Dedicated to the Black Experience
Listen in as Malcolm and KC discuss Malcolm’s upcoming stint in the UK to look at Black culture abroad. Also stay tuned in to find out how you can be apart of his amazing journey!
For more information about this episode, contact the hotline at (323) 455-4219!
The Indiegogo campaign for #CultureConnectionUK is live click here:
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Let me preface this post by saying that I am devastated by the loss the families of Sandy Hook Elementary School are currently sustaining. No parent can imagine when they wake up any given morning that that will be the last day they see their child alive. Further, one of the last places one expects their child to be a victim of gun violence is within their school classroom. Our prayers are with the families in Newtown, CT in the hard days ahead.
At the podcast table we’ve discussed both gun control and mental illness as it pertained to issues within the Black community; however the devastation of mass murders in this country at the hands of extremely mentally ill people with access to assault weapons makes it a necessity to broaden our scope. In an article written on Gawker by Liza Long, the mother of a mentally ill son, “since 1982, 61 mass murders involving firearms have occurred throughout the country. Of these, 43 of the killers were white males, and only one was a woman.” Most of these killers obtained their firearms by legal means. Social media networks are ablaze with pointing the blame, and every suggestion in the book from banning firearms in entirety to locking up the mentally ill has been posted online. Gun enthusiasts and NRA supporters argue vehemently that “guns don’t kill people; people kill people”, and honestly believe that argument will convince the rest of us that no laws controlling guns are required in the U.S. So what then is the answer?
At this point, I don’t see there being a clear cut answer to it all, but during a vigil in Newton on Monday President Obama certainly alluded to the fact that we will see some change in policy in the days ahead. We need not lose another child, be they 5, 15, or 25 to unnecessary gun violence. Further our youth, be they mentally ill or not, should not see guns and death as a resolution to solving problems or ending disagreements. The average person needs only limited access to firearms to avoid being either a victim or culprit. Additionally, people who struggle with extreme cases of mental illness and their families need more assistance. Too many families live in fear of what their loved one might do. Since Friday, news reports of the severity of Adam Lanza’s illness have come across our computer and television screens hourly and they beg the question – was there anything that could have been done to keep him from executing this awful tragedy?
There’s not much more to say about this except my heart is heavy with grief for the families that lost their loved ones last Friday. I hope in the days ahead they find a bit of peace and I sincerely hope our nation does not sit on its laurels and let another tragic incident like this occur before making changes to the law. Freedom is an amazing right to have when exercised properly, but these killings are a prime example of freedom gone awry.
Listen in as Brother Malcolm takes us on his journey through KA, one of Cirque du Soleil’s most spectacular productions in Las Vegas. Also, Malcolm talks to us about his friend, Shana Tucker, a cellist and vocalist, and the only Black, female performer in the KA production.
Intro- Cirque Du Soleil: Aerial Straps Act
Outro- “November” by Shana Tucker on the Album Shine
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In this episode of Culture Connection, Malcolm Darrell talks about the hottest events happening on Memorial Day weekend. Whether you’ve got a family to entertain or a hot date with friends, listen in to find out about the UCLA Jazz/Reggae Fest and the Cleopatra exhibit at the California Science Center. Make a plan for May 25-28 and take advantage of what Los Angeles has to offer! Enjoy!
Photo by Anna Mae Lam Photography
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Open Mike Eagle is a friend and member of the Black Is family and I recently got a chance to play catch up with him. Since our last chat, Mike has experienced great success in the past year on the underground rap scene with his latest album, Rappers Will Die Of Natural Causes. Now Mike finds himself preparing to visit Uganda to be a part of a hip-hop cultural exchange through the J.U.i.C.E. non-profit organization, and I wanted to find out more about this amazing experience he is embarking on. Listen in as KC and Open Mike Eagle chat about his upcoming trip and projects for 2012!
To make a contribution to Mike’s trip, visit Stay Classy.
Background track: 5ree Thinkers, Open Mike Eagle
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Listen in as KC and the family compare the Black community in Los Angeles to other Black communities across the nation. Podcast guests include Chris Lehman, Toria Williams, John and Triawna Wood, Obi Obijiaku and Craig Stewart.
Got an opinion on this week’s topic? Call our hotline and leave a message about today’s show! You can reach us at (323) 455-4219!
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~Mark Memmott
Now that 911 recordings show how a white Florida man continued to follow a 17-year-old black boy even after police advised him not to — and captured the sound of the man killing the unarmed youth with a shot to the chest — Trayvon Martin’s family wants the FBI to take over the investigation into his killing.
The gunman says it was an act of self defense during a Neighborhood Watch patrol.
