Black History Month Heroes: Trevor Garfield from "187"

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The United States of America in 2011 is an interesting place to live, especially if you are an educator. White and Asian students seem to be enjoying excellent tutelage from Crusading White Pedagogues (CWP), though the goal of every teacher is to close the racial gap in learning. Black kids are posting low graduation rates, test scores, grade point averages (GPA) and low scholastic aptitude test results.

They do however, have high rates of disciplinary problems and many all-Black schools have a high rate of teenage moms up for casting on MTV's Teen Mom show. 

If white kids and Asians continue to excel, won't that only perpetuate the racial gap in learning? To rectify this problem, organizations like Teach for America are recruiting the top graduates from Ivy League schools away from Wall Street and law school to instead accept two-year contracts to bring CWP-style teaching to the inner cities of America.

Heroism - as we learned - is something Black and Hispanic people in America do at a rate double that of lowly white people. It was deduced in that entry that roughly 88 percent of teachers in America are white, though 44  percent of the students K-12 are non-white (As an aside, in the South, more than 50 percent of students get free lunches, a number that will only increase as the non-white population rises).

Perhaps if only more Black people were teachers, then Black pupils would put up better academic results. Maybe if people are segregated by race in homeroom with positive mentors of the same race, then academic results will improve.

Maybe. Right?

Atlanta City Schools currently are under probation for a lack of institutional control  after a huge cheating scandal led overwhelmingly by  Black teachers, principals and the Board of Education was uncovered. A panel was held in Atlanta to discuss how to save an ever growing lost generation of Black students who have a greater chance of landing in prison then they do graduating from college. Spike Lee said Black male teachers are needed to offer positive role models to Black school children:

On Monday, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan renewed his call for more black men to pick up the chalk and teach.


Joined by filmmaker Spike Lee, Duncan issued the invitation during a town hall meeting and panel discussion hosted by Morehouse College and moderated by MSNBC contributor Jeff Johnson. The event was part of the Department of Education’s TEACH campaign, designed to raise awareness of the teaching profession and get a new generation of teachers to join the ones who are already making a difference in the classroom.

This might be the only way left to finally eradicate the racial gap in learning, though an invisible barrier that Disingenuous White Liberals (DWL) strenuously deny exist – IQ – stands in the way of this noble goal.

Perhaps this barrier to achieving a leveling of the racial gap in learning can explain why so few Black male teachers are found in classrooms. How many Black males graduate high school? How many Black males graduate college?

What percentage of current teachers are even Black males? The answer might surprise you:

The AP reports that Duncan told the crowd that black males make up less than 2 percent of the country’s 3 million teachers, and that the nation is facing a severe teacher shortage as the current workforce ages. Addressing the racial disparities in education will demand a national teaching corps that’s equipped to understand and meet the needs of black and Latino kids, and educators play a unique role in influencing and shaping young people’s lives. It’s a message Duncan is diligent about slipping in whenever he can. Latino and black males make up just 3.5 percent of America’s teachers, Duncan’s said.

At a speech Duncan gave at a gathering of the National Council of La Raza last year he told the crowd: “I want to encourage you to develop a new generation of Hispanic teachers. Twenty percent of all public school students in the U.S. are Latino. But only 5 percent of their teachers are Latino. In Chicago, the numbers are just as lopsided—41% of students are Latino but only 15% of teachers are Hispanic.”

For all the controversy surrounding the Obama administration’s education reform policies, this is a legitimately, unequivocally positive message to send to young people. There is a body of research that suggests what is perhaps fairly intuitive: a teacher’s race matters, and kids of color take in information differently when there’s a teacher of color at the front of the room.

Trying to find a Black male teacher is a task on par with NASA’s mission of locating a Black engineer. Where are the Black male teachers?:

Recently, Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced TEACH, a national campaign to increase the number of African-American and Latino males being prepared as PK-12 classroom teachers. Nearly 40 percent of public school students are African-American or Latino. In many school districts this statistic hovers above 90 percent. Yet, less than 8 percent of the nation's teachers are African-American and fewer than 4 percent are Hispanic/Latino. In schools inside central cities, 73 percent of teachers are white. In urban schools outside of central cities, 91 percent of public school teachers are white.

Teaching is a glamorless,  thankless position entailing long hours in exchange for anemic compensation. Basically a teacher is a paid volunteer and we all know how volunteer rates by race play out. But, really, why so few Black male teachers? Could it be a vicious cycle of IQ denial that has created this quandary?:

The shortage of black male teachers compounds the difficulties that many African American boys face in school. About half of black male students do not complete high school in four years, statistics show. Black males also tend to score lower on standardized tests, take fewer Advanced Placement courses and are suspended and expelled at higher rates than other groups, officials said.

Educators said black male teachers expose students to black men as authority figures, help minority students feel that they belong, motivate black students to achieve, demonstrate positive male-female relationships to black girls and provide African American youths with role models and mentors.

We need more Black male teachers, just like we need more Black males to stop fathering children out-of-wedlock and to finally pay child support. America simply needs Black male teachers!

Where can we DWLs go to find positive examples of Black teachers ready to engage the gritty Black underclass that white flight has left behind and CWP’s have failed to educate? Why, Hollywood of course!

Samuel L. Jackson starred in an underrated classic 187 (playing Trevor Garfield) that deals with a dedicated Black male teacher bent on reforming inner city schools, no matter the costs:

Trevor Garfield is a black high school science teacher at Roosevelt Whitney High School, a high school in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. A gangster student to whom he had given a failing grade threatens to murder him, writing the number 187 on every page of one of Garfield's textbooks. The administration ignores the threat, and the thug ambushes Garfield in the hallway, stabbing him in the back and side abdominal area multiple times with a shiv.


