WWW.IMPoEtRyIOUS.COMtag:impoetryious.com,2010:/blog7/12010-07-27T22:00:45ZPROGRESSIVE ENTERTAINMENT & CULTURE Movable Type 3.2ysb5-20051201Just Another Daytag:impoetryious.com,2010:/blog7//1.10992010-07-27T20:53:20Z2010-07-27T22:00:45ZJust Another DayJamie Hector (The Wire, Heroes) is Young Eastie, a struggling rapper who dreams of getting a record deal through the legendary A-Maze (Wood Harris, The Wire, Remember the Titans). But connecting with his hero is going to be...impoetryiouswww.impoetryious.comJust Another Day
Jamie Hector (The Wire, Heroes) is Young Eastie, a struggling rapper who dreams of getting a record deal through the legendary A-Maze (Wood Harris, The Wire, Remember the Titans). But connecting with his hero is going to be tougher than he thinks. Even though A-Maze is at the top of the ladder, his star is falling and hes getting desperate to hang on. Featuring top rap artists Trick Daddy, Lil Scrappy, Ja Rule and Petey Pablo, JUSTANOTHERDAY takes a compelling, true-to-life look at the brutal ups and downs of the cutthroat hip-hop business..
ABC and Media Rights Capital today announced the challengers who will take on Shaquille O’Neal in the second season of “Shaq VS,” a reality competition series starring the NBA superstar. This season O’Neal will not only use his athletic prowess to challenge high-profile athletes, but also his energy and charisma to compete beyond the athletic arena in non-sports challenges. Season Two of “Shaq VS” will debut TUESDAY, AUGUST 3 (9:00–10:00 p.m., ET) on the ABC Television Network.
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Over the course of six episodes, O’Neal will race Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Concord Speedway; take on pop singing sensation Justin Bieber in Orlando; challenge daytime host and author Rachael Ray to a cook-off in the Big Apple; team up with NBA All-Star Dwight Howard of the Orlando Magic, Chris Johnson of the Tennessee Titans and DeSean Jackson of the Philadelphia Eagles to outrun Tyson Gay in a 200-meter relay race; tee off with Charles Barkley on The St. Regis Monarch Beach golf links; attempt to defy illusionists and comedians Penn & Teller at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino; partake in a spelling bee against Scripps National Champion Kavya Shivashankar; box against Sugar Shane Mosley in an exhibition match at Caesars Palace in Vegas; challenge Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Champion Joey Chestnut outside Serendipity 3 in Las Vegas, and more.
“I’m out to prove that I can compete beyond athletics,” said O’Neal. “I’ve spent all year sharpening my skills and I want to win. There’s no challenge bigger than me.”
The series closely follows Shaq and his adversaries throughout the rigorous training process and the pre-game hype leading up to every challenge. Each week Shaq will compete in an athletic challenge or a non-sports competition, with some episodes featuring Shaq taking on two challengers. To level the playing field, O’Neal will negotiate a handicap with his opponent and train with a coach prior to the challenge.
In the first season, O’Neal competed against World Champion Michael Phelps in swimming; Super Bowl-winning Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger in football; championship fighter Oscar de la Hoya in boxing; two-time National League MVP and St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols in baseball; and two-time Olympic gold medalists Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor in beach volleyball, with the help of U.S. Open, Australian Open and Wimbledon champion Serena Williams.
“Shaq VS” is produced for ABC by Media Rights Capital in association with Stewart Street Productions. Orly Adelson, Will Staeger, Barry Adelman, Shaquille O’Neal, Scott Messick, Trice Barto, Perry Rogers, Colin Smeeton, Mike Parris and Steve Nash serve as executive producers for the series.
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Unauthorized Oprah Biopic in the Makingtag:impoetryious.com,2010:/blog7//1.10972010-07-27T20:37:31Z2010-07-27T21:57:48Zimpoetryiouswww.impoetryious.comUnauthorized Oprah Winfrey Biopic in the Making
Producer Larry Thompson announced today that he plans on turning Kitty Kelley’s controversial unauthorized biography on Oprah Winfrey into a TV movie or a miniseries. The biopic, said to be optioned for six figures, will air in September 2011, which will coincide with the end of Winfrey’s syndicate episode.
“Oprah Winfrey is a very powerful woman, and that’s also something that will make our movie great. As for the challenge of casting Winfrey, the plan is to audition both known and unknown actresses,” Thompson said, who prefers to cast an unknown. “Oprah Winfrey is one of the most famous faces on the planet, and if you have an actress people know, it may make it more difficult to get into the character as the face may block the icon.”
Thompson’s biopic credits includes Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Sonny and Cher, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
The film is being made without Winfrey’s permission and participation, she has yet to comment.
Will Smith has been reported to star in and produce, “The Legend of Cain,” a retelling of the biblical tale of warring brothers with a vampire twist. Under his shingle, Overbook Entertainment, Smith will play the title role of Cain and produces with his partners from “The Karate Kid,” his wife, Jada Pinket Smith, James Lassiter, and Ken Stovitz.
Dam Knauf, and Jada Pinkett Smith’s brother, Caleeb Pinkett, penned the original script. Andrea Berloff is performing the revisions.
Will Smith will next be seen in “Men in Black 3,” which stars production in August. He is currently finishing promotion for Overbrook’s latest film, “The Karate Kid”. The remake starring Smith’s son, Jaden Smith is rounding the $170 million mark for it’s six week run. A reported sequel is in the works at Sony.
CBS Films and Sony Pictures are teaming to acquire “It Takes A Village,” a comedy pitch that Keenen Ivory Wayans will write and direct about a 30-something white single career-obsessed woman who decides on a whim to adopt a child from a South Pacific island. But she comes home with the tribe’s chief and seven elders until she proves she’s mommy material.
Todd Garner will produce with Wayans and Rick Alvarez. It took two studios to make the deal for “It Takes A Village.” The pact that UTA brokered for Wayans is mid 6-figures upfront, but contains aggressive progress to production stipulations: after Wayans turns in the script, the studios either make it or the reps take it elsewhere. Wayans, who last directed the 2006 comedy “Little Man,” hopes to make this his next film. CBS Films chief Amy Baer, who spent most of her career at Columbia, put the pact together with Sony’s Columbia co-president of production Doug Belgrad, who worked closely with Wayans on “White Chicks.”
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The family theme makes the film a departure for Wayans. From his raucous sketch show creation “In Living Color” to his subsequent feature comedies, family-friendly meant lining the cast with his siblings. Here, Wayans sparked to an idea by Garner (“The Zookeeper”), who recently became a father and was struck by the litany of mandatory child-rearing accessories–from car seats to baby-wipe-warmers–and fantasized about a stripped-down version of parenting. That led to what Wayans saw as a timely pitch, given the proliferation of single women who’ve recently adopted babies from third-world countries.
