Jim Barack The Hammer Obama Shaft Kelly

I'm at that point in the blaxploitation movie on loop in my head, where I'm ready for some action. We know who the good guys are, we know who the bad guy is, and we know who is supposed to be saved and why.

I'm ready for the big chocolate gun carrying, Jim Brown lookin' actor to whip it out and tell everybody;

“we got to go this way, 'cause if we go back we die, 'n I ain't ready to die just yet!”

The alpha male has spoken....the paler hued Beta Boy glares, and makes an ugly face, like he's going to do something. But he knows on a good day, he can't whip this Negro's ass in a fair fight. So reluctantly, Beta Boy drops his show for the ladies and turns in the direction that Chocolate Thunder wants to go, and starts walking, while the rest of the group meekly follows. No way are they getting in between these two fools, because while they quietly admit that Beta boy, may be their preferred cup of tea, they also know he don't know his ass from a hole in the ground and is totally useless in this situation.

Chocolate Thunder may be straight up crazy, but he knows what he's doing and can help them get home alive, and like all good Negroes, he is going to sacrifice himself and die so that all the good folks can live a better life, while remembering him fondly in their dreams of the good ole days.

So who would you follow? Camera ready Beta Boy or Crazy as a bedbug Chocolate Thunder?

Easy answer for me...I'm going with crazy, because sometimes the tried and true won't work and you can never go back and sometimes you can never go home again. So you keep marching forward until you see daylight or the end of the trail or the town located just over the hill.

President Obama was supposed to be the one. He was supposed to be the Jim Brown-Chocolate Thunder crazy, who was going to ride into DC and teach all the status quo Beta Boys and Catatonic Neanderthals how to save the people.

But what we've gotten so far, from Obama, is a weak imitation of Carlton, the dimwit cousin from Fresh Prince. All flash but so far, no substance.

I am truly troubled by all this talk of backing up and backing away from Health Care Reform, just because Ted Kennedy's seat was lost in Massachusetts.

One seat, people...ONE STUPID SEAT!.....That still leaves an 18 seat majority in the Senate. It's still a Democrat majority...I don't see the problem. Beta Boy Scott is singing the same song as the rest of his frat club-no plan, no clue. So the majority has to work a little harder. That's why it's called a job!

The American people or those who still have jobs, work everyday, without health care, without guaranteed holidays or carved in stone 4600-dollar yearly pay raises.

Now comes President Obama's first State of the Union Address and from the news reports, he seems more intent on placating us with peripheral bullshit then with delivering the goods. We don't need no stinkin' bipartisanship. We don't need feel good. We don't need 156 different ways to say “Change” in the course of a one hour speech, before a house full of unctuous people pretending to care.

Just once, I would like to see a State of the Union speech where all these fools sit on their hands and listen, quietly to what is being said.

We don't need the pep rally. I don't even care if they twitter to their follower twats, as long as they do it quietly and STFU!

So what should Obama say and do in his State of the Union Speech?

The American people need a jobs program. It's gone way past trickle down, need to work through the system kind of fixes. The guys at that top are doing what they always do, sitting on the money and jamming the feeder pipes so that nothings leaks down or out to the masses.

The American people need some liquid plumber, pronto. They need a powerful motorized snake to unclog the drain and get folks back to work. “F” the system...as in flush the system in order to get it going. We thought Obama would use an executive order or two to mandate some work projects to begin yesterday.

And to make sure that minorities get their fair share, open an office where minority workers or independent workers...those not allowed into the trade unions...to sign up and get hired and put to work alongside the union guys... If a contractor can't or won't use the independents, then his company can't work the project. This does away with the contractors who can't find anybody to work for them except illegal aliens.

Unemployment in my neighborhood is about 20%....yet....there is a lot of renovation going on the houses here.....all of it being done by whites and Hispanics.....in a nearly 100% Black neighborhood...now how does that happen? Not only do we no longer own the homes, we can't get work on them either. And you can bank that its happening everywhere else, too.

After he talks about Jobs, Obama needs to get back to the alphabet...DADT, DOMA, and ENDA. No more talk that it is going to happen. We need to know when it is going to happen. What day is it going to happen? The future is here, now.

Finally, he should now have a real plan for health care reform instead of that bill which is really an insurance industry subsidy program like the stimulus/subsidy program was for Wall Street. Dropping the age limit on medicare to give America what he and Congress already have in their own health care would be a start.

Better yet....why not just cancel the speech....and sit on camera and sign executive orders that really jump start the economy and let the people see that Chocolate Thunder has arrived and is ready willing and able to do crazy for the people in order to get this country back on track.

Swine Flu Affecting Blacks and Hispanics

Government so far silent on number of minorities affected by flu bug.

The Center for Disease Control says it will have a racial breakdown by the end of the week. However, early reports issued last month are showing that H1N1 is having a devastating effect on minority population, with more than 33% of all US deaths happening among Hispanics.

For instance, first reports are showing that in Boston, where blacks make up only a quarter of the overall population, 37% of all swine flu cases are Black. Check out the full story here.

