WSSN Stories

By Mildred Henry

I read the headlines in total disbelief!

A professed leader in the Black Lives Matter  (BLM) movement reportedly said,  “I ain’t voting until Black Lives Matter“.  I cannot believe that any informed,  self-respecting African American will openly proclaim that he or she will not vote! This is a gross indignity because of the sacrifices and lives lost by our predecessors in order to gain the right to vote.  This misguided individual tramples on the graves of Sojourner Truth; Fannie Lou Hamer; the Mississippi Freedom Riders; Barbara Jordan, Dr. Martin Luther King, and the sacred graveyard list goes on and on.

Supporters of the “I ain’t voting” cognitive dissonance trample on the grave of my mother who was told she would lose her teaching job if she joined the NAACP and conducted a voter registration drive. She joined, became a lifetime NAACP member, and the family survived. 

We survived in spite of the racists who burned our family cotton gin (3 times) and general store to the ground.  Our family provided merchandise, and rides for neighbors to go to town, to register, to vote, to shop, and to conduct business. Comradery existed whereby you picked up and provided a ride to someone walking by the side of the road.   

 We survived in spite of the fact that schools for Black children were closed 3 and 4 months of the school year to work in the cotton fields. We survived  in spite of having to walk 10 miles to school while school buses for white children threw dust up in our faces.  We survived many adversities in order to be where we are today.  I WILL vote.  

Black people were castigated, tortured, lynched and suffered terrible deaths for just expressing the desire to vote.  It was through the power of the vote that we defeated segregationists George Wallace of Alabama, and Governors Lester Maddox and Orville Faubus of Arkansas.  If one of the reported leaders of the BLM is an attorney, as reported, he should be well aware of the court battles of Attorney and Chief Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall. As an Arkansan, I watched Attorney Thurgood Marshall and local attorneys like Attorney George Howard, engage in battle on behalf of the Little Rock Nine students’ effort to get an education at Central High School.  Mrs. Daisy Bates and the State Press Newspaper (distributed by my mother) espoused the power of the vote to change the segregationist structure in Arkansas. These students (and many others)  endured insults, life threats, personal danger, and loss of life to get a competitive education and learn that using the word “Ain’t” was not acceptable in the competitive corporate world.  We fought for a competitive education and the right to vote in order to right the wrongs.  I WILL vote!

Rhetoric is cheap. BLM threatens to give the presidency to Donald Trump. Why? I am amazed at how gullible some people are to the unfounded promises uttered by this individual. He promises jobs but he makes products abroad and sells them to consumers in America. How will providing jobs abroad “make America great”?  He can begin by bringing those jobs to America, and assure that ”Made in America” is on all of his products.  As a businessman, carefully scrutinize his business record and his tax return (which he refuses to release).

He speaks of diversity but uses the terminology “my African-American“ which to me equates to the slogan, “My Nigger,” so frequently used in my youth. 

Donald Trump uses negative slogans, personal insults, and exhibits totally unprofessional, crass behavior, unrepresentative of the values taught us as children.  How could any self-respecting African-American, knowledgeable of our ancestral history, threaten to vote for a self-aggrandizement individual who exhibits such unethical behavior?  We should not jump from the frying pan into the fire.  This is not a game of marbles between children. This is a serious world event which will impact the future of every human being on this earth, especially those of minority ethnic background.

I ask those who thought the Democratic inclusion of mothers of slain Black men was just “political theater”, what did the Republicans do to indicate the importance of this issue?  How did they show the seriousness of the Black Lives Matter movement?  News reports indicate “BLM Threatens to Hand Trump the Presidency”.   Why?  What has he done to earn it? This is not a TV show. This is survival.   I sincerely hope that self-grandiose individuals will not be successful in spewing their venom and preying on the sensibilities of the uninformed.

I WILL vote, and I urge every eligible voter to become adequately informed, VOTE, and Don’t Forget The Bridges That Brought Us Over!

By Luis Vasquez-Ajmac, Urban News Service

While the national conversation on police and race seems like a black-and-white issue, many Latinos say they also feel mistreated by cops.

“I grew up in East L.A., in an economically depressed neighborhood,” said Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luna, the first Latino to lead the Los Angeles area’s second largest law-enforcement agency. “I did not have the most positive contact with the police or the people around me. I very much understand the concerns.”

Many Latinos report abusive experiences and negative opinions toward police, similar to those that numerous African-Americans have expressed nationwide, according to a survey by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. 

“Excessive police use was a huge issue for the Hispanic-American community,” said Jennifer Benz, AP-NORC’s deputy director. Beyond answering this study’s specific questions, some respondents volunteered that “they or someone in their family was harshly treated by the police at far higher levels than whites,” Benz said.

This is not just a white-and-black issue, according to Benz. “Across the country, roughly four in 10 Americans believe the reason for police violence is overall problems with race relations in our society,” she said. “Three-quarters of Americans think it would be more effective to have diverse police forces nationwide.”

