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I'm sure you've realized by now that I don't always have time to update this Blog.

However if you're still interested in what I'm doing or what I have to say, than check me out on Facebook.

For the latest updates and my perspective to what's happening within Charlotte, the state of North Carolina, National & Global news, tune in to Black Political Buzz on Facebook.
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Peace


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Sources: Facebook, Google Maps

Van Jones: Eco-Equity, Green Jobs & Urban Renewal (Videos)

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Sources: Whitehouse.gov, Youtube, Google Maps

"I'm Still Here" Dorinda Clark Cole (Videos)

Sources: Youtube

New Black Panthers Newberry Rally Exposes Severe Racism In N.C. & S.C.

Praise God!

Thanks to the New Black Panthers Party now the entire nation knows that severe Racism in the form of Lynching is still alive in states likes North & South Carolina.

Even though for the most part South Carolina is more open to correcting Civil Rights disparities than North Carolina, Anthony Hill's recent dragging death proves South Carolina too needs more work in the area of Race Relations.

Just because North Carolina doesn't publicize its Hate crimes in the Media, doesn't mean it isn't happening because North Carolina is still one of the Racist states in America too.

Mission Accomplished!

Newberry, SC Law Enforcement officials have intentionally refused to charge the suspect (White) who shot Anthony Hill (Black, former U.S. Soldier) than dragged his body 10 miles down a road, with a Hate Crime because they don't want Feds "snooping" into their business.

Instead of standing with the New Black Panthers Party, local NAACP leaders are keeping their distance.

This is why I NO longer support the spineless NAACP organization.



At New Black Panthers Party Rally Hundreds Protest Handling Of Black Man's Slaying


Pumping fists in the air and hoisting signs that read, “Black Power” and “Justice for Anthony Hill,” a hundred or so demonstrators marched Saturday from a Newberry neighborhood park to the Newberry County Courthouse, rallying for a new day in race relations in this small town in central South Carolina.

Some came because, they say, local police pull black motorists over without cause, question black youths whenever they’re unsupervised and do not pursue crimes against blacks as vigorously as those against whites.

Others came because they believe the school system treats black students differently from white ones.

Still others came because of concerns over substandard conditions in the city’s public housing.

But all agreed the area’s racial tensions can no longer be ignored after a white man, Gregory Collins, was arrested in early June in the shooting death of his coworker Anthony Hill. Hill’s corpse had been dragged behind a truck for 11 miles, police said.

“Anybody who says prejudice is gone, I’m sorry but they’re wrong,” said Marquesia Abney of Newberry who demonstrated Saturday. “People need to wake up. I hear a lot of people around here say, ‘(This crime) has nothing to do with me.’ But if you live in this community, if you have kids, it does affect you. The message has to get out that people can’t do things like this.”

“It’s time people wake up,” added Abney’s friend Mike Raiford of Newberry. “Wake up and realize we get treated very poorly in this community.”

A group of local and national reporters worked the event while law enforcement officers from the city, county and state surrounded the peaceful event, some on foot, others in ATVs, on motorcycles or in vehicles.

The crowd, which included several demonstrators who came in from other states including Georgia and Texas, eventually swelled to several hundred at the courthouse to join in chants and prayers.

Police have Collins in custody, having arrested him a few hours after the incident.

That’s not enough, said Malik Zulu Shabazz, president of the New Black Panther Party, the primary speaker at Saturday’s event. He claimed during Saturday’s rally that Collins did not act alone and implied he should be put to death for the crime.

Instead, Shabazz said, law enforcement is sitting on its hands in an obvious hate crime.

“This case is an outrage. Gregory Collins has not even been indicted. That’s right. Over 40 days after (the) dragging and murder,” Shabazz yelled to the crowd through a megaphone on the court house steps. “When a man is dragged behind a pickup truck, that is a modern day lynching.”

But is it a hate crime, fueled by racial hatred?

Those interviewed in the crowd disagreed.

Some said the brutal nature of the crime is a undeniable echo of the South’s racially intolerant past when black men were lynched for failing to obey white men’s rules.

Others suspect that this was a crime of passion, the details of which have yet to be released to the public. Rumors swirl that Collins and Hill were at odds over a woman.

Others shrugged their shoulders in uncertainty over the true nature of the crime.

Newberry County Sheriff Lee Foster acknowledged Saturday that unsubstantiated rumors are making the rounds in town about a woman.

“But we have not received any credible information,” he said.

As for whether it’s a hate crime, Foster said it’s up to the U.S. Justice Department to make that decision. South Carolina has no hate crime statute.

As for other claims made by Shabazz including that Collins did not act alone, the sheriff said, “He’s obviously got information that we don’t have.”

Residents lined the route, watching as demonstrators marched by, chanting “I’m black. I’m beautiful” and “Long live Anthony Hill.”

“I don’t see the point of it,” said Ken Gunter, a white Newberry resident who watched the march from the sidelines. “I don’t see the hate crime.”

