The Roar That Became A Purr

The idea of that Diane Abbot could be a formidable player in politics championing the black community is a mis-guided desparate clamour.

The eye of the tiger that so nobly characterised her in the 70s has long tamed to a purr just behind the right armpit of Micheal Portillo

She has long appeared resigned from the impulsive political fighter but apathetically complacent in her career as an effortless slovenly political pundit who seems ultimately to only need to turn up to assure a wage; , and with job secured her hard long work done. She loyally guffawed on cue at almost everything her conservative bosom buddy, Portillo had to say

One can forgive but not forget the public school saga wherein she displayed her cloak and dagger professional ethics, albeit no more deceitful than most politicians

It would follow , then, that it doesn't matter wether she wins the party seat or not, as they are all as in bed with each other as the Miliband brothers; New Labour wolves dressed as sheep

Mel B

I was a vague fan of the spice girls, witnessing their careers. Funnily though, it was on the third day of channel hopping through daytime tv that I realised that the mediteranean panelist on Loose Women was none other than our very own ? Mel B. And that was only because the host referred to her. Call me troublesome but after seeing the increasingly blonder and bluer eyed Leonna Lewis on the front of this week's cosmopolitan magazine it's clear that the Dorothy Dandridge's or whitening of black artists is becoming tecnologically formidable; L'oreal's Beyonce a case in point. I'm left wondering , have we so readily turned our backs on the mantra 'Black is beautiful' ? Is it a redundant fossil never to uplift the spirits of a generation again. More troublingly, are our baby girls to be marginalised if they do not compromise their looks with european caucasians ? BLUE-EYED: Leona Lewis

x factor Curtiss Moore . Oct 2009

Reality check. If your son came in with a 'ganster' swagger and raised his hand as though holding a gun over a crowd whilst he sang as is the trademark for today's young musically gifted and black; or if he back chatted so automaticallty that he volunteered that he had a problem doing so, whilst doing so, you wouldn't have a bar of it. So I applaud Ella's article on x factor's Curtiss Moore.

Its a new milestone for the badge of honour. Not just an authentic vogue asbo teenager with a genuine freshly glowing history of petty crime; the type that established entertainers would give another fifteen per cent of their contracted eanings to claim as an image investment, but he tops it with a bona fide tag on possibly the country's most viewed programme. Top of the proverbial pops . Pukka

But for the exploitive moguls of popular culture aka judges it was a spectacle of pure enterprise.

Simon Cowell described him as 'Incredibly current'. "I actually like your swagger" advising him only to listen to the industry's designers.

How telling that Loius Walsh said "I could never work with him", after " the swagger suits you" but nothing of his singing

And as the camera consistantly sold the story of Sheryl Cole's soft spot for brown skinned boys she oozed out endearing comparison to Chris Brown, the other asbo esque impressario currently doing community service on an injunction

Having unwittingly made a mark for anti-social youth, he received four unquestionable yes votes. The next week he was out. Why ? Because he was mediocre at best

ARTICLE CARNIVAL RIOT 2008.

BLOODY MONDAY

Notting hill carnival deteriorated into an orgy of opportunistic chaos on Bank holiday Monday in a scene reminiscent of the 1980’s riots, with running battles between the police and missile throwing youths

Only this time there was no underlying flame of racial tensions . Black, white and across the colour board, akin in their own sub-culture, laced with pseudo Jamaican idioms hurled bottles at a squad of defenceless police on Ladbroke grove for a full fifteen minutes before the police were given an order to respond with inadequate , and fruitless charges, to then re-group and again stand without shields or helmets and be pelted .

As some officers fell, their strategy reminded me of the last scene of Frank Miller's movie 300.

Not 200 yards away, at the corner of St Mark’s Road and Rustin Mews sat at least three vans with riot squad officers awaiting the bureaucratic order to be deployed. It was at least another 45 minutes before a protective visor was to be seen let alone a shield. Had they clamped down an hour before, the sense of free-for-all stoning the sitting ducks could arguably have been suffocated

Every charge made by the targeted 'lambs to the slaughter' in luminous yellow ended up hurting onlookers. They felt the nervous wrath of anguished coppers swinging batons indiscriminately while the appropriate offenders had dispersed behind diminishing hoards of onlookers filming on phones and huddled in a bus shelter. On adjoining side streets where the violence trickled, it transpired that ordinary police constables were not allowed to detain or arrest perpetrators who they saw being violent because it is not of their department although they are police officers. The youngsters had no diminution and no call for it.

I overheard phrases such as stone them bumba claat and saw one kid laughing as he casually trotted back to his friends' doorway and told them almost in passing that he'd "just been 'pitching bottles at the pigs"

Let the media note, (as at least one newspaper has cited it as being a race riot sparked by police stop and search tactics against black boys), that some of us were so angry at these kids that we ended up in violent confrontations with them.