“A woman who works for a company that mines natural resources like diamonds and copper heads to a South Pacific island to meet with the tribe in control and when she gets there, she comes across a child with no parents, who won’t leave her side,” Wayans told me. “When she asks who will be the baby’s mother, she’s told the village will take care of the baby until it chooses one. When the baby climbs into her lap and puts its head on her chest, she has an epiphany moment and decides she wants to be its mother.”
Adoption requires the blessing of the chief who, with seven elders, takes up residence in the woman’s snooty gated community — where they become most popular guests among their insular neighbors. Wayans said the concept caught him at the right time, and not just because the project he planned to make — “White Chicks 2″ — fell apart at Columbia.
“I’ve got five kids, been married, divorced, traveled, and if I’d tried this 10 years ago, I wouldn’t have the same perspective,” said Wayans, who has become a more devoted father than when he was chasing career success. “I’ve got a better view of what’s important, how you can get caught up in career and lost sight of what’s important. The dance of this movie is, you think these people are simple, but there’s wisdom in their simplicity and the way they deconstruct things to their simplest form. The child they’ve come to raise isn’t the baby, but rather the woman, as she prepares for the journey of being a parent.”
Bow Wow stars alongside Ice Cube, Brandon T. Jackson, Naturi Naughton and more in the star-studded Warners Bros. Pictures “Lottery Ticket.” Bow Wow plays Kevin Carson, a young man living in the projects that wins $370 million in a nationwide lottery. When his opportunistic neighbors discover he has the winning ticket in his possession, Kevin must survive their greedy and sometimes even threatening actions over a three-day holiday weekend before he can claim his prize.
Ice Cube, Timothy M. Bourne, and Steven P. Wagner serve as executive producer. Erik White will Direct and Abdul Williams will produce.
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The Mehserle Trialtag:impoetryious.com,2010:/blog7//1.10932010-07-27T19:42:09Z2010-07-27T21:48:46Zimpoetryiouswww.impoetryious.comThe Mehserle Trial
The manslaughter verdict returned against former BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) cop, Johannes Mehserle, for the videotaped murder of Oscar Grant, sent hundreds of protesters back into the hot streets of Oakland, California, Grant's hometown.
The corporate media scratched its collective head, essentially asking 'Why protest when the guy was convicted?"
The protesters knew, however, that the court system bent heaven and earth to return the lightest verdict possible; involuntary manslaughter' and that Mehserle faces a possible sentence of probation to a maximum of 4 years in prison.
They knew that Mehserle got a non black jury, hundreds of miles from Oakland.
They knew that each of those hundreds could've been Oscar Grant, unarmed, shot to death on tape and the same thing would've happened.
Of course, the corporate media doesn't get it.
Consider this: If Oscar Grant were the aggressor, and charged with killing Mehserle; would he have been able to leave the state (Mehserle fled to Nevada days after shooting Grant)? Would he have been able to transfer his trial hundreds of miles away?
Would he have been able to select an all-black jury - or one from which all whites were purged?
Would he have been convicted of involuntary manslaughter - in the face of videotaped evidence?
Everyone who considers these questions honestly knows the answers. What does that say about the system? What does this say about the courts?
What does this say about our supposedly 'colorblind' present?
It says, quite loudly, that there's one law for some; another law for others.
It says that life in dark flesh is not equal to life in white flesh- and those hundreds in Oakland's streets knew this in their blood.
http://mumiapodcast.libsyn.com/ Mumia's got a podcast! Mumia Abu-Jamal's Radio Essays - Subscribe at the website or on iTunes and get Mumia's radio commentaries online.
Mumia Abu-Jamal's new book -- JAILHOUSE LAWYERS: PRISONERS DEFENDING PRISONERS V. THE USA, featuring an introduction by Angela Y. Davis -- has been released! It is available from City Lights Books: http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100448090
Please make a contribution to help free Mumia. Donations to the grassroots work will go to both INTERNATIONAL CONCERNED FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL and the FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL COALITION (NYC).
One of the world’s largest oil spill catastrophes is unfolding right now — in Nigeria.
Delta oil fire
For decades, thousands of spills across the fragile Niger Delta have destroyed the livelihoods of fishermen and farmers, fouled water sources and have polluted the ground and air.
The Nigerian government estimates there were over 7,000 spills, large and small, between 1970 and 2000, according to the BBC. That is approximately 300 spills a year, and some spills have been leaking for years.
Vast swathes of the Delta are covered with tar and stagnant lakes of crude.
By some estimates, over 13 million barrels of oil have spilled into the Delta. That’s the equivalent of one Exxon Valdez spill every year for 40 years, according to The Independent.
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Nigeria is the fifth largest exporter of oil to the United States and the largest producer in Africa.
Niger Delta from space
The government has threatened Exxon Mobil with sanctions if the corporation fails to manage spills properly, according to Agence France-Presse. It hasn’t been determined what the sanctions would entail.
Previous attempts by Nigerians to attain damages against oil companies have been mostly unsuccessful.
Idris Musa, head of Nigeria’s oil spill response agency, said an additional 2,405 spills by all major oil companies in the region have occurred since 2006.
The Delta is densely populated with about 31 million people. Thousands of miles of above-ground pipelines snake throughout the Delta, passing through cities, towns and villages as well as delicate wetlands.
There are several reasons for the huge number of spills, including a crumbling, aging oil infrastructure and outright sabotage by thieves and warring rebel groups.
Corroding pipes, according to Bloomberg Businessweek, caused a spill in May 2010 that leaked about 232 barrels of crude.
Pipelines wind through the Delta
Human rights groups have attacked the response of large oil-extracting multinationals in the Delta.
Last year, a report accused Shell of covering up its oil spills by blaming them on “routine militant attacks.” The report instead placed blame on Shell’s crumbling system of rigs, taps and pipelines. Shell defended itself by saying 85 percent of the recent spills were caused by sabotage.
Many Nigerians put out of work by the spills collect polluted oil for sale on the black market. The illegal practice, known as “bunkering,” can bring in about $67 per day. The average Nigerian income is about $2 per day, according to Reuters.
Nigeria has generated about $600 billion in oil revenue since extraction began in 1958. Government corruption is largely blamed for oil revenue not increasing the standards of living for average Nigerians.
"We could not even get six hours of deliberation. My son was murdered! He was murdered! He was murdered!” – Wanda Johnson, mother of Oscar Grant.
