‘Trayvoning’ (Posing As A Dead Body With Skittles) Is The Coolest New Trend For Idiots

VIDEO

by Jon Bershad | 

It’s a fact as old as time; young people are idiots. If that weren’t the case, I never would have considered Sum 41 the pinnacle of music. However, some young people are special idiots, climbing to the peaks of idiocy in the way that the rest of us, with our ridiculous clothes and bad attempts at facial hair, could only dream of. For example, take the young people in this news segment from WPTY in Tennessee. You see, they’ve come up with a new Internet meme called “Trayvoning.”

Trayvoning is just like Tebowing, however, instead of showing your support for a famous athlete, you mock a 17-year-old who was shot to death! Fun! All you have to do is buy a pack of Skittles and some iced tea (you know, just like the young boy bought right before his life was snuffed out forever) and then lie down on the ground and pretend like you’re, I don’t know, someone whose parents will never get to speak to again. Hilarious!

Apparently there were a few Facebook groups set up around these picture which, shockingly, got taken down. The website HyperVocal has this amazingly awful quote from one of the group members:

“Hurr durr, says the Internet, it’s just a joke! Mocking this dead kid is funny and totally removed from its racial context! Wait, no it’s not. Because when provoked, the Facebook group members started spewing their own justifications: They’re combating ‘racism against whites.’ ‘White people are becoming more and more oppressed.’”

It’s true. We white people are so darn oppressed. Just the other day I was told that I couldn’t say “nigger” in public but that black rappers could. What’s up with that?! Well, I guess it’s time for me to mock dead people now.

Ugh. This is all the fault of the miserable people in our media who, after President Obama had the nerve to answer a question someone asked him, decided that the violent death of a teenager needed to be an election year political issue. It’s the fault of the awful people on the Right who have decided it’s super fun to invent a “race war” to rev up their base. It’s the fault of the awful people on the Left who decided that this story belonged to them but then backed away once the facts didn’t fit perfectly. It’s the fault of everyone who decided that a boy who bled out lying in the grass wasn’t a human being; he was actually just a thing they could use.

Because of all those people, you now have racist idiots who don’t view Trayvon Martin as a dead teenager. They view him as a thing from the other side and therefore something that deserves to be mocked.

I’m sure this isn’t that big a trend. Probably just a handful of jackasses. But if the media wants to use humans as symbols, this group is perfect. They’re a symbol of what happens when you cater to the worst instincts in your audience without any care to what will happen.

Watch the video from WPTY below:

MSNBC Panel Agrees: Republican’s Employ Racist Code To Mobilize ‘White Redemption 2.0′

VIDEO

by Noah Rothman | 

On Friday, Craig Melvin, fill-in host for MSNBC’s Martin Bashir, hosted a panel discussion on the Republican party’s use of coded racism and “dog whistles” as a political wedge. His panel guests, Politico’s White House correspondent Joe Williams and TheGrio.com contributor Edward Wyckoff Williams, agreed that President Barack Obama has been subject to racially insensitive attacks from the right in an effort to mobilize voters who regard Obama with suspicion because of his race.

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“Do you believe that race-baiting is still something that is very effective in American politics,” Melvin asked Williams.

“Yes, I do,” said Wyckoff Williams. He says that what the country is experiencing now is a backlash against the “hope and change” of 2008, which Williams said he calls “white redemption 2.0.”

It essentially describes what occurred in American politics – not just in American society – but American politics in particular from 1866 and 1877. Essentially, you had this backlash that saw the rise of the Klu Klux Klan against African Americans voting and then voting in their own electoral officials. And essentially what we now have is this backlash against this African American president.

Wyckoff Williams went on to describe the opposition to President Obama, which he described as rooted in an American tradition of racial animus, as “insidious.” Williams said that the Republican party has attempted to turn “poor whites” against this president to “delegitimize him.”

Wyckoff Williams says that the Republican party has embraced and propagated the notion that President Obama was not born in America and is a secret Muslim. “All of that is race-laced I would say,” said Wyckoff Williams.

Williams agreed, but went further saying that tactics like attempting to link Rev. Jeremiah Wright to President Obama go beyond “dog whistles.”

“It’s a claxon. It’s an air raid siren. It’s a call to arms,” said Williams. He said that voters “respond to these code words,” but they are turned off when these tactics overreach. In that way, Williams said that racially coded attacks on Obama could backfire.

“President Obama is nothing if not a moderate,” said Williams. He says that he is confused that attacks like “birtherism” on President Obama refuse to disappear. “It seems very strange that these attacks would be coming whole cloth with nothing to back them up,” Williams concluded.