Gunter speculates it was a spur of the moment crime over private matters that had nothing to do with race.

Fellow watcher Paul Willis of Newberry agreed.

“I’ve talked to both blacks and whites and we don’t see what this has to do with race,” he said.







N.C. NAACP President Responds To Wake Co. School Board Meeting Ban


The President of the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP spoke out after he and three others were arrested during a Wake County School Board meeting last month.

Rev. William Barber and the others were charged with trespassing for disrupting the June 15 meeting. Following the arrests, officials sent a letter warning them to stay off school property or face legal action.

In response, Barber issued a statement Friday which said, "let them send us a thousand letters. What they need to do is send a letter of apology for wrecking the nationally acclaimed diversity policy and slowing the struggle to improve excellent educational opportunities for poor and minority children."

School officials said they can attend meetings if they provide written notice ahead of time and ask for permission

Meanwhile, Barber plans to hold a news conference before Tuesday's Wake County School Board meeting to make several demands from the board of education.

They include stopping segregation and promoting diversity, providing equity in funding, hiring and retaining high quality teachers, creating smaller class sizes, focusing on math, science, history and reading, promoting parent and community involvement and eliminating inequities in suspensions, graduation rates and performance.

The news conference is scheduled for Tuesday at 10 a.m. at the State Capitol building.




Large Crowd Expected For New Black Panther Rally


The New Black Panthers Party is planning to rally in Newberry Saturday in response to the murder of a man who was later dragged behind a truck for several miles..

Officials are expecting a large turnout and they're concerned about crowd control.

The group says they expect thousands of people to show up at the march.

The New Black Panthers say the murder and dragging of 30-year-old Anthony Hill, a black man, is an obvious hate crime. They've been demanding justice since the incident occurred in early June.

A suspect, 19-year-old Gregory Collins, was put behind bars without bond just hours after the murder.

Authorities continue their investigation, but say it's unclear as to whether it was a hate crime.






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Sources: FBI, Fox News, Midlandsconnect.com, Newsweek, The State, WXTL, Youtube, Google Maps

TD Jakes "How To Fight The Devil" (Video)

Sources: TD Jakes Ministries, Youtube

TD Jakes "Who You Rolling With?" (Video)

Sources: TD Jakes Ministries, Youtube

Maine Welcomes Pres. Obama & Family (Much Need R & R)

Obamas Continue Busy Maine Holiday


The nation's coastlines have been good to President Barack Obama this week – first with news BP's gushing oil well is finally capped, then with a family vacation that got off to a spectacular start.

In the first day alone, the trip spanned the tallest mountain peak along the Eastern Seaboard, a bicycle ride beside a pristine lake and an exhilarating boat ride through a wind-whipped bay.

The vacation for Obama, his wife, Michelle, and daughters Malia and Sasha continued Saturday with other planned activities centered on Acadia National Park, a 47,000-acre gem that brackets this upscale summer resort.

The weekend was an idyllic punctuation mark at the end of a good week for Obama.

On Thursday, Congress sent him the most sweeping overhaul of financial market rules since the New Deal. Obama plans to sign it next Wednesday.

Friday, BP confirmed it had closed the valves on the new cap fitted to its Deepwater Horizon well, meaning for the first time in 12 weeks, no oil was flowing into the Gulf. Obama called it welcome news, even though he noted it's a temporary fix, and even after the well's cemented shut a massive cleanup remains.

But after speaking to reporters about the spill Friday, Obama left those matters behind, flying to Bar Harbor for a short holiday in this famous summer refuge for the well-heeled and well-known.

Aides said they had prepared a menu activities for the first family to choose from during their stay, which ends Sunday. From the look of things, they checked "all of the above."

The Obamas began with ride along a secluded park bike trail next to Witch Hole Pond, then motorcaded up a switchback road to the summit of the 1,530-foot-high Cadillac Mountain to take in a breathtaking, sun-drenched view of Frenchman Bay.

After a stop for ice cream in Bar Harbor, the Obamas boarded a National Park Service boat for a tour of the bay, only to have it cut short when clouds and fog rolled in, and rain threatened.

But that just made the first family a little early for dinner at a harborside restaurant. A small crowd gathered along the seafront to watch the Obamas' boat chug up to the dock – the president seated in the stern, one arm around Malia, 12, the other waving at well-wishers snapping pictures on shore.


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Sources: WRAL, Google Maps

NAACP vs Tea Party's Driving Forces: Apathy, Racism & Segregation (NY Times)

The NY Times just released an article shedding light into driving forces behind the "new" NAACP leadership and the Tea Party Movement. Today's NAACP leaders are Younger & Selfish with no real interest in Civil Rights struggles of the past.

While the Majority of Tea Party Movement members are Older participants who grew up during an era of Jim Crow & Segregation. Sounds about right.

Check out the article below.


Beneath Divides Seemingly About Race Are Generational Fault Lines


Newt Gingrich woke up last week with an idea to heal America.