On July 8, 2010, after less than six hours of deliberation, a jury in Los Angeles found former Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) cop Johannes Mehserle guilty of the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter for the murder of 22-year-old African Oscar Grant. Mehserle was indicted on murder charges and could have bee sentenced to life in prison.
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The murder of African people by the police is an all too common occurrence in the U.S. government’s undeclared war on the African community, which faces the colonial policy of police containment on a daily basis.
The murder of Oscar Grant was only highlighted because it was caught on video by BART passengers for the world to see.
The historic resistance of the African community of Oakland forced the arrest of Mehserle, the first time in history that a cop has been put on trial for murder in the state of California for killing an African.
Immediately, the state worked overtime to ensure that Mehserle, if convicted, would face minimal jail time, or no jail time at all, which deepens the individual white people’s allegiance to white state power.
The state succeeded first in moving the trial three hundred miles away from Oakland to the City of Los Angeles to lessen the impact of the resistance of the African community on trial.
Next, the defense was able to dismiss all potential African jurors due to either their affinity with the case of Oscar Grant or their experience with being targeted by the police or “racial profiling.”
And the fact that it is a rarity when the best interest of the African is on the prosecutor’s side in the colonial court room. And that the O.J. Simpson trial taught the State some lessons in regard to black jurors.
In the end, the jury who made the decision to give Mehserle a mere slap on the wrist for the crime of murder was made up of seven whites and five “Latinos.” Four of the jurors were reported to have police among their friends and family.
The conviction on the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter should be of no surprise in a system that treats the murder of African people by the police as a commonplace and necessary occurrence in the containment of our criminalized, terrorized, and colonially occupied community.
And, although Mehserle’s less than B-Rated tear-jerking movie performance from the witness stand, claiming he thought he had pulled his tazer, the less than enthusiastic prosecutors did show Mehserle’s handling a tazer moments before the shooting.
In addition, it was demonstrated how difficult it would be to accidentally discharge the service pistol used to murder Oscar Grant. They are also saying here that it is absolutely okay to pull, shoot and kill an African with the deadly tazer gun.
In preparation for the potential rebellion the state set up “Operation Verdict” in Oakland, mobilizing police agencies from throughout the Bay Area and putting the National Guard on alert.
The city of Oakland and police department held a press conference, collaborating with local non profits or NGO’s to put forward the reactionary message of ‘violence is not justice,” further criminalizing the African community by condemning the potential African resistance and sanctioning the states colonial violence and containment that maintains the relationship between the white ruling class and neo-colonial government and oppressed African and Mexican working class.
In spite of neocolonial Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, who is the darling of the white left in the Bay Area, expressions of pride in how crowds gathered peacefully initially following the verdict, the people had no right to freedom of speech and assembly, since the rally was cordoned off within two blocks of the downtown area by thousands of police in riot gear and rows of police cars, and helicopters overhead to ensure the farcical “freedom of speech” was contained and that no unsanctioned expressions of outrage could occur.
The fact is that the African community throughout Oakland was put on lockdown with twelve passenger vans of Oakland police patrolling the MacArthur corridor in front of the Uhuru House, the center of African resistance in Oakland where the support demonstrations for Lovelle Mixon were launched from following Mixon’s shooting and killing four armed Oakland cops.
The media looked hard for a story that would justify the military style presence of the police; however, the fact is that when darkness fell in downtown Oakland a handful of people smashed windows, set fires and looted a Foot Locker store.
The police had corralled hundreds of people and later declared “an unlawful assembly,” putting on gas masks and taking out clubs to ensure that the police state was in full effect. So obviously, the people understand that, under this type of military show of force, those who fight and run away live to fight another day.
While the struggle for justice for Oscar Grant continues, the Uhuru Movement calls for the following demands:
1. Justice and reparations to the family of Oscar Grant and all victims of police violence from BART and the city of Oakland 2. End the city of Oakland’s public policy of police containment of the African community carried out therough police chief Anthony Batt’s war on “gangs, guns and drugs” and his recently imposed gang injunctions. 3. Economic development for the African and Mexican communities.
We call on the coummunmity to: 1. Support the right of the African community to resist the state violence. 2. Join the Uhuru Movement
ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!!
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King James, Oscar Granttag:impoetryious.com,2010:/blog7//1.10902010-07-27T18:58:22Z2010-07-27T21:44:56Zimpoetryiouswww.impoetryious.com“King” James, Oscar Grant & white power
I’M NOT an expert when it comes to sports. But I know this to be true. Every human has the right to make what s/he feels is the best decision for her/him. Last night, when LeBron James decided that he would leave the Cleveland Cavaliers and join the Miami Heat, he did just that. And I commend him. His critics, however, – who, by the way, were his avid supporters just yesterday – have called him every name in the book and have even predicted his demise. What this yet again reveals is that whenever people of African descent exercise an act of self-determination, in whatever realm, we’re deemed “disloyal” and, yes, even “dangerous.”
Dan Gilbert, majority owner of the Cavs, in an open letter to fans, reveals how warped the mindset of some white people is. “I can tell you that this shameful display of selfishness and betrayal by one of our very own has shifted our "motivation" to previously unknown and previously never experienced levels,” he writes. “This shocking act of disloyalty from our home grown "chosen one" sends the exact opposite lesson of what we would want our children to learn. And "who" we would want them to grow-up to become. But the good news is that this heartless and callous action can only serve as the antidote to the so-called "curse" on Cleveland, Ohio.” And Cavs fans – grown adults – have joined in the mêlée; they’ve been shown on TV crying publicly and even burning LeBron jerseys.
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In an era of bling-bling where young people are drunk with capitalism and the notion that we should sell ourselves to the highest bidder, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosch – all relatively young players; none older than 28 – have opted for less money in order to fulfill a desired objective. Three young African men have united for a common purpose and it appears that money alone wasn’t the deciding factor. I like that.
It’s also been reported in the media that the advertising proceeds, some $2.5 million, from the live, hour-long special on ESPN TV and radio – “The Decision” – where LeBron revealed his team choice last night will be donated to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. I’m not sure of these players’ politics but it seems like they’re attempting to move in a somewhat principled manner; and there’s nothing “heartless” or “callous” about that.
What is beyond callous, though, are the actions of Dan Gilbert. He has gone so far as to reduce the price of LeBron James wall graphics from $99.99 to $17.41 via his sports memorabilia company, Fathead Inc. (Yet, capitalists would dare tell us that price is determined by supply and demand). His attempt at destroying LeBron is proof that those with capital have unchecked power.
And as all of this basketball drama has unfolded, the news of another African man who more than just took a beating but literally got taken out by this filthy system got little attention. Yesterday, it was announced that the police officer who killed 22 year old Oscar Grant on New Year’s Day in 2009 would only be convicted of involuntary manslaughter and not murder.
