Posted on 08/22/2012 8:01:59 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
It’s Friday evening. The air is cool and the sky is clear. A group of well-dressed men and women gather at Empowerment Temple in West Baltimore at an event designed to spur people to register and vote in the upcoming election and those that will follow.
Inside the church, a panel of distinguished guests has their audience's full attention. CNN commentator Roland Martin asked the panel--including the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, former Rep. John Conyers, BET commentator Jeff Johnson, Bishop Vashti McKenzie and several others--what they perceived to be the biggest problem among Blacks and how that problem could be resolved.
The debate moved from one point to another. Jackson got a standing ovation after he claimed that the law does not work in favor of African Americans. “When black kills white, its jail time, when white kills black, its riot time and when black kills black, its Miller time.," Jackson said. Another panelist member said that with the current generation, main stream hip hop is pushing death through ITunes. McKenzie said that women have to be, “sick and tired of being sick and tired” and that if women want to change the negative portrayals of them in the media, then they must stop funding it. Johnson made all the black men in the room stand. He asked them to look around at each other and emphasized that there was significance to this symbolism. Decades ago, “Black men were in uniform,” he said, adding that Black men used to be trained to stand in the front line in their communities.
“Whether it was black folks or white folks, it said that our lives matter and men are going to defend the lives of those in the community,” Johnson said.
The three day event, which started Aug. 16, was entitled "Code Red: It’s A State of Emergency." The goal was to inform, urge voters to get out on Election Day and also to deputize others to register voters.
"We...want to put the power back into the hands of the people,” said Dr. Jamal Bryant, founder and pastor of Empowerment Temple, before the event. "Attendees can then go back home and register the people in their communities, in their homes, and in their fraternities and sororities. It's an incredible opportunity that we've not taken advantage of. "
Bryant says the idea for the conference was sparked a few months ago when he saw an African American pastor and legislator, Del. Emmett C. Burns (D-Baltimore County), stating in national news that he would be staying home on Election Day because of President Obama’s stance on gay marriage.
“With the church being nonpartisan, you can vote for anybody, but to not participate in the democratic process at all would be a very dangerous precedent,” said Bryant.
Burns, pastor of The Rising Sun Baptist Church in Woodlawn, Md., later told the AFRO he changed his mind and would be casting a ballot on Nov. 6 because not doing so “would be the wrong thing to do.”
Day one of the Code Red conference focused on will focus on the lack of a common Black agenda, something Bryant says every group of Americans except African Americans have.
"Where do we want to see the Black community in four years? What are we asking the next president to do, whether it's President Obama or Romney,” said Bryant.
“I want to see an investigation into how the prison system has become the new plantation. We need to turn that around. I'd like to see more funding for our public schools and an economic plan that pushes entrepreneurship and investment. I want our young people who are at the lowest economic stratus to still have an opportunity to compete on a global scale.
“We need to be spending the night at the polls so that our voices are heard and our agenda is met,” he said.
Attendees of Friday’s session will walk away prepared to register voters.
"This isn't just about the presidential election this year,” said Marvin Randolph , senior vice president of campaigns for the NAACP, in an interview. “Across this nation, mayors are being elected, sheriffs and police commissioners will be appointed...Many things in our communities are affected by the ballot box. The black church has always been a very important part of both educating African American people about voting and making sure people understand what's at stake.”
Civil rights organizations across the country are predicting that the wave of new voter I.D. laws could have a devastating effect on the next election. According to the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, 5 million voters stand to become disenfranchised on Election Day due to laws that have changed requirements to cast a ballot and registration periods.
Seven states, are requiring voters to show a state-issued I.D. in order to vote, which poses a problem for out-of-state college students. The report also shows that 13 states have introduced legislation to end same-day registration and voting. In Alabama, Kansas, and Tennessee, proof of citizenship is now required in order to vote, meaning voters will have to show a document, like a birth certificate, before receiving a ballot.
After several standing ovations and heated debated between the panelists, the evening ended with a couple of selection from a choir and a benediction from Bryant. The forum can be viewed on the Empowerment Temple website. Bryant left the audience with something to think about as they prepared to exit his church.
“We are in a crisis," he said. "Sound the alarms!”
