Righteous Anger

For now, this is an Anthology of sorts. A Collection. Part of it is who I am. But mainly who and what I used to be. I have FINALLY completed the task of transporting my "Classic" blogs to Blogspot. If you're not familiar, by all means, get familiar.

The Truth Sayer isn't really me, it's an aspect of my personality. My Righteous Anger. My Defiance. My Strength. The Truth Sayer is the Poet, the MC, the rally crier... I am not.

The Truth Sayer uses occasional colorful euphemisms that have never been a part of my life. I can't quite call it a character, because it's ME. Just not the whole Me.

Many of these writings are 3, 4, 5 years old. Looking back, I can see where I was 5 years younger, less experienced, and less mature. Minus some 2010 Updates, these are preserved just as they were.


And you can see that I was right about EVERYTHING. =)

Enjoy.

4 cops in Oakland killed

Lovelle Mixon, below, pictured with his uncle.

Living in East Oakland for most of my life, I have developed a justified sense of hostility towards the police. Living in Los Angeles in the late 90's didn't help. I shout "F.T.P" (X Clan reference) even though I have a cousin who has been an officer for Oakland's own police department.

Mind you, I have never been a pants-sagging, white t-shirt/skirt wearing kinda guy. So I am sure that there are many many others who have had far worse run-ins with Johnny Law than I have.

Oscar Grant comes to mind.

With that being said, I don't know if there are too many right-minded people out there who can justify what the now deceased Lovelle Mixon is accused of. It's murder when they kill us. It's murder when we kill them. And if you only believe 0.01% of what the news is telling us, Lovelle Mixon was the kind of dude who would kill us or them. The world may possibly be a better place without him.

Tonight (Weds) in Oakland, a vigil and rally was held for Lovelle Mixon and his family @ Uhuru House in East Oakland, just blocks from where everything "went down" on Saturday. Every news report I could find, every comment saw this as a completely shameful thing. How can you support his family? How could you honor his life or (God Forbid) mourn his death? How dare you act like this dude was a human being with a mother and a father and siblings and emotions and hopes and fears and pain and... LOVE? I'm sure somewhere there are baby pictures of him. He deserved better than the life he lived.

Let me repeat. I'm not okay with anybody killing anybody. When I see shady stuff going on, I'll call 911 in a second, and I will stand in the middle of the street and tell every uniformed and undercover cop every single thing I saw.

What went down on Saturday? None of us knows anything as a fact yet. The newsmedia changes the story every two hours. There will be no day in court.

The life his Creator breathed into him is gone. Your life is better when you attempt to see everyone around you as a human being. Our lives will be collectively improved once we say that we will NEVER let another young man walk the life path that this cat did. You will be safer. You will be less likely to be robbed, kidnapped, shot, stabbed, raped, carjacked, etc. if we all would work to find some way to prevent somebody else's baby boy from living and ending his life in this way.

American's have agreed to stupider things in the name of safety. (Okay, you need to put GPS in everything and wiretap my phone without having a valid reason? Yes you can.)

That's all I have to say.

I was inspired to write this by a comment I read on a blog site. Among a hundred comments calling every citizen of Oakland every name in the book, this really stood out to me.

"My heart goes out to Lovelle Mixon and his family. We will probably never know what really happened when Lovelle Mixon was stopped by the two motorcycle riding members of the Oakland Police Department. The evidence was quickly concealed and swept away by the police. Interpretation of the "facts" may depend on which side you choose to stand on in understanding the ongoing tensions between the police and the black community.

Kamika Dunlap, staff writer for the Oakland Tribune, reported that Lovelle was on the cell phone with his uncle when he was pulled over by police. He was parking his car and told his uncle that he would have to call him back. He never got the chance. How did he come to the point of shooting the two policemen who pulled him over?

The mainstream media are answering that question in the predictable manner -- by smearing his name. The death of yet another African man at the hands of the police is justified by a recital of his prison record and a warrant for parole violation. Now the media is convicting him for crimes he was never even charged with.

Not everybody is buying into this perspective. Some have a different perspective because they live in a very different reality. This is the half that believed that O.J. didn't do it(!). This half doesn't get a voice in mainstream media. Many of these people fear the police. Their encounters with the police and the state hold great potential for loss of resources, bodily harm, prison and death.

