What is the deal with rappers and football progeny? I mean it isn’t exactly like these kids are getting their athletic prowess and size from their fathers side…
In any event, UCLA has recruited and promised a scholarship to Snoop Dogg’s kid now, after the scandal caused by awarding a full scholarship to Diddy’s son.
It would be nice is a few of these well heeled rappers and actors whose kids are winning these scholarships would donate money to a scholarship to some financially disadvantaged kids.
We’ll see…
And at 6’2″, 185 lbs as a Sophomore in High School – this ain’t Affirmative Action for wealthy stars kids.
Snoop Dogg has a pretty good reason to raise a glass of gin and juice.
That’s because the rapper’s son, Cordell Broadus, has been offered a football scholarship by the University of California, Los Angeles.
“Sophomore Cordell Broadus Offered UCLA Football Scholarship,” read a tweet on Diamond Bar High School’s Twitter page.
Broadus played both wide receiver and defensive back for Diamond Bar’s freshman team last season.
Of course, if the 6-foot-2 185-pounder accepts the offer by the Bruins, he could one day be hitting the gridiron alongside Sean “Diddy” Combs‘ 18-year-old son Justin, who is expected to play for UCLA next season after accepting a full scholarship last November.
A lot of young folks nowdays don’t really understand what the Black Panthers were – and what they really stood for.
There is even an imitation “Panther Party” of about 10 whack jobs who have captured conservative media imagination – and not much else. According to conservatives the appearance of two of these guys on the street outside of a polling place in 2008 constituted “voter fraud” and was directly responsible for a black man being elected President. In a conservative world where 1 black person on a street corner is “trouble”, 2 is a “conspiracy”, and 3 is a “riot” – the emergence of half a dozen black “militants” is cause for 24×7 wall-to-wall fearmongering. “The Nigras is out to get ya!”
Like a lot of the folks involved in the 60′s struggles, the author of this piece evolved. Jamal Joseph is now a Professor – but he maintains his activism.
I was 15 years old when I walked into a Black Panther office and asked for a gun so I could kill a white man.
It was 1968, Dr. King had been murdered. Ghettoes across America were going up in riots and flames and I was a fatherless, angry man child who had been called “nigger” and smacked around by white cops a few too many times.
I was an honor student, a choir boy and a member of the N.A.A.C.P. youth council. My adoptive grandmother, “Noonie”, did her best as a single parent to instill her Baptist Church rooted values of “love they neighbor.” I dreamed of college, becoming a lawyer or in moments of liberated imagination a star ship commander like Captain Kirk from my favorite TV show Star Trek.
I worked part time as a stock and delivery boy at the supermarket so that Noonie wouldn’t have to give me allowance from her tight income that was a combination of social security and part time housekeeping work. I would sweep, mop and vacuum so that Noonie would not have to do anymore bending or scrubbing when she pulled her tired, body up the stairs to our second floor apartment.
Noonie and I were close. I loved and respected her. But she was 70 and I was 15 — and the hip, cool path to manhood was on the streets. The Bronx and Harlem street corners I passed and sometimes hung out on had gangs, drugs, craps games, fights, hustlers, foxy ladies and patrolling cops that had to be eluded even when you were doing no wrong. The teens and men who held court there were living examples of how to walk, talk, swagger and fight your way into the manhood ranking system of being a “cool”, “bad” or “crazy dude” — which was highest honor.
The corners also had “warrior prophets” who talked about Black pride, progress and revolution. Some would be respected “bad” and “crazy” dudes who had gone to prison or to the Vietnam War and came back with something they called “Black Consciousness.” They critiqued drugs, hustling and violence as tools of oppression. They not only gave the corner contrast — they gave it context, and I was fascinated!
The evening news was filled with images of civil rights marchers and anti war protestors being beaten and tear gassed by Cops and National Guard Troops. Black Militant leaders like H.Rap Brown would appear on the news urging armed self defense and revolution. The Afros, dashikis and denim jackets the militants wore became the style of the day from schools to the street corners. We wore our Afros and dashikis to church, marches and N.A.A.C.P. meetings. The elders frowned but tolerated us with memories of the “wild styles” they wore when they were young. (more…)
Rodney King, the man whose beating by Los Angeles Policemen spawned a series of events culminating in days of rioting in Los Angeles is dead at the age of 47 – apparently the victim of drowning.
