Let me understand your plan...

Sometimes you have to relax...& take it back...

Life is taking me for a Constant Ride

To rollercoastin:

"Last night I cried tossed and turned,
Woke up with dry eyes.
My mind was racing, feet were pacing.
Lord help me please tell me what I have gotten into.
Ran my 3 miles to clear my mind, it always helps me out,
It's my therapy when I'm losing it which is usually.

I'm on an emotional rollercoaster,
Loving you ain't nothing healthy,
Loving you was never good for me,
But I can't get off.

I'm on an emotional rollercoaster,
Loving you ain't nothing healthy,
Loving you was never good for me,
But I can't get off.

Yesterday I told myself I was gonna be okay,
Gonna start a new day be truly happy,
I was gonna take control of me.
But eventually, reality hit me,
Mentally, physicaly, emotionally,
And I opened my eyes and realized
That I was still being taken for a constant ride on your ........

I'm on an emotional rollercoaster,
Loving you ain't nothing healthy,
Loving you was never good for me,
But I can't get off.

I'm on an emotional rollercoaster,
Loving you ain't nothing healthy,
Loving you was never good for me,
But I can't get off.


So tired of you making love to me,
Then disappearing so suddenly,
Up and down it goes.
And I'm so tired of you pacifying me
With promises you know that you'll never keep,
Round and round it goes."

F*** YOU! WE DONT OWE YOU SH**!

I am the epitome of an angry black (wo)man right now. I'm two steps from going insane. I can't even think of a word that begins to convey my rage to you. It's no small wonder there aren't more black people in this God forsaken country's "mentally ill" &/or drug addicted, homeless people roaming-streets of the District of Corruption that I currently reside. I will finish this post quickly, before I have a temporary lapse of insanity (which people would like me to think of as actual sanity) and become less pissed with the world. The world deserves it.

See, I honestly believe that any sane & aware black person should be walking around this bitch pissed the f*** off, this is what I'm talking about: whenever we're not pissed the f*** off, we're having lapses of insanity. I'm posting this incoherent rant so I that I'll remember to post a more coherent letter to America including EVERY OTHER IMMIGRANT GROUP HERE to f*** off later. BLACK AMERICANS WHO ARE DESCENDANTS OF SLAVES IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA DON'T OWE ANYBODY A DAMN THING BUT OURSELVES.

This is an immediate response to a talk about Obama, Race, Religion and America on the campus of Georgetown University Law Center. But it also summarizes how I feel about many issues at the moment. Allow me to say it again though. BLACK AMERICANS WHO ARE DESCENDANTS OF SLAVES IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA DON'T OWE ANYBODY A DAMN THING BUT OURSELVES. This is what I want to shout from the rooftops. I want to lay my cards out on the table. Sh**, this is what you should know before heading to the table to negotiate in the first place. B LACK AMERICANS WHO ARE DESCENDANTS OF SLAVES IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA DON'T OWE ANYBODY A DAMN THING BUT OURSELVES.

Right now I have to be a good upwardly mobile negro and pull sources for my journal.

...If you want it, why not get it? (p.s. you knew it was coming)

I've always been taught to go after what I wanted. Figure out what it takes to get it, and (if it's worth it) do it. It was all easy enough until what I wanted became people, and not things. Obviously more complicated - unlike an A on a test, the pursuit and conquest ;-) is not a one sided feat; but I think there is more to be said. I don't approach the pursuit the same way. I guess, even in the aftermath of the women's liberation movement, they forgot to stop feeding us the damned fairytales. So no, women don't sit in the castle waiting on our knight in shining armor anymore, but we're still sitting. And most of us (I'm guilty) still want the knight...& in the shining armor.

