Hello Folks I'm back

Hello world this time I'm for real when I say that I am back. No really I am serious this time my next blog will be comming real soon.

DANGERFIELD HAS RETURNED

I am relaunching this blog under a different name. This blog will cover whatever thoughts or topics strike my fancy.

THE SONGWRITER (Another tale from the Life and times of Mark Bey)

All my life I have had a great love of music . That love transcends everything from Jay Z, Marvin Gaye, John Coltrane and Patsy Cline to many other diverse artist and forms of music. I have also had a great love for writing poetry, I remember in Junior high school my teacher given the class an assignment to write a poem and it was on that day that I discovered I had a knack for making words rhyme in crafty way, plus I really enjoyed it.



Anyway back around 1995 I was walking home from a girlfriends house one day when I spotted a friend of mine from college ( I didnt finish but he did) we were both happy to see each other and we ended up talking for about an hour in the warm summer evening. Eventually my friend ( also Mark) invited me in to a dinner of fried chicken he cooked and a game of chess which we both loved. The chicken was bad but the chess was fun. In fact over the next few months I made it a habbit of stopping by unannounced not because me and Mark were great friends but because we both loved chess and the games between us were something we enjoyed very much. I guesse at this time you could say I had a serious jones over chess and quite often I found myself at DuPont circle to in Washington DC playing chess out doors, winter, spring, summer and fall I mean thats how much chess excited me at that time.


One day after a game of chess my buddy played a song he had composed on an old out of tume piano in his house. He had no idea that I wrote poetry and songs so after he played that song for me I asked him if I could write some lyrics to the song and said yes. WE began working together as a partnership that day, that partnership would eventually include another very talented brotha named John who sang, played keyboard and produced music.



We ended up joining forces and forming a company called OVER THE WALL PRODUCTIONS or OTW for short, then we built a studio inside of Mark"s apartment were we could write and create music to our hearts content. With the blessing of modern technology we were able to produce radio quality music in our own studio without having to break our pockets. I was enthralled with the ability of my friends to take ideas, that we hummed or sang and replicate them on the keyboard. Notes, melody and harmony became something very enjoyable and spiritual to me along with writing lyrics to go along with those notes.


Soon after I got myself a keyboard and began my journey of trying to learn how to play/make music. Meanwhile OTW continued to record with local artist, attend local music conferences and develop our business plan and build up our catolog. During this process we also met with lots of producers, singers and other folks who were trying to break through in the industry, most of them were the same sized fish as us, some a little bigger some a little smaller.



The majority of people at our level were not able to earn enough money to work full time at music in fact most of us lost money and when that happens music is no more than a sophisticated hoby. One thing I can tell you folks is this, getting airplay and radio time has very little to do with who writes the best songs or who is the best singer and more to do with producing a commericial product that can sale in the markektplace. Anohter thing I can tell you from this expeirence is the songs and artist you here on the radio getting airplay arent neccessarily the best, in fact I have heard many songs (hip hop and R and B) created by independent producers that were far supperior to anything youll ever hear on the raidio.



Now dont get me wrong Im not saying that the folks out their making money in the industry arent talented because they are. But what I am saying is that the music industry like any other industry is a business and business number rule of of the game is return on investment.



Anyway having said all of that, isnt it funny how my love of chess allowed a friendship to develop, which allowed me the opurtunity to work and vibe with a lot of talented musicians. Being around those talented musicians inspired me to buy a keyboard, which lead to hours upon hours of intense practicing and study which lead to me finally being able to transpose ideas from my head into reality. I know for a fact that if we had not both loved chess I would not have been stopping and would have never began working with Mark, which also means I would never have been exposed to the keyboard. At this point in my life I cant imagine not having a keyboard around at all times.

Below is a sample of one of the songs I have written. This song is not complete I only was able to get a lead vocal down and backround vocals would have made it sound better, but nevertheless this piece called "Taking All My Cash" represents" my efforts as a musician and a songwriter on my own. This piece was written and dirived totally from my efforts, although I realize this is not of proffesional quality I do think some will enjoy it.

http://www.markbey.com/takingcash.mp3

SUPPORT THE FIGHT AGAINST HOT GHETTO MESS

Bronze Trinity has written a post about a current campaign to get the sponsors of HGM to pull their sponsorship of the show. Sponsors such as State Farm have started pulling their sponsorship of HGM. Bronze Trinity has illustrated what is going on in this post titled Stop BETs HOT GHETTO MESS Bronze Trinity has written a post about a current campaign to get the sponsors of BETs Hot Ghetto Mess (HGM) to pull their sponsorship of the show. This campaign is an excellent example of online activism practiced by activist bloggers such as Eddie Griffin and What about our Daughters who is really, really getting up in peoples hind parts, especially BETs. Bronze Trinity has illustrated what is going on in this post titled Stop BETs HOT GHETTO MESS.


