Black Culture Discussion Thread

[goledensilence]

Cant' help all black people. Some really don't give a darn until they're personally attacked.

 

[sugafree]

I love her....aint nobody safe with her

 

[hand2handking]

South Africa’s Ruling ANC Says Land Expropriation Bill Withdrawn for Further Reconsideration

https://www.rt.com/business/437051-south-africas-ruling-anc-says/

South Africa: Ramaphosa's Land Reform Policy Gets Backing From British PM Theresa May

https://allafrica.com/stories/201808280500.html

 

[hand2handking]

Cardi B
Apologizes To MLK's Daughter For Coretta Scott King Role In 'Housewives' Skit

http://m.tmz.com/#!article/2018/08/...ing-real-housewives-civil-rights-off-the-rip/

Cardi B playing Coretta Scott King will be the most unforgettable and hilarious thing you see today -- it will also be the most inappropriate. Guaranteed.

Cardi stepped into the role of MLKs late wife for a skit called "Real Housewives of the Civil Rights Movement." Yes, she went there ... spilling tea with Rosa Parks and the wives of Malcolm X and Jesse Jackson. There's also a jaw-dropping "Iggy Azalea" sighting.

You gotta watch, but fair warning ... there are multiple references to MLK's infamous infidelities, and even the trip to Memphis, where he was assassinated.

The sketch is part of "Wild 'N Out" star Rip Michaels' new show, "Off the Rip." As we told you, it also features Cardi that some call racist.

Look, it ain't gonna win an NAACP Image Award, but where else ya gonna see Cardi/Coretta drop the line ... "All these hussies wanna sleep with my huuusband!"

 

[hand2handking]

Afropunk Festival in Brooklyn Allegedly Removed Couple From VIP Over T-Shirt Criticizing Event

https://mic.com/articles/190953/afr...vip-over-t-shirt-criticizing-event#.ccUut64Vo

Ericka Hart says that she, her partner Ebony Donnley and their friend Lorelei Black were removed from the VIP section of the annual Afropunk festival in Brooklyn, New York, on Sunday because Donnley’s T-shirt bore a message criticizing the event.

“Afropunk sold out for white consumption,” the shirt read.

Hart, 32 — a New York-based sex educator and activist — called attention to the alleged incident in a Twitter post Sunday night.

“My partner and I were just escorted out of backstage by two large security guards,” Hart wrote.



The message on Donnley’s shirt refers to growing criticism that the Afropunk festival — one of the largest black music festivals in New York City — is losing its core values. It began as a free event in 2005 highlighting black punk artists, but organizers started featuring more mainstream performers and charging an entry fee as it grew more popular.

“Unfortunately, this incident has only confirmed the issues many black folks, especially queer and trans, in Brooklyn have raised for years about Afropunk’s interest in commodifying blackness at the expense of black people under the guise of ‘punk’ and radical politics,” Hart wrote in an email Monday.

Hart explained that Donnley is a patron of the Afropunk festival, and was invited to the festival’s VIP section Sunday.

“[Festival co-owner Matthew Morgan] came up to my partner and said, ‘What’s this?’ while pointing at his shirt and then says, ‘Well why are you here?’ leaving no space for dialogue,” Hart continued.

Ebony Donnley and his partner, Ericka Hart, were escorted out of Afropunk VIP area Sunday because of this T-shirt reading: “Afropunk sold out for white consumption.” Ericka Hart/Ericka Hart

Hart said that Morgan then approached some security guards and whispered something to them. When he returned, Hart asked what was wrong.

“This is my house,” Morgan allegedly replied. “They have to leave,” he told the security guards.

As Hart, Donnley and Black were being escorted out, Hart said she and Donnley tried explaining to one guard what had happened.

“Well, you did this to yourself,” the security guard allegedly replied.

Afropunk has not responded to Mic’s request for comment.