Fifteen months after surviving from the ordeal, Garfield, now a substitute teacher, has relocated to John Quincy Adams High School in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, but the trouble starts again when he becomes a substitute to a rowdy, unruly class of rejects, including a Chicano tag crew by the name of "Kappin' Off Suckers" (K.O.S.). Their leader, Benito "Benny" Chacón, a menacing felon attending high school as a condition of probation, makes it clear to Garfield that there will be no mutual respect between them.


The tension mounts when a fellow teacher, Ellen Henry, confides that Benny has threatened her life, an action against which the administration of the school refuses to take action, fearing legal threats. Ellen and Garfield develop a close friendship that approaches the beginnings of a relationship, but which is stymied by Garfield's diffident and destabilizing behavior, likely arising from PTSD and his confrontations with the K.O.S.. Garfield's past also garners him the unwanted admiration of Dave Childress, a burned-out, alcoholic history teacher who carries and keeps guns at the school.

Why can’t the real world produce Black male teachers with the tenacity, drive and educational dedication of Garfield? Where can they be found in the real world?

 Most DWLs have never set foot in an inner city school, walked through the metal detectors, talked to the multiple resource officers on hand to keep law and order at the school or seen the worn-out faces of white teachers who entered that same building full of optimism and hope only to be broken by a reality no one dares acknowledge.

At the end of 187, this reality is shown for all to see. For a few fleeting moments, though, Samuel Garfield represents a Black Fictional Hero: a Black male teacher dedicated to teaching inner city even if it costs him his life.

Until he decides to play Russian Roulette. Isn't that what the traditional majority of America has been doing under Black Run America? Every time a concession is made, the hope that the inevitable "And Then?" won't follow is akin to playing a treacherous game of Russian Roulette.

CNN video on Black teachers can be watched here. 

Scott's Tots it's Not: Flocabulary to Save the Day

The skies are clear, no superhero is near. Black people wait with bated breath for that hero to arrive that will provide the knowledge and knowhow necessary to cause of cessation of Waiting for “Superman”.

A hero with the pedagogic dexterity to steer the rudderless and capsizing ship that represent the attempts at educating Black children has yet to found.   No didactic compass has been located to point Black children in the right direction, for Black children fall behind in the educational game and drag the rest of country to Davy Jones’ Locker.

No amount of money from the state or private charities nor instruction from Crusading White Pedagogues has been sufficient in addressing the distractions that plague Black children and cause the racial gap in learning.

Though the promise of free scholarships from Michael Scott in an episode of The Office did motivate Black children to perform solid enough in their academics to garner tuition from the hapless manager of Dunder-Mifflin Sabre, this fictional TV show is not representative of real-life (consult Scott’s Tots episode).

In the real world, hundreds of organizations offer scholarships that help-out Black children at the expense and exclusion of other races (which is why middle-class white voters flee the increasingly Minority Rainbow Coalition (MRC) run Democratic Party).

Reports have been circulating that indicate a superhero not unlike Meteor Man is at work creating curriculums utilizing Flocabulary, hip-hop style teaching, in a last ditch effort to offer Black children the opportunity of closing the racial gap in learning:

Concern over a new hip-hop curriculum that refers to the founding fathers as "old dead white men" has delayed the program's rollout for at-risk students, Oklahoma City Public Schools Superintendent Karl Springer said.

"We're making sure that whatever we do, first, we do no harm," Springer said. "The science behind the concept is wonderful. There may be some things, though, that are inappropriate that we need to be careful about."

Known as Flocabulary, the program is a music-based educational tool that uses raps, rhythms and rhymes to help students learn and memorize everything from vocabulary and English to math and social studies.

About 15 teachers have complained or expressed concern about the rap song lyrics, said Ed Allen, president of the Oklahoma City American Federation of Teachers.
"I just don't think we were real careful where we deployed it," Allen said. "Not all parts of it are real affective for the more troubled youth."

It is the U.S. history curriculum that has raised concern.

One of the rap songs — "Old Dead White Men" — chronicles the shortcomings of the early leaders in the United States.

Of President James Monroe's tenure, the rap says: "White men getting richer than Enron./ They stepping on Indians, women and blacks./ Era of Good Feeling doesn't come with the facts."

That's followed up by an assessment of President Andrew Jackson's checkered dealings with American Indians.

"Andrew Jackson, thinks he's a tough guy./ Killing more Indians than there are stars in the sky./ Evil wars of Florida killing the Seminoles./ Saying hello, putting Creek in the hell holes./ Like Adolf Hitler he had the final solution./ 'No, Indians, I don't want you to live here anymore.'"

Springer said he was concerned about some of the lyrics, and that's why the district is holding off on the program until it's been evaluated.

Flocabulary CEO and co-founder Alex Rappaport said the lyrics are made intentionally provocative and sometimes humorous to create student engagement among some of the toughest-to-reach students in the nation.

"In general, the purpose of our program is to motivate students, and we often say the enemy here is student apathy," Rappaport said. "We want students to ask questions and challenge assumptions that are made and think critically about historical themes."

Hip-hop is what the kids are listening to these days, and because Black Run America (BRA) dictates the Ebony-tilitarian (what is best for Black people will be implemented at the expense of everyone else) philosophy, schools across the country will come to rely on Flocabulary and might even start hip-hop schools to plug the racial gap in learning:

The Portland School Board's charter school committee recommended approval of the High School for Recording Arts Portland -- the first recommended approval by that committee in at least four years.

The committee passed the resolution in a 2-to-1 split vote Friday morning.

If the full school board approves the charter application at the Dec. 14 board meeting, the High School for Recording Arts Portland would be the 10th charter to operate within Portland Public Schools' boundaries. The district has more charter schools than any other place in the state, but it also has a tougher application than most school districts and turns down most applications.