So we're not stuck waiting in our parent's houses anymore, but we are waiting. We're just waiting in our own houses, condos, or vacation homes; at the job, at work functions...wherever we can "happen" to run into Mr. Right. Why are we still waiting instead of approaching dating like we approach everything else? When we're going after a job, we do whatever it takes to get our resume in order. We go on the interview and say what the employer wants to hear. We sell ourselves, we emphasize everything that we have that makes us perfect for this job & we downplay all of our flaws, including the ones that are purely perceptional. Once we get the job, we work hard to keep it as long as we are ultimately getting out of it what we want and need. If nothing else, the valuable skills to move on to a job that is better suited to fitting our developing & sometimes changing wants and needs. We wear the clothes, we walk the walk, we talk the talk. Of course we compromise. We compromise our appearance, our attitudes, and sometimes even our integrity.

With finding and keeping a man this seems like a compromise that we shouldn't make. There was a time I looked down on women who would do anything to get a man. Don't get me wrong, I still think there's a limit, but I look at it slightly differently now. Perhaps part of the reason it feels so different is because there should be some realm where we get to be completely ourselves; where we get to shed the world and have people love and accept us for everything that we are and are not. It's a tough order. Who do we completely love and accept for all that they are and aren't that isn't family? Nobody, at least not immediately. So from now on, I'm going to approach relationships the same way I approach jobs. Or, at least dating, like interviews. I will put my best foot forward, be competitive, and snag the man. I'll be the ideal girl then I'll stop putting in work once I get tenure ;). haha...jk

He will still be my president

It's like they pulled the trump card. At the end of the day, after it's all said and done, after Columbia, Harvard Law...after we, ourselves, even almost forgot...not the fact, but what it means. The fact that you are black. You are in America. Check Mate.

So Obama gave a great concession speech? Well I guess I can't say that I'm truly surprised. This is why I resisted so heavily, but the damn man just kept going. Every time I said it would never happen, something would happen. Then I began to doubt myself, doubt what I perceived as the reality of this country. Was I not realistic, but rather pessimistic and cynical to the point that I would short change this man a real opportunity to become our president? Imagine that. Our president. A president I would call my own. I haven't had a president...ever. I mean, before I was old enough to know any better, if you asked me who my president was I may have named some old white guy. Never a connection, never a sense of patriotism. What reason have I had...we all know enough about U.S. History to know that black people have nothing to be patriotic about. But..."Imagine, if he wins the presidency we will have not one but three black women in the White House; one tall, two somewhat shorter; none of them carrying the washing in and out of the back door." - Alice Walker http://www.theroot.com/id/45469/page/1

I was caught up, mesmerized, shocked, ecstatic, and hopeful...could it really happen? Well I did what many of us did. Hit the ground running. Even if I wasn't completely convinced, could I really not hit the pavement? Would I really just not have this brother's back? So I'm skipping a week of school, going door to door in Albany, Georgia. "Will we see you out at the polls tomorrow?" "Today?" "Well if we don't get out to vote he definitely doesn't have a chance." "Well hopefully secret-service won't kill him." "No sir, I won't marry your grandson...or take him on a hell-date, but...make sure he goes to vote with you...ok I will go inside and tell them." "Oh you already voted for Barack Obama?... he won the election? Well at least 3rd graders know what this country needs. So do you want to help us pass out these...what you want two dollars?" lol.

We are excited. We are hopeful. We are letting our guards down. Again we are caught up, shocked, amazed, and now very hopeful. He got the white male vote...wait where? The very thought of a black man being president...the very first president elected during my niece's lifetime. To think the first time my baby brother is old enough to vote he could possibly be casting his vote for a black man. Dizzying. Isn't this amazing? My heart is crying out to my grandparents. My grandfather born in Georgia August 23, 1909 (my baby brother same day but in 1990). Are you seeing this? And then in the midst of being drunk with hope...I hear something about a Pastor. Obama's Pastor. "If this is the way he feels then how could he be President of our great country." Yes they have pulled pulled the trump card. At the end of the day, after it's all said and done, after Columbia, Harvard Law, after we ourselves even almost forgot, not the fact, but what it means. You are black. You are in America. Check. Mate.

