Pin a few dollars on his lapel under his flag pin, President Obama turned 48 today.  Check his belly button was he really born though?  If so, he couldn't have been born in the U.S......maybe Hawaii.  So to President Barack Obama, I say, HAPPY BIRTHDAY....wherever you were born. Photo: Alex Brandon/Associated Press - President serving cake as a candidate last year on his 47th birthday

"Charlie gives this talk, 'We do something special at Notre Dame,' and (the players) get up and they do this little cheer ... this little fa**** dance." University of Hawaii Head Football Coach Greg McMackin [Had I] been the officer he verbally assaulted like a banana-eating jungle monkey, I would have sprayed him in the face with OC (oleorosin capsicum, or pepper spray) deserving of his belligerent non-compliance.” Boston police officer Justin Barrett "We won't tell you who's getting a bottle of Mad Bitch."  Suggesting a beer Hillary Clinton could have had with the President and his guests. Dana Milbank, Washington Post It's like a bad joke....A racist, a sexist, and a homophobe walk into a bar.  At least officer Barrett had the decency to be a racist via the privacy of email.  Milbank and McMakin not only made their comments in public, they expected laughs. Hawaii suspended McMackin for 30 Days without pay, and Barrett has also been suspended and is probably on his way to being fired.  But the  Washington Post hasn't made a decision on Milbank's turn on "Mouthpiece Theater." While the nation wants to pat one another on the back and make "post-racial" the new black (that's confusing) it's still business as usual for ...

Henry Louis Gates released a statement to TheRoot.com (which was sent to Dallas South) regarding the President's invitation to have a beer at the White House with the officer who arrested him. Gates,Editor-in-Chief of The Root., accepted President Obama's offer. "It was very kind of the President to phone me today. Vernon Jordan is absolutely correct: my unfortunate experience will only have a larger meaning if we can all use this to diminish racial profiling and to enhance fairness and equity in the criminal justice system for poor people and for people of color. And to that end, I look forward to studying the history of racial profiling in a new documentary for PBS. I told the President that my principal regret was that all of the attention paid to his deeply supportive remarks during his press conference had distracted attention from his health care initiative. I am pleased that he, too, is eager to use my experience as a teaching moment, and if meeting Sgt. [James] Crowley for a beer with the President will further that end, then I would be happy to oblige. After all, I first proposed that Sgt. Crowley and I meet as early ...

One of the biggest complaints that I heard regarding last year's groundbreaking spcecial Black in America on CNN, was that it painted the African-American community with a negative brush. Struggling fathers and mothers, Black women who can't find a man, people in prison, the argument was there for the making.  But it was also the place I remember hearing that White Americans with a felony have a better chance of getting a job than African-Americans without one. This time, CNN is touting a solutions oriented approach with Black in America 2 that airs Wednesday night at 8 PM Central, and Thursday night at 7 PM.  Without directly responding to criticism of their generally well received first attempt, marketing for the program has promised something more. Last night my family and I sat down to watch the 40 minute screener sent to us by CNN.  There were five impactful segments which were included: The story of "Journey for Change," a youth empowerment program founded by activist Malaak Compton-Rock A segment on Black Marriages and one couple's fight to stay together A look at the Tyler Perry phenomenon and the success of his studio Steve Perry and Capital Prep, a school he founded in Hartford, Conn.  Capital Prep has ...

Here is a statement released by Charles Olgletree who has been retained by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. after he was arrested at his Cambridge Massachusettes home. This information was posted at theroot.com and distributed. Statement on Behalf of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. -- by Charles Ogletree This brief statement is being submitted on behalf of my client, friend, and colleague, Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. This is a statement concerning the arrest of Professor Gates. On July 16th, 2009, Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., 58, the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor of Harvard University, was headed from Logan airport to his home [in] Cambridge after spending a week in China, where he was filming his new PBS documentary entitled “Faces of America”. Professor Gates was driven to his home by a driver for a local car company. Professor Gates attempted to enter his front door, but the door was damaged. Professor Gates then entered his rear door with his key, turned off his alarm, and again attempted to open the front door. With the help of his driver they were able to force the front door open, and then the driver carried Professor Gates’s luggage into his home. Professor Gates immediately ...