An awful end to a remarkably well spirited event that gleamed with racial diversity, relegating secularism to faded history. The Caribean spirit really does seduce.

It's a crying shame that this magnificent success story, with it's intense government supervision can realistically be ruined by a handful of approximately eighteen to twenty - seven year old males who are simply immature, have an unchecked lack of respect for anyone , and warrant a good old fashioned pre- politically correct thick ear.

Or am I missing something

Is the media out to make us look stupid. nat newspaper

Re , your article about the Paxman/ Dizzie Rascal interview

0f course the media are out to make us look stupid. When haven’t they been?

The question should be, 'When is the media ever going to bother to represent us in the full scope of our merits.'

Before electronic media our first popular representations were the minstrels, of which you couldn't have gotten a more blatant display of intent

When electronic media came in and rascism was experiencing its first taste of restraint, it was the Aunt Jemimas and wide eyed Uncle Toms. From the 1930s to the late 1950s the most regular black faces were the mindless bush men of Tarzan films who were superstitious minions to a white messiah on their own turf, even though he himself was misplaced and alone.

The 60s and 70s were a staple diet of cops and car chases. The ' black guy' was always a small time crook who played basketball or worked at the local petrol station and knew some one who knew some one who was the episode's bad guy.

On this side of the shore it was legitamised stand up comics like Jim Davidson creating characters that we would have to be cast as at street level . One such being 'Chalky' .

Lenny Henry was granted the passage to success by re-enforcing negative stereotypes for a white palate that inherently wouldn't have to account for the content. The same rule of thumb applies to today's widespread commercialisation of the n word

A major breakthrough in filming was John Singleton's boys in the hood. Renowned for its drama, I’ll never forget the profound effect it had on me owed to a scene where two black males were having a conversation. It was in a car and they spoke of puberty and going to college , just the way we did when i was that age. Well never in my twenty seven years had I seen two black males on screen having a conversation that wasn't based on some degree of gangsterism or sexism or something anti-social

Black editorials such as Jet, ebony and Essence have been weekly parading black directors, lawyers and highly skilled professionals in their hundreds and for years. Yet mainstream media barely acknowledges the mere possibility of one every six months. Obviously, respect from the mainstream media is not something we should hold our breaths for

Dianne Abbott, in her opinion has made a statement yet said nothing. What on earth has street culture got to do with paying regular bills? But then she spends so much effort in trying to sound as though she was 'From the manor born', that she can hardly be grounded. The credibility she obtained as a vociferous left wing activist is an unrelateable image to the blubbering couch hog we see today pandering to white moderate political stances.

British rapper Sway is himself too young to realise that Dizzie Rascal is a twenty three year old who makes music for a focused teenage market. His latest offering including tracks with titles such as 'pussy'ole'.

Your Moira Stuarts, Oona Kings, Adrian Lester, to name but a random few

of the many more qualified potential representatives, who have had a broader political experience, at least seeing more eras of politics, who were alive when black people were being lynched in the USA and fought for civil rights. Eddie Nester, Geoff Schumann. Toyin Adegbo, These all articulate social and political observations, thrashed out across the social spectrum professionaly and daily

As was noted, Paxman's referrence, using Dizzie's quirky comercial name , Mr Rascal, illustrated the lack of intellectual maturity necessitated for the interview. The agenda for that lies squarely in the briefing room art the BBC

Barak and the global high.

The world's press is suitably saturated with Barack Obama. The benefits of his achievement are yet to unfold upon us.

He hasn't yet began to tackle the issues of the poor, world peace, the banks' crises, or international or domestic policy

But on the fourth of November I was an equal part of the largest volume of collective joy across the world. It spanned wider than D Day joy jubilation, touching nooks and crannies and far away obscure peoples

Ultimately, the unequivocally most definitive spiritual and emotional connection of every thinking black person on the planet was unquestionable. The old, the not too young, the blind, the deaf, the wise and the coconuts

I believe that I have at last tasted global unity among our people

And boy, there’s nothing like it

So how do we stand with the met.

It was the late 70's/early 80's when seduced by an advert I asked my older sister what she thought of me applying for a job as a police officer. She responded with concern “No Simon, not whilst it's still a racist institution. I won't accept that". In those days we paid heed to the words of our older siblings.

The recruits who joined up tended to be seen as frontline martyrs who would pave the way, trodding down the reeds of hate at their brave, near selfless cost

Nearly two decades later, the Lawrence inquiry bolstered a wave of confidence that the community at large thought would fundamentally overhaul the culture of the met and thereby heal our tarnished relations. It was felt that society was at last on a course toward positive change reverberating from the Met.

So why does it now feel like we were never out of square one

It's 2008 and the Met is in turmoil over accusations of racism that have quietly blighted the careers of many a black cadet for years , or just left some distraught and unhappy as though their fight was pointless and they may as well have fallen off the slave ship into the miserable sea

Hip hops eggs are going bad.

