What is it with us and negative historical events?

For some twisted, sadistic, reason our country enjoys basking in negative events and treats them with some sick reverence. I don’t mean to minimize certain tragedies, but America has this infatuation with using these events to profit, as a crutch, as a time reference or to create a buzz. You may be wondering where this is coming from and I am more than happy to explain.

The Profit

I was just watching TV and a commercial came on for some kind of silver $20 bar - similar to a commorative coin set or something. The value of this bar is $20, so instead of having $20 on it, they had what adds up to $20: “9″ and “11.” According to the commercial, this bar has been produced like this to commemorate the 7th anniversary of 9/11. Did I miss something and a 7th anniversary means something special? 30 years from now will we pull out a silver bar and tell our great-grandchildren that we have this keepsake to let us remember what 9/11 felt like? Stupid.

Don’t get me wrong and think I’m not patrotic or I don’t care about those impacted (all of us). I think something this monumentally tragic shouldn’t be made to feel special. I especially feel this way with our young men and women fighting abroad while some company is pushing a silver bar. Good job. We need to remember this incident was more than a way to make money. This event changed our lives forever and there is still someone out there with a debt to pay for it.

The Crutch

How many of you have heard something like, “Since 9/11……” You can fill in the blank with “I didn’t do this”, “Such and such hasn’t been the same” or whatever someone can think up. Why do we have to use this as a crutch and associate it with things that don’t even have anything to do with it? It is a big fat cop out and we need to re-evaluate or moral system and do better. Yes, it is an issue of morals to me. If your dog died because you let him off his leash and he got hit by a truck, don’t go telling your neighbor, “Traffic hasn’t been the same in the neighborhood since 9/11.” All the ills of our society have not been caused by 9/11!

The Time Reference and Buzz

I currently live in Mississippi and the other day someone asked me how long I’ve been here. When I told them the response was, “So you got here after Katrina.” While I don’t think it is horrible, can’t we use something different as a reference point for time? It says something about what is at the forefront of people’s minds. To make matters even worse, hurricane season is now sensationalized.

I wish you could all see a weather forcast or just have casual conversation with someone from this area. Hurricanes are nothing to play with - Katrina made this obvious. But they aren’t anything to get excited about (in a good way) either. If I didn’t know any better, from listening to some people around here I would think Hurricane season was some great big party from June to November each year. I’m all for giving the season the respect it is due and planning accordingly, but it isn’t something to look forward to.

The Solution

The solution is simple: we must remember past events, but keep them in perspective. I could make excuses because of the color of my skin, the fact that I’m a male, the small town I’m from, how much money we had growing up or anything else I can imagine. But when it boils all down to it we have to do what it is we do to move on - pray, mourn, grieve, etc. - for our own good. I’m not saying we should forget, I’m just saying we have complicated things in life so much so that we can’t afford to be marking time and using these things as we wish/out of context.

How about this: what if you had to go outside to get water and weren’t able to walk to your indoor sink and shower or outdoor water hose, etc. and just turn a knob? Sounds like the stone ages huh? Well that is exactly the case for 67 residents in a small town near Zanesville, OH. Yes, I said Ohio. I didn’t say the back woods in a third world country, I said Zanesville, OH! What a shame! This is 2008 and supposedly the land of the free and the brave! Well, 67 people weren’t free to have the luxury of running water in their homes, and it appears, somebody/ies weren’t brave enough, until now, to make it happen!

Here is what a story recently published about the situation in the small town near Zanesville, OH says:

Black Ohio residents denied water get millions
A federal grand jury awarded residents of a Black neighborhood in Ohio almost $11 million last week because, for nearly five decades, they were forced to dig wells, haul water or collect rain so they could drink, cook and bathe, while Whites enjoyed the benefits of the public water system. The jury found that the 67 residents of the Coal Run community in Muskingum County in east-central Ohio were victims of longstanding discrimination and awarded them between $15,000 and $300,000, depending on how long they had lived there. The award is for “monetary losses and the residents’ pain and suffering between 1956, when water lines were first laid in the area, and 2003, when Coal Run got public water,” The Associated Press reports. The Ohio Civil Rights Commission found in 2003 that the residents had been discriminated against, which prompted the lawsuit. “As a child, I thought it was normal because everyone done it in my neighborhood,” said one of the plaintiffs, Cynthia Hale Hairston, 47. “But I realized as an adult it was wrong.” The city, county and water company, however, deny that any discrimination has occurred. Attorney Mark Landes, who represented the county and water district, described the suit as “a case that was started and filed by out-of-town lawyers who saw an opportunity for a cash settlement.”
http://blogs.bet.com/news/newsyoushouldknow/national-news-black-ohio-residents-denied-water-get-millions-jury-selection-resumes-in-nichols-trial-naacp-convention-to-host-both-presidential-candidatates/

Can you believe this? I can’t either! Do you believe it was race discrimination? Funny thing, the lawyers that they claim “saw an opportunity” should be given a gold medal for having their eyes open and making this happen! Unreal!