Hat tip to Baratunde Thurston for the heads up on this story.  Baratunde writes as a post alerting of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates being arrested at his home in Cambridge, Massachusettes by police investigating a possible break in. According to Huffington Post, a woman called Cambridge police out to the neighborhood when she reported that someone was trying to pry open the door to Gates' home.  HuffPo says officers asked Gates to identify himself, and took him away in handcuffs after he refused to do so. Gates has retained the services fellow Harvard professor Charles Ogletree, to serve as his lawyer.  Not good Cambridge.

Watch the video and read Pam House Blend's take.  I have nothing to say about Pat Buchanan's take on judge Sotomayor.....O.K. one thing. The reason Pat Buchanan gets paid by MSNBC is because he is a white conservative male. That's affirmative action by his definition. But by the real definition, it's not because he's not qualified. That's enough of him.

Let me start by saying this: I like fried chicken, I like Kool Aid, I like Watermelon. Now, when I first heard about Martellus Bennett's (aka Marty B) Black Olympics video on YouTube, I kind of brushed it aside.  As a fellow Texas A&M alum, I have followed Bennett since he shocked everyone by signing a letter of intent to play Tight End for the Aggies, so I knew he had an interesting sense of humor. It wasn't the first time Bennett has been in trouble for his YouTube exploits, and unfortunately, it probably won't be the last.  So after listening to talk about the video on the radio, I pulled up Marty BTV to take a look at what all the fuss was about. Chicken eating contest, not too bad.  Kool Aid drinking contest, still watching.  But it was something about watching two grown African-American men have a watermelon eating contest that was just a little too much to handle. I checked out Jean Jacques Taylor's column today in regards to Bennett, and I thought it was a little heavy.  Martellus was born March 10, 1985, which was already 30 years removed from the Montgomery Bus Boycott.  To expect him to think of ...

Looks like a Pennsylvania Summer Camp group may have fallen victim to civil rights era discrimination when they wanted to go for a swim recently.  According to Philadelphia's NBC Television affiliate, a group of African-American summer campers were prohibited from going to a private pool they had already paid to use. View more news videos at: http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/video. Here's some of the story as it appears online. "I heard this lady, she was like, 'Uh, what are all these black kids doing here?' She's like, 'I'm scared they might do something to my child,'" said camper Dymire Baylor. The Creative Steps Day Camp paid more than $1900 to The Valley Swim Club. The Valley Swim Club is a private club that advertises open membership. But the campers' first visit to the pool suggested otherwise. "When the minority children got in the pool all of the Caucasian children immediately exited the pool," Horace Gibson, parent of a day camp child, wrote in an email. "The pool attendants came and told the black children that they did not allow minorities in the club and needed the children to leave immediately." And what was the reason given for being turned around?  "There was concern that a lot of kids would change the ...

I met Ryan Grim online back in 2007 when he was with Politico and have kept in touch with him over the years.  I was excited to learn about his new book that I'm hoping to get my hands sometime soon.  It's titled This is Your Country on Drugs.  I hope to get an interview with Ryan after I read through his book, but until then, I'll post a few of excepts that appeared at The Root. In the summer of 1996, the San Jose Mercury News broke the story of the connection between L.A. crack dealers and the U.S. funded Nicaraguan Contras. More than a month later, the Washington Post weighed in with a five-story, roughly 10,000-word broadside that ripped the series apart, debunking its central tenets and wondering aloud what it is about black people that makes them so paranoid.   The Post’s editorial board explained that “the shock of the story for many was not simply the sheer monstrousness of the idea of an official agency contributing to a modern-day plague—and to a plague targeted on blacks. The shock was the credibility the story seems to have generated when it reached some parts of the black community.”But it wasn’t their fault they were so gullible, the Postassured in ...