AP-NORC polled 1,200 white, black and Latino Americans on these topics in July 2015.
Law enforcement “has a lot of work to do, to continue the dialogue and talk about the excessive use of force,” said LAPD Captain Tina Nieto, incoming president of the Hispanic American Police Command Officers Association.

The L.A. native echoes those who advocate closing racial disparities by recruiting and hiring more people of color. “It’s very important to make an attempt to have a police force that reflects the community that you are servicing,” Nieto said. “I believe when your police force reflects the community, there are better outcomes.” 
Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, said that where officers reside affects these matters. “We need officers to live in the communities where they police,” he said. “When they live outside the cities that employ them and commute in from neighborhoods that have very different, less diverse demographics, problems are aggravated.”  

The Manhattan Institute’s Heather McDonald disagrees.

“This is an irrelevant consideration. It’s the classic Black Lives narrative that embraces the white cop/black victim line-up,” said the author of the new book, “The War on Cops.”

“The Justice Department came out with a report last year in Philadelphia. It found that black and Hispanic officers were far more likely than white officers to shoot an unarmed black suspect. I think the inquiry of an officer’s skin color is largely a side show,” she said.

Rene Galindo, a telecom network engineer for 2talk, grew up as a Mexican-American in South Central L.A. He said there are two systems of law: one for whites and another for people of color.

“You thought it was normal for cops to stop you for no reason, check your personal property under no suspicion at all,” Galindo said. “I’ve been held for no apparent reason, just for walking home from a friend’s place at night.”  Nieto, however, said police do not confront people willy-nilly. “I know we are not just stopping you because we want to stop you,” she said. “We are way too busy in the city of L.A. Citizens can always request a supervisor to the scene if you believe officers are doing something they are not supposed to do.” 

“Many people of color do not see cops as protectors, but we see the opposite,” said Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers union, which represents thousands of Mexican-American agricultural laborers. “They harass, intimidate and brutalize people of color and kill.” 

White Americans have it different, some say.

“In most situations, white people are not presumed dangerous or guilty,” said the Equal Justice Initiative’s Stevenson. “Because most police officers are white, this means that white people face a different level of threat and risk when they encounter the police.” 

Despite racial gaps in perceptions of law enforcement, most Americans say they want more diverse police forces to ease ethnic tensions.

“It’s not surprising for those of us aware of how the Latino community across the country has been treated by police,” said Thomas A. Saenz, president of the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “We need to recruit a more diverse police force.”

By Lue Dowdy

It’s here, “My, Music, My Mic -2015 Indie Artist’s Award Show” presented by LUE Productions. The show will be held on Saturday, October 15, 2016. It is a night of honor, recognition, and love for music! Come Out Celebrate With Us!

This year’s event activities consist of raffles, lLive performances, and a mini fashion show. In addition to the festivities, the following artists will be blessing the stage:  Annyett Royale, Bernard Holmes, D’yzil, Eugene Jones, Fitz Taylor, Gwaap Fam, Mack Pepperboy, Noface The Shadowmen, Nya Banxxx, Socal Street Team, Staxx Huges, and Tipse Smashgan. Red carepet performances include: Yung Muusik featuring Jamie Lopez, Shanita Williams –Poet, Bernice Celeste, Yungan, Sirr Jones, Mac Stardo, LA Duce, and Kei Lani Royalty.

If you want to become a sponsor for the event, we have affordable packages available. Vendor slots start at $100. There is limited space so get your spots in. You can pay via PayPal under Lue.Info@yahoo.com.

Tickets for the award show are $20 before October 1 and $25 after and at the door. The after part tickets are also $25. Tickets can be purchased via BrownPaperBag under Lue.Info@yahoo.com or by calling (909) 567-1000, (714) 833-3196, or (909) 556-7637. The show is from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m.

By McKenzie Jackson, California Black Media

Recent college grads and job seekers under the age of 31 have a week to fly into a job applicant pool for a well-paying gig with the country’s national aviation authority.

The Federal Aviation Administration is accepting applications from entry-level candidates across the U.S. for air traffic controller positions until August 15.

And at least two Congressmen are looking to increase African-American outreach for the jobs. In the spring Reps. Carlos Curbelo of Florida and Sean Patrick Maloney of New York introduced House Resolution 5292, the Air Traffic Controller Hiring Improvement Act of 2016.

Among other things, the bipartisan legislation, which is currently making the rounds in the nation’s capital, aims at improving hiring and staffing of air traffic controllers at the FAA by directly notifying air traffic controller vacancies to Historically Black Colleges and other minority institutions.

Curbelo said in a May statement, “I am very pleased that this bill will also encourage the hiring of students graduating from minority-serving institutions.”