Watch the segment below via MSNBC:

Birthers Firm Despite Obama Birth Certificate

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

By MATT NEGRIN

If President Obama's team can't connect with voters on the big issues — the economy, Bain Capital, immigration — there's always the birthers.
Whether it's Donald Trump or the Arizona secretary of state, it's clear that there are people who will never be convinced the president was born in Hawaii. Thanks to recent movements in the Republican Party, Democrats may have an opportunity to tie these nonbelievers to Mitt Romney. And that's probably just fine by the White House.
The birther "controversy" reignited this week in Arizona. There, secretary of state Ken Bennett had asked Hawaii to verify Obama's birth certificate — the long-form document that the president released last year in response to demands by reality TV host Donald Trump. A key detail: Bennett is the co-chairman of Romney's campaign in Arizona.
Hawaii told Bennett that the birth certificate was real, and Bennett, apparently satisfied, declared the matter closed.
Andrea Saul, a spokeswoman for Romney, responded by pointing to Romney's previous quotes about Obama's citizenship (Romney thinks Obama was born in the United States). But when asked if it was inappropriate for Bennett to investigate the matter altogether, Saul didn't respond.
Some liberals have parodied Bennett's effort by asking him to investigate Romney's birth certificate from Michigan. Matt Roberts, a spokesman for Bennett, said the office is considering the request.
"Right now, we are determining whether or not that's necessary, and it's under consideration," Roberts said.
Democrats also revived Trump's flirtations with birthers on Thursday, as Romney announced a contest to share a meal with the real estate mogul for a $3 donation to his campaign. Trump famously crusaded against Obama's claims of citizenship last year, creating a media frenzy that led the president to put his long-form birth certificate online for everyone to see.
"Once again Mitt Romney is failing the moral leadership test," Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Melanie Roussell said in a statement. "Instead of rejecting Donald Trump's 'birther' conspiracy theories and divisive attacks, he's endorsing them by campaigning and fundraising with him. Romney has shown time and again that he's not ready to have his John McCain 2008 type moment by speaking out against these types of attacks against the President. This type of false and extremely divisive rhetoric has no place in the political discourse of our country and Mitt Romney should stand up against it instead of standing with Donald Trump to raise money for his campaign."
Newt Gingrich has tried again to distance himself from the birther movement. Asked Thursday evening on MSNBC why some Republicans continue to beat the birther drum, Gingrich smiled and said, "Beats me."
A rash of so-called birther bills have swept across the country in the past couple of years in nearly a dozen state legislatures, sponsored by Republicans who wanted proof that Obama is American-born before his name is allowed on the ballot.
A.G. Crowe, a Louisiana state senator who sponsored one of the bills last year, said Thursday that even though the president's birth certificate is on full display, he still doesn't know whether Obama is from here or Africa.
"I have no clue. I have no clue whatsoever. No clue whatsoever," Crowe said.
Told that Obama's birth certificate is available, Crowe said, "But you know what, what was the reason for taking so long to do all of that?"
"Until I see it myself, my mind will not be made up as to where he was born," he said. ABC News sent an email to Crowe with a link to Obama's birth certificate, but he didn't respond after that.
Leo Berman, a state representative in Texas who also filed a birther bill, said he doesn't believe Obama was born in the United States because of YouTube videos he said he's seen that show Obama and the first lady admitting that he wasn't born in the country.
"I don't think it's real," Berman said of Obama's birth certificate. "That's correct. And a number of people in the United States have the same opinion."
According to an ABC News/Washington Post survey from about a year ago, only 77 percent of people polled said they knew Obama was born in the United States. Of those who didn't, 3 percent said another country, and 19 percent said they had no opinion.

Minorities are not looking for 'payback'

By Ruben Navarrette Jr., CNN Contributor

The U.S. population is becoming less white, according to new census data.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• U.S. Census says that more than half the babies born in 2011 were minorities
• Ruben Navarrette: People like Rush Limbaugh see the change as a threat
• He says minorities are not looking forward to "payback" once they're in the majority
• Navarrette: Minorities just want a seat at the table and to offer something back to the country

Editor's note: Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a CNN.com contributor and a nationally syndicated columnist.

San Diego (CNN) -- You've probably read those articles about how, in the United States, minorities are becoming the majority. That's a polite way of describing what is really going on. Namely, that the U.S. population is becoming more Latino and less white. More than any other group, it is Latinos who are driving demographic changes.

Last week, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that, of all the babies born in the United States in 2011, more than half were members of minority groups. Latinos, Asians, African-Americans and other minorities accounted for 50.4% of births last year, marking the first time in U.S. history this has happened.

Immigration is a driving force. So is the fact that Latinos have higher birthrates because they tend to be younger and starting families. According to the report, Latinos have a median age of 27; with whites, it's 42.

Ruben Navarrette Jr.

When I read these kinds of stories, I wince. Some people assume that making lawmakers, media and corporations aware of population trends will persuade them to see the value in diversity and cause them to reach out to nonwhite populations. In my experience, it doesn't have that effect at all. People tend to do what they want to do the way they've always done it.

But what you can set your watch by is the backlash to these stories. It's rooted in fear, but also in human nature. No one likes being told they're being displaced or pushed aside, or that they're not going to be as relevant as time goes on.