Grant, who was unarmed, was shot in the back by policeman Johannes Mehserle while lying on the platform in a railway station. In the You Tube video of the killing, Grant was obviously facedown with his hands behind his head moments before the shooting. One officer present reportedly called him a racial epithet before the gun was drawn. Mehserle claimed he had thought he had his Taser in his hand rather than his gun.
The jury, which included no Africans, deliberated for less than six hours, and passed down a unanimous decision that, according to media reports, carries a two-to six-year sentence.
The cold hard reality is that Africans live in a world that is at war with them. LeBron, Wade, and Bosch are able to escape some of the day-to-day battles because of the money that they’ve amassed. But this basketball episode has exposed where true power lies and, more importantly, how incredibly dangerous encounters with and affronts to white power are. In the case of LeBron James, Dan Gilbert came out in full attack mode; writing a nasty letter and making financial power plays. For marginalized African youth like Oscar Grant the outcome is routinely deadly. ]]>
Charges sought in death of Congo leader Lumumbatag:impoetryious.com,2010:/blog7//1.10892010-06-29T15:19:54Z2010-06-29T17:09:11Zimpoetryiouswww.impoetryious.comCharges sought in death of Congo leader Lumumba
By SLOBODAN LEKIC, Associated Press Writer Slobodan Lekic, Associated Press Writer – Mon Jun 21,
AP – FILE - This is a July 3, 1960 file photo of Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of the Republic …
BRUSSELS – A group of legal activists formally requested war-crimes charges Monday against a dozen Belgian government officials and military officers widely suspected in the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, Congo's first democratically elected prime minister.
Lumumba headed Congo's largest political party and became leader when Belgium granted independence to the country on June 30, 1960 after a century of colonial rule. Many in the West viewed the charismatic prime minister as a dangerous radical because he wanted to nationalize the new nation's lucrative, Belgian-owned gold, copper and uranium mining industry.
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Historians generally agree that top Belgian officials and officers conspired to overthrow him, and that they organized and carried out his execution on Jan. 17, 1961. The death ushered in the long, corrupt dictatorship of Congo's Western-backed leader Mobutu Sese Seko, who was finally overthrown in 1997.
A U.S. Senate committee found in 1975 that the CIA had hatched a separate, failed plan to kill the Congolese leader.
Christophe Marchand, a Brussels attorney who heads the legal team, says a dozen individuals will be named in the complaint and he expects an investigating judge to open an inquiry by October. He refused to disclose any of the potential defendants' names.
The group of legal activists bringing the charges includes several prominent attorneys, the dean of Brussels University's law school, and Luddo de Witte, a historian whose works sparked a parliamentary investigation into the killing of Patrice Lumumba.
Belgian law provides for universal jurisdiction in war crimes cases, and several indictments involving killings in various African countries have already been issued, Marchand said. In this case prosecutors are obliged to initiate a criminal investigation since all the alleged perpetrators are Belgians, he said.
"Belgium has historically been very active in seeking justice in such cases," Marchand said. "But it has not been willing to do the same when the crimes were committed by the Belgian government itself."
The definition of war crimes as the "violations of the laws or customs of war," includes the murder of all unarmed civilians.
"The facts of what happened in 1960 and 1961 have been established and they make it clear that (these) actions fall within the definition of war crimes," Marchand said in an interview. "This makes it possible to bring charges against those Belgians still alive who were active in Congo at the time."
"Now it is time for justice to be done," he said.
Belgium became a colonial power in the 18th Century when its King Leopold II acquired a swathe of equatorial Africa surrounding the Congo River Basin. He quickly established a brutal system of forced labor that kept the population in conditions of slavery and resulted in the deaths of several million people. A June 30 celebration of 50 years of Congo's independence from Belgian colonial rule in Kinshasa, Congo's capital, will be attended by a Belgian delegation headed by King Albert II.
Historians have named Count Harold D'Aspremont-Lynden, Minister of African Affairs in Brussels, as the official who ordered Lumumba's transfer to the region where he was shot, and Capt. Julien Gat as the officer who commanded the firing squad. Both men have since died.
A spokesman for Foreign Ministry in Brussels said he had no immediate comment.
A Belgian parliamentary probe found in 2002 that the government was "morally responsible" for Lumumba's death. Later that year, Brussels officially apologized for its role in his death.
The parliamentary inquiry determined that after being overthrown by Mobutu in a coup on Sept. 4, 1960, Lumumba was jailed in Kinshasa. On Jan. 17, 1961, Belgian officials spirited Lumumba and two of his government ministers away by plane to the breakaway region of Katanga where Belgian officers helped train the secessionist troops, it said.
"They (the officers) were responsible for seizing, torturing and finally killing him," de Witte, who has written extensively about the event.
The Belgian captain who commanded the firing squad was later given a new identity by the army and transferred to a Belgian brigade in the former West Germany to shield him from prosecution, he said.
"The established historical fact is that there was a direct link between (Belgian government ministers) and the Belgian officers serving in Congo's breakaway region of Katanga," de Witte said. "Those officers were clearly acting under ministerial direction at the time."
Historians have established that the Belgians were not the only ones trying to eliminate Lumumba.
The CIA too had determined that Lumumba had the potential to be an African Fidel Castro, and had supplied a tube of poisoned toothpaste to be placed in Lumumba's bathroom. The CIA station chief later said he tossed the toothpaste into the Congo River.
"The Lumumba operation had a bit in common with the Iran and Guatemala operations, where CIA sought, and realized, regime change without actually conducting paramilitary (activities)," said Ken Conboy, a historian who has written extensively about U.S. covert operations in the 1950s and 60s.
The U.S. request to get Christopher Dudus Coke, a well known leader of the so-called “Shower Posse gang” with ties to the ruling Jamaican Labour Party (JLP), to be extradited to the U.S. on the alleged charge of gun and drug trafficking, strained, at first, the relation between the U.S. and Jamaican governments.
Jamaica chose to resist the U.S. decision by appointing a law firm in the U.S. Things changed when Jamaica’s prime minister, Bruce Golding indicated they were considering handing over Christopher Coke to the U.S. government which had claimed Coke to be a fugitive. Supporters of Dudus responded by setting up barricades and torching police stations in response to Golding’s decision.
Without science and information there is no truth and real understanding of the contradiction that confronts Jamaica and African people today. There are many questions to answer.
Why the mobilization of State violence on such a huge scale and with such intensity against African people in Jamaica? The government uses armored vehicles, truckloads of soldiers and helicopters against our people.