In a statement, the FAA said applicants for the position of Air Traffic Control Specialist-Trainee need to set-up an account on www.USAJobs.gov as soon as possible in order to apply for the highly competitive position.

“The agency expects more than 25,000 applications for approximately 1,400 positions during the seven-day job opening,” the statement read.

Good jobs are something black college grads across the nation are in short supply of. A 2014 study by the Center for Economic Policy Research revealed 12.4 percent of black college graduates between ages 22 – 27 are unemployed. For all college grads in the same age range the rate was 5.6 percent.

Over 20,000 FAA jobs will be open within the next three to five years across the country. Some of the positions including the air traffic controller role, pay upwards to $70,000 to $100,000 a year.

Air traffic controllers guide pilots, their planes and 2.2 million daily passengers from taxi to takeoff, through the air and back safely on the ground again. The FAA statement said air traffic controllers receive a wide range of training in controlling and separating live air traffic within designated airspace at and around an air traffic control tower, radar approach control facility, or air route traffic control center. 

“As a new ATCS, you will spend your first several months of employment in an intensive training program at the FAA Academy located in Oklahoma City,” the statement reads.

FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said in the newsletter the aviation authority “provides the safest, most efficient airspace system in the world and we need exceptional people to support our mission.”

Requirements for the job include being a U.S. citizen, being 31 or younger on Aug. 15, passing a medical examination, security investigation and the FAA air traffic pre-employment tests. Candidates must speak English clear enough to be understood over communications equipment and have three years of progressively responsible work experience or a Bachelor’s degree or a combination of post-secondary education and work experience that totals three years. Job inquirers must also be ready to move to an FAA facility based on agency staffing needs.

More Stability

In fact, air traffic controller is a career in the in-demand fields of accounting, business, computer science and engineering, which have lower unemployment rates. Glassdoor, a jobs and recruiting website, said plenty of top-notch jobs are appearing in the technology, finance and professional services industries.

Glassdoor and UC San Diego Extension recently conducted surveys that determined what the hottest jobs are based on career opportunities, base salary and open positions. The jobs listed included accountants, data scientist, human resource manager, marketing manager, nurse practitioner, software developers, market research analysts, and computer network architects.

Mary Walshok, associate vice chancellor of public programs and dean of UC San Diego Extension, said in a statement that the careers show both the value of a college degree and also the need for specialized training as technology is continuously reshaping the job market and the economy.

 “As Marc Andreessen recently opined, ‘Software is eating the world,'” Walshok said. “That fact is true in almost every top emerging career whether it be health care or marketing or financial analysis. It’s not enough to just know the fundamentals; you have to use technology to provide new insights.”

Lou Coleman

By Lou Coleman

Short-term pleasure; long-term misery and pain. SIN… a moment of pleasure, but leads to death!  Jesus said that your soul is worth more than the rest of the world put together. He asked, “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” [Mark 8:36]. The value of your soul… It is the most valuable possession you have. All the wealth and power you might gain is not worth the price of your soul!  It is a lesson you will do well to remember. If you don’t believe me just ask the rich man who pleaded,” I beg you, father, ‘send Lazarus to my father’s house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them so they will not also end up in this place of torment [Luke 16:28]. The rich man in hell lifted up his eyes, being in torment and said please; send someone to warn my brothers, for Hell is no joke. It’s a very real place and there is no place like Hell.  How long will you allow the devil to lie to you? I tell you, you cannot afford to lose your soul for if you lose it, you lose all. So wake up! Enough of this foolishness!  It’s time to take a stand, to fight back – to take control!

Listen, if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to Hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment [2 Peter 2:4] what do you think he will do to you if you keep on sinning.  The best advice is to put as much distance as you can between yourself and the sources of sin and temptation in your life, because Satan will not stop until he has ruined your life. He will not back down until sin has taken everything of value from you. He will not stop until you are broken, your life wasted and you are of no use to God! Stop being a puppet for Satan! His only purpose is to kill, steal and destroy you!  

And never try to cover up your sin. Because the moment you do, it will raise it ugly head. Let me give you an example.  Have you ever watched an opossum escape from a predator? They use a defense mechanism distinct to only a few animals—playing dead. When faced with a threat, an opossum will often fall on the ground, close his eyes, extend his limbs, and lie very still. He appears lifeless—and harmless. But when the danger passes, he revives and scurries away. You can almost hear laughter as he makes his escape.

Playing dead seems to be an effective means of survival, but opossums aren’t the sole practitioners of that strategy. Our sins often “play dead” too, especially when faced with the threat of execution. They fake death in order to escape it. While you may think you’ve slain a particular sin, sometimes life still pulses within your enemy and it secretly takes its leave, stays quiet, and waits on danger to pass.