Superintendent Carole Smith also recommended the Portland School Board approve the charter school, which wants to use an arts-integrated curriculum, hip-hop music and credit by proficiency to serve about 200 students.

But Smith's report also recommended the school revise its budget, provide a more detailed curriculum outline and consider postponing the opening to 2011 in order to integrate the school into the district's high school redesign process.

Supporters said the school was an innovative idea that could engage disinterested students by drawing from hip-hop music and other recording arts.

Board member Dilafruz Williams cast the only dissenting vote among the three committee members, saying the school didn't have a strong enough academic foundation.

"I don't understand how, through the recording arts, you will be able to teach all those other critical subjects -- math, science, physics, algebra," Williams said. "I appreciate the strength of the recording arts. But we are in the business of doing that other academic piece and not the recording arts."

All board members said they were concerned about the low achievement scores posted by the High School for Recording Arts Minnesota, a 12-year-old charter school in St. Paul, Minn., that is sharing some of its strategies with the Portland school. Since it is not a replication of the Minnesota school, board members can't use concerns about the Minnesota school as a reason to deny the High School for Recording Arts Portland.

The Word Up Project by Flocabulary has shown stirring results, though any individual who points out the dumb-downed tests that students are taking now to create the impression of successful teaching will only be greeted with scorn and ridicule. 

Other teachers who work with Black students have used more unorthodox methods to improve education:

During the 20-plus years Harriett Ball taught in Texas public schools, her methods weren’t always applauded. She sometimes butted heads with a system that didn’t appreciate deviation from the norm. However, Ball was committed to her rambunctious teaching style, which is now nationally celebrated…

She used songs, chants and games to get kids excited about learning. “I take whatever the kids are watching and make it educational,” she said.

Ball once taught math using a McDonald’s commercial tune; another time, she used a mock boxing match to help students “knock out the continents” for a geography test.
“They all aced the test,” she remembers.

Interaction is the cornerstone of Ball’s method. “They’re not just listening to me, they are responding.”

The dramatic improvement in her students’ test scores soon attracted attention.

We will continue to impatiently practice Waiting for “Superman” all the while implementing the most foolish, pathetic and inane (costly) programs possible to try and uplift those who fail in every school system in America they be found, yo. 

SBPDL believes that the only way to improve education is found in the story of Ken E. Bonds, a man who has decided to take up arms against the prevalence of pants on the ground, non-belt wearing individuals on his Memphis street. 

If change is to come, it must come from within. With a 70 percent out-of-wedlock birthrate, the times they ain’t gonna be a changing. To see Harriet Ball rap to her school, click here.

A Note on Avatar and the idea of the "White Messiah"

Black people love movies. This is a dominant theme of SBPDL. Remember, Black people automatically don't like movies where they don't save the world.

With that in mind, Black people find movies with a mystical white messiah to be repulsive and incredibly repugnant. Even if that white messiah is Leigh Anne Tuohy and the character being saved is Michael Oher, Black people still find the notion that it takes a white person to lead colored people like themselves to salvation an undeniably anachronistic notion.

What is the "white messiah"?:

"Near the end of the hit film "Avatar," the villain snarls at the hero, "How does it feel to betray your own race?" Both men are white — although the hero is inhabiting a blue-skinned, 9-foot-tall, long-tailed alien.

Strange as it may seem for a film that pits greedy, immoral humans against noble denizens of a faraway moon, "Avatar" is being criticized by a small but vocal group of people who allege it
contains racist themes — the white hero once again saving the primitive natives.

Since the film opened to widespread critical acclaim three weeks ago, hundreds of blog posts, newspaper articles, tweets and YouTube videos have made claims such as that the film is "a fantasy about race told from the point of view of white people" and reinforces "the white Messiah fable."

Like Kevin Costner in "Dances with Wolves" and Tom Cruise in "The Last Samurai" or as far back as Jimmy Stewart in the 1950 Western "Broken Arrow," Sully finds his allegiances soon change. He falls in love with the Na'vi princess and leads the bird-riding, bow-and-arrow-shooting aliens to victory over the white men's spaceships and mega-robots."

Since we are discussing Avatar, a film that has grossed more that $1.3 billion worldwide since its release a mere 24 days ago, it is obvious that movie-goers find the idea of the white messiah appealing, even if Black people find it disconcerting:

"Robinne Lee, an actress in such recent films as "Seven Pounds" and "Hotel for Dogs," said that "Avatar" was "beautiful" and that she understood the economic logic of casting a white lead if most of the audience is white.

But she said the film, which remained No. 1 at the box office domestically for the fourth straight weekend with $48.5 million and is second among all-time top-grossing films worldwide, still reminded her of Hollywood's "Pocahontas" story — "the Indian woman leads the white man into the wilderness, and he learns the way of the people and becomes the savior."

The characteristics of the "great" white messiah, as described above, appear to be a combination of the disingenuous white liberal and the crusading white pedagogue taken to the extreme, for they inherently understand the porous state of the non-white civilization they hope to liberate, yet reject the notion that their civilization is superior due to the abundance of white people while seriously entertaining the thought that if white people lead the non-white society, they can be as great as the white society.

Convoluted? Yes. Part of the SBPDL. Absolutely. Thankfully, other movies showcase the erroneous view that a white messiah is needed to save the world:

"Although the "Avatar" debate springs from Hollywood's historical difficulties with race, Will Smith recently saved the planet in "I Am Legend," and Denzel Washington appears ready to do the same in the forthcoming "Book of Eli."

However, another recently released movie Invictus, shows us that the great white messiah will always be needed:

"While Mandela attempts to tackle the country's largest problems—including crime and unemployment—he attends a game of the Springboks, the country's rugby union team. Blacks in the stadium cheer against their home squad, as the Springboks (their history, players and even their colors) represent prejudice and apartheid in their mind.