This is not a remarkable event; Mr. Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, wakes up with about five new ideas most days, many of which are instantly snuffed out by the cold reason of daylight.

In this case, though, he had an intriguing idea for his brethren in the Tea Party movement, which the N.A.A.C.P. had just accused of brooking racism: he suggested that they reach out to local chapters of the civil rights group and propose a series of joint town-hall-style meetings around the country.

Mr. Gingrich’s thinking here is that the two groups could bury their differences by focusing on a common economic agenda to “bring all Americans together.” He could be on to something — if, by “all Americans,” he means predominantly those who are old enough to remember when cigarettes were harmless and Strom Thurmond was a Democrat.

The Tea Party and the N.A.A.C.P. represent disproportionately older memberships. And herein lies a problem with so much of our discussion about race and politics in the Obama era: we tend not to recognize the generational divide that underlies it.

The question of racism in the amorphous Tea Party movement is, of course, a serious one, since so much of the Republican Party seems to be in the thrall of its activists.

There have been scattered reports around the country of racially charged rhetoric within the movement, most notably just before the vote on the new health care law last March, when Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia, the legendary civil rights leader, was showered with hateful epithets outside the Capitol.

But the insidious presence of racism within some quarters of the movement — or, maybe more accurately in some cases, an utter indifference toward racial sensitivities — shouldn’t really surprise anyone.

That’s not necessarily because a subset of these antigovernment ideologues are racist, per se, but in part because they are just plain old — at least relatively speaking. According to a survey by the Pew Research Center in June, 34 percent of Americans between the ages of 50 and 64 — and 29 percent of voters 65 and older — say they agree with the movement’s philosophy; among Americans 49 and younger, that percentage drops precipitously.

A New York Times/CBS News poll in April found that fully three-quarters of self-identified Tea Party advocates were older than 45, and 29 percent were older than 64.

This does not mean that there aren’t hateful 25-year-olds coming to Tea Party rallies and letting fly racial slurs. What it does mean is that a sizeable percentage of the Tea Party types were born into a segregated America, many of them in the South or in the new working-class suburbs of the North, and lived through the marches and riots that punctuated the cultural and political upheaval of the 1960s.

Their racial attitudes, like their philosophies of governance, reflect their complicated journeys. (This is true for a lot of older, urban Democrats, too, who consider themselves liberal but whose racial commentary causes their grandchildren to recoil.)

White Americans of that generation are not the only ones whose longstanding views on race seem increasingly dated. The N.A.A.C.P. has over the years lost its currency among younger, more educated African-Americans, whose sense of opportunity is such that they are less convinced of their need for a traditional civil rights organization (let alone one with the word “colored” in its title).



A lot of older civil rights leaders and black politicians have been frustrated with President Obama for not advancing a specific agenda for his fellow black Americans, a grievance that seems not to bother many younger African-Americans, for whom the civil rights movement is a chapter in a history text, rather than a searing memory.

In other words, we are living at an unusual moment when the rate of progress has been dizzying from one generation to the next, such that Americans older than 60, say, are rooted in a radically different sense of society from those younger than 40. And this generational tension — perhaps even more than race or wealth or demography — tends to fracture our politics.

Nowhere is this more evident than in our judgment of the president, who, at 48, stands right at the fulcrum of this generational teeter-totter.

Sure, Mr. Obama fares better among black voters than among white ones, and better among poorer voters than wealthier ones, as you would expect with a Democratic president. But his presidency is largely defined in the public mind by the age of the beholder. To put it simply, the older you are, the less likely you are to support Mr. Obama, and vice versa.

According to Pew, there is nearly a 20-point spread between Mr. Obama’s approval ratings among voters younger than 30 and those older than 65. Among independent voters older than 50, Mr. Obama gets passing marks from only 35 percent, while about half of those voters 49 and younger say they approve of his performance in office.

These numbers probably do reflect some profound racial differences among the generations, but they are more indicative of how young and old Americans approach the issues of the day, generally. Older Americans now — no longer the New Deal generation, but the generation that remembers Vietnam, gas lines and court-ordered busing — are less enamored of expansive government than their parents were.

They fear changes to their entitlement programs, even as they denounce the explosion in federal spending. They are less optimistic about the high-tech economy, more fearful of the impact of immigration and free trade.

If our leaders want to mend the rift in our political fabric, they might be better served convening meetings not between the white Tea Party advocates and their black contemporaries, but between estranged retirees and so-called Millennials. Our national challenge is to reconcile vastly different American experiences. Race is a part of that disconnect, but it is not the whole.


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Sources: NAACP, NY Times, Youtube, Google Maps

NC NAACP President Rev. Barber Opposes School Board Ban

What's this??

The N.C. NAACP President (Rev. William Barber) decides to speak out on Public School Re-Segregation and his right to Freedom of Speech!

Oh yes I remember now. Rev. Barber was recently arrested for protesting. He was alone in his efforts because fellow NAACP members were afraid to support him.