I read this article about the upcoming TV show called Hot Ghetto Mess (HGM) yesterday and while I support the website I am appalled at the idea of the TV show because I think BET is trying to clown us for dollars. But the sistah who create the website stands to loose a lot of money over this because I’m sure she had a financial interest in having the show last as long as people will watch. So from her standpoint I can understand why she would want the show to continue and to be as successful as possible.


But even still I think BET had no business even trying to pull this foolishness. I think we gotta make them pay and it would be nice if the afrosphere bloggers/all black bloggers could link this to discussion on their blogs. Because there are email address and other contact information of the offending parties that has been provided by Bronze Trinity and What about our Daughters. Although I don’t get much traffic I am pretty confident that I can influence some people who come to my blog to sign petitions and make at least one call or send an email. Its time to turn up the heat on BET and Viacom. To quote HGM BET and Viacom Gotta do better.

I am going to post about the stop HGM campaign my blog regularly if everyone here who is against the show would post updates and ways your readers can assist What about our Daughters in putting more pressure on BET and Viacom to pull this show I think we make them feel our sore disfavor over this matter and force BET to stop their cooning. Please do not underestimate the power and impact that bloggers can have on public policy and other societal issues of great concern such as whether or not BETs coon move to force HGM on the public will be tolerated. Remember bloggers have taken down politicians please remember how they swift boated John Kerry in 04. So we can make BET take this Mess off of the airwaves but we can also make them stop their cooning.

Anyway if anyone has any suggestion on how to further go after BET and what we should we further request as our pound of flesh for their cooning please come over to THE SOLUTIONS BLOG and let us know. Eddie has left some good ideas over there and Bronze has linked to what about about our daughters and her is a quote from her explaining exactly what folks can do to help this battle.


“On July 25, 2007, “Hot Ghetto Mess” watch parties are being scheduled in Atlanta, Los Angeles, New York, Austin, the District of Columbia and the list of locations keeps growing.
Those attending the watch parties will be recording which companies purchase advertisements during the show. The coalition then plans to target those businesses with possible boycotts or demonstrations.” http://solutionsforourpeople.wordpress.com/2007/07/19/stop-bets-hot-ghetto-mess/


I don’t think watching the July 25 episode of 2007 HGM and recording which advertisers are funding HGM is a difficult task for many of us who have cable and are at home during that time anyways. Once we collect info about who is sponsoring that show we can make the advertisers known to all afrosphere members who can blog about it and leave contact info on their blogs then we can really ram our Tim’s/heels up in Viacom/BET’s hind parts. Our intentions are not to make to close them down, go out of business or damage them financially but to re-educate BET in order that they stop cooning and trying to see cash while making the rest of us look bad.

Lets make them do better and lets kick their hind parts so bad that we can get them to fund an education and history website/blog that features tutorials, teach aids such as school house rock and other similar techniques along with advise and participation who are the best teachers of black youth in America. This website will be designed to promote history and education.


This they should have to do this as their pittance. They could drop our organization the funds and then let us create the blog/website, this website/blog which would have free tutorials audio/video and free downloads available to be used in ipods and a whole lot of other interactive features designed to help our kids learn and develop.

I mentioned these things because their are discussions of developing a really comprehensive and user friendly black history blog over at the afrosphere forum and this blog will be free to the public. This website could be funded by the settlement from BET for their cooning and it ain't just HGM they must pay pittance for those guys have been cooning for years some of their shows reflect pure coonery and they have the nerve to tell the black American public that we have to do better. Well the same goes for BET and we will force them to do better.

Please share what our daughters ongoing battle with BET on your blog and please help her and others in their righteous fight to make BET stop cooning. Thanks for reading this folks.