Rodney King – the man who was at the center of the infamous Los Angeles riots — was found dead this morning in Rialito, CA. He was 47.
According to our sources, King’s fiancée found him dead at the bottom of a pool.
Law enforcement sources tell TMZ they responded to a call at 5:25 AM PT. We’re told they physically removed King from the pool and attempted CPR.
Our sources say he was pronounced dead at 6:11 AM.
Law enforcement sources say Rialto PD will open a drowning investigation.
King became famous in 1991 when he was the victim of police brutality at the hands of the LAPD. The officers involved in the incident were acquitted the following year and the announcement of the verdict led to the Los Angeles riots.
Megachurch pastor Creflo Dollar was arrested in suburban Atlanta for an alleged assault on his 15-year-old daughter, police said Friday.
Deputies in Georgia’s Fayette County responded to a call about a domestic disturbance about 1 a.m. Friday. Dollar’s daughter said she argued with her father over attending a party, said Investigator Brent Rowan of the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office.
The daughter says the argument got physical.
She told the deputies that her father charged her, put his hands around her throat and began to choke her, according to a police report. She said he then slammed her to the ground, punched her and beat her with his shoe.
Dollar’s daughter was able to get away and dial 911, Rowan said. (more…)
Chris Rock last night on Fallon talks about Mormons, and their prohibition against black folks that lasted until 1978 in the context of Romney being President -
On the 16th hole at the 2012 Memorial Tournament, Tiger Woods made an absolutely amazing shot to tie Rory Sabbatini for the lead at 8-under par on Sunday. The stunning 50-foot chip shot for birdie had the term “Vintage Tiger” trending on Twitter in no time. And, in true vintage fashion, Tiger celebrated the shot with a fierce fist pump.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better one. That was the most unbelievable, gutsy shot that I’ve ever seen,” raved golf legend Jack Nicklaus, who founded the tournament, after Jim Nantz of CBS asked if anyone had hit a better shot at the Memorial. “It was really, really unbelievable, particularly because of the position he was in. He hits it short the tournament is over. He hits it long the tournament is over. He put it in the whole. Unbelievable.”
James Cone is America’s best know black Theologian. He was the inspiration behind folks like Reverend Jeremiah Wright and the “black liberation theology” – which gives a lot of folks on the right side of the spectrum heartburn. Never one to back down to an injustice – Cone continues his work.
When he was boy growing up in rural Arkansas, James Cone would often stand at his window at night, looking for a sign that his father was still alive.
Cone had reason to worry. He lived in a small, segregated town in the age of Jim Crow. And his father, Charlie Cone, was a marked man.
Charlie Cone wouldn’t answer to any white man who called him “boy.” He only worked for himself, he told his sons, because a black man couldn’t work for a white man and keep his manhood at the same time.
Once, when he was warned that a lynch mob was coming to run him out of his home, he grabbed a shotgun and waited, saying, “Let them come, because some of them will die with me.”
James Cone knew the risks his father took. So when his father didn’t come home at his usual time in the evenings, he’d stand sentry, looking for the lights from his father’s pickup truck.
“I had heard too much about white people killing black people,” Cone recalled. “When my father would finally make it home safely, I would run and jump into his arms, happy as I could be.” (more…)
Growing up, I had a particularly hard time learning to swim. Nearly drowned when I was about 7 – so I decided to learn. One of the problems was that during segregation, there were very few pools which allowed black folks. The closest one to us was about 25 miles away in Alexandria, Va., which meant that I only got to work on swimming about twice a year.
When they started integrating facilities n the early 60′s, I decided to take some swim classes – convincing my parents that since a common summer activity for us was fishing on the York River and Chesapeake Bay, learning to swim was a safety issue.
Didn’t really work for a long time, until I sort of mastered the “Dog Paddle”.