I don't even have to bother listening to what Rev. Wright said to know that I probably agree. Why wouldn't I? You're right. It is your country McCain, Billary; of that we are painfully aware. Excuse us. We were so drunk off the little shot of hope you decided to give us that we started to forget the sobering facts. This isn't our country. The police exist to remind us that. You build prisons to remind us that. You can fight a war on terror, and bring democracy to Iraq. Billions of dollars for that, but you have always wanted to cut social welfare programs. What about the public school system? You want us to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. You won't even give us boots let alone straps. Oh wait, there is no reason to fix what's not broke. You're right it is your country. You pretend you don't know that, but, damn, how did we almost forget? We haven't, really. I mean, how much could one man even do?

We were ready though, even for a symbolic presidency. We were ready to give you another chance. We have some derivative of Stockholm. We really want you to prove us wrong, but alas...I think Obama was forced to give a concession speech. They say race is no longer a factor, it's not real, it doesn't exist. They want post-racial politics. Electing Obama would prove that racism is old news. Right? He was forced to put his cards on the table. Do you transcend race or not? Do you want to be president...or not?

'A More Perfect Union'

TheRoot.com

Full Text of Obama's Philadelphia speech from March 18, 2008.

Type Size

OBAMA SPEECH IN FULL: A MORE PERFECT UNION

To see video, CLICK HERE.

"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."

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Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas.

I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners – an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters.

I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one.

Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either "too black" or "not black enough." We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views?

Absolutely – just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

"People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope! – I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish – and with which we could start to rebuild."

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright.

As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement – all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it – those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination.

That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations – those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways.

For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense.

So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze – a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns – this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy – particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

Ironically, this quintessentially American – and yes, conservative – notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright's sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation.

What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations.

It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation – the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

There is one story in particularly that I'd like to leave you with today – a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King's birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."

"I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.

What!? Absurdities: The CDC Article Re: Teen STD Rate

1 in 4 teens have an std? Almost half of black teens? Ok (lol), for now I'll just give you something to think about - wonder if we should put the kids up on "toys" - they are less of a headache and much less risky...lol...jk...kinda

But seriously, we know that statistics are often flawed and numbers don't tell the whole story, but at any rate this is still alarming even if not completely accurate.

2008 National STD Prevention Conference Confronting Challenges, Applying Solutions

CDC Press Release

Nationally Representative CDC Study Finds 1 in 4 Teenage Girls Has a Sexually Transmitted Disease

-- 3.2 Million Female Adolescents Estimated to Have at Least One of the Most Common STDs --

-- Other Studies Featured at 2008 National STD Prevention Conference Show Missed Opportunities for STD Screening and Innovative Solutions for STD Prevention and Treatment --

Chicago (March 11, 2008) – A CDC study released today estimates that one in four (26 percent) young women between the ages of 14 and 19 in the United States – or 3.2 million teenage girls – is infected with at least one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases (human papillomavirus (HPV), chlamydia, herpes simplex virus, and trichomoniasis). The study, presented today at the 2008 National STD Prevention Conference, is the first to examine the combined national prevalence of common STDs among adolescent women in the United States, and provides the clearest picture to date of the overall STD burden in adolescent women.

Led by CDC’s Sara Forhan, M.D., M.P.H., the study also finds that African-American teenage girls were most severely affected. Nearly half of the young African-American women (48 percent) were infected with an STD, compared to 20 percent of young white women.

The two most common STDs overall were human papillomavirus, or HPV (18 percent), and chlamydia (4 percent). Data were based on an analysis of the 2003-2004 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

“Today’s data demonstrate the significant health risk STDs pose to millions of young women in this country every year,” said Kevin Fenton, M.D., director of CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention. “Given that the health effects of STDs for women – from infertility to cervical cancer – are particularly severe, STD screening, vaccination and other prevention strategies for sexually active women are among our highest public health priorities.”