Holla back and tell me what you think!

I’m getting a late start today so let me jump right in.  Everyone likes to speculate, right?  So today, let’s speculate on …… well whatever:

1)  What If….. Obama wins the White House?

2)  What If….. McCain wins?

3)  What If….. Everyone practiced what they preached?

4)  What If….. People didn’t judge others?

5)  What If….. America was a communist country?

6)  What If….. Racial hatred didn’t exist?

7)  what If….. You lived forever?

8)  What If….. People were content with what they had instead of wishing/wanting more?

9)  What If….. Poverty didn’t exist?

10) What If….. Slavery never occurred?  What would America be like?

I know, I know.  Some people will say they don’t base their life on ‘what ifs.’  And that’s cool.  But, if you did, what are some ‘what ifs’ you would ponder?  I would love to hear your thoughts on this…..

This is a very touchy subject and some people are going to deny that self-hatred exists within a race. But, you know what? It does. How else would you describe the way Black people sometimes view each other? Before you answer this question, let me tell you why I brought this up. Last week, I watched the Tyra Banks show and it was a show filled with clips of some of her shows that dealt with race-related topics. In every one of those clips, she had Black people on her show who were saying discriminating and degrading things about Black people, as a whole. You talk about stereotypes! Black people are the worst at stereotyping their own! One of the topics that the Black people on her show were extremely stereotypical about was the different shades of skin tones that Black people have.

It is a well known fact that within the Black community that lighter skinned Blacks are, more times than not, treated differently than darker skinned Blacks. In fact, in the Black community, there used to be something called the Brown Paper Bag test. According to Urban Dictionary, in the early 1900s, the Brown Paper Bag test was commonly used “among upper class Black American societies and families to determine if a Black person was sufficiently white to gain admittance or acceptance. If your skin was darker than a brown paper bag, you did not merit inclusion. Thousands of Black institutions including the nation’s most eminent Black fraternity – Alpha Phi Alpha, Howard University, and numerous church and civic groups all practiced this discrimination.” Rivea Ruff of BlackCollegeView.com states it best when she says, “Though the brown paper bag test is antiquated and frowned upon as a shameful moment in African-American history, the ideals behind the practice still lingers in the African-American community.” How true (and unfortunate) this is and below is a perfect example of it still happening within the Black community.

In October of 2007, a Detroit, Michigan DJ came up with, what he considered to be a brilliant promotional plan for a party at a nightclub. He planned to allow light-skinned Black women into the club for free, which meant if you were thought to be a dark-skinned Black woman or somewhere in between dark-skinned and light-skinned, you would have to pay to enter the same party! Now, this DJ, who described himself as a dark-skinned Black man, says he was not trying to offend anyone — it was just a promotional thing. He was going to promote another night for Sexy Chocolate dark-skinned Black women as well as Sexy Caramel (which, I guess, was for Black women who had a skin tone that wasn’t light-skinned or dark-skinned). Amazing, huh? Of course, this party never got off the ground because once his promotional idea was broadcasted all over the Internet and by word of mouth, he received all sorts of angry emails and phone calls berating him for his actions. Do you see why this can be perceived as self-hatred? No? Think about this: according to Black Commentator, “history has shown that Black people with lighter skin were treated better. In the days of slavery, the dark-skinned Blacks worked in the fields while light-skinned Blacks worked in the house, hence the terms “field Negroes” and “house Negroes.” It got so bad, that not only did the slave owners, who were often responsible for the lighter shade of brown his slaves had, give lighter-skinned Blacks more respect, but so did the dark-skinned Blacks.”

This self-hatred mentality began during slavery and unfortunately continues to this day. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard Black people make derogatory references about the shade of another Black person’s skin tone. What other race does this? Or for that matter, what other race uses a derogatory and degrading term to describe itself? Yep, I’m talking about the use of the N word amongst Black people. The question I have is how does the Black community overcome this? Or is it even possible to overcome seeing as how it is so deeply ingrained into the Black community? I am very interested in hearing your comments to this topic.

