Exclusive interview with Dharun Ravi: 'I'm very sorry about Tyler'
http://blog.nj.com/njv_mark_diionno/2012/03/exclusive_interview_dharun_rav.html

Published: Thursday, March 22, 2012, 6:20 AM Updated: Thursday, March 22, 2012, 6:21 AM
By Mark Di Ionno/Star-Ledger Columnist

PLAINSBORO — Dharun Ravi's face is drawn and thin. The stress of the last year and a half has wrung him out. His eyes are perpetually sad, not the eyes of a very bright 20-year-old young man who should have a promising future.

He is sitting on a plush maroon sofa in his parents’ living room, free on bail but still a prisoner in public opinion. He has been convicted of a hate crime for spying on Tyler Clementi, who jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge after the episode. Ravi was not charged in Clementi’s death, but without the suicide, the case would have never drawn so much public attention.

Now, for the first time, Dharun Ravi explains his side of the story in a two-hour exclusive interview with The Star-Ledger.

I’m not the same person I was two years ago," he said. "I don’t even recognize the person I was two years ago." That person, Ravi admits, was immature. And did some stupid things. And was insensitive to Tyler Clementi’s feelings. "But I wasn’t biased," Ravi said. "I didn’t act out of hate and I wasn’t uncomfortable with Tyler being gay."

http://blog.nj.com/njv_mark_diionno/2012/03/exclusive_interview_dharun_rav.html

From Stand-Up Routines to Sporting Life
By PATRICK HEALY
Published: February 27, 2012

As a Yale-trained actor as well as a stand-up comedian used to shutting up yahoos in the audience, David Alan Grier rarely feels rattled onstage. But he was nearly beside himself during a recent performance of “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess,” the Broadway musical in which he plays the drug dealer Sporting Life, a role most identified with Cab Calloway and Sammy Davis Jr.

Every time Mr. Grier entered a scene, strutting like a peacock among the poor of Catfish Row, the same young woman in the audience burst out giggling.

“Some people think I play for laughs, that I’m just ‘In Living Color,’ ” he recalled in an interview the other day, referring to the popular sketch-comedy series that ran on Fox from 1990 to 1994 and also starred the Wayans brothers and Jim Carrey. “But I never wanted to be a comic. I wanted to be a leading man — the black lawyer, the black doctor, the black policeman.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/theater/david-alan-grier-of-the-gershwins-porgy-and-bess.html?_r=1

Mammy to Minnie: Black Women Oscar Winners
By LUCHINA FISHER (@luchina)
Feb. 28, 2012


After Octavia Spencer won the Academy Award for best supporting actress, Jennifer Hudson, who won the same award in 2006, was first to welcome her into the very exclusive club of black women Oscar winners.

"Yes!!!! Welcome to the family Octavia!! Congrats!!! Amazing!!" she tweeted Sunday night.

Like all families, this one comes with baggage. For most Oscar winners, an Academy Award is a boon to their careers, both in terms of roles and earning power. For black women, the road after Oscar seems to be less certain.

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/oscar-boost-octavia-spencers-career/story?id=15802169#.T02CyNXAP64

First Lady Provides Local Inspiration

http://www.wbng.com/news/local/First-Lady-Provides-Local-Inspiration-140099123.html

Binghamton, NY (WBNG Binghamton) It's not every day you get the voice of the Frist Lady of the United States on the other end of the line.

Wednesday night, local women turned the call waiting off and the volume up as they dialed in to speak to Michelle Obama.

The First Lady held a special conference call for Women for Obama-- a national group of campaign volunteers.

Thousands of women across the country--including dozens of them here in Binghamton--gathered at their respective Democratic headquarters to listen in.

White Teacher Sues To Use N-Word In Class
Written by TheGrio on February 20, 2012 5:00 pm

By Jay Scott Smith

CHICAGO – A 48-year-old Chicago public school teacher used the “n-word” as part of a lesson on the perils and pitfalls of racism, and it landed him a five-day suspension from his job. The teacher is fighting back, filing a federal lawsuit against the district and claiming that his civil rights have been violated.

Lincoln Brown, a 21-year veteran teacher and native of Chicago’s Hyde Park, used the word in his sixth grade classroom at Murray Language Academy on Oct. 4, 2011 after discovering a note that female student was passing had the slur written on it as apart of some rap lyrics. Brown, who is white, used the note as an opportunity to teach lesson about racism in the context of Huckleberry Finn.

http://newsone.com/nation/thegrio6/lincoln-brown-white-teacher-sues-to-use-n-word-in-class/

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Let's Do It Again (Obama 2012) - Teens in Orlando Making a Difference!!!