I use the word "their" because I am not of them. I am white and I will never know this fear. My relationship with the state is one of privilege, protection, assumed innocence.

I'm not some guilty liberal. I don't believe in self-flagellation. I do believe in responsibility -- to my neighbors, my community, my world. How can we pretend that we don't see or don't understand?

Human beings originated in Africa! African civilization was advanced and humane and complex. The Europeans brought slavery, genocide and devastation of African society. We break their wings and blame them for not being able to fly. We break their legs and punish them for being crippled.

That's old Malcolm X talk but has anything changed? We've got Oprah and Obama now but East Oakland, Southside of Chicago, Brooklyn and West Philly never seem to change no matter what the color of mayor, governor or president.

So, where does that leave us? Lovelle Mixon is dead but he took four police with him. His death was NOT caught on video so the media reads us his rap sheet to prove he was bad. Oscar Grant is dead and he was unarmed, laying on his stomach on the BART station platform pleading with his friends to cooperate with the police. His murder at the hands of the "peace officers" WAS caught on video. But he's still dead. Sean Bell is dead -- unarmed and shot fifty times by NYPD on his wedding day. Adolph Grimes III is dead -- unarmed and shot nine times in the back by New Orleans police in front of his grandma's house on New Year's Day. Javon Dawson -- shot twice in the back at his graduation party, while his hands were raised, by a St. Petersburg, Florida cop who just returned from combat in Iraq. And on. And on. Everywhere. Every day.

I'm just saying. This ain't no ordinary war.


There was a young lady at the laundromat this evening declaring loudly to her boyfriend that the "black guy" who killed the policemen was definitely evil. She literally had no other analysis than that. Sadly, that level of discourse is too common.

I believe we can do better. We can open our eyes to the reality that's in front of us. We can start with education. Ask questions. Do research.

The internet is a terrible thing to waste."

Israeli forces shell UN office in Gaza

By IBRAHIM BARZAK and CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA, Associated Press Writers

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) --
Israeli artillery shells struck the U.N. headquarters in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, setting a food warehouse ablaze and drawing a sharp rebuke from the visiting U.N. chief who called it an "outrage." Another Israeli bombardment killed Hamas' head of security.

The attack added to a day of deadly chaos pitting Israeli troops against Islamic militants. Terrified residents huddled in shelters and stairwells, or scooped up toddlers and fled on foot.

After nightfall, shells landed near Gaza City's Quds Hospital, where many families had sought refuge, and the building caught fire, forcing staff to evacuate hundreds of people. According to a hospital medic, some patients were pushed down the street on gurneys; a few held white flags.

The destruction added to what aid groups say is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza and ratcheted up tensions between Israel and the international community even as diplomats indicated progress in cease-fire talks.
Warfare continued Friday. Before dawn, Israeli aircraft struck about 40 targets all over Gaza, according to military officials speaking on condition of anonymity because an official announcement hadn't been released. No casualties were immediately reported.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was departing Thursday night for Washington to discuss a Gaza cease-fire with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The United States and Egypt have been working to forge an agreement to end 20 days of bitter fighting.

High-level Israeli envoy Amos Gilad discussed that cease-fire plan in Cairo Thursday with Egyptian officials. After he consulted with Israeli leaders on returning to Jerusalem, they ordered him back to Cairo Friday for further talks, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said.

The U.N. compound, made up of workshops and warehouses as well as offices, was struck about a half-dozen times over a roughly two-hour period while more than 700 civilians were sheltering there, said John Ging, head of Gaza operations for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency.

The civilians were huddling in the compound's vocational training center when it was struck by a tank round or an artillery shell, causing the three injuries, Ging said. Throughout this time, he said, U.N. officials were frantically contacting Israeli officials to urge an end to the firing on the U.N. compound.

Olmert said Hamas militants opened fire from the U.N. compound. "It is absolutely true that we were attacked from that place, but the consequences are very sad and we apologize for it," he said. The military said it was still investigating.

The attack triggered a raging fire that engulfed a warehouse and destroyed thousands of pounds of food and other aid intended for Gaza's beleaguered citizens. Workers with fire extinguishers and Palestinian firefighters, some wearing bulletproof jackets, struggled to douse flames and tugged bags of flour from the debris.
Fuel supplies and cars in a garage also went up in flames.

