In the conversation below, I interview Squeaky Moore and Ashley Shaunte, two aspiring filmmakers who’ve been able to make fatherless homes into a viral topic on the Internet. Their short public service video on the topic has drawn hundreds of thousands of viewers, primarily because the idea of being without a dad has such a profound emotional impact on us all.
Your Black World Reports
It looks like even Rush Limbaugh is seeking to give President Obama credit for killing Osama Bin Laden. On his radio show, Limbaugh had this to say:
by Goldie Taylor – TheGrio.com
I lost my job.
For the next few months, we got by on small consulting contracts and what was left of our savings. It will get better, I told myself, as I picked up boxes of food from a local church.
It didn't.
Day turned to night, and soon we lost our home. My children and I moved into a small, rodent infested apartment. I put the kids to bed, scrubbed the walls, fixed the toilet, taped the windows and patched the holes in the baseboards with steel wool and duct tape. It had to be enough.
In a post 9/11 economy, there were few opportunities for an out of work communications executive. It didn't matter that I had cut my teeth as a vice president with one of the world's largest public relations agencies. A bevy of stock options earned in Silicon Valley weren't worth the paper they were printed on.
Four months later, I sat in the middle of the living room floor clutching an eviction notice. The electricity had been shut off. I started to pray. The tears became sobs. Then, there was wailing. I shouted at a God I swore either didn't exist or didn't care that we had no food, no place to go. "If you are who you say you are, you wouldn't do this to them!"
We left almost everything. Our dog, Claire, was taken to a local shelter.
Your Black World Reports
A group of protesters met outside the Cobo Center in Detroit to protest the NAACP’s decision to give an award to Kid Rock, an entertainer who flies the Confederate Flag during his concerts. Adolph Mongo, head of Detroiters for Progress, spoke to the group.
"Do you know what that flag stands for? It stands for hatred, bigotry, racism, murder," he said.
NAACP President Wendell Anthony defended giving an award to Rock.
Your Black World Reports
I listened to your speech last week at Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network's 20th anniversary dinner, talking among friends and close supporters. This was an annual African American dinner, a very important one. While I know that any Democrat would have fulfilled their promise to come back if they had won the '08 election, I also know the significance, and the special burden it poses on you, as the first African American President, at the same time.
Still, I woke up the next day feeling uneasy, not because you didn't take issues of direct significance to the black community head-on -- like the fact that one in three black children go to jail once in their lifetime or that black people have an unemployment rate double the amount of white people -- but because nowhere in your deep and thoughtful remarks did you talk about the elephant in the room that affects ALL Americans, irrespective of color: the growing ranks of poor Americans, Americans struggling not just to meet their mortgage payments but to eat, sleep under a roof, educate their kids and pay their basic bills.
You never know what you’ll see walking through a random antique store. I’m speechless
“The President invited the living participants in the Memphis Sanitation Strike to honor their courage, and their fight on behalf of all workers for safe conditions, respect in the workplace and a better life for themselves and their families. As workers across the country continue to face challenges to their rights, the issues for which these men fought continue to be relevant and the President remains committed to the causes for which they marched.” – from the White House
Gasoline prices are skyrocketing — and so are oil company profits.
Exxon Mobil Corp. earned nearly $11 billion in the first three months of the year, a rollicking 69% increase over its performance for the same period last year. That's on sales of $114 billion.
It's the same story for the other big oil companies. Royal Dutch Shell turned a profit of $6.3 billion in the first quarter, and BP — despite lingering costs from the Gulf Coast oil spill— made $7.1 billion.
Washington (CNN) -- President Barack Obama will name CIA Director Leon Panetta as his nominee to succeed Robert Gates as defense secretary, a senior defense official and another U.S. official said Wednesday.
Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, will be named to replace Panetta as CIA director, a senior defense official said.
by Dr. Boyce Watkins, YourBlackWorld.com
Let’s hope that the Birther Movement is on its way out the door. If it isn’t completely out the door, it’s on its death bed. CNN has engaged in an all-out assault on the Birther Movement by doing a detailed investigation on whether or not President Barack Obama was born in the United States.
In the video below, the network goes to the extreme to settle the question once and for all. Personally, I found the investigation to be quite compelling. There are others, however, including Donald Trump, who’ve spent all of their time engaging in their own investigations and coming to “very interesting” conclusions.