Donnley’s T-shirt bore another message that read, “Boycott Red Apple Nails,” referring to the assault of a black woman customer by employees at the Happy Red Apple nail salon in Brooklyn on Aug 3. But Hart said Morgan did not point out this message when he sought to remove them.

The back of Donnley’s shirt read “Boycott Red Apple Nails,” a response to an incident at the nail salon in Brooklyn, where a black woman was assaulted by nail salon employees. Ericka Hart

Hart, who is black and queer, says she has attended the festival for seven consecutive years and once saw Afropunk as a liberating space.

“It was one of the few spaces I could go and see me reflected everywhere,” she wrote in an Instagram post Sunday. Her alleged removal “marked the end of [her] participation” at Afropunk, Hart added.

A conversation about the shirt is all Hart wanted before they were told they had to leave, she says. She added that the way she, her partner and their friend were treated goes against the activism that Afropunk promotes through its platforms, like its recently-launched social justice podcast Afropunk Solution Sessions.

“If Afropunk is for black people, about resistance and really standing by their hashtag #SpeakTruthToPower, why would this T-shirt be an issue?” Hart said. “How is it, ‘Power to the people’ and also, ‘His house’? The owner regarded us like we committed a crime or broke a violation when he went against several of the tenets of the festival, one of which is ‘no bullying.’”

 

[hand2handking]

Umoja Festival Brings Africa to West Oakland Through Music, Food and Fashion

Reianna Espinal, of Oakland, looks around the vendors booths during the 6th annual Umoja Festival at Lowell Park in Oakland on Saturday. .(Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)

https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2018/0...-west-oakland-through-music-food-and-fashion/

OAKLAND — When Effie Tesfahun launched the Umoja Festival in 2013, the organization was “a bit rogue” and a wholly grassroots endeavor that aimed to bring the African diaspora together in West Oakland.

Five years later, the sixth annual Umoja Festival in Lowell Park in West Oakland has ballooned into a full-day celebration of all African communities in the East Bay, replete with food, clothes and artworks and eight straight hours of musical performances.

“We are local Oakland residents who wanted to see Oakland represented,” said Tesfahun. “The people here represent a diaspora, they all came from the continent. It’s open to the public to celebrate Africanness.”

Umoja, which means “unity” in Swahili, had more than 50 vendors selling colorful fashion and artworks representing different cultures in Africa including Ethiopia, Nigeria and Kenya.

African-American cultural icons — especially those which sprang from Oakland, like the Black Panther Party — were imprinted on T-shirts and posters in select vendors.


Members of Gbadunn band perform during the 6th annual Umoja Festival at Lowell Park in Oakland. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)

The Festival sought to be in the broader tapestry of recent art and films highlighting the African community in Oakland, such as “Sorry to Bother You” and “Blindspotting”, according to Tesfahun.

“We felt a loss of space, and it’s hard to feel represented,” said Tesfahun, referring to Oakland’s gentrification. “These films give everybody that added boost, like, ‘yeah, let’s keep going.'”

The festival, which drew hundreds of spectators, also invited non-profits who work with African communities on immigration and help recently emigrated Africans to settle in the Bay Area.

One such group at the festival was the Priority Africa Network, an Oakland-based organization that seeks to raise awareness of the concerns of African communities in the United States and promote discourse to find solutions. The hot topic currently was rising sentiment against immigrants in the United States in the past two years, according to Nunu Kidane, director of Priority Africa Network.

“People were concerned to the anti-immigrant sentiments,” said Kidane, recalling a meeting she organized with new African immigrants three weeks prior. “But the overriding message was that we have to resist.”

The recent news of local restauranteur and Senegalese immigrant Marco Senghor charged with illegally obtaining U.S. citizenship touched a raw nerve in the African community in Oakland, according to Tesfahun. Senghor — who runs two West African eateries called Bissap Baobab in San Francisco and Oakland — pleaded not guilty to falsifying statements in his 2009 naturalization application, which could carry a 10-year prison sentence.