What do we make of the disparity between the high number of Africans detained (500) and killed so far (73) and the low number of weapons seized by soldiers and police (only four, including an AK-47 automatic rifle)?
There were unconfirmed reports of numerous civilian casualties during the Monday, May 24 assault on Tivoli Gardens, an impoverished Jamaican neighbourhood and Coke’s base of support. According to a Reuters news article, some of those reports said military helicopters dropped explosives on the ramshackle district.
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Why did the prime minister, Bruce Golding, and his JLP originally pay $50,000 to the U.S. law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips to help overturn the extradition order against Christopher Dudus Coke?
White people enjoy themselves in Jamaica at the expense of African people
Why does the Jamaican government suddenly want Coke dead? This would produce possible disastrous consequences for Jamaica’s tourism industry, which depends on white people enjoying themselves at our expense in Jamaica.
Why did the U.S. want the extradition of Christopher Coke? After all, it is the U.S. that is the kingpin of drug trade and weapons sales in the world.
The attacks on Coke are surely an assault on what he represents as a powerful individual in Jamaica’s political scene.
These attacks are not an assault against the source of violence, poverty and corruption in Jamaica, which is the 500 years of colonial domination by Spain, the United Kingdom and now the U.S. Furthermore, the present wave of violence is a legacy of U.S. involvement in our affairs that links back to the 1970s.
According to Gary Webb’s book “Dark Alliance,” “In 1977, two investigative reporters exposed a ’destabilization program‘ against Michael Manley ‘s government reportedly run by the CIA’s Jamaican station chief, Norman Descoteaux. The campaign included covert shipments of arms to Manley’s opponents, the use of selective bombing and assassinations, covert financial aid to the conservative Jamaica Labour Party, the fomenting of extensive labour unrest, and bribery.”[1]
One thing is certain, the U.S. is not fighting drug and gun smuggling in Jamaica. It was the CIA that flooded Jamaica with guns to prevent the rise of a revolutionary movement in Jamaica in the ‘70s. It is the U.S. that is the number one sponsor of narco states such as those in Colombia and Afghanistan. It is the CIA that runs the drug trade in the world.
The U.S. is not seeking to prevent Jamaica from developing its narco state status. Just look at Afghanistan. The U.S. reversed the Taliban’s efforts to eradicate the poppy fields.
In deprived communities, the so-called gangs have replaced the neocolonial State in delivering welfare, education and other basic social necessities to the people.
The workers did not create the violence in Jamaica. It is a well-known fact that the JLP and the People’s National Party (PNP), two major factions of the African petty bourgeoisie on the island, armed their supporters in the ‘70s to carry out violence to eliminate or neutralize their local opponents and secure votes that would deliver them to power.
This engineered horizontal violence is a form of counterinsurgency, which was consolidated with the introduction of the drug economy.
According to Monsignor Richard Albert, “Because the government is not socially intervening in these communities, community leaders who deal with petty crime in their area also deal with school problems of all children, they provide for the little old lady to make sure she gets food, they distribute legal and illegal jobs, etc. They take the role of the State at a basic level.”[2]
And an April 2008 Amnesty International (http://www.amnesty.org) report said that political leaders acknowledge that consecutive governments actively helped create the environment in which gang violence could flourish. Gang control is at its most pervasive in communities entirely under the control of one or other of the political parties, known as “garrison communities.”
Police violence is the basic domestic policy of the Jamaican government against workers and poor peasants
The statistics coming out of Jamaica are chilling. It is a hellish life for the African masses, who are caught between neocolonial poverty and violence.
“Between 2000 and 2007, 1,422 people were killed by police and a further 1,115 were injured.” (Bureau of Special Investigations) “In 2005, 1,674 people were the victims of homicide – a record high.” (Jamaica Constabulary Force) These statistics compare with colonial assassination in Occupied Palestine. B'Tselem, The Israeli Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, reports that 4,908 Palestinians were killed by Israelis and 1,062 Israelis were killed by Palestinians between September 29, 2000 and December 26, 2008.[3]
“Jamaican police shot dead 113 people last year, down from 133 the previous year. But Jamaica only has a population of 2.6 million, compared with eight million in New York City, which had around 25 fatal police shootings last year... There have been 49 already this year, and it's only May," said Yvonne McCalla Sobers, chairman of Families Against State Terrorism (FAST), a Jamaican pressure group. She told BBC News Online: "It's not as if the police are succeeding in bringing crime down. Crime levels are continuing to go up. We have had 460 murders so far this year.”
Another recent report from Amnesty International presented to the United Nations, clearly shows an escalation of police violence against our people in Jamaica: “According to official statistics, the number was a record high in 2007, when 272 persons died as a result of use of force by the police; 224 were killed in 2008 and 253 in 2009....”[4]
The attack on Christopher Dudus Coke has begun to bring to the attention of the peoples of the world the war without end against African workers in Jamaica. That war is a precondition for the exploitation and looting without end that Jamaica has been submitted to since Christopher Columbus initiated the genocide of the Indigenous people of the Americas over 500 years ago.
For its part, the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) said it is encouraging the members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) and the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) "to continue their relentless and courageous efforts to restore law and order in certain sections of the capital." The PSOJ added, "It is now clear, at this time in our history, that Jamaica is at war with gang violence, drug dons and organized crime. It is a war which we, as a country, must win."[5]
Every war, in any form, at any time and anywhere against the oppressed peoples, against African poor people, by the imperialist bourgeoisie or by the African petty bourgeoisie class, whether Bruce Golding, Obama, Seaga, PJ Patterson or Zuma, is a war to maintain the status quo. It is a war to maintain capitalist relations between the haves and the have-nots.
Who are the real criminals?
Defining crime and the role of the bourgeois neocolonial State is part of the deepening political education of the people. It is critical for those of us who want to see Jamaica and African people free from neocolonial rule to educate the people.
The criminals in Jamaica are those who wiped out the Indigenous population of Jamaica, assaulted Africa, captured us and brought us in slave ships to the foreign land of Jamaica. They used us to build the only world economy that ever existed, a world economy whose maintenance requires us African people to live separated from each other and our natural resources and the fruits of our labor.
The criminals are the African petty bourgeois class who mobilized the people to vote them into public offices solely for the purpose of administering a capitalist economy born and maintained at our expense worldwide.
The real criminals are those Jamaican rulers who give away our money to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. They have allowed imperialist products to be dumped in Jamaica at the expense of the development of local production.
The criminals are the Jamaican ruling parties and the U.S. government who introduced drugs and gun violence in poor community districts of Jamaica for the purpose of encouraging horizontal violence amongst people suffering from the same colonial conditions and preventing revolutionary consciousness growth.