So when David Bostis, a senior research associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, tells CNN.com as he did recently: "The Republicans' problem is that their voters are white, aging and dying off" and that "there will come a time when (Republicans) suffer catastrophic losses with the realization of the population changes," it is bound to set off shock waves. And it did.

Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh saw the CNN story as a threat, and he went ballistic.

"It is clear that this, and other similar stories like this, are meant to serve as a warning to Republicans and conservatives," Limbaugh told his audience of millions.

"And the warning is: You are on the wrong side of history. And you are on the wrong side of demographics. You better do what the coming majority wants right now, or you're gonna suffer the consequences. There is an implied threat in this story. You're getting older. You're white and you're dying off. Pretty soon you're gonna find out what it's been like to not be you."

"That's the implication of the story," Limbaugh insisted. "You've been the majority for all these decades, all these generations, but your time is coming when you're gonna be the minorities and there's gonna be people with majority power over you. So you better learn right. You better change your ways. You better get with the program so that everybody likes you."

As is often the case when Limbaugh charges into matters of race and ethnicity, he has it all wrong. These aren't threats. These are facts. And they're presented not to pressure people to do "what the coming majority wants right now" as much as to highlight the value of doing the right thing by making our institutions more inclusive.

Stories like this are supposed to enlighten us and give us a heads up about what's coming around the corner, so we can take advantage of the trend and not be overrun by it. Elected officials, media companies and the business communities can put off thinking about the future, but they can't escape it.

Meanwhile, what people like Limbaugh seem to be trying to escape is a reckoning for what happened in the past. As he sees it, all this talk about changing demographics is tied to a larger criticism of the United States as having at times fallen short of its own principles of liberty, fairness and equality.

"Part of it is payback because this evil white majority has arranged things so they get all the spoils," he said. "And then whatever they don't want is what gets handed down. Those days are about over, and the big change is coming."

What needs to change is this kind of thinking. It's total nonsense. In nearly 25 years of writing about politics, race and ethnicity, I've never heard any member of a minority group talk about how they're looking forward to "payback" once they're in the majority. Not one.

What I do hear quite a bit is that people of color believe in the greatness of this country, and they want to help write the next chapter in ways that benefit them and their families. They want a seat at the table, not because they feel entitled but because they feel they have something unique and valuable to offer. And they don't want to get even; they just want to get ahead.

What's wrong with that? Nothing.

In fact, it's in keeping with some of this country's greatest traditions. Have no fear. The face of America is changing. But it's heart and soul never will.

Xerox CEO: 'If You Don't Transform, You're Stuck'

AP

Xerox CEO Ursula Burns began her career with the company in 1980 as a summer intern. In 2009, she became the first African-American woman to lead a Fortune 500 company.

by NPR Staff

Xerox is one of America's most venerable companies. Founded in 1906, its name is virtually synonymous with "photocopy."

But in recent years, in an era of email and paperless offices, Xerox has struggled to stay relevant. Today, the company is trying to turn itself around and thrive in the digital age.

Leading Xerox through that transformation is Ursula Burns, a woman who has undergone tremendous change in her own life. Burns, 53, grew up in New York City's Lower East Side, an area she has described as a tough, drug-infested ghetto.

Burns began her career at Xerox in 1980 as an intern, after completing her Master's degree in mechanical engineering. She rose through the ranks to become the company's CEO — and the first African-American woman to lead a Fortune 500 company — at a time when less than 20 percent of corporate executives are female.

Burns talks with NPR's Renee Montagne about her journey from young engineer to CEO and her efforts to transform Xerox from a manufacturing icon into a thriving international services provider.

Interview Highlights

On why she has stayed with Xerox

"I didn't think, when I walked into the company, that I would be the CEO. I did expect to be successful, though. My mother raised us to think that if we worked hard, and if we put our end of the bargain in, it would work out OK for us. And I loved the place, they seemed to like me well enough, so a marriage was formed, and I've been there ever since. ...

"What I found there was an organization that accepted me for whom I was. They actually tried to round out some edges — which I think they did a reasonably good job at — without taking away the person that they hired."

On being young, black and female in corporate America

"Race and gender definitely came up occasionally in my life at work. But the bigger challenge that I had was age. I took roles earlier in my career than people expected, and so a lot of what I got was, 'Do you actually know enough to do this?' I was always a little bit younger and I got a lot of pushback for that. I think that was a big issue for me. ...

"As you move up — as you engage more and more people in the company and take on broader roles — this idea of quote-unquote "looking the part" becomes more and more of a challenge when you don't look the part.

"But there's nothing I can do, or wanted to do, about being a black female — I kind of like both of those things. So at the end of the day, the people who were around me had to do a little bit more adjusting than I did. ... And if you're faced with people who can't deal with it, there's not much I can do.

"Now, I got beat up for doing bad things or not moving fast enough, but never for trying stuff or for being a woman or for being black. It's just not a part of the way that we operated."