We’ve all been tricked by sin’s craftiness, haven’t we? How many times have you sheathed your sword, convinced sin was finished, only to suffer a violent retaliation a few hours later? How does that happen, and what can you do to stop it? Rather than conceal your sins, confess and forsake them. That’s how you kill sin (1 John 1:9). Merely covering up your sin obscures the problem from plain sight, which keeps it secret. You can’t hit a target you can’t see. Sin doesn’t die in those conditions—it thrives.

Don’t be deceived like Achan who hid his sin and silenced his conscience until it was too late. He even brought sin’s treachery into his own home (Joshua 7:21). His deception cost him his life—and the life of his entire family (Joshua7:24-25). Don’t cover up your sin, kill it.  So the next time your sin drops to the ground before you, closes its eyes, and appears dead, don’t sheathe your sword. Kill your sins God’s way, or die sin’s way.

I pray that the Holy Ghost will use this message to grip your soul – and to put some fight back in you. God wants you to stand up against the devil – to reclaim all the territory you’ve given up to him! You see the battle on Mount Carmel never was between Elijah and Jezebel – it was between God and the devil! Elijah was full of God’s Spirit, and Jezebel was possessed by Satan. It was a battle between the powers of hell and God’s corporate body on earth!

If you do not stop sinning, one of the greatest torments in Hell for you will be every sermon you heard will be repeated in your mind over and over throughout eternity. Every plea which you ignored will be heard over and over again in Hell. My advice to you is that you should flee the wrath to come. Run to Jesus and be saved! For the loss of the soul is an ETERNAL loss. Once the soul is lost, it is lost forever [Isaiah 33:14]. It’s Not Worth It!

By Naomi K. Bonman

In today’s society, people, especially the media and the government, put labels on people. On job applications they want you to “label” yourself by putting what ethnicity you are, when it shouldn’t matter what color you are but what should matter is how well you do your job. Because we have become so accustomed to labels, we label ourselves. People will say, “Oh, I’m a Black such and such because society say’s so.” 

The BRANDED COLLECTION by Sophisticated Relations was created to erase the stigma behind labels. We want people to know that they are their own BRAND by simply being themselves. The way you carry yourself, your personality, that is your overall BRAND. If you’ve been through hell and back, but now you have made a name for yourself and you are an inspiration for your community, then your BRAND can be that you are a ‘Strong, determined, and successful Black/Latino Woman/Man.’

So without further due, I introduce you to the first batch of the BRANDED.YOU collection. View more photos of the collection below or buy it at www.sophisticatedrelations.com/shop.

Kei Lane Royalty

By Lue Dowdy

That Las Vegas talent is WHAT IT DO this Week. Check out female emcee Kei Lane Royalty.

Kei Lani Royalty (Pronounced Key Loni) was born to parents Dorine and Junie Maddox in Chicago, Illinois as the 8th child out of 10. All of her siblings and parents moved to Palmdale, CA when she was 4, where she was then raised. At the age of 9 she started writing her own music. She wrote her first song titled, “Got an attitude.” She was on and off with music throughout her childhood up until the age of 20. When she met “Fully Loaded” she immediately was determined to never stop again. She is also known by the name Princess K, but has developed into Kei Lani Royalty. 

She has worked with many artists such as Angel Combs (The Hit Mechanix) and producers which include Tyron Allen and Flawless Track whom has produced for artists such as Wale. She recently was involved in a video shoot in Las Vegas by Tay Price called “REP YOUR CITY” Filmed of Honey cocaine’s Vlog/interview and multiple video’s from Dizzy Wright of Funk Volume.

Kei Lane is currently residing in Las Vegas where she is continuing her love for music. She recently released her album “It’s Royalty” and mixtape “The Bitch in Me” on Datpiff. Her second album “The Maturity” will be released in 2016 from her record label It’s Royalty E.N.T. 

You can download ringtones and the album NOW. “It’s Royalty” on www.reverbnation.com/keilani, watch video’s, interviews, and 16 bars from Kei-Lani’s on YouTube under princessk320 or Kei Lani Royalty, Facebook: Kei Lani Royalty, Twitter @keilani1, and Instagram @keilaniroyal1.

Until next week L’z high in the air!

Activists Debate Boycotting Clinton, Police Violence and the Possibility of a Trump Presidency

By Manny Otiko/ California Black Media

Democrats attending their party’s  convention last week in Philadelphia were moved to tears, rounds of applause and a standing ovation when nine mothers of Black men slain by police brutality and racially motivated attacks took the stage. 

“The majority of police officers are good people doing a good job,” said Lucia McBath, the mother of 17-year-old Jordan Davis, who was killed by Michael Dunn, a 45-year-old White male in Jacksonville, Fla.,  after a tense argument at a gas station.

“We’re going to keep using our voices and our votes to support leaders like Hillary Clinton, who will help us protect one another so that this club of heartbroken mothers stops growing,” said  Mcbath.   The mothers of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Michael Brown and other men and women who were killed by police or died from gun violence joined McBath  on stage.

