The Logical thinkers and Friends

News Letter   Vol.2   01/14/00

"Dr. Martin Luther King: Assassinating the man & his Legacy?" By C. Stone Brown. 

 "Black Woman and Black Man"  Created by  berrie

"Operation Political Correctness: Quagmire 101"  By Antonio M. Lewis

"National Friendship Week" submitted by B.C. Freeman

RE:"The Diallo Case Goes to Albany" By  Pete Shell, Campus Coalition for Peace and Justice

"Russell donates $4 million to HBCUs" By Sandra Bell  submitted by Jazminda X

" 100 Blacks in law enforcement speak out on rap music" submitted by logicalthinker

"FYI: Was Y2K a hoax?  by Gary North submitted by BCFreeman

"Open Letter" by Earl M Champ

 "Judge opts for juvenile sentence in Nate Abraham murder case" submitted by logicalthinker

"ONE"   by babylon_falling

 "Street Education" by PoEtrY  submitted by Jazminda X

Annoucments on page 2

First off I would like to thank you folks that checked out the news letter last week your responses where very encouraging. It showed me that all the work that I put in to this newsletter was not in vain. And I would also like to thank all the folks that sent me this interesting pieces.Second pointPlease excuse my writing skills a few folks pointed out some mistakes in grammar. please try to look past that for I have no real training in writing I do the best I can and If any one out there who might have a little time To help me out with the editing it would be greatly appreciated for I don't want to misrepresent. Thanks for your time and interest Markus Rice Editors bio.

Black Woman and Black Man

Created by  berrie on Sat, Jan 08, 2000 @ 15:24 EST

Why is it that Black men and women so often seem on opposite pages of the political agenda? What can be done to eliminate sexism in politics and unify us as a political voice? Too often sisters are accused of adopting `white` ideology...but we have our families to consider. How can we bring brothers and sisters together on the main issues? Reply

Operation Political Correctness: Quagmire 101

Written by Antonio M. Lewis

Will political correctness ever end? The political correctness crowd has a new label for things both good and bad. You can no longer call a person over 18 a criminal; he is now an Adult Of-fender. Drug addicts have now become the Chemically Challenged. The p. c. crowd also helps perpetuate the "one drop rule,"   just for political gain as evidenced in their outrage over allowing people to acknowledge their com-plete ethnic background on the upcoming Census.

I believe such political cor-rectness is dangerous. Reason being is that it starts to infringe on the free speech and free will of indi-viduals. It also affects the education of children of color. This is evidenced by the belief that a child’s grammar and speak-ing ability should not be corrected if it is wrong. The theory behind this is that it is insulting to the child’s heritage if he or she is made to learn to speak or write correctly. In my opinion, it really is another way of lowering already low expectations and standards for people of color. I be-lieve that the political correctness police should attack the state of education in the Union or the state of the lack of healthcare for many citizens of this country. Hey, you p.c. believers why not attack the lack of a comprehensive plan to rein-vest in the future of this country: Chil-dren?  On the other hand, would that not be something that is in the mission state-ment of your movement? Political correctness became the quag-mire of dialog in the 1990’s and it will continue to bog down meaningful at-tempts at any type of dialog. As we all know that without open and unpreten-tious dialog nothing will be accomplished. Why must everything be spoken in code or why must issues be side stepped as not to offend a particular group, even I believe such political cor-rectness is dangerous. Reason being is that it starts to infringe on the free speech and free will of indi-viduals. when that issue affects that group more than others?  Ignorance and want used to be the best friends of despair, now we can add political correctness.

Mr. Lewis writes for 

THE BLACK EDUCATOR

The Black Educator is currently distributed to over 1,000 people nationally via e-mail. If you would like join the distribution list or would like to contribute articles, please send all inquiries to anto-niolewis@zdnetonebox.com.

This is a reply to last weeks edition: (click here)

The Diallo Case Goes to Albany 

Markus,

Those cops are going to get let off the hook, That's why it was moved. It looks like the only way justice is going to be served it is going to have to come from the Fed level for civil rights abuses. Just like in the Rodney King case.
Well there's no guarantee that the feds will do anything either. They only acted in the Rodney King case because of the massive protests/riots. Even after several years of protest and publicity, and meetings with the justice dept., we still couldn't get the feds to press charges against the cops who murdered Jonny Gammage.  Even though we didn't win our main demands -- that all of the cops who murdered Jonny Gammage be tried and vigorously prosecuted for murder -- by
keeping the pressure on the local authorities for an effective trial, we made a lot of progress in the fight for justice. By keeping the case high profile and making them at least hold a couple of trials, we made the cops and the D.A. pay a political price. We elevated the issues of police brutality and racism in the Pittsburgh area, and made a lot of white people realize that it isn't just drug-dealing people of color who are brutalized.
And the Gammage family did win a $1M civil lawsuit against the police
department.

