Muhammad Ali’s ‘greatest’ gift to Dirk Nowitzki

http://sports.yahoo.com

Former heavyweight champion and legendary sports icon Muhammad Ali didn't waste any time in letting the most recent NBA Finals MVP know exactly how he feels. According to Dirk Nowitzki(notes) -- last month's main man as the Dallas Mavericks won it all -- Ali sent him a glove after Dallas' Finals win with an inscription that read "You are the greatest."

Minutes before he strode onto a balcony to greet his fans and followers in his hometown of Wurzburg, Germany, Dirk took the time to answer several pointed questions for Spiegel, Germany's most famous and prominent weekly magazine. And while we should probably be wary of the translation inherent in back and forth sessions like these (there are some questions and answers that scan a little dodgy once translated to English), the story behind the Ali sustains.

Here's the passage from Spiegel:

SPIEGEL: Did any German politicians call to congratulate you?

Nowitzki: I think that (German Chancellor) Angela Merkel called my adviser. I'm not totally sure. But do you know what made me the happiest?

SPIEGEL: What?

Nowitzki: Muhammad Ali sent me a package.

SPIEGEL: What was in it?

Nowitzki: A boxing glove with the inscription: "You are the greatest." Please don't ask me immediately about the political meaning of the gift. I was simply happy and sent Ali a golden basketball with a similar inscription.

Pretty sweet deal, Muhammad Ali. A boxing glove with a fawning note, traded for a basketball made of gold?

Racket jokes aside, you have to wonder if Ali and his family are in the habit of sending these sorts of gifts to either every NBA Finals MVP, every obvious franchise player behind the best teams of the NBA season, or even the top players on every championship team that rolls down the baseball/football/basketball pike a few times a year.

Even if he's sending these out four or five times in a calendar year, this is clearly a very cool move by Ali. How breathtaking -- literally breathtaking -- would that be to open up?

And if that gift was one of a kind, for at least the recent times? You're a lucky dude, Dirk Nowitzki.

You're also pretty well deserving. Just don't Wurzburg it up too much, strap on the gloves, and decide to take anyone on that dares make fun of Jose Juan Barea's height. We need those shooting wrists intact when the next NBA season starts, sometime in 2014.

Africa Drought Endangers Millions

UNITED NATIONS -- Aid agencies are calling it the worst drought in 60 years.

Emergency relief workers are getting increasingly alarmed at the scale of a slow-moving disaster in the Horn of Africa, where months of dry weather is said to be threatening famine and a new humanitarian crisis.

Last week U.N. agencies monitoring a severe drought in Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti increased the volume on existing warnings over food shortages in the region, a consequence, they say, of an unprecedented dry spell, instability and higher global food prices.

Reports suggest parts of Somalia may already be on the verge of famine, a repeat of the emergency situation that occurred when the central government collapsed there two decades ago. Officials in the field are reporting adults from Somalia turning up in camps in Ethiopia and Kenya showing signs of severe malnutrition, with some even dying shortly after they arrive.

In April officials estimated that up to 8 million people in the region will be in need of emergency food aid as a consequence of the drought. That number has now been increased to 10 or 11 million in urgent need.

The U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is calling it the worst drought the region has experienced the early 1950s. And the problem is made much more difficult by the continuing anarchy and civil strife in most of Somalia, coupled with cross-border raids and violence between pastoral communities in the Ethiopian-Kenyan border.

However, refugees are being pushed from Somalia for a simple lack of food, said OCHA spokeswoman Stephanie Bunker. She estimates about 5,000 people are entering Ethiopia from Somalia every week.

"What people are saying is that those people who are arriving are arriving in bad shape," Bunker said in an interview. "We have not heard that there is a famine yet, but it is concerning that there are parts of Somalia where we simply don't know what the situation is and what condition the people are in." Bunker confirmed that some of those new arrivals have died from malnutrition.

'Downhill from here'

Normally taking the lead in coordinating relief efforts in such cases, OCHA has been joined in a chorus of warnings by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the Food and Agriculture Organization, the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Food Programme. All five U.N. organizations are working overtime to bring more publicity to the worsening situation in a news cycle dominated by the Arab Spring.

Drought conditions and extreme food shortages in the area at expected to last into 2012. "The prognosis is that it's going to go downhill from here," Bunker said.