Knowing that South Africa is set to host the 1995 Rugby World Cup in one year's time, Mandela convinces the South African rugby board to keep the Springbok team, name and colors the same. He then meets with Springboks captain Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon). Though Mandela never verbalizes his true meaning during their meeting, Francois understands the message below the surface: if the Springboks can gain the support of black South Africans and succeed in the upcoming World Cup, the country will be unified and inspired."

The white messiah in South Africa was their invention - rugby - and the desire to play internationally by the whites meant the peaceful handing over of power to the Black populace would finally occur.

Now-a-days, South Africa is a peaceful land reminiscent of Pandora, the home of the Na'vi in Avatar. Right?

David Brooks, a New York Times columnist, writes this about the white messiah:

"Every age produces its own sort of fables, and our age seems to have produced The White Messiah fable.

This is the oft-repeated story about a manly young adventurer who goes into the wilderness in search of thrills and profit. But, once there, he meets the native people and finds that they are noble and spiritual and pure. And so he emerges as their Messiah, leading them on a righteous crusade against his own rotten civilization.

Avatar is a racial fantasy par excellence. The hero is a white former Marine who is adrift in his civilization. He ends up working with a giant corporation and flies through space to help plunder the environment of a pristine planet and displace its natives.

The peace-loving natives — compiled from a melange of Native American, African, Vietnamese, Iraqi and other cultural fragments — are like the peace-loving natives you've seen in a hundred other movies. They're tall, muscular and admirably slender. They walk around nearly naked. They are phenomenal athletes and pretty good singers and dancers."

Of course, this line of thinking of the dexterous white messiah runs counter to the actual line of thinking pervasive in the Black community of Mein Obama as the Black Messiah:

"But it's in line with those who think of Obama as a messiah who can give black people some manners, a God-child descending from the heavens to teacheth benighted African Americans the virtues of books and proper English and the evils of Pacman Jones and blaming the white man. It pains me to deliver this sobering news to those who think Obama will wave his hand and erase whole ghettos: Barack Obama is a black President, not black Jesus."

Perhaps the most intriguing view taken on the white messiah and Avatar comes courtesy of Will Heaven, who writes:

"But the Na’vi aren’t your average extra-terrestrials. Blue skin aside, they’re essentially a childish pastiche of the “ethnic”, with recognisably human features. They wear Maasai-style necklaces and beaded jewellery which Cameron has borrowed from tribal East Africa. Their long, dark hair is dreadlocked.

Their clothes are apparently Amerindian. They are armed with bows and poisoned arrows, and wear facepaint into battle. The main Na’vi characters are voiced by four black actors: Zoë Saldaña, C. C. H. Pounder, Laz Alonso and Peter Mensah; as well as one Cherokee, Wes Studi. The evil humans, needless to say, are white, male and middle-aged."

Where else have dreadlocked, humanoid featured, muscular aliens appeared? How about the 1987 film Predator, where a multi-ethnic search and recovery Army Unit is slaughtered by an alien that resembles a Rastafarian? The only survivor and eventually vanquisher of the eponymous predator? Arnold schwarzenegger, one of the science fiction genres go-to white messiah's.

The white messiah will always be a part of movies - think John Connor - for the same reason The Princess and the Frog was a monumental bomb at the theater.

Stuff Black People Don't Like includes the usage of the white messiah in Avatar and any other film ever made, including Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.

Unfortunately, most of Black history is clouded with the murky reality of white messiah's constantly lending a hand to Black people, in an effort to improve their collective lot in not only Africa, but America.

Most interesting though, Black people find those callous Black individuals who stray from the flock to try and enter the ranks of white civilization much worse than the idea of a white messiah. They call these lost Black souls Uncle Tom's.

The Tenth Day of Christmas at SBPDL - Kwanzaa

The 26th of December has a special place in the hearts and minds of disingenuous white liberals everywhere: it is the start of a week-long celebration of innate Blackness and the glory of Black people, Kwanaa!:

Kwanzaa is a weeklong celebration held in the United States honoring universal African heritage and culture, marked by participants lighting a kinara (candle holder).^[1] It is observed from December 26 to January 1 each year, primarily in the United States.

Kwanzaa consists of seven days of celebration, featuring activities such as candle-lighting and libations, and culminating in a feast and gift giving. It was created by Ron Karenga and was first celebrated from December 26, 1966 to January 1, 1967.

Kwanzaa... the event that Black people eagerly await for year-round, where disingenuous white liberals heap praise and joy upon them for the creativity in concocting such an ethnocentric holiday, devoid of white peoples help. Much like when a crusading white pedagogue teaches a Black person the quadratic equation, white people garner a deep sense of pride when Black people celebrate Kwanzaa - all by themselves!

Take this fantastic write-up in the San Francisco Chronicle, a city that has more than 800,000 people and a whopping 6 percent of them are Black, yet the white liberals who populate that metropolis treat the Black people there like Kindergartners who just learned the alphabet.

Here is the official webpge of Kwanaa, and a message from the founder of this monumental festival of Blackness, the incomparable Dr. Maulana Karenga:

As an African American and Pan-African holiday celebrated by millions throughout the world African community, Kwanzaa brings a cultural message which speaks to the best of what it means to be African and human in the fullest sense. Given the profound significance Kwanzaa has for African Americans and indeed, the world African community, it is imperative that an authoritative source and site be made available to give an accurate and expansive account of its origins, concepts, values, symbols and practice.

Moreover, given the continued rapid growth of Kwanzaa and the parallel expanded discussion of it and related issues, an authoritative source which aids in both framing and informing the discussion is likewise of the greatest importance. Therefore, the central interest of this website is to provide information which reveals and reaffirms the integrity, beauty and expansive meaning of the holiday and thus aids in our approaching it with the depth of thought, dignity, and sense of specialness it deserves.