Many who attended the convention or watched that heartfelt moment around the country at home viewed the inclusion of “the mothers of the movement” as a signal that the Democratic party is taking the concerns of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement seriously.

But for some that emotional moment on television was just political theater – too simple a gesture with little or no real or lasting impact.  

Hank Newsome, a New York-based attorney and self-described “Black Lives Matter Activist,” is threatening to boycott the presidential elections, unless the Democratic Party takes more and immediate action on police violence.

He and other activists recently  launched the “I Ain’t Voting” campaign to express their anger at the Democratic Party, threatening to persuade Blacks to not vote in 2016.

Black Americans, he says, have a rare chance right now  to collectively demand action from the  Democratic Party –  or at least insist that some of their priorities be included in the party’s 2016 platform  or future policy plans.

“Hey, if you don’t give us criminal justice reform, we’ll give the country to Donald Trump. That’ll send the Democrats into a frenzy. Black lives will matter then, I guarantee you,” said Newsome in an interview with the BBC.

Newsome and a group of other African-American activists protested at both the Democratic National Convention this week and the Republican National Convention before that in Cleveland.

Newsome is not the first to call for African Americans to withhold their votes. Political pundit Tavis Smiley has suggested numerous times that Black Americans should sit out an election to get the Democrats’ attention.

Other activists view the idea of Blacks not voting – or boycotting the 2016 elections in particular – differently.

Dr. Melina Abdullah, for example, who is one of the founders of Black Lives Matter, admits she supports neither Clinton nor Trump. She describes the standard bearers of the two major parties as “corporate candidates” whose positions on issues can be influenced by powerful meg- donors.

She says the BLM movement does not plan to endorse either candidate. If Clinton is the eventual winner of the presidential election, though, she says BLM will continue to demand she pushes for  police reforms.

Unlike Newsome, Abdullah is urging African Americans to get out and vote in November.

“A lot of Black folk say people died for this,” said Abdullah, who is also  professor of Pan-African studies at California State University Los Angeles. “It (voting) is a way of honoring my ancestors.”

Although Abdullah says she respects the right of people who chose to sit out, she plans to cast her vote in November and says she also votes in every election.

For Earl Ofari Hutchinson, a Los Angeles-based political analyst and writer, Newsome’s “I Ain’t Voting “campaign is “unrealistic.”

“It’s the height of political naivety,” said Hutchinson. “The stakes are far too high for that kind of pox-on-both-of-your-houses attitude.”

Black Americans vote overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates. If many of them don’t turn out on Election Day – especially in states that have a tendency to vote either Republican or Democrat  like Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and North Carolina – that could greatly affect Clinton’s chance of winning.

Hutchinson said that instead of sitting out the election, Black voters should get engaged and lobby politicians to take action.

“The better strategy is to organize, educate, and mobilize among young persons about the importance of political engagement to pressure the Dems, local elected officials, and others for police and criminal justice reform,” Hutchinson said. “That can’t happen if you disengage from the process.”

Whether they support the possibility of an African-American boycott of the 2016 elections or not, most Black political activists are extremely critical of Trump and at least ambivalent about a Clinton presidency.

Abdullah calls the billionaire businessman “oppressive on every level.”

“He’s a raving lunatic, fascist and a blatant racist,” she describe Trump.

But she is no fan of Clinton’s either. She described the first female nominee of a major political party in the United States a “war hawk” and pointed out that  Clinton supported domestic policies that expanded the criminalization of Black men and spurred the growth of  the prison industrial complex.

Hutchison says there are more than enough valid criticisms of both candidates to go around, but sitting out the 2016 election is not a beneficial move.

He warned BLM activists about the dangers of boycotting the 2016 election and handing victory to Trump.

“A Trump win will mean stepped up repression of BLM by police forces emboldened by a Trump win, fewer protests, more arrests and convictions,” Hutchinson said. “However, remember BLM is hardly the only or first to organize, mobilize, and make demands for police reform and accountability. That fight has been waged by civil rights groups from the NAACP to my group and civil rights activists for years and will continue.”

Lou Coleman

By Lou Coleman

And think that you are lying to everybody else too. You ain’t fooling nobody! Why complicate things? Just go ahead and admit it. I understand. Life gets complex, and sometimes we just feel the need to bend the truth to make it through the week. We need our lies to keep the pain tucked away where it can’t get to us. That deceitful heart of ours has a way making it easy for us to be okay with these lies that is, until they’re drawn out by God’s scalpel [Psalm 139:23]. What I want you know is that lies don’t just cover up the pain of life, they actually make it harder for you to grow in your faith and in your connection with others. The problem is that we have gotten so numb to them that we don’t necessarily even see the damage they do. It is important that we face our moments of truth understanding the serious implications of actions and decisions. Stop lying and start telling the truth! Truth telling is essential to the church.