On the growing number of services Xerox provides

"A lot of people enjoy the benefit of E-ZPass, which means when you go through a toll, you don't have to stop and put cash into those things. ... Xerox manages the infrastructure of E-ZPass for a large number of states. ... So when you say E-ZPass, or get some bill from E-ZPass, or call and ask a question, you're talking to a Xerox person. We manage that infrastructure.

"If you get a ticket for running a red light in certain states ... Xerox actually provides the installation and management of the camera systems [and] the back-office system to assure that we're sending the ticket to the right place. ...

"If you live in the state of California and you have anything to do with Medicaid, the entire communication — the statement of benefits and the locking together of the services provided and the payments that you got — is done by Xerox Corporation."

On the imperative to transform

"The world is changing. We all know this. And as that world changes, if you don't transform your company, you're stuck. Even if you could figure out a way to be profitable and reasonably successful, I think you would be under-using your assets if you don't figure out a way to become more relevant as the world transforms and evolves ...

"When we started, our mission was to automate work processes. We became so good at this one ... business process that we didn't think about all the rest of them that were out there. So as the market started to change, and as customers said 'Can you do more for us?' they also said, 'You're already engaged here — why don't you get engaged with the ... benefit forms? Why don't you generate the things?' ...

"So I think [the shift to providing services] was a really easy transformation ... because we didn't have to go from making food to making airplanes. It was pretty close — it was in our neighborhood."

On an international corporation's responsibility to American workers

"I think that Xerox, as an American company, has a responsibility to have jobs in the U.S. But we also have a huge business in the U.K.; I have a responsibility to have jobs in the U.K. I have a growing business in India; I have a responsibility to have jobs in India. I have a big business in Russia. ... So, I don't look at is as myopically or as single-focused as providing jobs in the U.S. only.

"I think that because we are here, I will bring back jobs, we do bring back jobs, we bring jobs into the United States, as long as the U.S. can continue to be competitive. And we can. We are an innovative group of people in the United States, and we can be competitive in both cost but also in quality and ... innovativeness." [Copyright 2012 National Public Radio]

TRANSCRIPT:

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

An American corporation, best known for its association with paper, is trying to turn itself around in the digital age. Leading Xerox through this transformation is a woman who's experienced her own share of change. Ursula Burns joined the company right out of college. As a top executive a decade ago, she helped pull Xerox back from the verge of bankruptcy. When she became CEO in 2009, Xerox was doing better, but the economy was struggling to come out of a deep recession.

Ursula Burns is now the rarest of corporate leaders, an African American and a woman heading a Fortune 500 company. She joined us to talk about her company and her career.

Good morning.

URSULA BURNS: Good morning. I'm very pleased to be with you.

MONTAGNE: It is graduation season, and for a lot of graduates their working life begins with an internship. You started as an intern 32 years ago at Xerox. Tell us who you were then and would you have ever dreamed that you would CEO of Xerox one day?

BURNS: I was a pretty fresh, rough engineer. And I was born and raised in Lower East side of Manhattan, so I was a Lower East side of Manhattan mechanical engineer descending on this great American corporation called Xerox Corporation.

And what I found there, was an organization that accepted me for whom I was. They actually tried to round out some edges without taking away the person that they hired. You know, my impatience, my quote, unquote, "bravado", all of the - you know, they actually accepted all of that.

Now I didn't think, when I walked into the company, that I would be the CEO. I did expect to be successful, though. My mother raised us to think that if we worked hard, and if we put our end of the bargain in, it would work out OK for us. And I loved the place, they seemed to like me well enough, so a marriage was formed, and, you know, I've been there ever since.

MONTAGNE: You know, you mentioned the Lower East Side, and back in 1980 approximately it wasn't the fancy sort of East Village area that it is today.

BURNS: No, the Lower East Side when I was growing up was the ghetto. It was tough. It was drug infested. So my mother created, in this environment that, you know, wasn't great when you walked out the door, she created an environment that was just fine inside. And she spent a lot of money to send my sister, my brother, and I to Catholic school. It's the best education that we could get at that time.

But when I think about it in hindsight, it was just fine. And I was never wanting for encouragement, that's for sure.

MONTAGNE: You know, I wonder then, was there a moment ever where you found that being a woman was a hurdle for you as you moved up?

BURNS: Race and gender definitely came up, occasionally, in my life at work. But the bigger challenge that I had was age. I took roles earlier in my career than people expected, and so a lot of what I got was, do you actually know enough to do this?

Gender and race, as you move up, this idea of looking the part becomes more of a challenge when you don't look the part.

But, you know, there's nothing I can do or wanted to do, about being a black female - I kind of like both of those things. So at the end of the day, the people who were around me had to do a little bit more adjusting to that than I did. I did no adjusting to that.

Now, I got beat up for doing bad things or not moving fast enough, but never for being a woman or for being black. It's just not a part of the way that we operated. You know, I was - I benefited from that for sure. It was a great place to start.

MONTAGNE: As CEO, you are in the midst of transforming this iconic company that's been known - or is known for copiers - so much so that Xeroxing meaning copying. Give us an example of one of the things that Xerox does now that's very big for the company that many of us out here wouldn't have a clue that you were doing.

