I see folks FINALLY got my memo about STOP FUNDING FOOLISHNESS! ( Get the T-shirt already). I have ALWAYS maintained that folks have the right to say whatever foolishness they want to. I just don't want to pay for it. POWER SPEAKS TO POWER. Money is power.
I was actually going to post on the Sunday evening, but folks are blowing up my mailbox with it so I figured I had better get it up here for y'all.
Politicians in New York are urging the Comptroller to withdraw $84 Million dollars that the state pension fund has invested in Universal Music and it's parent company Vivendi. OUCH! They are so not playing with folks. SOURCE
You can do the same thing in your state. Almost EVERY if not ALL states have a public pension or retirement plan and by legislative, executive, administrative or action by the board of directors of the plan, they can set a policy to DIVEST from particular countries or companies. In Texas, we recently divested from Sudan.
You don't have to go to Washington, DC, you can go to your state representative and state senator. Ask them to stop sending BILLIONS of dollars to the Misogyny Industrial Complex. They can ignore folks holding placards, but having the largest institutional investors heading for the hills? That should be a concern.
For too long we've focused on individual artists. Boycotted records and songs. It is time to go after the BIG money and that resides with the corporate overlords. That means divesting from the Entertainment Industrial Complex and targeting advertisers of radio, television, and print. You saw what we did with THAT SHOW and XXLmag.com in less than a DAY. It really is not as hard as they want you to believe. We CAN Defund the War on Black Women.
And YES, I noticed it took the N-word to make this happen and the state of New York appears to have been content to purchase Universal stock while it was engaged in the War on Black Women, but this is a potentially powerful object lesson for all of us.
Take time next week to call up your local state representative (their staff actually) and ask them about the likelihood of getting the same type of action in your state.
Again, you can say what you want, I just don't want to pay for it.
Folks Keep asking why Black women get targeted by this industry in this manner... BECAUSE WE LET THEM. Everybody KNOWS that there are certain groups in this country that you do not mess with under any circumstances. There are certain words you do not use. Poor Halle Berry had to BEG Jay Leno and NBC to edit out her appearance when she made a joke about a picture of a "Jewish cousin" yet DL Hughley was all up on Jay's couch insulting and demeaning Black women and his publicist is promoting his comments by using his Rutgers attack in advertising for his show.
But Black folks just sit back and let folks sell us down river over and over again and we do absolutely nothing.
We're going to be busy in 2008. It is time to put out some burning crosses folks are placing on the lawns of Black women. It is time to DEFUND THE WAR ON BLACK WOMEN! If you won't do it for yourself, do it for your daughters.
SOUTH CAROLINA ROAD TRIP - MLK Weekend 2008
Earlier this week I asked how many of you are REALLY TICKED OFF at all of these "leaders" who have completely ignored Dunbar Village, a crime against humanity right here in the United States of America. Not just Dunbar Village, but how many of you have heard of Angela Dawson?
Come January, the Black folks in South Carolina may very well be the most powerful Black people on planet earth. They will be deciding basically who will be the Democratic Candidate for president. If Obama doesn't win SC, its basically over. Same for Edwards. Hillary can survive a loss, but if Edwards or Obama manage to win, they can make it a real battle as opposed to a coronation.
Well, on Thursday, January 17, 2008 there is a CBC-sponsored debate scheduled in Myrtle Beach, SC:
The Congressional Black Caucus Institue will host in Myrtle Beach the Democratic Presidential Primary Debate to be held on Thursday, January 17 2008 at The Palace Theatre. Ticketing plans is under review and details will be relased soon. For further information regarding this event please visit the Congressional Black Caucus website for details www.cbcimyrtlebeachdebate.com>
The eyes of the Black political universe will be on Myrtle Beach, SC and I say we ought to try to direct those EYEBALLS to the fact that not a single one of the Democratic candidates for president has said a single WORD about Dunbar Village. ALL of them know about it.
On August 7,2007, we called Senator Obama's Washington office. I was cut off by the staffer, told the Senator already knew abotu Dunbar Village and would be issuing a statement. I asked "When can we expect one so I can put it on my site?" she said, "Two Hours." Almost three months later, Obama is still SILENT!
Hillary's staff at the Senate Office didn't know about it ( the campaign did), but said that they would " Make the Senator aware of it." Three monts later. Clinton is still SILENT even though ESSENCE did a huge special report on Dunbar Village in the same magazine as a huge interview with Hillary Clinton. I gues her staffers only read the pages with her pictures on them.
And who can forget John Edward's campaign response to hearing about Dunbar Village... they sent us fund raising emails in response to our calls about these poor Black folks down in West Palm Beach, FL.
I've created a Google Group to act as the What About Our Daughters? Action Center. If you are interested in going to SC to basically shame these people into speaking out about this horrible crime, come on over and join the group and work on organizing. This Immoral Indifference is absolutely ridiculous and apparently asking nicely won't work. We're going to have to print up T-shirts with 3 inch letters that scream "HILLARY CLINTON DOESN'T CARE ABOUT BLACK WOMEN AND CHILDREN","OBAMA DOESN'T CARE ABOUT BLACK WOMEN AND CHILDRN!", and "JOHN EDWARDS DOESN'T CARE ABOUT BLACK WOMEN AND CHILDREN" when all these folks had to do was ger a high school intern to type up a two page statement saying "We know. We Care and We're Concerned".
If you are interested, join the WAOD Action Center on Google Groups.
Isn't this a Local Issue
Um no it is not. yes there was the actual crime and the criminal justice system is working its way out despite the fact that only 4 suspects out of ten attackers are in custody and the Chief Delsa Bush, thinks that the $1,000 reward is suffiencient to gain additional information. Folks offer larger rewards for the return of their pets, but the brutal rape and torture of a Black woman... $1,000. The Mayor is hiding out. the Housing Authority still doesn't know who is living there, the city commissioners are fighting like cats and dogs and balking at paying for additional security, and the residents are still terrified to speak out. Oh yeah, the Governor of Florida has not made a single public statement about Dunbar Village and he's got six janjaweed running around his state.
The folks unfortunate enough to live in Dunbar Village are not just residents of West Palm Beach, they are citizens of both Florida and the United States of America and they were left to rot and die, cordoned off on one side of town and left without police protection while criminals preyed on them. It isn't just Dunbar Village, West Palm Beach was home to a series of rapes committed against Black women and girls back to back within a one mile radius. A few weeks after Dunbar Village, a 15 year old Black girl was raped in broad daylight and who can forget Magonia Park, right down the street from Dunbar Village less than a month later where a group of Black teens attacked a 42 year-old Black women OUTSIDE and a 14 year-old allegedly raped her at gunpoint while his friends shouted "Hurry Up! Me next!"
West Palm Beach truly is Dysfunction Junction and folks need to speak about this from the outside because the women who live there are scared to.
"In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up."Martin Niemöller
IF we don't speak up for them, who is going to be left to speak up for us?
