As was expected, director Lee Daniels' "Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire," garnered Academy Award nominations in every category it could, led by the powerful performances of comedienne Mo'Nique and newcomer Gabourey Sidibe, who take us in to a world of urban strife, grief (and eventually) fractured triumph.

But as enjoyable as many agree the film was, there's another school of thought I keep hearing about from those uncomfortable with yet another movie about "po' black people," a perspective that expounds the frustration with black folks "showin' their teeth." Many argue that "Precious" does little more than further perpetuate negative stereotypes about lower income blacks, particularly black women.

And it's a great discussion to have. I mean, once a generation, there's always the Negro intelligentsia argument over a particular piece of film or television, featuring black folk, that it doesn't show us in the best light. In the '50s, it was "Amos and Andy," in the '70s it was "Good Times," and now after the turn of the century, it's "Precious."

But my question is this: who anointed a Black Knights of Standards and Practices to determine what is suitable for black consumption?

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.

Now Robertson, host of the Christian Broadcasting Network's 'The 700 Club,' has spit out some gems. First he declared that 9/11 was the result of God's wrath on America for not mandating school prayer. Later, he predicted a catastrophe in Orlando, Fla., because of "gay days" at Disney World. Then, there's his call for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

But this classic should be the granddaddy of 'em all (at 0.47 secs) ....

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:

There seems to be a noticeable pattern across the African diaspora in which homophobia is not only tolerated but encouraged. You'd think that would be bad enough, because it invites violence against people who are gay, but now in Uganda, antigay sentiment seems to have morphed into making homosexuality a capital crime.

Right now, Uganda's lawmakers are seriously considering condemning people who are caught in homosexual acts or are known to be gay to death. Anyone said to be "aiding and abetting" them would also be subject to harsh prison penalties. Current law will get a gay person 14 years to life imprisonment, meaning the gay community is driven largely underground there.

Ironically, Uganda was once heralded as one of Africa's most progressive nations regarding the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Now, there are draconian laws all over the world, and Uganda is just part of a long line of nations that attack human rights and deny freedoms to its citizens. Honestly, though, I fail to see how creating a law that would put a person to death for his or her sexual orientation is any different than apartheid or Nazism.

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.

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.

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.