This video was produced in the early part of this year. It appears that this version was shared as an agenda item in a Birmingham, AL council meeting. Mayor Larry Langford deserves applause for his courage. The piece was created by Reginald Bullock.
Something must be done to curb the violence and mayhem affecting black children. Commentary about this excerpt is being purposefully limited as the video speaks volumes.
Watch: A War for Your Soul
Recently, our esteemed elected officials had to vote on legislation introduced by Al Franken (D-Minnesota) that would allow victims employed by companies that contract with the Department of Defense to sue instead of being forced into arbitration settlement hearings on cases of battery and rape. Franken introduced the Bill after learning about Jamie Leigh Jones’ ordeal while being employed at Haliburton and stationed in Iraq. Jones was repeatedly sexually harassed. Eventually the harassment escalated to the nineteen year old being drugged and gang raped. When she attempted to report the incident she was locked in a crate. After her release and return to the United States she sought remedy only to find out that due to the fine print in her employment papers, she relinquished her ability to pursue remedy outside of arbitration.
Fortunately, Frankens’ legislation passed. However, all 30 of the Nay votes came from Republicans. The Department of Defense was also against the anti-rape amendment. This is extremely disturbing but not too surprising. Take a look at the commentary by John Stewart and listen to the comments made by: Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE), Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond (R-MO) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). These fabulous five are adamant about tweaking legislation for the funding of ACORN in light of the whole video pertaining to tips on circumventing the system and helping a supposed pimp enhance his ring of prostitution. But impacting HBR and other companies that do business with the United States Department of Defense with this type of legislation must have hit a little too close to home.
Visit Republicans for Rape.org for contact information on this esteemed collective. The Thirty Dirty. Go figure. I guess this is what it looks like when the chickens come home to roost. It is often stated at the Opus that GOP is dead. Obviously, that position is a juxtaposition of what was and what might evolve. The Republican Party has lost the stranglehold it had with Latino voters, it’s ploy to reach out to African-American voters is a farce, and this latest gaffe is sure to alienate millions of women voters. Keep up the destruction.
I challenge every reader of this post to call or email as many of the Dirty Thirty as possible and let them know how you really feel. Please share the information with you friends and remember it could have been your sister, daughter, relative or neighbor victimized in Iraq. Political allegiances should not matter in every situation.
To vote against an anti-rape amendment is pretty sad commentary. I guess the old guard feels desperate times call for desperate measures. One’s political affiliation on some matters should be irrelevant.
It’s sad to see that we have legislators that support battery and rape but rail against helping a pimp become more efficient. It looks like they have a thing against the middle man. That was a joke.
Unfortunately, the life of Meleanie Hain has ended at age 31. Mrs. Hain was the brilliant gun freak that thought it would be prudent to wear her holstered pistol to her 5 year old child’s soccer game last year. Soon after she used such poor judgment, her right to carry was revoked. She later sued and won the right to carry back.
Mrs. Hain was killed by her soon-to-be estranged husband, Scott Hain. After murdering his wife and the mother of his three children, Scott proceeded upstairs to blow his brains out with a 12 gauge shotgun. The whole affair will probably be blamed on gansta rap, but oh well, the saga continues.
Isn’t it interesting that you can’t have a firearm in Chicago, Washington, DC, Chicago and most other areas defined as urban? Makes you say hmmm… So much for the 2nd Amendment. Why do you think the laws differ? I’d love to know.
I know, I know every time there is an incident of gun violence in the Untied States all sorts of chatter emerges about gun control vs. the right to bear arms. Blah, blah, blah…. The fact of this matter is 3 children are now orphans largely because they were born into a union so obsessed with the right to bear arms that the big picture was missed. Now, at the hands of their probable card carrying NRA father, both he and their (probable) NRA card carrying mother are deceased.