Ging said the contacts with Israeli officials were made under a new liaison system aimed at preventing any attack similar to the shelling at a U.N. school in northern Gaza earlier this month that killed about 40 people. At the time, Israel said militants had fired on army positions from the area.

An Israeli airstrike killed Interior Minister Said Siam, a key figure in Hamas who oversaw thousands of security agents, Hamas TV said. A top aide, Siam's brother and his brother's family also were killed.
"We are talking about a key person in terms of logistics in the field, and also in the political sense," said Bassem Zbeidy, a Hamas expert in the West Bank.

He said Siam's death was a "huge loss for Hamas," but noted that the movement is easily capable of generating new leaders, often more radical than their predecessors.

Israel's intense assaults Thursday seemed to reflect an extra push to pressure Hamas negotiators into making concessions on a cease-fire and punish the militant group as much as possible before any end to hostilities.
Israel launched the offensive Dec. 27 to end Hamas rocket attacks on Israel. Gaza medics say about 1,100 Palestinians, half of them civilians, have died; 13 Israelis have also been killed.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, visiting Israel, said Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told him the attack on the U.N. compound was a "grave" error and apologized for it.
"I conveyed my strong protest and outrage to the defense minister and foreign minister and demanded a full explanation," said Ban, who arrived Thursday from Egypt.

Israel's chief military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Avi Benayahu, said the military had not clarified the incident and that an investigation was under way.
"If it becomes clear that we returned shots at the source of fire, we will say so, and if it turns out we operated by mistake, we will not hesitate to confess," Benayahu told Israeli television.

Ging described the Israeli claim as "total nonsense" and "typical misinformation."

He said his staff in Tel Aviv was told by the Israeli liaison office "that there were no militants in the compound. There were militants operating ... in the area, but no militants or any firing from our compound. That's the official position of the Israeli authorities that deal with us. It happens, to my knowledge here, to be representative of the facts."

U.N. officials said hundreds of people sheltering in the compound were forced to flee, and that the Israeli shells contained white phosphorus, an incendiary agent that can cause horrific injuries. After the shelling, fire spread to nearby fuel tankers in the compound, triggering another massive blast.

The U.N. compound distributes food aid to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the tiny seaside territory of 1.4 million people.

Ging said the U.N. had warned the Israeli military that the compound was in peril from shelling that had begun overnight. U.N. officials say they have provided Israel with GPS coordinates of all U.N. installations in Gaza to prevent such attacks.

The U.N. Security Council expressed "grave concern" and requested a briefing from U.N. officials.
"We are calling all parties to respect international humanitarian law and especially to ensure the protection of civilians," said Jean-Maurice Ripert, France's U.N. ambassador.

An artillery shell hit the Quds Hospital pharmacy, and another shell landed on its front steps early in the day. It caught fire after nightfall, forcing the evacuation.

"There's gunfire, and warplanes above us," medic Abdul Aziz Aishe said by cell phone as he and a group of people fled. Ambulances ferried them to another hospital.

Dr. Moaiya Hassanain, a Gaza health official, said at least 70 people were killed or died of wounds throughout Gaza on Thursday.

Israeli shells also hit five high-rise apartment buildings and a building housing media outlets in Gaza City, injuring several journalists.

Bullets hit a building housing offices of The Associated Press, entering a room where two staffers were working but wounding no one. The Foreign Press Association, representing journalists covering Israel and the Palestinian territories, demanded a halt to attacks on press buildings.

The army had collected the locations of media organizations at the outset of fighting to avoid such attacks.
Gaza City resident Sami Helu, 34, was evacuated by the international Red Cross after he, his wife and 8-year-old daughter sheltered from withering fire around their apartment in the Tel Hawwa neighborhood. During the escape, he saw cars and buildings gutted by fire, bomb craters, speeding ambulances and fallen electricity poles.
"I saw suitcases abandoned, I think from people fleeing the area," Helu said. "There was a car still running, there was some money inside."

Israeli police said 20 rockets hit southern Israel, injuring 10 people. Five of the wounded were in a car in the city of Beersheba.

Olmert's office said Rice telephoned him, and he told her Israel hoped Egyptian mediators could help bring about a cease-fire and an end to weapons smuggling. The statement said Rice, who leaves office Tuesday, told Olmert that the U.S. was willing to help resolve the smuggling issue.