The following summer I spent with cousins on the Ocean. My “half fish” friends and cousins were jumping off a pier into a channel leading from the Yacht Harbor to the sea. So… in typical teenage desire to be one of the group …
Because of body fat, babies can’t sink – and can be taught very quickly to swim.
I jumped in to the 20′ deep channel. First time I had ever tried to swim in salt water. I floated right to the top, and found it easy to keep my head above water due to the increased buoyancy in salt water. The problem was the current was running with the tide out to sea – which rapidly was whipping past the ladder on the side of the pier which everyone was using to get back out. Sink or swim time…
I learned to swim, and would become a good swimmer.
Caught the boat bug – probably from my parents who owned a small runabout. I migrated to larger and larger boats. It is common on the Potomac to anchor your boat at a beach on one side or the other in fairly shallow water (depending on how deep in the water your hull went) and dingy or walk to the shore. One popular spot was called “Sharks Tooth Bay” because along the shore you could find fossils and hundreds of fossilized shark’s teeth. On this particular day, I set the anchor and joined friends. The anchor broke loose – resulting in he boat beginning to drift across the river. Jumping in to swim to the boat, I didn’t realize it was the wind which was pushing it faster than I could swim. The long and short of it is I wound up swimming nearly 3 miles – all the way across the river – to catch the boat in fresh water.
Inflatable life vest designed to auto-inflate when the wearer hits the water
Another night, on a friend’s boat – the Captain went for a leak on the transom and fell off the boat unbeknownst to the rest of us in the cabin. Since we were a couple of miles offshore -he left the boat in gear at low speed when he decided to take his “break”. When we discovered our missing Captain we had no idea how long he had been gone – so we reversed the course heading and started to search. Fortunately the guy had been a LRP, which was one of the precursors to the SEALS, and knew what to do. He made water wings out of his white pants, which kept him afloat – as well as made it easier for us to spot him with the boat’s powerful spotlight.
I don’t know any long term boat owners who haven’t fallen off their boats at one time or another. One of the hazards of even well designed decks is dew or rain making them slippery. Through the years I have pulled more than one non-swimmer out of the water – and a few swimmers who got caught in the currents. Because of that, I wear an inflatable life jacket which blows up when you fall in when out on the water fishing or beaching. They are expensive (although the prices are falling) – so not a lot of boaters carry them.
Teach your kids to swim. I started mine as babies in a baby swim class. And for those worried about the effect of water on their hair…
Wanda Butts dropped the phone and screamed when she heard the news that her son was dead.
Josh had drowned while rafting on a lake with friends. The 16-year-old didn’t know how to swim, and he wasn’t wearing a life jacket.
“I couldn’t believe it, I didn’t want to believe it: that just like that, my son had drowned and he was gone,” she said, recalling the 2006 tragedy.
Butts had worried about her son’s safety when it came to street violence or driving, and she said she had always warned him of those dangers. But water accidents never crossed her mind. (more…)
Couple of places in America where black folks are noticeably thin on the ground -Republican and conservative meetings and conventions…
And in the sport of Professional Hockey.
Now – the NHL isn’t doing anything to keep black players out… It’s just a confluence of circumstance which results in few high level black Hockey players being developed to matriculate into the professional level.
I am not a Hockey fan, although to be honest you can’t avoid the hype for the local team, the Washington Capitals, the hoopla when they make the playoffs, or the catchy moniker someone came up with for their former Goalie (Oalie the Goalie) …And under the heading that when a local franchise does well and excels – it is worth everyone in the neighborhood at least giving some recognition – there is the fact that the Capitals made the playoffs this year despite dire predictions to the contrary.
A pleasant surprise last night when turning on the local news was the breathless announcement by the sports announcer lady that the Caps had won a last game, last minute, last second victory to move on in the playoffs against the former champion Boston Bruins.
An even bigger surprise was that the player who sunk the winning goal was a black man.
A very self-depreciating, modest, and well spoken black man.
Think all those Caps fans could give a damn about that last, they are too ecstatic about the fact his goal won the game.