The gun was created for a singular purpose, to stop from breathing whatever its projectile hit. While the gun certainly helped man’s survival in the wilderness over the ages, it has certainly evolved over time into the modern day era’s supreme weapon of mass destruction. Think about it, the bullet has killed more people than all terrorists known to man, the atom bomb, weapons of mass destruction (real and make believe), Hitler and both Bushes combined.
The killing will continue. Check out your local 6 o’clock news if you are a non-believer. Numerous states allow gun owners to carry their weapons. Recently in Arizona, gun owners have been given the right to wear their holstered weapons in restaurants, bars and night clubs. Get this… they are not allowed to drink. Further proof about the intellectual deficit in such a beautiful place.
I would like for someone to explain to me how the Democratic Party again proves that their theme song should be Britney Spears’ Oops I Did it Again. Right now, there is a village missing not one, but five idiots. If you see any of these idiots throw a shoe at them. The not-so-fab five, Max Baucus (D-MT), Bill Nelson (D-FL), Tom Carper (D-DE), Kent Conrad (D-ND) and Blanch Lincoln (D-AR) had the opportunity to make sweeping changes and impact favorably the likelihood that Health Care Reform would happen this year. Thanks to their NO votes, passage this year is less likely.
Their votes make a lot more sense when you pull the covers off. Each of them received financial gain directly or indirectly from the Health Insurance Industry or their lobbyists. Almost $20 million dollars in gain to be exact. In fairness to these dummies, they committed no crimes. Technically…. these types of kickbacks are legal. It’s crystal clear that President Obama’s promise of change, while well intended, will be much more difficult to implement with regard to revamping Health Care.
Earlier, I referred to these elected officials as dummies. They or their causes look pretty smart from a financial perspective. $19 million smarter to be exact. The actual dummies might be the US citizens naive enough to think the Democrats couldn’t possibly screw up this one. Go figure.
It’s been a while since anything new has been posted to The Opus Unlimited. For my dedicated readers, I apologize. With permission from a friend I am posting the following composition regarding the social reality of race. So much in recent weeks has occurred involving race, racism, profiling etc.
Another friend of mine made a comment on Facebook that he felt that President Obama should not have made the comment he made about the Cambridge police department. I replied to his post that while I agree that Webster’s definition of the word stupidly will probably be appropriately applied to the actions of the officer and Professor Gates in the end, the American public would take Obama’s comments literally, and better word play would have been the advice of the day.
That wasn’t what happened. Later, the President attempted to remove the proverbial foot from his mouth. I respect that. If you make a mistake, acknowledge it an move on. In my same reply, I reminded my friend that the next time he is pulled over for DWB or teaching his sons about the proper protocol when he gets pulled over by 5-0, to remember the President’s emotional word play and keep his cool.
No sooner than my reply hit his Facebook account my friend John called me back to explain that he could not believe my comments and how fitting they were. He went on to explain how he was DWB in suburban Howard County Maryland a couple of days prior, he looked in his rear-view mirror and witnessed he was being followed by po-po. This went on for a mile or so. The police officer changed lanes and drove up along the left side of John’s vehicle, took a look over, dropped back and then got behind him and most of you can conclude the next paragraph of the story.
John was pulled over. To make matters worse, he was riding dirty, not with a 9mm under the seat, he had an expired emissions certificate tied to his plates. John explained to the officer that he worked in New Jersey and simply had failed to renew his emission certificate due to an oversight and being out of town during the week. He asked for a little consideration and inquired whether or not a warning could be issued. The officer replied, “I can’t do that this is how I make my living.”
John and I laughed about the incident only because the timing was funny as well as the context. The reality is the historic relationship between police and men of color in the United States has not been a good one. Yes, significant improvements have been made and the good officers deserve credit and respect. Conversely, racial profiling is a huge issue in throughout the country. Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona does it in a cavalier manner everyday.
I used John’s recent story as an entertaining introduction to Frederick’s composition. Enjoy.
Race is A Social Reality
by Frederick A. Hanna
Race can be defined as, a socially constructed category, which implies that depictions of racial difference are human creations rather than external, essential categories.
