Quote Of The Day

"Knowledge will give you power, but character respect." -Bruce Lee

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

"Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will." -Mahatma Gandhi

Riddle Me This: Did Slavery Cause The Disease Of Consumer Consumption?

"During slavery, blacks had little to no control over their lives and fates. This seeded a sende of 'living in the now' in our psyches. In a society where rank is determined by material wealth, we are still seeking to buy lost status, only this time through mindless, unbridled consumption." -From, "Brainwashed" By: Tom Burrell

Quote Of The Day

"Then, without realizing it, you try to improve yourself at the start of each new day; of course, you achieve quite a lot in the course of time. Anyone can do this. It costs nothing and is certainly very helpful. Whoever doesn't know it must learn and find by experience that a quiet conscience makes one strong." -Anne Frank

Book Excerpt Of The Week: Part 1- “Conspiracies Cover-ups and Crimes” By: Jonathan Vankin

“...These are American conspiracy theories, many with long historical roots, but, nonetheless, distinctively contemporary conspiracy theories. These are theories born in a country too big and diverse to govern, but permeated totally by government. A country whose basic ideal is individual freedom, where life is dominated by authority...We’ve substituted the multicolored spectacle of consumerism for control over our own lives, an we’re supposed to think that because we have so much stuff available for purchase we have the freedom to choose. But you can’t fool everyone. Conspiracy theorists may not always be right, but they are not fooled..” -From, “Conspiracies Cover-ups and Crimes” By: Jonathan Vankin

Quote Of The Day

"That which is opposed to good has no future."

Quote Of The Day

"The most solid comfort one can fall back upon is the thought that the business of one's life is to help in some small way to reduce the sum of ignorance, degradation and misery on the face of this beautiful earth." -George Eliot

Quote Of The Day

"With courage you will dare to take risks, have the strength to be compassionate, and the wisdom to be humble. Courage is the foundation of integrity."

Quote Of The Day

"Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little." -Edmund Burke

Quote Of The Day

"It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great person is one who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Book Excerpt Of The Week: Part 2- “Conspiracies Cover-ups and Crimes” By: Jonathan Vankin

“There seem to be government connections to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Accused killer Ray was not arrested until nearly a month after the fact, in England, of all places. Where a nickel-and-dime crook like Ray got the funds for his extensive trans- and intercontinental travels piques the interest of all conspiracy researchers.

The government’s unusual behavior in prosecuting (and some would say, defending) Ray was also cause for concern. Only one witness, a chronic drunkard and self-avowed racist named Charles Q. Stephens, gave a positive make on Ray as the gunman. But he didn’t ‘recall’ that Ray was the he’d seen until six weeks later. On the night of the assassination, when interviewed by a newspaper reporter, Stephens described the man he’d seen fleeing from the alleged sniper’s nest as ‘a ni**er.’

Stephens’ live-in girlfriend, Grace Walden, has said that he was nearly unconscious from booze that night and couldn’t have observed much of anything. Walden had her own story. She had seen a white man- not fitting Ray’s description- running from the scene.

Walden was committed to a mental institution the same day her boyfriend was taken into FBI protective custody. A court later found that she was committed illegally. Grace Walden was the witness Mark Lane and Jim Jones discussed smuggling to Jonestown, according to the memo found in Jonestown files.

Is there a systematic conspiracy to eliminate black leaders, to disable and discredit black activist groups? There are conspiratorial cadres, the Ku Klux Klan and others, who wouldn’t be adverse to aim. The FBI formed its own conspiracy, COINTELPRO (short for counterintelligence program), which planted provocateurs in black activist groups, crippling them.” -From, “Conspiracies Cover-ups and Crimes” By: Jonathan Vankin

Book Excerpt Of The Week: Part 1- “Conspiracies Cover-ups and Crimes” By: Jonathan Vankin

“One theory of Jonestown is that it was part of a “black genocide operation,” intended to be one of many such programs to entrap, enslave, and eventually kill off black people.

In the game of American power, blacks are consistent losers. Many of those blacks political leaders with the most potential to alter that situation have been cut down. No conspiracy theories required: Effective black politics has been decapitated by violence.

Malcolm X was assassinated just as he was beginning to moderate his views on separatism, just as he was coming in from the political fringe. Martin Luther King Jr., who never ran for office, was capable of changing the American system, and he did. He bridged society’s gaps. When he was assassinated, he was beginning to preach about economic democracy that would unify the underprivileged of all races.

Civil rights leader Medgar Evers was also assassinated. Kings’s mother was shot to death just days after King’s widow stated that she believed a conspiracy killed her husband.

Huey Newton founded the Black Panther Party. Their violent public image to the contrary, the Black Panthers’ most important achievements were in promoting community self-determination. Their free breakfast program for black schoolchildren was a model, and they started a private school that offered the quality education unavailable to inner city blacks in public schools. Newton was shot in an altercation with police and jailed for allegedly killing a police officer (long since passe, Newton was murdered on an Oakland street in 1989). Another Panther leader, Fred Hampton of Chicago, was gunned down by a gang of police who burst into his apartment at four in the morning.

The most recent death of an effective black leader came in August 1989. Mickey Leland, the Texas congressman who was the leading congressional advocate of African hunger relief, was killed on a mission to a mission to an Ethiopian refugee camp. The small plane carrying Leland and fifteen others- and which had been scheduled to have on board another outspoken black congressman, Ron Dellums- apparently crashed into the side of a mountain near Addis Ababa. The search for Leland in Marxist-ruled Ethiopia was the largest of its kind ever conducted. The intelligence community was openly involved, sending U-2 spy planes to survey the country.

A couple of the killings on the preceding list were obvious conspiracies. Others are more doubtful. The question is, if any were conspiracies, why?” -From, “Conspiracies Cover-ups and Crimes” By: Jonathan Vankin

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

"To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order. To put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order. To put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life. We must first set our hearts right." -Confucius

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words Pic Of The Week: Part 2

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words Pic Of The Week: Part 1

Quote Of The Day

"An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity." -Martin Luther King, Jr.