Several schools have closed in the Greater Cincinnati area due to flu outbreaks, the latest being Zion Temple Christian Academy, which serves the Avondale neighborhood.

ASALH Convention

The organization that created Black History Month-94 years and counting, meets in Cincinnati

I had never heard of the ASALH organization before getting an email from my cousin via Facebook. ASALH means the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. It is an organization founded by Carter G. Woodson, the noted historian. I knew who Dr. Woodson was, however I was not familiar with his organization or its long and illustrious history. The email that was sent out, was a forwarded message asking for volunteers for an upcoming convention to be held at the Netherland Hilton, here in town.

Now, if you've read me more than once or twice, you know how I feel about Black History Month. I have long voiced disapproval of Black History Month, not because I disagree with the concept. I don't like the fact that we, as a nation set aside only one month to talk about Black history when Black history is literally the foundation of this country. Slavery was our Holocaust. In other words, we built this country. Its foundation is forged from the blood of our ancestors, and we are still suffering from white denial. I am absolutely sure that Dr. Woodson did not envision this month becoming the white corporate mea culpa in place of reparations, that it has become.

But back to the convention. I liked what I read in the email, so I volunteered, eager to learn about the organization and to get away from my computer for a few days. Being a writer, I am chained to this particular piece of technology for the rest of my life in order to sustain my life and independence. Yet I am always open to putting it aside, if only for a little while, to engage with my fellow humans face to face, like we used to do back in the day, before advancing technology relegated us to shadowy fingers on keyboards, with invisible wireless contact to the outside world. We are swiftly losing our abilities to socialize and to interact civilly with one another, all in the name progress. To put it bluntly, I miss the ability to “conversate.” But I will save that conversation for another day.

What better way to engage with people then to attend a convention full of scholars and academes, whose expertise is one that is very close to my heart. Volunteering to work a convention makes you a fly on the wall, seen but not seen, talked at, but not talked to, hearing all and saying nothing, and smiling all the while. I loved it.

To quote one of my younger nephews, the staff who put on this convention, were “cool peeps.” They were easy to work with, and for, for the three days that I hung out. They had our backs and hopefully we had theirs. I also hope that we represented our city. I tend to rail against Cincinnati as only a native can. Being born and educated here, I have seen the changes, both good and bad and I want Cincinnati to always be good, despite what comes out of my mouth sometimes. I really wanted my city to step up and I tried to step up too, because this time we were dealing with our folks, and it is important to represent, as the young ones say. I think we did that.

There is always going to be some grumbling and we heard some. For instance, I got the feeling from one overheard conversation that the tour of Black history in Cincinnati was lacking. I'm sure it was probably done with the blessing and guidance of the Underground Freedom Center. But while the tour may have been Black history, it was not “our” history, and there is a difference. I didn't facilitate the tour, so I have no way of knowing if the tour stopped at Union Baptist Cemetery where one of only two Black Civil war recipients of the Medal of Honor is buried. Were these scholars allowed to see the gravesite of Sgt Powhatan Beaty or the 119 other Civil War Veterans buried there?

Or did they swing down Ezzard Charles Drive and gaze on the monument dedicated to the 267 women of the 6888 Central Postal Battalion of World War II. These women were the only Black women who served overseas during the great war. My great aunt, Sgt Bessie L. Robinson's name is carved on that marker. Was the tour allowed to look at the remaining copies of Wendell P. Dabney's Union Newspaper, the oldest negro newspaper in this area.

I don't know the answer to those questions. I just know that some on the tour wanted more color to their Black history. I don't fault the ASALH for this, but I do fault the city, for the slight. And I fault, “us” in particular because “we” haven't done enough to illustrate “our” history, either. The Underground Freedom Center is wonderful. However, it is only the beginning of the story. The rest of the story remains to be told and pulled together for future generations.

That is one message that I have taken away from this convention. The story will never be over, but much of it is quickly being forgotten and lost, because no one is stepping up to document and remember. ASALH is a Black organizaton that studies the history and lives of Black people. This organization connects the past with the present and the future, helping us to understand. This was very apparent by the choice of keynote speaker, Eugene Robinson, at the closing banquet last night.

Robinson is the Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the Washington Post and regular commentator on MSNBC programs. I read him religiously. Robinson lived through and witnessed an event called the Orangeburg Massacre, that happened in 1968 in South Carolina. Three Black students were gunned down on the campus of South Carolina State College by police. They had bullet wounds in their backs and in the bottoms of their feet. This was two years before the shootings at Kent State, here in Ohio, where four young white students died, killed by the National Guard. They were eulogized by the legendary Jimi Hendrix in the song “Machine Gun" and by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, in "Four Dead in Ohio." The story of the Orangeburg Massacre has never been sung and the filmmakers have struggled for years, to find an audience for their telling.

Robinson, who can speak intimately of our President Barack Obama, was just as riveting with his personal story about those nights on the campus in South Carolina. This was just one indication of ASALH at its best, these past few days. They will be in Raleigh, North Carolina next year. I hope some day that they come back to Cincinnati. I for one, will welcome them with open arms.