"Resources are woefully inadequate," OCHA emergency relief coordinator Valerie Amos said in an interview with Minnesota Public Radio last week. "We have an appeal that is at the moment only 40 percent met. Some of the key sectors that are needed to protect and save the lives of people in Somalia are not being addressed at all."

Other U.N. agencies are painting a similarly dire picture of the food security situation in East Africa, but say they are assisting as best they can.

"Desperate hunger is looming across the Horn of Africa and threatening the lives of millions who are struggling to survive in the face of rising food prices and conflict," WFP executive director Josette Sheeran said in a release. "It is essential that we move quickly to break the destructive cycle of drought and hunger that forces farmers to sell their means of production as part of their survival strategy."

A map disseminated to governments by OCHA shows areas in the four countries close to the verge of famine, increasing the odds that that agency will issue a fresh appeal for relief funds and food aid soon.

Areas deemed to now exist in a state of emergency include the coastal region of Somalia northeast of Mogadishu, the far eastern and southern corners of Ethiopia, and most of Kenya's northeast frontier. Many of those regional emergencies are now classified as "critical" by the U.N. office and are at risk of tipping over to the worst classification of "famine/catastrophe" OCHA says.

Kenyan government blames climate change

Officials blame the failure of a normally wet season between April and June to deliver enough rain to sustain wild forage for cattle and other domesticated range animals, let alone enough rainfall sufficient for crops. But the dry spell has been traced to the beginning of last October when an anticipated rainy season also failed to deliver.

In June FAO officials declared that the persistently lower-than-average levels of precipitation in the eastern most part of the African continent had become "a chronic feature for the region." Kenyan government officials have blamed climate change on a recurrence of droughts that have led to blackouts in Nairobi and increased cross-border violence with neighboring Ethiopia as pastoral communities continually shift their herds in search of water and forage.

UNICEF estimates that about 25 percent of people in Kenya's far north are now suffering from acute malnutrition, including more than 37 percent of those living in the Lake Turkana area. Throughout the Horn of Africa the aid group warns that "millions of children and women are at risk from death and disease unless a rapid and speedy response is put into action."

Officials at UNICEF estimate that numbers of malnourished children in the Horn of Africa countries has increased by 50 percent over levels previously recorded.

"The last two rainy seasons were very weak and in part they failed in that region, and that's one of the key factors," said Michael Klaus, East Africa regional communications director for UNICEF, in a phone call from Nairobi. "The number of people coming over the border from Somalia to Kenya and Ethiopia has increased significantly. In the past two weeks it has definitely increased very much."

WFP says it will undertake a new emergency needs assessment this month but is already ramping up food relief efforts in areas hard hit by the drought. Already that agency says its extending emergency food assistance to 4.3 million in Ethiopia and around 2.4 million in Kenya. Officials there expect millions more to be added to the food aid rolls once the needs assessment is complete.

Copyright 2011 E&E Publishing. All Rights Reserved.

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The Clarence Thomas pick 20 years later: Disorder in the court

Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas meets with Republican Senator Strom Thurmond at the Capitol July 8, 1991 in Washington, DC (Photo by Terry Ashe/Liaison)

http://www.thegrio.com

By Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Justice Clarence Thomas was nominated by President George H.W. Bush 20 years ago this month to the Supreme Court. The nomination ignited one of the most divisive, contentious, and explosive Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings in this nation's history. The Senate eventually confirmed Thomas to the court. by the narrowest vote in a century

Thomas has not uttered a word during oral arguments before the court in the past five years.

Meanwhile his alleged misdeeds have mounted. First, there was his wife Ginni's fulsome earnings, which she received from assorted right wing foundations and think tanks, most prominently a right-wing activist outfit called Liberty Central.

Then there was the fact that Thomas had an apparent lapse of memory and failed to disclose her earnings. He subsequently found his memory after being ripped publicly for failing to come forward. But he did not reveal speaking fees and perks he got from a bevy of the same conservative groups that his wife worked for and had close political ties to.

Next, Thomas accepted gifts worth thousands and solicited funds for a museum in his hometown of Pin Point, Georgia from Harlan Crow, a Texas real-estate magnate and bank roller of right-wing causes.

