Natural Hair and Professionalism. An oxymoron? - Black Enterprise

Natural Hair and Professionalism. An oxymoron? - Black Enterprise\\

http://www.longhairdontcare.net/long_hair_dont_care-deleted-20090628-muftz/2011/02/black-hair-article-natural-hair-professionalism-an-oxymoron.html

Above is a link to a fellow blogger on Black Hair....

Here is my take after reading parts of her article..........I know that during the 19th century... and early 20th Century.... it was a given perception that kinky, curly, nappy, short hair was thought to be ugly, unkept and therefore inferior in comparison to America's standard of beauty...that is long, flowing, silky, bouncy hair (now...swing your neck around!)

I collect black ephemera that show the supposedly ugly side of black, nappy-headed children!  This demeaning caricature  of black is rampant in books, laundry soap, watermellon and pancake advertising.  Blacks were being taught to dislike and loathe their hair... their looks consisted of a wide nose, large lips and teeth.  Our looks were said to validate our insides as being 3/5th's of a man... and as being dirty, unruly and lazy!  

Michael Jackson did change his nose and skin color, but back in the 1950's when I was born (hmnnn light-skin and gray eyes... but good lord this hair is nappy!).... the majority of blacks could not change their lips, hips and nose.... so we quickly decided to be like white... and change our hair!  

Why a silky mane of hair... men and women... made us more likeable, employable and more accepable like Sammy Davis and Sam Cooke.  Why Aunt Jemima just wore a headwrap to cover her kinks!

A Culturally Aggresive Action towards the President.....

I picked this up from a FB friend/post!   


NEVER HAS IT BEEN SAID MORE CLEARLY.......for today's white folk who play like they don't understand...   Even I knew something was wrong with this picture and the white media ploy on... the govenor felt threatened.    Obama leans in toward her... and again said let walk off... Much like Jesus... I let folk walk on me when I have the power!   Yep... he's the man! I's Prez...u is govenor.    


.the finger point in the face was both an aggressive act and one attempting to establish superiority?  

Click here to link to the author..... 

A Teachable Racial Moment: On Fingers Pointed in Black Faces

JANUARY 27, 2012

I don’t know when the finger point in the face became such a grave insult to Black folks, but it has been for at least fifty years. And what does the gesture mean anyway?  It means derision. It means disrespect. And above all, it means power to the pointer.

Sidebar: Have you ever seen a mother (of any cultural background) in the mall with her disobedient toddler? She finally gets exasperated and leans down and begins to scold the child—by pointing her finger in his or her face. And what happens? The toddler starts crying, and then gets it together and starts behaving better. Thus, the finger point in the face is not a gesture between equals. She who does the pointing is establishing herself as a superior to the person being pointed at.

........................................Okay, and now, I’m about to reveal a Racial Secret. Are you ready? I’m going to put this in italics so you really get it.

Because the finger point gesture establishes superiority, the gesture is even worse if a White person does it to a Black person, due to the history in this country of White supremacist violence and cultural demeaning of Black folks.

Nice Non-Racist White folks, this may seem silly to y’all. And I get that. Right now, you may be saying, “Dang, Black folks got too many rules! It’s so hard to keep up with y’all!” That’s true. I won’t deny it. So many rules, even I have a hard time keeping up.

Just because President Obama doesn’t talk about that racial script doesn’t mean he isn’t well aware of our nation’s troubled history concerning White women and Black men, which is why he walked away from Governor Brewer. I’m pretty sure that, as a Black man, he was angered by her culturally transgressive act, but he had the presence of mind to get himself together before he broke all the way fool on the tarmac with that lady and not only ended up in jail, but went down in history as 1) the first Black president and 2) the first president who physically assaulted a woman in public.

.................................But he saved himself, because President Obama is an Old School Brother. And it is never acceptable for an Old School Brother to hit a woman, whether or not she has committed an act of aggression. And let me tell you that you don’t really want to know what would have happened if Governor Brewer had pointed her finger in the face of another Black man—not an Old School Brother but one of these Young Knuckleheads With No Sense.

Eh, Lord, it would have been so ugly. And that’s all I’m going to say.

Polite, kind, respectful, self-controlled, and full of common sense: that’s how Old School Brothers get down. And by the way, that’s why I really adore them. And that’s why, despite the fact thatPresident Obama hasn’t been a perfect leader (at least in my opinion), as a Sister, I feel extremely proud of him. And I bet Mrs. Obama does, too.

Thus, he has my vote....eternally!

Lie, Lie Pants on Fire

First Read.... MSNBC

.........But while Adelson and Gingrich have bonded on the issue of a hawkish Mideast policy, especially over the threat of a nuclear Iran, some of the casino mogul’s comments could prove embarrassing.