Earlier this year during a Wake County (N.C.) School board on Diversity the Chairman called Black parents attending this meeting "Animals & Coons".

Did the national NAACP leaders speak up? No! The N.C. NAACP President sought help from National NAACP leaders but received little assistance, actually he received NO help!

Do you think Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would have sat quietly if such a thing had occurred on his watch? I think not!






N.C. NAACP President Responds To Wake Co. School Board Meeting Ban


The President of the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP spoke out after he and three others were arrested during a Wake County School Board meeting last month.

Rev. William Barber and the others were charged with trespassing for disrupting the June 15 meeting. Following the arrests, officials sent a letter warning them to stay off school property or face legal action.

In response, Barber issued a statement Friday which said, "let them send us a thousand letters. What they need to do is send a letter of apology for wrecking the nationally acclaimed diversity policy and slowing the struggle to improve excellent educational opportunities for poor and minority children."

School officials said they can attend meetings if they provide written notice ahead of time and ask for permission

Meanwhile, Barber plans to hold a news conference before Tuesday's Wake County School Board meeting to make several demands from the board of education.

They include stopping segregation and promoting diversity, providing equity in funding, hiring and retaining high quality teachers, creating smaller class sizes, focusing on math, science, history and reading, promoting parent and community involvement and eliminating inequities in suspensions, graduation rates and performance.

The news conference is scheduled for Tuesday at 10 a.m. at the State Capitol building.


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Sources: Charlotte.news14.com, McClatchy Newspapers, NAACP, Youtube, Google Maps

http://blackpoliticalbuzz.blogspot.com/2010/07/nc-naacp-president-rev-barber-opposes.html

NAACP Receives Opposition From Other Blacks; Irrelevant & Lame Organization!

Other Blacks are now beginning to speak out against the NAACP.

Why?

People are Not Stupid! They realize that the NAACP hasn't done anything
LATELY to uplift the "regular" American Black Community and has become a tool for White Democrats i.e., a Black Vote Buying scheme.

Sitting back, allowing us to be Destroyed & Forced back into Slavery.

I believe its safe to say that the "new" NAACP is Irrelevant and Lame!






NAACP Receives Opposition From Tea Party Groups With Black Members


Standing with a poster of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., LaNell Babbage-Torres announced the creation of her own Tea Party group, called American Dreams USA Tea Party.

"The Tea Party movement is basically the new civil rights movement," Babbage-Torres said during a news conference in Roswell on Saturday. "It is for everybody who believes in the Constitution of the United States."

She's been involved with Georgia's Tea Party Movement for about a year and said she has never seen any evidence of racism.

"I've had my friends, Democrats, say the Tea Party is another name for the Ku Klux Klan," she said. "And when I heard that, I thought that is so slanderous and mean-spirited. It can incite violence."

The Vice Chair of Policy for the NAACP, Hilary Shelton, had strong words for the Tea Party when he stopped by NBC's Atlanta studio Saturday morning.

"Are you surprised by how much reaction you're getting or was that the goal?" asked 11Alive's Jennifer Leslie.

"We are surprised," Shelton said. "We raised a very legitimate issue. Our offices across the country are getting death threats and other threats because we asked the Tea Party to repudiate those racist elements from within."

The NAACP adopted a resolution during its national meeting on Tuesday condemning "racist elements" in the Tea Party movement and calling on the movement's leaders to repudiate bigotry.

"I think the NAACP is being divisive," said Shelley Wynter, an African-American member of the new Amercian Dreams USA Tea Party who hosts an internet talk show. "I think it's purposely done as an arm of the Democratic Party."

Members of the small new Tea Party group insisted race is a distraction, not an issue.



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Sources: 11alive.com, NAACP, Wikipedia, Google Maps

New Black Panthers Party Want Feds To Probe Newberry Hate Crime

Newberry, SC Law Enforcement officials have intentionally refused to charge the suspect (White) who shot Anthony Hill (Black, former U.S. Soldier) than dragged his body 10 miles down a road, with a Hate Crime because they don't want Feds "snooping" into their business.

Instead of standing with the New Black Panthers Party, local NAACP leaders are keeping their distance.

This is why I NO longer support the spineless NAACP organization.







New Black Panthers Party Falsely Labeled As Hate Group, Plans Rally In Newberry, SC


Newberry County Sheriff Lee Foster is reassuring residents he has extra deputies in the county, as a weekend of protests begin by a group that has been labeled as a hate group.

The New Black Panther party had a vigil planned Friday for a 30-year-old Anthony Hill. He's the man who deputies say was shot, then dragged 10 miles behind a pickup truck in June.

Gregory Collins, 19, is charged with murder in connection with the death.

Deputies also found more than 20 assault weapons inside of Collins' home. Hill was a former soldier, and member of the volunteer fire department. The two men worked at a plant together, and Foster says they were together earlier in the day.

Foster said the death of Hill is being investigated as a possible hate crime, but that ruling can only come from the FBI, who is also looking into the case.