Y’all get mad with me if you want to, but I ain’t sugar coating nothing! I’m going to call sin just what it is, Sin! I hear folks say, “It won’t hurt to tell a little white lie.” Yes it will and yes, it does! I don’t care how big a lie is or what color a lie is. A lie is a lie and if you lie at all it’s a sin and sin is sin.  We’ve got to stop white washing our sin. We’ve got to stop trying to cover up. We’ve come to the point where we’re calling right wrong and wrong right. Shame on us! The world manipulates – but the church is based on Truth. The world covers for itself – but the church is based on Truth. The world pulls strings – but the church is based on Truth. The world exaggerates – but the church is based on Truth. When you start introducing anything but the Truth, the Pure Unadulterated Truth into the way you handle your interactions in life, then it’s like taking a big hatchet and whacking at your own foot. Which goes to show that you ain’t hurting nobody but yourself… Stop it!

Lying is a killer! It robs you of all godly virtues. It comes as harmless yet its effects can be most devastating.  If you want to be established, lay your foundation on Truth. Go and apologize to those you have lied to or against. You cannot afford to miss Heaven! Lying is more perilous than it seems. It’s more Satan-like than Christ-like. Jesus referred to Satan as “a liar and the father of lies” [John 8:44]. By contrast, Jesus declared himself to be the Truth [John 14:6]. The prophet Jeremiah said, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick” [Jeremiah 17:9]. What’s so indicative of our human state is the universal tendency to minimize the treachery of lying. We want certain forms of lying to be okay. Well it’s not okay! Jesus said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” [John 8:32].  

You got to learn that when you’ve done wrong, you got to live with yourself. And when you have done wrong, your memory is working against you.  David said in [Psalms 51] every time he turn around, memory, keep bringing that situation back to him. You can’t lie and get away with it. You tell one lie; you got to tell another one.  Listen, we’ve all sinned and come short of the Glory of God. My memory recalls and keeps me reminded that I haven’t always been what I am now. Memory reminds me of my mistakes that I’ve made. Reminds me of problems and flaws in my own character. I’m not talking about someone else’s memory; I’m talking about my memories that are ever before me. But I’m glad to report that when sin is plaguing you and when it’s ever before you, there’s hope. You don’t have to be overcome by your sins. There’s a God who is able to bring you out. There’s deliverance. There’s escape from sin. David shows us that way. David made it to the praying ground. David found a prayer closet and talked to God about His sins. That’s all you got to do… You need to pray about your weaknesses. You need to talk to God about your shortcomings. Talk to Him about your faults and your defects. David opened with a plea of mercy. David said, “Have mercy on me oh God according to thy loving kindness, according to thy tender mercies. Blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin… Against thee, thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight… “Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean: wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.” Somebody ought to help me tell Him thank you. Thank you Lord for a new walk and new talk. NO MORE LIES!

By James Carter, Special to CBM Media Outlets

After making millions brazenly flaunting their gang affiliations and celebrating gun violence, The Game and Snoop Dogg want to be Black peacemakers with the blessings of the police chief and mayor.

When I turned on the TV July 8 reporters, public officials, and pundits were still attempting to make sense of the chaotic chain of events that began with the videotaped police killings of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge and Philando Castile in Minnesota, and ended in Dallas with Micah Johnson shooting two participants of a peaceful protest en route to killing five police officers and injuring nine others in a retaliatory attack on law enforcement. 

As I flipped back and forth between local and national news coverage of the shootings I caught live pictures of rappers Snoop Dogg and The Game marching up to Los Angeles police headquarters during a police academy graduation ceremony. The somewhat impromptu event, organized by The Game via Instagram, drew a group of approximately 50 men with the stated objective to “make the Californian government and it’s law branches aware that from today forward, we will be unified as minorities and we will no longer allow them to hunt us or be hunted by us! Let’s erase the fear of one another on both sides and start something new here in the city of Los Angeles, a city we all love and share! There are many things that have to be done to rectify this situation that has plagued us for hundreds of years and unification is the first step!”

By the time the group reached police headquarters, photographers, news cameras and reporters were swarming in to speak to the two primary figures, The Game and Snoop, to get their thoughts on the recent events and better understand their presence at the ceremony.

The combination of media attention and celebrity ultimately earned the rappers a private meeting with LAPD Police Chief Charlie Beck and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who issued the following Tweet — “Right here, right now: We are having the dialogue for peace in our city and our country. @thegame @SnoopDogg.”

Following the meeting The Game, the police chief, the mayor, and America’s favorite Crip, Snoop Dogg, stood side-by-side at a press conference speaking about peace, unity, understanding, and healing.

“We just had an extraordinarily powerful meeting….. We had a discussion inside about hearing each other and feeling each other and understanding this moment. And I want to thank Game for his courage, coming down here today and marching alongside fellow Angelenos to be here in support of peace, to be here in support of love, and to find some common ground of work together,” stated Los Angeles Mayor, Eric Garrett.

