TODAY IS...

PLEASE PASS THIS ON! (EACH ONE TEACH ONE OR TWO!) THIS IS PHASE ONE ON HOW WE CAN HELP TO STRENGTHEN & EMPOWER OUR COMMUNITY:The 2008 not guilty verdict in the Sean Bell case evoked outrage, emotion, and debate. It is not an anomaly that the police officers involved in the Sean Bell slaying were acquitted of all charges on all counts in State Supreme Court. I could run out of ink printing the names of people who have been victimized by the inaptly named justice system.

The American justice system has been especially terroristic towards the African American community. Many community members can cite historic and personal accounts to prove this. Therefore, it would be foolhardy (at the least) to turn to a system that has methodically oppressed us, and request that they free us. We can only free ourselves through extreme discipline and intelligent planning.

As a community we have been too compliant with leaders who organize ineffective, delayed reactions. The only strategy that can save us in this last hour is one that calls for a collective code of conduct that will be conducive to improving the conditions of our community, and shifting the paradigm of how we are treated by outside entities. The first step of this code of conduct should be based on economics.

The old adage of “money talks,” still reigns true in the new millennium. Any political scientist worth his or her library card will tell you that: “Economic powerlessness equals political powerlessness,” and conversely “economic power equals political power.” This means that if we continue to allow our wealth to be extracted from our community, we will remain impotent.

The power of the collective “Black Dollar” is often discussed. However, that power has been left unchanneled. Today is the day to change that. A one-time boycott is not going to bring long-term change and respect to our community. Our community has launched boycotts before. Our success and ascension will be based on what we consistently do. For this reason, we should initiate “BUY BLACK FRIDAYS.”

BUY BLACK FRIDAYS is a small step towards our community acquiring power via controlling our economics. Every Friday, people who acknowledge the injustice and oppression that the African American community has been consistently subjected to should do one of the following:

Option #1: Spend $0 on Friday
Option #2: Spend no more than $10 on Friday
Option #3: Only Shop at Black Businesses on Friday
[PLEASE NOTE THAT THE ABOVE OPTIONS CAN & SHOULD BE EXERCISED ON A DAILY BASIS. However, we can all at the very least focus on Fridays. This way we can take a collective stand and build our collective discipline. Please remember that this is only Phase 1!].

To the people who are tempted to label “BUY BLACK FRIDAYS” as racist, I say this: In the big scheme of things, this is about right & wrong, justice & injustice. The African American community is a strong, proud community that has endured the brunt of America’s iron fist. We must stop the pounding. I feel that any fair-minded individual will concur, and join in.

ANY business that is privileged to enjoy the support of the African American community MUST return that support.

I thank you in advance for your effort and dedication.

-Elsie Law AKA Starface

Quote Of The Day

"It is surprising what a man can do when he has to, and how little most men will do when they don't have to." -Walter Linn

Quote Of The Day

"If you have made mistakes, there is always another chance for you. You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down." -Mary Pickford

Newsletter News Brief: Drink Water

"Researchers estimate that half of the world’s population is chronically dehydrated. And in America, that level is even higher at 75 percent of the population.

More than two-thirds of your body weight is water. Without adequate water, your body’s biochemical and electrical processes begin to break down." -From, "Ten Reasons to Drink More Water" By: Care2

Quote Of The Day

"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed." -Albert Einstein

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words Pic Of The Week

Roberto Clemente, Wille Mays, and Hank Aaron

The Lead Paint Travesty

“...Perhaps Baltimore’s Kennedy Krieger Institute (KKI) best exemplified the dubious protection of parental consent, which it was careful to elicit when it began its “Repair and Maintenance Study” in the mid-1990s. Researchers approached black families in 108 units of decrepit housing encrusted with crumbling, peeling lead paint. Lead paint is a notorious cause of acute illness and chronic mental retardation in young children, who inhale the lead borne on the air and nibble the peeling paint chips, drawn by the appealing sweet taste of the lead. That same sweet taste led Romans to infuse their wine with lead, courting mental devastation, which some historians believe hastened their civilization’s decline. Today, it is poor children in crumbling inner-city housing who suffer most from lead. Fortunately, we know how to protect children by banning the use of lead paint and by offering lead-abatement programs. But the agenda of the KKI scientists did not include removing children from lead exposure, because they planned to use these children to evaluate new, cheaper lead-abatement techniques- of unknown efficacy- in old homes with peeling paint.

Because scientists wished to explore cheaper ways of eliminating the lead threat in the future, they purposely arranged with landlords to have children inhabit lead-tainted housing so that they could monitor changes in the children’s lead levels as well as the brain and developmental damage that resulted from different kinds of lead-abatement programs. Scientists offered parents of children in these lead-laden homes incentives such as fifteen-dollar payments to cooperate with the study, without divulging that it placed their children at risk of lead exposure. The literature given the parents implied that the study was protecting their children from lead damage and promised to inform parents of any hazards.