In a talk to an Israeli group in July, 2010, Adelson said he wished he had served in the Israeli Army rather than the U.S. military—and that he hoped his young son would come back to Israel and “be a sniper for the IDF,” a reference to the Israel Defense Forces. (YouTube video of speech)

“I am not Israeli. The uniform that I wore in the military, unfortunately, was not an Israeli uniform.  It was an American uniform, although my wife was in the IDF and one of my daughters was in the IDF ... our two little boys, one of whom will be bar mitzvahed tomorrow, hopefully he’ll come back-- his hobby is shooting -- and he’ll come back and be a sniper for the IDF,” Adelson said at the event.

“All we care about is being good Zionists, being good citizens of Israel, because even though I am not Israeli born, Israel is in my heart,” he said toward the end of his talk.  

Lie, Lie Pants on Fire! 

Adelson’s company, the Las Vegas Sands,  disclosed last year that it was being investigated by the U.S. Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission over allegations by a former top company executive that Adelson directed him to put a local government official on its payroll in Macau — a potential violation of a U.S. anti-bribery law.  The firm has denied the allegations, saying they come from a lawsuit filed by a disgruntled former employee.

Adelson also earned a reputation in Las Vegas as a fierce foe of labor unions after he bought the legendary Sands Hotel, home base of Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack, and then blew it up in 1996.

About 1,500 casino workers lost their jobs.  Adelson built a spectacular new hotel in its place, the Venetian, but locked out the state’s powerful Culinary Workers Union, which resulted in street protests and lawsuits.

Union official D. Taylor (sic) said that Adelson’s security officials at the Las Vegas Sands Hotel tried to have the protestors outside his hotel arrested, but Las Vegas police refused.

“He claimed that he owned the sidewalks,” Taylor said.  Georgia Democratic “congressman John Lewis led us on the sidewalks to say that nobody’s going to own the people on the sidewalks,” he added. “Sheldon then appealed the decision of the police not to arrest us all the way to the Supreme Court.”

Taylor said Adelson lost that battle — the courts upheld a finding of anti-labor practices against his company — but now the casino mogul thinks he can purchase a presidency.

“I think it’s very scary that any one candidate would be so beholden to one persona, a billionaire, who obviously has a very specific agenda that he wants to achieve,” said Taylor

Can I get a Billionaire friend ? ? ?

Billionaire Sheldon Adelson and his wife have given GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich's super-PAC $10 million, the biggest cash infusion in the race for the White House. NBC's Michael Isikoff reports on the couple behind the contribution.

“I don’t think it’s buying a presidency any more than it was when Joe Kennedy helped his son,” Sig Rogich, a veteran Republican operative who serves as Adelson’s government affairs consultant, said in an interview about the massive donations that the casino mogul has made to Gingrich’s super PAC.

Adelson, 78, who has a personal fortune estimated at $21 billion, “plays to win” and “puts his money where his mouth is,” Rogich added. 

In the last three weeks,Adelson and his Israeli-born wife Miriam have pumped $10 million into the Winning Our Future Super PAC. Those donations provided a critical cash infusion that helped revive Gingrich’s candidacy, bankrolling attack ads againstMitt Romney in South Carolina and now Florida.  They’ve also made the Adelsons the largest known donors so far in a presidential race awash with money under new rules allowing unlimited donations to so-called super PACs

But the contributions have also raised new questions about Adelson’s outside role in influencing the campaign.  Those questions could intensify as a result of potentially provocative comments he has made about Israel uncovered by NBC News. 

Slave Ship Republican Ad..... 2012

Help turn this ship around! Go to http://MarkOxnerForCongress.com to stopObama and his pet progressive parrot,  ALAN GRAYSON......

Tuskegee Men and Women

The Root:  


In 1941 Eleanor Roosevelt, at Bethune's urging, convinced theRosenwald Fund (which had a long history of supporting various kinds of projects aimed at ameliorating American race relations, and on whose board she served) to help expand the pilot-training program at Tuskegee. 


And then in March of that year, Roosevelt not only visited the Tuskegee Institute's Moton Airfield but, incredibly, also asked the chief flight instructor, Charles A. "Chief" Anderson, to take her on a flight, against the adamant objections of the Secret Service.

This is quite likely the first time a black man flew a plane with a white woman as his passenger. Roosevelt spent over an hour in the skies above Tuskegee. She returned to Washington and lobbied her husband to integrate America's aviation forces. 

According to the FDR Presidential Library and Museum, she declared that all the statements she had heard that blacks couldn't fly planes were bunkum.

Flying Through the Open Doors: Willa Beatrice Brown

The Tuskegee Airmen also owed a debt to Willa Beatrice Brown, one of two women in the all-black Challenger Air Pilots Association, founded in 1935. Brown was one of about 100 licensed black pilots in the entire country. She also became the first African-American woman to receive a commission as a lieutenant in the U.S. Civil Air Patrol.