BURNS: Yeah, I'll give you two, two examples. One, transportation. So a lot of people enjoy the benefit of E-ZPass, which means when you go through a toll, you don't have to stop...

MONTAGNE: Right.

BURNS: ...and put cash into those things, et cetera.

MONTAGNE: Yeah, for toll roads and things like that.

BURNS: For toll roads, right. Xerox manages the infrastructure of E-ZPass for a large number of states. So when you say E-ZPass, and get some bill from E-ZPass, or call and ask a question about E-ZPass, you're talking to a Xerox person.

If you get a ticket for running a red light in certain states around this nation, Xerox actually provides the installation and management of the camera systems with the back-office system to assure that we're sending the ticket to the right place, et cetera et cetera.

So we do everything from customer care infrastructures, finance and accounting infrastructures, to Medicaid back-office systems. And what I'm leading now is a broadening back to where we started. First one was copying, now we're into transportation and so on and so forth.

MONTAGNE: And circling back, because in these last decades, Xerox went through a rough patch.

BURNS: Yeah.

MONTAGNE: It needed maybe less visibility and more viability.

BURNS: The world is changing. We all know this. And as that world changes, if you don't transform your company, you're stuck. I mean, even if you could figure out a way to be profitable and reasonably successful, I think you would be under-using your assets if you don't figure out a way to become more relevant as the world transforms and evolves. And that's what - a big piece of what a CEO does.

And so as we look at our mission now, just like our mission was when we started, our mission was to automate work processes. We became so good at this one business process that we didn't think like all the rest of them that were out there.

And so as the market started to change, and as customers said can you do more for us? They also said, hey, can you manage - you know, you're already engaged here. Why don't you get engaged with the statement and benefit forms? Why don't you generate the thing? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So we - I think that it was a really easy transformation from that standpoint, because we didn't have to go from making food to making airplanes. It was pretty close. It was in our neighborhood.

MONTAGNE: You know, Xerox now has nearly 140,000 employees. More than half of those employees are operating out of the United States. And I'm wondering if - do you think corporations like Xerox have an obligation to provide jobs for Americans?

BURNS: This idea about a responsibility is an interesting statement. Xerox, as an American company, has a responsibility to have jobs in the U.S. But we also have a huge business in the U.K.; I have a responsibility to have jobs in the U.K. I have a growing business in India; I have a responsibility to have jobs in India. I have a big business in the Soviet - in Russia, et cetera, et cetera. So, I don't look at it as myopically or as single-focused as providing jobs in the U.S. only.

I think that because we are here, I will bring back jobs, we do bring back jobs, we bring jobs into the United States, as long as the U.S. can continue to be competitive. And we can. We are an innovative group of people in the United States, and we can be competitive in both cost, but also in quality, and as I said, in innovativeness.

MONTAGNE: Ursula Burns is the CEO for Xerox. Thank you very much for joining us.

BURNS: Thank you very much.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

MONTAGNE: This is NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.

Martin Luther King's Niece Rejects NAACP's Embrace of 'Homosexual Agenda'

Dr. Alveda C. King, the niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., has expressed dissatisfaction with the NAACP's affirmation of gay marriage and rejects claims that the fight for such unions is linked to the civil rights movement. King claims the anti-traditional marriage community wants "a world where homosexual marriage and abortion will supposedly set the captives free."

Dr. King, who is also the Sr. Pastoral Associate and Director of African-American Outreach for Priests for Life and Gospel of Life Ministries, said in a statement that she opposes the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's recent endorsement of same-sex marriage.

"Neither my great-grandfather an NAACP founder, my grandfather Dr. Martin Luther King, Sr. an NAACP leader, my father Rev. A. D. Williams King, nor my uncle Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. embraced the homosexual agenda that the current NAACP is attempting to label as a civil rights agenda," the civil rights leader expressed.

"In the 21st Century, the anti-traditional marriage community is in league with the anti-life community, and together with the NAACP and other sympathizers, they are seeking a world where homosexual marriage and abortion will supposedly set the captives free," King added.

The NAACP, the nation's oldest African-American civil rights group, voted on Sunday, May 20, to endorse same-sex marriage at its board meeting in Miami, Fla. The decision came only two weeks after President Barack Obama shared that his views had also changed on the issue and he now supports gay couples legally being allowed to marry.

"The mission of the NAACP has always been to ensure political, social and economic equality of all people," Roslyn M. Brock, chairman of the Board of Directors of the NAACP, said in a statement. "We have and will oppose efforts to codify discrimination into law."

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"Civil marriage is a civil right and a matter of civil law," added Benjamin Todd Jealous, president and CEO of the organization. "The NAACP's support for marriage equality is deeply rooted in the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and equal protection of all people. The well-funded right wing organizations who are attempting to split our communities are no friend to civil rights, and they will not succeed."

Many African-American leaders, however, have openly disagreed with the NAACP's support of same-sex marriage.