“High STD infection rates among young women, particularly young African-American women, are clear signs that we must continue developing ways to reach those most at risk,” said John M. Douglas, Jr., M.D., director of CDC’s Division of STD Prevention. “STD screening and early treatment can prevent some of the most devastating effects of untreated STDs.”

CDC recommends annual chlamydia screening for sexually active women under the age of 25. CDC also recommends that girls and women between the ages of 11 and 26 who have not been vaccinated or who have not completed the full series of shots be fully vaccinated against HPV.

The study of STDs among teenage girls is one of several presented today at the 2008 National STD Prevention Conference that highlights the significant burden of STDs among girls and women, and identifies creative prevention strategies for reducing the toll of STDs in the United States.

Contraceptive services represent missed opportunities for STD screening, prevention

Two other studies featured at the conference point to missed opportunities for STD testing, and underscore that it is critical for STD screening to be included in comprehensive reproductive health services for young women.

A study by CDC’s Sherry L. Farr and colleagues found that while the majority of sexually active 15- to-24 year-old young women (82 percent) receive contraceptive or STD/HIV services, few receive both (39 percent). In addition, only 38 percent of a subset of young women who reported receiving contraceptive services associated with unprotected sex (e.g., pregnancy testing) also received STD/HIV counseling, testing or treatment, which indicates that many women at high risk are not receiving necessary prevention services.

A separate study, by CDC’s Shoshanna Handel and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, examined STD screening rates among young women seeking emergency contraception, which would suggest recent unprotected sex. The study found that just 27 percent were screened for chlamydia or gonorrhea. A significant proportion of those women (12 percent) had a positive test result, highlighting the need for routine chlamydia and gonorrhea screening at emergency contraception visits.

Innovative programs provide models for effective STD prevention

Other research from the conference highlighted creative programs that are effectively screening and treating people with STDs, and identifying those most at risk.

A CDC-funded confidential chlamydia screening program in high school-based health clinics in California resulted in high rates of screening among those seeking contraceptive or STD services (range: 85-94 percent). It also revealed significantly higher infection rates among African-American women than white women (9.6 percent versus 1.7 percent).

A study by New York City health officials assessed the effectiveness of an express visit option, allowing patients at city clinics to be tested for STDs without a doctor’s exam. Comparing data before and after express visits were routinely offered, researchers found that the express visit option made it possible for an additional 4,588 tests to be performed, and increased STD diagnoses by 17 percent (2,617 versus 2,231).

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Black Sexual Health: Condition Critical (article from TheRoot.com)

Check this out luhvs:

Black Sexual Health: Condition Critical

By Kai Wright | TheRoot.com

The high STD infection rate among black teens threatens an explosion in the AIDS epidemic

As the nation pours over the dirty details of yet another political sex scandal, federal health officials this week quietly made some sex news that matters. A study discovered that more than one in four teenage girls has a sexually transmitted infection. And sadly, researchers found blacks once again hardest hit by a health problem: A whopping half of African American teens in the study had an STI.

The study is just the latest on a growing list of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention investigations that have found the sexual health of black youth to be in critical condition. You name it, and we're more likely to get it. HIV/AIDS? Yup, we're 69 percent of newly diagnosed cases among teens. Syphilis? While it's holding steady or declining in other racial groups, it's shooting up among black teens, particularly boys. Teen pregnancies? Rates went up for the first time in 14 years in 2006, and black girls saw the highest spike.

But before you start wagging fingers and passing judgment, there's another set of stats about youth sexual health that don't get reported as often. CDC studies have consistently found that black youth—male and female, gay and straight—are not leading terribly risky sex lives compared to their peers, and in many cases they are in fact far more responsible.

Why, then, are they so much more likely to have health troubles? That's the billion-dollar research question, and it remains both hotly debated and largely unanswered.

