Foundations and "Giving back"

"Then there are the Bill Gates types. He has a multi-billion dollars AIDS Foundation that, from what I've heard, perhaps, NEVER gives money to scientists who submit research grants...."

Dear friends,

Many of these foundations are just tax tricks. When the athlete or movie star stops making money, the "foundations" fold.

Then there are the Bill Gates types. He has a multi-billion dollars AIDS Foundation that, from what I've heard, perhaps, NEVER gives money to scientists who submit research grants, but does that foundation, meanwhile, collect millions in tax-free interest, by keeping the money in a trust account?

Moreover, I find the whole idea of "giving back", as it were, a bunch of bourgeois nonsense. What would they have given, if they didn't have a lot of money? For example, high school basketball players can start youth leagues for younger kids. I mean, as a dear friend of mine pointed out recently: Are those who volunteer their any less generous than wealthy donors? Besides, why do the aforementioned donors have to wait until they get NBA contracts and such to contribute to the commonweal? Ya dig? After all, many of the neighborhood youth would benefit by learning to work cooperatively with others, while experiencing success, and accomplishing gols. That's great for the community. The same thing could be said for dancers and actors.  They can start community theatres for young people..  Churches and neighborhood schools can lend their facilities, for such activities.

Why do people have to wait for a Grammy or an Oscar to do for their communities? .It's about sharing NOT "giving back"! We need to build genuine communities! That more than anything, will stop all of the murders, rapes, other assaults, and robberies.  The police, courts, and politicians regulate crime. It wouldn't be in their financial, much less social interests to stop it. 

Finally, there is a mentality in our cities, towns, and in this country that has people making themselves "The bird with the broken wing that needs fixing." That has folks living life with their hands out, expecting others to do for them, as opposed to exercising their inner powers and doing for themselves. So, just as wealth can be a vice, poverty becomes one too. And you hear people yelling out, "Free food!..Free this!...Free that!". Nobody owes you shit! In the words of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, "Do for self!?"

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.blackgivesback.com/2012/12/6th-annual-top-10-black-celebrity.html?m=1 Read full post

Eshu Bumpus critiquing an essay by Djata Bumpus

Yo D,

I thought it was good. I'm glad that it will continue with a part2 and/or 3 because you didn't get a chance to develop the idea of, " 2) That you know what it’s like to be alone and accomplish goals on your own. "

I think this is essential because there is so much violence that people become inured to that has little to do with hitting. As children, people should be given support and encouragement to think highly of themselves and their futures. This should involve helping the child discover and appreciate "Their powers" in a multitude of ways.

They can create and be loved for what they create. They can achieve and be loved for what they achieve and even what they try to achieve. 

I believe it is nothing short of violence when a certain child is deemed a failure when it is the system that is failing the child. It is nothing short of violence when resources that could be used  to help families are diverted to feed the pockets of greedy, already absurdly wealthy individuals or corporations  or when people can't get nutritious food. It is violence that brings a young girl to a mentality that makes her say, "I like my man with a little thug in him."

If a person has no sense of responsibility to others, they will never really learn how to love. It is through the development of their powers and the sense of the value of those powers that a person begins to see their own potential to change their environment for the better, not only for themselves but for the ones they love or may come to love.

E

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Re-visiting Harry Reid's Remark about the "Negro dialect" (originally posted 1/13/10)

"Think about it. Have you ever listened to an ordinary European American person do a voice impression of an African American? No matter what the voice of the latter actually sounds like, the European American just mentioned ALWAYS imitates the 'Southern twang'."

Dear friends,

Imagine. This whole media frenzy is all about Harry Reid using the term “Negro dialect”. What is the Negro dialect? For example, the so-called Southern dialect or twang, as it were, is simply the evolution of the vocal expression of West African captives as they tried to communicate with Europeans. (see Melville Herskovits’ New World Negro)

Think about it. Have you ever listened to an ordinary European American person do a voice impression of an African American? No matter what the voice of the latter actually sounds like, the European American just mentioned ALWAYS imitates the “Southern twang”.

Therefore, considering the above, many European Americans, especially Southerners, speak the “Negro dialect” - each moment of their lives.

So why all of the ruckus over a typical, stupid, inept Washington pol’s faux pas? Does the issue of “race” still fire people up - especially those who embrace the moniker “white”? In fact, who are “white” people? After all, not only people of European descent, but many Asians as well as many Latinos call themselves “white” too. Why is that? What does being “white” do for a person?

Well, by calling yourself “white”, you become part of an artificial “majority” group that mean-spiritedly pits itself against a body of then smaller groups who are labeled “minorities”. Moreover. the artificial group mentioned above automatically inherits privilege over the so-called “minority” groups.

But what if the “whites” started calling themselves Irish American, or Polish American, or Italian American instead? Except for the Irish Americans who, by the way, have only been considered “whites” for a few generations, Polish Americans and Italian Americans each, by themselves, would become a “minority”, at least compared to the African American population. Consequently, they would lose privilege. That also means that calling one’s self “white” is in and of itself discriminatory, because it deprives African Americans the same privileges, particularly, equally so in many areas of our lives. If that is not true, then why do people who call themselves “white” feel that they are being disempowered if they stop identifying themselves that way?

Considering all of this here-to-mentioned, it’s fairly easy to understand why the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. insisted: Discrimination is a hell-hound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.

Have you seen a McDonald’s commercial lately?