Last week, I read an interesting blurb on Page 21 of the July 28, 2008 Sports Illustrated.  This blurb,  titled “Sign of the Apocalypse,” was about a 32-year-old man who was arrested for disrupting a baseball game in Massachusetts.  This man rode a stolen motorbike around the bases because “no one ever told him he couldn’t.”  My first response was, ‘For real?!!’  And then I started thinking, what if more people thought this way?  For example, (just think about this, using that man’s logic), what if a basketball player who really wanted to dunk, but could never do it, used a ladder to help him/her dunk at a basketball game?  People in the stands would either be in shock or just cracking up with laughter, right?  But, the player would be absolutely serious because he/she would say they were never told they couldn’t do it.  At this point, does this act qualify as a lack of knowledge or is it a lack of common sense?  Just for giggle’s sake, can anyone tell me if there a written rule that says a basketball player cannot use a ladder to help them dunk?

This blurb peeked my interest in all sorts of ways and got me thinking — if we all followed this man’s logic, how different would the world be?  I mean, just stop for a second and think about this, If you were not informed of what you could NOT do, what WOULD you do?  Would you push the limits and do something that you know is wrong, but then use the excuse that you were never told not do it even though you know deep down inside it is wrong?  You know what’s kind of scary to me?  What if this man’s way of thinking is more common than not? To me, that would mean that common sense as well as a sense of morality is becoming a rarity in today’s society and that is not good.  Not good at all.

I anxiously await your responses as I know you will keep it interesting and thought-provoking.  BUT, please remember that this site monitors all comments and has the right to remove any derogatory and/or offensive comments.

Let me start this post off by saying that what I’m about to write proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that America has become a litigious country.  I know this has been said before and the court TV shows (e.g. People’s Court, Judge Mathis, Judge Judy, Divorce Court, etc.) only add credence to this statement.  But the content of this post takes the grand prize for — well, I’ll let you decide what the grand prize is.  Okay, here goes:

According to the Grand Rapids Press, Bradley LaShawn Fowler, 39, of Michigan, is seeking $60 million from Zondervan Publishers and another $10 million from Thomas Nelson Publishing in lawsuits filed in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Michigan.  Fowler is suing these two major Christian publishers because he believes they are violating his constitutional rights, in addition to causing him emotional pain, by publishing Bible versions that refer to homosexuality as a sin.  Fowler states that both Zondervan and Thomas Nelson manipulated their King James Bibles, without informing the public, by using the term ‘homosexuals’ in the scripture 1 Corinthians 6:9.

Fowler alleges that because of these publisher’s Bibles references to homosexuality as a sin, he has become an outcast to his family.  In addition, Fowler believes these Bible references have contributed to physical discomfort and periods of “demoralization, chaos and bewilderment.”

What’s interesting about this lawsuit is that in some versions of the King James Bible, the word ‘homosexual’ is not used, but sexual immorality is.  So, what this lawsuit may result in is the Supreme Court having to step in to translate the bible to decide what the phrase “sexual immorality” actually means.  If this happens, we’re in a lot of trouble.  A lot of trouble!

Something else that’s interesting about this case is that the Judge refuses to appoint an attorney to represent Fowler because the Judge feels that the Court “has some very genuine concerns about the nature of efficacy of these claims.”  Fowler is looking to be compensated for the past 20 years of emotional duress and mental instability.  Here’s the USAToday article that reports on the lawsuit: http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2008-07-09-gay-bible_N.htm

Other than hoping that Fowler screws up his defense while defending himself, I’m really at a loss here for words.  What are your thoughts on this lawsuit?

The second most important thing for a blog is comments - the most important being posts/content. We write, write and write hoping someone will read the content, agree or disagree and comment. Comments are the sure fire way of knowing someone out there is reading what we have to say. That is basically what blogging was created for. But how do people read what they don’t know exists? Traffic.

If a business is a physical location or Internet-based, if people don’t know a business exists they cannot become customers. Likewise, blogs and websites need traffic so people know they exist and are doing good/great things on the Internet. There is an ugly side to generating traffic that costs a lot of money - I’m not even going to go there. However, there is a gentleman named Graham Langdon who is helping us bloggers with this problem. I will not get into the details of what Graham is doing (click here to read more about Entrecard), but he has helped many sites increase their traffic.  Entrecard has done a lot for many sites when it comes to site visits via card drops and adverts, but many visitors stopped by briefly without leaving comments.