But, “I just want answers from the police department about what happened with my son,” Trayvon’s mother, Sabrina Fulton, said during a tearful news conference on Friday. And as NPR’s Joel Rose reported on Morning Edition, the family “has lost faith in the Sanford [Fla.] police department.”
There’s a rally planned today in Sanford, Fla., to bring more attention to what has now become a national debate about what may have been a case of racial profiling that turned deadly.
If you’re just catching up on this story, Joel’s Morning Edition report wraps up the news so far and includes portions of those 911 recordings (note: the content could be disturbing to some).
And our colleagues at WMFE sum up how the story began this way:
“Seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin of Miami, was walking from a convenience store to the home of a family friend in a gated community in Sanford on Feb. 26th. He was confronted by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman. Zimmerman called police to report a suspicious person but before police arrived, the two struggled and Zimmerman shot and killed the teenager. Community members are demanding Zimmerman’s arrest but Sanford Police say they don’t have sufficient evidence to dispute his claims of self defense.”
At the Orlando Sentinel, which has extensive coverage, there’s a story that notes how — beyond the issue of profiling — “if George Zimmerman didn’t break every rule in the book when it comes to Neighborhood Watch programs, he came close. … Zimmerman was armed. He was alone. And while waiting for police, he somehow got into a fight with the person he thought suspicious. All three of those actions are strongly discouraged by the National Sheriffs’ Association, which oversees about 20,000 Neighborhood Watch programs.”
Zimmerman has not been charged with a crime. According to The Associated Press, “in the months leading up to the shooting, [he] had called police numerous times to report incidents.”
Trayvon’s parents have put an online petition on Change.org, looking for support in their call for Zimmerman to be charged.
Source: NPR
Undefeated has even more small-town charm, heart and grit than Friday Night Lights. It is the story of one of the worst teams in the city possibly even the state overcoming insurmountable odds. It is Samson and Goliath-esque in scope. It bubbles with tension, drama, gut-wrenching storylines and deftly raises large, looming questions about the state of the poor and working class in America, the cycle of poverty and the failures of our education system.
Undefeated will never have a blockbuster weekend and if this film ever grosses more than one million dollars that would be nothing shy of a miracle. Miraculous because unlike Friday Night Lights, Undefeated is not a drama, it’s a documentary. An Oscar award-winning documentary but still a documentary, which too often are ignored.
At its core, Undefeated is a tale about facing adversity head-on, battling your demons and persevering but it is also the story of a generation of black men who have no fathers, are raised by their grandparents, living just above the poverty line and have very few prospects in life. It is a film that shows how much one man can accomplish and possibly even change the course of these young boys lives because he cares and believes in them.
The traditional concerns about the narrator and point of view are still there. After all, this story about poor, troubled black kids is told through the lens of their white coach and the white directors of this film. We are decades away from race not being an issue in America but what becomes clear in the film is that the love and dedication of their coach is genuine and transcends race and the filmmakers try their best to paint a brutal and very real picture of their subjects in the film.
By giving some backstory and creating context the audience better understands the struggles our heroines have already overcome and race takes a backseat to the yearning that every human being feels. No matter our color or our socio-economic status, each and every one of us wants to be seen for who we are, successful in achieving our goals and make meaningful connections with other people.
Undefeated will likely be made into a real Hollywood film eventually, one with big names attached and a budget to match and this watered down, blockbuster Hollywood version will undoubtedly make more money in one day than this documentary will gross in its lifetime, but do yourself a favor, see the original – no remake could ever hope to capture the raw emotion and intensity of it.
Directed By: TJ Martin and Bill Lindsay
Starring: Bill Courtney, OC Brown, Montrail ‘Money’ Brown and Chavis Daniels
Running Time: 113 minutes
Race relations run so deep in this country that the darndest things can occur between Blacks and Whites. This is one such thing. Read on.
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — After a lengthy legal battle between a black South Carolina church and members of the Ku Klux Klan, a judge has ruled that the church owns a building where KKK robes and T-shirts are sold.
A circuit judge ruled last month that New Beginnings Baptist Church is the rightful owner of the building that houses The Redneck Shop, which operates a so-called Klan museum and sells Klan robes and T-shirts emblazoned with racial slurs. The judge ordered the shop’s proprietor to pay the church’s legal bills of more than $3,300.
Since 1996, The Redneck Shop has operated in an old movie theater in Laurens, a city about 70 miles northwest from Columbia that was named after 18th century slave trader Henry Laurens.
Ownership of the building was transferred in 1997 to the Rev. David Kennedy and his church, New Beginnings, by a Klansman fighting with others inside the hate group, according to court records. That man, according to Kennedy, was feuding with store proprietor John Howard over a woman and “developed a spiritual relationship” with Kennedy’s church, the judge wrote.