From CBSnews.com
A quarter of all Americans incorrectly think President Obama was not born in the United States, according to a new CBS News/ New York Times poll.
Among all Republicans, 45 percent believe he was born in another country, as do 45 percent of Tea Party supporters, the poll shows.
Since the start of Mr. Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, rumors have existed that he was born outside of the United States. The"birther" myth has steadily persisted through Mr. Obama's presidency, in spite of overwhelming evidence he was born in the United States -- including his 1961 birth announcement, printed in two Hawaii newspapers.
Businessman and television personality Donald Trump has pushed the issue into the spotlight in recent weeks, insisting that he is unconvinced of Mr. Obama's origins. While Trump has used the issue to bring more attention to his possible Republican presidential bid, other Republicans are trying to tamp down the "birther" talk.
The conflict raging in Democratic Republic of Congo is the deadliest humanitarian crisis since World War.JPG)
When R&B crooner Brian McKnight first hit the charts and radio waves in 1992, music fans were not only impressed with his vocal ability, but also his songwriting talent, and his skills as a multi-instrumentalist (he can play nine instruments). Clearly marked as his modus operandi, McKnight has maintained his music career by multi-tasking.
Under the pretext of responding to the September 11, 2001 attacks in America, the United and States and Great Britain invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001 under the banner of Operation Enduring Freedom. President Bush 41’ told the American people that the US strikes were,
“…designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations, and to attack the military capability of the Taliban regime…we will make it more difficult for the terror network to train new recruits and coordinate their evil plans. Initially, the terrorists may burrow deeper into caves and other entrenched hiding places…At the same time, the oppressed people of Afghanistan will know the generosity of America and our allies. As we strike military targets, we will also drop food, medicine and supplies to the starving and suffering men and women and children of Afghanistan… ”
During the 2008 presidential campaign, candidate Obama promised to immediately withdraw troops from Iraq in order to bolster the forces in Afghanistan in order to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda. “It’s time to refocus our attention on the war we have to win in Afghanistan.”
I believe that this tactic was taken by the Obama team in order to placate the anti-Iraq contingent of the American electorate on the left while not leaving himself vulnerable to the “soft on defense” hawkish argument on the right. As a campaign tactic this approach proved to be successful. In reality, this may prove to be one of the greatest miscalculations President Obama has made. The real question here becomes, what’s the best tactic to accomplish this end?
NEW YORK(AP)—Former New York Giant Plaxico Burress(notes) pleaded guilty Thursday to a weapons charge and agreed to a two-year prison term for accidentally shooting himself at a Manhattan nightclub.
The ex-wide receiver pleaded guilty to one count of attempted criminal possession of a weapon, a lesser charge than he initially faced. Under a plea agreement, he agreed to a two-year prison sentence and two years of supervised release.
Burress was indicted earlier this month on two counts of criminal possession of a weapon and one count of reckless endangerment. He faced a minimum sentence of 3 1/2 years if convicted at a trial.
Investigators in Tennessee are looking into how an 18-year-old man died while in police custody.
The Daily News Journal in Murfreesboro reports that Andron Reed died after officers arrested him Friday night. They say it all started when Reed led them on a high-speed chase.
It eventually ended in a crash, but authorities say Reed did not have any apparent injuries.
Reed's brother, who was with him at the time, told a Memphis newspaper that he could hear Reed being beaten at the jail.
Reed was later found unresponsive and died.
Investigators say he put up a struggle with officers when he was arrested, but they're not sure if that's what caused his death.
"We do know that he was fairly combative, that officers had to use some restraint to get him under control, these are things that we know right now," said TBI Spokesperson Kristin Helm. "Whether or not he was beaten or died from natural causes, those are things that will be determined as a result of the autopsy and the course of our investigation."
NEW YORK (AP)—Michael Vick(notes) says he cried in prison because of the guilt he felt about being involved in dogfighting, and was disgusted with himself for allowing it to happen.
In an interview with “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday night, Vick said the day he walked into prison he realized “the magnitude of the decisions that I made.
“And, you know, it’s no way of, you know, explaining, you know, the hurt and the guilt that I felt. And that was the reason I cried so many nights. And that put it all into perspective,” he said.
A three-time Pro Bowl pick during six seasons with the Atlanta Falcons, Vick served 18 months in federal prison for running a dogfighting ring and was reinstated last month by the NFL after being out of action since 2006.
