Bob Law's Seafood Cafe Needs Your Help(BLACK OWNED BUSINESS)

As you know gentrification is sweeping through Black communities rapidly displacing Black cultural traditions, businesses, and institutions. The Wall Street Journal reports that as whites move back into the city "Beloved institutions in traditionally Black communities are losing customers who supported them for decades" The Prospect Heights section of Brooklyn is going through the same process, while long time residents and business owners watch what back in 2004 New York magazine called the Manhattanization of Brooklyn.

In Prospect Heights Bob Law stepped up to make sure that long time residents, most of whom are Black, are organized and included in the decision making that is changing the nature and character of their community.

This effort has angered new residents who felt they had a free hand to do as they please, assuming that whatever they did was in the best interest of all To retaliate against Bob, a whisper campaign has begun to charge Bob with being too Black, and to discourage people from eating at Bob's Seafood Cafe on Vanderbilt Avenue.


To offset this anti-Bob law campaign were asking friends and supporters to make a point to eat at Bob Law's Seafood Cafe. In this political climate your support is of great value, Hope to see you at the Cafe. The National Leadership Alliance and Friends Of Bob Law

P.S. > The address is 637 Vanderbilt Avenue (between Prospect Place and St. Marks Avenue) in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. Major trains stop in the area.

The Invisibility of The Black Atheist, BUT What About The Black SGL Collective???

The Invisibility of The Black Atheist
http://wordsofwrath.blogspot.com/2008/05/invisibility-of-black-atheist.html

EXCERPT:
It can be argued that in most African American communities it is more acceptable to be a criminal who believes in God and goes to church on Sunday while selling drugs to kids all week than to be an atheist who has a good job, a good education, who contributes to society and supports his family. In these communities you find more tolerance towards gangbangers, drug addicts, and prostitutes, who pray to God for forgiveness than for honest productive citizens who deny the existence of God. This, for me, is one of the most embarrassing elements of Black culture, our zealous embracement of the God of our kidnappers, murderers, slavemasters and oppressors...


Hey Black Family,

Click the link above to continue reading the blog posting, but the first paragraph above is as much context as I wanted to show you in reference to my argument below. Read on...

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Wil,

Thanks for posting the original blog posting my man!

This posting caught my interest because I am a Black male who is an atheist. And this also caught my attention because the original blogger posted it on my birthday last year, which is May 28th, so I had to respond to this. LOL!

But more importantly, what resonated the most with me was the entire first paragraph of his post (above) regarding the Black community's intolerance toward certain things, ideas, actions or particular people in the African Diaspora.

And I wanted to add that a large part of the "African-American community's" (James White's quote) INTOLERANCE is with Black "same gender loving" people ("SGL" for short, and SGL folks are aka Gatekeepers). I've had this conversation with other SGL bruthaz and it's quite frankly a F**KING JOKE how some of us (SGL folk) can be model citizens to our community (but not limited to having a) "good job, a good education, who contributes to society (church is a major area) and supports his family" (for example), but yet all of that good stuff is nullified if certain people within the community are aware that you're same gender loving (homosexual, bisexual & transgendered). Who I'm attracted to, or even sleep with has no bearing outside the boundaries of my personal space and who I interact with; and it doesn't hurt anyone within the sphere of the African Diaspora. So why are some Black folks trippin' over this besides what?... the bible bearing bombardment or their personal insecurities??? I just think some of our priorities are really screwed up and we're not being inclusive of each other which keeps us apart and compartmentalized in many ways.

Historical Case in Point 1: We can go all the way back to the civil rights era of the 60s where Bayard Rustin, arguably the architect of the March on Washington was asked to manifest a strategic plan of prowless, yet he was shut down and given a back seat AFTER the implementation of his ideas because the Black community didn't want to deal with his "homosexuality" getting in the way of the so-called greater good of the civil rights bullet point agenda items.

Historical Case in Point 2: We can go even further back to the Harlem Renaissance era of the 1930s or so, where same gender loving literary artists' Langston Hughes, Wallace Thurman, Zora Neal Hurston and Richard Bruce Nugent (to name a few) caught massive political hell (as well as the blocking of their distribution) for publishing their infused SGL perspectives and ideologies in their Black magazine periodical called FIRE (I have a reprint of one of the original issues and you can obtain one as well at the following link ---> http://firepress.com/fire/fire.html

So, although there's never going to be a general consensus and agreement upon everything the Black community does, this backlash of the same gender loving collective is unwarranted especially since we can be forgiving people for a number of things. I work in and serve the community, and I do so with respect, not to be marginalized with someone else's tolerance or intolerance.

