Judge Mathis is on mark with his comments. Regardless of Troy Davis’ race, I believe he was unjustly executed. Anyone in his position whether white, black or other should have had the chance to prove their innocence; especially when there are other convicted murderes still alive in prison.

..so not long after I shot the video for “Lyrical Baptism” I played around with ideas for a second video, but I couldn’t make up my mind on which song to shoot. Lagbara and I talked a few times and threw out several ideas for a couple of the tracks, but I was inspired to nix those (at least for now) ideas and do an animated video. I decided “Reigndrops” was the best song on my album for an animated presentation. The song is somewhat politically driven as well as simply life-inspired (if that makes sense) so it was easy to visualize some of the elements in the video before hand.

Check out some stills and development work…

Check out this audio of a debate regarding the advancement of the Black man between Malcolm X and James Baldwin back in ’63. In this debate Malcolm stresses the same points that he did when debating Martin Luther King in regards to not “turning the other cheek” but yet responding to the white man with the same force as they showed us at the time. This is the stance of the Malcolm X before he left the teachings of Elijah Muhammed. Baldwin takes a similar stance as King, he believed the world would not improve until all races could integrate and function together. Both men appear to genuniely respect each other’s views.

Quotes:

James Baldwin “We can no longer perish from bitterness and hatred.” “There IS distinction between power and equality. There is no distinction between power and freedom.” “The actual history of Negroes in this country .. is one of the ugliest histories in the west; and one of the most remarkable.”

Malcolm X  “Until the Black man here in America is connected or restablished or given some sort of knowledge of his existence prior to coming here to America, his own appraisal of himself will be so low that he’ll actually think that the white man is doing him a favor by letting him be here in America no matter what his status is.”

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Part 1

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Part 2

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Part 3

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Part 4

Thanks to Marques for putting me on to this audio.

For those keeping up with the news, Tennesee was hit with a major flood recently. I did my part and donated to the MusiCare Foundation to assist in their rebuild effort. Make your donation today!

Sidenote: My pops took me to Tennesee when I was about 13 to see where Martin Luther King was assassianted – at the Lorraine Motel. That experience was both eerie and enlightening all at the same time.

Most of us have heard the news about the devastating earthquake that took place in Haiti this week. At times like this is when we really must mobilize to help those affected. I made a donation toward the Haiti relief fund at the website for the International Rescue Committee. They are a legit organization, verified by the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Often times people like to capitalize off tragedies, ensure who you are giving your money to are legitimate businesses. Lets play our part. I posted a screen-shot of my email from the IR verifying my donation and a couple photos of the aftermath from the Washington Post.

OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP/Getty Images

Many who at least skim the news should have heard about the recent uprising in Iran due to the actions of their repressive government. Apparently in their recent elections the vote count was “off “causing the non-favored candidate to take office. This led to violent protest by many Iranians, some demanding a recount, some demanding their candidate be placed, others demanding revolution, all demanding “it” be fixed.

I logged into my Twitter account not long after the first protests and there were thousands of “pray for Iran” or “support Iran in their struggle for democracy” posts and I could only shake my head to these types tweets. Foremost, I support any nation whose human rights have been violated and this is a classic case of government abusing power, but how many other times have we seen similar actions by our government here in the US?

Did we not have a similar incident here in the states when Bush was elected the first go around with “questionable votes”? Did we not see the Watergate scandal happen with Nixon? Did we not see JFK’s assassination after his support of the Civil Rights Movement? Did we not see many of our Black leaders killed by our government? This is not just about a faulty election; this is about oppression, hate and abuse of power.

What we have here is US citizens supporting a revolution in Iran but won’t stand for their own rights in a country they “love.” The Iranians recognized something fishy about how their government was handling their election and they did something about it. They didn’t wait for democracy to be handed to them; they began a revolt to take it.

When will we mobilize here in the states for a just society? Or are you content with the way it is? When will unify and protest our injustice here, consistently?

Speak on it.