Grandmaster Flash spoke of the narrow focus of hip hop and its sourness.
When hop was making its global stamp in the early eighties, a music aficionado was known to state that rap would never last.
This probably appeased the conservatives who were uncomfortable with urbanism rising from under their pulpit with potentially relentless unforgiving exposé’s of serious and illuminate-esque home truths.
Well, as we know, the rest is history. Every Tom, Dick and Prince Harry, corporation and sporting world has sidelined themselves with the gravy train of hip hop.
But hip hop was fundamentally an untenured animal in its composition style, content and image. No matter how commercial it got, its possibilities were still scary. From the Japanese to the German it has never lost its black American independent template, just like the Black Power Movement of the 60's.Mps, presidents and socio-political science were regular focuses for rap lectures with new age punk beats. These were university classes that weren't allowed on the national curricula. Public Enemy was a subject of FBI surveillance. Our own mc D was relegated to a drugged up psychiatric patient as soon as his powerful message of unity hit the air waves.
Up until this time, the blacks had their place. They played reggae, soul, the blues and jazz. So what if they had a few protest messages. After Vietnam it was all elevator music.
Even the great messenger Bob Marley was turned into a pop star.
Is it any wonder hip hop became one dimensional clap trap? The appropriate acts were paid to push the appropriate rubbish. The rest followed suit, blunting the effective offence.
You cannot stop artistic expression, but you can steer the market.
'The eggs haven't gone bad'
'The messages and caliber of hip hop's old guard are etched in our valuable consciousness.
The appropriate perspective should be 'The man' has utilised his resources, engaged in, and is now systematically winning the battle; on his terms............ again

Racism in Australia.

Just to absolutely concur with your article on racism in Australia. I travelled there for six months and was flabbergasted at their inane arrogance and startling ignorance fortified by ego.

It isn't even frowned upon to talk about aboriginals as though they're dirt. They're stereotyped as ghetto dwelling drunks and thieves even though many (though arguably a minority) of that downtrodden minority hold down blue and white collar jobs; some in political office.

These indigenous people are randomly discriminated against in public places. A publican in Sydney , while I was there , refused to serve an aboriginal man a beer although he would serve his two white colleagues, then turning off the pool table lights when the man wanted to play

I cornered an Ozzy in debate over a beer about their racist attitudes. Running out of poor argument he recoursed "ignorant as fxxx, us, and proud of it". This is clear denial because for all the attempts at genocide and social engineering, the ab-original is still there and a stark reminder of the roots of white Australia ; their cruelty , deceit and ineptness

They are well aware that their presence on mass over there spans less than two centuries

They once had a whites only policy restricting immigrants who were not white or allowing non whites to earn as much as whites.

This lasted until 1973, not long after it became illegal to shoot aborigines as they are also known. So white Australians have been brought up on a legacy of one dimensional dominance. Australia is a more successful model of what America tried to be

While remarking on the dress of some traditional Muslim women in town, my chaperone blurted out "In my white Anglo Saxon country "

Their nemesis are the Lebanese, who call themselves the N word. There was a movie out called 'The Wog Boy', and the Lebanese stake much proud acclaim to it. Sadly, anybody of that Mediterranean look falls at first glance into their category and is targetable for the obligatory racial profiling

In the study of racism, Australia is a module all of its own. I salute you for looking so far overseas into it

WHOSE BLACK SLANG ?

Let’s look at the meaning of the word 'slang'. As it denotes, the meaning is 'secret language'. Notoriously, the east end barer boys used it to mask their criminal activities in the face of the law' e.g. "Put a sock in it sunshine, geezer's old bill ". Obviously, it carries a communal tag. When i was a teenager in the 70s and black community/ establishment tensions were very intense, patois provided us with a sense of association like a sanctuary from an omnipresent oppressor. It was a black thing. In that climate, the film 'Babylon', emerged like an eagle , and Brian Bovell's character , Beefy, cemented a lot of sentiment when he attacked Karl Hoffman for using rastafarian phraseology. His words, accompanied by head butt were, "Don't talk f**king black" Decades down the road, we have wide boys talking cockney peppered with terminology such as ’man dem'. I saw an Irish lad cursing the staff of a Chinese takeaway in the words, 'ya p***syole' over and again with appropriated gesticulations as though he really meant it, in his attempted Jamaican accent I know a northern Albanian whose English is fickle though he greets all his associates with a 'wha gwan', and checks them a fist; also a graphically used hip practice of suits in the city Not that anyone has a patent on modes of communication, but I remember when the fist was a symbol of the intensity of our resilience within our diasporic struggle; no more, no less. See album cover 'The Front Line', produced in the 70's and re released in 2002 Surely those suits don't address each other like that in the office, or cement financial agreements, or all these white, Asian, and all the other racial denominations, speak like that to their parents. Here though, we have generations ill dressed, who would probably have a difficult time stringing together two grammatically correct sentences, and they'll hold on to that paradox like it's their baby On their wings, the cast of thousands, caricature the caricatures, with their alternative cultures awaiting them behind closed doors. But slang is supposed to keep the user ahead of the game, not left behind by it.. The tool of planners, not by products,excluded from nightclubs, for example, because we don't know how to come correct It's surely time to smell the coffee, pull our socks up, drop the slang, and move on