"The group of black clergy and civil rights leaders say it is time to turn the tide against the 'hijacking' of the civil rights movement," said the Rev. Bill Owens, the organizer of the Coalition of African-American Pastors. Owens and his peers gathered at a press conference last week to protest the comparison of same-sex marriage to the civil rights struggles of black Americans.

"A 50-year-old can only read about the struggles and protests of the civil rights era, but some of us who are older have the battle scars to prove it. And the rights we fought so hard to acquire did not include same-sex marriage," the Rev. Owens added.

Another Christian leader went so far as to call the NAACP "irrelevant" to the lives of African-Americans.

"The black community is suffering from soaring unemployment, an extraordinarily high rate of abortions, a high school drop out rate among black teenagers that is breathtaking, an exploding rate of single parent households and the decimation of black families – yet, the NAACP is making statements about same-sex marriage. The NAACP has proven again to be an irrelevant organization as it relates to issues of survival for the black community," expressed Pastor Stephen Broden of Fair Park Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas.

Arguing that African-American pastors believe that homosexual behavior is sinful, CP contributor and Nebraska pastor Dan Delzell suggested, "President Obama is leading the way on gay marriage for what he hopes will be a large following of black pastors and their congregations. Many black pastors are not following his lead. The vast majority of pastors in the black community do not want the children in their church being taught that homosexual behavior is no longer sinful."

Support for gay marriage among African-Americans in general, however, is reportedly on the rise. According to an ABC News/Washington Post poll released this week, support for same-sex marriage among black Americans is up from 41 percent in recent surveys to 59 percent.

Southern Baptists set to elect 1st black president

Rev. Fred Luter, pastor of the Franklin Ave. Baptist Church, delivers a sermon during Sunday Services at the Church in New Orleans, Sunday, June 3, 2012. The new face of a Christian denomination that formed on the wrong side of slavery before the Civil War could be an African-American preacher who grew up in New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward. The Southern Baptist Convention holds its annual meeting in New Orleans next week and it could see the election of Luter as president. Faced with growing diversity in America and declining membership in its churches, the denomination is making a sincere effort to distance itself from its troubled racial past. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

By TRAVIS LOLLER, Associated Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Four months ago, two African-American pastors stood in a hallway of the Southern Baptist Convention's Nashville headquarters looking at a row of white faces.

The portraits of the 56 convention presidents since the denomination's 1845 founding are in large picture frames holding several portraits each. The final frame holds empty slots.

"They got a space for Fred, right there," one of the men said. "Got a space picked out for him."

"Fred" is the Rev. Fred Luter Jr., the man poised to become the first African American president of the nation's largest Protestant denomination when convention delegates vote next week in New Orleans.

It's a big step for a denomination that was formed out of a pre-Civil War split with northern Baptists over slavery and for much of the last century had a reputation for supporting segregation.

In recent years, faced with growing diversity in America and declining membership in its churches, the denomination has made a sincere effort to distance itself from that past. Many Southern Baptists believe the charming and charismatic Luter is the man who can lead them forward.

Luter's rise through the Southern Baptist ranks has been a slow and steady process, the result of the hard work, leadership and creativity that allowed him to turn a struggling inner-city church of 50 members into the largest Southern Baptist church in Louisiana by weekly attendance.

The 55-year-old grew up in New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward, the middle of five children raised by a divorced mother who worked as a seamstress "not to make ends meet, but just to make them kind of wave at each other," he said.

The family walked to a local Baptist church every Sunday and Luter's mother made sure all the children attended.

Luter drifted away from religion after leaving home for college, but at age 21 he found himself making a promise to God that he has kept to this day.

After a near-fatal motorcycle accident landed him in the hospital, "I said, 'God, if you save my life, I'll serve you for the rest of my life,'" Luter said.

He survived and soon began preaching on street corners every Saturday with a group of friends from church.

"We had no training," he said. "We were just really excited about what God was doing in our lives and we wanted to share it with others. We got ridiculed a lot."

Luter kept it up for nine years before someone suggested he apply to become the pastor at Franklin Avenue Baptist Church. Formerly a white church, the membership had changed to African-American with changing demographics of the neighborhood.

"When I came to Franklin Avenue it was a bunch of women and kids," Luter said. "You could count the number of men on one hand."

So Luter bought a pay-per-view TV boxing match between Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns and told the women in his church to invite every man they knew.

About 25 men showed up, some of whom didn't realize they were coming to the pastor's house, Luter said. Nonetheless, they happily dumped their beer to go in and see the match. Afterward, Luter invited them to come to church.

"The boxing match was on a Friday night and the following Sunday five of those guys were at church," Luter said. He recognized them during the service and all the women started applauding. After church, they lavished attention on the men.

"The next Sunday there were more men," Luter said. "Once we started the men's program we found that men draw not only other men, but men draw women. Word started spreading."

Luter also began an outreach program called "frangelism," for "friends, relatives, associates and neighbors." One week, members asked to bring a friend to church, the next week a relative, and so on.