A few months ago a classmate of mine, who’s opinion I greatly respect made a statement regarding race that kind of threw me. We were discussing racism in urban schools, which is a primary aspect of what we do as educational anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers, historians, and practitioners—we all get a good slice of the race issue—when my colleague said something to the effect of, “I think this whole race as a social construct conversation is overused, and getting too much play.” Now this struck me because as practitioners of social science and race theorists, we rely on this definition of race as a cornerstone of our understanding of racial dynamics and discriminatory practices; nevertheless, there was something in his comment that resonated with me. Every time I teach race as a “social construct” which makes complete sense to me and helps me to explain a number of racial dynamics that have played themselves out over a vast history of racism and discrimination in America, I see the image of myself as a black man and I know beyond a shadow of doubt that essentialist characteristics of race (phenotype, skin color, biological characteristics) still matter and still impact me wherever I go. Whatever the term or the logic we use to define race, when I walk into a department store, the stereotypes still apply; when I show any kind of emotional response to anything, the stereotypes still apply; when I walk down the street or drive down the road in a white neighborhood, the stereotypes still apply; even when I demonstrate academic excellence it seems to be posed as a matter of exception to be marveled at—Why?—because when people look at me, they don’t see a social construct, they see a black man. Because of that, a big part of my life story involves shaking off those stereotypes.
Race, along with class, gender, etc. Are socially constructed, but they are also a social reality. “This means that after race—or class or gender—is created, it produces real affects on actors racialized as ‘black’ or ‘white.’ Although race, as other social structures is unstable, it has a ‘changing same’ quality at its core” (E. Bonilla-Silva). That is to say that while race does have dynamic elements that change and are reconstructed over time, there are also essentialist categories of race that remain fixed.
To ignore race as a social reality, which seems to be what many Americans want to do as we push towards a post-racial society, is to deny an entire history of racial exploitation which includes the near extermination of the Native American, the victimization of the Mexican, the exploitation of Asian contract laborers, and of course the dehumanization of the African which extended overtly into the Jim Crow era. The vestiges of this racial social order continue to manifest themselves in our country both materially and ideologically. The history of America is based upon a doctrine of white supremacy which gave rise to a racialized social system. This system bestowed privilege upon Europeans, and assigned deficit to non-Europeans. The result was systems of social relations that reinforce white privilege socially, economically, politically, etc. The tendency of actors racialized as white in this system is to actively struggle to maintain, or passively receive the merits of white privilege. Those assigned to the subordinate race have 2 choices: 1) struggle to change and challenge systemic and structural racism, or 2) become resigned to their position. Thus, the social reality of race and racism continues to play itself out regardless of what the “social construct” is doing. One must then conclude that while these social constructs are defined and redefined, inhabited, transformed, and reinvented, there are certain realities that remain fixed. Simply explaining them away as a social construct can’t work. This would only amount to justification of the status quo by pointing out that certain “races” need to “get over it” and move beyond their racial baggage. A justification which does little more than to affirm the social reality that the “get over it” argument attempts to dismiss.
It is quite entertaining to watch the Good Ole’ Boy Party (GOP) implode everyday right before the whole world. Thanks George Bush and Dick Cheney for kicking it all off almost a decade ago.
The familiar GOP we knew is dead. That is a beautiful thing. It is unclear what the new GOP will be. Michael Steele is witnessing first hand the lengths at which a so called majority will go when they see power being wrested from undeserving hands. Careful what you wish for.
I purposely torture, as well as entertain myself daily, by listening to conservative talk radio, reading right wing publications and expanding my searches online for the multitude of resources that validate my earlier premise that the GOP is dead.
Look at all of the infighting. Steele vs. Limbaugh. Limbaugh vs. Powell. Cheney vs. George W. Bush. Palin Camp vs. McCain Camp. Steele vs. Rommney.
Specter saw the writing on the wall.