How long will we tolerate this music

It was 25 long years ago that I first heard NWA. They exploded on the scene. Visceral,succint and stylishly unforgiving, they brought a fresh dimension in black expression that seemed to feel ahead of its time

In excitement I said to my best friend, "isn't it great that we have a medium whereby we can talk to each other saying exactly what we feel and think without compromise”?

My friend Paul’s response was, "don't forget, it’s being filtered through a white power structure"

And that's the point. Decades on we have millions of middle class kids worldwide in corporate designer hip hop attire, coveted in unofficially exclusive clubs, postulating like their favourite glossy hip hop anti heroes, arms and wrists in that cat-paw style, cheerfully chanting the songs' sociopathic anthems about black urban crisis

The n word, the knot in every rope around a lynched brother's neck to say the least and the most loaded insult in a single word devised by man, has become the sexiest fashionable word in the world, legitamised and meaning anybody with brown skin, and this, while families and victims still bear the pain

So, why do we allow it? Would we have a youngster entertain us at dinner singing about n's and pimping bitch ass hoes and shooting each other? ! No

But while we have had thousands of hip hop tunes made about positivity, only a few have been pushed ( i.e where is the love), because "they are being filtered through a white power structure"

The whys and hows are a no brainer. Everyone knows that the black power movement was destroyed largely by the government’s supply of cocaine into the black community.

Everyone knows that there are no major black gun makers or designers, but there are so many black on black shootings that every nationality celebrates our home spun sing along songs glorifying it, spawning a lucrative off-shoot in fashion paraphernalia

In Darfur, the guns maintaining the civil war are coming from china in exchange for oil... go figure. Vehicles for our demise will never be to far away from us

And how long will we tolerate this music? Until we have the guts to fully realise the entire range of issues facing us. Only then can we truly challenge them and put them to bed

No-one knows it all.

Last week's letter of the week was inflammatory and narrow minded

Ms or Mr Withheld decided to 'set the record straight' on Nubians’ motivation for dating whites. Who is Withheld to pontificate? A principle scholar? A pioneer?

So the reason is 'deeply rooted in slavery'. What then of Asian, Mediterranean , Oriental, South American on white dating? Colonialism no doubt

Don't say it; we intermix more than any other racial minority. Of course we do. This is where we're born. We are exposed more to this culture than any other. That's ultimately what's rooted in slavery.

And after your barrage of degrading reasons such as immigration status you neglected to mention friendship, sex, compatible values, mutual resonance, similar interests, intellectual stimuli, fondness and empathy borne of a forty hour week familiarity. And here's some mathematical logic. By mere nature of us being six per cent of a host nation scattered across the country, like a spoon of coffee in a mug of milk, there will be mixing and blending

Indeed, why and where would the Justin Fashanu's and the Trish Goddard’s seek a black partner?

I’m not discrediting all you say because much of it is right, but we'll alienate less of our brethren if we pointed the finger less and got out of this claustrophobic orgy of criticismn

DRAMA CRISIS

The article ' much drama out of a crisis', last week fell just short of the greater picture.

It was very interesting and made poignant points.

Aml Ameen is wrong. The idea that street drama cannot define a whole race is one of the most problematic issues woven into our community.

For one because it does and two because a participant cannot see it

Not long ago I was stopped by the police at night because my car

was 'not registered from this area and could thereby have been stolen’ as I had dropped off a girlfriend in Brixton

When in New Zealand where black faces are remote, I gave directions to two American tourists to a restaurant that was effectively from Piccadilly to Kensington, one of them exclaimed "oh he's not going to send us through the hood ?!"

Or when my request at work to change the background music to classical is interrupted with "Oh he wants something more ghetto", I realise that being forty four will not exclude me from contemporary mainstream definitions

My dry witted retort about music of Warsaw in World War 2 brought on a damp silence to a tone of 'spoilsport'.

My nephew in his 20s is a single father, a law courts clerk, has an evening clubs promotions business and is in a mortgage. Where is his dramatic stereotype?

The programme to assassinate the character of and thereby dis-credit the black man began with the first slaves, to justify slavery .Heathen cannibal savages who cooked white men in massive pots.

When that became illegal he was the classic bogey man, rapist and thief and innately uncivilised.

Centuries later he claims society's niche of the poster boy for rebellion, marginalisation, and sociopathic behaviour, maintaining the undertone of savage. It has to date run a consistent course. (Hey, 'if it ain't broke.....), perpetuated in popular culture

and celebrated in pop culture

A tarnished figure will make no headway

LEWIS SCHMEWIS

LEWIS SCHMEWIS

Did I read correctly last week?