"We told them, 'If God has done something in your life, you are obligated to share it.' We've never been on TV or the radio, never put up any billboards. The church grew through word of mouth."

As the church grew and began leading the state in baptisms, Luter started to draw notice. In 1995, he was invited to preach at the pastor's conference held in the two days before the Southern Baptist Convention's annual business meeting.

James Merritt, who would later become SBC president, had never met Luter or heard him preach when he brought him to the conference on a recommendation from a colleague. Merritt was simply trying to add diversity to the event. He got much more than he had hoped for.

Merritt was on the speaker's platform facing the audience of 15,000 to 20,000 when Luter began to preach.

"They were electrified," he said. "You could tell by their body language he had them in the palm of his hand."

As Luter tells it, that conference put him on the map and he soon started getting invitations to preach all over the country. Some members of his congregation worried he would leave them for a better offer, but Luter has remained devoted to Franklin Avenue.

Many Southern Baptist leaders, when speaking of Luter, mention how respected he is for his determination to stay in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, destroying Franklin Avenue and scattering its members.

Luter said the disaster shook his faith and he didn't know at first if the church could recover. A photograph from that time shows Luter on a helicopter tour of the city, wiping tears from his eyes as he gazed at the flooded buildings and vans of his church.

He told the Baptist Press the tragedy showed him that "life is like a vapor on this side of eternity. What you have today could be gone tomorrow. You can't put your trust in earthly things."

Despite the loss of his home and church, Luter never missed a Sunday preaching and soon began driving a circuit to reach his scattered flock.

"Everywhere I went I would see people from my church and it was like a family reunion, with me crying and wiping snot from my nose," he said.

Those members still in New Orleans started meeting at a white church, First Baptist New Orleans, where the two congregations soon formed close ties that remained even after Franklin Avenue reopened in 2008. First Baptist pastor David Crosby will nominate Luter for president at the SBC meeting.

The tragedy even resulted in two new Franklin Avenue churches being formed, one in Houston and one in Baton Rouge, La., both cities where many former members remain.

Despite huge membership losses at Franklin Avenue in New Orleans after Katrina, about 5,000 people attend services each week and a recent Sunday found people standing along the walls with the sanctuary filled to capacity. To cheers and applause, Luter invited them all to come to the city's convention center and witness a historic moment where their pastor would be elected as the first African-American president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

His election is not guaranteed, but with the SBC's annual meeting a week away, Luter so far has no challengers for the position.

Although his likely election will be historic for Southern Baptists, Luter's many admirers say he is in no way a token.

As Crosby, of First Baptist New Orleans, puts it: "It's such a note of grace and favor from God that a man of this caliber would step forward to become the first African-American president of the SBC."

Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

VIDEO Depicted as gorilla, African American doctor sues UCLA for racism

by: SHAMEFULHONESTTRUTH

A respected African American faculty surgeon filed a racial discrimination suit against the UCLA Medical Center and UC Regents. Dr. Christian Head has been intentionally degraded based on his race and UCLA officials have ignored blatant acts of racial discrimination, including an edited photo depicting Dr. Head as a gorilla being sodomized by his supervisor. That alone is offensive. But the fact that the photo was publicly presented for laughs during an annual medical school sponsored event attended by more than 200 physicians, faculty, residents and guests is both shocking and indefensible.

Hear what Dr. Head has endured and what UCLA officials continue ignore.

(You can sign the petition to UCLA Chancellor Gene Block and tell him to end discrimination at UCLA and UCLA Medical Center.)

Sarcoidosis accounts for 25% of all deaths in African-American women

A new study conducted by researchers from Boston University has found thatsarcoidosis accounts for 25 percent of all deaths among women in the Black Women's Health Study who have the disease. The study is the largest epidemiologic study to date to specifically address mortality in black females with sarcoidosis.

Results of the study will be presented at the ATS 2012 International Conference in San Francisco.

The exact cause of sarcoidosis, which causes inflammation in the lungs, lymph nodes, liver, skin and other tissues, are unknown. The disease typically begins between the ages of 20 and 40 years, and is more likely to affect individuals who have a close blood relative with the disease. Sarcoidosis is often associated with debilitating lung illness, including pulmonary fibrosis, a life-threatening condition in which fibrous tissue develops within the lungs. While all ages and races can develop sarcoidosis, in the United States, black women have a higher incidence of the disease, and tend to have a more severe course and higher mortality rates.

"Despite the disproportionate morbidity and mortality of sarcoidosis in black females, few studies have specifically addressed causes of death in this population," said study lead author Melissa Tukey, MD, pulmonary and critical care medicine fellow at Boston Medical Center.

To conduct their analysis, the researchers used data from the Black Women's Health Study, a longitudinal study that enrolled 59,000 African-American participants aged 21-69 when the study was initiated in 1995. During follow-up through 2008, demographic data, lifestyle factors and medical conditions, including sarcoidosis, were ascertained through biennial questionnaires. Self-reported diagnoses of sarcoidosis were confirmed in 96 percent of cases for whom medical records or physician checklists were obtained. The researchers obtained data regarding deaths and causes of death among study subjects from the National Death Index.