Craigslist Comments: "Wiggers and Niggers" Thread(Hmmm... So Much For a "Post-Racial" America In The Obama Era)

Hey Black Family,

I just got this post from my cousin this evening which was originally posted on Craigslist:

Re: Wiggers and Niggers

I have to agree with you. I never use to have ill feelings for black people but I can't stand them anymore. They think we all owe them something and their rudeness and laziness is appalling. I am so sick and tired of hearing how we need to support their sorry asses. They literally walk into you in a store if YOU do not get out of their way. FUCK that shit anymore !! I stand my ground and knock their fuckn asses over. And then try working with the few of them that do have jobs. They are just plain nasty. They seem to be getting worse and worse everyday. There is no end in sight. We are doomed.


( Sigh ) It's true since Obama won the election, I've noticed the arrogance, and out right rudeness of blacks,even worst then before

Peace, Love and Music.




ROD's Comments:

So... here we go again... First, to say one never had ill feelings toward "Black people" and then say "I can't stand "them" anymore doesn't add up for me. Sounds to me like the feelings were always there and this social episode was just an excuse to overtly come out and say how one really felt all along. And this person's stereotypical bias "the few (Black people) that have jobs" just concretely demonstrates the ignorance going on.

I don't wanna waste time trying to deconstruct some asshole's (yeah, I know, not nice of me) views of Black people, but what I will say is that America continues to gloss over the issue of race and we haven't had a really REAL dialog on the matter. What needs to happen is that all television programming and all television/cable channels all need to be pre-empted for an entire week (yes, a whole week) and during that week a national town hall meeting talking about race and the woundedness (Black and white people and other people beyond) in this country. And I would have Dr. Joy DeGruy as one of the people to head up this national town hall meeting; because trust me, she would really ask questions or propose statements to really get at the heart of the matter for America to heal and grow beyond our current state.

The poster doesn't understand or doesn't want to understand that (new) America was built on violence and racism perpetrated by their people (the genocide of Native Americans massacred in this country is on public record); that that violence and racism is governed by white supremacy and white (male) privilege; the (white) poster doesn't have to worry about getting his or her head beat in or shot to death execution style (Oscar Grant and Gus Rugley and many more lack males) by police officers sworn to protect and serve (if anything to protect and serve white interests as a majority dominance and their property);

Gus Rugley, A Black Male Shot and Executed
by the San Francisco Police on November 9th, 2005

that this country, as diverse as it supposedly is, has not one paper currency or coin with the faces of a Black, Asian/Pacific Islander, Latina/o, Native American, or east Indian person on it; that Black people and white people have fundamental differences in certain approaches or philosophies of values (that clash); by that I mean axiology (I learned that from Dr. DeGruy); that Black people's reactions to things (that the poster may be referring to) are from a woundedness caused by the middle passage to the new world and of slavery from 400+ years ago (post-traumatic slave syndrome). All these things and more contribute to the bullshit we don't wanna talk about and how we react or don't react to one another now in 2009 and beyond! So this is why we continue to walk around in these United States of America separated, smiling (or not smiling) in each other faces, and then folks going online and anonymously spewing and venting all this bullshit instead of having a real conversation about things.

The original poster of the wiggers and niggers thread on Craigslist who said "since Obama won the election, I've noticed the arrogance, and out right rudeness of blacks,even worst then before" might be confusing arrogance with self-esteem or self-worth, or dare I say PRIVILEGE in a country that does its BEST to invalidate the experiences of African people every single day.

And finally, what rational and humane person would say these horrible things about Black people and then end their post with a signature of "Peace, Love and Music."??? I mean, if you're all about peace and love then a more constructive posting without the rhyming words "wiggers and niggers" in the title thread would be in order.

My posting here may not be the most objective, but as an African-American male born and raised in America (New York City), I think I and others Black folks have a right to be angry about a great many things. Not to dismiss some Black folks re-actions, but how in the world could Black people in America not act out in the face of the total disrespect for Black lives on a daily basis??? I mean, what the f**k???

ROD (aka BIG ROD)

The T.O. Show

Terrell Owens' personality has a lot to be desired and not someone I'd ever date, but YO... brutha got BODY! BIG TIME! And dark choco-latte skin to match!

Yo.. I'm just sayin'! LOL!

Black Youth Invents Surgical Technique - at 14

Tony Hansberry II isn’t waiting to finish
medical school to contribute to improved
medical care. And he's only 14.

