(Akiit.com) While in the yard, I couldn’t help but notice how green the grass has become… It made me want to literally start playing in it, as I can still remember those hot sunny days as a child… Had lots of fun, but now at my age I’m just happy to be alive… I see that my back yard would look good with some teak outdoor furniture believe me… Shall visit the local store soon, but until then I shall bath in the beautiful sun while outside… Truly enjoying nature…

Written By CTA

(Akiit.com) Summer time has officially arrived and the local kids shall be getting out of school… Also I will be needing to go and pick up my little brother soon… He just completed his first year of college up north… If we lived in the big city I could use movers New York when it comes to renting a moving truck as it will be kind of hectic shoving everything into my SUV… Oh well that’s how it is, but it will be nice to once again have him around the house…

Written By CTA

(Akiit.com) Whether by calculation or coincidence, Hillary Clinton and Republicans who have attacked Barack Obama for elitism have struck a chord in a long-standing symphony of racial codes. It is a rebuke that gets magnified by historic beliefs about what blacks are and what they have no right to be.

Clinton is no racist, and Obama has made some real missteps, including his remark last week that “bitter” small-town Americans facing economic hardship and government indifference “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them.” Perhaps he was being more sociological than political, and more sympathetic than condescending. But when his opponents branded him an elitist and an outsider, his race made it easier to drive a wedge between him and the white, rural voters he has courted. As an African American, he was supposedly looking down from a place he didn’t belong and looking in from a distance he could not cross.

This could not happen as dramatically were it not for embedded racial attitudes. “Elitist” is another word for “arrogant,” which is another word for “uppity,” that old calumny applied to blacks who stood up for themselves.

At the bottom of the American psyche, race is still about power, and blacks who move up risk triggering discomfort among some whites. I’ve met black men who, when stopped by white cops at night, think the best protection is to act dumb and deferential.

Furthermore, casting Obama as “out of touch” plays harmoniously with the traditional notion of blacks as “others” at the edge of the mainstream, separate from the whole. Despite his ability to articulate the frustration and yearning of broad segments of Americans, his “otherness” has been highlighted effectively by right-wingers who harp on his Kenyan father and spread false rumors that he’s a clandestine Muslim.

In a country so changed that a biracial man who is considered black has a shot at the presidency, the subterranean biases are much less discernible now than when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. They are subtle, unacknowledged and unacceptable in polite company. But they lurk below, lending resonance to the criticisms of Obama. Black professionals know the double standard. They are often labeled negatively for traits deemed positive in whites: A white is assertive, a black is aggressive; a white is resolute, a black is pushy; a white is candid, a black is abrasive; a white is independent, a black is not a team player. Prejudice is a shape shifter, adapting to acceptable forms.

So although Obama’s brilliance defies the stubborn stereotype of African Americans as unintelligent, there is a companion to that image — doubts about blacks’ true capabilities — that may heighten concerns about his inexperience. Through the racial lens, a defect can be enlarged into a disability. He is “not ready,” a phrase employed often when blacks are up for promotion.
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(Akiit.com) Washington D.C.-based Black Television News Channel (BTNC) announced Tuesday it has reached a multi-year carriage agreement with Comcast Cable for distribution in several of the MSO’s urban-based systems beginning in 2009.

The network, created by former U.S. congressman J.C. Watts Jr., will launch in 2009 and will provide original news programming with a distinctively African-American perspective, according to a network press release.

The network would be the first cable service to offer 24-hour news targeted to African-Americans. Prior attempts to launch a full-time news channel have failed, mostly due to the high cost of developing news. Neither African-American targeted Black Entertainment Television nor TV One offer daily news shows, instead relying on short news briefs throughout the day.

“Our unique and vast content partnerships with African American newsmakers will provide our viewers live access to the stories and people in whom our viewers have a special interest,” said Watts in a statement. “With this agreement, Comcast continues to demonstrate its commitment to working with independent programmers with diverse points of view.”

Written By R. Thomas Umstead

(Akiit.com) Upon my return from the recent commemoration of the life and death of Dr. Martin Luther King in Memphis, the lens through which I viewed leadership was made clearer. I saw men, women, Blacks, Whites, poor and wealthy marching together.

As Dr. King’s former aides such as the Rev. C.T. Vivian, Dr. Joseph Lowery, Dorothy Cotton, Ambassador Andrew Young, Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker, and Rev. Jesse Jackson shared the tragic and triumphant events of the 1950’s and 1960’s, I considered the question: What made Dr. King a good leader?

Dr. King began his march for justice with the personal challenge: “if not me, than whom?”

A sense of Godly duty to end the isms of the world-racism, militarism, totalitarism-was his battle charge. As an aspiring leader, Dr. King’s pursuit of the “Beloved Community” was propelled by preparation. After all, he apprenticed under intellectual giants such as Dr. Benjamin Mays, Dr. Vernon Johns, Ella Baker, and his father Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr.

He used the isms of the world to inspire him to move beyond academic analysis to aggressive action through membership in the NAACP and the formation of institutions which included the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Progressive Baptist General Convention. The idea of challenging unjust policies of the U. S. government through well-organized institutions rested on hypocrisy of this nation’s words as opposed to its ways relative to the denied and dispossessed.

Dr. King’s “dream” envisioned a day when America would breach the “broken promise” of equal protection under the law and life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness for all citizens, regardless of race, religion, or resources. Forty years after Dr. King’s example of leadership, today’s leadership model is being re-birthed.

For example, the Black Leadership Forum, Inc. (1977), an alliance of 35 national Black organizations - such as the Congressional Black Caucus, The Links, Inc., National Urban League, 100 Black Men of America, NAACP, The Hip Hop Caucus, Rainbow PUSH Coalition, National Council of Negro Women, Operation Hope, TransAfrica, National Pan-Hellenic Council, and the National Black MBA Association - is actively addressing issues in the Black community on a national and state level.

The renaissance of African-American leadership is shifting the paradigm from a pyramidal model (one leader; many followers) to one in which leaders share a conversation circle-a forum-to affect policy change for Black people, based on their respective areas of expertise. The circular frame ensures that each national leader has an equal value radian to the center of change.
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