THE SHIA/SUNNI CONFLICT

Last year during the Lebanese vs Israeli conflict I heard a Lebanese Sunni Muslim say he supported Hezbollah's (a militant shia organization) stance against Israel, but that the Shia were still fake Muslims. Now Id been hearing about the Sunni / Shia dispute over the last couple of years and I have been fascinated by some of the details Id been learning. To Someone like me who is committed to Anti-Religion ism and who views the misuse and abuse of religion as one of the greatest problems the world has ever seen, this type of attitude is offensive,neanderthalish and quite frankly retarded. Although I have no love for religion of any form I am a very spiritual person by nature and truth be told if not for religion(s) (which I consider a form of spirituality) something inside of me thinks that, this planet would be even more screwed up than it already is.

After all it is a fact that thousands of Christians missionaries all over the world are feeding and helping to care for sick people. Not to mention the thousands of hospitals all over the world started by christian, Muslim and Jewish people and organizations all over the world . Simply put the church and people inspired by religion are taking care of people 24x7 all over the world in the absolute worse conditions and without any fanfare. Those Christians and other religious folks (although I believe their religions are fairy tales) are often on the front lines of despair and poverty working to bring relief to the poor and suffering that's a fact.

The Sunni/Shea split started right after the the Prophet Muhammad died, one school of thought followed that the new leader of the Islamic world should be chosen by a committee of the most learned and respected Islamic scholars (Sunni), another school of thought was that the Prophet Muhammad had spiritual qualities that would be passed down through his children and descendants (Shea).

Ever since the death of Muhammad Islam has been split by philosophical, ethnic, clan and tribal differences that include the Shea and Sunni divide. Now before anyone goes off and starts Judging Islam please remember that little catholic/protestant conflict or that thousands of English settlers were driven to America (to steal other folks land) to get away from religious persecution or keep in mind the fact that it was not necessarily safe or cool to be a catholic in many parts of the southern united states of America during the early part of the 20th century.

So I am in no way suggesting that this behavior is reflective of what Islam as a whole is. This is what makes it hard to build a strong and self sufficient, modern and democratic society.. If you've got 30 tribes spread out over a land mass the size of say California with lands being separated by lakes, mountains deserts etc. When you add in a paternalistic culture and world view, then my folks, you've got a big ball of confusion and chaos because when members of one tribe/clan seek redress in court or are being held or sentenced under another tribes justice. What is justice to one tribe may be cause for jihad to another tribe/clan/nation, also many of these folks are ultra conservative and fundamentalist in their views of the world.


Over the centuries in the world of Islam their has always been tensions between Shea and Sunni but they have also lived together in peace for over a thousands years as well. After a thousand years of living together those divisions have been further split by clan, ethnic, race, country etc. This fundamentalist strain is found in most religions and most cultures and is still a problem even in America when you think about the Christians trying to force christian school prayer or their ridiculous theory of Intelligent Design on non believers of the christian faith it tells you exactly what is going on. Often times this fundamentalist ideology takes the most narrow and close minded view of religion which is never a good thing for the cause of tolerance and human advancement.


This is yet one more reason why I really dislike all religion, I mean Shea and Sunni have been living together, marrying each other and conducting business between one another for over 700 years in Lebanon but still Islam promotes a brand of religion so backwards that people who have lived together for ages are still referring to each other spiritual beliefs as fake.

Unbelievable, how backwards it is to follow any religion that promotes meaningless divisions when human beings by their nature are flawed and always looking to identify themselves based on the most obvious differences between ourselves. Especially when it comes to something as sensitive and controversial as spirituality. What a shame. What a shame.

CONCLUSION PART 2 IS THE BLACK CHURCH GUILTY OF CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE

CONCLUSION PART 2 IS THE BLACK CHURCH GUILTY OF CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE


The First part of this post was a very harsh critique of the black churches leadership on the aids issue. In it I argue that the church is guilty of criminal negligence, although the dialog in the comment sections didnt adrees that. Anyway here is the conclussion I came up with as a result of my findng the black church guilty as well as some measures that should be adopted to remedy the prior abuse and hatred promoted by the black church.


The black church is guilty of criminal neglect on the issue of aids in the black america community because even after leading government experts were warning us about aids and exactly how it was spread they failed to lead and in fact promoted hatred against gays as well as fairy tales that aids was god cursing gay folks. They continued to do this long after magic johson, Eazy E and Authur Ashe came out and said they contracted aids from ways other than homosexual activity. The fact that the black church continued to promote this fairy tale after those brave brothas came out about their Hiv status goes WAYYYYYYYYYYY BEYOND unacceptable.