Then there was the strong hint that Thomas committed perjury in his testimony to the Judiciary Committee during his court confirmation hearings. And that he compounded that by quite possibly lying under oath to Congress during the hearings about whether he sexually harassed former female staff members, most notably Anita Hill.

High Court Justice Thurgood Marshall who Thomas replaced retired from the court at 83. Thomas is 63 and he says he hopes to match Marshall's retirement age when he leaves the court. With reasonably good health, he'd have two more decades to wreak monumental legal, constitutional and personal havoc on the court and the nation. That's certainly been the case for his first twenty years.

His trademark has been farcical, insipid and more often than not lone wolf votes to defend torture against foreign and domestic prisoners, see-no-evil-hear-no-evil with all white jury convicting blacks, and strip searches of teens at schools, reflexive votes against racial and gender discrimination lawsuits, and defense of the rights of corporations and the rich.

This is all rooted in his static, arcane, Smithsonian unwillingness to change one "I" or "T" in the Constitution as originally framed. There is absolutely no doubt that if the constitutionality of the health care reform law winds up in the High Court's lap Thomas will not bat an eye based on past performance and his strict constructionist read of the Constitution vote to dump it.

But it's the issue of race that has kept Thomas in the spotlight and the center of controversy for two decades and made him the Supreme Court justice most loved by ultra-conservatives and loathed by liberals and a majority of African-Americans during the last two decades.

In speeches before conservative groups and in his autobiography Thomas made no effort to hide why he's more than willing even giddily happy to wage relentless public and private war against civil rights leaders and liberal Democrats. He actually believes that race is a crutch, an impediment and even an archaic relic of the past in American life.

He beat the odds and withering opposition to climb to the judicial top, and his tenure on the court is supposedly personal proof of that. He actually believes even more deeply that there is no contradiction for an African-American to be a conservative and to espouse conservative principles.

For many that types him as a contrarian, if not out an out political odd ball, since it's long been an article of faith of many blacks and liberals that racism and conservatism are two sides of the same coin. But Thomas is by no mean an anomaly. Many blacks oppose abortion and gay rights and affirmative action and are just as hard line on crime and punishment, and pro-business as Thomas.

Despite the ritual Thomas bashing during the past two decades, the hard reality is that Thomas is one of the nine most prestigious and implicitly powerful judges in the nation. This forces a grudging acknowledgment even deference among interest groups and that even includes some blacks. He has been invited and courteously received on occasion at some predominantly black schools and events. They sparked the inevitable protests and demands that Thomas be disinvited. But Thomas came and spoke anyway.

That was the case in June when Thomas was invited to give a keynote speech at the dedication of a courthouse in Augusta, Georgia to black judge and civil rights advocate John Ruffin. The two men were at diametric ends of pole legally and politically but despite the grumbles about dishonoring Ruffin's name and principles by inviting Thomas, he came and spoke anyway. He is after all a sitting Supreme Court Judge.

Thomas claimed at his confirmation hearings that he would bring "no agenda or ideology to the court." That was at best the requisite confirmation ingratiating talk and at worst, well, a lie. Thomas's conservative, unorthodox, views and legal opinions on the death penalty, age and gender bias, first amendment, prisoner rights and affirmative action cases were well known by the time he hit the court in 1991.

He certainly tipped his hand enough on them as an appeals court judge and as Reagan's picked chair of the EEOC. Thomas didn't stiffen his stance on judicial conservatism to curry any favor with white conservatives or as revenge against civil rights, women's and civil liberties groups for hounding and hectoring him, and making life holy hell for him before, during and after his the confirmation hearings and narrow Senate vote to confirm him on the court.

Thomas is in the twenty years after those raucous confirmation war and will remain what he's always been, a judge that if the issue doesn't square with myopic conservative dogma can take the vote against is in the bank even if his is the only vote.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst and Monday co-host of the Al Sharpton Show. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour on KTYMRadio Los Angeles streamed on ktym.com podcast on blogtalkradio.com and internet TV broadcast on thehutchinsonreportnews.com Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

Student Splits 40K in Winnings With Runner-ups

Allen Geui won in front of a packed house.

The event - a foul-shooting contest for top academic students at Compton High School in Los Angeles - was created with a simple premise: Organizers wanted to show the kids at Compton how to create community spirit with college scholarship money as the incentive.