An expert in business administration and public relations and a dedicated aviator, Brown played a critical role in promoting the image of black aviators to help fight racial prejudice and expand opportunities for all blacks. She became chair of the association's education committee and appeared in the offices of the Chicago Defender, the famed black paper of the era, to convince the paper to cover the association's air shows.

Enoch Waters, one of the paper's editors, visited an air show and became so impressed with the talent he saw that the Defender became a sponsor of the association. The paper, because of Brown's appeal, also began covering all aspects of black aviation, and soon other black papers followed suit, especially the influential Pittsburgh Courier.

Because several American black aviators had gone to fight the Italian fascists in Ethiopia in 1935, national interest in black pilots had increased. Brown exploited the growing fame of black pilots and helped organize Chicago's National Airmen's Association of America in 1937, which chartered branches across the country (except in the Deep South). 

Without Brown's work, African-American interest in aviation could have languished.

When black activists urged Truman to desegregate the military in 1948, they could point to the heroism of the "Red Tails" pilots to prove that black servicemen had earned the equal treatment that they deserved as loyal Americans. But without the bold imagination of Mary McLeod Bethune, the persistent advocacy of Willa Beatrice Brown and the sheer stubbornness of her friend Eleanor Roosevelt, it is doubtful that Tuskegee Airmen 

would have come into being.

And while I found the depiction of the relationship between one of the airmen and his Italian fiancée quite touching (in a nod to a similar romance depicted in Spike Lee's Miracle at Santa Ana), it is a pity that the contributions of these three women -- two black, one white -- couldn't have been called up to frame the action of this very important film.

Henry Louis Gates Jr. is director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University, and editor-in-chief of The Root.

Great statements from a fellow blogger!!!

Another debate.  Gee, South Carolinians have been looking for anyone but Willard.  They have made up their minds (it's hard to use the word mind in association with South Carolina Trogs).  They seem to have selected the intellectual Visigoth from Georgia as Perry went back to being a full time asshole from El Paso.

The crowd loved Groingich's attack on the press.  They did not care that the basis of the question was his basic amoral hypocritical nature.  One of his former wives claims that Newt wanted to be a swinger, didn't get his way, and dumped her for #3 after six years of adultery.  Newt is a real piece of work.  I have trouble with the words devout and Catholic being used in association with either of the current Groingichs.  Do you?

Willard proved, once again, to be tone deaf to the 99%.  We still don't know when we'll see his 1040.  If he had opened the "debate" with a statement along the lines of "I have decided to do as my Dad did in 1967.  As we speak 12 years of my tax records are being released..." he might have kept his lead.  To most folks he's just one more rich prick who'd look real good with a pitchfork stuck in his ass.  Bain may be his bane, after all a proper capitalist is not a vulture.

All in all, the "debate" confirmed that South Carolina's Trogs don't want a Mormon, a libertarian, or an holier than thou prig from Pennsylvania.  It has to frustrate folks in SC, all they are left to vote for is a Catholic (at least he once was a Baptist ).  The edge goes to Newt.  Willard's lead after New Hampshire didn't make sense, I forgot how slow folks are in the Palmetto state

South Carolina Primary

The conservative vote in South Carolina remains split between Gingrich, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and Texas Gov. Rick Perry going into the closing days before the Jan. 21 primary in the state. 

Each has been rallying voters behind their candidacy as the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who would see as the heavy favorite to win the nomination if he were to score a victory in South Carolina. 

"It is now long ago that I resolved that I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him."

- Booker T. Washington
1856-1915, Educator and Author

And the beat goes on . . . . . . Primary Elections 2012

In the past 25 years, the state has thrown 11th hour curve balls to many well-funded front-runners who were expected to win its primary. Among them: Walter Mondale in 1984, Bill Clinton in 1992,George W. Bush in 2000, Howard Dean in 2004, and Obama.

This year, it’s Romney who’s looking over his shoulder, as he approaches Tuesday’s first-in-the nation primary.


Santorum and Huntsman need a strong showing to springboard into South Carolina for its Jan. 21 primary—and both say a strong second finish is possible. Pollster Smith says Huntsman may have the best chance of surging into second, although he cautions that the former Utah governor doesn’t seem to be attracting the Republican base, but Independents and “undeclared” voters who may not be as committed to turn out Tuesday.

Voters here detest coronations, and they have a very long history of taking contrarian positions in elections. 

......Just ask Barack Obama, who was leading Hillary Clinton in 2008 by 13 points the day before the primary. He was gliding into rallies like a rock star as thousands of people waited in freezing weather to see him. She was tearing up in a diner, looking like loser. Pundits were writing her obituary.

Just when it seemed Clinton was finished, New Hampshire gave her a stunning upset victory, throwing the Obama campaign into chaos.

These folks do not want to feel the fix is in. And they don’t pay attention to the horse race.

“I don’t want to be told to vote for a candidate because he’s ahead in the polls—I want to get up close and personal and decide for myself,”