Instead of the black church leading on this issue and educating the black american population to protect themselves and their families. They choose to promote hatred and fairy tales without a single solitary shred of biblical evidence from the bible that god would curse homosexuals with aids. The church failed to refine themselves and their message sufficiently to allow themselves to grow, evolve and mature into higher truths and intellectual positions. Because of these prejudices and biases they choose to focus on the on a narrow interpretation of the bible which allowed them to blame aids on homosexuality and get away with it This narrow and ignorant interpretation had various negative and compounding effects, on the black american population including-


1) Fostering a climate which pressured gay men into pretending they were straight, which resulted in a certain amount of gay men getting married but still carrying on with men, which resulted in men bringing diseases home?
2) Fostering a climate where men and women who are gay feel ostracized, ridiculed and not taken seriously, or respected?
3) Allowed black people to continue to have unsafe sex in spite of the danger because after all aids is a curse on homosexuals by god isn’t it?
4) Totally marganilized a whole community of black people who were still a part of the black american family while promoting scorn and ridicule against the black american gay population.

This fairy tale amateurish interpretation of christianity was flawed from the beginning because it only focused on condemneding homosexuality which is not the only sin that people committ. People where having unprotected sex all the time and that is a sin as well but the preachers didn’t signify about that did they? Also children born out of wedlock has been a gigantic problem in the black community for a long time and we all know how that unmarried child thing is working out in the black community. . Still no robust policy of condom use and safe sex promotion amongst black churches targeted at all unmarried black people having sex. Starting with the people in their congregations.

Because of an extremely narrow interpretation of Christianity/spirituality they chose to vilify homosexuals while excusing/ignoring behavior that was resulting in a 70% out of wedlock birthrate for black children, an hiv death rate 13 times as high for black women as for white and the sad fact that black kids make up 60% of children with aids. The fact is the black church was warned exactly what was up with Hiv along with the rest of america many, many, many times over the last 25 years and they chose to present fairytale reasons for what was happening while black children were being born infected at much higher rates than all other children in america. I consider this pure bafoonery as condom use policy promotion by the church probably could have spared hundred, if not thousands of lives in the african american populaion.

The Black church is guilty of criminal neglect. No doubt about it.


What is to be done

Take the main points from this document and turn them into a debatle argument that is simple to understand yet thunderously hard hitting proving the churces negligence.

Force a debate with the black church in order to get them to renounce that aids is a curse by god against homo sexuality, make then renounce their bigotry against homosexuals and apologize to homosexuals and their families for endorsing and allowing a level of homophobia that has caused a lot of pain and suffering in the black community.


After we have proven in no uncertain terms that their actions on their matter have been beyond shameful then we should demand the church creates a united plan to fight, treat and test all of their members and the general black american public.

The church should also set up counseling and support programs for those people who test positive for Hiv.

The black church should apologize for misleading the entire black american population about aids.

Every black preacher in american should sign a creed of ethics and piousy, that would prohibit any black preacher (called by god) to recieve an income higher than that of the average black american from the coffers of the church. Every black preacher should sign a moral contract with black america.

IF GOD IS OUT THERE THEN WHY NO OBVIOUS SIGNS (S)?

Religion is and has been one of my favorite topics for a long time. Talking about religion is something I have always enjoyed and usually find intellectually and spiritually rewarding as well. What I would like to do with this post is to promote and expand understanding amongst open minded religious and non religious people about what spirituality (not religion) is really all about. I would also like to give people an opportunity to express why they love and have such faith in their creator as expressed through their religion.

I myself was raised a Christian, I even tried pretty hard to be a good one. At about the age of 15 I was influence by an older gentleman who was a devout believer in Jesus Christ. He told me that there had once been a time in his life when everything he touched fell apart and he was lost. He believed that he'd been rescued from his pain and suffering through the blessings of god.

This gentleman actually drove the bus that took us to school in the morning and so I got the chance to really get to know him and who he was. What a true gentlemen this man was. He was totally committed to his beliefs, he gave up women, liquor and several other things he considered vices all in an effort to walk in step with god. After talking about the scriptures with him for a time, I became motivated and inspired to find god. So I attempted to read the Bible in its entirety, my purpose wasn't just to read the scriptures for the sake of reading the scriptures I was trying to get closer to god. Even though my life was rough at the time I wasn't asking for help from god out of my situation I just wanted to do right by god and to be sure that I was doing right by god. Eventually I ended up spending about 3 months trying to read the bible.