A week following the arrest, the New Black Panther party arrived in Newberry holding rallies, marches and starting a fund to help Hill's children. But what many in the community may not know is that they have been identified as a hate group by multiple organizations.

Documented video has shown members of their group using racial epithets for whites in speeches, and at rallies, calling for violence toward whites. Group members have also made numerous anti-Semitic statements on camera.

"They are certainly what we would call a black nationalist organization, they believe in notions of black independence black autonomy, some would classify that as being racially separatist or a hate organization," USC political science professor Todd Shaw says.

The New Black Panthers has been defined as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center since 2000. The Anti-Defamation League has also condemned the group's actions.

"The rhetoric itself is strong it's obnoxious at times to others," Shaw says. "To draw the attention to the issue, to draw the cameras, to draw the public notice, that's the point, they also do it of course because they believe what they're saying, but they know that in some ways they see themselves as provocateurs."

While the New Black Panthers self-associate with the original Black Panthers from the 1960s, a leader of the group from that time, Bobby Steale says they are not the same.

"A xenophobic kind of rhetoric that turns into a kind of sort of racist rhetoric rather than anything that's constructive," says Steale, who is the chairman of the group. "Making absurd categorical racial remarks, that's not what it's about."

Shaw says it is important to ask what the organization believes in.

"Groups that have views of that extreme will use shocking violence, will use shocking racial rhetoric, obnoxious or not it's important to ask what's the broad set of questions that are raised by their presence," Shaw says.

South Carolina NAACP Chairman Lonnie Randolph tells News19, "I don't support their views but as long as they operate within the law, I am fine."

He also says he has been in Newberry when the New Black Panthers were there but did not meet with them.

The New Black Panthers say they are just looking for justice for Anthony Hill. That's part of their seven demands, along with federal hate crime charges in this case.

News19 has also learned that one of the New Black Panther party members who has made trip to the Midlands was arrested this week in Atlanta.

Hashim Nzinga is the National Chief of Staff for the New Black Panther Party. He's made appearances in Columbia with the group during news conferences about the death of Anthony Hill.

Atlanta Police confirm to News19 that Nzinga was arrested Tuesday on bank fraud charges. He has posted bond.

Investigators did not provide other details on his arrest.




Large Crowd Expected For New Black Panther Rally


The New Black Panthers Party is planning to rally in Newberry Saturday in response to the murder of a man who was later dragged behind a truck for several miles..

Officials are expecting a large turnout and they're concerned about crowd control.

The group says they expect thousands of people to show up at the march.

The New Black Panthers say the murder and dragging of 30-year-old Anthony Hill, a black man, is an obvious hate crime. They've been demanding justice since the incident occurred in early June.

A suspect, 19-year-old Gregory Collins, was put behind bars without bond just hours after the murder.

Authorities continue their investigation, but say it's unclear as to whether it was a hate crime.








Newberry, S.C. Uneasy As New Black Panthers Party Saturday Rally Nears


Dana Brooks understands why the New Black Panther Party is organizing a rally and march Saturday through her hometown.

But she has no plans to be a part of it

“It feels like they’re stirring up more problems than they’re solving,” said Brooks, 18, and a recent graduate of Mid-Carolina High School. “I know they’re trying to call attention to a very serious situation. But I don’t feel like I should be in a situation where there could be problems.”

Fear and uncertainty are thick in Newberry as local residents prepare for Saturday’s rally. No one knows how many people to expect or what the mood will be. Downtown business owners were reluctant to speak this week about the planned rally but most said their businesses already will be closed by the time the Panthers assemble at the courthouse around 5 p.m.

The event is in response to the June 2 killing of Anthony Hill.

Hill, a black man, was shot to death and his corpse was dragged nearly 11 miles along country roads behind a truck. Gregory Collins, 19, who is white, is in jail without bail on murder charges in the case.

Authorities are investigating the killing as they decide whether to charge Collins with a hate crime. U.S. Attorney William Nettles said he has not decided whether the killing was a hate crime and the investigation would dictate when he made that decision.

Within a week of the crime, the New Black Panther Party had seized on the case and began holding meetings in town to demand the killing be labeled a hate crime. Last week, a few people who said they were members of the party accompanied Hill’s widow to a town hall meeting during which Nettles and other state and local law enforcement discussed the case.

Many people in Newberry, however, have said they are willing to let local law enforcement continue their investigation. And they do not welcome the Panthers to town.

Willie Davis, 60, said the Panthers know U.S. history with racism and hate crimes. But it’s too early to call Hill’s murder a hate crime, he said.

“People have to be careful about jumping to conclusions,” said Davis, who will not attend the rally or march.

The New Black Panthers Party is based in Washington, D.C., and are led by Malik Zulu Shabazz, an attorney. The group is listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based nonprofit that monitors hate groups and hate crimes in the United States. It is not affiliated with the Black Panther Party that made its name as a militant group in the 1960s, said Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project.