  So I would urge you to keep up the struggle on the local front as well, sticking to the basic principle that if somebody has brutalized or murdered somebody, then why shouldn't they be vigorously prosecuted to the fullest extent of law, regardless of whether they're a cop?

Pete Shell, Campus Coalition for Peace and Justice, Justice for JonnyGammage, Pittsburgh, PA

Russell donates $4million to HBCUS

Money to be used to create entrepreneurship centers                          By Sandra Bell 

Herman J. Russell, Chairman of H.J. Russell and Company in Atlanta,  has  earned his reputation on
construction projects ranging from participation in
the Atlanta Olympic Stadium to the Birmingham Civil Rights Museum. But, in a move that he hopes will inspire and challenge others, Russell is in effect
building a bridge to the future by endowing four
colleges and universities with a million dollars each
for entrepreneurial education.
Russell donated the funds as a challenge grant for the four recipients: Georgia State University, Clark
Atlanta University, Morehouse College and Tuskeegee University, to match. He says the schools were selected for their existing emphasis on
entrepreneurship, which he hopes the gift and the
matching funds will expand. Russell is a 1953 graduate of Tuskeegee University, and his wife is a 1952 graduate of Clark Atlanta University.
"The whole idea in giving the money is to encourage
African Americansto be entrepreneurs," said the
68-year-old Russell, a titan of the BE 100 Listing
and Chairman of the Board of the company he founded in 1952, H.J.Russell and Company (No. 9 on the B.E. Industrial/Service list with $184 million in sales.) Russell believes the best way for African
Americans to control their own destiny is to create
jobs through having their own business.

According to Clark Atlanta University President Thomas Cole, the school will use the funds to endow a chair in entrepreneurship in the name of Russell and his wife Otelia. "Most of the traditional business curriculum trained students to take their place in corporate America. But with this gift we can now focus on how to start, finance, and use strategies to have successful business," says Cole. He added that the gift will be given over time and that he expects it will take two to three years to raise the million dollar match to the Russell gift. However, he like Russell, hopes that this example will inspire others, particularly minority business owners to give something back to build for the future.
Georgia State University, a senior college in
metropolitan Atlanta, is renaming its International
Center for Entrepreneurship after Russell.
Morehouse College will use the $1 million for the
lecture series and to develop a curriculum emphasizing entrepreneurship as well as building a facility to house the entrepreneurship program. Both the program and the facility will be named for Mr. Russell. "We've been blessed so we wanted to share," says Russell, who adds that his company will continue to provide internships for students from the schools. He also plans to make himself available to participate in the lecture  series.
                     submitted by Jazminda X

 The King center/March On Washington Postage Stamp
    
Click here for: http://www.thekingcenter.com/

WE FINALLY  HAVE IT !!!

A new 33-cent stamp is available to celebrate  Dr. King's historic MARCH  ON WASHINGTON .

Let's purchase this STAMP!  

We don't want it recalled  submitted by Jazminda(X)

"Yesterday is History.  Tomorrow is a Mystery. Today is truly a gift....That's why it's called the Present." Note: Literature sent is not necessarily the opinion of the mailer, she is a conduit for the masses.

"Instead of having their hands dirtied, they subcontract them out," Adams said of the execs. "We're asking them to police those labels, to have them police themselves. We're just asking them to have a balance, to have a more positive message." Adams said the record industry must do something to stop the seemingly endless round of violence that has left rappers such as Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls dead and has accounted for numerous other shootings. More recently, Sean "Puffy" Combs has been implicated in an incident that resulted in three people being wounded at a Times Square club two weeks ago. Combs has also faced charges in connection with an attack on a recording-industry exec. "When you have entertainers taking bats and assaulting executives, someone has to say, 'Enough is enough,'" Adams said. "This is the only industry that not only tolerates that kind of violence, but promotes it." Adams also complained that performers with more positive messages "don't receive the same level of promotion" as do the hard-core acts. Adams stressed that his group is not asking for censorship -- but suggested that's something parents should try. "Parents can do something about this in their homes," he said. "I think they'd be shocked if they heard some of the lyrics their children are listening to when they walk past them with headphones on."Adams said his organization will be sending letters to six companies this week, asking for a meeting to address the issue. The firms are Sony, Columbia, Priority, Def Jam, Arista and RCA.