That is why the imperialist media is incapable of showing you what the African workers in Jamaica have built for Britain, Spain, the U.S. and the rest of the parasitic capitalist world. They have not shown you all the bauxite and other resources leaving Jamaica to develop the imperialist countries. They cannot show you the wealth the U.S. hotel owners are making in Jamaica.
Well before Christopher Dudus Coke was born, the British colonialist rulers set the trend that we see in the Jamaican economy today. Investment in the bauxite and alumina sector was encouraged by the Bauxite and Alumina Act of 1950. The Hotel Aid Law of 1944 provided a similar catalyst to investment in the tourism sector. Today, in 2010, the Jamaican economy is still based and dependent on bauxite, alumina and tourism.
In 1960, the top 20 percent of society received 61 percent of the national income and 10 percent of the population owned 64 percent of the land. Unemployment averaged roughly 25 percent during the period from 1975 to 1985, affecting women and urban youth the hardest.
Like other countries in the Western Hemisphere, Jamaica quickly compiled a large external debt in the 1970s and 1980s; by the end of 1986 it amounted to $3.5 billion, one of the highest GDP.
Christopher Dudus Coke is no revolutionary
Christopher Dudus Coke is a creation of the alliance between U.S. imperialism and the African petty bourgeoisie. He is a creation of the decadent, backward working class elements and the political ruling class elite of the JLP and the PNP, who work to stifle democratic space in Jamaica.
They have used violence to dominate their opponents and mobilize votes for their respective sponsors. As a result of this intervention, the contradictions amongst our people in the poor neighborhoods were antagonized, leaving the men in arms the main power brokers in the community.
Secondly, the introduction of the drug economy armed and enriched certain dons who are beyond the control of politicians that initially supported them. These dons later became the politicians’ source of financing.
Dudus Coke is not involved in political education of the people. He is not calling for power in the hands of workers. He is not calling for the overthrow of the African petty bourgeoisie. There are even reports that are saying that Coke is willing to hand himself in to the U.S. embassy.
His lawyers call him a legitimate businessman, the major shareholder in two successful Jamaican companies, Incomparable Enterprise and Presidential Click. To such followers, he is the man who sent their children to school, mediated in disputes, clothed and fed them, gave them employment and stopped crime. At his command, no children were allowed on street corners after 8:00 p.m., all men had to work and petty thieving was outlawed. It is claimed there was no stealing or rape in Tivoli Gardens.[6]
African workers need our own power, the power of the worker that depends first on our ability to build the African Socialist International (ASI) that unites and mobilizes all Africans in the Caribbean region for power against the Jamaican State violence and for a democratic State under our own workers’ leadership.
Our struggle for power is also a struggle to eradicate the drug economy that is of no use to the workers.
Our power is a State mass power, of one billion Africans worldwide moving in the same direction releasing black steam to burn all imperialist and neocolonialist bourgeois obstacles in our wake.
Jamaica needs the ASI now to develop a Revolutionary National Democratic Program (RNDP), under the leadership of the African workers in alliance with poor peasants and progressive intellectuals. Dudus and his followers would have to state their position and unity with the RNDP like every single member of the oppressed community.
Dudus comes from a family tied to the JLP, a neocolonialist party in Jamaica. His father and his brother were accredited with being the leaders of the Shower Posse when they met their violent deaths. His father, who was also the bodyguard of Edward Seaga, a former JLP leader and prime minister of Jamaica, was killed in jail while waiting to be extradited to the U.S.
Dudus’ wealth is colonial wealth too, just like the wealth of the members of the government of Jamaica. It comes from a relationship between oppressed nations and oppressor nations, between the African petty bourgeoisie and the African working class.
According to an article in the Daily Mail, “Another of his companies, which handles lucrative government tenders for road contracts, has been ferrying construction materials into Tivoli Gardens, used to erect defensive barricades...Coke’s wealth has enabled him to move out of Tivoli Gardens. He now lives in an opulent former plantation home in Red Hills, a cool, peaceful retreat favoured by entrepreneurs and politicians. A string of senior politicians, including Golding, have been reportedly electronically intercepted talking to Coke at his strongholds.“[7]
His job was to mobilize votes for the neocolonial ruling class organized inside the JLP, of which he is a supporter.
The contradiction is that he has achieved a level of power and influence in the community and inside the JLP. Is it this reality that makes the U.S. insecure to the point of demanding Bruce Golding, the prime minister, extradite Dudus to the U.S? We know that the U.S. cannot tolerate an independent power amongst the African colonized people.
The real issue is the 48 years of Jamaica’s ruling class surrender to imperialist parasitism and how to overturn it
The Jamaica bourgeois media and the Jamaica ruling class have been debating the crisis in Jamaica for years. Most of the local pundits and petty bourgeois intellectuals recognize the source of the crisis that has brought the Jamaican government to collapse.
Here are some of the recent articulations of that crisis from The Gleaner, a neocolonial newspaper, which opposed Marcus Garvey in the days of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA).
On April 25, they reported on a speech that the prime minister of Jamaica, Bruce Golding had delivered on April 20. “For the last 14 years consecutively, we have been spending more than our revenues can cover,” the prime minister began by telling us. “Our current expenditure has grown three times as fast as our revenues, he continued — 76 percent versus 24 percent.”
Matalon, the head of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica, who openly supports the assault on Tivoli Gardens, Christopher Dudus Coke’s support base, said that: “Over the 35-year period covered by the Productivity Summary Report, the productivity of the average Jamaican worker has declined at a rate of 1.3 percent each and every year. The decline in recent years has doubled to 3.4 percent per annum...”
“Jamaica's crisis of debt returning to 140 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and debt servicing requiring 60 percent of government expenditure is the result of years of accumulated failure of government to balance its expenditure with the availability of non-borrowed resources. After improvements to the middle of the 1990s, Jamaica's public finances were significantly affected by the costs of resolving the financial sector crisis....”[8]
African Internationalists must define tasks of African revolution in the Caribbean and in the Americas
Jamaica, like the rest of African world, needs revolution that will destroy imperialism forever.
We are not talking about a movement similar to the one Michael Manley led. There is a difference.
Manley was a radical petty bourgeois reformist, who did not believe in the power of the workers. His movement was not a revolutionary movement, although Manley recognized Cuba and carried limited social reforms and programs, which in the short term may have benefited the poor people. He surrendered to the IMF and other parasitic capitalist forces.
In order to defeat U.S. imperialism in the region, the creation and consolidation of the ASI Caribbean Front of the African revolution is necessary.
One of the tasks of such an organization is to give unconditional solidarity to the Indigenous people of america who are fighting to get their land back.