Entrecard recently announced a partnership with SezWho (click here to read more about SezWho).  You know how we do things here at 7daybuzz - I’m not going to talk on a high level and make things hard to understand.  I’m going to break this down as much as possible.

If you look at the bottom of every article and comment on our site you will now see “Rate this” with some stars and a rating.  This can be used to rate comments and articles - click away if you think someone says something good.  Also, there is “(Who am I?)” after the name of every author or person who comments.  Hovering over this will bring up some of the following: public information, websites, blogs and sites recently commented on.  If I understand this correctly, a person with a higher rating will have greater influence.  And how does someone get a higher rating?  A person’s rating will increase by leaving quality comments which encourages commenting.

So to summarize what this is all about, Entrecard brings traffic to the site and SezWho gives that traffic incentive to leave comments.  Oh, did I mention this is all free?  For that price, it is worth a try.  I have actually noticed a little more traffic in the short time we have had this on our site.  Time will tell, but I think this is brilliant.

Thank you Graham and thank you SezWho!

This is somewhat of a follow up to some comments I made a while ago concerning SUVs and current gas prices.  While doing something else on my computer I ran across this interesting article (click here to read it).  I found the article interesting and agree with most of it - I don’t wish SUV owners would lose money.

Let’s begin by talking about what other countries think of us and our auto products.  I’m of the opinion, and the article backs this up, that other countries think we are not the brightest nation when it comes to how many SUVs are on the road.  The next time you are out and about look to see how many people are riding around in the big SUVs you see.  I would say that the vast majority of the time they aren’t carrying enough cargo or passengers to justify the large vehicle.  I don’t buy the sitting up high argument either.  Sure, you sit higher, but the center of gravity is higher and it doesn’t handle as well.  This equals a big vehicle blocking my way.  Please stay in the right lane!

Moving right along, I asked my brother why can’t American car companies make vehicles as efficient as foreign car makers.  He didn’t have an answer for me, but think about it.  When it comes to horsepower and miles per gallon American companies are the worst!  The other day I looked at a Honda Civic that gets 33mpg.  That wasn’t the hybrid Civic either.  Also, there is a whole class of cars that produce approximately 300hp with 3.5 liter V6 engines (or somewhere close).  The same size engine in an American car produces probably around 40 less horsepower.  What do they do to keep up?  They put a V8 in a car to match or exceed that horsepower and bingo the customer is burning more gas.  If you don’t believe me do some research on the Pontiac G8.

If you clicked on the link above you will have read that many dealerships are paying $8,000 less for SUVs in a trade. BAM!  The current gas prices just lowered the value of your SUV and that makes it hard to trade it in.  You keep paying those high gas prices - without a raise at work - and you just became poorer.  Your automobile expenses have you in the Mercedes, Lexus and Acura bracket, but you are driving….a Ford Expedition.  Do you really need that SUV?  You need it to pull your boat huh?  How much does that boat cost to fill up?

Like I said earlier, I don’t want SUV owners to lose money because I have some family with SUVs, but what is the answer?  You could try hypermiling, but that is very boring.  You could keep forwarding those emails to let everyone know when the next gas boycott is.  Those work so well (I’m being sarcastic).  You can continue to drive that big SUV and pay those gas prices - I put gas in my car the other day and it almost crushed me to pay $56.00 to fill up.  I know people who pay $100 to put gas in their SUV or truck.  That is unacceptable for me.

I don’t know the answer although I think if people stopped buying and driving these big vehicles automakers would have their lobbyists in Washington DC screaming bloody murder.  Remember, oil companies aren’t making the same profits as they were before gas went up.  They are making more profits!  If pressured enough, I believe things could change.

Let me know what you think can happen to change this situation.

* I read an ad where Exxon is doing research to improve battery technology for hybrid cars.  Yeah right! We should all be offended that people think we are that stupid.

OK, this is going to be short and you know what the point is.  If you haven’t heard, Jesse Jackson (I’m leaving the Reverend off on purpose) was caught on camera whispering some things about Barack Obama.  He apparently thought they were on commercial and the mics were turned off.  At least I hope that is what he thought.  Anyway, he said something about “Obama talking down to black people, “He is talking that faith based” and…..”I want to cut his nuts off!”

Yes, that is the same guy who asked people to call black people African-Americans AND has a baby’s mamma!

When pressed, Jesse said this about his statements, “I said it can come off as speaking down to black people. The moral message must be a much broader message. What we need really is racial justice and urban policy and jobs and health care. There is a range of issues on the menu.”  Concerning saying he wanted to cut the presidential candidate’s nuts off, “And then I said something I felt regret for — it was crude. It was very private, and very much a sound bite — and a live mike. I find no comfort in it, I find no joy in it.”