The holiday, then will of necessity, be engaged as an ancient and living cultural tradition which reflects the best of African thought and practice in its reaffirmation of the dignity of the human person in community and culture, the well-being of family and community, the integrity of the environment and our kinship with it, and the rich resource and meaning of a people's culture.

Kwanzaa celebrates the Seven Principles of Blackness, and these include:

• Umoja (Unity): To strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.
• Kujichagulia (Self-Determination): To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.
• Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers' and sisters' problems our problems, and to solve them together.
• Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.
• Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
• Kuumba (Creativity): To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
• Imani (Faith): To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

These are admirable principles and worthy of adulation from all people. Black people should feel pride in these ideals and strive to maintain them. However, a cursory glance at this website would show you that these seven principles of Kwanzaa are forgotten throughout most of the year.

However, an interesting historian - one Ann Coulter - has found some unappealing truths about Kwanzaa that paint a darker picture than the already Black hue of Kwanzaa would care for, as the holiday is nothing but a sham:

President Bush's 2005 Kwanzaa message began with the patently absurd statement: "African-Americans and people around the world reflect on African heritage during Kwanzaa."

I believe more African-Americans spent this season reflecting on the birth of Christ than some phony non-Christian holiday invented a few decades ago by an FBI stooge. Kwanzaa is a holiday for white liberals, not blacks.

It is a fact that Kwanzaa was invented in 1966 by a black radical FBI stooge, Ron Karenga, aka Dr. Maulana Karenga. Karenga was a founder of United Slaves, a violent nationalist rival to the Black Panthers and a dupe of the FBI.

In what was probably ultimately a foolish gamble, during the madness of the '60s the FBI encouraged the most extreme black nationalist organizations in order to discredit and split the left. The more preposterous the organization, the better. Karenga's United Slaves was perfect. In the annals of the American '60s, Karenga was the Father Gapon, stooge of the czarist police...

Kwanzaa itself is a lunatic blend of schmaltzy '60s rhetoric, black racism and Marxism. Indeed, the seven "principles" of Kwanzaa praise collectivism in every possible arena of life — economics, work, personality, even litter removal. ("Kuumba: Everyone should strive to improve the community and make it more beautiful.") It takes a village to raise a police snitch...

Now the "holiday" concocted by an FBI dupe is honored in a presidential proclamation and public schools across the nation. Bush called Kwanzaa a holiday that promotes "unity" and "faith." Faith in what? Liberals' unbounded capacity to respect any faith but Christianity?

The conservative vixen wrote another column on Kwanzaa here.

The Washington Post saw fit to publish one Michael Eric Dyson, an individual we have yet to chronicle here at SBPDL - but will soon - as he exalted the virtues of Kwanzaa and how it relates to one Mein Obama, Barack Obama:

The political climate affects black rituals too. A lot has been made of the number of posts that black life confronts: post-soul, post-black, post-racial, and post-civil rights. In this era of black posts, pillars fall, whether civil rights leaders whose approach is viewed as passé, or as rituals of black cohesion are viewed by many blacks as quaint and largely irrelevant. A lot of that talk picked up pace with the election of Barack Obama as president, a monumental event that eclipsed black fears in some quarters (racism could no longer keep black folk from the big prizes of American life), exacerbated them in others (because of his success the bulk of blacks who continue to struggle might be forgotten). What's a people - and how is "people" exactly defined in such conditions - to do?

But the holiday's most faithful practitioners proclaim its original intent: bridging black folk across the chasms of land, language, water and religion as they forge solidarity in resisting obstacles and embracing opportunities to their common destiny. As the devotees of Kwanzaa understand, those aspirations have never been of much interest to the mainstream during any period of the nation's history. And the increased fortunes of black folk cause many of them to focus their energy and attention elsewhere. But for its true believers, Kwanzaa is as relevant and necessary now as it's ever been.

Consequently, Kwanzaa is treated - by many Black people - as an absolute joke, unless you are an disingenuous white liberal or an adherent of a religious movement that makes the Hale-Bopp Heaven's Gate cult look sane in comparison.

Black people love a good party - especially a block party - and a week-long celebration in their own honor should be grounds for Bacchanalian revelry. However Kwanzaa isn't celebrated by a majority of Black people:

"The holiday was a way for African Americans to honor their culture, but it was also part of the black power movement of the era. The big boom in Kwanzaa came during its first two decades, according to Keith Mayes, author of "Kwanzaa: Black Power and the Making of the African-American Holiday Tradition."

But he said participation has leveled off. Based on his research, he estimates a half-million to 2 million people in the U.S. celebrate Kwanzaa, out of about 40 million Americans identified by the U.S. Census as black, including those who are multiracial.

Although Kwanzaa started here, it has become a Pan-African holiday. The African American Cultural Center places the number of those who observe Kwanzaa worldwide at 30 million, but even that is a small fraction of the hundreds of millions of people of African descent all over the world."

Some might even argue the kinara is going dim on the glory that was Kwanzaa, and once its magnificent light dims the magic of the holiday will be lost forever.

Let's be honest. Black people already a holiday that unites them forever, for it is the date that officially but to rest Pre-Obama America: January 20, 2008.

Stuff Black People Don't Like includes Kwanzaa, for this pathetic attempt at showing disingenuous white liberals the creative mind of Black people was really a blatant job at coloring outside the lines.

Black people find this celebration disconcerting and feckless, for if they wanted anything to do with Africa in 2009, then they would gladly return to whence they came.

#41. The Greatest Generation

(While you read this, listen to this song)


"December 7, 1941 - a date that will live in infamy...," so said Franklin Roosevelt 68 years ago today, in the wake of the horrific surprise attack by the Empire of Japan on US Naval forces based in Hawaii:

"The attack sank four U.S. Navy battleships (two of which were raised and returned to service later in the war) and damaged four more. The Japanese also sank or damaged three cruisers, three destroyers, and one minelayer, destroyed 188 aircraft, and caused personnel losses of 2,402 killed and 1,282 wounded."