Following a tear-jerking gesture from the winner - it appears the true lessons learned were by the adults.  The kids in Compton are more than alright.

Three months after winning the $40,000 top prize, Allan Guei donated all of his winnings to the seven other finalists.

Guei, a star player on the basketball team who is headed to Cal-State Northridge on a full scholarship, said he felt the others could use the college cash more than he could. He wanted to give his classmates a chance to make their academic dreams come true, too.

"I've already been blessed so much and I know we're living with a bad economy, so I know this money can really help my classmates," he said in a release from the school. "It was the right decision."

One that stunned Court Crandall, the man behind the event.

"What he has done is exceptional, just like Allan," he said. "Like any young people, whether it's my kids or someone else's, you hope they are given opportunities to show what they can do. These Compton High grads have a lot of talent. They have a lot of drive, and I wish them all the best."

Crandall, a partner at the Southern California advertising firm WDCW and a hollywood screenwriter whose credits include "Old School," came up with the idea after watching his 16-year-old son play on a basketball team with some Compton students.

Crandall felt foul shooting was something that could unite a community regardless of racial divide. He felt doing it in Compton - a community battling an image problem - could help change those attitudes, too.

"I thought the free throw is a good metaphor in a world where there's a bunch of lines that are kind of dividing us," Crandall said afterward. "The focus became, how do we show the world another side of Compton, that's more positive, beyond the stereotypical guns and crime stuff."

The only requirement for the contest is that the students must have a GPA of 3.0 and above. After receiving nearly 100 applicants, eight contestants were chosen at random. The contest was held in March.

"My hope was that what started as a competition would become a collaboration with the kids supporting each other," Crandall told the L.A. Times. "They did, but in the end they did that to a much greater extent than I ever could have anticipated."

The students were filmed throughout the ordeal as part of a documentary that is scheduled to bereleased this fall.

One of the final scenes figures to be Compton principal Jesse Jones making the surprise announcement at the school's graduation in June.

"Allan is a great basketball player, but he is a better citizen than a basketball player," Jones said. "It's truly a blessing."

Even though Guei was a basketball star, Crandall allowed him to enter the contest to reward him for his academic efforts.

Guei would have been allowed to keep the money under NCAA rules. The other finalists, who will receive roughly $5,500, are thankful that he will not.

Donald Dotson, who also plans to attend Cal-State Northridge, said Guei is "a very deep, intelligent, and warm person."

Dotson figures his gesture will pay forward.

"He's going to go really far in life," he said. "Because of what he's done for us, God will bless him. That's what life is all about; stepping forward to help other people."

The irony in this story: Compton's boys basketball team advanced to the Southern Section Division 2AA title game last winter before losing . The team was done in by poor foul shooting.

Dr. Boyce: BET Has Become The New KKK

I just spent the week in New Orleans, the powerbase for one of the most talented, powerful and destructive forces in the history of music: Lil Wayne. I’ve admittedly bopped my head to the tunes of Lil Wayne in the past, feeling the same guilt that any man might feel if he were to enjoy a crack pipe or shot of heroine, knowing how these drugs destroy families, individuals and communities. In other words, I consider myself to be a Hip-Hop insider, and I simply hate the idea of being labeled as a hater. But as a father and Black man who has seen too much death and devastation in my family and so many others, I had to say that “enough is enough,” leading me to candidly discuss my decision to walk away from certain styles of Hip-Hop music.

BET, the media company that targets Black consumers, but is ultimately controlled by a predominantly white organization called Viacom, is not exactly on the same page when it comes to their assessment of Lil Wayne or any other artist (i.e. R. Kelly) who can be directly linked to the holocaust occurring within Black America today. Given that models of profit maximization rarely call for any assessment of the negative externalities that result from unethical corporate behavior, the executive committee for the BET Awards made the interesting decision to give the greatest number of award nominations to Lil Wayne, the man who said that he would (among other things) love to turn a woman out, murder her and send her dead body back to her boyfriend. Oh yea, he also said that he would kill little babies, have sex with every girl in the world, carry a gun on his hip and “leave a ni**a’s brains on the street.”

It might be almost feasible to overlook the “kill little babies comment” were it not for the innocent three-year old boy who was shot in the head by a 21-year old Black male in my hometown just a couple of weeks ago – these atrocities are all too common in quite a few neighborhoods across America. Also, the music might be considered simple entertainment were it not for the fact that millions of Black youth who had their history stolen during slavery actually look to Hip-Hop music to tell them how to dress, talk, think, act and live. There is no high school speaker more popular than a Hip-Hop star.