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Excerpt from YouTube: These young men are raising money for band equipment, but they also want to support President Obama (a portion of profits will be donated to his re-election campaign). To get a FREE DOWNLOAD of our "Let's Do It Again" re-make, send email to LetsDoItFreeDownload@gmail.com

As the country mourns her passing, the rumors have started.

http://digitaljournal.com/article/319663

Vulture #1: Peter Tatchell. No doubt, he knows that now when you Google for Whitney Houston, his name will come up. People will want to interview him about the singer. Because, who better than this gay activist to tell us everything we didn't know about the singer many of us pretended to be with a hairbrush for a microphone, her CDs, and the songs we loved.

He'll get some face time, feigning respectability. That Whitney Houston said she wasn't gay in 2000, won't mean a thing. Because the goal is attention for Tatchell. That her family is still in the grieving process...meaningless. He's got to get some attention quickly. After a few weeks, he'll be Mr. Nobody again. Regardless of the rumors he spreads.

I'm sorry to give him any attention. But, I wanted to share this with the group. I hope the mainstream media avoids him like the plague. He's just another leech on society in my book.

Cleo Manago: The Most Dangerous Black Gay Man?
By Irene Moore

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/irene-monroe/cleo-manago_b_1280272.html

Cleo Manago is despised by some in the LGBTQ community. Descriptors like "homo demagogue," contrarian, separatist, and anti-white are just a few that can be expressed in polite company. But to a nationwide community of same-gender-loving (SGL), bisexual, transgender, and progressive heterosexual African-American men, Manago is the man, seen as a visionary game changer and "social architect" focusing on advocating for and healing a group of men that continues to be maligned and marginalized: brothers.

"Without an understanding of the deep hurt that Black men have around issues of masculinity and their role as a man, you can't hope to eliminate anti-homosexual sentiment in Black men," Manago wrote in his recent article "Getting at the Root of Black 'Homophobic' Speech," in which he castigates GLAAD for demanding that CNN fire Roland Martin for misconstrued homophobic tweets. "There has been no national project to address the psychic damage that White supremacy has done to Black men. But there is always some predominantly White institution waiting, ready to pounce on a Black man for behaving badly."

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Interesting Article about Cleo Manago. I just said a few days ago I hadn't heard of him. Now his name seems to be all over the place.

This piece was written by Joel Olson, a member of BtR-Arizona, as a contribution to ongoing debates about the occupations taking place in the U.S.

http://www.bringtheruckus.org/?q=node/146

Whiteness and the 99%
By Joel Olson

Occupy Wall Street and the hundreds of occupations it has sparked nationwide are among the most inspiring events in the U.S. in the 21st century. The occupations have brought together people to talk, occupy, and organize in new and exciting ways. The convergence of so many people with so many concerns has naturally created tensions within the occupation movement. One of the most significant tensions has been over race. This is not unusual, given the racial history of the United States. But this tension is particularly dangerous, for unless it is confronted, we cannot build the 99%. The key obstacle to building the 99% is left colorblindness, and the key to overcoming it is to put the struggles of communities of color at the center of this movement. It is the difference between a free world and the continued dominance of the 1%.

Left colorblindess is the enemy

Left colorblindness is the belief that race is a “divisive” issue among the 99%, so we should instead focus on problems that “everyone” shares. According to this argument, the movement is for everyone, and people of color should join it rather than attack it.

Left colorblindness claims to be inclusive, but it is actually just another way to keep whites’ interests at the forefront. It tells people of color to join “our” struggle (who makes up this “our,” anyway?) but warns them not to bring their “special” concerns into it. It enables white people to decide which issues are for the 99% and which ones are “too narrow.” It’s another way for whites to expect and insist on favored treatment, even in a democratic movement.
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I know nothing about Joel Olson, except I believe he's a college professor. I also know nothing about the Bring the Ruckus website. However, it's an interesting read. The comments are almost as interesting as the article.

It could make for an interesting discussion.

Park Service to remove inscription on MLK Memorial
The Associated Press

http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20120210/NEWS03/120210027/Park-Service-remove-inscription-MLK-Memorial?odyssey=mod|mostview

WASHINGTON — The National Park Service announced plans Friday to remove an inscription from the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial and replace it with a full quotation from the civil rights leader a move the memorial project's architect said would "destroy" the monument.

Critics including the poet Maya Angelou, had said the paraphrase didn't accurately reflect King's words. It reads, "I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness."

Angelou had said the shortened phrase made King sound like an "arrogant twit." She had served on a panel of historians to select inscriptions for the memorial before they were hand-carved into stone, but she did not attend meetings about the inscriptions, memorial officials have said.