Community fuming over Ray Lewis?

Not me.

Though innocent before proven guilty, it seems an open and shut case

The man's been ousted for taking money from unsuspecting elderly and disabled people, sexual improprieties with parishioners and attacking children. All of which are as good as unforgivable in my book.

Let’s not compromise our integrity in our desperate need for respected leadership figures

And let's not demean the race card. His resignation falls in line with the likes of Derek Conway, dropped in January for creaming the coffers and paying his family.

Richard Dalla Riva, lib dem front bench mp , ousted over sexual harassment claims from a teenager via a tabloid paper; Neil Hamilton for bribery. The list goes on and tellingly on

There's much present furore over mp’s and mep's use of public funds for undeclared personal use and many have been brought down and all are white

Jeffrey archer was jailed for perjury

Jonathan Aitkin spun a web of deceit over a £1000 bill and earned himself an 18 month sentence. He served seven.

Even President Nixon’s empire caved in overnight

Its part and parcel of the cynical cutthroat game they're in. Everybody knows that much less them.

Though Lewis’s colour will probably make the road back much more pressurised than others, he's in bed with powerful peer ship and they do look after their own. The conservatives put up a heady fight last month in their support of Caroline Spellman, whose nanny received a good wage from the taxpayer

Peter Mandelson was dropped twice over property and passport fraud and re-posted elsewhere. One of those times by Tony Blair

It’s been said time and again that the demeanours undertaken by these guys earn them much less severity than a single mother on benefits who pulls insignificant strokes by comparison

Our royalty has been the subject of marital infidelities, insensitive excesses, homosexual shenanigans with staff and conspiracy to murder a princess. They have emerged consistently unscathed

Cop joke. Funny ha ha

I think it's right that the west midlands police officer was demoted over the BMW comment. Remember, he was demoted, which is a slap on the wrist, not sacked. The particular 'BMW' play on words comes out of an era of much social and polituical strife betrween black communities and the media led larger community. The 'quip' invokes the sentiment of the times like a secret code for the old guard that may be present. The officer isn't stupid, using the ethos of matured modern liberalism to disguise his rascism as an acceptable joke. His penalty serves to illustrate that you can't just pull the wool over eveybody's eyes . We are still on the ball. Though we are indeed fighting the battle of racism on more graphic fronts, we will stamp on the myriad of weeds that feed it; this being typical. In an ideal utopia these gibes would be confronted as an attack on every turn yes he did cross the line, yes, sir alec ferguson did cross the line. Yes many people are wrongly held to account over a mis-understood comment by the over zealous pc brigade. our challenge is to gague who warrants castigation and who doesn't

DNA dec 2009

Apparently the DNA data of innocent parties would take , six departments and nine officers ten months to be removed. Each case requiring a comprehensive statement of events, dates , locations, names, reference numbers and reasons they should be considered exceptional. This is all to be 'collated with official police reports' and the original officer int the case'

In Scotland, they just wipe it off if it's irrelevant

When I was arrested last summer I was assured that my DNA was required as a matter of arrest procedure. My protests prompted an empathetic near promise that were there no prosecution my DNA would be automatically erased from the system

Confident in my innocence, I relented. A few hours later the charges were dropped. The police, however have taken their scalp and may keep it forever. Their calculated lie betray a draconian agenda, by all data accounts, towards the black community

The European court of human rights has long ruled that the DNA of innocent parties should not be held

Its's beyond marriage stats . Oct/09

The article on black women and marriage, though essentially post research data was trampled by angst feuled hate of stereotypes flying in the face of it. Anonymous , last week wrote that men have all the issues and are hence killing each other

How venemous; how grossly exagerated; howself absolving; how eratically judgemental; how bog standard

There's been so much niggling and mud throwing since on the page where Nick Griffin's smug picture has twice sat that it makes him look successful.

'Too many brothers marry whites ,' 'Brothers out there are second best,' Will this onslaught never stop. As if there's no such thing as a website entitled black women for white men. Is that due to a slave mentality ? Because ask any white man to describe his black girlfriend or fantasy and his language invariably indulges subject references to her exotic booty or chocolate skin.

Let's be honest for a change. Everybody wants to be down with the winning team. It's survival . The winning team pulls the strings, has all the access, and just about all of the fun. One out of sixty eight million we all sell out or compromise to different degrees.

The plethora of issues here stem from self denial, off shot from confusion, which is a direct by product of Willie Lynchism. Plant the seed and watch the hate and division self -perpetuate. It started with the office doors opening to our women long before the men. Now we tear into each other's entire gender in public forums

BNP exposes........

So some bnp addresses have been leaked out

I’m so sick of hearing these bleating sympathies over the privacy rights of the bnp members.