The Ku Klux Klan has been regularly criticized for encouraging violence against African Americans and terrorizing our community. But the truth is that the Klan doesn’t have much power anymore, and their thirst for African American blood seems to have waned a bit. At the same time, Lil Wayne and artists like him have made a habit of encouraging Black men to shoot one another, to abuse or murder women, to consume suicidal amounts of drugs and alcohol and to engage in irresponsible, deadly sexual behavior.

As a result, Black men are the most likely to die of gun violence, mass incarceration continues to decimate Black families, drug addiction and possession ruins Black lives in droves, and HIV is the leading killer of Black women. So, the truth is that Lil Wayne-like artists and the corporate armies producing this weaponized genocide have killed more Black people than the KKK ever could. So, by accelerating, financing and supporting the “Lil Wayne gospel” to a community that is already dying, BET has effectively positioned itself as a new and improved version of the KKK.

It’s one thing if BET reports on the activities of Lil Wayne or even has him as a guest on their network; we all know that celebrities increase ratings, and as a Business School Professor, I understand the need to pay the bills. But by publicly rewarding his behavior, they are encouraging every record company executive and Lil Wayne wannabe to go to the lab and manufacture more musical poison. As a result, there is some 10-year old boy putting down his textbook to watch the BET Awards, and effectively attending the Lil Wayne School of Black Male behavior. Years later, when this boy shoots another Black man in the face, infects one of his many “hoes” with HIV, ends up in a prison cell, dies from a drug overdose or beats his girlfriend to death, we will be able to link his behavior directly to his formative years, when we cashed in this child’s future for higher shareholder returns at Viacom.

Perhaps a day will come when those of us who know destructive music when we hear it – will actually have the discipline to draw lines and seek accountability – rather than look the other way. It’s not as if you can argue that Lil Wayne is actually GOOD for Black America, and it’s small-minded to justify a man’s reckless behavior just because he’s wealthy.

Charles Manson is considered one of the most vicious killers in history, yet he never actually murdered a soul. He has been in prison for 40 years because he convinced others to commit murder, controlling their minds through comfortable words and charisma. If Manson had been given the platform supplied by BET and the rest of corporate America and a license to share his rhetoric without restraint, he could have caused the deaths of millions more. So, by publicly rewarding and applauding the words of Lil Wayne, BET is giving his beloved message a level of power and penetration that is fit for a king – most interesting is that Wayne’s endorsement of killing women and children is far more vicious than anything Manson ever said.

So, the next time we turn to the KKK, Tea Partiers or the Republicans as the greatest enemies of Black people, we might want to take a look in the mirror. By cheering for those who recite lyrics that encourage us to kill our babies, we are effectively sleeping with and protecting the enemy.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University and founder of the Your Black WorldCoalition.  To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email,please click here.

‘I see the worry creasing his face’: Michelle Obama reveals the toll of presidential office on her husband

First lady Michelle Obama gave a fascinating insight into just how heavily the weight of office rests on her husband's shoulders and how the job of president has taken it's toll.

Speaking at a fund-raiser for the Democratic National Committee in Massachusetts she told of his total dedication to the job and told how she worries about the increasing number of lines on his face 

She said: 'I see the worry creasing his face. I hear the passion and determination in his voice.

''You won’t believe what these folks are going through;' he told me that last night.

''Michelle, it is not right. We’ve got to fix this. We have to do more,'

'Barack always reminds me that we are playing a long game,

'He reminds me, as I said to you, too, that change is slow.

'He reminds me that change doesn’t happen all at once, but that if we keep showing up, if we keep fighting the good fight, doing what we know is right, then eventually we will get there, because the truth is we always have in this country. We always have.'

Michelle Obama said that when her husband first told her he was planning to run for president she had serious doubts about how it would affect their young family.

She added: 'I was proud of the work that he was doing in the Senate. And I thought that he would make a phenomenal president.

'That wasn’t the issue.

 

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'But, like a lot of folks, I still had some cynicism about politics. And with two young daughters at home, I was worried about the toll that a presidential campaign would take on our family.