For decades, being a Republican has had connotations of being: exclusive, divisive, sinister, racist, sexist, out-of-touch, oppressive and anti anything and anyone that might level a playing field that unquestionably has benefited the white male power elite. No more. Often, especially with today’s younger population and the MTV generation, admitting that you belong to the GOP is tantamount to wearing a scarlet letter on your chest.
Now please don’t get this situation or my comments twisted, even with a black man and his family living in the most popular residence on Pennsylvania Avenue, America has a long way to go. If you think for a minute that the old GOP is going to go quietly, think again.
You can still review the list of the Fortune 500 companies and on the 10 fingers and toes you were born with not need any extras to account for minority or women CEOs at these firms. There is still rampant discrimination taking place everyday in the good old US of A. There are still minority families taking out car loans today with better credit than their majority counterparts but they are being saddled with significantly higher interest rates on their loans simply because of their race or zip code. The same is true for home mortgages, home insurance, and auto insurance.
Everyday, you hear some so-called conservative ranting about Big Government. If government would not have been asleep at the wheel, we would have never had to experience Worldcom, Enron, Bernie Madoff, War in Iraq, approval of torture, and an economy near depression. That’s what happens when you let the foxes mind the hen house.
The next big tummy ache for the GOP, will be the nomination of a new Supreme Court Justice. What a perfect storm! If the timing is right, over the next decade, no less than three Justices may be required to be nominated.
R.I.P. GOP! Good riddance.
Somewhere, sometime long ago, it was said that a black man would become President of the United States of America when pigs fly. Lo and behold, within his first 100 days leading the most powerful nation in the world, BAM - Swine Flu. Now that’s prophetic.
Its quite entertaining to witness traditionally non-news events like tax filing, soar to headline news status across the globe. This will be the case for the days to come because the 2008 tax filing deadline has passed and the President and First Lady have filed their returns and they are available for the world to see.
You may click here to view a copy of the Obamas’ 2008 Tax Return. Now ask yourself this question. When have you ever heard so many mainstream assessments (often critical) about a so called minority being elitist or rich or arrogant? The simple answer, never.
The tirades you hear are usually from the mouths of a right wing underachiever who has a problem with someone different than themselves ascending to heights greater than their own. The majority of the Obama family income last year came from the President’s entrepreneurial efforts as an author. For far too many U.S. citizens, it is hard as hell for them to witness someone different from themselves shatter all of their stereotypes and assumptions.
Where was all of the talk about elitism and possible corruption when George W. Bush sold the Texas Rangers and got creative with the tax law? In the same spotlight that was shined on President Obama, let’s look at President Bush’s 1998 tax return the year prior to his Presidential bid. We won’t even delve into the improprieties of Dick Cheney and his relationship with Haliburton (at least not right now).
It amazes me every time I hear someone refer to how out of touch Obama is because he’s rich. Excuse me, but Bush made more than $18 million in 1998 and while I admittedly was not into politics as I am now, I do not recall any uproar about his success. My instinct tells me that 1998 was not the only year in which Bush reported in excess of $1 million in income. So much for fair and balanced.
The Obamas paid more than $800,000 in taxes on roughly $2.6 million in income. The Bush’s paid $3.7 million in taxes in 1998 on $18.4 million in income. Pull your calculators out and calculate the actual taxes paid as a percentage of income. While interpretations of the truth may vary, there is something to the old adage that numbers don’t lie.
On May 13, 2009 President Barack Obama will deliver the commencement address at Arizona State University’s Tempe campus. Earlier this week, the University made public the fact that they would not be bestowing upon President Barack Obama an honorary degree. Sharon Keeler, a spokeswoman for the university stated, “His body of work is yet to come, that’s why we’re not recognizing him with a degree at the beginning of his presidency.”