Is any black Britain over the age of 35 naive enough to think that the high ranking bnp members are a genteel organisation that discuss social and political discussable viewpoints over tea, and not a superficially made over national front that used to publicly advocate neo-Nazism and indulge in the beating and maiming of black people wherever one was unfortunate enough to be outnumbered and in a dark alley

They, like anybody else, have their in-house face and their public faces as, to be fair does everybody but under the flexible facade of civiliarity there's a war going on, and for this fleeting moment in time they're getting hot under the collar; let them

True, they have rights, but their party is a product of the culture of dark dissemination and fear which many of therm doubtless instigated, cultivated and derived much pleasure from. If they are to experience one thousanth of what they merrily put a nation of people throuh , and let's remember, in today's society, mindless reactionary violence is hardly probable, let's at least enjoy a little light relief

Bekusconi.......very edited . Published 2 nationals

Berlusconi’s behaviour came at the right time. While we have been suitably drunk on Obama-ism we took our eye off the fact that there is a dark underbelly of racism permeating the species and that western racism has always been characterised by a multi speared onslaught, from genocide to name calling. Remember, this isn't nationalism. This is the privilege of impunity that fascism always enjoyed. Idle or childish, this idiot chooses to trivialise the man at the highest seat of office in the world, but he will reap what he sows through fate because Barak Obama is too big a man to sink to his level. For us it is a reminder that the trials and tribulations that brought us to this stage in our social and political awareness have not been eradicated overnight, and now more than ever we must straighten up and quash with dignity the illegitimate nonsense that has plagued us for hundreds of years , wherever it rears its ugly head. It's been a long time coming,

Farakhan.

It’s that old western forte called hypocrisy. So Farrakhan is an anti Semite? The home truths are that Jewish owned banks were the biggest profiteers from slavery. In fact African slavery was a notoriously Jewish enterprise During apartied, the world’s richest community was the Afrikaner Jews'. When Hitler was slaughtering Jews, the Jewish and Christian churches turned a blind eye, refusing to send even financial aid These are simply facts. As factual as a licence to run a fascistic British national party Repeating them doesn't make me an anti-Semite Farrakhan is anti drugs, anti over processed foods, anti negativity in the black community and he advocates the strongest tool in the struggle for true emancipation; unity. If we had that, it would seriously threaten the status quo That is why Farrakhan is banned from this country

Can we ever shop in peace.....

Much love to the writer of the letter 'Can we shop in peace.'
It was such a release for me I can't express You see, the last time I covertly stormed out of a West end shop, myself imploding, was last Sunday. The black security guard fixed on me so you'd think there was no other matter for miles around. Their ears prick up as though a prey has just stepped into their lair and is inevitebly going to get caught. I've long written about this in personnel verse, as we do produce the blues, but I’ve never heard of it mentioned on a public forum.
It no doubt affects many of us physiologically and emotionally and is something that should be addressed.
While I’m on it, I shudder when I’m approached by a black or wigger who approaches me with a ’Yes big man', or ' you alrite dere boss,' or happens to not notice my 6ft3inch self waiting at bar or shop floor, to serve a person who blatantly shows up after me, who is a foot shorter, maybe standing in my shadow but is white
It's shocking that this is 2008

IT'S NOT JUST YOU THEY TREAT LIKE LITTLE BOYS

Ex-top cop David Michaels states that the Met 'Were showing that they had not fully learnt the lessons of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry ‘.

Well why should they

The Stephen Lawrence affair was wrought with the most miserable corruption, murder, flawed policing from the lowest to the highest office, cowardly buck passing and self confessed racism

It culminated in a family without a son; five near ‘bang to rights’ suspects sticking their fingers up at us, directly accountable officers on short term full paid suspensions, no job losses, no prosecutions a family without a son and no answers.

And you think that today’s force hasn’t learnt a lesson?

On the contrary they've learnt only too well

What grieves me is that the people who haven’t really learnt are the millions who have taken the cheap scapegoat phrase 'institutional racism', and herald it like it was written by God and thrust down to Moses for our salvation

If that's all it took for us to cease firing, ending a pivotal fight for race relations in the history of our Caribean-anglo experience, you really can't blame anybody for taking the mick

GO JADE.

Jade Goody letter two weeks ago was, I must say, a superbly directed stab at a pointless celebrity whose trade has been carved out of the pop media machine by hook or by crook . So though we might see her ultimate demise unfolding in the glare of that sword, she isn't to be written off

This god forsaken cancer may be the catalyst that will propel her career beyond that which India ’s Bigg Boss household show was meant to partially retrieve

On one day last week, Jade's story was the topic of her GMTV interview and had dominated two national newspaper front pages and three popular magazines

With all sympathies to a cancer sufferer due in context, let's be real

Jade is on an assured path to become one of Britain ’s respected figures as a spokeswoman for cervical cancer,

Lifelong empathy from the nation, sympathy sponsored international flights, endorsements and red carpet prestige will follow. Watch this space

PALE ONE vs O BROTHER sept 2008 np

No surprise

A black man pushes the ledger and the great white hopes get earnestly recruited from any and every stone. Hilary couldn't squash the liberal for all the gnashing of her teeth. The rightist Mc Cain's coming unstuck, so in rolls rootin, tootin, pit-bull Sarah Palin.

