January 8, 2015

Stuart Scott Spoke the Language of My Generation

We didn’t have to know you to know that you knew us, got us and embodied us. That you spoke like us and got the duality of being both a professional and a poet.

That a home run ball leaving the park wasn't “hi-yoooo!” it was “boo-yahhhh!” And you got the difference for us, the kids from broken homes with cousins named Pookie, who wrote out rap lyrics in our notebooks and signed our names in bubble letters.

You didn’t patronize us free-lunch kids, you asked that we be included in the conversation. You slid our language right next to theirs and let it be. You included the music of your people and the experiences of your life to add to your depth. And your vast knowledge of hip-hop did not embarrass you. You were proud of it. You took the bullet for the rest of us; spoke our speech on-air so that even a throwaway phrase like “Yo” became commonplace.

“You had white guys, in their 30s, all with catchphrases,” ESPN host Dan Patrick said of Stuart Scott. “Stuart certainly wasn’t that.”

Nope. He was ours first—with the baggy-pants suits and tight fades that he wore early in his career—and in turn he became everyone else’s. This is the cornerstone of the legacy of Stuart Scott, a man who battled cancer three times with an authentic gangster mentality that most rappers only spit on wax.

According to his doctors, he refused to know what stage his cancer was in because he didn’t want to be defined by his illness. He chose to live on his terms, and that included rigorous chemotherapy treatments and ended with grueling mixed martial arts training.

Weeks before he would accept the ESPYs’ Jimmy V Perseverance Award, Scott spent days in the hospital undergoing multiple surgeries, but he was there, on the ESPY stage in Los Angeles, because he wasn’t going to let cancer hold him back. He was thin and war-torn, but not down.

“When you die, it does not mean that you lose to cancer,” he told the crowd. “You beat cancer by how you live, why you live and the manner in which you live.”

This is the true spirit of hip-hop and one that Scott embodied all the way to the end—for us. That although the odds are against you, it doesn’t mean that you can’t live to the fullest, out loud.

Or, as Notorious B.I.G. spit, “Remember Rappin Duke? Duh-ha, duh-ha. You never thought that hip-hop would take it this far.”

http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2015/01/stuart_scott_spoke_the_language_of_my_generation.html

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January 8, 2015

Where Safeway Fears to Tread

West Baltimore’s unlikely source of fruit.

A large black mare is tethered to a chain-link fence in West Baltimore. She pulls at it, causing the loose metal to rattle, and paws at the hot asphalt beneath her, scratching chalky cave drawings into the blacktop. Her name is Beauty.

“Hey, hey, cut that out, girl,” says Yusuf Abdullah, aka BJ, approaching with an old spray bottle filled with water. BJ’s hair is braided into cornrows, and he wears an oversized shirt, holed jeans, and a pair of purple and green high-top sneakers. In an hour, he and Beauty, pulling a wagon loaded up with fruit, will be heading out into the most dangerous streets of Baltimore to hawk peaches, cantaloupe, and other fresh fruit. Selling fruit in this way is called arabbing here (pronounced AY-rabbing), and fruit sellers like BJ are known as arabbers.

“Do me a favor and roll by my mama’s house,” says a man buying peaches on West Hamburg Street. “She got diabetes, and she needs this stuff. Tell her her son sent you.”
On this day, three men, including Donald “Manboy” Savoy, an 82-year-old widower who has spent the last half-century working as an arabber, help BJ load up his wagon with fruit while BJ heaps a large, black leather saddle over Beauty’s sagging back. All arabber horses are fitted with elaborate tack and regalia—black Pennsylvania Dutch saddles rimmed in gold, caps with red and yellow plumage, and a long belt of bells and white bone rings that hangs from either side of the harness. It’s a style known as Baltimore fancy.

I’ve arrived at the Fremont Stables on the good word of friend Holden Warren, who is the vice president of the Arabber Preservation Society. This is not a full-time job; Warren tells me the preservation society operates on a budget of $5,000 to $10,000 annually. Still, the commitment to upholding tradition runs strong, and Warren has even tried his hand at occasional arabbing himself. (Since he is the only white arabber on Baltimore’s streets, this turns some heads.)

Arabbers are a group of itinerant merchants in Baltimore who have sold fruits and vegetables out of horse-drawn carts since pre-Civil War days. (The practice became almost exclusively African American after World War II.) The etymology of arabber is believed by some to date back to a 19th-century London reference to the homeless, but no one really knows. Today only a dozen arabbers carry on the tradition. Most of them travel more than 15 miles per day, bringing in from $100 to $300, depending on the season. Considering the costs of the fruit and the use of the horse and cart, arabbers leave each day with about $50 in pocket.

BJ, who is 26, has been arabbing for several years, and his father was once an arabber, too. Like many young men from West Baltimore, he has been in and out of prison. “I used to bang in the streets,” he says. “I used to like that fast money. But after a few stints at the D.O.C., I figured out slow money is good money. I can come out here and do honest work that helps people, and I don’t have to look over my shoulder.”

These blocks of West Baltimore are mostly abandoned, with large boards barricading the row homes. White marble stoops crumble into nothing and black plastic bodega bags float through the streets. When we are quiet, the only sounds are the disyllable clop of a shoed horse and the crunch of the wheels. “Suh-weeeeet peeeAAYCH- es!” calls out BJ periodically. “Can’lope! Can’lope hurrr.”

http://www.psmag.com/navigation/business-economics/where-safeway-fears-to-tread-west-baltimore-arabbers-fruit-95417/

January 8, 2015

I'm not excited to post this, but it *IS* a notable first...

Utah’s Rep. Mia Love takes spot in history

Washington • Utah’s Mia Love raised her right hand in the House chamber Tuesday to take the oath of office and enter the history books as the first black female Republican member of Congress.

"I’m in awe," she said earlier as she greeted waves of well-wishers in her new office, now sporting the official Representative Mia B. Love sign. "I’m just taking it all in and enjoying it. I’ve decided I’m not stressing today."

Love, who is also the first Haitian-American in Congress, got the star treatment on her first day as Utah’s newest representative: Rep. Paul Ryan, the former GOP vice presidential candidate, escorted her to the House chamber, Speaker John Boehner kissed her on the cheek and Majority Whip Steve Scalise brought her a gift.

"For everybody who did so much to work on this campaign, thank you so much for bringing this budding star to Congress," Ryan told a crowd of supporters huddled in Love’s office. "We’re so proud of her; we’re so thrilled for her; and we can’t wait to see what she’s going to do."

Love, 39, won her second bid for the 4th Congressional District in November after Utah’s only Democrat, Rep. Jim Matheson, opted against running for re-election. With Love, Utah now has an entirely Republican delegation.

Reps. Rob Bishop, Jason Chaffetz and Chris Stewart were sworn in again Tuesday.

Love, though, stole the spotlight. A line of folks stretched out of her office, each hoping for a photo with the new congresswoman. Love’s family, including her parents, who flew in from Connecticut, held court in the packed space.

Her father, who immigrated to America from Haiti, didn’t stop smiling.

"This is a country of hope and opportunity," Maxime Bordeau said. "This is America."

http://www.sltrib.com/news/2026676-155/utahs-rep-mia-love-takes-spot