Chicago, IL (BlackNews.com) - There is a saying that "behind every good man, is a good woman," however, in the case of The Honorable Minister Farrakhan, the leader of The Nation of Islam and the convener of the Million Man March, "behind every great man is a phenomenal woman."
Mother Khadijah Farrakhan, wife of The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, is featured on the cover of the current issue of Virtue Today Magazine, an inspirational new women's magazine out of Raleigh, North Carolina, that focuses on uplifting women. Mother Farrakhan is featured along side Michelle Obama and Winnie Mandela for the cover story: Black First Ladies. Mother Farrakhan is the First Lady of The Nation of Islam
LONDON (Reuters) -- Oil rose to $70 a barrel on Monday after Nigeria's main militant group said it attacked a Royal Dutch Shell oil platform, outweighing a fairly bearish report from the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said its fighters struck the Shell Forcados platform in the Delta state.
There was no immediate independent confirmation but Shell said it shut in some oil production at its western operations in the Delta while it investigated reports of attacks.
U.S. crude for August delivery rose to a high of $70.06 per barrel, up 90 cents, before slipping back slightly to $69.75.
"The Nigerian supply disruptions brought in some buying," said Christopher Bellew, broker at Bache Commodities in London.
Get more black news at:
www.blackbloggers.wordpress.com
South Africans received a horrifying measure of just how bad their country's rape crisis is with the release this week of a study in which more than a quarter of men admitted to having raped, and 46% of those said that they had raped more than once.
The study, conducted by South Africa's Medical Research Council, reveals a deeply rooted culture of violence against women, in which men rape in order to feel powerful, and do so with impunity, believing that their superiority entitles them to vent their frustrations on women and children. The men most likely to rape, the researchers found, were not the poorest, but those who had attained some level of education and income.
www.yourblackglobal.blogspot.com
The Manhattan Theatre Club and the Off-Broadway play “Ruined”Congolese women will participate in a forum hosted by Congo Global Action, Friends of the Congo and Ellen Stone Belic Institute at Columbia College, Chicago on Sunday, June 14, 2009, 2 PM,
following the production of the Pulitzer winning play “Ruined.”
The June 14th production of “Ruined” is a benefit fundraiser in support of the work of Friends of the Congo and Congo Global Action. Proceeds from the sale of tickets will go to support the work of these two organizations with women in the Congo.
You can support our efforts by purchasing tickets for this historic event.
Find out more about the June 14th production and panel discussion.Read the press release of this historic event.
View a brief monologue by one of the lead actors in the play.Learn more about the situation of women in the Congo.
Find out more about the play.
For more information, please call Friends of the Congo at 202-584-6512 or Congo Global Action at 202-884-9784. You may also email info@friendsofthecongo.org or info@congoglobalaction.org. Visit www.friendsofthecongo.org, www.congoweek.org
or congoglobalaction.org for more details.
Israel must halt West Bank settlement activity and the Palestinians need to increase West Bank security to advance the Middle East peace process, President Obama said Thursday after meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, left, meets with President Obama Thursday.
"I am confident that we can take this process forward if all the parties are willing to ... meet all the obligations that they have committed to," Obama said after meeting with Abbas at the White House.
Abbas said his Palestinian Authority was committed to fulfilling its obligations under the 2003 Middle East road map, and both men called for immediate progress in the peace process.
The talks came days before Obama is scheduled to meet with Saudi King Abdullah in Riyadh and deliver a long-awaited speech on relations between the United States and the Muslim world in Cairo, Egypt
Last week, Obama pushed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a firm Israeli commitment to Palestinian statehood as part of the so-called two-state solution -- a position strongly advocated Thursday by Abbas.
Netanyahu has committed to removing illegal settlement "outposts" but has also pledged to continue expansion, or "natural growth," of existing settlements.
In a case that stirred fierce resentments over race and land, a Kenyan judge on Thursday sentenced the son of a baron to eight months in prison for killing a black poacher on his vast family estate.
The sentence handed down to Thomas Cholmondeley — a fraction of the possible life in prison he faced — provoked shouts of protest fromMaasai tribesmen and sighs of relief from white landowners, both of whom packed into the crowded courtroom.