Ode to historical resonance, Obama asks the press to leave the Palin family's personal affairs out of the media spotlight, while she went shamelessly straight in for the kill.

In the marketing stakes she is out of the blocks on a handicap

There's talk of an affair with her husband's ex business colleague and she's dragging around that poor stupid kid that impregnated her daughter

One day the press quote him as saying he doesn't want to be a father; the very next day, the bohemian teenager locks and mini beard are replaced by a junior corporate look and a forced happy family smile in lieu of his shot-gun hill-billy wedding. He probably couldn't spit at a coyote now for fear of the Palin Klan.

Talking of klan, are they waiting in line?

As for obama, he will always be intensely gauged between the white and the black whatever the topic. Even if he succeeds, retires and writes memoirs.

I wish him the best. I wouldn't want his phenomenal job for all the apple pie in America

. Re rapper Ice T

So.

Ice T reckons that Soulja boy and V.I.C are responsible for the destruction of hip hop. Soulja boy had no reservations about admitting that his hit tune was nonsensical, but it wasn't meant to be anything profound. Too youthful for me but it was entertaining and non-pretentious.

Ice T was one of the first, and by far the most sensational in his time for the pornographic exploitation of 'urban' women in the hip hop genre. He actually took it to another level

It was the cover of the 'Power' album in 1988 whereon he had a much sexualised young lady with cascading hair and a pistol grip spring riot shotgun in her hand, wearing the skimpiest bikini. Worse still, it happened to be his girlfriend. His Home invasion album began with thirty second accapella intro.

It was an authoritive

"Attention!, you are now listening to an Ice T LP. If you are offended by words like shxt, bxtch, fxck, txts (tits), axs, (ass) hxe (hoe),cxm (cum), dirty bxtch, low mother fxcker,nxgga, hooker, slxt (slut), tramp, dirty low slxt tramp bxtch hxe, nxgga fxck shxt (pause) take the tape out now (gunshots)

That is how he defined a rap album.

Swearing in hip hop was just becoming big and ice t jumped on it.

At age forty-eight his 2006 album met much publicised controversy when leading stores refused to stock it because of the degree of sexual exploitation of his wife on the front cover.

Apart from displaying innate juvenille tendency,Ice T has no integrity. Maybe he's jealous and is using Soulja boy's publicity to get back into the limelight

PULLING HOLLYWOOD STYLE

I did it !

Finally, after years of seeing hollywood crooners in fantasticly simple situations, all the elements syncronised for little ol' me. 'All good things' as they say

I stepped into the void of personal space and then said it. With bold veracity, without the fortitude of lads egging me on. i said "You've got beautiful eyes"

I knew i'd do it one day,

And the situation was movie classic . That ultimate magic moment when he sees her, she sees him. Their eyes meet in a typical daily chance encounter and he says something spontaneous, simple and charming. She blushes , and the rest is Richard Gere and Julia Roberts.

The elements ? I was shopping in Borders near Charing Cross and she was a sales assistant. Her head was facing downwards and she was turned to the side

" Excuse me", said I "What time do you close?"

and as she turned around and looked at me she took my breath away, just like that.

She was heavenly. Tied back brunette hair with eyes that really were like lympet pools with the value of sapphires. Brown, accentuated with perfectly shaped brows. Pure, clear skin and a perfect complexion.

It so happened that i was in my most flattering suit, freshly shaved and relaxed . The gods must have been smiling on me. It's gotta be because i'm a ood guy. Even her height was perfect.

The four simple words rolled out. Four little words that linger in our heads like lottery tickets twenty times a day

It's complicated after all. It isn't a crime yet it badgers us, nay purges us every time we don't say it, banging on our grey matter like chinese water torture

The guys want to say it to the girls , the girls want so say it to the guys (mind you we most often actually want to say " fancy a quickie ?" but...) , by and large , breaking down the barriers with a charming pleasantry sits high among fantasy acheivements

And then, when she/he brushes past you on the train and your mental receptors are haywire like a washer on full spin, your eyes dart into your newspaper like a rabbit in a blitz .

You become aware that something as preposterous as (though god forbid,) a train crash or a crack in the earth would pardon you from having to face the accountability for such pathetic human weakness . After all it's only a compliment. Isn't that what we polish our appearence for ?, and you think

' I should have said something right there. I'm sure I was getting the right signals. That was definetly eye contact

And as he/she goes, you see her skipping into a daisy coloured field, holding your hand and delving in hot passions and now she's the future that got away through a sliding door

So there i was, in Borders. I'd just asked here what time closing was and this mermaid looks at me with this masterpiece of a face with sapphires for eyes and i said it.