First, let's run the numbers. This latest study, released March 11 at the CDC's annual conference on STD prevention, was the first of its sort. Researchers culled through 2003-2004 data in an ongoing, annual health survey of American households. As part of that survey, 838 14- to 19-year-old girls were tested for a handful of common sexual transmitted infections—chlamydia, herpes, human papilloma virus, or HPV. Forty-eight percent of black girls had at least one of the STIs, compared to 20 percent of white and Mexican American girls (the only Latino group CDC broke down the numbers on).

HPV was by far the most common infection, and it's worth noting that studies have long shown its wide prevalence among sexually active people of any age. The virus is contracted by simple skin-to-skin contact and, in nine out of 10 cases, the body naturally clears what is an essentially inconsequential infection. There is however a link, in some cases, between HPV and later development of cervical cancer, prompting a heated debate over whether states should mandate—and pay for—a newly developed HPV vaccine for kids.

Conservative activists, meanwhile, have long held up HPV as proof that condoms don't work and that abstinence-until-marriage is the only healthy way to live.

But the politics and economics of HPV aside, the CDC's study raises troubling questions beyond the particular infections it discusses. For one, researchers expect the teen STI and STD rate to be even higher than they actually found, because their study didn't include a number of serious infections, such as syphilis, gonorrhea and, the big one, HIV. Which raises a giant, troubling question. There's much we don't know about HIV, but one thing is clear: If you've got an untreated STI or STD and you have unprotected sex with someone who's HIV positive, the chances of you contracting the virus go up as much as five-fold. If half of black teen girls had an STI in 2004, the potential growth of the black AIDS epidemic is off the charts.

Indeed, undiagnosed STDs have emerged as one of the leading theories explaining why the overall American AIDS epidemic is so racially lopsided—African Americans, who make up 13 percent of the overall U.S. population, represent about half of all new HIV infections every year. Among women, the number is a stunning 60 percent. This week's study suggests those numbers are likely to get worse before they get better.

So what do we do about all of this? What's clearly not the answer is to tar black kids as sexually reckless. In fact, CDC studies show them to be relatively responsible. Federal and state health officials work together every two years to survey high school students about the wide range of risks they take in everyday life, ranging from riding bikes without helmets to snorting coke. And they ask about sex—how often the students do it, under what circumstances, and with what precautions.

It's true that black youth report more active sex lives than their peers. They're more likely to have ever had sex, to start by age 13, and to have multiple sex partners in their lifetime. But among all students who report having sex, black youth are less likely to do so in ways most people would consider risky. They are more likely to use condoms. They are far more likely to be sober when they have sex. And they are far more likely to get HIV tests.

One compelling theory explaining this disconnect between taking risks and getting infections is that blacks have smaller sexual networks than whites—we choose our sex partners from within tight-knit social circles. Thus, once an infection is introduced into the circle, be it HIV or HPV, it spreads more quickly. Another, similar theory is that widespread prevalence spawns wider spread prevalence—as one AIDS activist puts it, the more sharks swimming in my section of the water, the more likely I am to get bitten.

But ultimately, all of these sexual health studies add up to more questions than answers about black youth sexuality. We know far more about the troubling outcomes of sex than we do about the range of inputs. What drives sexual choices? How are they made and under what emotional and mental circumstances? When young people don't choose condoms, why don't they? We've established there's a problem. Let's start having an honest, and urgent, conversation about what's behind the problem.

Another reason to love Snoop?

