Madison J. Gray
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Madison J. Gray
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Continue reading Is 'Precious' a Black Classic or Dirty Laundry?
Just when I thought the dumbest sound bite of the week had come from Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson, with his Obama "runs from race like a black man runs from a cop" nonsense, in comes televangelist Pat Robertson's comments on the devastating earthquake in Haiti.Continue reading Pat Robertson Says Haiti Made a 'Pact With the Devil'

Now it's down to the wire. We're not only in the last moments of the year but also a decade that so many of us wish would hurry up and end.
To those who were watching, 2009 turned out to be the curtain call for what many have dubbed "the decade from hell" or the "worst decade since the Great Depression."
Despite a tumultuous time for many, this year produced some exciting news in politics, and the commander-in-chief kicked it off and ended it with a bang. Click below to find out which memorable events made BV's Top 10 Most Whacked Out Political Stories:
Continue reading 10 Most Whacked Out Political Stories of 2009

Continue reading Anti-Gay, Why Does Uganda Want to Kill Gay People?

When I was in seventh grade, a parent of my classmate became irate with the school secretary during a phone conversation and came up to the school to physically attack her. The secretary, frightened of this ignorant woman, split her skull with a telephone receiver.
Now I didn't know this woman, but I did know her daughter. This was a girl who typically cursed out her teachers, whose grades were so bad she nearly had no grade point average and who got pregnant the next year by a high school boy.
What started the confrontation? A child running to her mother because the secretary told her she couldn't walk the halls between classes without a hall pass. Where did this confrontation take place? The Detroit Public Schools, where fourth- and- eighth-grade students scored a record low on a national basic math test, the worst in the history of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which is indicative of how low that system has sunk.
Of course, there are a lot of political fingers to point and a lot of blame to go around. Nowhere near enough, though, has been placed squarely where it belongs: on parents.
Continue reading In Detroit, Who's Scoring Lower: Students or Parents?

It's getting so bad that at least once a week, we get new news of virulent Barack Obama opposition. If it's not Republicans saying that the president is dragging the country in to some socialist maelstrom (taking advantage of the fact that most Americans can't even define the word socialism), it's some nutty pundit pronouncing his hope of prez 44's failure -- even though that would mean taking the country down with him.
Now, the fruitcakes are trying to enlist another partner: God.
Yep, that's right. There is a bumper sticker and slogan going around asking people to pray for Obama, and then referring to Psalm 109:8. That's code, though, for the actual verse that says:
Let his days be few; and let another take his office.
And the verse immediately following says:
Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't remember a time when there was a Christian movement that encouraged people to actually pray for the president's death.
Continue reading Psalm 109 Verse 8: Fruitcakes Now Using the Bible Against Obama

During one of his campaign stops last year, then-democratic candidate Barack Obama gave a rally speech that was interrupted by a group of hecklers holding up signs in the balcony of a college gymnasium.
Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary until the television cameras focused on the group. They were black people shouting out anti-Obama slogans, holding up signs decrying Obama for, among other things, not being "down" with black people. I remember thinking what do they want black people to do? Vote for McCain and keep bitching?
So now, a group of brothers calling themselves the Black Is Back Coalition staged a demonstration declaring the president, "white power in blackface." I wonder if these are the same dudes in the gym who got quickly shuffled off by security.
The coalition said:
We recognize that Barack Hussein Obama is white power in blackface," civil rights activist Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the Black is Back coalition, which arranged the protest, called into a megaphone as the group marched outside the mansion's gates. "He is a tool of our imperialist enemies, and we demand our freedom. And we demand that Obama withdraw all the troops from Afghanistan right now.
I remember cats like this in college, whom we jokingly called the "blackness police." Their mission was to serve as a barometer of who was being black enough, as though there were a set of black standards and practices that all African Americans had to follow, lest they run the risk of being called out.
They also had this to say about the president:
We're not satisfied with him, and...this hope and change rap has not been a reality for black people," Baron told AFP during the demonstration. "We are glad that Barack Obama broke up the white male monopoly on the White House, but we were not looking for a change in the occupant of the White House from white to black, we were looking for change in foreign policies and domestic policies.
Continue reading Black Coalition Calls Obama 'White Power in Blackface'