Uh, Jesse?  You can put all that tenor in your voice and rhyme a little bit, but you are cold busted!  Ha!

Can somebody chime in and tell us exactly what Jesse’s son had to say about his father’s comments?  I haven’t heard them word for word, but the impression I got was he was slightly throwing his father under the bus.

It almost seems to be some jealousy to me.  Now that Barack has the nomination, everyone will think he is supposed to have their interests number one.  Jesse, don’t you have some Rainbow Coalition work to do or a conference will Al Sharpton or something?

I’m going to say this and get off this.  After this happened is someone finally going to quite putting Jesse on TV?

One definition of African-American is an American of black African descent. The term may also be written with a hyphen as African-American.  Please notice, black is used in front of African descent.  This is a very weak, in my opinion, way of associating the term with black people when the term would more accurately fit others.

What do you think about her?  Does she look African-American to you?  The Oscar-winning actress just became a naturalized American citizen in 2007, so where is she actually from?  Charlize Theron was born in Benoni, Gauteng, South Africa.  What do you think about that?  It would probably turn many people’s stomachs if someone referred to her as African-American - I’m sure she is referred to as a caucasian instead.  Why would that be the case when her ethnicity, her true ethnicity, wouldn’t change anything about her?  If she was referred to as an African-American it wouldn’t change her blond hair, but it would lower the public opinion of her for some.  Sad but true.

Another disturbing story centers around Trevor Richards, a student who went to Westside High in Omaha, Nebraska.  Trevor moved from Johannesburg, which makes him African-American technically.  He was booted from school for this poster.  A lot of hoopla surrounded this and one posting on an internet message board said, “I attend Westside and I am in support for Trevor. Trevor is one of only maybe one or two other people that are actually from Africa. Trevor is more of an African-American than any other “African-American” at Westside. It is also wrong that there is an award for only black students when every other award at Westside is for everyone and everyone has an equal chance to receive those awards if they try.”

I have another one for you.  David John Matthews was born January 9, 1967 in South Africa and is now a naturalized American.  That would make him African-American right?  Think about that someone mentions, or you are listening to the Dave Matthews band.

John H Mc Whorter wrote an article titled “Why I’m Black, Not African American” in 2004:

“Living descendants of slaves in America neither knew their African ancestors nor even have elder relatives who knew them. Most of us worship in Christian churches. Our cuisine is more southern U.S. than Senegalese. Starting with ragtime and jazz, we gave America intoxicating musical beats based on African conceptions of rhythm, but with melody and harmony based on Western traditions.

Also, we speak English. Black Americans’ home speech is largely based on local dialects of England and Ireland. Africa echoes in the dialect only as a whisper, in certain aspects of sound and melody. A working-class black man in Cincinnati has more in common with a working-class white man in Providence than with a Ghanaian.

With the number of African immigrants in the U.S. nearly tripling since 1990, the use of “African American” is becoming increasingly strained. For example, Alan Keyes, the Republican Senate candidate in Illinois, has claimed that as a descendant of slaves, he is the “real” African American, compared with his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, who has an African father and white mother. And the reason Keyes and others are making arguments such as this is rather small, the idea being that “African American” should refer only to people with a history of subordination in this country - as if African immigrants such as Amadou Diallo, who was killed by police while reaching for his wallet, or Caribbean ones such as torture victim Abner Louima have found the U.S. to be the Land of Oz.”

The term entered into usage largely starting in 1988, when the Rev. Jesse Jackson held a news conference to urge Americans to use it to refer to blacks. I missed the memo - who asked Jesse to speak for all of us?  I think this was a decision he felt empowered to make on behalf of the whole race and someone should have told him to pump his brakes and hold on!

From a scientific viewpoint, the term African-American makes absolutely no sense.  I hate to crush your spirit so hold on to your seat.  Most genetic evidence now supports an African origin for all humans on earth. Thus, everyone living in the Americas today is, properly speaking, African American.

Look people, this is just something else created by man, meant to separate us and keep us at odds.  You have to get something positive from this and hopefully this is what you take away: we need to start looking at people as equals regardless of the color of their skin.  There are so many people who have lost their life because of the color of their skin - I’m not just talking about black people either.  Senseless death because someone looks different is a ridiculous occurance and for that mankind should be ashamed.  Please, leave here armed with a little more understanding and don’t look upon another ethnic group with pity.  Look at them as other human beings who should have the same rights as you.