quick how many dark skinned women can you name under 30 that play lead roles on tv or in movies? now how many of them aren't overweight and don't play mammy, or glorified mammy roles? besides toni and mya in girlfriends. take Dr. Bailey on Grey's anatomy for example. how come she's only seen as a mother/care taker? nobody is ever trying to get in her scrubs. she has no love life. she exists only to nurture the interns and patients, and help them with their problems (meanwhile her own marraige and family is falling apart, if that's not a new age mammy i don't know what is, but hey at least she's a doctor, and it's realistic in the way they pass her up for promotions even though she holds the damn hospital together). my point is that she is not a romantic character. now the black men on the other hand are (married or otherwise). the chief had a long term affair with a white woman and destroyed his marraige in the process. burke the other[former] black male character had an intense romance with an asian character. none of the interns were black. no romantically desirable black female character anywhere to be found, and this show is written by a black woman. i have quite the personal vendetta against colorism within the black community and in the media. anybody who doesn't believe that this is still a problem can look to tv, movies, and hip hop [videos and lyrics] for a clear overview of what is also played out in everyday life. light skin and long hair makes you more beautiful. there's nothing more prized than a "red bone" with hair down to her ass (even if it's weave). if the girl looks mixed (you know with the "good hair") even better. how many song lyrics come to mind when you try to think of red bone references? now how many references for brown skinned sisters? yeah you'll be thinking on that one for a while. i could go on..but back to the point of this post...as if there weren't enough reasons to love Snoop:


"To the chocolate women, the dark-skinned women, I love ya'll. I got a chocolate daughter at home. I always tell her chocolate is the best thing in the world. Don't think that light skin is in, chocolate ain't never went nowhere. Black is beautiful. I love dark-skinned women. That's why my videos be having dark women in them. I always used to have light-skinned women. Look at it. Show them one of my videos."



ok maybe this is one of the old ones, but...and how fitting that the song is called beautiful? check out snoop and pharell's love interests. also the dark skinned women are far outnumbered, and is there anybody without long hair? oh wait...didn't he say "hair long and black and curly like a cuban?" nevermind i get it.

Maybe it was the chocolate daughter that pushed him to put dark skinned women in his videos. Who knows either way I'll take it. I hope more people take notice and step up. There are beautiful black women of all complexions. Our young black girls need all the confidence they can get. It's bad enough coming from the white community, we don't need it from our own community too.



ok this one is not much better, but i did peep like one dark skinned girl with a cute short hair cut. ah...Snoop you wouldn't be lying to us would you?

It's time that we (i think the problem is prevelent but not limited to the perception of women) believe and acknowledge that black really is beautiful. We want to see dark skinned, unambigously raced, natural hair having (or not), women who look like us portrayed as smart, successful, driven, caring, compassionate, strong (without having to be loud, agressive, and/or obnoxious), and beautiful and desirable. listen to Snoop people, we all know he's the definition of cool.

Can you look a dying man in the eye?