KKI researchers simultaneously encouraged landlords of approximately 125 tainted housing units to rent to families with young children by paying for the lead abatement if the landlords rented to such families. They met with chilling success. When the KKI drew blood from one-year-old Ericka Grimes on April 9, 1993, for example, her reading was nine micrograms per deciliter, which is a ‘normal’ reading, according to CDC guidelines. The KKI identified lead-imbued hot spots in the home but did not tell Ericka’s parents. When Ericka was retested on September 15, 1994, her blood-lead reading was 32, which CDC charts label a ‘highly elevated’ reading.” --From, "Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to The Present" By: Harriet A. Washington

[SIDEBAR: This book is a MUST read! Please go out and get it. It has superb information in it! It should be required reading in all educational institutions. *SIDEBAR UPDATE*: The only objection I have to this book is the epilogue. I disagree with a lot of conclusions drawn in that section of the book. I still appreciate how thoroughly researched and explained the rest of the book is though.]

Quote Of The Day

“Patience can't be acquired overnight. It is just like building up a muscle. Every day you need to work on it.”

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words Pic Of The Week

Jackie Robinson leaving Ebbets Field, 1947

TODAY IS...

PLEASE PASS THIS ON! (EACH ONE TEACH ONE OR TWO!) THIS IS PHASE ONE ON HOW WE CAN HELP TO STRENGTHEN & EMPOWER OUR COMMUNITY:The 2008 not guilty verdict in the Sean Bell case evoked outrage, emotion, and debate. It is not an anomaly that the police officers involved in the Sean Bell slaying were acquitted of all charges on all counts in State Supreme Court. I could run out of ink printing the names of people who have been victimized by the inaptly named justice system.

The American justice system has been especially terroristic towards the African American community. Many community members can cite historic and personal accounts to prove this. Therefore, it would be foolhardy (at the least) to turn to a system that has methodically oppressed us, and request that they free us. We can only free ourselves through extreme discipline and intelligent planning.

As a community we have been too compliant with leaders who organize ineffective, delayed reactions. The only strategy that can save us in this last hour is one that calls for a collective code of conduct that will be conducive to improving the conditions of our community, and shifting the paradigm of how we are treated by outside entities. The first step of this code of conduct should be based on economics.

The old adage of “money talks,” still reigns true in the new millennium. Any political scientist worth his or her library card will tell you that: “Economic powerlessness equals political powerlessness,” and conversely “economic power equals political power.” This means that if we continue to allow our wealth to be extracted from our community, we will remain impotent.

The power of the collective “Black Dollar” is often discussed. However, that power has been left unchanneled. Today is the day to change that. A one-time boycott is not going to bring long-term change and respect to our community. Our community has launched boycotts before. Our success and ascension will be based on what we consistently do. For this reason, we should initiate “BUY BLACK FRIDAYS.”

BUY BLACK FRIDAYS is a small step towards our community acquiring power via controlling our economics. Every Friday, people who acknowledge the injustice and oppression that the African American community has been consistently subjected to should do one of the following:

Option #1: Spend $0 on Friday
Option #2: Spend no more than $10 on Friday
Option #3: Only Shop at Black Businesses on Friday
[PLEASE NOTE THAT THE ABOVE OPTIONS CAN & SHOULD BE EXERCISED ON A DAILY BASIS. However, we can all at the very least focus on Fridays. This way we can take a collective stand and build our collective discipline. Please remember that this is only Phase 1!].

To the people who are tempted to label “BUY BLACK FRIDAYS” as racist, I say this: In the big scheme of things, this is about right & wrong, justice & injustice. The African American community is a strong, proud community that has endured the brunt of America’s iron fist. We must stop the pounding. I feel that any fair-minded individual will concur, and join in.

ANY business that is privileged to enjoy the support of the African American community MUST return that support.

I thank you in advance for your effort and dedication.

-Elsie Law AKA Starface

Quote Of The Day

"A great civilization is not conquered from without, until it has destroyed itself from within." -Will Durant

Quote Of The Day

"Why should the violent behavior of some desperate and discouraged people point to a specific disorder of their brain while the corruption and violence of some congressmen and presidents provokes no similar theory?" -Stephen Jay Gould

Quote Of The Day

"Any time you have an opportunity to make a difference in this world and you don't, then you are wasting your time on Earth." -Roberto Clemente

Happy birthday to Roberto Clemente!

Video Of The Week: Marcus Garvey Speaks

"If Black people knew more about their glorious past, they would be inclined to do much more to protect themselves..."

Listen to the words of Marcus Garvey, spoken by the man himself...This is a must watch...


