Monthly Archives: July 2008

Historic Blogging While Brown Conference Kicks off in Atlanta

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The Bloggine While Black conference is under way. Be sure to follow me on Twitter(shawnpwilliiams). Also check out TheoTalks.net for Theo’s perspective.

bwb-010.JPGJames of Key Influencer running the conference call

bwb-021.JPGBloggers Conference Call with M.C. Lyte

bwb-013.JPGAngela Conyers-Benton of Blackweb 2.0 running the chat

bwb-051.JPGGina McCauley and Founders of Black Weblog Awards

bwb-053.JPGHusband and wife blog team

bwb-055.JPG Shawn Williams and Dalia of Pocketbook Protest

Blogs Represented:

John McCain’s rough week; watching Barack Obama on a trip that he helped to plan

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This week Sen. John McCain’s campaign released a video montage of what they claimed was evidence of a love affair that the media has going on with Sen. Barack Obama. This of course is due to how much television and radio play has come from Obama’s trip to the Middle East and Europe. While a media throng has followed Obama halfway around the globe, one reporter greeted McCain’s airplane at a recent New Hampshire campaign stop.

obama-for-pres.JPGI concede that the decision of the evening news anchors from CBS, NBC, and ABC to travel with Obama is questionable. But there is no way around the fact that his trip abroad is a newsworthy event.

McCain made a similar trip overseas while the Dems were still fighting it out for the nomination. If his strategists had it to do over again, I’m sure they would have waited until this summer’s lull to have their candidate hop across the Atlantic.

McCain and his party should blame themselves for their part in creating a story about Obama having NOT visited Iraq in quite sometime prior to this week. The GOP even had a running counter of exactly how many days it had been.

So if the Republicans thought it was a big deal that Obama hadn’t been to Iraq, how can they then tell Americans that is going there is not?

David Bauder of the associated press sums up the type of week it’s been for Obama.

Waging the image campaign overseas: Barack Obama has packed his overseas trip with presidential images: a helicopter ride over Iraq with the U.S. military commander; a visit to a Holocaust memorial; a meeting at Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s palace. He even found time to sink a three-point basketball shot before cheering U.S. soldiers.

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McCain should learn from Senator Hillary Clinton’s campaign that complaining about media bias is not a winning proposition. If he gives voters some fresh ideas, or at least stops getting so mixed up about what’s going on with the economy and abroad, maybe a little more attention will come his way. But for now, he and his folks should sit back and watch this momentum that they helped to create.

Photos from the New York Times.

DONATE TO DALLAS SOUTH CONVENTION COVERAGE TODAY!!!

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I am almost halfway to my $1,500 goal in fundraising for the DNC Convention. As many of you know, Dallas South was selected by the Democratic National Committee as a credentialed blogger for the historic event in Denver this Summer. I am raising funds to help purchase equipment needed to cover the event as well as for travel expenses.

Please take a moment to click on the Chip In widget above and make a secure donation to this effort via Pay Pal. If for some reason you are unable to do so and would still like to contribute, send me an email to shawn@dallassouthblog.com.

God Bless!

Shawn

The Great American Equalizer: Even with education African-Americans still find earning gap exists

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By Jazzy

Education and hard work are the consistent mantra that permeates the essence of the American Dream. Education, as we know, is not created equally nor is it extolled equally. Schools in lower socioeconomic areas are rife with underperforming curricula, in desperate need of updated teaching materials, and innovated ideas to excite beaten down students to achieve a goal they believe unattainable in the first place.

 

For many students in lower socioeconomic areas the belief that they have a chance to enter college is surreal. Many struggle with the basics because they are never driven to learn or even taught but rather pushed on to the next level. For those not lost in the public school systems they head off to college earn their degree and look forward to their future. A future, according to the America dream, should grant them privileges and entrance into a new world far from what many of them knew.

Even though -according to data-there is a closing in income among Black household incomes in comparison to their white counterparts, a glaring disparity exists between white men and black men to the tune of approximately $10,000 with the same degree and experience.

Soledad Obrien mentioned in the CNN special Black in America that White men who are ex-cons are more likely to receive a job offer in comparison to black men with an education, because the perception is that black men are lazy and don’t know how to dress properly.

There are no more visible chains and shackles than these biases, but what remains is far more pervasive, unjustified perceptions and insidious stereotypes that are used as excuses to permit and mask underlining racial prejudices; be they conscious or subconscious.

So what then happens when you do everything according to the playbook and you still come up short? How do we keep young Black adults encouraged when they realize that even with the Great American Equalizer they still come up short?