Potok said his organization did not have any reports of New Black Panther affiliates in South Carolina.

However, Tiffany Gibson, a Newberry resident, said she is helping organize the rally on behalf of the Newberry Black Unity Coalition and that the group is an affiliate of the New Black Panther Party.

Gibson, a graphic designer, said racism abounds in Newberry and the dragging death case brought it to a head. She formed the coalition as a way to take action.

“If we’re going to complain and no one else is going to take action, we must do it ourselves,” she said.

The Panthers have been in the national news this month after video surfaced of two members standing outside a Philadelphia polling station in 2008. The video was related to a controversy within the U.S. Department of Justice over whether or not to prosecute the men for voter intimidation.

“Anytime you have people come in from outside with a message of hate, that always causes fear,” said Maj. Todd Johnson of the Newberry County Sheriff’s Department.

State, local and federal law enforcement officials will be in full force, Johnson said. And authorities plan to have Emergency Medical Services on standby because the rally and march are scheduled to last five hours in the blazing heat, he said.

“We’re going to make sure they have a First Amendment right to free speech,” Johnson said. “But we’re also going to make sure their First Amendment right doesn’t infringe on anybody else.”

The Black Panthers event will begin at Wise Park in the heart of an in-town black neighborhood. The group then plans to march 1.5 miles to the county courthouse.

Jack Edwards, who lives across the street from the park, said he was nervous when the Panthers held a rally there in June. And he worried about the potential for violence Saturday, from the Panthers or someone who might oppose them.

“Those are some thick bushes over there,” he said. “You never know where snipers might be.”

He would rather the Panthers not come, but if they do, he hopes police will be out in full force Saturday to keep the peace.

“We haven’t had no trouble that we need somebody else to speak for us,” he said.

In downtown Newberry, where antiques shops and cafes line Main Street, there was a nervous undercurrent among business owners. Many of them refused to comment on the event.

“I hope we don’t have to expect too much,” said Shane Wicker, an employee at the As Time Goes By antique store. “I hope nothing will be too wild.”

Theresa Wilson, 24, who works at the C.T. Summer hardware store, said she had heard all sorts of rumors about who would be coming to town as part of the rally. But she wished the Black Panthers would leave Newberry alone.

“I want Anthony Hill’s family to have peace of mind, and they’ll never have peace if they keep stirring this stuff up,” she said.






The New Black Panther Party Is The New ACORN


As Voter-Intimidation exercises go, it wasn’t much. In 2008, a lone white voter reported he had encountered two black men dressed all in black, one carrying a nightstick, at his Philadelphia polling place in a predominantly black neighborhood.

The armed man was escorted away by police, and no one reported the incident to the local district attorney. But the incident was caught on camera, making it great fodder for cable news because political campaigns were actively scouting for voter-intimidation cases they could use against opponents. Still, it seemed like the sort of incident that happens at dozens of polling places every Election Day, then quietly recedes.

Twenty-one months later, though, right-wing Bloggers can't get enough of the story, and it's starting to make it into the mainstream press. Even Sarah Palin has joined the act, tweeting: "Watch FOX's Megyn Kelly on Black Panther voter intimidation case; she knows the case; she's speaking truth; her revelations leave Left steaming."

So how did the incident become a replay of the ACORN scandal? There's some resemblance between the two: an organization with unacceptable practices and a vague connection to the Obama administration (through voter registration drives in the ACORN case and Justice Department litigation in the Panther case) becomes a tool for critics of the White House to attack it as corrupt and illegitimate.

But as in the ACORN case, the scandal is minimal (much of the ACORN hit has been discredited)—and the allegations against Obama flimsy.

Let's start with the cast of characters. The two reportedly imposing men at the Philadelphia polling station were members of a fringe group that calls itself the New Black Panther Party—much to the chagrin of the "old" Black Panther Party, which strenuously rejects the NBPP. Its leaders go by peculiar pseudo-African names (like chairman Malik Zulu Shabazz), and it is designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and Anti-Defamation League.

Its ideology tends to skew toward the black supremacist and anti-Semitic.



The group typically gets attention every few years when it successfully manages to bait the national media with some nutty stand. In 2006, for example, the New Black Panther Party announced it was going to Durham, N.C., to investigate the Duke lacrosse case.

Fox News, in particular, loves it: after the Duke charges were dropped in 2007, Bill O'Reilly had Shabazz on the program, where he called syndicated conservative columnist Michelle Malkin a "whore."

Several months after the 2008 Election Day incident (and 13 days before President Obama was sworn in) the Department of Justice filed a civil lawsuit against the NBPP under the Voting Rights Act, alleging voter intimidation. In May 2009, Justice—now led by Attorney General Eric Holder, Obama's appointee—successfully obtained an injunction against King Samir Shabazz, the man who carried the nightstick, then dropped the suit, Fox News reported.