Tell a wee lie,it was tinged with a smidgen of nerves and i emphasised with 'You've got f***ing beautiful eyes which i think was profound because she responded with the most nervous smile and went red. I could near feel her body temperature rise out of shock induced intimidation rather than flirty coyness and she scurried off muttering "Thank you."

She b-lined off to the safety of her till enclosure and her collleague who was evidently all ears to her bleating outpour

Meanwhile i searched for an alternative exit feeling more like a dork out of Notting Hill

Black western soldiers

The notorious loss of brother Lance Sergeant Dale Mc Callum raises an issue

Joe Lois didn't fire a shot in world war 2 yet received the Legion of Merit medal for "incalculable contribution to moral. In a staged scene he said to the news cameras "Let us at them japs" The press in turn relieved him from stereotypical racial references and only referred to him in sports hero staus as he became the poster boy for black recriutment into a racially segregated army.

In 1966 Muhamad Ali said no vietcong ever called me nigger , the sentiment caused outrage, followed by analasis followed by support, although he ridiculed Joe Louis.

The details comprised of a war that was started and escalated on the basis of greed and stubborn egos and woven into lies. Having not learned enough from history we are in an almost identical situation today in Afghanistan.

It is noticeable that wherein every facet of afro-caribean life has been marked with some degree of negative stereotype bar subscripted soldiers these past few years , this is the only one where racism which was once a prominent issue in the forces, is now not heard of in the press. Instead we have impressive images of the brave Johnson Beharry, and now Dale Mc Callum gracing our front pages

It doesn't take the evaded lessons of the past to see that what we should be addressing is who we are fighting and why

'Is hip hop turning our girls into hoes sept 2008

First things first!

Rap isn't turning anybody into anything. Rap converts records to sales and that's it

Ultimately, if anyone wants to be a hoe that's their personal choice

None of my nieces or sports students behave or dress remotely in such a manner because they don’t commit themselves to the sub-culture. They’re brought up by their parents, not mtv. Their subscriptions end at music purchases and the occasional fashion nod as trends are supposed to be reasonably utilised. In other words, they think out of a bigger box

Let's, as they say, keep it real

The music industry is just that; an industry. And the ethical nature of capital industries precludes moral accountability

The problem with us is that we're still wearily looking for that established slot in the social family of western society; i.e. an identity

So nomadic and desperate are we that we cling to the image that bears something concrete . In the case of hip hop imagery we are offered a sense of impact, status, and redemption. It’s a win win sell. Sex, identity, youthful energy, heroism

Sadly we proceed without caution

For our young, it seems now, that the lure has become a powerful spiral with neither beginning nor end being relevant, as we rejoice in cocking a snoot via medium deemed acceptable

So gratifying is this piece of the pie that perspectives are blinkered

So stimulating to be told that you are the all encompassing nemeses spiting of mediocrity or suppression; that the ill-logic of low slung jeans below the buttocks, synthetic marijuana, associated whiskey brand consumption, dressing in styles that fifteen years ago were the thumbprint of prostitutes on red light district strips have become skewered symbols of expression

This is empowerment against the machine. Indeed it is the sexual empowerment of women at the kitsch extreme

But there are external driving forces

The music industry will reward young black people who promote such an impression and the sex industry, which has the easiest and most experienced marketing job in the world, has long contracted itself to the phenomenal rise of the hip hop epidemic.

Where our involvement becomes particularly more acute, is in that great array of accessible sub - cultures there is none other by which we are presently largely identified.

When a white kid goes to university and professes to be a Goth or rock enthusiast it's expected to be transient experience, for sooner rather than later the big wheel is waiting for him to take his rung, with no uncertain hurdles such as exclusions borne from stereotypes.

Your Ben Eltons , Johnny Rottens , Mick Jaggers have a sofa of respectability waiting for them once they've ditched the hairstyle and taken on the elders' mantle.

And let's not forget; black and mixed race sisters are frustratingly plagued with the age old adage that they are all sexual animals in bed, While nationalities have accolades such as Brazilian women being the world's sexiest, and Latino’s the hottest blood, Italians apparently sophisticated, Asians the most exotic etc et,, the slanderous whisper for the descendants of slavery is that black women are 'goers' i.e. will fulfill male fantasies without self-respect.As per usual, defined with primal animalistic features

Let's be brutally honest

The white man has always enjoyed seeing us sing and dance. It's the only niche market in which we can stake a claim to global prominence.

ARE our kids running around giving the impression they’re immoral? There are thousands of ethicized pretty young models and dancers on screens twenty-four hours a day. Sexualized to the most saleable degree, implying enjoyment, power, belonging and charisma.. Against the scales of proportionaly representing actresses on our screens, of course they are acting like hoes. They're doing as they're jolly well taught