One night while reading the scriptures, I began to get sleepy ( it was about 10:30 pm and I had school the next day). But I still wanted to get some more reading in , so I went to the bathroom were it was cold, hoping that would keep me awake so I could continue studying gods word. I again began to fall asleep. After a time I stopped reading and I attempted to speak directly to god.



"God if this is your word then please give me a sign, just let me know that this is the way to get closer to you" The reply I got back was silence I again asked god to show me a sign, and again I received the same reply which was silence. Shortly after this I then began to ask god questions that had been lingering in my mind for a while. Things such as God if you exist then how com?

Some folks (including innocent children) don't have enough food to eat while some rotten people get to live it up.

Some children don't have parents around to love, protect and guide them as they struggle to survive in a world that can be cruel.
So many good people have bad things happen to them including losing mothers and fathers who are actually providing for their children while some people who are rotten bastards get to live to ripe old ages mooching off of and using of others.

Once again folks, nothing but silence, in spite of the fact that I have spent a great deal of time and energy over the years agonizing over these questions. In spite of all that effort I had put into finding and knowing these answers, there wasn't and hasn't been any answers forthcoming from god about such questions for me.



I could never understand why the most unfortunate things happen to children through no fault of their own in a just world, underneath the supervision and authority of a god, who not only has the power to stop such things from happening but also knew these children would suffer long before they or their parents were even born.



Although I continued to be a christian for the next 3 or so years, that night in the bathroom when I asked for a sign from god and received nothing was the beginning of my eventual break from Christianity ( as well as my biased and sometimes hostile attitude towards all religions).

By the age of 20 my break with religion (Christianity) was complete and permanent. It was the most painful and disappointing thing I have ever gone through in my life. Since the, I have participated in lots of ( sometimes exasperating but enjoyable) conversations with Christians of all sects. I have also had similar conversations with people of different religions including Judaism and Islam. Eventually I have found, that if we debate long enough it always concludes with the religious folk saying something such as,



"well, we cant prove our religion's validity over another, we have our text and our beliefs and after that its a matter of faith and god will decide who one is correct",



to which I point out that millions of Muslims/Jew/Budhisht have faith in their religions validity, does that mean because they are not Christians and don't believe that Jesus Christ was the son of god or even if they don't believe in Jesus Christ at all they wont get to heaven when their "faith" has lead them to these beliefs. My thinking on this matter is, that type of logic is backwards and retarded so personally, I have always believed that spiritual/religious people need to come up with a better explanation to the questions I have posed other than its a matter of faith in the end and that determines whether or not folks get to paradise (heaven) or not.



I have never received anything close to a credible or logical answer from Christians or other religious folks when I have asked question such as these. The above questions still linger in my mind to this day in fact I have asked those same questions of Christians and people of other religious affiliations many times and in many different ways and I never received any answer to similar and obvious questions based on the logic that Christians and other religious folks use to explain the world and god. My other questions have been and are

If everything is written then how is it possible for any man or woman to have free will or control over their actions?
If god created everything in the universe including the devil and all of the evil inside of the devil wouldn't that make god responsible for everything that the devil has ever done to hurt mankind?
If god knew exactly what the devil was going to do to confuse and hurt his children wouldn't that also make god responsible for the devils actions especially when you factor in that god created all of the wickedness inside of the devil and human beings in the first place.?
If god put the capacity inside of man and the devil to harm innocent people (particularly children) and the world, then wouldn't that make god responsible for the harm to children and people caused by man and the devil?

If god loves man then why is there so much wickedness, murder, rape, mayhem and chaos going on in the world, especially around impressionable children and what about famines and other natural disasters that injure and kill scores of people every year if god can stop them and doesn't wouldn't that make him responsible for those disasters as well?

Every year millions of kids, die from starvation, debilitating, painful and disfiguring disease's. Millions of women and children are sexually abused, raped and made orphans by aids each year in Africa alone, let alone the rest of the world. Their are now 10 million orphans in Africa as a result of the Aids epidemic and my question to god and Christians is this, didn't god know that all of these catastrophes were gonna go down and how come he didn't stop them from happening at least to innocent children? The christian god I was raised on is an all powerful being indeed, how hard would it have been for him to step in and prevent terribly unfortunate incidents at least from happening to kids ?

