Archive for April 28th, 2008

Swanee - George Gershwin
Ode To Billy Joe - Lou Donaldson
Millenium - Outkast
Everybody Is A Star - Sly & The Family Stone
Brooklyn - Mos Def
One Thing - Amerie
Dreams - Earth Wind & Fire
Yes To The Lord - The Stovall Sisters
Short Change - Ohio Players
Takeover - Jay-Z
Ooh Child - The Five Stairsteps
Licking Stick-Licking Stick - James Brown
Ether - Nas
Moonshine Heather - Parliament
You Gotta Believe - Rose Royce
I Spend My Life - Ramsey Lewis
Peace and Love - Movement IV - Mandrill
Only One Way Out of This Mess - Sly And The Family Stone
Dat Dere - Cannonball Adderley
!!!!!!! - The Roots

First up, of course, is the Sean Bell trial.

Police brutality - or suspected police brutality concerns me a lot. Even as somebody who has worked closely with policemen in the past, and as somebody whose longest friendship is with a police officer, I’m still always disconcerted by the death of a civilian at the hands of police. When the civilian in question was not in the commission of a crime, I’m even more disturbed. Nahmeen, I have all the respect in the world for police officers, but I don’t think that respect demands a blind loyalty. I couldn’t care less about the race of the police officers doing the shooting, either. It just worries me. And I’m sayin’ - the days when I’d be at a strip club at 4 AM are long gone, but I still can’t shake the idea that I could be the victim of some type of “accident” at some point.

More bothersome to me than the actions of the police officers in question is the attitude of the police union. While I appreciate the fact that a union exists to support its rank and file, I generally like to feel that police unions are there to protect the citizenry as much as they are there to protect the police officers. Kinda like if the mission of police officers is to protect and serve, the police union should have the same objective. When I look at he statements of the official police unions on this case, I’m not really left with the impression that I’m protected. Not even in a casual, lip-service sense.

Having said that, while I think the judge was probably legally correct, this verdict leaves much to be desired. And borrowing from McWhorter, this is exactly the type of case where name-brand Black conservatives (or conservative Blacks, imo) lose their credibility with lots of Black folks. There’s lots of space between riding intractably hard for the law enforcement and running down the street yelling “eff the police!” A simple, “we applaud the job that the police do, and we appreciate the difficulties of making split-second life-or-death decisions, but the fact that yet another unarmed Black man who was not in the commission of a crime has died at the hands of police is cause for concern” might do wonders for their position. But then again, I’m not even sure I want any of those name brand Black conservatives (cuz a conservative Black, e.g., Massie, Peterson, et. al) to gain any traction in the community.

The Sixers could’ve gone up 3-1 on Detroit. I think game 4 was the key to the series. While I’m pleased that they made it this far, I don’t think they’re gonna win 2 of the next 4 games.

I’m not even sure what to make of the Eagles draft. It would be nice to be headed into the summer thinking that they’re all set and stocked to make one last run for the goodies, but I’m not sold. I know the NFC East is gonna be the best division in the NFL this year. Who knows, the Cowboys might actually make it out of the first round this year.

Your Madden 2009 cover boy? Brett Favre. Not that he’s necessarily crazy about it.

The Flyers are for real, too.