The reality is true that Americans of Melanin (Black and Latino) have rarely been good employees. The truth of it is that we have always been marvelous indentured servants. Never have we truly broken through those barriers that keep us trapped like animals in a pen. The economic stopping power for people of color has never slowed pace only increased exponentially. More »

The common assumption is that the rich despise the poor. In reality, the rich love the poor. They need the poor. Poor people manufacture and buy their products. Drugs are a prime example of this relationship. From the fields of Columbia to the hoods of Atlanta, poor people fuel the billion dollar cocaine industry. Love is a strange game. 

Take of tour of the fringes here:

Video: Cocaine Lab in Colombia

Video: Crack House in Atlanta

“Between Entenmann’s berry snacks and Little Debbies/ I’m only eatin’ veggie in my Chinese food/ And there’s one on every corner, so I’m feeling my quota/MSG, fried food and grape soda/ I’m killn’ me with this shit and what’s worse I buy it/ Livin’ off this old high blood pressure diet…”

–The Hood Diet

Loer Velocity teams up with Donnan Linkz to deleiver us a healthy serving of real hip-hop. Click here for “The Hood Diet” video. Shout to thefreeslave for the nourishment.

A Baseball Analogy…

• Some people are born on the Third Base and most of them are going to make it to Home Plate one way or another.

• Second Basers… come to school prepared to learn and their parents are supportive of the schools. They will mature to be very capable players among the professional elite of our society.

• First Basers will generally need help to make it to Home Plate. More »

“The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich. Consequently, the modern poor are not pitied…but written off as trash. The twentieth-century consumer economy has produced the first culture for which a beggar is a reminder of nothing.”

~John Berger

Paul Krugman of the NY Times offers an interesting rundown on the posinous consequences of poverty. Zoom in…

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was NOT shot because he had a dream. While the image of Dr King has been immortalized during the March on Washington DC in 1963, those famous words pigeonholing his legacy into a single dimension, which could be evoked with convenience sans reflection. Many remember the image. Some remember his teachings. Few recognize the substance. More »

Gen·tri·fi·ca·tion:
The buying and renovation of houses and stores in deteriorated urban neighborhoods by upper or middle-income families or individuals, thus improving property values but often displacing low-income families and small businesses.

If you live in the city, the hood, or even the burbs most likely you’ve experienced the phenomenon called gentrification. This process, once called urban renewal, is highly controversial and is happening in almost every major city in the United States. More »

I would like to examine race through the scope of class consciousness. Class not only plays a role in the lives of everyone regardless of race, it often divides races internally. The consideration of class is crucial to understanding the role of black Americans in our society. These days fruitful discussions of class are rare and overtly biased when it comes to the black community. More »