The creation of the World Tribunal for Reparations to Africa and African People must bring U.S. and British imperialism to trial for crimes against Africans in Jamaica and around the world. We must consolidate a revolutionary national democratic program that will call for the immediate seizure of State power by the African working class in alliance with progressive social forces in Jamaica.
The willingness of African masses to defend Christopher Dudus Coke must be turned into the willingness to build the ASI, the revolutionary Party of African workers to complete the long and historical African resistance to imperialism in Jamaica.
The blood thirsty African petty bourgeoisie cannot continue to rule as in the old days. The shout to kill police must be transformed to revolutionary struggle against the State. The workers must develop the struggle beyond torching police stations. We must develop the power to appoint and remove police chiefs and police officers anywhere in Jamaica. Workers’ control of police stations and army barracks is the ultimate test of any majority democratic rule.
We must internationalize the issue of police murder and violence against the people. We must make the call for liberty, democracy and power by building around the world to expose and isolate the Jamaican government and win support for the Revolution in Jamaica.
U.S. hands off Christopher Coke and all African people!
End the state of emergency now!
End Jamaican State terrorism against African people
Build the ASI!
One Africa! One Nation!
[1] Page 143, Gary Webb in “Dark Alliance: the CIA, the Contras and the Crack Cocaine Explosion,” Seven stories printing Press, New York
[2] Monsignor Richard Albert, St. Catherine, Episcopal Vicar, St. Catherine, Jamaica, and Chair of the Crime Prevention Committee in Spanish Town, October 2007.
[4] Jamaica, Submission to the UN Universal Periodic Review Ninth Session of the UPR Working Group Human Rights Council, November-December 2010, 19 April, Amnesty International
[5] "Sector groups support security operations," The Gleaner, May 29, 2010
[8] Colin F Bullock, Contributor, “Fiscal policy in a time of economic crisis.” Colin F. Bullock is lecturer in the Department of Economics, UWI, Mona.
The crackdown on the Landless People's Movement in Johannesburg continues. Two LPM militants have been killed in recent days, and ten are currently in prison following the arrests of five others last night.
Landless People’s Movement Press Statement
The Attack on the Landless People’s Movement Continues Five More Have Been Arrested in Protea South
On the night of 3 June 2010, police and an informer went from door to door in the shacks of Protea South, Soweto. They arrested five members of the Landless People’s Movement (LPM). Three of the arrested are children of Maureen Mnisi, chairperson of the LPM in Gauteng, and the other two are her neighbors.
Two people have been killed since the current wave of repression, which began 23 May 2010 when the LPM was attacked by the Homeowner’s Association in Protea South. . One was shot dead by the Homeowner’s Association in Protea South, and one was shot dead by the police in eTwatwa.
Seven LPM members are now in jail in Protea South and thee LPM members in jail in eTwatwa. Others have been beaten, shot, arrested or received threats that their homes would be burned down. The homes of two people already have been burned down in eTwatwa.
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The police have promised to make more arrests soon and that the five LPM members arrested 3 June will be charged with burning the electricity transformer in Protea South.
The transformer was burned down on 23 May by other community members not affiliated with the LPM in an effort to show the wealthier residents of Protea South that if electricity is denied to the poor, it will be denied to everyone.
The tactic of disconnecting the rich in retaliation for disconnecting the poor (or asking the state perform the disconnection) has been used in Siyanda, Pemary Ridge and Motala Heights in Durban.
Also on the night of 23 May, the wealthier residents of Protea South, who live in private bonded houses, armed themselves and forcibly disconnected the shack dwellers from the electricity supply. They beat shack dwellers and shot two people. One person has died.
The bonded house residents also attempted to burn down Maureen Mnisi’s house. Her house was saved by LPM members who erected a burning barricade and threw stones at the Homeowner’s Association mob.
Those arrested 3 June were busy defending Maureen Mnisi’s home on the evening they are accused of having burned the transformer in Protea South. It is true they made fires that night, but they were burning tires to keep warm as they protected Maureen’s home.
These arrests are clearly a strategy to hurt Maureen and to undermine her commitment to the struggle. It is the dirtiest tactic to punish a militant by arresting her children and neighbors. No one has been arrested for the attacks on the LPM in Protea South. In eTwatwa the police stood by as the shacks of two LPM leaders were burned down. Later, the police arrested one person but quickly released them. The police officer who shot dead the LPM militant in eTwatwa has not been arrested.
Liza Cossa, chairperson of the LPM in Protea South, was told by police that they are targeting Maureen Mnisi. She expects now that anything can happen.
The Homeowner’s Association has a long history of placing pressure on Maureen. In early 2009 they signed a petition against her, calling for her removal from the area because she was defending people from outside the country.
It is true that the LPM defends all people from evictions; South Africa belongs to all who live in it, and we make no apology for this.
The LPM is aware that the local ANC councilor, Mapule Khumalo, is behind the actions that have put Maureen under pressure to stop shack dwellers from appropriating electricity. Khumalo was twice seen with members of the Homeowners’ Association after they tried to burn down Maureen’s home. Maureen has refused to give in to these pressures.
The LPM is also aware that the ANC councilor, Baleka, is behind the attacks in eTwatwa.
The media has ignored the attacks on the LPM. The Daily Sun did cover the electricity war in Protea South but only interviewed the Homeowner’s Association. They did not speak to the LPM. Maureen phoned the The Daily Sun to complain, and the journalist who promised to get back to her did not. The Daily Sun historically has portrayed shack dwellers as criminals, making propaganda for the rich and for the councilors. This newspaper also provided only one-sided coverage of the attack on Abahlali baseMjondolo in the Kennedy Road settlement in Durban in September 2009.
As representatives of the LPM, we want to send a clear message to the media that they have a duty to tell the truth about what is happening in South Africa. These daily injustices must not be swept under the carpet just so that the government can look good while the world is watching South Africa for the World Cup.
We are calling for urgent legal support. We need lawyers for the LPM members who have been jailed. We need to file cases against the Homeowners Association and the police to get justice for the two people who have been killed. We need money to pay bail.
This statement and its call for urgent solidarity with the LPM is supported by the Poor People’s Alliance, which is comprised of the Abahlali baseMjondolo, the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, the Landless People’s Movement and the Rural Network.
It is clear to members of the Alliance that there is no democracy in South Africa. Each time there is an election, the poor are promised land, housing, water, electricity, toilets, education and jobs.
After the elections are over, we are again denied these basic things. When we ask for the promises that have been made to us to be kept, we are beaten, arrested and jailed. When we occupy land and appropriate water and electricity, we are beaten, arrested and jailed.