'So it took some convincing on Barack’s part. And by ‘some,’ I mean a lot; he’s still paying back.'

Mrs Obama said that it was going on the campaign trail in 2008 and getting out an meeting voters - that led to her having a change of heart.

She added: 'It’s about meeting people one-on-one, hearing what’s going on in their lives.'

A fresh-faced Barrack Obama gives his election speech in November 2008 (left)  and arriving in the UK in May this year (right)

Woman of the people: Michelle Obama poses for a picture with a young admirer yesterday

The first lady wore her hair up, with a cream-coloured dress with black-fleck pattern and high heels as she addressed the mainly female crowd at the Chestnut Hill home of philanthropists and Democratic activists Elaine and Gerald Schuster.

She went  on to speak of her confidence in young daughters Malia and Sasha.

She added: 'The truth is that no matter what happens, my girls will be OK.

'My girls will have plenty of advantages and opportunities in their lives. And that’s probably true for many of your kids as well.

'But I think that the last four years have shown us the truth of what Barack has always said: That if any child in this country is left behind, then that matters to all of us, even if she’s not our daughter, and even if he’s not our son.

'If any family in this country struggles, then we cannot be fully content with our own family’s good fortune, because that is not what we do in this country.'

Happy family: The Obamas celebrate Barack's election win in 2008

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2010186/Bararck-Obamas-wife-Michelle-reveals-toll-presidential-office-husband.html#ixzz1RBDCuNI3

My New D-Word for Tavis and Cornel

Before I get to Mark Halperin, let me give you a little background.

They say that if you’re angry with someone, you should write a letter, get all the mean stuff out, and then tear it up or delete it. When you’re a little more calm, you write another letter or confront the person face to face.

About a month ago, I wrote a blog about Tavis Smiley and decided to table it because I said some things I didn’t want to publish. You’re probably thinking I went too hard him, but no. In reality, I hadn’t gone hard enough - and I knew it. I said I’d wait until something pissed me off so bad that I would have the words harsh enough to express what I was really feeling about him and his side piece - I mean side kick - Cornel West.

Well, yesterday, when Mark Halperin - a well-respected journalist, employed by a well-respected magazine and a contributor to a well-respected news network - had the audacity to call the president of the United States a dick, that was all I needed.

While I am appalled at Halperin’s statement, I have no expectations of him as a man and know nothing about his character. I am appalled, however, that as editor-at-large of Time magazine, he is responsible for among other things, deciding what stories will be covered in that publication. As the person in charge of political content, it is upsetting to know that he probably has not been objective in his dealings with material I and so many people look forward to (until now) reading each week. Needless to say, I’ve cancelled my subscription to Time magazine and hope you will too.

But I’m even more disgusted with Smiley and West, two brothers who I did have expectations of - and thought I knew. These two have done much worse than what Halperin has done because they set the tone for it, opened the door to it, and must take much of the blame for creating a climate that would make a white, professional journalist feel comfortable verbally and vulgarly attacking the first black president of the United States.

When you think you know a person, when you’ve given a person a forum to present his views, when you’ve had a hand in a person’s success, you want to believe that he is the same person he always was.

Remember THAT Tavis - the one who could take any complicated political story that had an impact on black America and “break it down” for us every Tuesday and Thursday in less than five minutes. The one who coined the phrase "radio advocacy" and alerted us any time anyone - from a private business owner to a politician to a corporate giant - even thought about doing black folks wrong. The Tavis that loved black people so much that he would sometimes, during his commentaries, be moved to tears. Where is that guy? You know, the guy that would have been telling me, "Fly Jock, Halperin has got to go." For a while, I thought he was still with us, even though people around me (and many of you) tried to convince me otherwise. “Tavis is a hater." "Tavis is only about himself." "Tavis is jealous of the president." I wouldn’t believe any of it. I had so much respect for him before his primary goal became selling books, and, later, selling out.

As we approach the Fourth of July weekend, one that celebrates our freedoms, including freedom of speech, I wish someone would use that as a defense of what Tavis, Cornel and Mark Halperin have said against our president. When dangerous words incite and brew up hatred and violence, there is a line. And these three crossed it.