This attack by Japan awoke the so-called "sleeping giant" and forced the United States to declare war upon them (and eventually Germany and Italy) and enter World War II against the Axis Powers.

Have you seen the 2001 movie Pearl Harbor? Dorie Miller had his story immortalized in Michael Bay's movie, as Cuba Gooding Jr., played the real-life Casey Ryback/ John Rambo killer combo, wielding a machine gun and blasting away the Japanese.

As the Michael Bay movie shows, had this Black seamen not engaged the enemy, World War II would have been lost from the start.

After this attack, a formerly isolationist nation would mobilize quickly and put forth one of the most impressive fighting forces the world has ever seen, in an effort to subdue the Japanese and the threat of Fascism in Europe for good.

Answering the call of Uncle Sam were millions upon millions of Americans, as the nation of 130 million would see almost 11 percent of its population engaging the enemy in war.

It is important to remember that the United States in 1940 was a completely different nation than we are today. The nation was comprised of almost 90 percent white people, with Black people comprising roughly nine percent.

The United States had a segregated military up until 1948:

"African Americans have served in the U.S. military since the days of George Washington, but it took until July 26, 1948, for the country to begin living up the democratic ideals that they fought to defend.

As World War II approached, the United States found itself opposed to fascist regimes and their racist ideologies, yet it had to reckon with the hard reality that many of its own 12.6 million African-American citizens -- about 10 percent of the population at the time -- were denied basic civil rights and human opportunities.

The bitter irony that President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” (freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear) set forth as U.S. war aims were largely unavailable to African Americans did not stop 2.5 million black men from registering for the military draft. More than 1 million eventually served in all branches of the armed forces during World War II. In addition, thousands of African-American women volunteered as combat nurses."

Why point this out? Well, to put it mildly, Black people didn't have that much of a role in World War II and the defeat of the Axis Powers. An interesting United States government Defense website completely glosses over Black involvement in World War Two, save for the aforementioned Dorie Miller and the vaunted Tuskegee Airmen.

What Black people actually did in World War II is quite interesting, as the United States government decided to keep most of the Black soldiers away from the conflict (and thus, incapable of duplicating Miller's Pearl Harbor exploits):

1944
By this time, the War Department’s critical need for troops overseas helped to ease opposition to the dispatch of black servicemen to the European or Pacific theaters.

The number of African Americans serving in-theater jumped from 97,725 in 1941 to 504,000 in 1943. However, 425,000 black troops remained in the United States. The military claimed that allied foreign nations objected to the presence of black troops, but it was usually American commanders overseas who opposed their assignment.

17 July 1944
The worst home front disaster of WWII occurred when two ships, the E.A. Bryan and the Quinalt Victory, docked at Port Chicago, California, exploded one night while African-American sailors were loading ammunition for use in the Pacific theater. Both ships and the loading pier were destroyed, while many of the nearby town’s buildings also suffered severe damage.

Of the 320 men killed, 202 of them were black enlisted men; the blast also injured 390 men. The worst military loss of life in the continental United States during WWII, this one incident involved 15 percent of all African Americans wounded or killed in this conflict.

Despite the extensive casualties, however, sailors were ordered to resume loading on 9 August 1944, with no training or procedural changes to help safeguard against another such catastrophe. Because they were afraid of another explosion, 258 African-American sailors refused to comply with orders.

The U.S. Navy court martialed 50 men for mutiny and tried the other 208 on lesser charges. Those convicted of mutiny were sentenced to 15 years in prison, but after the war they were granted amnesty. However, their original convictions were not overturned. Ultimately, though, this incident did result in changes affecting racial relations in the Navy, because ammunition loading ceased to be a "blacks only" assignment. The Navy also adopted safer procedures for loading ammunition.

Only 708 Black people died in combat during World War II, in a war that saw 418,500 Americans die while defending freedom and democracy from tyranny and oppression.

It is important to remember that racial views in the 1940s weren't as angelic as they're now, and that prejudicial and ignorant views of Black people were the norm. Black people were second-class citizens in America, and decided to wage a war against oppression at home, while white people were slaying evil yellow and white people abroad:

"The African American community in the United States resolved on a Double V Campaign: Victory over fascism abroad, and victory over discrimination at home. Large numbers migrated from poor Southern farms to munitions centers.

Racial tensions were high in overcrowded cities like Chicago; Detroit and Harlem experienced race riots in 1943.The derogative name jig was coined during this time. The Pittsburgh Courier created the Double V Campaign after readers began commenting on their second class status during wartime."

While the Double V Campaign was being waged in America, white American troops were busy engaging the enemy in the Pacific Theater and eventually in the German-occupied European continent.

The millions of white people who fought tyranny, nationalism and fascism abroad and the hundreds of thousands who died so doing, were working to ensure that the goals of the Double V campaign would come to fruition at some point, even if they didn't consciously know it.

Pre-Obama America was a diseased land and needed to be cleansed of its boring whiteness. Sure, these overwhelming white troops defeated evil in World War II, and they even had the honor of being dubbed "The Greatest Generation" for their efforts:

"The Greatest Generation" is a term coined by journalist Tom Brokaw to describe the generation who grew up in the United States during the deprivation of the Great Depression, and then went on to fight in World War II, as well as those whose productivity within the war's home front made a decisive material contribution to the war effort."

But these Real American Heroes fought World War II so that the world we currently live in could be birthed; could see its genesis. These white people defeated Japan, a people who have never had a lofty opinion of Black people, and the Germans (who treated Jesse Owens with more respect than he would receive in America).

The Greatest Generation returned home from WWII victorious, and would then wage a war upon racism within its states to ensure true equality to all people, of all races.

