And So Jena Burns

[hiphopnation]

while we sit here and slap eachother over the head with the night-stick of subtleties surrounding the Iran/Ahmadinejad issue, we have here, within our very own borders a war that rages, a war from the 50s and 40s and 30s that rears its ugly head TODAY. Arguably the same subtitles that W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. argued over 50+ years ago!

Why do we focus our efforts on petty dictators overseas, dictators that Bush cronies have forced us to focus on and ignore the civil war that still rages here within our own borders?! Wake up, people. There are more important battles to be fought here at home, and the likes of talented, whip-smart individuals such as yourselves are needed to rally support, to stand against the injustices that occur right here, right outside your front door, in front of the building that you work in every day.

Ahmadinejad is a total fucking asshole AND Columbia should have allowed him to speak. SO FUCKING WHAT!?!?

Bumfuck Louisiana is still populated with a completely racist power-structure that disperses justice unequally depending on the FLESH TONE of the offending party! I ask you, which is issue is more deserving of your scorn and attention?!?!

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0926/p08s01-comv.html

i leave you with the words of Z RO, rapper from Houston, Texas. REFLECT ON THIS:

When the fetti be rollin' setty, won't nobody be home
When the money start lookin' funny, all my friends get gone
Concerts and studio times, they love to come and kick it
But without gas money Z-ro gone miss it
I thought to myself, this feels like nobody hear me
Even though I screamin' I must be a demon cuz won't nobody come near me
People laugh at me because I ain' got respect like faith
F**k respect I do this to keep a ride and a place
Will I survive cuz God is watchin'
Satan takin' my sanity please God stop it
Im feelin' like Snoop cuz murder is the case that they gave me
They knew I ain' do it, but just to they permission they wanna hang me
I'm feelin' like Jesus when he was about to be crucified
Please everyone if you don't help me then you could die
Suicide is safety, but it's definite hell
Somebody dead and I'm stressin' in jail
I'm sangin' the blues

(Hook)
Everyday I'm still goin' through the samethang
I'm tryin' so hard just to maitain
All I ever wanted was just to make a lil' change
I'm real but n****s still talk downon my name
Everyday I'm still goin' through the samethang
I'm tryin' so hard just to maitain
All I ever wanted was to be in the rap game
Cuz my people step on me like I'ma flow mad fame

(Z-ro)
I'm used to mother organizations, and locs of my own
Evaporate like brillo, when fiends smokin' that stones
That's the way we live in the ghetto, if we could we'd change
But don't nobody love us but trouble, so that's why we bang
Many funerals to go to, I don't go to none
Never look in a pinebox, until I see Z-ro in one
Ain' no future in front, and I'm scared to be decease
But it seems like the only way a guerilla-mobb gangsta gone see peace
Cuz mama waitin' on me, her grandma Bezzy
Tellin' me ain' no hatas in heaven, or detectives to sweat me
And a mansion a home in the ground, that'll be mine
Hand ready singin' praises to God that'll be fine
Plus they tell me the streets made of gold
Here people murder peole, the webbin' in heaven is under your toes
It ain' hard doin' right, it's just hard to succeed
I wanna live but it's hard to breathe
It got me singin' blues

(Hook)
Everyday I'm still goin' through the samethang
I'm tryin' so hard just to maitain
All I ever wanted was just to make a lil' change
I'm real but n****s still talk downon my name
Everyday I'm still goin' through the samethang
I'm tryin' so hard just to maitain
All I ever wanted was to be in the rap game
Cuz my people step on me like I'ma flow mad fame

(Z-ro)
I came along way, but it's still alot of road up ahead
To be honest I'm feelin' like I'm suppose to be dead
People feelin' like I suppose be happy cuz I'm makin' some ends
But I'm lonely cuz I cannot communicate with my friends
N****s I grew up with, be actin' like we ain' grow up together
F**k hoes, and po' up together
N**** you cried on my shoulders and I cried on yours
Yeah you rode on my enemies, so I ride on yours
But it's a different day and time
And we don't even kick it
Ain' nobody got to holla no mo' it's strictly buisiness
But I tell you this, I will always have love for ya
The same n**** b**** I still shed blood for ya
The same n**** blood b**** I love ya
I went to school to fight n****s for you,
Even though we wasn't blood brothers
F**k that, we was brothers
What we is now
I can't do nothin' but continue my years out
But it's all gravy, ain' nobody gotta chill with
Only thing I ask n**** keep it real with me