How do you look a dying man in the eye? Especially this dying man. My Uncle. He has cancer. Lung cancer that had moved to the brain before we found out. I think it was the Monday before Super Tuesday. February 4? You said he was sick, but...lunng cancer, moved masta-what, moved to the brain? WAIT! not yet. So you go visit the first break you have. Spring break. Spring? A time for renewal. Life? Living? What would you want your last conversations to be about? When he talks shit (one of the best shit talkers ever) about Hillary AND Obama and tells me and my cousin (his daughter) that we are gonna have a mess (paraphrased) either way. It will be our problem. He won't have a president. He's about to kill off. After he goes to spend some time with my father, his daughter, and watch my brothers graduate (this May). He's going to kill off. He shoots from the hip. He's telling the truth. What do you do when you come to visit? What do you offer? Support...comfort...something else? He does not want your pity. I respect him. Everybody thinks the medicine and treatments have him delerious and disoriented. I'm sure it does...I don't think that's the only reason he paces. He says he has stuff to do. He gotta get out of here. They think he's too disoriented to leave. They don't listen to what he says. We don't want him to go. He's not as disoriented as they think. Some of the delerium is them. He doesn't want all the treatment and medicine. He told me when he can't go off his own juice, then he doesn't want to go anymore. No extra blood. He don't want that fucking horse blood, pig blood, or whatever other kind of blood they want to give him. Some of the delerium is him. LOL. Not that though, he likes to make us laugh, and he doesn't trust the doctors, but he likes to make us laugh. This dying man has always been a straight shooter, he always calls a spade a spade. He's tough. Always has been. Always had to be. He told the people from the Hospice to keep the fuck away. "I know you have a job to do, but I don't want you around here." You don't know him, you should. I only know him as my uncle, I know of him some otherwise though. Maybe in a later post. For now he's dying. About to kill off. I think he paces only partially because his electrolytes are off. Death is stalking him. He won't lay down. He won't pray it takes him in his sleep. He will stay up, and wait for it. He will look death in the eye. Unafraid. It is hard for me to look him in the eye? Maybe he is reflecting on his life. He lived it. He talks about my dad. Talks about education and how his father stressed the importance of it how he wanted all of his kids to be able to have it; how my father, his younger brother, was first in the family to get the opportunity. He worked hard so we all could get an education. We talked about where my baby brother might go to college. We talk about my grandfather who never got to see my father graduate from college. He doesn't think he'll drive all the way to DC for my older brother's graduation from college. Maybe he'll fly. He should make arrangements. He's proud of us. He has to kill off. WAIT. There is so much more we will do. You aren't proud of us yet! We owe it to you. NOT YET! I graduate from law school next May, what about that? I want you to be proud. I am enjoying these talks, between the pacings. I didn't want to sleep at all while i was there, because...I have to go. I have so much to do. I'm in law school. I can't spend more than a couple of days with you? What do you say when it's time to go? This goodbye could really be final. Goodbye, though it may be appropriate, somehow doesn't seem like enough. There is so much I want to say, do, I want you to know...too much...I want you to talk shit to my husband, I want you to scare my kids...the one's who aren't like us...the one's who scare easy...I will tell them the story...you know the time when you shot Santa Clause? The effect won't be the same if they dont' know you. If they haven't heard your voice. Saw how you laughed as Uncle Dennis and Uncle Morris reinacted the story. Their faces had to look to close to the way they looked that night when you pulled up in the yard on Christmas Eve and shot in the air, and came into the house and announced that you had shot Santa. Their faces. Who does that? I thought it was funny. I am your protégé. They will be missing out. There are no more you's, but if you have to kill off...I love how I still get to think of you the same way. You won't lay down. You won't sleep. You will look death in the eye. Some days you won't go to treatments. Good luck when it's time for the Chemo. They won't make you do, but so much. You are doing it for us. You aren't doing it for you. You want to look death in the eye. You are not afraid. Why can't I look you in the eye? You're through the roof! I love you.

We See You Black Youth Shakin Up the Polls & Fulfillin the Dream!...Mad Luhv

There is nothing more inspiring than young people taking over the reins & makin things happen. As a matter of fact, that may be the answer to makin the world, well, as right as it can be. Lei Lei Rachelle certifies big movers & BLACK YOUTH VOTE is definitely Through. The. ROOF.

(& Special LLRchelle Shouts out to Jordan Thierry, Black Youth Vote National Coordinator - keep doing ur thang & dreamin big, luhv)

Black Classism...For REAL? The time to GET REAL is officially past due...

If you haven't seen it yet check it out right HERE; it'll make you laugh, definitely. But what really needs to be checked is the mess that lies beneath. What is it? It's a list compiling all the Stuff Educated Black People Like - like the ever-so popular "First Fridays," for example. #14 states that "this is the day that upscale events are held so educated black people can mingle among others of their social ilk. These events usually have themes, allowing educated black people to purchase new designer clothing to fit in." I laughed. So the blog itself is not exactly "the mess" (because it's satyrical in nature, making light of true perception - sometimes reality - and, for the most part, is actually entertaining), it's what is being implied (which is, keep it real, pretty much true as well) that is "the mess."

Disagree if you'd like, but we have a huge problem with unity. Unity (or lack thereof) is THE underlying issue contributing to the continual degradation of the black community in the United States. Without delving too far into Slavery, A History there was a point in time when dark & light skinned slaves were pitted against each other & thus convinced that there was in inherent difference between the two - a difference in worth & esteem, intelligence, culture, etc. But while these ideals continue to permeate the psyche of Black America, we have opened a new means of classifying and dividing the masses that actually transcends the notion of color (for real?): the Educated vs. the Uneducated, the EBPs vs. the UEBPs.