A spokeswoman at Justice says a career attorney made the call, which was then affirmed by an appointee, because "the facts and the law did not support pursuing claims against the other defendants in the case. A federal judge determined that the relief requested by the Department was appropriate."

That's where things get messy.

Starting last summer, some conservative media outlets—notably The Washington Times—began digging into the case, suggesting that because a top Obama appointee had signed off on the decision to drop charges, a move allegedly opposed by career lawyers, it provided proof that Holder's Justice Department was a bastion of political favoritism (and, by implication, racism, given that both Holder and Obama are black).

Although that story didn't go mainstream, it did cause the Commission on Civil Rights, an independent body, to take up the case. As Dave Weigel reported, there was more to that decision than met the eye: after eight years of George W. Bush appointments, the commission tilted definitively right. In addition, the star witness in the case against the NBPP, Bartle Bull, wasn't exactly impartial.

The white former Robert F. Kennedy aide, who called the incident "the most blatant form of voter intimidation I have encountered in my political campaigns in many states, even going back to the work I did in Mississippi in the 1960s," had been an outspoken critic of Obama for some time.

The commission has met several times to examine the case, but things really blew open on July 6, when Bush Justice official J. Christian Adams, who is white, suggested that Justice's voting division avoided bringing cases where defendants were black and plaintiffs were white.

Adams's testimony is questionable; there are doubts about whether he was actually present for the incidents he described, and he's refused to offer details on key questions. Critics see other credibility problems for Adams: he was, for instance, hired when Bush's Justice Department was systematically weakening the civil-rights division by forcing out career lawyers and replacing them with attorneys who had strong conservative credentials but little in the way of civil-rights experience.

This week's resolution by the NAACP blasting "racism" in the Tea Party has further fanned the flame. At its 101st annual convention in St. Louis, the nation's oldest civil-rights organization condemned the party's "continued tolerance for bigotry." Tea Party leaders heatedly rejected the criticism, and Palin dismissed it as "a diversionary tactic." To some commentators on the right, the NAACP action is rank hypocrisy, given that the group hasn't condemned the racism they see festering over at Justice.

With some help from Fox News's Kelly, the New Black Panthers story is now gaining steam. While there's little doubt that the NBPP is a fringe group, critics of the decision to drop the suit have a tough case to make. The problem is that although it may look like voter intimidation, there aren't actually any voters who filed an official complaint claiming to have been intimidated.

As Adam Serwer writes, a polling station in a predominantly black neighborhood isn't the best place to go if you're trying to scare white voters off: "I imagine that the New Black Panthers thought they were protecting black voters from some phantom white-supremacist conspiracy (their public statements say as much)." And Weigel, who's followed the case, has suggested there's not much to it either—plus, "there's no evidence the NBPP's clownish Philadelphia stunt suppressed any votes, or that they'll try such a stunt again."

Of course, even if the case against the NBPP is thin as onion paper, it's still a problem if the Justice Department is systematically screening its cases by race. So is there evidence of that beyond Adams's testimony? The department denies the charge. Spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler says in part: "The Department makes enforcement decisions based on the merits, not the race, gender or ethnicity of any party involved."

Cord Jefferson of the The Root, a black-issues Web site, says the case is spurious, but that Justice must explain itself further. But Abigail Thernstrom, a white conservative member of the Commission on Civil Rights, complains that it's all light and no heat:

Get a grip, folks. The New Black Panther Party is a lunatic fringe group that is clearly into racial theater of minor importance ... This case is a one-off. There are plenty of grounds on which to sharply criticize the attorney general—his handling of terrorism questions, just for starters—but this particular overblown attack threatens to undermine the credibility of his conservative critics.

Thernstrom may be right, but she misses the point. Like the ACORN case, it's not about a real investigation; it's about staging an effective piece of political theater that hurts the Obama administration.


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Sources: Fox News, Midlandsconnect.com, Newsweek, The State, WXTL, Youtube, Google Maps

Charlotte Light Rail Passenger Station Crime Increases: Robberies

Robbery At Knife Point In Lynx Charlotte Light-Rail Station


A Charlotte man was robbed at knife point at the I-485/South Boulevard Lynx light-rail station Friday evening, according to Charlotte-Mecklenburg police.

The incident occurred around 8:30 p.m. The suspect hit the victim, took his wallet and fled on foot.

Police said two suspects were found in the bathroom of the Target store in the nearby Carolina Pavilion Shopping Center. Both were taken into custody, but officers had not released their names Saturday afternoon.

A CATS representative said she was not aware of any other recent armed robberies or major crime at light-rail stations.

In May, police suspected a man used the light-rail to get away after two robberies along the Lynx line, though authorities later said the man never got on the train.

Those robberies happened around 11 p.m. on a Friday in late May, police said. An employee at the Greek Isles restaurant on East Bland Street leaving work and a man walking out of Sullivan’s steakhouse were both robbed at gunpoint within minutes of each other.

CATS spokeswoman Krystel Green said the company would work to continue making sure law enforcement officials were visible.