So let’s get this straight. President Barack Obama has attended and graduated from Columbia and Harvard, authored multiple best-selling books, been a U.S. Senator, and most recently became President of the United States of America, yet he’s undeserving of an honorary degree from a State institution that rates barely above some community colleges. What standards ASU has. Kermit the Frog has an honorary degree from ASU. Take a look at past honorary degree recipients, don’t recognize too many of these names do you? At last check, Harvard was the #1 school in the nation and Columbia was #8. Both institutions accept less than 10% of the applicants they receive each year. Good ole’ ASU ranks 121 on the list and accepts more than 90% of its applicants. While honorary agrees do not account for much, it is the base level of disrespect that is most offensive.
Only in Arizona. This is definitely not the intellectual capital of the world. University president, Michael Crow has stated that ASU will honor Obama in every way possible. I imagine he will be savvy enough to make the right decision. Regardless, the slight is done. Whether it was a bureaucratic snafu or an intentional slight, once again Arizona has the distinction of being a bass ackwards place when it comes to topics of diversity and intelligence.
Is it about race? This topic seems inescapable in Arizona. This is the place that fought tooth and nail to avoid honoring Martin Luther King Jr. with an official holiday. This is the place that proudly re-elected the country’s most notorious racial profiler Sheriff Joe Arpiao. Whether it is racism, sour grapes, or simple ineptitude here is a list of the intellectuals that make up ASU’s Honorary Degree Committee:
Laurie Chassin, Psychology, 2010 (Chair) Christine Wilkinson, Senior Vice President and Secretary of the University, 2010 (Co-Chair) Roger Adelson, History, 2009 Bill Miller, Applied Biological Sciences, 2009 Joan Brett, Graduate College, 2010 Claudia Brown, Art, 2010 Chris Callahan, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, 2010 Philip Christensen, Earth and Space Exploration, 2010 Luis Gomez-Mejia, Management, 2010 Jewell Parker Rhodes, Virginia C. Piper Center for Creative Writing, 2010 Paul Patterson, Morrison School of Management and Agribusiness, 2010 Sander van der Leeuw, Human Evolution and Social Change, 2010 Linda Vaughan, Nutrition, 2010 Gary Waissi, ASU Global Engagement, 2010, the university vice provost and dean of the Graduate College, and the president of the ASU Foundation also are ex-officio members of the committee.
Back to Ms. Sharon Keeler, Director of Media Relations at ASU, hopefully she will see the contradiction in her own statements. The university you represent invited the President of the most powerful country in the world to deliver well wishes and congratulations to you graduates. Most would assume that only accomplished individuals would be worthy of such an invitation. By your statements, maybe you are waiting to confer an honorary degree on the next person to part the Red Sea, turn water to wine or walk on water. Even though you were not on the committee, the statements attributable to you are laughable. I can hear Kermit singing the Rainbow Connection to Ms. Piggy right now and reminiscing about is time on campus . The nation is laughing at ASU.
Why you got behind on your mortgage is of little consequence when it comes to modifying your current loan with lenders. I am certain that the government officials that have promoted various programs to help homeowners in trouble had excellent intentions. The reality however, is that the majority of lenders are not making any modifications to loans and if they are, it usually provides little to no long-term benefit to the homeowner and a lot of long-term benefit to the lender. There is no question, lenders are hurting too. They are going to hurt even more as homeowners get wise to the fact that there has been a paradigm shift in the American Dream and that in some situations, no matter the detriment to the ominous FICO score, homeowners will be smartest to simply walk away.
If you have ever had to call in to your lender in an attempt to work out a solution or discuss even the most basic element of your loan, you will appreciate the listing below. These numbers are to the loss mitigation departments at the majority of mortgage lenders. Good luck to you as you will need it, many of the representatives have either been trained to not be very smart and cooperating or they were simply born that way and being an @ss is a prerequisite for employment. Sorry for the broad generalization but it is likely that you experienced the same. Kudos to the employees at these companies that really try hard to help.
It is a certainty you know someone with a real estate loan related issue. Share your feedback about successes with loan modification or one of the government sponsored programs. As I see it, the banks took the money to shore up their balance sheets and mom and pop are getting the short end of the stick once again.