Judge Muga Apondi last week convicted Cholmondeley of manslaughter in the 2006 shooting of a 37-year-old black poacher, Robert Njoya. The judge had reduced the charge down from murder, saying he believed Cholmondeley's attempts to give Njoya first aid helped prove that he accidentally shot the poacher when aiming at his dogs.
On Thursday, the judge said he took the three years Cholmondeley had already served into account, concluding, "I hereby wish to impose a light sentence on the accused to allow him to reflect on his life."
Cholmondeley's parents, Lord and Lady Delamere, listened to the verdict along with Sarah Njoya, the widow of the dead poacher, and traditionally dressed Maasai activists whose elongated earlobes brushed the traditional red-checked blankets they wore.
A Kenyan man has sued activists who called on women to boycott sex to protest the growing divide in the nation's coalition government.
James Kimondo said the seven-day sex ban, which ended this week, resulted in stress, mental anguish, backaches and lack of sleep, his lawyer told the state-run Kenya Broadcasting Corp.
The lawsuit filed Friday claims lack of conjugal rights affected Kimondo's marriage and seeks undisclosed damages from the G-10, an umbrella group for women's activists, KBC said.
The women's caucus caused a national debate when it urged women to withhold sex to protest increasingly frosty relations between President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
Citizens of the east African nation are frustrated by a shaky coalition government, which was formed after post-election violence killed more than 1,000 people in 2008. The wrangling between Kibaki and Odinga has sparked fears of more violence.
Gender activists say they are not worried about the lawsuit.
ENTEBBE, Uganda (AFP) – Africans must travel to the moon to investigate what developed nations have been doing in outer space, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said Saturday.
"The Americans have gone to the moon. And the Russians. The Chinese and Indians will go there soon. Africans are the only ones who are stuck here," Museveni said, addressing a meeting of the Uganda Law Society in Entebbe.
"We must also go there and say: 'What are you people doing up here?'."
Museveni urged the assembly of Uganda's top lawyers to support East African integration, arguing that one of the region's goals should be to develop a space programme.
"Uganda alone cannot go to the moon. We are too small. But East Africa united can. That is what East African integration is all about," he said. "Then we can say to the Americans: 'What are you doing here all alone?'."
Somalia's prime minister told CNN Thursday that the international naval patrols in the Gulf of Aden are not solving the problem of piracy in the region.
Somalia's prime minister says the international naval patrols are having little effect on the piracy problem.
Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke pointed to the recent increase in pirate attacks as evidence, and called for the U.N. arms embargo on Somalia to be lifted so the government can fight back against the pirates and local militant Islamist groups.
"One of our biggest problems is that al-Shabaab has AK-47s, and the pirates have AK-47s, and the government has AK-47s," the prime minister told CNN's David McKenzie in Nairobi, Kenya.
"You can't expect the government to win against such a problem. The only way is to have sufficient capability, and it starts with lifting the arms embargo. You know, we have been handicapped by those sanctions." 
Watch more from Somalia's PM »
The arms embargo on Somalia has been in effect for more than 16 years. Most serviceable weapons and almost all ammunition currently available in the country have been delivered since 1992, in violation of the embargo, according to the U.N. Security Council.
by Dr. Ronald Walters, University of Maryland
I am missing something here. President Barack Obama just went to Europe and Iraq and made speeches saying that he would be deferential to Communist China, that he would meet without conditions with the leadership of Iran and that he wanted to open up a new relationship with the Islamic world. Then he went to the Conference of the Americas in Trinidad and shook the hand of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela who has said some devilish things about America and the Bush administration. But the key issue that took the conference over was the American overture to Cuba to talk, in response to Raul Castro’s statement that he would talk with the U. S. and that everything would be on the table. Moreover, the Obama administration has said that it wanted to open up a new chapter in its relationship with the United Nations. To that end, it has appointed an African American Ambassador and put in its application for a seat on the Human Rights Commission. Against this background, the decision of the Obama administration not to go to the United Nations Conference On Racism in Geneva, Switzerland April 20-24 would appear to be a powerful refutation of this relatively liberal approach to the international community it has established.
Stories of race and gender prevailed at this year's Pulitzer Prizes, with "Ruined," Lynn Nottage's harrowing tale of survival set against the backdrop of an African civil war, winning for drama Monday and books about slavery, civil rights and Andrew Jackson also receiving awards.
