Acting White: Jena in Review

Much has been said about the events of Jena, LA in the last few weeks. Some are heralding it as a victory, while others are mourning it as a loss. Not surprising is how race is the dividing line between viewpoints of the proceedings. This distance, and it is great, is the road we must still travel.

On one hand, I was heartened that young Mr. Bell was jettisoned from adult court and charges, where his future looked very uninviting. The prospects that the prosecutor in the case will revise the charges against the other defendants, as well, is indeed a victory, however small, of the people and the judicial system over those who are suppose to impartially administer it.

On the other hand, it saddens me to know that the white boys involved received a free pass for their despicable and illegal behaviors, and now we march to insure that the blacks are also NOT held accountable. Since when has it become progress that justice is served when neither side has to face the music for their actions? However they are tried, these boys need to stand before some form of a justice system prepared to re-instate responsibility in all of them, white and black, fairly and equally.

The fact that the best we can do is let dangerous black boys go free to inevitably meet up with dangerous, and already-free, white boys is ludicrous. Mychal Bell, once a promising football star, is up for his third assault charge in two years. A six-on-one fight where the lone combatant was knocked unconscious is not a schoolyard fight, it is an assault. For those who think the severity of their actions was overstated, any coroner can attest that the unconscious state of a victim is the most common symptom preceding actual death.

As far as hangman’s nooses go, they fit in that category of displays like swastikas, confederate flags, and other symbols of violence or hate – they are not worth surrendering our first amendment rights, so we must live with them and their discomfort. Also, there is no demeaning name, in any language, which justifies the lethal force that knocks someone out. I fear for Mr. Bell and his next combatant, as it is only a matter of time before his current trajectory lands him in a prison cell.

Dr. King was right fifty or so years ago when he said to ignore the haters and march on. I believe he would say the same today. But we forget that King was hawkish on the behaviors precipitating change. Mr Bell and his classmates stand at the front of that change line with anti-King clenched fists, and the future looks fairly bleak.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Acting White: Jena Six, Mychal Bell, Guilty, Racism, Jim Crow, Acting White

Jackson Criticizes Obama (for acting like he's white) - Part II

Out of respect for the tenor of phone calls I have received in the last day on Reverend Jackson’s acting white accusation toward candidate Obama, a follow-blog is warranted…

Some interesting information has caused me to conclude that there is more to this event than meets the eye, as usual. For starters, I continued to wonder why Jesse would endorse Barack and then trash him. Jackson is certainly known to play all sides to his advantage and switch horses at opportune times, but I believed there is more…

To start, who really loses in this exchange? Barack? No. Jesse? No. Who else matters? Ms. Hillary for one. Jackson’s slip-of-the-tongue certainly helps Obama grab at white Demo fence sitters who lean toward him, but are less comfortable with his attention to blacks. Barack’s delayed attention to blacks was timed, but costly, in that blacks and black voters are, unfortunately, not synonymous, whereas this is significantly more true for whites and white voters. Why this is so is another discussion…

No one understands the black vote more than Jackson, along with his Illinois Congressman son, Jesse Jr., who happens to be one of Obama’s national campaign circle. No Sh-Shazam! Jesse & Son signed on to Obama to help him, but the endorsement has traded high probability white voters for low probability black voters – not a good deal with Hillary within spittin' distance. So then what can young Jackson do about this before Barack has him licking mailers with the campaign interns?...

Cook up something with Reverend Dad, that’s what! If Dad’s endorsement cost Obama points in the race, then perhaps a skirmish might stem the tide, and keep Jackson, the younger, firmly seated near the front at the Obama strategy table. Dad won’t mind falling on a plastic sword for his namesake and press attention. Hell, he'd do it for the press alone, "I'm Jesse dammit!". Any good father would do this, right? For Jackson, help has always been a malleable instrument for achieving a particular result…

Nothing more.

So there you have it. Saying Jesse is stupid is just too easy. I am happy to entertain other explanations, as campaign politics is definitely not my day job.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Jackson Criticizes Obama (for acting like he's white), Jena Six, Mychal Bell, Protest, Jesse Jackson, Jr., Acting White

Jackson Criticizes Obama (for acting like he's white)

Jackson Criticizes Obama (for acting like he's white) - The State

Now hold on Reverend. First you endorse the guy for president and then slam him for acting white! What gives? It seems that Jesse thinks Obama’s reaction to the Jena Six prosecutorial debacle is too tepid for his taste. Barack’s statement that “When nooses are being hung in high schools in the 21st century, it’s a tragedy,” was not good enough.

Jesse went on to say, “If I were a candidate, I’d be all over Jena”. No surprise there, but this would be from a man with less than a snowball’s chance in hell of actually winning. Going to Jena for Jesse is all about guilt-leverage to extract ‘blood’ payments to his Rainbow Coalition initiatives, as he has been doing for forty years. Perhaps the nuance in practice here is that Jesse did not say, “If I were a viable candidate…”.

Along with comments like Obama’s and those of other prominent leaders, the real pressure comes from the spotlight of the various media letting all the world see just how far off-track racial sanity can still go here in America, even after the Duke scandal. Whether it is newspapers, radio, television, or the internet, there has been an invaluable stream of coverage and scrutiny on Jena, with plenty of stupid-blame to go around. And what is it with prosecutors in the South, anyway?

As for the Reverend’s accusation of Barack acting white, Jesse definitely knows how to tee-up the headlines and insure that that the cameras and microphones point to him for some tasty morsels to feed a slime-hungry public. I do not think he means this accusation for one second, rather it is just one opportunistic black civil-tician grand-standing the race card with a twist of lime, to advance his agenda.