LIST OF LOAN MODIFICATION DEPARTMENT NUMBERS
ABM AMRO Mortgage
(800) 783-8900
Accredited Home Lenders
(877) 683-4466
AMC Mortgage Services (Also Ameriquest and Argent)
(800) 211-6926
American Home Mortgage Corp.
(877) 304-3100
Ameriquest Mortgage
(800) 211-6926
Aurora Loan Services
(800) 550-0508
Avelo Mortgage LLC
(866) 992-8356
Bank of America
(800) 846-2222
BB&T Mortgage
(800) 827-3722
AmTrust Bank (Also Ohio Savings Bank)
(888) 696-4444
Beneficial
(800) 333-5848
Central Pacific Bank
(800) 342-8422
Charter One
(800) 234-6002
Chase
(800) 446-8939
Chase Home Finance
(858) 605-2181
Chase Home Finance-New Jersey
(800) 446-8939
Chevy Chase Bank
(800) 933-9100
Chase Manhattan Mortgage
(800) 446-8939 (Ohio Servicing Center)
(800) 526-0072 (Florida Servicing Center)
(800) 527-3040 x533 (Florida Servicing Center)
Chevy Chase Bank
(800) 933-9100
Citi Financial Mortgage
(800) 753-3673
Citimortgage
(800) 283-7918
Countrywide
(800) 262-4218
Ditech
(800) 852-0656
Downey Financial Corp.
(800) 824-6902, ext. 6696
Deutsche Bank National
Call Number on Mortgage Statement
EMC
800-723-3004
EverBank
(800) 669-7724 ext. 4730
Equity One
(866) 361-3460
First Horizon Home Loans
(800) 489-2966*
Fifth Third Bank
(800) 375-1745 Option 3
First Merit Bank
(888) 728-9931
Flagstar Bank
(800) 968-7700, ext. 9780
Fremont Investment & Loan
(866) 484-0291
GMAC Mortgage
(800) 850-4622
GreenPoint Mortgage Funding
(800) 784-5566, ext. 5383*
Green Tree
(877) 816-9125
Homecomings Financial
(800) 850-4622*
HomeEq Mortgage Servicing
(866) 822-1471
Household Finance (A HSBC Co.)
(800) 333-5848
Household Mortgage
(800) 333-4489
Household Mortgage
(800) 365-6730
HSBC Mortgage Corp.
(888) 648-3124
Huntington National Bank
(800) 323-4695
Indymac Bank
(877) 736-5556
Irwin Mortgage
(888) 218-1988
James B. Nutter & Company
(800) 315-7334
Key Bank
(800) 422-2442
LaSalle National Bank
(800) 783-8900
Litton Loan Servicing
(800) 999-8501
Midland Mortgage
(800) 552-3000
Mortgage Lenders Network
(800) 691-0129
Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems
(888) 679-6377
National City
(800) 367-9305, Ext. 53221
Nationwide Advantage Mortgage Company
(800) 356-3442, ext. 6002
NationStar Mortgage
(888) 850-9398
New Century Financial (Now Carrington Mortgage Services)
(800) 790-9502
NovaStar Mortgage Loan Resolution Department
(888) 743-0774 Non-English: (888) 743-0774, ext. 4523
Ocwen Federal Bank
(800) 746-2936
Option One
(866) 711-1962
PHH Mortgage (Formerly Cendant)
(800) 330-0423
ResMae Mortgage Corp.
(877) 473-7623, ext. 5944
Saxon
(800) 665-7367
Select Portfolio Servicing
(888) 818-6032
SkyBank
(800) 290-3359
Sun Trust Mortgage
(800) 634-7928
Third Federal Savings
(888) 844-7333
US Bank
(800) 365-7900
Wachovia Bank of Delaware
(866) 642-8608
Washington Mutual
(866) 926-8937
Waterfirld Mortgage
(800) 957-7245
Wells Fargo
(800) 678-7986
Wendover Financial Services Corporation
(800) 934-1081
Wilshire Credit Corporation
(888) 502-0100
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