Washington Capitals forward Joel Ward said the racial slurs directed at him on Twitter after he scored the series-winning overtime goal to eliminate the Boston Bruins were “shocking to see, but it didn’t ruin my day.”
“It doesn’t faze me at all,” Ward told USA TODAY Sports. “We won, and we are moving on. … People are going to say what they want to say.”
He said he didn’t know about the issue until Washington teammate Jeff Halpern brought it to his attention on the team plane heading home from Boston. Ward said Halpern “apologized” that Ward had to see that.
“Halpern just took offense that people weren’t talking about the goal, (but rather) getting into racist remarks,” Ward said. “I think he was telling me he had my back, and felt bad that (some Twitter users) were talking about the negative side, instead of how we are moving on.”
The NHL, in a statement, said, “The racially charged comments distributed via digital media following last night’s game were ignorant and unacceptable. The people responsible for these comments have no place associating themselves with our game.”
Ward, 31, a four-year NHL veteran, says he never has before experienced any racist remarks directed toward him at the NHL level.
“Growing up, at a few minor tournaments, you catch a few kids saying things,” Ward said. “But at that age, I didn’t even know what the terminology meant. But (at this level) I’ve never heard anything. I know other guys have, I believe, but I’ve had nothing directed to me like that.”
Ward’s goal at 2:57 of overtime knocked off the defending Stanley Cup champions and put the Capitals into the second round against a still-undetermined opponent. Ward had six goals in 73 games this season. “It was definitely the biggest goal I’ve ever been a part of,” he said.
Said Ward’s teammate, Matt Hendricks: “It was the greatest feeling ever after the game, winning Game 7 in Boston. Then you get on the plane afterward, and have all of this come to life. … It just made me sick to my stomach.”
Hendricks said he couldn’t get the tweets out of his mind. “What we accomplished just went out the window,” he said. “I couldn’t think about that any more. It was very disappointing.”
“Obviously, things get said,” Simmonds said. “It’s the internet. They can say whatever they want and they don’t have to show their face. It’s disgusting. I’ve had things like that happen to me before.”
During a Flyers-Detroit Red Wings preseason game in London, Ontario last Sept. 22, a 26-year-old hockey fan threw a banana peel onto the ice as Simmonds was attempting a shootout attempt.
“It’s not something that you want to happen, but it’s sad in this day and age that it continues to happen,” Simmonds said. “I’m sure Ward is not even paying attention to it. It is what it is. People can be as gutless as they want and they don’t have to show up. They just throw a comment out there on the internet. It’s getting kind of ridiculous.
“I think social media is not meant for that. It’s to say, ‘Hey, nice goal, congratulations.’ “
Ward said he hasn’t had time to comb through all of the comments on his own personal Twitter account, but he has seen a summary of the racist-tone posts on various website blogs.
“I think it is just kids,” Ward said. “It has no effect on me whatsoever. I’ve been playing this game long enough and I’ve not had any encounters of that nature.”
He said he has always felt comfortable in an NHL dressing room and on the ice.
“There is no lying about it. …I’m definitely the one black guy in a room with 20 white guys,” Ward said. “There are definitely some cultural differences, such as taste in music, but I’ve never heard anything derogatory.”
He says he has no concern about his safety moving forward in the playoffs.
“I’m pretty laid-back and I get along with a lot of people,” Ward said. “I don’t fear anything like that, and I have a good group of guys to protect me.”
Ward said his goal today is to go on his Twitter account and thank the people who came to his defense through social media. Many have gone after those who posted racist remarks. Some who have made racist comments have already closed their accounts. One person apologized.
“I’m definitely getting a lot of support,” Ward said. “There have been a lot of Boston fans who have supported me, which is very cool to see. No hard feelings from me. This is a game.”
The mayor of New Jersey’s largest city said Friday he thought he might die when he dashed through a burning, smoky kitchen to find and rescue a neighbor from her second-floor bedroom.
“I felt fear. I really didn’t think we were going to get out of there,” Mayor Cory Booker, his burned right hand still bandaged, told a news conference in front of the boarded-up home.