100 Blacks in law enforcement speak out on many issues that on law enforcement and have a very helpful list of information that you should find useful. (Click here to see more)

 Unless. . . .Continued on page 2

List of links that you will find interesting:

 Wonders of the African world with

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. If you missed the special on P.B.S.  

www.The Marcus Garvey bbs.com

And for our Caribbean Friends

Judge opts for juvenile sentence in 

controversial teen murder case

PONTIAC, Michigan, Jan 13 -A judge sentenced Nathaniel Abraham, one of the youngest juveniles ever charged as an adult with murder in the United States, to detention in a juvenile center Thursday. Rejecting prosecutors' pleas for a tougher sentence, Judge Eugene Moore ruled the 13-year-old should be held until he was 21 in the juvenile system for the murder of Ronnie Greene in October 1997. Prosecutors had asked for a so-called "blended sentence," for Abraham, keeping him in the juvenile system and deferring until later the possibility of an adult sentence. But Moore, siding with the defense, said the boy could be "brutalized" in an adult prison and would likely emerge as "a hardened criminal." "With the progress he's made in the last two years, plus the next eight years, the juvenile system should be able to rehabilitate him," Moore said Abraham has been locked up for the past two and a half years awaiting trial. The teen was convicted of second-degree murder in November last year for shooting Ronnie Greene, 18, outside a convenience store in Pontiac, a Detroit suburb. The case, which provoked an outcry about the Michigan statute that allows juveniles to be tried as adults, has also become highly politicised. More than 200 demonstrators, including the Reverend Al Sharpton and the son of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr, came from several states to protest the possibility of an adult sentence Thursday. The protestors, including leaders of the NAACP, argued Abraham had been singled out for harsh treatment because he is black. "This was a child who played with a gun. No white child would have been kept in a detention cell for two and a half years," if a gun they accidentally fired had hit someone, defense attorney Geoffrey Fieger argued earlier. "There is a belief that there is a tide of predators ... young African-American children who need to be kept under the thumb of the criminal justice system. "Attorneys for the boy said they will seek a retrial. They claim Greene's death was an accident and that Abraham was shooting at trees. But Oakland County Assistant Prosecutor Lisa Halushka argued the blended sentence would both preserve the chance that Abraham could be rehabilitated and protect the community from him if he were not. Both Fieger and Judge Moore denounced the new Michigan law that allowed Abraham to be sentenced as an adult, saying it was the result of legislators pandering to exaggerated fears about youth crime Moore said the answer to youth violence is greater efforts at prevention, not putting younger offenders in adult jails. "If we put more kids into a failed adult system, we should not be surprised when they emerge upon their release as hardened criminals," the judge said. Prosecutors had asked the judge to retain the option of giving the teen an eight- to 25-year adult prison sentence at a later date.

Brothers and Sisters,
Here is another thought provoking poem coming right at
ya. Shouts going out to Demetrius, your page is
awesome.
Hotep,
Jazmidna(X)

Street Education
by PoEtrY

from being a street educated nigga
to becoming a college educated figure
I have yet to reach the standard in which I'm shooting
for,
see though I've scraped the sidewalk streets
and allowed school systems to train my mental like an
athlete
there are still many more avenues i need to explore.

like getting my brotha's on the street
to put down the heat,
and giving our children dreams of walking on water
instead of images of walking on alcohol poured
concrete.

like getting my sista's
to recognize that they are gods finest creation,
and though brotha's may not admit it out loud
you are our wings of elevation.

i wanna get my brotha's to recognize that
family is first and everything else is secondary,
so understand you don't have to settle for being a
dreamer
when you can evolve to becoming a visionary.

because visionaries are the one's that make moves.

I've never had a strong bond with god
but yet I'm trying to re-strengthen that bridge,
see i can't be focused on when i might die cause I'm
too busy trying to educate kids in the neighborhood in
which i live.

see schools teach about Christopher cold-HUNG-us..(I
MEAN)..Columbus
but don't teach you about watching out for crooked
white cops,
try educating you about their American history but
never said how
you could be history by stray bullets just walking on
your own block.

the ghetto is like one big delivery room....
giving birth to every element that society doesn't
want to deal with,
I'm talking under-age mother's, uneducated children,
strung out addicts
and nigga's and bitches from the Brooklyn bridge to
the bricks.

they overflow comminutes with crooked government
officials
and racist cops that walk the city's concrete,
they have you focused on meteors falling from the
skies
to distract you from thinking about all the brotha's
falling in the streets.

we have our own death penalty in our neighborhoods
because every brotha's strapped ready to execute,
that's why theses days you have to think twice and be
careful
when you and a stranger get into a dispute.

I'm just trying to educate you cause without a little
street education
most brotha and sista's will never get ahead,
that's why I'm trying to give you something real to
think about
so I won't have to worry about you one day ending up 

dead.

Reprinted with Permission of PoEtrY
1999 Copyright Horace Allen. All Rights Reserved