“It’s really upset the community,” said Tesfahun. “People feel targeted. He’s a U.S. citizen. We don’t know what this may mean going forward.”

Tesfahun said she would like to expand the festival next year to include more non-profits focused on helping immigrants and refugees and on health and wellness for marginalized communities in Oakland.

Tesfahun also wants to bring back a soccer tournament of amateur teams from local African communities — a mainstay in past Umoja Festivals — next year. The soccer tournament was cancelled this year due to insufficient organization and lack of a soccer-adequate grass field.

Despite the lack of a soccer tournament, local soccer camp organization My Yute came out to invite children to kick the ball around. My Yute has been organizing free soccer camps in Oakland and in other countries like Jamaica, Peru, Guyana, Malawi and Kenya.

“Every African country is represented here,” said My Yute co-founder Joanne Da Luz. “There is just so much diversity here. We relate to that diversity.”

Music at the festival spanned soul, funk, jazz and pop remixes. Most musicians who performed at the festival were a mix of African-American bands playing African-inspired music, Africans from abroad visiting Oakland or African-Americans who grew up in Nigeria or Ghana and sought to bridge their two cultures together through music.

One musician was Chicago-based Afrorock musician Obisoulstar, who grew up in Nigeria. Obisoulstar and four of his band members flew out to Oakland on Friday. In his first visit to Oakland, Obisoulstar spoke of a vibe of “earthiness” to the city and community he experienced.

“We like how the festival is so community-driven,” said Obisoulstar. “Oakland here has been driving a lot of great art. This place is amazing. We plan on blowing the roof off of the music stage.”

 

[sooperhooper]

Smfh. Doing anything for ratings.

 

[atlsfinest]

 

[hand2handking]

 

[hand2handking]

 

[hand2handking]

Ex-CIA Agent Says He Killed Bob Marley For Being 'A Threat to the Interests of the United States'

Bill Oxley, a former CIA agent, said that he’s responsible for killing Bob Marley.

The legendary reggae singer died from cancer at the age of 36 but Oxley said through direct orders, he gave him the illness.

The now 79-year-old also claimed besides Marley, he assassinated 17 other people for the government organization between 1974 and 1985 — at a time when he said the CIA “was a law unto itself.”
Plus, he said the CIA wanted to remove anyone who represented “a threat to the interests of the United States,” and he didn’t have any problem carrying out his duty.

“I was a patriot, I believed in the CIA and I didn’t question the motivation of the agency,” explained Oxley. “I’ve always understood that sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the greater good.”

Oxley also said that he gained access to Marley at one of his homes by using fake press credentials and posing as a famous photographer for The New York Times. And he bought him a pair of shoes, which is how how he carried out the assassination.

“I gave him a pair of Converse All Stars, size 10,” Oxley explained. “When he tried on the right shoe he screamed out ‘Ouuuch.’ That was it. His life was over right there and then. The nail in the shoe was tainted with cancer viruses and bacteria. If it pierced his skin, which it did, it was goodnight nurse.”

“There had been a series of high-profile assassinations of counter-culture figures in the United States in the late sixties, early seventies,” he continued. “By the time Bob Marley’s time came around, we thought subtlety was the order of the day. No more bullets and splattered brains.”
Oxley then said that he kept in contact with the singer during his cancer treatment and made sure the advice he received from doctors in Paris and the United States “would hasten his demise rather than cure him.”

“The last time I saw Bob before he died he had removed the dreadlocks, and his weight was dropping like a stone,” he described. “He was very withdrawn, unbelievably small. He was shrinking in front of us. The cancer had done its job.”

Marley passed away in 1981, but five years before there was an assassination attempt on his life and he, his wife and manager were all wounded in a shooting. It’s something that Bob’s son Ziggy talked about in a 2013 interview and hinted that there was more to his dad’s death than first reported.

