays AfricanAmerican youth whose only spiritual protection is the crass materialism and unrepentant violence and misogyny espoused in gangsta rap.
Believe it or not, taste and culture count for something. Art is a counterstatement to the meaningless we are confronted with in everyday life. It is an antidote to suffering that affirms life, much like religion. Yet the values we find today in mainstream AfricanAmerican culture represent a condemnation and rejection of life, or, at least tepid appreciation of life. All the money, cars, and gadgets in the world cannot sustain life. And this, of course, is what integration promised. Mainstream American societythe American dream, that ishas always been inimical and antithetical to art or taste. Rather than remaining skeptical of the American dream, we should have refined it
maybe even totally rejected itfor our real salvation lies in our ability to develop a quality culture, a system of values or tastes that gives our
lives deeper meaning. Without such a thing we are naked and empty. And an entire generation raised without a sense of lifes deeper meaning is far from an idyllic dream. It is, in fact, a nightmare.
|
 |
The Tale of Two Coaches
By Lynn Williams
On Saturday, January 6, 2007, the Indianapolis Colts and the Kansas City Chiefs played a wild card game in Indianapolis, Indiana. Currently these two American Football Conference AFC teams are headed by coaches of color, two coaches with a history of friendship.
Anthony Tony Kevin Dungy became the head coach for the Indianapolis Colts organization in 2002. Before this opportunity, he had been the coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from 1996 through 2001. He was a former National Football League NFL player and held other coaching or coordinator positions within the league. Coach Dungy is well respected within the NFL and in the community for his civic service. While in Tampa, he was a public speaker for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Athletes in Action. He was involved with Big Brother and Big Sisters Clubs and the Family First organization.
He began a mentoring program for young people called Mentors for Life. He has continued his community service in Indianapolis. He has eight straight seasons of his team making the playoffs.
Herman Herm Edwards became the tenth head coach for the Kansas City Chiefs organization in 2006. In this his first season with the Chiefs, he made the playoffs.
Before this current opportunity, he had been the head coach for the New York Jets from 2001 through 2005. He was a former NFL player and held other coaching and coordinator positions within the league. 
Ironically, he was the assistant head coach from 1996 to 2000 within the Tampa Bay Buccaneers organization under Tony Dungy. He is sometimes called The Preacher, known for his speeches and soundbites given at press conferences.
He is the author of You Play to Win the Game , a collection of lessons on leadership which a reader could use for personal motivation.
On Sunday, January 21, history was made when Dungy led his team to victory in a playoff game versus the New England Patriots, securing their position against the Chicago Bears, yet another team led by an African-American coach, Lovie Smith.
So as we countdown to Super Bowl XLI between the Colts and the Bears in Miami during Black History Month on February 4, 2007, we must stop and look back at how far we have come in this NFL football journey. In 1921, Frederick Douglass
Fritz Pollard became the first Black coach in the NFL while the AfricanAmerican football athlete endured being banned from play from 1934 until
after World War II. Once allowed in, Black athletes continued to play with inferior contracts and limited roles on the field. According to George Harvey Sage, author of Power and Ideology in American Sport A Critical Perspective, as of 1998 there were only three Black head coaches in the NFL.
So it is definitely great progress to find in the same game two head coaches of color. Next on our agenda lets see if we can buy a few NFL teams
|
 |
On the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday
By Vasco Bridges III
January 16, 2007 from the Chief Editor of Diseducation.com
Yesterday was the federally mandated holiday celebrating the life of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I spent the day the same as I have the past few years waking up later than usual and sauntering down the block to attend a three hour marathonofapolitical rally at the Brooklyn Academy of Music down the street from my house.
The Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday is a day on, not a day off.
Yea right.
The holiday is simply a day of cliches and lipservice to a fallen icon. Either that, or a day to recover from a really drunken three nights of partying. You choose.
How many times do we have to listen to quotations of I Have a Dream or Letter from a Birmingham Jail from halfknowing, halfcaring politicians striving to strengthen ties with the black community
How many times do we have to listen to White politicians list their accomplishments or goals for more diversity and empowerment for people of color. And how many times do we listen to phony Black politicians and preachers stand up and compare their accomplishments to Dr. King and show off their vast knowledge of MLK quotables.
How many times do we have to listen to spirited renditions of Lift Evry Voice and We Shall Overcome from an audience of old Black women remembering the civil rights movement, led by a Gospel choir of cornrowed youngns just happy to be out of school for the day
How many times do I have to hear If Dr. King were alive... Yea, Im pretty sure the guy who won the Nobel Peace Prize would look down upon this sham of a war in Iraq. The guy that fought poverty in Watts and Chicago would be fighting hard for the city of New Orleans to get back on its feet. And the guy that stood proud on Black education and empowerment would look down upon the prevalent use of the word Nigga in the Black community (although you gotta admit that Boondock
episode was funny). I dont need you to tell me all that.
How many times do people feel the need to preach to the choir and converted Cuz you know the people who have the most to learn from Dr. Kings story were at home sleeping all day.
In the words of the Spike Lee-directed commercial: can someone SHOW ME SOMETHING?
This annual Brooklyn event, sponsored by Marty Markowitz my favorite White politician for his passion to associate himself with the whole, diverse borough of Brooklyn was great to bring people together, but, similar to events across the country yesterday, it bled of grandstanding and inaction, and left alot to be desired.
So, Vasco, what do you want out of Martin Luther King Jr. holiday
My father, and many other Black business owners, see Martin Luther King holiday as a time to keep business open. Dr. King would want to see my business flourishing, my dad says. But me, I enjoy my day off from work too much.
Many of my friends take the opportunity to go out and volunteer in the community. Dr. Kings legacy is a commitment to the underprivileged they say. But despite my New Years resolutions, I really dont like community service especially when its cliched on the one day everyone does it. George W. Bush even volunteered yesterday By helping somebody in need, youre honoring the legacy of Martin Luther King. And by helping somebody in need, youre
really helping yourself because you're lifting your soul.
Overrated.
I want somebody to inspire me to action the same way Dr. King inspired millions.
I want somebody to prove that perseverance will triumph in the way 
Dr. King fought imprisonment and ridicule with his eyes on the ultimate goal of equality.
I want somebody to realize whats right, and to not just talk about it, but to actually make things happen.
I want somebody to do something different, because the things that weve been doing up to this point are only leading to marginal gains.
I want somebody to lead me.
But as I look around, and see the posers, fakers, politicians and preachers doing the sameol, same ol, I guess that someone should just be me...
|
 |
|
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
|
[an error occurred while processing this directive]