Lean on Me (for some knowledge)

"Lean on Me" has got to be one of the better 1980s inspirational teacher movies. My favorite scene has to be the one in which Charmaine from Cosby Show/A Different World fame announces that " We don't want a good principle, we want Mr. Clark!". Hopefully my future students will feel the same way about me (but consider me a good teacher as well). I'll be teaching for America and if I can get my kids to join me in a sing-a-long from time to time they'll knock out those Regents exams.

I got my OJ Check

In the aftermath of the OJ Simpson trial way back in the 90s, Chris Rock mentioned that black people were too happy over the verdict and white people too mad. Our folk were shouting out: "We won, we won!". Meanwhile we didn't get our OJ checks in the mail.

Well America, our time has come. The Economic Stimulus Plan of 2008 has sent out millions of dollars in the mail to the American people in an effort to jolt the economy (or forget about high gas prices, the prohibitive costs of health care, the Iraq War, whatevs).

Now that we've finally got our OJ checks I hope the people use them to pay the light bill or to pay down that credit card instead of copping some rims.

commencing

All of my energies for the past 4 years were building up towards the culmination of a 2 and a half hour ceremony that took place on Sunday, May 25th, 2008. Commencement. The beginning. And not to be hackneyed (but isn't the use of cliche what graduation is all about?) but its like the beginning of the end: the end of my undergraduate career; the end of my (prolonged) childhood; the end of my life in Western Massachusetts. But Commencement is so appropriately named, its the beginning of so many new things: my "adult" life, my status as a post-grad, my entry into the working world (lawd hab mercy).

I'll miss Amherst. We had a love/hate relationship. But I'll miss living with some of my closet friends, the meal plan, the classes, the professors, the free gym membership, the view over Memorial Hill. It wasn't the ideal experience, but it was home. And you take home with the good and the bad.

I have no clue what to expect from these next two years - I'll be teaching lil scholars in the NYC public schools until I bounce to get my grad school on. Hopefully I'll be able to impart some of what I learned to the kiddies.


I can't wait for homecoming...

wishing well

Not all of us have forgotten about you Terence Trent D'Arby.

You'll always be more than a Prince knock-off that bore an eerie resemblance to Milli Vanilli. Brother could sang and dance.
*snaps*

Answering the Call

Former North Carolina (throw ya' hands up) Senator John Edwards is officially cosigning on Brother Barry's candidacy and endorsing him for the Democratic Presidential nomination. John Edwards is the real deal Holyfield and if Brother Obama wasn't running I'd be riding with old dude. Can anyone say Veep?
Or at least Attorney General?
The goal of an Obama Administration starting next January is looking more and more tangible each day.
Its a new season...

Vote Obama by TISA

Why does Barry have so many dope endorsement songs?

I'll always love my momma

While my childhood wasn't as hardknock as Tupac's I still give much praise and admiration to my own Mommy.

I wish everyone was lucky enough to have a moms as wonderful as she.

Thank ya' CNN

One of the positives from being glued to CNN all day erryday for their never ending election coverage is tuning into the fineness that is anchor TJ Holmes.

i'm out for presidents to represent me (pt 2)

After Barry's big win in North Carolina (throw ya hands up) and managing to virtually tie with HRC in Indiana, you would think that this long primary would be a done deal and we could get to the business of making sure Sen. McCain don't get no where near the White House come November. Well clearly, we're all wrong and although HRC is behind in everything needed to cinch the nod - pledged delegates, popular vote, money to fund this never ending campaign... Ol' girl still insists that she has the broad base of support needed to win the general campaign.

Who is part of this broad base of support? Well, according to Hill her wide base can be defined as thus: "I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. She then went on to offer up an Associated Press article as evidence "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

This wide appeal sounds more like "white appeal". As her chances of winning the Dem nod in any honest and fair get smaller and smaller she resorts more and more to race-baiting. It's a joke. Her hubby went from the first "black" (or sax playing, barbecue loving, philandering, down home) President to a blustery angry old white man. She went from slapping skins with Marian Wright Edelman to getting Civil Rights OGs to sell out their legacies for a piece of the Clinton pie.

How did Brother Obama go from not being black enough, to being so black he went to a church lead by an angry black militant, to an elitist, to someone who was too out of touch (ie, black) to win the support of her base (aka white folks)? I call shenanigans.

I'm just waiting for her to tell me or at least Wolf Blitzer how the federal government is gonna pay for this gas tax holiday and how the candidates intend on addressing our crumbling school system, national infrastructure, and booming prison population. You know, the issues.

A Change is Gonna Come

Funky Divas

early 90s swag

i'm out for presidents to represent me

After the latest round of primaries in Indiana and North Carolina (throw ya' hands up), I have a case of acute campaign fatigue. How long has this been going on? Its been on and poppin' since Super Tuesday (aka my birthday), Feb 5th! Its May! How many states do we have? You know when Guam is in play during the nomination process that we're in it for the long haul.

Although I'm tired of the constant mudslinging, hearing Rev. Wright talk greasy about whatever is getting on his nerves, and CNN's endless promises that the next primary will end this thing and give the Democratic party a nominee, I must say I can't give this primary up. It's like the candy you used to buy from your local bodega: it might have been sitting behind that little glass case for months (or years) but you still buy it anyway, and bite into its sticky/sweet cavity inducing core.

But really HRC, time to bow out gracefully. Give our nation the chance to vote a black man into the highest office in our land. Or is folk too nervous that if that day ever comes, and Brother Obama is doing the cupid shuffle at the inaugural ball that black people might really be free? In the name of Fredrick Douglass I dream of that world.

knock em' out the box

Its about to go down - I'm about to defend my senior thesis to the Black Studies department at Amherst. After 8 months of work, its about to officially be a wrap.
Hopefully after dropping science about pan-Africanity in a New World context, as specifically revealed in the political action of the black residents of Bed-Stuy, their will be a little astrix next to my name at graduation, showing that I'm with honors.