D Magazine Top 10 suburbs require 90% White Population

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logo_d_magazine.jpgAfter reading D Magazine and Curt Sampson’s excellent article on Dallas County exoneree James Woodard (27 years). I had a little time on my hands so I scanned through their ranking of 62 Dallas Suburbs.

I thought I would do one of my patented non-scientific experiments and see how diverse the Top 10 and Bottom 10 suburbers were. Well actually I just checked to see what percentage of white residents live in each city.  This isn’t a knock on D’s list or their criteria for that matter.  Just a look at good old American segregation.

The information that is represented below isn’t surprising since U.S. neighborhoods are as segregated as they have ever been. It’s just that now there are no laws (but sometimes contracts) prohibiting integration, we just choose not to. Notice that all of the cities in the D Magazine’s Top 10 had a population with at least 90% white residents, with the exception of Murphy (76%).

One other interesting bit of information that I found during this “strenuous” search was that Lancaster (pop. 25,894) is the largest majority African-American city in Texas. So when people tell me that white folks are keeping school bond proposals of the ballot, I’m going to need a little bit more explaining.

Click here to see the entire D Chart with a list of the factors that they used to compile their rankings.
D Magazine Top 10 Dallas Suburbs

City/Percentage White population

1. University Park 95%

2. Southlake 94.5%

3. Colleyville 93%

4. Trophy Club 94.2%

5. Parker 90%

6. Highland Park 97.2%

7. Murphy 76%

8. Highland Village 97%

9. Keller 93.7%

10. Flower Mound 90.2%

Bottom 10

62. Hutchins 43.1%

61. Cockrell Hill 44.6%

60. Balch Springs 62.9%

59. Wilmer 47.9%

58. Seagoville 78.8%

57. Irving 64.2%

56. Arlington 67.7%

55. Addison 67.8%

54. Lancaster 37.6%

53. Waxahachie 70.5%

MUST SEE: Freedman removal in the 1980′s and Cherokee vote to purge black descendants from nation

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This is the part of the interview that the whole series revolves around.

The first three parts of the Verdie Triplett interview last week focused on the history of the 5 Civilized Tribes and their slaves/freedman. This next part of the interview talks about how the tribes recently conspired to remove black folks from the nations and the fight that is still going on.

The Dark Knight sets box office record, latest Batman goes for $155M opening weekend

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I’ve been a Batman fan for as long as I can remember. You might even catch me rolling out on the weekends in my black and bright yellow Batman Tee. Though I was skeptical with the casting of Michael Keaton in Batman (1989), I was very satisfied with Tim Burton’s take on the caped crusader. I even liked Joel Shumacher’s first turn as director in Batman Forever. But he totally destroyed the franchise with 1997′s Batman and Robin.

batman-the-dark-knight-still.jpgSo when Christopher Nolan came on to helm Batman Begins in 2005, I wasn’t nearly as excited as I should have been. My wife and I didn’t even see it on the big screen. But eventually we watched Begins on DVD and I thought Christian Bale -who I only knew from Shaft- had a nice debut as Batman.

But who could have predicted Nolan, Bale, and the late Heath Ledger would produce such a memorable comic book movie as this? I went in with pretty high expectations due to all the critical praise that’s been heaped on The Dark Knight and Ledgers performance.

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Ledger’s spin on the Joker has produced talk of a posthumous Oscar nomination. While Jack Nicholas’ 1989 Joker gave us memorable one liners and funny moments, Ledger’s Joker is nothing to laugh about. His look, his speech, everything about the character is twisted and weird. He casts a large shadow over Bale throughout the movie, though Bale’s Batman is solid and NOW my favorite of the most recent four.

My high expectations for the movie were more than exceeded. There’s action from the jump, two Batman villans, and very solid performances from Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, and Aaron Eckhart who plays Gotham D.A. Harvey Dent. I would take or leave Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Rachel Dawes.

Pros

  • Heath Ledger’s sadistic joker
  • Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne
  • Christopher Nolan’s Gotham City

Con’s

  • 2 1/2 hour runtime

340299.jpgDO NOT TAKE CHILDREN TO SEE THIS MOVIE. The Dark Knight is one of the darkest PG-13 movie ever made – thanks in large part to Ledger’s joker. It is very violent and though most kids would not be scared, many of the images are quite disturbing. The only thing keeping the movie from being rated R (in my opinion) is that there’s not a drop of blood, and none of the many people who die are clearly killed on screen.

After a $155M opening weekend, it’s only a matter of time until we learn the opening date of the next installment.