I am notoriously private with things that I should normally share with my family. Readers of The SuperSpade know that I end every post with “Stay up fam.” So as my family, I am happy to announce that I will be representing The SuperSpade in Chicago at the 2007 Yearlykos Convention, an annual gathering of progressive members of the Netroots that view blogs as a tool for changing the status quo. Moreover, I am part of the Chicago 17, a group of young, diverse, and progressive bloggers that normally wouldn’t have been able to participate in the convention. (I am a full time organizer…enough said)
I am very grateful to the donors that made it possible for me to go, (hat tip to Kid Oakland and the whole team!) and I speak for Garlin and Steve when I say we are forever in debt to you as your insightful comments (on the site or on the phone) continue to enrich the depth and breadth of The SuperSpade. If you will be in Chicago, make sure you drop me a line.
They say necessity is the mother of ingenuity. No where is this more true than in Michigan. The budget situation in Michigan is in shambles as critical services and revenue sharing programs are being downsized. What’s more troubling of course is the insane amount of money that is spent on incarceration to the tune of $2 billion dollars a year. Read the rest of this entry »
This is not a surprise by any means but Bush has a timeline for the Iraq catastrophe. There is a “classified plan, which represents the coordinated strategy of the top American commander and the American ambassador, calls for restoring security in local areas, including Baghdad, by the summer of 2008. ‘Sustainable security’ is to be established on a nationwide basis by the summer of 2009, according to American officials familiar with the document.” Read the rest of this entry »
If you find it hard to read the stories that detail the deaths of soldiers and civilians in Iraq, watch this video. Who in their right mind would continue to support this war? These are humans being sacrificed for perpetual lies. Thanks, Dailykos.
In a widely expected decision, the Michigan Supreme Court affirmed the voter I.D. law, requiring photo or other proof that voters are who they say they are. Michigan now joins 19 other states in disenfranchising people of color and low-income folks. The ironic conservative argument is that they want to prevent election fraud when they are experts at election fraud. (see Bush’s election in 2000 and 2004)
Regardless, I am happy to know good people that are challenging this ruling on legal grounds. While that is happening however, we must be vigilant in making sure that securing proper identification is an integral part of our voter registration campaigns. I personally am going to work with election reform minded folks here in Michigan and see if we can get the Secretary of State to allow groups that do voter registration work to get the information (photo, address, etc.) so that our people will be allowed to vote without standing in line for hours
One of the greatest lines in hip hop is when Common said, “If I had I.D., I wouldn’t need I.D.” The stakes are high.
“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?”
-2 Cor. 6:14
”For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart to follow after other gods: and his heart was not sincere with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.”
-1 Kings 11:4
I was blessed to have grown up in a godly household. I was thoroughly instructed in the way of the Lord and the Scriptures at an early age. However, we often do not act according to what we know. I was no different. Read the rest of this entry »
I just wanted to take a step back to really observe blogging as part of the broader national progressive movement. The universal nature of blogs naturally encourages writers to pen stories that are national in scope so as to capture the broadest swath of readers. The problem as I see it is that too many bloggers follow three troubling paths,
1) Writing relentlessly on the latest breaking story (often national in scope) and expressing the progressive interpretation.
2) Fear of writing original commentary for fear of being too exposed.
3) General lack of writing about local stories, fearing a lack of interest and/or possibly burning bridges.
Do you see these things happening on progressive blogs at-large? What do you look for when reading blogs? What do you see in The SuperSpade? I think that the national movement we all think or talk about is being impeded when we all write about the same thing. Our real power is finding the common values amongst our very unique stories and instigating change at the local level that organically builds into a national movement. Your thoughts?
I love Detroit and the people that give the city its distinct character. One thing that I am not proud of though is the lack of history I have regarding Detroit. For that, I just pulled up a couple of site that do a good job of helping Detroiters and non-Detroiters understand the stories that helped shape a city which has seen the best of times and the worst of times.
A lot of people think that Presidential debates don’t really mean a lot. They see them as a bunch of people making meaningless, empty, rhetorical statements.
I think that is sentiment is true for the most part. I do think that there is a solution: One-on-one debates. The reason is simple. It is much harder to get away with B.S. statements when you are giving them to one person than it is when giving it to a group.
Earlier this week I had a little back up in my tub’s drain and when I went to take a shower, my feet became submerged in a puddle. Not a good look! So I turned off the shower to let the tub drain and I proceeded to lather and get SuperSpade fresh. After I finished lathering, I turned the shower back on, rinsed, and got out. While I was drying off, I was ashamed at how much water I waste by taking showers everyday.
As I try to be more environmentally aware of my actions, I know that water is fast becoming a scarce resource. Before I leave this earth, there will more than likely be military conflicts between countries over access to water unless we really get serious about conservation. A while back, I wrote about the growing and troubling nexus between the environment and national security.