(Hook)
Everyday I'm still goin' through the samethang
I'm tryin' so hard just to maitain
All I ever wanted was just to make a lil' change
I'm real but n****s still talk downon my name
Everyday I'm still goin' through the samethang
I'm tryin' so hard just to maitain
All I ever wanted was to be in the rap game
Cuz my people step on me like I'ma flow mad fame
Lyrics > Z-Ro Lyrics > Z-Ro Everyday, Samethang Lyrics

[rAVES]

1. HE'S NOT A DICTATOR!!!! HE IS AN ELECTED PRESIDENT!!

[hiphopnation]

2. thanks for proving my point

:eyes:

[rAVES]

9. (I was half joking) ;p

[hiphopnation]

16. oh, sorry

i posted when i was a little tipsy anyway, so it's kind of sloppy.

but seriously, these iran threads are givin' me some serious blues whilst our brothers and sisters rally in the South, and likely not much will change.

*sigh*

[Swamp Rat]

4. No he's not.

He's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's pendejo.

[tkmorris]

7. Well, he's kind of in between really

You see, most of the opposition was simply not "permitted" to run against him. The religious leadership there just decided they weren't allowed to. Kind of makes the election a sham doesn't it?

Of course this is all quite beside the point the OP was trying to make, so let's get back on topic, ok?

[Swamp Rat]

3. Yeah you rite!!

:kick:

[candymarl]

5. Than You n/t

[candymarl]

6. OOps that should be Thank You

Note to self: read carefully BEFORE posting:blush:

[Chovexani]

8. K&R

Some things never change around here. :(

[flashl]

10. You are right ...

It requires national attention, AGAIN, to ensure that the families of the Jena 6 receives protection under the law.

The "pro-white" groups had been making threats to those families LONG before the march on Jena. They tried to get a permit to march themselves on the same day to show solidarity with Justin Barker {the victim}.

We learned after BW, a “supreme commander” was on CNN claiming authorship of the published Jena 6 addresses that another supreme commander in Mississippi had interviewed Jena’s mayor and the “victim”.

In the interview, Jena’s mayor and Barker shows their solidarity with the “pro-white” organizations when they praised them for trying to support Barker by demonstrating on the rally day.

After reports about pro-white websites and their vile made national news, calls to the Jena sheriff to seek protection for the Jena 6 families were rebuffed. The Governor of Louisiana sent highway patrol officers to Jena.

THEN Jena sheriff and mayor claimed that they were "looking out" for the Jena 6 families while at the same time saying that they were busy trying to “protect” Barker.

[Tesha]

11. I'm sorry but we're not allowed to note that the American South ("Dixie") is still a shit-hole of...

I'm sorry but we're not allowed to note that the American South
("Dixie") is still a shit-hole of racism, sexism, homophobia,
and religiously-induced lunacy.

Every time it comes up, we're carefully instructed that this
dort of thing happens everywhere else in the country too.

Only it doesn't. Not to this degree. Not nearly so often.
And when it does, it's not accepted as par for the course.

Tesha

[eppur_se_muova]

12. Islands of civilization, in a vast cultural desert ... nt

[Tesha]

15. Yes, I think that's a good summary. (NT)

[eppur_se_muova]

26. Friend of mine (and a fellow Southerner) phrased it that way. nt

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

13. I think they're related issues, actually.

Not letting Ahmadinejad lay a wreath at the 9-11 site strikes me as being basically the same thing as not letting the black kids have lunch underneath the white tree.

[hiphopnation]

17. a subtle point

not entirely lost on me. what irks me is the scorn and degradation leveled at Ahmadinejad here versus those leveled at the DA, judge and police in Jena who are, in my humble opinion, equally deserving of that scorn, if not more so.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

18. Actually, and I may be stretching this analogy to the point of breaking.

The scorn and degradation leveled at Ahmadinejad remind me of the level of scorn and degradation leveled at the black kids for "assaulting" the white kid.

That is, these kids did something horrible, therefore they deserve their treatment.

[hiphopnation]

19. you had me

up till here:

"That is, these kids did something horrible, therefore they deserve their treatment."

explain please

and, to clarify, i'm speaking of the scorn leveled at Ahmadinejad HERE at DU, not in the country writ large, i.e., the countless threads harping on the same points, reaching no conclusions, hurling fire-bomb threads in every direction.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

20. A lot of people defend the prosecution of the Jena 6.

Saying that since they got in a fight, they deserve the punishment.