Black people owe The Greatest Generation an almost inconceivable and repayable debt, for they bestowed Black people equality after the war and handed the reigns of power to them completely.

The United States enjoyed an unbelievable epoch of prosperity after World War II, which saw an unprecedented growth of the middle-class that affected white people, as well as Black people.

White people fled the major cities, leaving them to be governed by Black people and inadvertently destroying the old identity of those cities and instilling a negative stereotype of the urban jungle for all eternity.

Untold billions would be spent - the hard-earned tax dollars of The Greatest Generation - on Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society programs, as every attempt to remake the average American Black person into your average white person would be undertaken.

Yet these members of The Greatest Generation sacrificed countless lives in the war (more than 400,000 white Americans gave their lives so this new world of equality could exist) to usher in the new America - which might never be absolved of white racism.

The greatness of the era right after WWII - some might call it Pleasantville - was but a glimpse of a country that could have been, but was to be sacrificed to the Gods of Blackness.

In retrospect, Black people owe America and The Greatest Generation absolutely nothing (as long as they continue to entertain us with their dazzling sports skills). The cumulative sacrifices of white people in World War II register barely a penitence for the historical stain of racism that Black people must constantly remember and put hardly a dint in bitter narrative of white supremacy that dominates the colored people of the world like a rampaging river.

Like Damocles Sword, white guilt is the bitter legacy of The Greatest Generation, for they extirpated a nation that seemed poised to preside over the world's affairs and usher in an irenic era of continued growth and unabated happiness.

However, this misguided sense of destiny was supplanted by the work of disingenuous white liberals - who constantly repent for their whiteness - and the crusading white pedagogues - those poor souls who fight and try to undo nature - as they constantly maneuver to heap scorn upon this misnamed Greatest Generation as just an extension of Nazi Germany (whoops, that was by the books author).

These members of the The Greatest Generation represent one of the last links of the chain to an era of racism, oppression and evil, even though this group did more to ensure that Black people had a seat at the table. Don't worry, they will soon be gone:

"In 2000, there were 555,974, WWII veterans in California, according to U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. There are now 213,118. Ten years from now, just 30,370 will be alive. Across the nation, we lose 900 WWII veterans a day.

It is urgent that we honor these heroes now, while there is time. Strangely, given the scope, magnitude and importance of World War II, America had been woefully late in acknowledging a debt we can never repay to those who defended the liberty we take for granted."

With each passing of a veteran of World War II, the rapidity of the air coming out Pre-Obama America speeds up. Will an article one day appear in an America newspaper much like this one from England?"

"Nearly 400,000 Britons died. Millions more were scarred by the experience, physically and mentally.

But was it worth it? Her answer - and the answer of many of her contemporaries, now in their 80s and 90s - is a resounding No.

They despise what has become of the Britain they once fought to save. It's not our country any more, they say, in sorrow and anger.

In one letter in this collection, an RAF mechanic quoted a poem about comrades who fell in battle: 'I mourned them then, But now surviving in a world, Indifferent to their hopes and dreams, I grieve more for the living.'

The Greatest Generation is a sickening reminder to the inhabitants of Obama's America of a stain that no matter how hard it is scrubbed, can never be removed. The dreams, ambitions, sacrifices and goals of these brave men and women built the country we live in today.

Paradoxically, Black people cannot be to happy with this generation for they kept Black people from contributing fully in World War II. Yet, the dichotomy of this situation is equally a tragedy: this experience of divisiveness would ensure that Black people received full integration into America life.

Worse, The Greatest Generation is forced to undergo a Crayola Moment as the overbearing whiteness of this group is in dire need of a good 21st century revisionist coloring.

Where can this be found? Easy. Movies. People believe truth to be formulated by what they visualize and favorable impressions of historically inaccurate "truths" can be conjured through the magic of cinema:

"On February 19 1945 Thomas McPhatter found himself on a landing craft heading toward the beach on Iwo Jima.

"There were bodies bobbing up all around, all these dead men," said the former US marine, now 83 and living in San Diego. "Then we were crawling on our bellies and moving up the beach. I jumped in a foxhole and there was a young white marine holding his family pictures. He had been hit by shrapnel, he was bleeding from the ears, nose and mouth. It frightened me. The only thing I could do was lie there and repeat the Lord's prayer, over and over and over."

Sadly, Sgt McPhatter's experience is not mirrored in Flags of Our Fathers, Clint Eastwood's big-budget, Oscar-tipped film of the battle for the Japanese island that opened on Friday in the US. While the film's battle scenes show scores of young soldiers in combat, none of them are African-American. Yet almost 900 African-American troops took part in the battle of Iwo Jima, including Sgt McPhatter.

The film tells the story of the raising of the stars and stripes over Mount Suribachi at the tip of the island. The moment was captured in a photograph that became a symbol of the US war effort. Eastwood's film follows the marines in the picture, including the Native American Ira Hayes, as they were removed from combat operations to promote the sale of government war bonds.

Mr McPhatter, who went on to serve in Vietnam and rose to the rank of lieutenant commander in the US navy, even had a part in the raising of the flag. "The man who put the first flag up on Iwo Jima got a piece of pipe from me to put the flag up on," he says. That, too, is absent from the film.

"Of all the movies that have been made of Iwo Jima, you never see a black face," said Mr McPhatter. "This is the last straw. I feel like I've been denied, I've been insulted, I've been mistreated. But what can you do? We still have a strong underlying force in my country of rabid racism."

Spike Lee accused the film's director, Clint Eastwood, of racism, for not showing a single Black face in his World War II movies:

In round one, Lee came out swinging at Director Clint Eastwood's WWII films, "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters from Iwo Jima," claiming that Eastwood "erased the role of black GIs from history." Lee tried on his self-righteous air of moral certitude and labeled Eastwood a racist. "Many black veterans who fought in Iwo Jima were hurt that there was no representation of them in both of those films," Lee said in an interview in Rome last year.