“We are too violent a society. Violence begets violence. It is time to put down our arms and start the dialogue. We have to go forward from today as human beings, as Americans, as partners. Put aside the things that divide us and come together on the things that bind us.” — Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck

“Our whole mission today was to move in peace and show that LA can be unified. And not to bash the police but to come up here and get some dialogue because we’re all angels.” — Snoop Dogg

“When I woke up this morning I was uneasy, I was saddened, I was angered. So I called on a dear friend of mine, someone that I look up to, Snoop Dogg. And we had a conversation about how we could better our communities from Long Beach to Compton and hoping it would spiral out to other neighboring, poverty-stricken neighborhoods. … We need to take responsibility as a human race and take the role as peace givers and people that distribute love and change throughout this city.” — The Game

Pictures from the meeting and press conference flooded social media, drawing praise from many quarters as a sign of hope and unity. The optics couldn’t have been better — two Black hardcore rappers with “street cred” alongside the two most powerful White public officials in the city, days after multiple high-profile killings in which race was a key factor.

While those very same optics struck me as ironic, it was the combination of the messages and the messengers that I found particularly disturbing.

Now I’ll go out on a limb and presume neither Garcetti nor Beck have ever listened to a Game or Snoop album. And it is highly probable that neither had even heard of the former before the closed-door meeting took place. If they had, I doubt the chief of police in the second largest city in the country would be clamoring to stand side-by-side in front of the world with a rapper, in full Crip regalia, whose first single, Deep Cover, was specifically about murdering police officers, or another gang-affiliated rapper who specifically compared the LAPD to Nazis on his latest album — all of this one day after nine police officers were shot in Dallas.

So to the chief and the mayor and the hipster journalists who failed to ask key questions, and other Hip Hop-deficient bystanders who want to lift The Game and Snoop up in an attempt to legitimize them and their efforts at this most serious of times, here’s some information on your new partners in peace.

A Deadly Game

Much like Chicago, the violence inflicted by Black males on other Black males in Los Angeles has been a persistent problem. A majority of this violence has been and continues to be gang-related.

According to the LAPD Gang and Operations Support Division, between 2001 and 2008, there were 2,149 gang-related homicides, 24,260 gang-related felony assaults, and more than 4,300 gang-related attempted homicides in the City of Los Angeles. This does not include Game’s hometown of Compton, which falls outside of Los Angeles city limits.

And while city officials note that crime has been on the decline over the past decade in much of Los Angeles, those are just numbers to the inhabitants of many areas of South Central Los Angeles, home to “Death Alley”and epicenter of the 100Days100Nights hashtag where Rollin 100s Crip gang members vowed through social media to kill 100 rivals in 100 days and nights.

Despite being impacted firsthand by gang violence, despite previously residing in an area where gang violence is a daily danger, despite living in an environment where gun violence is particularly rampant, and despite previously residing in an area where Black males just like him are treating each other’s lives with callous disregard, The Game chooses to throw blood red lyrical fuel on the  the flames of ignorance and violence as he celebrates and uplifts the gangs that have heaped more terror and violence on poor Black communities around the country than every police force combined.

Song after song The Game fetishizes gun violence like no other rapper sharing his stature in the genre.

The Game can barely go a few dozen bars before bragging about shooting yet another Black male down in the street.

Out of 178 songs on his 11 studio albums, 115 feature references to either an act of gun violence or gang affiliation — in many cases both.  Those that don’t include these elements are predominantly either intros, outros, interludes or songs in which sex and denigration of women are the focus.

To say that he is a one-dimensional rapper is being generous. However, if you consider rhyming about shooting niggas, fucking bitches, your cars, the rims on your car, smoking weed, loving Tupac, shooting niggas, being gang affiliated, and counting your money before going out to shoot some more niggas as representative of depth, then Taylor is the Mariana Trench of rap.

But if you recognize his music for what it is, profiteering from the exploitation of real-life misery of the very people he now claims to want to love and wants to save, the spectacle of The Game as peacemaker is even more abhorrent.

WHO Am I (What’s My Name?)

At this point Snoop Dogg is essentially a parody of a caricature who will push, peddle and promote any product or cause placed in his path, be it wrestling matches, malt liquor, used car dealerships, fruit juice, perfumes, porn movies, or peace rallies. His track record is fairly well known to even non-rap fans. He is to gangsta rap what Hulk Hogan is to wrestling, the face of the genre. In fact, his latest song is entitled SuperCrip. But at the march, meeting, and subsequent events, Snoop has been a secondary figure whose name value and star power are more prominent than his ideological contributions.

This latest effort is a full-out Game production.