Most troublesome though is that there are millions of people in this world that will never be able to take a shower in the way that the West is accustomed to. My shower experience made that sad reality visceral and stark. Sometimes it is easy to forget how privileged we are in America and my shower experience helped me empathize with those less fortunate on a deeper level.
From now on, I am going to take “dry showers.” Give it a try and let me know what you think. If I am way behind the curve on this, that’s cool too.
Recently, I learned that there is a tremendous difference in being healthy and living a healthy lifestyle and being fit. As I looked around in the various activities I am involved in, I wondered why some individuals did not look like they could do the things they do. Like the guy who plavs basketball every day at lunch, but still has a potbelly.
Number of official Republican Presidential hopefuls: 10
Number of official Republican Presidential hopefuls invited to NAACP Presidential Forum in Detroit: 10
Number of official Republican Presidential hopefuls invited to NAACP Presidential Forum in Detroit that actually showed up: 1
Wow. Not surprising, but still, wow.
Whatever you think about the relevance or irrelevance of groups like the NAACP, that is still a significant group to ignore. Also remember that G. W. Bush ignored the NAACP until finally appearing in front of them in 2006.
Shirley Chisholm is a hero to many because she was the first Black woman to run for president. This was a tremendous act for women and Black people in this country.
In what I think is her most interesting quote, she said the following:
“I’ve always met more discrimination being a woman than being black,” she told The Associated Press in December 1982, shortly before she left Washington to teach at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. “When I ran for the Congress, when I ran for president, I met more discrimination as a woman than for being black. Men are men.
I’m interested what people think here. Is society more sexist than racist, as Chisholm suggests?
With a white woman (Hillary Clinton) and and a Black man (Barack Obama) both having a great chance at being the next president, this election season could potentially bring such a question to the forefront, for better of for worse.
This is interesting to me. Have we come a long way now? Are people less racist? Or was the tragedy of Katrina enough to get people to look past their race and find commonality on a human-to-human level?
One more interesting thing: does anyone know what this means?
Caucasians who say they do not identify with their ethnic group
AgentX’s creative comment regarding new possible names for the CBC got me thinking about the sad paradigm of current Black and/or progressive organizations whose work is mostly or wholly supported by corporate donations. This model is crippling our communities because the leaders of these organizations can’t really say nor do what needs to be done for fear of disrupting the money stream. On the other hand, the masses accuse these same organizations for not doing anything to help the people that are really hurting. This cycle breeds distrust and non-results. I believe the work we really need to do can happen until we do two things, 1) actively want less and 2) build up our own socially conscious businesses/institutions that are supported by the community. Talk to me,
What’s up family, long time no see huh? I am up here roasting in this hot weather and looking forward to the fall. Anyways, I wanted to try something new and talk about different books I have read, share how I felt about them and most importantly, get your feedback. Today’s book is The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Read the rest of this entry »
“They say Jay, how you get so fly? By not being afraid to fall out the sky…”
-Jay-Z, Beach Chair
This morning I was watching MTV and I saw clips of the next Making the Band 4 episode. For those unfamiliar with the show, Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs has this competition for whatever type of band he wants to put together and MTV tapes the competition as Puff has them complete various tasks. This season he is putting together a male R&B group. And for whatever reason, Puff says in the clip “Count the number of beds, and count the number of people, somebody is going home. It’s every man for himself.” For some reason, it struck a chord with me.
Normally, I hate reality shows, but I am drawn to the ones where there is something at stake and there are eliminations. Why? Because on those shows you watch people get taken out of their comfort zones and see who they really are.
Many moons ago, I wrote a piece about the concept of Indivisible Freedom, which essentially came to the conclusion that the notion is does not really exist in practical terms. Today, this “Independence” Day, I’d like to do a similar exploration of the the concept of independence.
Senator Obama raised about $5 millionmore than Senator Hilary Clinton this quarter from 258,000 donors. This is a big deal because what this shows is that even if Obama doesn’t win the nomination (though I hope he does) he has all but assured his viability as VP candidate regardless of who wins the nomination. The man is a force to be reckoned with, period.
“At least $31 million of Obama’s total is for party primaries,” whereas Clinton has not reported her primary/general election breakout, which effectively means that Obama has more money for the primaries. Obama, if any of your staff are reading this, don’t get comfortable and know this is a marathon, not a race. I should note I threw up the fist when I read this article.
The Supreme Court just struck a major blow for K-12 districts to conduct voluntary school integration plans. The opinion can be summed up by Roberts when he wrote, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” Apparently, using race to bring people together is just as bad as using race to keep people apart. You can learn alot about how America by reading Supreme Court decisions. Nevertheless, the justices claim that they are not over turning Brown v. Board but that is essentially what happened. But this is less of a crisis than it is a call for action.Read the rest of this entry »
About The SuperSpade
The SuperSpade: Black Thought at the Highest Level, is a forum that presents critical, intellectual perspectives on the current issues, seeking to elevate the level of Black political thought. The goal of this space is to provide actionable commentary on social, political, and personal issues affecting the daily ... Continue reading »