In a rare victory for the short story, Elizabeth Strout's "Olive Kitteridge," a collection set in New England and linked by the forthright title character, a math teacher and general scold with an understanding heart. It was the first book of short stories to win since 2000 (Jhumpa Lahiri's "Interpreter of Maladies").
Three prize winners centered on racial history, from colonial times to the 20th century.
As President Obama shook hands with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, he was willing to take the political heat. He said that he was not concerned about the politics of the hand shake and more concerned about extending an open hand to nations hostile to the U.S. The open hand, it seems, is not so open after all. The President announced that, like the Bush Administration, the United States will boycott the world anti-racism conference (Durban II), which opens in Geneva today. According to the President, "I would love to be involved in a useful conference that addressed continuing issues of racism and discrimination around the globe. We expressed in the run-up to this conference our concerns that if you adopted all of the language from 2001, that's not something we can sign up for. "Hopefully some concrete steps come out of the conference that we can partner with other countries on to actually reduce discrimination around the globe, but this wasn't an opportunity to do it."
He is not willing to take the political heat in this case because there is language criticizing Israel and the West in the final document. As the world celebrates the election of the first Black President, the United States boycotts the world conference against racism. Symbolism, it seems has met political reality.
On this issue, it is difficult to reconcile the President's rhetoric with his actions. The President has repeatedly said that his policy is to talk with those with whom he disagrees. He is talking to Chavez, to Ahmadinejad, to Medvedev and Kim but cannot talk to human rights defenders about the best way to address the continuing significance of racism world wide? Surely the message cannot be that the United States does not believe that the right to be free from racism is not a basic human right.
The rescue of an American ship captain held at gunpoint in a daring operation that left three pirates dead and ended a five-day standoff drew threats of retaliation from angry pirates Monday.
Those threats raised fears for the safety of some 230 foreign sailors still held hostage in more than a dozen ships anchored off the coast of lawless Somalia.
"From now on, if we capture foreign ships and their respective countries try to attack us, we will kill them (the hostages)," Jamac Habeb, a 30-year-old pirate, said from one of Somalia's piracy hubs, Eyl. "(U.S. forces have) become our No. 1 enemy."
A Mogadishu airport staff member said mortar shells were fired toward the airport as a plane carrying U.S. Rep. Donald Payne, D-N.J., took off safely from the Somali capital on Monday.
Zimbabwe will not use its own local currency for at least a year, a state newspaper reported on Sunday, while it tries to repair an economy which critics say was destroyed by President Robert Mugabe.
The southern African state has allowed the use of multiple foreign currencies since January to stem hyperinflation which had rocketed to over 230 million percent and left the Zimbabwe dollar almost worthless.
The state-controlled Sunday Mail said the unity government of Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai decided the Zimbabwe dollar should only be reintroduced when industrial output reaches about 60 percent of capacity from the current 20 percent average.
"The Zimbabwe dollar will be out for at least a year. We resolved that there will be no immediate plans to (re)introduce the money because there is nothing to support and hold its value," the newspaper quoted Economic Planning and Development Minister Elton Mangoma as saying.
What’s the deal with Somalia’s “pirates”? Somalia has no government right now, but the country is gaining global attention after a recent incident with a US tanker. Click the video to watch.
Warlords and militias terrorizing villages. No functioning government, courts or police. Drought and hunger afflicting half the country.
That's the situation in Somalia driving the epidemic of piracy off its coast, experts say. The chaos means there are no easy military or diplomatic solutions for the U.S. and allies to prevent attacks such as the one on the Maersk Alabama on Wednesday.
"There are not any straightforward or obvious answers," said Chris Albin-Lackey, a senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. Piracy "is, at the end of the day, a symptom of state collapse."
Jendayi Frazer, who was assistant secretary of State for African Affairs in George W. Bush's administration, said, "The idea that we could police that area through ships is not working. The problem is not in the sea — it's on the shore."But international efforts to establish stability in Somalia have foundered.
The African Union has about 3,000 peacekeepers in Somalia tasked with keeping order in the capital, Mogadishu, but they are ineffective, said Jennifer Cooke, who directs the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank. Regular U.S. troops haven't been on the ground in the country since just after the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993, in which 18 Americans died. That battle, immortalized in the filmBlack Hawk Down, left Americans with "psychic scars" about putting troops in Africa, Cooke said.