 

[DCAllAfrican]

D.C. To Host First-Ever Black Restaurant Week in November The event spotlights black culinary and bar talent and seeks to shape the next generation of black business owners. - https://www.washingtoncitypaper.com...t-firstever-black-restaurant-week-in-november

 

[tomdiginson]

There was always the belief that the U.S also helped line up the attempt on his life in Jamaica

 

[Barbados Slim]

Not saying it's crazy the gov would do something like this but I'm not buying the cancer shoes part.

 

[PRIME]

D.C. To Host First-Ever Black Restaurant Week in November The event spotlights black culinary and bar talent and seeks to shape the next generation of black business owners. - https://www.washingtoncitypaper.com...t-firstever-black-restaurant-week-in-november

Damn I don’t want to sound stereotypical or anything but...

There better be some banging *** greens and cornbread

I low key been craving some bomb *** greens for about a week now. I will be in attendance this fall

There was always the belief that the U.S also helped line up the attempt on his life in Jamaica

“Get up, stand up! Stand up for you rights!”

Any outspoken black man willing to fight for and with his people was a threat

 

[sugafree]

 

[Captain Slappy]

Ex-CIA Agent Says He Killed Bob Marley For Being 'A Threat to the Interests of the United States'

This one is interesting but at the end of the day a lot of crazy people try for notoriety by claiming credit for things that never happened.
Word to that english guy on youtube taking credit for helping fake Pacs death.

 

[Mark Antony]

Ex-CIA Agent Says He Killed Bob Marley For Being 'A Threat to the Interests of the United States'

Damn, was wondering why this wasn't bigger news.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bob-marley-cia/

 

[hand2handking]

 

[Maximus Meridius]

Cardi B
Apologizes To MLK's Daughter For Coretta Scott King Role In 'Housewives' Skit

http://m.tmz.com/#!article/2018/08/...ing-real-housewives-civil-rights-off-the-rip/

This is the type of **** when I'm like "what was everybody thinking??". Turning our queens into some love and hip hop rachet BS.

And it was BET?

 

[hand2handking]

Lotta ny nters right?

 

[hand2handking]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-copper/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.72cda6ceb5a2

Less than a week before classes are scheduled to resume, Detroit’s city school district announced Wednesday that drinking water will be shut off for all its schools because of concerns over above-normal levels of lead and copper.

The decision comes after tests of various water sources at 16 out of 24 schools showed elevated amounts of the potentially toxic heavy metals, according to a statement from Detroit Public Schools Community District Superintendent Nikolai Vitti to local media. With the goal of ensuring the safety of students and employees, Vitti said he began testing everything from sinks to water fountains at all 106 of the district’s schools last year, the Detroit Free Press reported.

“Although we have no evidence that there are elevated levels of copper or lead in our other schools where we are awaiting test results, out of an abundance of caution and concern for the safety of our students and employees, I am turning off all drinking water in our schools until a deeper and broader analysis can be conducted to determine the long-term solutions for all schools,” Vitti said in the statement.

On Tuesday, water at the 16 schools was shut off and bottled water was being provided until water coolers can arrive, Vitti said, according to the Free Press. The district now has 34 total schools with contaminated water in the district, as 18 other schools already had their water shut off.

The remaining schools will have their water turned off this week, Vitti said, according to Detroit News. Staff and families were made aware of the decision Tuesday via automated phone calls, Detroit News reported.

 

[pmpdaddyrobford]

Damn I don’t want to sound stereotypical or anything but...

There better be some banging *** greens and cornbread

I low key been craving some bomb *** greens for about a week now. I will be in attendance this fall



“Get up, stand up! Stand up for you rights!”

Any outspoken black man willing to fight for and with his people was a threat

Greens are cool and all but I def prefer some cornbread and hotsauce wit mine or gravy

 

[goledensilence]

 

[sugafree]

This is the type of **** when I'm like "what was everybody thinking??". Turning our queens into some love and hip hop rachet BS.

And it was BET?

The birds and vermin of all ages love Cardi B....