Anyone who reads enough books will come across a few that will profoundly affect your life.  Miseducation of the Negro, Wake of the Wind, and Seven Habits of Highly Effective People have moved me in that way.  Cooked:From the Streets to the Stove, from Cocaine to Foie Gras is now added to the list. Cooked chronicles the life of Chef Jeff Henderson , who went from one of the biggest drug dealer in San Diego to a 19 1/2 year prison sentence, to the executive chef at Cafe Bellagio in Las Vegas.  Chef Jeff details every step of his journey in this compelling piece of literature. What initially struck me about Cooked was the language that was used in the opening passages.  Whenever you see Chef Jeff, he is cleanly shaved, wearing his trademark glasses, as well as a pressed apron or chef's coat.  But as the book begins, the language is coarse, filled with cursing and obscenities.  As Jeff Henderson grows and matures so does his speech and his voice as the author.  I do not recall this particular approach in any of the previous books I've read.  It's actually a pretty clever device.  The take away for ...

Here's my look back at last week and some of the stories the I wasn't able to bring to Dallas South. 1.  The Chicago Tribune's Howard Witt continued his excellent Jena coverage with a story on the release of Mychal Bell .  2.  The demolition of the American Inn in South Dallas is posted at Dallas Progress.  Mike Davis and Dwaine Caraway were instrumental in shutting down the hot sheet motel. 3.  CNN contributor Roland Martin weighs in on Bill O'Reilly's comments about his lunch at Harlem's Sylvia's restaurant. 4.  Electronic Village reports on a Palmdale CA teen beaten by a security guard over refusing to pick up cake crumbs. 5.  Francis Holland writes at the Huffington Post on why the word 'race' word is wrong. 

Today opponents of the  Bush Library and Institute vowed to continue their fight within the 11 million member United  Methodist Church to deny approval to Southern  Methodist University (SMU) to host the Bush complex. The South Central  Jurisdictional Conference of the United  Methodist Church will meet in Dallas from July 15-19, 2008, when it will be asked by SMU to  approve the use of university land for the Bush complex, which will include a  partisan political institute operated totally by the Bush Foundation.  United Methodist opponents of the Bush  complex will ask the 290 elected delegates to the Conference to vote  against this request.  The delegates  in the South Central Jurisdictional Conference represent the 1.83 million United  Methodists living in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico,  Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska,  Arkansas, and Louisiana. Bishop Joe A. Wilson  explains:  "Even though the 21 member Mission Council approved by a vote of  10-4 the use of the SMU property for the Library and partisan Policy Institute,  this decision must be ratified by the larger Jurisdictional Conference which  meets in July of 2008.”  The rules of the Jurisdiction state that, “all  actions taken by the Council shall ...

Less than 30 minutes ago,Mychal Bell was set free at the LaSalle Parish Courthouse.  Bell was flanked by his family, Martin Luther King III, and Rev. Al Sharpton.  (see CNN report here). Earlier, La Salle Parish D.A. Reed Walters made some very odd comments.  Hearing the words come out of his mouth leaves one stunned, again wondering what century this is. "I firmly believe and am confident of the fact that had it not been for the direct intervention of the Lord Jesus Christ last Thursday, a disaster would have happened," Walters said.  "The Lord Jesus Christ put his influence on those people and they responded accordingly," he said, without explaining exactly what he meant. Is Walters talking about some type of riot of blacks in the streets of Jena?  Is he talking about a massacre of protesters by gun toting whites?  Did he mean some sort of race war?  Did Jesus talk to him? Anyway, God bless Mychal Bell, the other five young men involved, their family, and even the "victim" involved.  I pray that Bell will find justice in juvenile court.  This is not over, and it shouldn't be. 

In a story that hits very close to home, the body of missing sales representative Nailah Franklin has been found in suburban Chicago.  The news was confirmed by the uncle of Nailah (pronounced nah-EE'-lah) Franklin. CNN reports that Franklin was found dead Thursday near a forest preserve, not far from where her car was abandoned. Read more about Nailah Franklin and this sad story at Black and Missing But Not Forgotten and CNN. 