G. Djata Bumpus
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Cynthia McKinney on AFRICOM and Re-colonizing Africa

Dear friends,

Because the people of the continent of Africa, as well as the great continent itself, are always portrayed by the Western media as losers, quite naturally, albeit unfortunately, African Americans as a whole, tend to not want to be associated with either. This seems to make sense, at face value. After all, who wants to identify with a loser? And so, over three generations ago, Marcus Garvey wrote, "This propaganda of dis-associating Western Negroes from Africa is not a new one. For many years white propagandists have been printing tons of literature to impress scattered Ethiopia, especially that portion within their civilization, with the idea that Africa is a despised place, inhabited by savages, and cannibals, where no civilized human being should go, especially black civilized human beings." - Marcus Garvey (Philosophy & Opinions of Marcus Garvey, edited by Amy Jacques-Garvey). Moreover, will Africans in the Americas ever be respected, if our people on the continent are not?

In any case, initiated by the Bush Administration and continued by President Obama, AFRICOM (African Command) has invaded African nations, under the guise of lending "military training and support". However, as the brilliant stateswoman Cynthia McKinney points out in the video on the link below, there seem to be other motives for U.S. presence there.

"Africans of the world unite!" - Dr. Kwame Nkrumah

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezktVMOvTQs Read full post

Elmer Smith on Mental health and Voting

“And please let us not forget all of the mean-spirited talk about mental illness and people not being allowed to buy guns, as if we don’t already have a bunch of armed and deranged police and corrections officers in this country who, especially, shoot, and often murder, unarmed African American and Latino men, at alarming rates each year”

Dear friends,

I was perusing some articles from the past, and ran into one by my old and dear friend, legendary Philly journalist Elmer Smith. This is an important piece, on the link below. It deals with a subject, as quiet as it’s kept, that every family experiences. It is mental illness.

To be sure, a number of great thinkers, from Freud to Fromm to Fanon, have pointed out the significance of our mental life to its physical counterpart. Unfortunately, cost accounting as opposed to methods of healing, has dominated the dialogue in “health care reform”. 

Not even insurance companies take the problem seriously, as they do, for example, with physical well-being. However, our mental life is, literally, half our our existence.

Nevertheless, regarding mental illness and the right to vote, religious and political illusions often debase that aforementioned right - e.g. the Tea Party. (is that group’s activity related to mental health?). “ And please let us not forget all of the mean-spirited talk about mental illness and people not being allowed to buy guns, as if we don’t already have a bunch of armed and  deranged police and corrections officers in this country who, especially, shoot, and often murder, unarmed African American and Latino men, at alarming rates each year”. In fact, is this really a sane society?

Finally, while there is mention of the term, in the piece on the link below, I always cringe at the reference to “mental retardation”. After all, at least to me, there is an equality of intelligence among all people, since we each learn that which we choose to learn at whatever pace to which we are able. Besides, as Dr. King taught us, in his manifesto called “Letter from a Birmingham jail”: equality does not mean sameness. Moreover, as I’ve said in the past, it is precisely the idea that equality and sameness are synonymous that justifies racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression. Dig?

One Love!

G. Djata Bumpus

 http://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/20101112_Elmer_Smith_.html?viewAll=y

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Bill Cosby disconnects with African American Youth

"(He) conjured up the Mission Hill Extension Housing Projects of Roxbury (Boston) in me ..."






Dear friends,

On the link below is a story about a recent incident in Philly where both acting and comedy legend Bill Cosby spoke to the student body at Germantown High School in Philly. Apparently, he was quite disappointed with the whole institution, by the end  of the "ordeal".

Yet, I'm aware of his past speeches around the country where he scolds mostly African American audience single Moms and belittles them with terms such as his references to them being "the lower echelon". Huh?

In any case, I spoke at a disciplinary high school in Philly, to a crowded auditorium, back in the late-Seventies, when I was still actively engaged in professional boxing. One could hear "a rat piss on cotton", if you'll pardon the expression, as I spoke. Afterwards, the staff and teachers told me how amazed they were, because normally the kids acted like they did with Cos - gabbing and uninterested. But Bill has his own issues of relating to African Americans. He's far removed from the Black community about which he so often lambastes.

Actually, he and I once had a brief altercation behind the Four Seasons Hotel in Center City, back in '83, before he, a former resident of the Richard Allen Housing Projects in North Philly,  made a disrespectful gesture to me (placing his finger over his mouth as I spoke) that conjured up the Mission Hill Extension Housing Projects of Roxbury (Boston) in me At that point, looking straight into my eyes, Bill Cosby very intelligently made a turn-around spin that was faster than James Brown, Davy Ruffin, and Michael Jackson combined. He then quickly race-walked away from the situation. By the way, at the time, we were both wearing tuxedos and were the special guests of a mutual friend, then Temple University President Peter Liacouras, at an annual black-tie affair.

Finally, the students aren't as dumb as Cosby would like to think they are. As you'll notice on the link below, he was talking down to them.. They don't need that!. Instead, they need wisdom. It's hard for one to fin much of that, find that, if most of one's life has been spent on stage and screen entertaining people. In other words, one has to be out and about engaging/interacting with real people and their varied circumstances in the real world. Moreover, to me, Bill Cosby seems to be a poor choice for helping young people grow.

G. Djata Bumpus

http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/item/54686 Read full post