“When white kills black it’s riot time”...He’s got a lot of gall saying that considering the riots him and Sharpton were trying to induce when the “white” hispanic George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin. And not even that, what riot by whites is this freakin, lunatic talking about? Let him name ONE thing where whites have rioted about anything in this country. The only thing that immediately comes to mind is the draft riots in 1865 and leftist radicals in the 1960s that hail Obama as a deity today.
And it was on purpose, it was all to sooth the "Dreams of his Father", and all of his other redistributionist baggage along the way.
This is one sick puppy we have been stuck with, his Mom, Grand Parents, and all his mentors screwed him up in the head big time. The biggest lesson of the Obama years? Being the best possible Father to your kids and never abandon them.....
Great thought there. What can be blessed by abortion lovers and promoters, and who indulges in the practice more than blacks? The black preborn are the greatest victims of abortion. Where are the abortion mills mostly located, but in the black community. Where is “code red” on the real atrocity against black Americans perpetrated by the Democrat Party? You have posed a great question.
I think that’s exactly what he is talking about, blacks rioting when white people kill black people, like the Zimmerman/Martin case. He’s implying that they are forced to riot because otherwise there wouldn’t be any justice, because nobody cares. It’s a load of tripe, but that is what he is pushing.
Isn't he still serving?
94% black voters for Obama and 0% for Romney.
Zero percent in a recent poll. Insane.
Yup. I’m from Chicago as well, so I know the story well. There are plenty of folks on the NW side and in the suburbs that still refuse to drink Bud because they hate Jackson the shakedown artist.
Yeah I misread it, my brain Bidened out but I’m tired, nothing permanent. I thought he meant whites rioting. BTW a friend of mine is a doctor. I made the suggestion next time he has a patient who is brain dead he should use the term “bidened”. He said he will consider it. LOL
http://www.blackenterprise.com/category/news/washington-report/
In Chicago, I have seen more ordinary looking people begging too, but not blacks in particular, but all sorts of folks. I don’t venture into the black neighborhoods much though, so I may just not be seeing as many of them.
One thing that I have noticed in the last few years is that more and more blacks, mostly the YBM’s (young, black males) have started using begging as a lead in to robbery. They are easy to spot though, because it’s usually at least two young, guys who approach you together asking for change, dressed in the usual hip hop style clothing. They don’t stand on a corner asking everyone, they are usually on the move, sizing up particular people to approach and ask for money. Really, they are just looking for that one sucker that pulls out his wallet to give them a dollar, then they jack him and run.
The poverty pimp can sure turn a phrase...”Bibitty bobbity Boo!”
I like it. “Nurse, prep the patient for the heart transplant, we’ve got a donor who has just bidened!”
You just answered your own question.
I don't think I need to call the psychic hotline to figure out how Pastor Burns (who had a taken a principled stand as a Christian against Obama’s endorsement of gay marriage) will be voting. When it comes to race vs principles, race apparently trumps principles every time.
The answer to all of those problems is simple. Intact families is the greatest predictor of success for kids, no matter what color they are. Black women should stop sleeping around and having kids out of wedlock. If an man wants to have sex, make him marry you, and make sure he remains responsible for the children you have together. This goes for white and Hispanic women as well.
Another solution is for parents to pay attention to what their kids are learning in school. If the school is nothing more than a liberal brainwashing camp for the latest fads, e.g. Global Warming, then the parents need to vote with their feet and take their kids out of that school, and either homeschool, or make the sacrifice to send the kids to private school. With a good education, and a stable family, the threat of early incarceration will be very remote, and the kids will know enough to make their way in business or higher education, and they will be able to compete in the Global marketplace.
1) Ask where you want to see Black people 30 years from now. Think well ahead. 2) Why are Black people forever looking for a Great Collectivist Leader instead of the power of their own families and individuals. The whole damn Black American culture needs to be reconstructed.
This is the legacy of LBJ. It has long been my opinion that LBJ knew exactly what he was doing when he established the "great society".
Nothing less than the wholesale destruction of the entire African-heritage community.
What happens when you abort every other black child, when two thirds of the survivors grow up with fathers? One ends up, as in Texas, with black graduates learning English more poorly than Hispanic graduates.
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