Jayceon Taylor, or The Game, as he is known to his nearly 7 million Instagram followers and the various millions who have bought his albums since his debut in the early 2000s, is a gangsta rapper of the highest order.

Here’s the abbreviated Game bio as spoken by Gangsta Rap godfather Dr. Dre during his narration on The Game’s eighth album, R.E.D.:  “His moms and his pops met in Compton. His pops was a Nutty Blocc Compton Crip. Moms was from South Central, she claimed Hoover. … Now his parents hustled, so he was left alone by himself a lot. So shit, he did whatever the fuck he wanted to do. … In Compton you either a Blood or a Crip … Shit was a hard decision for him to make cause both his parents was Crips.

His Uncle Greg was a Crip. He died when he was 5. His brother Jevon was a Crip. He got murdered when he was just 13.

After that, he decided that being a Crip just wasn’t for him. So he ran across the tracks until everything turned red and never looked back.”

The circumstances that led Taylor to become affiliated with the Cedar Block Piru Bloods are unfortunately not atypical for thousands of young Black males in the Greater Los Angeles area. And while we can’t choose the circumstances under which or to whom we are born, at age 22 Taylor made a life-altering decision. While recovering from gunshot wounds he decided to become a rapper and took on the Game moniker. By any music industry metric he has been extremely successful, with more than 24 albums, mixtapes and related projects to his credit.

So who better than a successful rapper with a spectacular social media following and the ear of millions to represent the interests of Los Angeles’ afflicted Black community than The Game? Well, how about, perhaps anyone!

The Game has built his HipHop fortune and notoriety by brazenly exploiting the same violence that has for decades plagued the very community he’s from.

He flies the red flag of his gang affiliation in every imaginable manner possible, far beyond the standard crimson athletic wear — Game flaunts everything from red bandana-patterned backpacks, to cherry exotic cars, to a red cellphone case/joint lighter, to his own line of gang-related Game emojis — because after all, who hasn’t been dying to sign off a text message with “Red Bandana, Red Bompton Hat, UZI, Shotgun Shell, Crime Scene Chalk Outline.”   

I suppose one could say it’s all in good fun, if LA street gangs weren’t such a deadly serious matter.

The Pathology of The Peacemaker

As rappers go, The Game’s talent is undeniable. But he has chosen to utilize that talent in the most pathological way possible,  building a fortune via the denigration of women and advocacy of gun and gang violence between puffs of marijuana smoke. That is his choice. But in making that choice, The Game has effectively disqualified himself for legitimate consideration to represent civilized, responsible Black people in negotiations around serious policy matters involving our communities.

And this is who the mayor and police chief of the nation’s second largest city have opted to present publicly as a partner with whom to bridge the divide between the Black community and the police? It’s like letting a pyromaniac join the fire department.

When you traffic in Black degradation and arrogantly and brazenly flaunt your affiliation to the most destructive and genocidal elements of the Black community, you lose your right to speak on behalf of the Black community. You have abdicated your authority to lead.

You don’t get to profit from Black misery on Friday and be a champion of peace on Sunday.

At what time, if ever, will The Game become serious about his advocacy and take the most basic of first steps — denouncing the gangs to which his affiliation, however tangential, has made him rich and famous? How about owning up to the hypocrisy of calling for a gang peace treaty after creating a celebratory soundtrack for their heinous acts of violence over the past 15 years? 

I can’t be fooled like White public officials desperate for a high-profile “urban” Black face to validate their “outreach,” and hipster journalists and TV hosts who want the easy headline instead of doing the work of investigating root causes. These people are swayed by The Game’s winning smile, captivated by his style and sympathetic to his pleas for peace.

The question isn’t, “Why would the mayor and police chief legitimize The Game and Snoop as leaders with official meetings, press conferences, and photo ops?” The question is, “Why wouldn’t they?”

After all, Beck and Garcetti get to be cool by association, pick up some urban credibility, and get loads of free publicity. Beck and Garcetti don’t have to live in communities terrorized by the gangs Snoop helped make a worldwide pop culture phenomenon. Beck and Garcetti don’t have to worry that their children will fall victim to being innocent bystanders in the type of drive-by shootings The Game routinely raps about. Beck and Garcetti don’t have to worry if their kids’ choice of t-shirt will make them a target for gang violence. Beck and Garcetti don’t have to counsel their children on how to interact with the police out of fear they will be presumed to be gang members and treated hostilely.

If the powers that be want to demonstrate their seriousness in addressing and solving these issues, then they need not elevate those who pander to and profit from the basest instincts of people in communities beset with problems of violence and gangs.

I am a Black man. I am a father. I work with children in South Central LA. I live in a community where gun violence occurs all to frequently. I grew up on HipHop. Most importantly, I recognize the issues facing the Black community regarding the police, gangs and violence are very real and very serious. These are serious times that require serious people with serious solutions. Someone please tell Jayceon this is far from a game.