BlackAmericaWeb NEWS

Black Youth Invents Surgical Technique - at 14

Date: Tuesday, June 16, 2009, 2:26 pm
By: Jackie Jones, Black AmericaWeb.com

Tony Hansberry II isn’t waiting to finish medical school to contribute to improved medical care. He has already developed a stitching technique that can be used to reduce surgical complications, as well as the chance of error among less experienced surgeons.

"I've always had a passion for medicine," he said in a recent interview. "The project I did was, basically, the comparison of novel laparoscopic instruments in doing a hysterectomy repair.”

By the way, Hansberry is a 14-year-old high school freshman.

In April, the brilliant teen presented his findings at a medical conference at the University of Florida before an audience of doctors and board-certified surgeons.

Hansberry attends Darnell-Cookman, a special medical magnet school that allows him to take advanced classes in medicine. Students at the school master suturing in eighth grade.

"I just want to help people and be respected, knowing that I can save lives," said Hansberry, the son of a registered nurse and an African Methodist Episcopal church pastor. His goal is to become a neurosurgeon.

The idea for his procedure developed last summer during an internship at the University of Florida's Center for Simulation Education and Safety Research at Shands Hospital in Jacksonville.

Hansberry responded to a challenge to improve a procedure called the endo stitch, used in hysterectomies that could not be clamped down properly to close the tube where the patient’s uterus had been. The teen devised a vertical way to apply the endo stitch and, using a medical dummy, completed the stitching in a third of the time of traditional surgery.

“It took me a day or two to come up with the concept,” Hansberry said.

He was supervised by Dr. Brent Siebel, a urogynecologist, and Bruce Nappi, administrative director of the Center for Simulation Education and Safety Research. Hansberry’s discovery won second place in its regional science fair in February 2009 in the medical category.

Education experts say youngsters as young as 10 can experience great achievement at an early age if their thirst for knowledge is encouraged and they are given opportunities to shadow professionals and get internships. Also, a rigorous study schedule that also builds in some recreation is key.

High school internships and other programs are being used by educators to boost the number of young people interested in medicine in the face of projections that there will be a doctor deficit of as many as 200,000 physicians by 2020.

"It's not hard if you have a passion for it," Hansberry said.

Angela TenBroeck, the medical lead teacher, said in many ways, Hansberry is a typical student, but, she told the Florida Times Union that he is way ahead of his classmates when it comes to surgical skills.

"I would put him up against a first-year med student," she said. "He's an outstanding young man. And I'm proud to have him representing us."

Copyright © 2009 BlackAmericaWeb NEWS

Soul Summit Music Festival Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn, NYC

Soul Summit Music Festival
Sunday, July 12 & 19th, 2009
Sunday August 2nd & 23rd, 2009
Fort Greene Park
Brooklyn, NY
3PM to 9PM

http://www.soulsummitmusic.com

Whole Foods Uptown is Hiring (NYC)

Hi All,

Whole Foods is recruiting for local staff among organizations in the neighborhood. Below is their information. If you are interested, reply to the phone or email indicated below.

Upper Manhattan Center
215 West 125th Street WORKFORCE 1
New York, N.Y. 10027
Tel: 917-493-7000

100 + POSITIONS AVAILABLE AT
WHOLE FOODS MARKET

The world's largest retailer of natural and organic foods is seeking:
Cooks
Runners
Cashiers
Cashiers Assistants
Front End Drivers
Bakery Team Members
Bakery Team Receivers
Whole Body Team Members
Café Team Members
Pre-Pack Team Members
Salad Bar Team Members
Dishwasher Team Members
Specialty Team Members
Seafood Team Members

Requirements:
Experience in area in which you are applying.
Ability to work a flexible schedule including nights, weekends, and holidays.
Ability to stand and walk for an entire 8 hour shift.
Ability to perform physical requirements of position.
Ability to operate all necessary equipment.
Bend and lift loads up to 50 pounds
Clean background

Positions start at $10.00/hr

Recruitment events will be held at the address listed above on:
Monday, July 6, 2009 at 10:00 am
Tuesday, July 7, 2009 at 10:00 am
Wednesday, July 8, 2009 at 10:00 am
Thursday, July 9, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Friday, July 10, 2009 at 9:00 am

Please bring your resume and photo identification.
Tell us you are here for Whole Foods

Interested candidates please contact:
Vivian Stroman at (917)493-7066 or vstroman[at]seedco.org

New York City Workforce Career Center operates an equal opportunity program. Auxiliary aids and services are available upon request to individuals with disabilities.