The Bush administration was racing in its final days to negotiate a deal on American support for mediation efforts under which the U.S. would give technical support and expertise to prevent Hamas from rearming, said U.S. and Israeli diplomats.

The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the talks.
Israel wants a total end to Hamas' rocket launches into Israel and an arms embargo on Gaza's militant rulers. Hamas has demanded an immediate Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the opening of blockaded border crossings.

"These are our demands and we don't accept any political movement that does not accept them," the movement's top political leader, Khaled Mashaal, said in a televised address from his headquarters in Damascus, Syria.

Ban said Israel was preparing to decide soon on whether to accept a cease-fire.
"I hope that decision will be the right one," he said after meeting Israeli President Shimon Peres.
In addition to the attack on the U.N. office, Israel shells landed next to a U.N. school in another Gaza City neighborhood, wounding 14 people who had sought sanctuary there, medics and firefighters said.

George Carlin: On Politics, Politicians & the Public

I miss this man. One of the last Truth Sayers.

Politicians suck because the American Public sucks.
Americans are greedy, selfish, and ridiculously short-sighted.

For your willingness to throw away your morals and values for bullshit.... you deserve everything bad that happens to you.

See you on November 5th.

Reason 632 why I can not and will not support Barack Obama

50 million people talking about the speech.
Annoying as hell that I had to listen to the soundbytes EVERYWHERE.

Dropped by my cafe, Coffee With a Beat, hung out with the OGs for a little while, and they were really trying to put it on me. So much so that I had to promise to download and watch the speech.

So I did.

And I can say after watching it, I can understand it. I get it. It makes sense to me.

These same people acting a GOT-damn fool over this empty rhetoric are the same ones jumping around church speaking in tongues, running in the aisles acting like retards.

I get it.

I watched the speech and all I could say to myself is: "This must have been written by a Jew." It just had that..... ew.

So, I decided to look up the dude who writes Barry's speeches.





Yeah.... makes sense now.

That speech was garbage. And I am truly pleased to see Drs. West and Malveaux say publicly, openly, and intelligently, what I have been saying angrily and privately.

We can be fully aware of the moment, of the history, of the importance of what's happening...

...and still be critical. We can still call it like it is.

 

Dear Superhead: Can you please get AIDS and die already? Sincerely, The Truth Sayer

Let me go ahead and say it for you.

"You wrong. You shouldn't wish death upon people."
"AIDS is nothing to joke about."
"Men been doing it for years, why you picking on Superhead?"
"Blah blah blah blah"

If you worship, idolize, respect, follow, listen to, or read books by this broad, keep it to yourself. You will not win here.

Oh HELL naw

If you live in Chicago, please bust a head open "til the white meat shows" for me.

ATTENTION: All White DJs

Please stop.





























That is all.

Hard

I have two friends who have recently decided to leave their husbands.

Friend one credits me for convincing her to get married, ergo she was wide open for wack dude's advances. It became painfully obvious soon after they were married that dude was a "mark busta". Very casually one day she ended an email with "Pray for me. I am leaving my husband."

Sucks.


Friend two was at one time a close friend of mine. Leading up to the wedding, it seemed as though I was the only one who knew she should not have been getting  married to the dude. I carried that weight alone and debated between speaking on it for months. Many times, I came close. In the end, I kept my objections to myself, thinking I was being a "good friend" by just silently supporting her.

I couldn't attend the wedding. There was no way. So in the end, I protested, silently.


Since the wedding, her situation has deteriorated from being uncomfortable to being unbearable, and I feel terrible. I feel as if I had said something, if I had taken the risk, then maybe I could have saved her from this pain. If I had TRULY valued her as much as I say I did, then I should have spoken.

There are two reasons why I said nothing.
1- I don't know if she would have listened. I don't know, but in the coming months, I'm sure we'll discuss and I'll find out.

2- I don't think I wanted to (when it came down to it) bear the weight of being the one to upset her entire world. I've been there a hundred times with the "You need to do better, and you need to do better now" speech, some of y'all have probably gotten one from me... but never when you were picking out wedding dresses.

I

Feel

Terrible

In case you had ANY lingering doubts...

Democratic National Convention
August 25-28, 2008
Denver, Colorado



OWNED

("but obama's not like that. he stands up to the corporations. he stands up to the jews. blah blah blah...")