Not that I agree with ti.

People are saying that since Ahmadinejad is an antisemite and a homophobe, that therefore he deserves to be barred from the WTC, that he shouldn't be allowed to speak, that Iran is an enemy of the U.S., and so on.

[hiphopnation]

22. thankfully i haven't seen those posts

as i would likely lash out in a most ugly manor, and i don't wanna to that. it's a time to stand together and if you (royal you) ain't on board or you really advocate the position that these kids deserve murder charges (since dropped) and to be denied bail, then you are my enemy.

maybe i've been overlooking the attention paid to the jena issue here. the degree to which the "progressive left" allow themselves to don moral blinders, just as much as the fundamentalist right, is sometimes depressing and always shocking to me.

*sigh*

[Bluerthanblue]

14. WORD- and

thank you!!


an ongoing atrocity right here in the homeland.

An issue that everyone says is wrong, but no one wants to acknowledge, or address.

How old is America? How long has this been goin on????


very glad to recommend.

(it's more than Jena, too- its NOLA, NCLB, the prison system, 'just'"us", Affirmative Action and on and on and on)

[Virginia Dare]

21. K&R and thanks for some much needed perspective..n/t

[hiphopnation]

23. and...

and i'd like to stress the last verse of the tune i posted above. i know several of these words make some uncomfortable, let me apologize in advance. Z RO is an extremely prolific and wise rapper, however, whose words deserve to be heard. he kicks it from the heart...

I came along way, but it's still alot of road up ahead
To be honest I'm feelin' like I'm suppose to be dead
People feelin' like I suppose be happy cuz I'm makin' some ends
But I'm lonely cuz I cannot communicate with my friends
N****s I grew up with, be actin' like we ain' grow up together
F**k hoes, and po' up together
N**** you cried on my shoulders and I cried on yours
Yeah you rode on my enemies, so I ride on yours
But it's a different day and time
And we don't even kick it
Ain' nobody got to holla no mo' it's strictly buisiness
But I tell you this, I will always have love for ya
The same n**** b**** I still shed blood for ya
The same n**** blood b**** I love ya
I went to school to fight n****s for you,
Even though we wasn't blood brothers
F**k that, we was brothers
What we is now
I can't do nothin' but continue my years out
But it's all gravy, ain' nobody gotta chill with
Only thing I ask n**** keep it real with me

[hiphopnation]

24. some important points from the article...

<snip>

But today's racism is not as uniformly blatant, brutal, or ubiquitous as before and during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s. Jena can't be likened to Selma, as the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton do. But Mr. Sharpton gets it right when he says: "Our fathers faced Jim Crow, we face James Crow Jr., Esquire. He's a little more polished."

And more subtle, which means that if there is to be a lasting movement out of last week, it must recognize this subtlety. This is true for both blacks and whites.

<snip>

To grow, a new civil rights movement must define its own agenda and work town by town (not so easy when the issues are often societal and about the application of the law than the law itself).

It must also honestly face some of those gray spots about Jena – the most important being the culpability of the six in mob violence. Mr. Bell has a record of previous battery. Violence must be condemned – because it's simply not right and because glossing over it undermines the protesters' credibility.

As for whites, the Jena violence and prosecution could very well have been avoided had school authorities dealt more substantively and sensitively with the tree-and-noose issue. Instead, the school superintendent dismissed it as a "prank," a widely held view in the town, according to news reports.

[Virginia Dare]

27. I had heard the James Crow Jr, Esquire line..

attributed to Yolanda King. Whoever said it first, it's a profound statement. While we obsessively look out our back door, racism and segregation keep waltzing in through the front door.

[hiphopnation]

32. Or it never left the front yard

was just pushed into corners and the defenders of that southern purity went out and obtained law degrees. became more polished, as the article suggests. also learned how to further institutionalize racism, that is to figure out new and different ways of veiling racism behind bureaucracy. fucking pitiful.

route the bastards out! they're not real americans!

THESE are real Americans:

[hiphopnation]

25. kick

because the iran threads rage on...