The 42-year-old mayor said it was very difficult to breathe as he looked for the woman, Zina Hodge, 47, whose mother had screamed she was still trapped inside the burning house.
As he got to the bedroom, Booker said he could hear, “I’m here, I’m here, help I’m here.”
The mayor, who was coughing heavily after the rescue, was taken to the hospital and treated for smoke inhalation and second-degree burns after the rescue late Thursday night.
Booker downplayed his actions, saying he just did what any neighbor would do, “which is jump into action to help a friend.”
“I didn’t feel bravery, I felt terror,” he said. “It was a moment I felt very religious, let me put it that way.”
Hodge remains in stable condition at a hospital, suffering from second-degree burns.
“I think he’s a super mayor — and should become president,” said her mother, Jacqualine Williams.
Fire officials said she and the mayor were apparently burned as embers fell from the ceiling, with the woman slung over the mayor’s shoulder. The officials said the fire likely started in the kitchen.
Two members of the mayor’s security detail had already taken several members of the family from the home when the mayor arrived and heard the mother screaming that her daughter was still inside.
His security detail tried to drag him away, but Booker told them that the woman was going to die, Detective Alex Rodriguez said.
“Without thinking twice, he ran into the flames and rescued this young lady,” Rodriguez said in an interview earlier in the day with “CBS This Morning.”
Booker, an up-and-coming Democratic politician who has been mentioned as a possible future candidate for statewide office, said Rodriquez also helped him take Hodge down the stairwell. Once they were outside, “we both just collapsed,” he said.
“I had my proverbial come-to-Jesus moment in my life,” he said.
The mayor said he did not feel heroic. “It all happened very, very quickly,” he said.
He planned to go take a nap after the news conference.
Booker, who is 6-foot-3, was a tight end for the varsity football team at Stanford University, where he got his undergraduate and master’s degrees. He got a law degree from Yale University and as a Rhodes scholar also got a degree from Oxford.
Despite his past as an athlete, he said is now “somewhat out of shape.”
The mayor said he now has an even more profound respect for firefighters.
Booker is known for his hands-on assistance to his constituents, even shoveling snow during a blizzard that snarled his city and the Northeast in 2010.
A prolific social media user, he tweeted late Thursday that he was fine and thanked his followers for their well-wishes.
“Thanks 2 all who are concerned. Just suffering smoke inhalation,” Booker tweeted. “We got the woman out of the house. We are both off to hospital. I will b ok.”
He then posted a tweet early Friday morning that read: “Thanks everyone, my injuries were relatively minor. Thanks to Det. Alex Rodriguez who helped get all of the people out of the house.”
In a quick, dramatic end to the year-long financial crisis of the Los Angeles Dodgers, the team’s owner, Frank McCourt, agreed to sell the team Tuesday night for $2.15 billion to a group headed by Magic Johnson, the Lakers’ Hall of Famer.
The Johnson group’s deal, financed largely by Guggenheim Partners, a Chicago-based financial services firm, includes $2 billion for the team (minus $412 million in debt) and $150 million to create a joint venture with McCourt on the parking lots and land surrounding Dodger Stadium. The deal is valued at $2.3 billion.
If the all-cash deal is approved by the judge overseeing the Dodgers’ bankruptcy, the price will be the most ever paid for a professional sports team.
The most ever paid for a franchise is at least $1.4 billion for Manchester United. The Miami Dolphins were sold for $1.15 billion and the Chicago Cubs were acquired for $845 million. McCourt, who bought the team in 2004 for $421 million, had resisted selling the real estate, preferring to rent the lots for $14 million a year to the team’s new owner. But the Johnson group suggested the joint venture on the land, said a person briefed on the sale but not authorized to speak publicly.
The deal will let McCourt repay a $150 million loan made to the team last year by Major League Baseball and his $130 million divorce settlement to his ex-wife, Jamie.
The winning bid defeated one by Stan Kroenke, the billionaire owner of the St. Louis Rams, Colorado Avalanche and Denver Nuggets, and a second from two other billionaires: Steven A. Cohen, the hedge-fund manager who recently bought a small share of the Mets, and Patrick Soon-Shiong, who made his money in pharmaceuticals.
