Sunday Open Thread

Posted on August 30, 2015 by rikyrah

This entry was posted in Music, Open Thread, Politics and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.

66 Responses to Sunday Open Thread

  2. SouthernGirl2 says:
    August 30, 2015 at 9:43 pm

    The Wall Street Journal, y’all

    Wall Street Journal

    Reply
    • Ametia says:
      August 31, 2015 at 7:34 am

      The WSJ has no credibility with me, and most POC, unless you are a white conservative male.

      You know the WSJ has thought it and alll but published an article with the lede ‘A Nigger in the White House. It’s spics, wops, thug, wetbacks, chinks, What no honkies?

      Reply
  4. SouthernGirl2 says:
    August 30, 2015 at 8:09 pm

    Thank God for the generous people in this world. Salute!

    https://twitter.com/AJENews/status/637885098617139200

    Reply
  23. rikyrah says:
    August 30, 2015 at 1:34 pm

    1st black actor to play lead in ‘Les Miserables’ on Broadway dies in accident
    by Blue Telusma | August 30, 2015 at 9:35 AM

    EW YORK (AP) — Kyle Jean-Baptiste, the first African-American and youngest person to ever play the role of Jean Valjean in “Les Misérables” on Broadway has died after falling from a fire escape, according to a show spokesman. He was 21.

    Jean-Baptiste died Friday night following the show’s evening performance at the Imperial Theatre, said representative Marc Thibodeau, who called it a “tragic accident.”

    “The entire ‘Les Misérables’ family is shocked and devastated by the sudden and tragic loss of Kyle, a remarkable young talent and tremendous person who made magic — and history — in his Broadway debut. We send our deepest condolences to his family and ask that you respect their privacy in this unimaginably difficult time,” a statement from the production reads.

    The actor was an ensemble member of the company and an understudy for Valjean, going onstage as the ex-convict in a history-making appearance July 23. His last performance in the role was Thursday.

    The Broadway community took to Twitter on Saturday to mourn the loss of a young talent.

    http://thegrio.com/2015/08/30/1st-black-actor-to-play-lead-in-les-miserables-on-broadway-dies-in-accident/

    Reply
  24. rikyrah says:
    August 30, 2015 at 1:28 pm

    The Racist History of the Charter School Movement
    Touted as the cure for what ails public education, charter schools have historical roots that are rarely discussed.
    By Christopher Bonastia / AlterNet
    January 6, 2015

    As a parent I find it easy to understand the appeal of charter schools, especially for parents and students who feel that traditional public schools have failed them. As a historical sociologist who studies race and politics, however, I am disturbed both by the significant challenges that plague the contemporary charter school movement, and by the ugly history of segregationist tactics that link past educational practices to the troubling present.

    The now-popular idea of offering public education dollars to private entrepreneurs has historical roots in white resistance to school desegregation after Brown v. Board of Education (1954). The desired outcome was few or, better yet, no black students in white schools. In Prince Edward County, Virginia, one of the five cases decided in Brown, segregationist whites sought to outwit integration by directing taxpayer funds to segregated private schools.

    Two years before a federal court set a final desegregation deadline for fall 1959, local newspaper publisher J. Barrye Wall shared white county leaders’ strategy of resistance with Congressman Watkins Abbitt: “We are working [on] a scheme in which we will abandon public schools, sell the buildings to our corporation, reopen as privately operated schools with tuition grants from [Virginia] and P.E. county as the basic financial program,” he wrote. “Those wishing to go to integrated schools can take their tuition grants and operate their own schools. To hell with ’em.”

    Though the county ultimately refused to sell the public school buildings, public education in Prince Edward County was nevertheless abandoned for five years (1959-1964), as taxpayer dollars were funneled to the segregated white academies, which were housed in privately owned facilities such as churches and the local Moose Lodge. Federal courts struck down this use of taxpayer funds after a year. Still, whites won and blacks lost. Because there were no local taxes assessed to operate public schools during those years, whites could invest in private schools for their children, while blacks in the county—unable and unwilling to finance their own private, segregated schools—were left to fend for themselves, with many black children shut out of school for multiple years.

    Meanwhile, in less blatant attempts to avoid desegregation, states and localities also enacted “freedom of choice” plans that typically allowed white students to transfer out of desegregated schools, but forced black students to clear numerous administrative hurdles and, not infrequently, withstand harassment from teachers and students if they entered formerly all-white schools. When some segregationists began to acknowledge that separate black and white schools were no longer viable legally, they sought other means to eliminate “undesirables.”

    http://www.alternet.org/education/racist-history-charter-school-movement

    Reply
  26. rikyrah says:
    August 30, 2015 at 1:16 pm

    Good Afternoon, Everyone :)

    Reply
  27. yahtzeebutterfly says:
    August 30, 2015 at 12:57 pm

    ShordeeDooWhop ‏@Nettaaaaaaaa Aug 29 :

    http://ift.tt/1UjE8ck https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CNk55sZWUAAjKmA.jpg

    #SandraBland’s mother, Ms. Geneva Reed-Veal. I met her and I couldn’t stop crying. She had to know that her baby reminded me of every black woman I know, that spirit is there.
    Ms. Geneva blessed me yesterday with words only a mama would say, similar to the things my mother would probably tell me. #SandyStillSpeaks

    Reply
  28. yahtzeebutterfly says:
    August 30, 2015 at 12:46 pm

    This is good, but we need more than symbolic change. We need engaged, elected representatives
    to make substantial change and restore (and enforce) civil rights legislation that has been eroded.

    https://twitter.com/splcenter/status/638043012505993216

    Reply
  29. Ametia says:
    August 30, 2015 at 11:50 am

    Let’s get this done, Prosecutor Mosby!