Nothing more.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Jackson Criticizes Obama (for acting like he's white), Jena Six, Mychal Bell, Protest, Duke, Acting White

O.J. Simpson Is Charged In Alleged Robbery

O.J. Simpson Is Charged In Alleged Robbery

Mychal Bell is free of adult charges and OJ is behind bars, at least for the moment, so the justice buffet is open again, so to speak. Perhaps this time OJ’s celebrity status, color, and charisma will not see him slip his just desserts. I think those “If I did it?” words are going to haunt the NFL great this time around.

The Juice is saying that he would not be so stupid as to commit such a robbery, but we all know that this is not true. He is probably thinking that since he beat a double murder conviction, and a $38 million civil judgment, how difficult should it be to rip-off some collectibles and slip back into Florida in time for an alibi of road rage and nine holes.

Well just like Michael Vick forfeited his status as highest paid football player, in order to run a very lucrative dog-fighting business, them OJ collectibles ought to be worth a lot of bucks to make up for all the time he might be doing as a result. Let’s see now, $75,000 in loot in exchange of multiple years (decades even) behind bars – yep, that OJ is a certified genius.

Well this time there is no Johnnie Cochran to save his butt and OJ does not have the money to get too fancy, so it is going to be interesting. Hopefully the Vegas police play it straight and do not try to ‘help’ the prosecutor by tossing in extra evidence, like a picture of OJ with a black-call girl accomplice, or something equally believable. But then again, you never know…

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: O.J. Simpson Is Charged In Alleged Robbery, The Juice, Hall of Fame, If I Did It?, Murderer, Acting White

Prostate Cancer More Deadly In Black Men

No, this is not today’s headline, although I have witnessed it in the past and would not be surprised to continue seeing it in the future. Fact is, Black men do indeed die at a higher rate from prostate cancer than other groups, but not because the group’s tumors are different. The immune system of blacks, the main line of defense against cancer, is disproportionately compromised by a deficiency in Vitamin D, and this is why prostate, and other internal cancers, seem to be more aggressive.

I could say that the medical community is simply showing their insensitivity to the needs of blacks, but this would not explain why whites are being allowed to suffer their own proportionate fate from the deficiency, as well. The prostate cancer rates in American white men are well above what you would expect if their blood serum measured normal levels of 1,25(OH)2D3, the active form of vitamin D3 our bodies use.

I could also say that the research into biologic differences in tumors in blacks versus whites is some 'race game' when the immune system ‘playing field’ of the two groups is so obviously unequal, due to varying melanin and sunlight. But I would also have to wonder why the high cancer rates of whites in the sun-starved northeast, relative to whites in the southern US, has not caught the attention of the medical establishment. Is this a conspiracy to rid the country of Yankees and blacks, with but one stone?

What we have here is a medical community that is horrendously slow and stupid, even while it harbors pockets of research brilliance. The FDA continues to recommend levels of daily vitamin D so inadequate that the public is guaranteed to measure at, or near, zero during a routine physical exam. But that same FDA can fast-track drugs that cost an arm-and-a-leg, and carry so many side-effect warnings that you feel sorry for the lab mice who were forced to take the stuff in trial.

I can only say that I am overwhelmed with the research results the medical community continues to unearth that could make our lives better, while at the same time being profoundly disturbed with what they actually do with this vital information, as measured by what I have had to go through to come to subscribe to the value of vitamin D in our lives.

I'll keep writing about it, and hope that somebody is listening.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Prostate Cancer More Deadly in Black Men, Hypovitaminosis D, Prostate Cancer, Health Disparities, Vitamin D, Acting White

Breast Cancer More Deadly in Black Women - AP

Breast Cancer More Deadly in Black Women - AP

Articles like this one are absolutely maddening. They misinform and scare the hell out of black people and the group’s notions of battling cancer. The only ‘biological factor’ enhancing breast cancer in black women, other than being ‘poor’, is the CDC-confirmed vitamin D deficiency occurring in nearly 42% of black women, compared to a 4% deficiency in white women.

In opposition to the article, the described heightened E-R negative status of breast tumors in black women is reasonably the direct result of the vitamin D deficiency which the group suffers, resulting from the interplay of dark skin and low sun-light. To get a little technical, the pictured vitamin D-3 receptor (VDR) is expressed in the mammary gland, where it “functions to oppose estrogen-driven proliferation and maintain differentiation;”. In other words, the active form of vitamin D3 serves the very function that the expensive pharmaceuticals are miserably attempting. If you are interested, quickly check for yourself here.

And the story gets even worse. Without sufficient levels of vitamin D or effective, albeit expensive, drugs like tamoxifen and new aromatase inhibitors, black women are drawn in higher numbers to more invasive therapies, chemicals and radiation, that permanently weaken their D3-supported immune systems, and with it their critical natural body defenses against cancer.

So there you have it. Counter to articles such as this, the most significant biological difference in black women is that history delivered their ancestors into a reduced-light latitude, which their bodies only need a few thousand years to properly adjust. In the meantime, 2,000 IU’s of a cheap pill (D3), taken once a day, would certainly go a long way toward achieving a projected and immediate 50%+ reduction in internal cancers and eliminating the health disparities which black women, and black people in general, are needlessly suffering.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Breast Cancer More Deadly in Black Women, Hypovitaminosis D, Breast Cancer, Health Disparities, Cancer Treatment, Acting White