Sometimes we are tortured. Sometimes we are even killed.
We call on everyone who is visiting South Africa for the World Cup to come see the conditions in which we must live and to hear how we are oppressed. Visit us in the shacks, on the farms, in the transit camps and in the jails.
For more information and comment, please contact:
Maureen Mnisi, Chairperson of the LPM (Gauteng): 082 337 4514 David Mathontsi, Chairperson of the LPM (eTwatwa): 073 914 9868.
For information and comment on the wider assault on the organized poor in South Africa, please contact:
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Jive Says No to an Outkast Reuniontag:impoetryious.com,2010:/blog7//1.10862010-06-28T21:53:26Z2010-06-29T17:04:46Zimpoetryiouswww.impoetryious.comJive Says No to an Outkast Reunion
An Outkast reunion has been in the talks for some time now, but Jive Records executives are doing everything in their power to make sure it doesn’t happen. The reunion was supposed to take place in Big Boi’s upcoming album, “Sir Luscious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty” but Jive won’t allow Andre Benjamin to reunite with his ex-bandmate.
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He says “Jive is trying to block Dre from being on my record. We can’t be on songs together now.”
Big Boi moved to Def Jam from Jive Records after the label told Big that they were stumped on how to promote his new album.
“Jive Records told me my album is a piece of art, and they didn’t know what to do with it,” Big Boi told GQ in a recent interview.
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Boycott of Comcasttag:impoetryious.com,2010:/blog7//1.10852010-06-28T21:47:10Z2010-06-29T17:02:50Zimpoetryiouswww.impoetryious.comNCAAOM Calls for Boycott of Comcast
The National Coalition of African-American Owned Media (NCAAOM) further denounced Comcast for its non-existent carriage of 100% African-American owned channels on its nationwide platforms (approximately 24 million homes) and underscored its opposition to the Comcast-NBCU merger unless specific ownership conditions are enforced by the FCC and DOJ.
In a recent LA Times article dated April 27, 2010, Stanley E. Washington, NCAAOM President &CEO stated,
“For decades Comcast has shut the door to widely distributed wholly-owned African-American channels; and pension funds by virtue of their investment in Comcast are supporting apartheid right here in America.” Comcast brings in approximately $3 billion per month, $36 billion per year, from nearly 24 million cable subscribers. Based on the large African-American populated cities in which Comcast serves, we estimate there are millions of African-American subscribers that contribute approximately 40% or $15 billion of Comcast’s annual revenue. Because of the enormous support that the African-American community has shown Comcast over four decades, we find it unacceptable that none of the 250 plus channels that are offered on the Comcast platform are 100% African-American owned and widely distributed on their nationwide platform.”
Further, in many of the U.S. cities where Comcast has a dominant share of the cable market, African-Americans comprise a majority or near majority of the population. For example, in Philadelphia — the city in which Comcast is headquartered — African-Americans make up more than 43 percent of the city’s population.
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A little more than half of all residents of Washington, D.C. are African-American. In Detroit, 8 out of 10 residents are African-American. Other Comcast markets with high concentrations of African-American subscribers include: Atlanta, Baltimore, Birmingham, Chicago, Jackson, MS, Memphis, New Orleans, Oakland, CA, Pittsburgh, Raleigh-Durham and many more. Nevertheless, the availability of African-American wholly-owned media does not reflect these statistics. Indeed, not one of the networks on Comcast’s cable television platform is 100% African-American owned and widely distributed. Even channels that carry African-American targeted content are not 100% owned by African-American companies. Viacom owns BET and Comcast owns 33% of TV One. The proposed merger will perpetuate or even worsen the lack of 100% African-American owned cable networks. The deal will reduce competition by permitting Comcast/NBCU to play favoritism to their massive portfolio of 44 owned cable networks, and more to be launched in the future, in lieu of 100% African-American owned channels which will never get widely distributed on the Comcast platform. So we have no opportunity to survive and thrive. And to support these facts, please refer to the FCC Carriage Complaint filed January 5, 2010, by the Tennis Channel against Comcast for this very reason. Additionally, Comcast was caught blocking and slowing down competing video content on their broadband platform which recently resulted in a class action lawsuit against Comcast in which they settled in the amount of $16 million for their deplorable behavior. These are just two examples of their anti-competitive conduct.
Dr. Maya Angelou said it best, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
The 2009 compensation packages of Brian Roberts, Chairman and Steve Burke, Chief Operating Officer of Comcast, were in excess of $35 million each. These two men, Brian Roberts and Steve Burke, paid themselves significantly more than what Comcast paid to wholly-owned African-American media collectively.
Comcast spends approximately $7 billion per year on content from cable networks and less than $2 million per year is allocated to wholly-owned African-American networks. Matt Bond, Comcast Executive Vice President, Programming Content Acquisitions, should be subpoenaed to testify under oath as to how many African-American owned media companies have been allowed to pitch him (or not pitch him) for Carriage Distribution Agreements. How many African-American owned media companies have been consistently denied such opportunities? Clearly the answer is disturbing, given the lack of 100% African-American owned cable networks widely distributed on the Comcast platform. And it’s not for the lack of trying. Businessman Alvin James, along with Marlon Jackson of the Jackson Five, Attorney Willie E. Gary, Heavyweight Champion, Evander Holyfield and Baseball Icon Cecil Fielder, raised in excess of 60 million dollars to fund a 100% African-American owned network called The Black Family Channel. Instead of Comcast ensuring that The Black Family Channel succeeded, they exploited these African-American entrepreneurs by charging them millions of dollars in unnecessary launch fees. If Comcast did not support a network called The Black Family Channel, why should Black families support Comcast?
I had a letter sent to Brian Roberts, dated April 9, 2010, stating our position and requesting a meeting to resolve this urgent issue. On May 12, 2010, I introduced myself to Brian Roberts at the NCTA Cable Show in Los Angeles and requested a meeting with Mr. Roberts about these issues. Unfortunately the meeting request was denied. If this is their conduct while they are trying to secure approval of the largest media acquisition in history, how do you think they are going to act if they get approved? The time has come for Comcast to understand that African-Americans are no longer interested in living on the Comcast plantation. Until Comcast does business with African-American owned media in a significant way, we’re going to boycott and campaign to have African-American families and our supporters disconnect Comcast services immediately.
The National Coalition of African American Owned Media (NCAAOM) is working to ensure that African-American Owned media companies are given the same opportunities as their non-African American counterparts to own, produce compelling content, access distribution, and flourish in today’s integrated media landscape. The organization is focused on creating sustained equality through ownership as a means of rectifying the continued racial imbalance within the competitive media industry.