    Hype surrounds hearing as Freddie Gray case heads to court

    Baltimore_Police_Death_JPEG-0bd24_c0-217-5184-3238_s561x327

    http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-gray-hearing-preview-20150829-story.html

    Reply
  30. Ametia says:
    August 30, 2015 at 11:16 am

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Kk-btNY9-c

    Keep saying over & over AGAIN to get people to EXPECT IT

    BLACK LIVES MATTER

    WE EXPECT IT

    Reply
    • yahtzeebutterfly says:
      August 30, 2015 at 11:29 am

      There you go, you got her advice, Ametia :)

      I did, too :)

      BLACK LIVES MATTER!

      BLACK LIVES MATTER!

      BLACK LIVES MATTER!

      We expect it!

      Reply
      • yahtzeebutterfly says:
        August 30, 2015 at 11:39 am

        Our elected representatives and those running for office, as well as citizens and police need to show through their actions that they are protecting Black lives. Silence and looking the other way EQUALS compliance with the horrible treatment Blacks are receiving from those in power and from the haters and racists and White Supremacists.

        Reply
      • Ametia says:
        August 30, 2015 at 11:39 am

        DAMN Skippy!

        Reply
      • yahtzeebutterfly says:
        August 30, 2015 at 11:42 am

        You are always sending me to the Urban dictionary to understand phrases new to me, Ametia, lol :)

        Got it now :)

        Reply
  31. Ametia says:
    August 30, 2015 at 11:12 am

    Harriet Tubman, come get these MOFO COONS

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIm8nhKuCn8

    They don’t want us to keep saying

    BLACK LIVES MATTER!

    Reply
  32. Ametia says:
    August 30, 2015 at 11:04 am

    While we were SLEEPING

    Social Issues
    How companies make millions off lead-poisoned, poor blacks
    By Terrence McCoy August 25

    BALTIMORE — The letter arrived in April, a mishmash of strange numbers and words. This at first did not alarm Rose. Most letters are that way for her — frustrating puzzles she can’t solve. Rose, who can scarcely read or write, calls herself a “lead kid.” Her childhood home, where lead paint chips blanketed her bedsheets like snowflakes, “affected me really bad,” she says. “In everything I do.”

    She says she can’t work a professional job. She can’t live alone. And, she says, she surely couldn’t understand this letter.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/how-companies-make-millions-off-lead-poisoned-poor-blacks/2015/08/25/7460c1de-0d8c-11e5-9726-49d6fa26a8c6_story.html

    Reply
  33. Ametia says:
    August 30, 2015 at 10:39 am

    Why Aren’t the Families of Vester Flanagan’s Murder Victims Being Asked if They Forgive Him Yet?
    Chauncey DeVega-WARN

    http://www.chaunceydevega.com/2015/08/why-arent-families-of-vester-flanagans.html

    Reply
  34. Ametia says:
    August 30, 2015 at 10:24 am

    WELL?

    NATIONAL DEBATE08.30.1512:01 AM ET
    Economic Progress is More Effective Than Protests

    Ta-Nehisi Coates and the new wave of black nationalists are selling a line that is inimical to real racial progress in America.
    The election of Barack Obama promised to inaugurate the dawn of a post-racial America. Instead we seem to be stepping ever deeper into a racial quagmire. The past two month saw the violent commemoration of the Ferguson protests, “the celebration” of the 50th anniversary of the Watts riots, new police shootings in places as distant as Cincinnati and Fort Worth, and renewed disorder, tied to a police-related shooting, in St. Louis last week.

    When President Obama was elected, two-thirds of Americans thought race relations were good. Now six in 10 think they are bad, according to a New York Times poll, including some 68% African Americans.

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/30/economic-progress-is-more-effective-than-protests.html

    Reply
    • yahtzeebutterfly says:
      August 30, 2015 at 10:50 am

      I have read Ta-Nehesi Coates’ book and, this morning, have been reading Derrick Bell’s Faces at the Bottom of the Well (I’m in Chapter 4 although seeing the title of his last chapter, I looked it up and found that a 1/2 hour movie had been made of it and watched it on Youtube yesterday.)

      So much to ponder.

      Reply
    • Liza says:
      August 30, 2015 at 11:44 am

      This entire article written by white guy Joel Kotkin, who I have never heard of before this, is nothing but a thinly veiled, white racist perspective on the black experience in America apparently inspired by TNC’s new book as well as the author’s disdain for President Obama and, to a lesser extent, Eric Holder.

