From OUR COMMON GROUND Voice Dr. Tommy J Curry

You know when I see things like the Elliot Rodgers you know that white America and by effect Black academics are going on a twitter spree. This white boy stabbed 3 seemingly Asian-American men and killed 3 women.

This tragedy is now being used as a "feminist" point suggesting that because he was frustrated by his lack of getting girls, this is proof positive of the dangers of patriarchy, a patriarchy that all men are capable of…

This is historically and empirically false. You are not a patriarch when your sexuality has been controlled and robbed from you for the last two hundred years. Black men, Asian men, Brown men were criminalized called boys, and in the case of Asian men women…Black men and boys were raped by white women and men. Today, rape of Black men is laughed at and the rape of Black boys at the hands of caretakers, white adoption parents, etc. are ignored.

Today, Black men are in jail for nothing more than an accusation of rape and remain there even after the story is recanted. Police have tortured dozens upon dozens of Black men into confessing Stanley Wrice, and Michael Tillman immediately come to mind.

This is a white male who because of actual patriarchy believed that he deserved more than the world gave him and that he had to power to take it. This is not psychology of racialized men and has not been allowed to happen in America.

I tire of ideological grandstanding…show me a Black man who is rich and allowed to kill six people after he announces it to the world, and the police investigate and decide to let him go…come on.

This violence is terrible and it is a shame that we live in a world where white men believe they can kill in mass, but this is the history of the white world whose white mothers nurtured these maniacs and whose fathers have legitimated, rationalized, and endorsed the murder of every group of people since they landed in America.

And I will ask yet again: when those four whites (2 white men and 2 white women) murdered those two Black boys in Joliet and had sex on their dead bodies why no twitter tags, …I’ll tell you why because no one cares to spend their 140 characters on the lives of Black men and boys, or all the men and boys of color (Brown, Yellow, etc) who die at the hands of white men, women, or the state.

Here’s a novel idea: affirm the lives of all people–Black, white, Brown, Indigenous. Protest the suffering of men, women, and children…then when this happens you (white feminists) acknowledge the culture that this comes from the one you benefit from as the second most powerful group in the world, and ask, how do I support the endless murder of my white daughters when I tolerate it in the murder of Black, Brown, Asian, African, etc. people all over the world.

I am personally sad to see more lives lost…period.

What these eyes have seen, and the times that have been mastered.

Happy Birthday Mother Talley.

"The First Decoration Day" | Correcting history on Memorial Day

On this Memorial Day weekend, here is an article by David W. Blight called "The First Decoration Day," led by people who had recently been freed from slavery in Charleston, SC on May 1, 1865. Read about the hidden history of Memorial Day.

OUR COMMON GROUND

"Transforming Truth to Power, One Broadcast At A Time"

Playthell George Benjamin is the producer of “Commentaries On the Times”http://commentariesonthetimes.wordpress.com/about/, which he writes and delivers on WBAI radio in New York City. He is a producer with The Midnight Ravers, a long running show exploring the world of art and politics which has won several radio awards for excellence in programming. He is an award winning journalist who has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in two different categories: Explanatory Journalism, Village Voice 1988, and Distinguished Commentary, New York Daily News 1995. As part of the production team for The Midnight Ravers, Mr. Benjamin won a 2011 award for excellence in radio programming, given for The Curtis Mayfield Special.

He is on leave from TruthWorks Network’s Commentaries On the Times Radio" completing his book on President Barack Obama.

OUR COMMON GROUND Voice James Perry  is currently the Executive Director of the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center (GNOFHAC), a private, non-profit organization created to promote equal housing opportunity. Under James’ leadership and management, GNOFHAC has tripled in size and helped thousands of residents.

In all his previous positions, James achieved significant results. His organizations have won all of their civil rights lawsuits filed on behalf people targeted by unfair practices or discrimination based on race, income, disability, mental illness, or against people with HIV/AIDS.

One of James’ major initiatives has been to fight in New Orleans and in Washington DC for fairer payouts by the Road Home Program. Recently, on behalf of residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina, James led his organization’s successful lawsuit against St. Bernard Parish, which passed an illegal ordinance that resulted in racial discrimination.

He was a candidate for Mayor of New Orleans and we hope he will run again.

OUR COMMON GROUND Voice George E. Curry is the editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service. The former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine, Curry also writes a weekly syndicated column for NNPA, a federation of more than 200 African American newspapers.

Curry, who served as editor-in-chief of the NNPA News Service from 2001 until 2007, returned to lead the news service for a second time on April 2, 2012. His work at the NNPA has ranged from being inside the Supreme Court to hear oral arguments in the University of Michigan affirmative action cases to traveling to Doha, Qatar, to report on America’s war with Iraq.

As editor-in-chief of Emerge, Curry led the magazine to win more than 40 national journalism awards. 

OUR COMMON GROUND Voice Yvette Carnell, web publisher is a current events commentator and analyst writes mostly about politics, social, and cultural issues for my personal blog, BreakingBrown.com as well as BreakingBrown.tv and Breakingbrown.me. She is also an editor for YourBlackWorld and a managing contributor on KuluteKritic.

Before embarking on a career as a writer, she served as a Congressional aide, first to Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), and later to former Congressman Marion Berry (D-AR). In her role as a legislative staffer, she prepared briefings, staffed Congressional hearings, represented Members with their constituents, and performed other support duties .

Her articles have been featured in the Huffington Post and YourBlackWorld. I have been quoted by national news outlets including, but not limited to; The Nation, The Guardian, Politico and NPR.

OUR COMMON GROUND Voice, Antoinette Harrell a genealogist, family historian and radio and television talk shows " The Live Talk Shows Where Family Matters". She is the host of "Nurturing OUR Roots" television and radio shows and is a Film and Documentary producer. 

OUR COMMON GROUND Voice, Frank Schaeffer is the New York Times best selling author of more than a dozen books Frank Schaeffer is a survivor of both polio and an evangelical/fundamentalist childhood, an acclaimed writer who overcame severe dyslexia, a home-schooled and self-taught documentary movie director, a feature film director and producer of four low budget Hollywood features Frank has described as "pretty terrible," and a best selling author of both fiction and nonfiction. Frank is the author of "And God Said, ‘Billy!’" and many other books. Frank’s three semi-biographical novels about growing up in a fundamentalist mission: "Portofino," "Zermatt" and "Saving Grandma" have a worldwide following and have been translated into nine languages. Jane Smiley writing in the Washington Post (7/10/11) says this of Frank’s memoirs "Crazy For God" and "Sex, Mom and God": "[Schaeffer’s] memoirs have a way of winning a reader’s friendship…Schaeffer is a good memoirist, smart and often laugh-out-loud funny…Frank seems to have been born irreverent, but his memoirs have a serious purpose, and that is to expose the insanity and the corruption of what has become a powerful and frightening force in American politics… Frank has been straightforward and entertaining in his campaign to right the political wrongs he regrets committing in the 1970s and ’80s…As someone who has made redemption his work, he has, in fact, shown amazing grace."

 As the head of the New York National Guard, Gen. O’Hara, later confessed, “It was the general consensus of opinion by all the officials present that the hostages would be killed one way or another … everybody had that impression.”