Your Black News: Decline in Black Prison Sentences for Drugs

For the first time since the war on drugs became a national law enforcement obsession in the mid-1980s, the number of African-Americans in state prisons for drug offenses has declined, a criminal justice reform organization said.

The number of whites in state prison for drugs rose 42.6 percent since 1999, while blacks dropped 21.6 percent.

A study released Tuesday by the Sentencing Project found a 21.6 percent drop in the number of blacks incarcerated for drug offenses, a decline of 31,000 people, from 1999 to 2005.

The corresponding number of whites in state prisons for drug offenses rose 42.6 percent, or by more than 21,000 people, while the number of Hispanics was virtually unchanged, according to "The Changing Racial Dynamics of the War on Drugs."

The study, authored by Executive Director Marc Mauer, found that the differences between black and white imprisonments for drug crimes are partly because of how police target suspects and court sentencing guidelines, which vary by state.

Also, there has been a decrease in the use of crack cocaine in predominantly minority urban neighborhoods and an increase in methamphetamine abuse in many primarily white rural areas, Mauer said Wednesday.

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Scurv’s Corner: When Black Love Goes Bad

 

 

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Black News: Black Students Still Jabbing at Fox News

Fox News is not off the hook just yet.  A video criticizing Fox News’ portrayal of African Americans has received tens of thousands of views on Youtube.  Click the image to watch!

 

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Black Scholars: George Kilpatrick’s In-Depth interview with Dr. Boyce

Dr Boyce Watkins and George Kilpatrick discuss money, scholarship and Dr. Boyce’s bureaucratic battle to make history at Syracuse University.

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Billy Hawkins: Are Black Athletes Driving Ms. Daisy Again?

Dr. Billy Hawkins, University of Georgia

Excerpts from the forthcoming book – The New Plantation: The Internal Colonization of Black Male Athletes

It should not take a long stretch of the imagination to see how Black male athletes contribute significantly to the athletic labor class at predominantly White National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I Institutions (PWI’s); thus, to the overall bottom-line of the revenue generated. Their presence as starters and their representation on the top football and basketball programs in the country speak volumes to PWI’s need for Black male athletes. Tables 1 &2 illustrate the contribution Black male athletes make for some of the top athletic programs in the nation.

Within this current economic configuration, another area to consider is the contribution Black male athletes are making towards “Title IX sports”[1]: those sports that are added to meet gender equity requirements, which undoubtedly are played mostly by White women (e.g. rifle, golf, equestrian, rowing, bowling, and lacrosse). According to Welch Suggs:

…Only 2.7 percent of women receiving scholarships to play all other sports at predominantly white colleges in Division I are black. Yet those are precisely the sports – golf, lacrosse, and soccer, as well as rowing – that colleges have been adding to comply with Title IX.[2]

Therefore, since Title IX has provided very limited opportunity for Black females but additional opportunities for White women to compete and Black male athletes make-up the greater percentage of the revenue generating sports that contribute to athletic departments’ revenue, and thus their ability to support these additional sports, a reoccurring historical relationship between the White female and Black male has been resurrected. I refer to this contribution and connection as the “Driving Miss Daisy” syndrome.

 

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Baller Girl: Halle? Can You Control Your Billy Bob?

Halle Berry’s old co-star, Billy Bob Thornton goes insane during an interview.  If you remember, Halle and Billy Bob got real naked and real nasty in the film (not sure why).  But it appears that she is attracted to the lunatic types, since her old dude shows his complete entire ass (figuratively speaking, of course) during an interview, as he goes off on a reporter for mentioning that he is an actor (rather than a musician, which he is trying to pretend to be in this interview).

Click the image to watch!

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posted by Staff @ 8:15 AM 0 Comments

Cynthia McKinney: A Woman with a lot to Say

Hello!!!

First of all, I'd like to announce that I'll be on www.wpfw.org radio in the morning at 7:00 on Hodari's show. I'll be on live from Haiti. I hope those of you who can will tune in.

Of late, I'm been approached by four types of voters: one voter type knew about our Power to the People campaign and enthusiastically supported it. They find themselves in the position of not wanting to say, "I told you so" too loudly, but certainly say it among themselves and to each other.

Increasingly, though, there's another type of voter that is contacting me, expressing "Buyer's Remorse" for having supported candidate Barack Obama. These voters can be futher subdivided into three categories: those who voted for Obama, not knowing very much about our Power to the People campaign; those who voted for Obama, knowing a lot about Rosa, me, and the Power to the People campaign, but who chose instead to vote for Obama out of fear of a McCain/Palin White House; and finally, those who knew about our Power to the People campaign and were hostile to it because they were suspicious that our campaign was designed to deny the White House to candidate Obama--the spoiler campaign. Fortunately and hopefully, because of the integrity with which we ran our campaign, those in this latter category are few in terms of their numbers in communication with me.

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He’s Baaaaaack!!!!!

Yup, Eminem is back and released a new video today titled "We Made You." In it, Em disses everyone from Kim Kardashian, Amy Winehouse, and Lindsay Lohan, to name just a few. One of his most controversial lines revolve around his lust for Sarah Palin.
" Give me my Ventolin Inhaler and 2 Xenadrine
And I'll invite Sarah Palin out to dinner then,
nail her. Babe say hello to my lil friend"
Em is definitely going to piss some people off!
Its been almost a decade since the Marshall Mathers LP was released. His new album, Relapse, is set to be released May 19.

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Posted By Jazzie to Your Black Gossip at 4/07/2009 12:14:00 PM

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Black News: Michael Vick’s Bankruptcy Plan Rejected

Fallen NFL star Michael Vick told a bankruptcy judge Friday that he became a changed man in prison and is determined to do all the right things upon his release from prison, including repaying his creditors with the millions he hopes to resume earning in professional football.

But after more than three hours of testimony in which Vick laid out what he called his "exit strategy," U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Frank J. Santoro rejected it. Santoro told Vick to draft a new Chapter 11 plan, one with a bit more certainty.

Santoro said there is no guarantee the league will have the 28-year-old player back, and suggested he start on a new plan by considering liquidating one or both of his Virginia homes and three cars he had planned to keep.

 

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