      Oh, yes, it is so easy to blather about “economic progress” as the solution to all that ails this country because “the American Dream” is alive and well and what we should always be striving for. We should always be looking to the future because that is what Americans do, we move on no matter what, right? The dark, ugly, murderous part of the history of this country should be glossed over and constantly revised if not forgotten because there is always another economic opportunity out there for those who have the guts to go for it, right? And those who succeed are not looking behind them in the rear view mirror, they are looking ahead, always ahead.

      And so goes the standard, run of the mill, unoriginal, and played out WHITE DISMISSAL of all race related problems that have festered in this country for hundreds of years. That is all this article is really about. A different author, but the same tired argument full of generalizations, dismissals, and omissions.

      If given the opportunity, I would be compelled to ask the author just one question. Mr. Kotkin, assuming we could create more economic opportunities for minorities, how would Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Darius Simmons, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, and all of the other young, black people who have been murdered by racists or unjustly killed or maimed by police benefit from this robust economic growth that you blather about while dismissing the very real life and death issues that people of color face every single day that they try to live in this country?

      Go away, Joel Kotkin.

      Reply
      • Ametia says:
        August 30, 2015 at 11:53 am

        LIZA.FOR.,THE.WIN!

        Reply
      • yahtzeebutterfly says:
        August 30, 2015 at 12:07 pm

        You would think that Whites who have lost their humanity through past and present horrible deeds and Whites who have lost their humanity by not trying to help repair the damage and not trying to stop present day wrongs against the Black community, would someday admits their inhumanity and try to redeem their souls.

        Reply
      • Liza says:
        August 30, 2015 at 12:07 pm

        TY. :)

        Reply
      • yahtzeebutterfly says:
        August 30, 2015 at 12:23 pm

        And so goes the standard, run of the mill, unoriginal, and played out WHITE DISMISSAL of all race related problems that have festered in this country for hundreds of years.

        You see it clearly, Liza.

        I will keep pushing and advocating while each day I become better informed and prepared because of what I continue to learn from you and the 3Chics.

        Reply
    • silentlyheardonce says:
      August 30, 2015 at 2:55 pm

      And most of them blame the president for racism. The racist just stood up to be counted when we got the first black president.

      Reply
  35. Ametia says:
    August 30, 2015 at 10:14 am

    Health & Science
    Oliver Sacks, doctor of ‘Awakenings’ and poet laureate of medicine, dies at 82

    By Emily Langer August 30 at 10:05 AM

    Oliver Sacks, the world-renowned neurologist and author who chronicled maladies and ennobled the afflicted in books that were regarded as masterpieces of medical literature, died Aug. 30 at his home in Manhattan. He was 82.

    Dr. Sacks — whom millions knew as the physician played by actor Robin Williams in the 1990 film “Awakenings” — revealed in February that he had terminal cancer. A rare and long-ago-treated ocular tumor had metastasized to his liver, he wrote in the New York Times, which was one of several publications, along with the New Yorker magazine and the New York Review of Books, that printed his writings over the years.

    His death was confirmed by his longtime assistant, Kate Edgar.

    An Englishman who made his life in America, Dr. Sacks devoted his career to patients with rare, seemingly hopeless conditions of the nervous system. He distinguished himself both in the clinic and on the printed page and was often called a “poet laureate” of modern medicine.

    His books, many of which were bestsellers, generally took the form of clinical anecdotes. A man who mistakes his wife for a hat, an artist who can no longer see in color, a hospital full of patients gloriously, but fleetingly, “awakened” from years-long catatonia: In each case, Dr. Sacks sought to uncover some wisdom, medical or moral.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/oliver-sacks-doctor-of-awakenings-and-poet-laureate-of-medicine-dies-at-82/2015/08/30/62ba620c-4f0c-11e5-933e-7d06c647a395_story.html?wpisrc=al_alert-national

    Reply
  36. Ametia says:
    August 30, 2015 at 10:07 am

    Serena Williams enters U.S. Open with a Grand Slam on the line
    By Douglas Robson August 29 at 2:14 PM

    If Serena Williams wins the U.S. Open to become the first woman in 27 years to hold all four majors in a calendar year, it would cap another milestone for the record-breaking American: The wobbliest dominant season in tennis history.

    [Williams gets potentially tough U.S. Open draw]

    Williams is 48-2 this year. She is 32-3 on hard courts since winning her sixth overall and third consecutive U.S. Open a year ago. She has won 30 of her last 32 finals. For the second time, she holds all four majors at once – “Serena Slam 2.0,” in her words.

    But Williams, who will turn 34 next month, has been forced to clawed her way though patchy play, dizzying illness and inhospitable crowds. Has hegemony ever looked so harrowing?

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/tennis/serena-williams-enters-us-open-with-a-grand-slam-on-the-line/2015/08/29/11fb17fa-4d9d-11e5-bfb9-9736d04fc8e4_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_headlines

    Reply
  37. vitaminlover says:
    August 30, 2015 at 9:12 am

    Happy pre college football Sunday, Ladies. Just had bacon, eggs and cheese and toast and cheese and Tropicana Pomegranate/Blueberry juice with hubby. Yummers.

    Reply

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