But a clause in the deed entitles Howard, formerly KKK grand dragon for the Carolinas, to operate his business in the building until he dies.
After years of trying to have the property inspected, Kennedy and New Beginnings sued Howard and others in 2008. On Dec. 9, a judge ruled in Kennedy’s favor.
Reached on his cell phone, Howard said he did not know about the judge’s decision and deferred comment to his attorney, who did not immediately return a message.
It wasn’t immediately clear if the judge’s ruling would mean Howard must close the shop. Howard hung up on a reporter when asked about the shop’s status, but an outgoing message on the shop’s answering machine said it’s only open one morning a week.
Howard has defended his business in the past.
“If anything turns people off, they shouldn’t come in here,” Howard told The Associated Press in 2008. “It’s not a thing in here that’s against the law.”
The Redneck Shop has been the target of protests and attacks from the start. A few days after it opened, a Columbia man crashed his van through the front windows and was charged with malicious damage to property. High profile black activists have staged several protests outside the store, and Kennedy has regularly picketed there as well.
Kennedy has a long history of fighting racial injustice. He protested when a South Carolina county refused to observe the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, and he helped lobby to remove the Confederate flag from the Statehouse dome.
Kennedy said Tuesday his congregation was elated by the judge’s decision, which he said he had already discussed with local police in hopes of being able to visit and inspect the property this week.
“It has been a long time coming,” said Kennedy, who learned of the ruling this week. “We knew we had done everything right. … The court knows that we have suffered.”
Kennedy said his congregation’s numbers have decreased in recent years as some of its 200 members became fearful of reprisals from Klan members. Nazi and Confederate symbols have been tacked to the door of the double-wide mobile home where New Beginnings now meets, Kennedy said, and dead animals have been left at the building.
“A lot of people became so afraid,” Kennedy said. “I just told them that it is part of our faith to endure.”
Kennedy, who has previously said he would like to close the store and hold his church meetings there, declined Tuesday to detail his plans, saying only that he thought some parishioners would feel uncomfortable worshipping in the structure that once segregated moviegoers and now sells Klan-related materials.
“I don’t count anything out,” Kennedy said. “I think that the church would do good in that building.”
source: Yahoo
The U.S. Navy christened its newest supply ship, USNS Medgar Evers. Named in honor of the African American civil rights leader from Mississippi, the USNS Medgar Evers is the 13th ship of a class of 14 dry cargo/ammunition ships designed and built by NASSCO.
More than 1,000 people attended the Saturday morning christening ceremony for the USNS Medgar Evers at NASSCO’s San Diego shipyard. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus was the ceremony’s principal speaker. Myrlie Evers, the widow of the late Medgar Evers, served as the ship’s sponsor. She christened the ship by breaking the traditional bottle of champagne against the hull of the 689-foot-long vessel.
As the first field secretary of the NAACP in Mississippi, Medgar Evers (July 2, 1925 – June 12, 1963) created and organized voter-registration efforts, peaceful demonstrations and economic boycotts to draw attention to the unjust practices of companies that practiced discrimination. Evers became one of the most visible civil rights leaders in the state of Mississippi, working closely with church leaders and other civil rights advocates to promote understanding and equality. His life’s work helped increase support for the legislation that would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“Each ship in the T-AKE Class is named for a noted pioneer in our nation’s history. Mr. Evers was an Army veteran of World War II and an important civil rights pioneer. The NASSCO team is proud to add Medgar Evers’ name to this distinguished list,” said Fred Harris, president of NASSCO.
USNS Medgar Evers is the 13th ship of the Lewis and Clark (T-AKE) Class of dry cargo ammunition ships General Dynamics NASSCO is building for the U.S. Navy. NASSCO began constructing USNS Medgar Evers in April 2010. Following its at-sea testing phase, the ship will be delivered to the Navy in the second quarter of 2012. USNS Medgar Evers will mark the 13th T-AKE ship that NASSCO has delivered to the Navy since 2006.
NASSCO has reduced the labor hours required to build the USNS Medgar Evers by 67 percent, compared to the first ship of the class. This dramatic reduction in cost has been gleaned from NASSCO’s culture of continuous improvement over the course of this stable, long-term shipbuilding program. NASSCO has accomplished this efficient serial production by conducting more than 1.5 million hours of trades training since 2006, equipping each tradesperson with the knowledge and tools required to build T-AKE ships to 
unparalleled quality standards.
When in active service, USNS Medgar Evers will join a tradition of NASSCO-built or modified ships directly supporting the United States Marine Corps. The primary mission of USNS Medgar Evers will be to deliver more than 10,000 tons of food, ammunition, fuel and other provisions at one time to combat ships on the move at sea. T-AKE ships have also served in Navy humanitarian efforts around the globe.