CLICK HERE FOR MOBILE PHONE VIEWERS

Quote Of The Day

"Progress is the attraction that moves humanity." -Marcus Garvey

Happy Birthday to Marcus Garvey!

Quote Of The Day

"Conversation was never begun at once, nor in a hurried manner. No one was quick with a question, no matter how important, and no one was pressed for an answer. A pause giving time for thought was the truly courteous way of beginning and conducting a conversation. Silence was meaningful with the Lakota, and his granting a space of silence to the speech-maker and his own moment of silence before talking was done in the practice of true politeness and regard for the rule that, 'thought comes before speech.'"

Malcolm X States His Purpose Of Writing His Life Story

Malcolm X choose to create his biography with writer, Alex Haley. He thought that the tranformative story of his life would be of great value to his readers. He was 100% correct. I am hard-pressed to think of another biography that has so positively influenced others.

In an excerpt from his autobiography, Malcolm X states: "I have given this book so much of whatever time I have because I feel, and I hope, that if I honestly and fully tell my life's account, read objectively it might be a testimony of some social value."

The Black History Fact Of The Day

On this day in 1921, writer and historian, Alex Haley, was born. Alex Haley is famously known for writing "Roots," and Malcolm X's autobiography.

Quote Of The Day

"I wasn't going to be one of those people who died wondering what if? I would keep putting my dreams to the test - even though it meant living with uncertainty and fear of failure. This is the shadowland of hope, and anyone with a dream must learn to live there." -Alex Haley

Quote Of The Day

"What we need to know about loving is no great mystery. We all know what constitutes loving behavior; we need but act upon it, not continually question it. Over analysis often confuses the issue and in the end brings us no closer to insight. We sometimes become too busy classifying, separating, and examining, to remember that love is easy. It's we who make it complicated." -Leo Buscaglia

Quote Of The Day

"The most important trip you may take in life is meeting people halfway." -Henry Boye

TODAY IS...

PLEASE PASS THIS ON! (EACH ONE TEACH ONE OR TWO!) THIS IS PHASE ONE ON HOW WE CAN HELP TO STRENGTHEN & EMPOWER OUR COMMUNITY:The 2008 not guilty verdict in the Sean Bell case evoked outrage, emotion, and debate. It is not an anomaly that the police officers involved in the Sean Bell slaying were acquitted of all charges on all counts in State Supreme Court. I could run out of ink printing the names of people who have been victimized by the inaptly named justice system.

The American justice system has been especially terroristic towards the African American community. Many community members can cite historic and personal accounts to prove this. Therefore, it would be foolhardy (at the least) to turn to a system that has methodically oppressed us, and request that they free us. We can only free ourselves through extreme discipline and intelligent planning.

As a community we have been too compliant with leaders who organize ineffective, delayed reactions. The only strategy that can save us in this last hour is one that calls for a collective code of conduct that will be conducive to improving the conditions of our community, and shifting the paradigm of how we are treated by outside entities. The first step of this code of conduct should be based on economics.

The old adage of “money talks,” still reigns true in the new millennium. Any political scientist worth his or her library card will tell you that: “Economic powerlessness equals political powerlessness,” and conversely “economic power equals political power.” This means that if we continue to allow our wealth to be extracted from our community, we will remain impotent.

The power of the collective “Black Dollar” is often discussed. However, that power has been left unchanneled. Today is the day to change that. A one-time boycott is not going to bring long-term change and respect to our community. Our community has launched boycotts before. Our success and ascension will be based on what we consistently do. For this reason, we should initiate “BUY BLACK FRIDAYS.”

BUY BLACK FRIDAYS is a small step towards our community acquiring power via controlling our economics. Every Friday, people who acknowledge the injustice and oppression that the African American community has been consistently subjected to should do one of the following:

Option #1: Spend $0 on Friday
Option #2: Spend no more than $10 on Friday
Option #3: Only Shop at Black Businesses on Friday
[PLEASE NOTE THAT THE ABOVE OPTIONS CAN & SHOULD BE EXERCISED ON A DAILY BASIS. However, we can all at the very least focus on Fridays. This way we can take a collective stand and build our collective discipline. Please remember that this is only Phase 1!].

To the people who are tempted to label “BUY BLACK FRIDAYS” as racist, I say this: In the big scheme of things, this is about right & wrong, justice & injustice. The African American community is a strong, proud community that has endured the brunt of America’s iron fist. We must stop the pounding. I feel that any fair-minded individual will concur, and join in.

ANY business that is privileged to enjoy the support of the African American community MUST return that support.

I thank you in advance for your effort and dedication.

-Elsie Law AKA Starface

Quote Of The Day

"It is part of the cure to wish to be cured." -Seneca