In case you believe I think Tavis and Cornel called the president an offensive name, I don’t. I think they did something even worse. Any black people with any sense know that racists on the job, at school, at church or on the bus wait for opportunities to feel comfortable enough to spew their evil thoughts. If a black person tells a racist joke in front of a racist or laughs at one, it won’t be long before the racist begins to fire off a couple of his own. Mark Halperin and others are no different. They hate the president because he is black, and Tavis and Cornel, by not having the sense to not give them the opening they waited for, went all in. And this is what we get.

So, yes, MSNBC, fire Mark Halperin. I hope he never works again. I’ve already fired Tavis and Cornel. There’s nothing either can ever do for me or with me again.

I’ve got a new D-word for the two of them: Done.

Ten Black Americans Who Denounced America

Sometimes if you love your country, you have to let it go, especially if that country is oppressing your people. Not all Black Americans have had the everlasting faith in America that President Barack Obama has. Several Black figures have either denounced or just plain left America.

10. W.E.B. Du Bois
Du Bois contributed greatly to the struggle of African-Americans through his writings and activism. Du Bois helped form the NAACP and was perhaps the most prominent African-American intellectual of the 20th century. Du Bois became a communist during the height of the Cold War. He was investigated by the FBI for his so-called socialist views. Du Bois died a Ghanaian citizen, after the U.S. refused his passport.

9. Jeremiah Wright
While Fox News may have painted Wright as an America-hating madman, Wright was just judging the U.S. with the same Christian principles that he lived by. Wright was a Marine who served in Vietnam, risking his life for the country he would be condemned for criticizing. A close view of Wright’s controversial sermon shows that did not hate America, but expected America to live up to its Christian values and leave unjust wars.

8. Boots Riley (The Coup)
Riley is an anti-imperialist and a Marxist, which puts him in direct opposition to American policies. In 2001 his group, The Coup, had an album cover with the World Trade Center blowing up and Boots pushing a button on a guitar, a few months before the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

7. Assat

a Shakur
Assata Shakur, is a Black Panther who was charged with convicted for killing a police officer, though many have cast doubt on her conviction. Asata with the help of rapper Tupac’s stepfather, Mutulu Shakur, escaped from prison and found political asylum in Cuba, a country hated by the United States.

6. Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson was an actor, singer, football player, lawyer and scholar. He was also a civil rights activist and labeled a communist. Robeson, like Du Bois had his passport taken away in 1950, for fear he would tell the world about how Black people were oppressed in America. In 1951 he charged the U.S.A. with genocide for turning a blind eye at African-Americans being lynched. Though Robeson traveled to Russia, won the Stalin Prize For Freedom, and even wrote a song for Stalin, he remained an American citizen his whole life.

5. Stokely Carmichael/Kwame Ture
Stokely Carmichael was a major figure in both the civil rights and Black Power movements, as the head of SNCC and the Honorary Prime Minister of the Black Panther Party, helping coin the phrase “Black Power.” He eventually split with the Black Panther party and moved to Guinea in Africa where he married South African activist and singer, Miriam Makeba, changing his name to Kwame Ture.

4. Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker moved to France after being a dancer in Harlem to escape racism in the USA after a successful tour of Europe. Baker helped the French rebel against the Nazis. While in France, Baker supported the Civil Rights Movement, and was the only woman to speak at the historic March on Washington with Martin Luther King Jr. at her side.

3. Martin Luther King Jr.
Though Martin Luther King Jr. said his dream was deeply rooted in the American dream, and would frequently site the Constitution and the Declaration Of Independence to further civil rights, he condemned America over the war in Vietnam.

God has a way of standing before the nations with judgment, and it seems that I can hear God saying to America, ‘You’re too arrogant! And if you don’t change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power, and I’ll place it in the hands of a nation that doesn’t even know my name. Be still and know that I’m God.’”

2. Marcus Garvey
Although Marcus Garvey was born in Jamaica, he came into prominence after moving to America in 1916, where he would start the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and the Back To Africa movement. Garvey raised money to repopulate Liberia but was charged by J. Edgar Hoover, with mail fraud and later deported.

1. Malcolm X
Malcolm X, like Marcus Garvey advocated for the complete separation of African-Americans from America, establishing their own country. Malcolm famously criticized U.S. foreign and domestic policy after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, saying it was a case of “the chickens coming home to roost.” Malcolm made plans to charge the USA with violating the rights of African-Americans before he died.