The final steps in the process came rapidly. McCourt’s investment banker, Blackstone, asked each bidder to raise their offers Monday night.
Baseball owners approved all three bidders Tuesday afternoon and later in the evening McCourt selected on the Johnson group. An announcement was made shortly after 11 p.m. eastern.
In addition to Johnson and Guggenheim Partners, the winning group includes Stan Kasten, the former president of the Atlanta Braves and Washington Nationals, and Peter Guber, the film producer and head of Mandalay Entertainment.
The agreement to sell the Dodgers to Johnson’s group appears to end an extraordinary year for the team. It filed for bankruptcy last June after Selig blocked a new, long-term billion-dollar cable TV deal between the Dodgers and Fox Sports. Selig had sharply criticized McCourt’s management of the team — in particular his use of team money for his and his ex-wife’s personal use — and installed a monitor to oversee the team’s operations. McCourt called that a hostile takeover.
Reuters is reporting today on a study showing that African American donors give higher percentages of their incomes to charity than their white counterparts, with nearly two-thirds of black households make charitable donations, worth a total of about $11 billion a year. And it’s not just a little more: that number means black donors turn over a full 25 percent more of their incomes than white donors annually, according to the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors research. The results have many wondering why more African Americans don’t self-identify as philanthropists.
From Reuters:
But they don’t see themselves as big players in the charitable arena, and that presents an image problem, say experts like Judy Belk, a senior vice president for Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.
“African Americans have been very uncomfortable with the title of philanthropist,” Belk said. “If you don’t see role models who look like you when people start talking about issues related to philanthropy, you start believing, ‘Hey, maybe I’m not a philanthropist.’”
Belk said she got so weary of hearing this that she helped produce a 12-minute video released in November, dubbed, “I Am A Philanthropist,” which features diverse faces, races and ethnicities of donors and grant-makers. . .
The report cites black churches as a historically important repository of giving, but notes that other important causes are coming to the fore.
While religious giving was the largest charitable category overall, it leveled off in dollar terms in 2010, according to Giving USA, a Chicago-area foundation that publishes philanthropy data and trends. At the same time, contributions for the arts increased almost 6 percent, a trend that was consistent across all racial groups.
Black History Month was marked in a very special way Wednesday. The president and the first lady attended the ground breaking for the National Museum of African-American History and Culture on the National Mall, where Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech still echoes.
CBS News correspondent Chip Reid got a first look at some of the priceless artifacts the museum will hold.
Charles Blockson, 78, has been collecting African and African-American artifacts for more than 50 years. The high point came just last year when he inherited 39 items that belonged to Harriet Tubman. Born into slavery, she escaped, but returned to the South nearly 20 times leading hundreds of others to freedom on what came to be known as the Underground Railroad.
Some of Charles Blockson’s ancestors were rescued by Tubman.
“When I first received (her artifacts), I was surprised, shocked. Nearly every item I picked up I started to cry, the tears just, my emotional armor erupted,” Blockson said.
The items include a silk shawl that was given to Tubman by Queen Victoria, and Tubman’s book of gospel hymns. Blockson, though, says it felt wrong to keep them, calling it “an awesome burden.”
So he donated the Tubman artifacts, most of them too fragile to be handled, to the National Museum of African-American History and Culture…
Noonie and I were close. I loved and respected her. But she was 70 and I was 15 — and the hip, cool path to manhood was on the streets. The Bronx and Harlem street corners I passed and sometimes hung out on had gangs, drugs, craps games, fights, hustlers, foxy ladies and patrolling cops that had to be eluded even when you were doing no wrong. The teens and men who held court there were living examples of how to walk, talk, swagger and fight your way into the manhood ranking system of being a “cool”, “bad” or “crazy dude” — which was highest honor.
Rodney King – the man who was at the center of the infamous Los Angeles riots — was found dead this morning in Rialito, CA. He was 47.
The mayor of New Jersey’s largest city said Friday he thought he might die when he dashed through a burning, smoky kitchen to find and rescue a neighbor from her second-floor bedroom.