:kick:

[Virginia Dare]

28. I'm with you hhn23..

I'm really depressed right now over all of this, Jena, O'Reilly, nooses on college campuses, internment camps...:cry:

[hiphopnation]

31. i missed the O'Reilly debacle completely

can you fill me in?

[Virginia Dare]

39. OMG--this is some crazy shit..

I'll give you a synopsis, basically billy o. went to a soul food restaurant with Al Sharpton and said he was amazed that black people actually acted civilized just like white people do. He made some comment about expecting them them to be yelling give me another ice tea m.f.er. I shit you not. Look around on the G.D. there are plenty of threads about it.

[Lilith Velkor]

29. rec

for our own backyard that needs cleanin

:kick:

[Baby Snooks]

30. Jena as a reflection of New Orleans...

I used to love New Orleans. But the people of New Orleans are just as much victims of racism as the people of Jena. I keep waiting for New Orleans to come back. It may not.

Where is all the new housing for all the displaced New Orleanians to come home to? All I see so far are FEMA trailers for the poor Blacks and a planned "Trump Tower" for the rich Whites. That is the plan of this administration for New Orleans. It will be for the rich. Not for the poor. For the Whites. Not the Blacks.

I for one don't want a New Orleans without the Blacks. They are what made New Orleans what it was. They are just as much the foundation of New Orleans as the French were. They were the ones whose smiles welcomed you. It was their city.

That of course is why it may not come back. But you cannot blame the Republicans alone. Lousiana has become Blue Dog territory. Everyone in their place. Just as long as it's not New Orleans. Or Jena. Or really anywhere in Louisiana.

Jena has become a reflection of New Orleans and of the racism that destroyed New Orleans.

[hiphopnation]

33. david bowie donates $10,000 to the Jena 6 legal defense

www.theolympian.com/national/story/221377.html

[flashl]

34. Kick

Blanco To Meet Over Safety Of 'Jena Six'

[hiphopnation]

35. thanks

unbelievable what it's taking to keep this NEWS kicked and in the hearts and minds of DUers.

addicted to "the flame" many of them are...

*sigh*

[me b zola]

36. k&r

[IronLionZion]

37. How about the very real segregation in this country

which is mostly in the north where minorities and poor people live in the inner cities while the whities and their money live out in the burbs?

[hiphopnation]

38. i don't see this as a battle of segregation vs. integration

this is an issue of there being two separate methods by which justice is dispensed, the differences of which hinge on the race and economic strata of the offending party.

there are blacks and other minoritys in the burbs, if you haven't noticed. they're treated the same there as they are in the ghettos. ask most black folks my guess is they probably don't want much to integrate with whites, that they very much enjoy and love their communities. just so long as there's not a seperate set of laws for them. of course, this is pure conjecture and speculation on my part, i have no hard evidence of that.

[Virginia Dare]

40. There's something pretty interesting going on in D.C. too..

there is a neighborhood in the southeast area of the city (vastly majority African American) where there is a class war that has been brewing between two segments of the black population. There are the poor blacks and there are the middle class blacks who live in a gated community adjacent. Those in the gated community say they are under constant seige with thefts and property damage.

The tensions have gotten so high that last week there was a shooting and an off-duty cop shot a 14 year old kid over a moped. He says the kid shot first, but no gun was ever found.

It's a common phenomenon here though, the middle and upper class black population doesn't want much to do with the poor, mostly they move out to the outer suburbs in their own enclaves. Perhaps that's the way it's always been though.

[flashl]

43. Gentrification in D.C. neighborhoods is a leading problem. n/t

[flashl]

44. The "new" words. Structural inequities = segregation. n/t

[AspenRose]

41. Time to call this what it really is....domestic terrorism

masquerading around as "free speech." Helloooo, Timothy McVeigh or Eric Rudolph, anyone? Anyone? :banghead:

[Anita Garcia]

42. sorry I missed the time limit to recommend

Thank you for posting this.
NAACP has now delivered 190,000 signatures to Gov. Blanco.
Thank you to those who signed the online petition.
Blanco met with NAACP, Dr. Johnston, Rev. Sharpton and MLK, III and she spoke on the phone with the DA who gave her his word that he will not appeal the CoA ruling reducing the charges to Juvenile Court.
Now, presumptively young Mr. Bell will be given a reasonable amount of bail to get out jail.
He has been there since December 2006.
Rev. Sharpton has pledged to assist the family in meeting the bail amount.