When I have asked questions like these in the past Christians have responded with these types of answers " Read bible chapter such and such " ( insert appropriate biblical quote here) , My response is , exactly which of the over 20 different bibles should I read chapter such and such from after all their are over 20 different bibles. Ive also heard things such as well god has his own plan and whatever happens is gods will.

My response is this type of thinking is, those are profound sounding words but they wont put a single meal in the mouths of 1 of those 10 million orphans in Africa (or any other third world regions), those words wont heal any child in the world infected with aids by their mother nor will they heal any of the thousands of people in Liberia and Sierra Leone who have had their hands, feet and other body parts amputated by butchers.

Ive also heard things like, maybe god showed you a sign and you just didn't see it. My response to this is, why would god make a sign hard to see when I ( or anybody else) is asking him to reveal his word? Ive also heard things such as maybe kids are suffering for the sins of their parents. My reply to this is, If god is a just god then that doesn't make any sense to me, why should a kid suffer for actions of the parents which they have no control of.

Every year millions of kids are forced into into illegal/sinful activities such as child soldiers and prostitutes. If their is a god and a specific way humans are supposed to live then it makes zero sense why god would allow innocent children to be forced to live against his in my opinion.

Everyday we hear of stories of what immoral and harmful things are happening all over the world. Under a christian god, how is that right or just? Is it right that a child suffers for the choices an adult makes if god is the one who created all of the choices those adults make in the first place? Does that really make an iota of sense? I mean for real what's that all about?

If a child has absolutely no control over their parents and how their parents choose to live why must that child suffer in this world supposedly created by a loving all powerful and knowing god?

The kicker is this when I have asked christian folks questions such as these, they say things such as go pray and if you really pray to god and you are looking for answers they will be revealed to you. Or sometimes Ive heard, god works in mysterious ways and the message was their you just didn't see because it wasn't obvious.

To this type of logic my thinking is, what sense does it make for so wise and all knowing a being to be sending messages revealing his truths in way's that aren't crystal clear and easy for everyone to understand. Why would god put his messages and signs that lead to salvation in un obvious or hidden messages. Surely something as important as gods words and his works should be revealed in a more obvious and less confusing way shouldn't they?

The fact that there are several different religions claiming that all followers of other religions are going to hell for eternity proves quite easily that their is confusion about which religion is the actual word of god and will lead a soul to salvation. For instance we don't argue over whether or not the sun is yellow because everyone accepts the fact that the sun is what we know as yellow.

Even amongst billions of people who look different, speak different languages, practice different religions and live in different parts of the world the sun is considered yellow. God could break his word down this simple if he wanted or chose to. Wouldn't that make more sense and breed a lot less confusion? After all Christians do not agree with each other on some fundamental points of christian doctrine so if one is a non believer searching for god which way are they to roll, Catholicism, Baptist, or Jehovah Witness, Islam/Judaism ?

Ive thought long and hard about these matters and I believe that if god does exist as presented by the bible (and Christians) then he would make it clear to all that the bible was his first, last and only word it would also be presented in such a way that no one could argue or be confused about it. If Christianity (or any other religion) was the only way to attain spiritual salvation I believe that god would have made that fact crystal clear a long time ago, with such overwhelming evidence that all would be able to universally agree on it the same way we all agree that the sun is yellow. That makes sense to me, not all of these mysterious reasons for gods actions or all of these signs that are hard to find and see and confusing to even will meaning Christians or other spiritual people. Peace

A CLOWN PRINCE AMONGST HYPOCRITS I WOULD LIKE TO STRANGLE THIS GUY

Back in the early 1990's when I was in college (I never made it out) I was a very politically active young fellow. Their were several protest I participated in over my short lived career as an activist.

During this time I was reading books about the struggle and my taste went from books about the panthers, Malcolm X as well as dozens of autobiographies of black historical figures (many of them jazz or blues musicians). I studied historians such as Dr. Ben Jochanan, Dr. John Henrik Clarke and Ivan Van Sertima as part of my quest for knowledge from a black perspective.


Anyway during one of the protest I participated in, me and some other activist took over the board room in the building housing the presidents office. This would have been on a Friday during that Friday and all throughout the weekend many officials from the government of Washington DC were sent to meet, negotiate with us and then to end our protest and get us out of the Board of Trustees meeting room.