The blog renders many of the idiosyncrasies of EBPs...I particularly liked entries #3 Baked Chicken, #11 Turkey Bacon/Sausage, & #12 Barack Obama. & I mean, they are all entertaining in prose; however, #4 Natural Hair, #13 Talking About Uneducated Black People, & #14 First Fridays, in particular, really speak volumes about the self-destructive classism growing in our communities. My advice - be true to you, do what you gotta do to get up, & say what you gotta say because we're all entitled to our opinions. BUT remember, at the end of the day we are ALL as good as our "weakest link." Black folk have to live with a legacy, a legacy that is mostly defined by our apparent homogeny. & because we are defined & bound as such, we're gonna have to break loose of those chains together. There is no other way around it.

Stuff Educated Black People Like was created in good humor, and for that it is well appreciated, no doubt...but while the content's universal validity can be debated (after all we ARE all different), I do know one thing EBPs hate - EBPs absolutely hate being mistaken for UEBPs, but guess what? so do UEBPs. No advanced degrees (#7) or business cards (#8) are gonna fix racism. Not a chance.

So be true to you, do what you gotta do, & say what you gotta say - the truth is the truth & it's our duty to keep it real. BUT at the end of the day, if you're an EBP who isn't being true to the reality of your heritage, who isn't doing what you gotta do to uplift our black community along with yourself, & who isn't speaking up for & out to the people who weren't as keen, lucky, or privileged as you were in their pursuits of joining your ranks...unfortunately you're strengthening the divide. I LUHV us, but we all, the proclaimed EBPs & UEBPs alike, need to wake up & move up together.

Amerykah is HERE!!!

New Amerykah in stores February 26th!! the world has been missing Ms. Badu...

i'm highly excited and i'm pretty sure i won't be dissapointed as I'm clearly in love the new(ish) single...

'so tell me Slim what you wanna do
when you know i'm in love wit you
everytime that i turn around
look for you but you cant be found
fly free baby fine wit me
i'm in love wit a bumble bee
ooh Slim , boy you killing me
but you soo sweet ta me
oww


honey you so sweet
sugar got a long way to catch you
you so sweet
all i gotta do is add a lil lemmon
you my favorite drank
ya make me thank
oww
honey you so sweet'



man does she have a way with words...not to mention a way with ALWAYS being able to articulate (oh so creatively) MY feelings...

actually scratch being pretty sure i won't be dissapointed...i have faith in my badu...she never lets me down!

Through... The... Roof

hair...
afro puffs and cornrows, to wrapped doobie's...
relaxed, fried and dyed
chop it off, weave it back...
micro's, kinky twist...
pick a day...pick a way..


heels...
stiletto's
to wedges,
but dont get it twisted though even in flip flops or flats...


ATTITUDE (never forget the attitude, better yet I won't let you forget)...
my time, my life, my way...
got it??


HONEY.WE.ARE.THROUGH.THE.ROOF!!!


my kin folks sent me out, to make money for the house...
hooked up with my girl Rachelle...
sho' hope this fly shit sells....

~Lei Lei the Southern Girl (modified...from the words of the Luhvlei Ms. E.Badu)

THROUGH. THE. ROOOOOOOF!!!

& Honey, that's where we're going, cuz really? there AINT no need to settle for anything less. Momma said "sky's the limit," & who's gonna tell her SHE's wrong?...I mean, to keep it real & frank, we're all capable of breaking thru that glass ceiling so what's the point of falling short?


PAUSE


MARINATE


So that being said, it's time to rise & shine. With our beautiful multi-talented hair (ain't never seen hair do this many tricks), heels @ any height, &, DAYUM RIGHT, our attituuuuude (trust, you'll like us better that way anyway)...We're bout to bring it to you ;-)

Mom's ain't the only one believin the hype either...Biggie did to...