At the conclusion of their analysis, the researchers found that a total of 109 deaths occurred among 1,152 women with a history of sarcoidosis, reflecting a cumulative mortality rate of 9.5 percent. Of these deaths, the researchers determined that 25.7% (28 deaths) were directly attributable to sarcoidosis, and an additional 4.6% (five deaths) listed pulmonary hypertension or pulmonary fibrosis as the underlying or primary cause of death. Among women whose deaths were directly attributable to sarcoidosis, 46 percent were caused by respiratory failure. The median age at time of death among all deaths was 58 years.

"These findings highlight the importance of sarcoidosis, and pulmonary disease in particular, as a cause of premature death among black women with the disease," Dr. Tukey said. "This information can help prepare people with the disease to watch for worrisome symptoms so that treatment can be applied, and to alert doctors to the possibility of severe pulmonary disease in black women with sarcoidosis."

Future studies are planned within the Black Women's Health Study looking at genetic and environmental influences onsarcoidosis in black women, she said.

Source: Boston Medical Center

When a Boy Found a Familiar Feel in a Pat of the Head of State

Pete Souza/The White House

In the photo that has hung in the West Wing for three years, President Obama looks to be bowing to 5-year-old Jacob Philadelphia, his arm raised to touch the president’s hair — to see if it feels like his.

By JACKIE CALMES

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WASHINGTON — For decades at the White House, photographs of the president at work and at play have hung throughout the West Wing, and each print soon gives way to a more recent shot. But one picture of President Obamaremains after three years.

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Readers’ Comments

"I love the way the boy Jacob looks so serious as he touches the President's head. It is a reverent moment, a bow and a blessing. Iconic. Good for the soul."

DianaF, NYC

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In the photo, Mr. Obama looks to be bowing to a sharply dressed 5-year-old black boy, who stands erect beside the Oval Office desk, his arm raised to touch the president’s hair — to see if it feels like his. The image has struck so many White House aides and visitors that by popular demand it stays put while others come and go.

As a candidate and as president, Mr. Obama has avoided discussing race except in rare instances when he seemed to have little choice — responding to the racially incendiary words of his former pastor, for example, or to the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager in Florida. Some black leaders criticize Mr. Obama for not directly addressing young blacks or proposing policies specifically for them.

Yet the photo is tangible evidence of what polls also show: Mr. Obama remains a potent symbol for blacks, with a deep reservoir of support. As skittish as White House aides often are in discussing race, they also clearly revel in the power of their boss’s example.

The boy in the picture is Jacob Philadelphia of Columbia, Md. Three years ago this month, his father, Carlton, a former Marine, was leaving the White House staff after a two-year stint on the National Security Council that began in the Bush administration. As departing staff members often do, Mr. Philadelphia asked for a family photograph with Mr. Obama.

When the pictures were taken and the family was about to leave, Mr. Philadelphia told Mr. Obama that his sons each had a question. In interviews, he and his wife, Roseane, said they did not know what the boys would ask. The White House photographer, Pete Souza, was surprised, too, as the photo’s awkward composition attests: The parents’ heads are cut off; Jacob’s arm obscures his face; and his older brother, Isaac, is blurry.

Jacob spoke first.

“I want to know if my hair is just like yours,” he told Mr. Obama, so quietly that the president asked him to speak again.

Jacob did, and Mr. Obama replied, “Why don’t you touch it and see for yourself?” He lowered his head, level with Jacob, who hesitated.

“Touch it, dude!” Mr. Obama said.

As Jacob patted the presidential crown, Mr. Souza snapped.

“So, what do you think?” Mr. Obama asked.

“Yes, it does feel the same,” Jacob said.

(Isaac, now 11, asked Mr. Obama why he had eliminated the F-22 fighter jet. Mr. Obama said it cost too much, Isaac and his parents recounted.)

In keeping with a practice of White House photographers back to Gerald R. Ford’s presidency, each week Mr. Souza picks new photos for display. That week, Jacob’s easily made the cut.

“As a photographer, you know when you have a unique moment. But I didn’t realize the extent to which this one would take on a life of its own,” Mr. Souza said. “That one became an instant favorite of the staff. I think people are struck by the fact that the president of the United States was willing to bend down and let a little boy feel his head.”

David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s longtime adviser, has a copy framed in his Chicago office. He said of Jacob, “Really, what he was saying is, ‘Gee, you’re just like me.’ And it doesn’t take a big leap to think that child could be thinking, ‘Maybe I could be here someday.’ This can be such a cynical business, and then there are moments like that that just remind you that it’s worth it.”

A copy of the photo hangs in the Philadelphia family’s living room with several others taken that day. Mr. Philadelphia, now in Afghanistan for the State Department, said: “It’s important for black children to see a black man as president. You can believe that any position is possible to achieve if you see a black person in it.”

Jacob, now 8, said he indeed does want to be president. “Or a test pilot.”