Round two began as the blow fell upon Eastwood in an interview with Focus magazine. Why was Eastwood such a racist, they wondered? Eastwood, momentarily rocked on his heels, came back with a knock out blow showing the world that, aging or not, he was still faster and smarter than the bespeckled, racemongering Lee.

"Does he know anything about American history?" Eastwood told Focus when asked about Lee's criticism. "The U.S. military was segregated til the Korean War, and the blacks in World War Two were totally segregated. The only black battalion on Iwo Jima was a small munitions supply unit that came to the beach.

"The story was about the men who raised the flag and we can't make them black if they were not there. So tell him: Why don't you go back and study your history and stop mouthing off!"

You see, the coming decades will see an erosion of historical facts and the inclusion of more Black faces into the tale of World War II so that Dorie Miller can have some much deserved colored company.

For Stuff Black People Don't Like includes The Greatest Generation, as the war these white people fought was won without the help of Black soldiers and worse, in a period of time when Black people faced rampant discrimination at home. How can these people - The Greatest Generation - be the source of simultaneous pride and yet universal scorn for their racial chauvenism?

The answer is simple: they can't. The Greatest Generation will fade into obscurity and memory as they leave this realm of existence and depart for the afterlife.

A new group will be awarded the moniker The Greatest Generation, for the defeat of Japan and Germany by white people no longer reflects the multiracial splendor that is 21st America. That title will be reserved Obama's generation.

#123. Those Who Can See

We at SBPDL talk about college football and sports all the time for one simple reason: without sports, Black people would have absolutely no positive images to project to the American people.

Integration and the breakdown of entrenched dogmatic white supremacy in every institution in America only occurred when white people realized they could derive enjoyment out of watching Black people compete in sports.

We still live in a world where Black people commit crimes at an unprecedented level against white people, yet we live in a world where they make up 68 percent of the NFL on-field employees and 80 percent of the NBA competitors (these numbers don't eradicate the reality of crime in the USA):

• Of the nearly 770,000 violent interracial crimes committed every year involving blacks and whites, blacks commit 85 percent and whites commit 15 percent.
• Blacks commit more violent crime against whites than against blacks. Forty-five percent of their victims are white, 43 percent are black, and 10 percent are Hispanic. When whites commit violent crime, only three percent of their victims are black.

Hate Facts, you might protest, are being utilized again to denigrate Black people. This entire website is comprised of Hate Facts, even including the Michael Oher entry (do you realize that without white people, The Blind Side could never have been filmed?), for any person pointing out faults within the Black community obviously has racist intentions.

Wrong. Black people understand this world perfectly. They look to Africa as a continent devoid of hope, reason and a future (save for the Chinese exploitation of it and the impending Human Rights nightmare), and wonder why white people even bother.

Black people live an incredible life in America, where billions of dollars are thrown their way to educate them, promote them ahead of every other race and ensure their domestic tranquility.

Disingenuous white liberals work extra hard to provide a luxurious lifestyle for Black people and the tools necessary to educate them to the highest degree possible.

Crusading white pedagogues strive to close the racial gap in learning - which even the election of Barack Obama failed to close - but only endanger themselves in the process.

Sports, you see, is the only reason Black people haven't all been sent to Monrovia, Liberia by now, and any honest Black person will nod their head in unison at this remark.

Every opportunity to assimilate into mainstream American life has been offered to Black people, yet they have steadfastly refused to for decades, instead finding solace in the "perpetually victimized-class" status and continuing to hold this nation hostage in a vice of racial guilt.

Sadly, this age will pass and the glory of Black sports achievements will be forgotten as the reality of crime, substandard test scores that trillions of dollars can't remedy and rotting unlivable cities will provide the necessary sunglasses for people to see clearly.

Don't understand the sunglasses reference? Allow a quick They Live explanation to fill you in:

"Part science fiction thriller and part dark comedy, the film echoed contemporary fears of a declining economy, within a culture of greed and conspicuous consumption common among Americans in the 1980s. In They Live, the ruling class within the monied elite are in fact aliens managing human social affairs through the use of a signal on top of the tv broadcast that is concealing their appearance and subliminal messages in Mass media....

When Nada later dons the glasses for the first time, the world appears in shades of grey, with significant differences. He notices that a billboard now simply displays the word "Obey"; without them it advertises that Control Data Corporation is "creating a transparent computing environment." Another billboard (normally displaying "Come to the Caribbean" written above a lovely woman lying on a beach) now displays the text "Marry and Reproduce." He also sees that paper money bears the words "This is your God." All printed matter around him contains subliminal advertising.

Additionally, he soon discovers that many people are actually aliens, who are human-looking except for skull-like faces. When the aliens realize he can see them for what they truly are, the police suddenly arrive. Nada escapes and steals a police shotgun; while evading the police, he accidentally stumbles into a local bank filled with aliens. Realizing that the jig is up, he proclaims, "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass...and I'm all out of bubblegum."

Right now, those who can see the truth of 21st century are demonized and called racists, bigots even. They are lepers and must be driven from polite society for they infect everyone with the impetuous notion of prejudicial thinking.

Yet those who can see the truth of 21st century America are precisely Stuff Black People Don't Like, for they operate on a playing field that most Black people do.

Those who can see exist diametrically opposed to those who currently run the nation, yet stand as a reminder that like Yeats, this era of Black dominance can change at any moment:

"All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born."

A terrible beauty will be born when those who can see grows in number. For on that day, Black people will realize bubble gum will be hard to come by, and sports achievements will account for the worth of a handful of sand at the beach.

And a lot of Black people will ask: what took you so long?