The 2 main negotiators from our side was a young brotha on his way to becoming a mid level activist and a young sistah who was only a campus activist and would not go on to make that her career/life's work. In all, Id say there were about ten of us who were protesting, during that weekend, us band of merry protesters really got to know each other well during that campaign, we recited poetry, we talked about music along with fellowshiping in general.

What became clear quite early during our protest is that the two negotiators didn't get along with each other whatsoever. Actually (we'll call the guy John and well call the lady Kimberly) during one of the meetings with city officials John who was the leader was interrupted by Kimberly who felt like John wasn't emphasizing things she thought should be emphasized.

This sent John into a silent rage as he spun around in his chair enraged but saying nothing. After the city official left the boardroom John and Kimberly got into a nasty argument which eventually led to John stating that we were to keep that bitch away from him. Although I knew John had an out of control ego, him calling Kimberly a bitch in public like that was a few levels over the top, I didn't know he would disrespect black women is such a public way. Especially considering the fact that John was supposed to be conscious and pro black, this consciousness included showing utmost respect for black women.

Anyway fast forward to the end of the protest, eventually we would go on to reject all of the offers made by the city officials ( I forget what offers were made) and by Sunday the President and Board of Trustees (fed up with us) had instructed the city police to remove us from the building in order to have school as regularly scheduled the next day. We knew the police were coming and we knew when, as we stood looking at the window some of our conscious friends stood outside looking up at us from the plaza. As we gave black powerful salutes to our friends the police flashed black power salutes back at us protesters (what assholes) anyway shortly after that the police stormed the meeting room and we were evicted from the boardroom without being arrested (the president and board didn't want arrested they just wanted us gone).

After being evicted from the school administration building, we then caught a cab over to one of the protesters apartment. In the cab was John and Kimberly, myself and about 3 others out of the ten protesters. As the cab pulled up to our destination, me John and a brotha named Craig got out of the cab, then everyone. As we were standing in front of our destination John then threatened to "destroy" Kimberly for undermining him during the protest and began to move towards her in a violent way. At that point I approached John and told him that his behavior 100% unacceptable and a complete contradiction to the consciousness we were engaged in and trying to promote amongst black folks.

Me, Craig and John then spent the next 2 hours walking along the damp streets of the city as I yelled at him and begged him to open his mind to the fact that if we (black men) continued to disrespect and hurt black women the all of this consciousness/black stuff didn't mean a thing. By the time I finished with him there is no way on this earth he could ever say that he didn't understand where I was coming from. In fact he admitted to me that he needed to change but that it would take time, to which I told him again that putting his hands on a black woman was profane and not acceptable.

Fast forward again to recent and current times, now John has had a radio program on one of Cathy Hughes radio stations for about ten years now as well as an African name (Matsumala or something like that). John is a mid level activist doing what mid level activists do. If a famous activist like Dick Gregory or Jessie Jackson show up in town he is always in the crowd wearing the Dashiki's or Kente cloth spewing the rhetoric. The problem is along with always being around activist and protest on the behalf of the American black population this brotha has long record during that time of abusing women.

A lady who Ive known for years, who is active in Washington DC activist circles mentioned Johns abuse of black women without me saying anything about that night he tried to beat up Kimberly. Then about 3 weeks ago I was taking a walk with my mentor and she mentioned it along with the fact that John had actually been arrested for beating up women.

Brotha's like John make me sick to my stomach because for some reason they cannot seem to process the fact that all of their talk against the system/man means absolutely nothing if we don't treat each other with the utmost respect. Putting your hand on a woman (especially a black woman) knowing all they have been through in this society is a sin in my book.

Now that I think about it I should have whooped Johns as# that night because cats like him cannot be talked out of abusing/beating up woman, all the talking in the world would never do any good. As profound, intelligent and deep as brothas like John are they fail to understand that revolution just doesn't extend to getting the system/man up off of us but revolution also includes taking our (black men's) game to another level to cover the areas of cheating on your wife/girlfriend then acting like its OK, not talking down to them and definitely never, ever putting your hands on them.

But when you have a supposedly conscious brotha, who is also a leader and has access to the public airwaves his abusive behavior towards sisters is utterly sickening. Brotha John has indeed earned himself the title of CLOWN PRINCE AMONGST HYPOCRITES because it is nothing but pure hypocrisy raising hell about how awful America is, when you have been beating up black women for the last ten years at night but during the day on your radio show your spewing black power rhetoric.

This cat is and has been turd for a long time now.