There are a total of nine company police officers and four CMPD officers stationed along the light-rail line, she said.

“We want to remind people to continue to be aware of surroundings…and to stay in well-lit areas, just like you would anywhere else,” Green said.


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Sources: McClatchy Newspapers, Google Maps

Pres. Obama Blames GOP For Economic Slump

Sources: Whitehouse.gov, Youtube

Charlotte, NC Loses Major Uptown Attraction To Foreclosure (EpiCenter)

This is what happens in a Metropolitan region when the City leaders (including the Black Mayor) refuse to invest money in Black/ Minority Businesses and Urban Planning or Urban Renewal.

ALL of the money (including Stimulus Funding & other Grants) for Economic Development is only invested in ventures to develop or uplift areas utilized by Wealthy, Caucasian citizens or the city's "Elite".

Than when the Economy tanks a HUGE Foreclosure is what that city or county gets in return.

Should have invested some of that $90 Million into Black-Owned & Urban Businesses.

ha ha ha


Charlotte Businesses Surprised At EpiCentre Foreclosure Filing


The morning after Regions Bank started Foreclosure proceedings against the Charlotte EpiCentre, the corridors of the Uptown Entertainment and restaurant mecca were pretty quiet.

But as dinner hour rolls around, restaurant owners say every table will be filled. Clubs and bars are so busy on weekends that customers say they sometimes can’t get in because the lines are too long.

“I thought they were doing pretty good,” said Bobby Wallace, 51, who works in uptown and says he often comes over to the EpiCentre during his breaks. “There’s a lot of businesses out here that bring in a lot of revenue…When you come out on a weekend, it’s pretty loaded. I don’t understand what’s going on.”

But while businesses thrive, the developers of the complex are facing financial difficulties.

Regions Bank began foreclosure proceedings against the EpiCentre after its developer, Afshin Ghazi, and related affiliates failed to make timely payments when a $90 million loan matured in May, according to a notice filed Thursday in Mecklenburg County.

Most restaurant managers said they had no idea about the foreclosure before they saw news reports.

“There was no communication,” John Brush, general manager of Libretto’s Pizzeria & Italian Kitchen, said Friday morning. “I found out about it right here…it’s seven minutes ago that I knew.”

Patrick Bader, assistant manager of Enso Asian Bistro & Sushi Bar, said Friday he hadn’t heard the news at all.

“As far as management, we haven’t heard anything,” he said. “We’ve always known Ghazi has had some problems with the EpiCentre…but we didn’t know the extent of it.”

Work on the EpiCentre began roughly five years ago, when Ghazi bought the old convention center site from Bank of America and the former Wachovia.

The banks had acquired it from the city as part of the Bobcats arena deal. Ghazi worked out an agreement with the city and county to demolish the convention center and got a $6.5 million pledge from local officials for infrastructure improvements and other work.

Ghazi initially secured $62.5 million against the site at 101 S. College St. in May 2005. He twice increased the amount secured by the EpiCentre –first in June 2007, to $88 million. Less than a year later, after retailers and restaurants opened, the loan was increased to $90 million.

But whatever financial problems the developers may be facing, restaurant managers say they haven’t had any problem getting customers.

Brush said Libretto’s gets great crowds at lunch, dinner, and even late night dining as people leave the bars and clubs.

Enso is at full capacity every day and can usually get about 500-600 dinner customers on a weekend. Last weekend, it had around 900 people come in for dinner, Bader said.

“It’s busy,” said Dhaval Doshi, 25, of Charlotte, who was visiting the EpiCentre Friday morning. “I’ve been here in the evenings going to clubs.”

The lack of retail in the complex has made business more challenging for boutique stores like RedSky Gallery, said gallery manager, Ellen Petticrew.

In addition to RedSky, two clothing stores, a fudge shop, an AT&T store, a convenience store, and a CVS round out the retail selections.

“That’s more a fault of the city of Charlotte than anything else…we just need to get retail downtown,” said Brandon Viebrock, owner of the EpiCentre’s Revolution clothing store and co-owner of Mortimer’s Café and Pub. “We’re the only game in town at the moment.”

But Petticrew noted that most of the vacancies in the complex are because a business has yet to come in, not because a company has packed up and left.

Restaurant employees say EpiCentre’s location and reputation as a downtown hangout make it a prime destination for Charlotte nightlife and are key to attracting customers.

“I think the EpiCentre is great because it’s given people one place to go to with plenty of options…there’s no place that compares to it in Charlotte,” said Jason Gilbert, a manager of Mez restaurant.

And that’s why business owners say they’re not worried about what will happen to the EpiCentre if the foreclosure proceedings are completed.

“Even if the bank takes over, I don’t think it will be shut down,” Bader said. “There’s way too much at stake here as far as traffic and what it contributes to downtown.”


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Sources: Charmeck.org, McClatchy Newspapers, Google Maps

Malcolm X: "Who Are You?" (Video)

Sources: Youtube