I've been a little out of touch for the last few days, but I've turned on CNN 3 times and 3 times the stories have dealt with African-Americans. One story was about a father's anger at the police's response to a fatal car crash involving his son.  CNN quotes the father, Arthur Smith as saying "police did not respond adequately to pleas for help from two teens who survived the crash." Tapes of 911 calls support claims the teens -- both of whom police say had been drinking -- repeatedly asked for help finding their two other friends. "They was right there. I found them, and if I was out there at night, I could have found them with a cigarette lighter. They did not look, they did not look America. They did not attempt to look for them boys." The second story had Bill O'Reilly detailing his experience at Sylvia's a black owned restaurant in Harlem.  CNN quoted O'Reilly as saying that he took civil rights leader Al Sharpton to the Lenox Avenue fixture and "couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's Restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City." He went ...

Tuesday's Chicago Tribune will have a front page article that details the stiffer punishments levied on African-American students in  schools across the country.  Here are some stats from the Howard Witt article: *   In the average New Jersey public school, African-American students are almost 60 times as likely as white students to be expelled for serious disciplinary infractions. *   In Minnesota, black students are suspended 6 times as often as whites. *  In Iowa, blacks make up just 5 percent of the statewide public school enrollment but account for 22 percent of the students who get suspended. Other information gathered for the article: In every state but Idaho, a Tribune analysis of the data shows, black students are being suspended in numbers greater than would be expected from their proportion of the student population. In 21 states—Illinois among them—that disproportionality is so pronounced that the percentage of black suspensions is more than double their percentage of the student body. ...on average across the nation, black students are suspended and expelled at nearly three times the rate of white students. Click here to read the front page Tribune article in its entirety. 

Howard Witt now reports on white supremacist and neo-nazi groups who are forming a response to last Thursday's rally in Jena.  Click here to see Mr. Witt's entire story.  A few excerpts from Tuesday's Tribune: *  No sooner did tens of thousands of African-American demonstrators depart the racially tense town of Jena, La., last week after protesting perceived injustices than white supremacists flooded in behind them. *  First a neo-Nazi Web site posted the names, addresses and phone numbers of some of the six black teenagers and their families at the center of the Jena 6 case and urged followers to find them and "drag them out of the house," prompting an investigation by the FBI. *  David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader, last week announced his support for Jena's white residents, who voted overwhelmingly for him when he ran unsuccessfully for Louisiana governor in 1991. *  "There is a major white supremacist backlash building," said Mark Potok, a hate-group expert at the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group in Montgomery, Ala. "I also think it's more widespread than may be obvious to most people. It's not only neo-nazis and Klansmen-you expect this ...

Today I participated in an extensive discussion on NPR's Talk of the Nation regarding why the national media "missed" the Jena 6 story.  Also on the program was Steven Holmes, national editor for The Washington Post and Keith Woods, dean of faculty at the Poytner Institute Click here to listen to the full discussion and please let me know what you think.

I have had a chance to collect my thoughts since last Thursday's historic rally in Jena, Louisiana, and I wanted to share with you some of my thoughts about the events of the day. 1. Black is Beautiful The suggestions that everyone wear black made the visual impact of last Thursday even more stunning.  As far as the eye could see at any time in any direction folks were dressed in black Once we made it close to the courthouse, the crowd was so think we could hardly move.  But at no point did the situation seem dangerous in any way. There were many times when my companions and I had to retreat because the people flow was at a stand still.   I don't trust any of the estimates under 30,000, and 50-75K is probably more realistic.  2. We Trashed Jena The Jena rally was a peaceful protest, but the day's events produced a lot of trash.  For any future gatherings such as this, there would need to be lots more trash cans in place.  I was on one of the last buses out of Jena, and it was left pretty much like it was found; ...