#BlackLivesMatter on the football field, off the field all bets are off #SweetHomeAlabama Edition

EYE report what You decide

“In this moment in history, we can’t be silent.” pic.twitter.com/YF4ndJSpa0

— Alabama Football (@AlabamaFTBL) June 25, 2020

So, it took Minneapolis, MN police officer Derek Chauvin literally taking a knee on George Floyd's neck, killing him live and in living color for  8 minutes and 46 seconds for some (not to be confused with all) #Colonizers to wake up and smell the coffee and realize why Colin Kaepernick and other NFL players took a knee during the National Anthem. Yes, EYE know that was a run-on sentence but EYE digress.  The realization racist/racism has the potential to hit them where it really hurts...in their wallets and pocketbooks.

EYE suspect someone in the school of business at the University of Alabama developed a marketing plan to try and plug the holes and stop the Rising Tide ship from sinking. Let's not pretend black male athletes don't make up a high percentage of collegiate student-athletes.  

A new report from the Center for American Progress concludes that colleges and universities are making a great deal of money on football and men’s basketball – sports where African American men make up a large percentage of all athletes – while the African American athletes are not adequately reaping the benefits of this money-making machine.
The report states that “Black male college athletes are getting a bad deal. Their work on the court and the field generates vast profits for the NCAA, member colleges, and TV networks, yet student-athletes receive no share of the profits they generate. Moreover, the majority of black student-athletes participate in sports with the highest risks of physical injury.”

Despite the popular opinion of some African Americans care about their student-athletes.  Sure they would like for them to play in the #NFL and become rich and famous but at what cost?  What self-respecting black parents want to send their student to play in a state still flying the Confederate Flag, hanging nooses, EYE mean garage door pulls, burning crosses, and protecting Confederate monuments?  It's not like they don't have options.

“The [recruiting] process started before the season,” former Howard coach Gary Harrell told The Undefeated. “Caylin’s father [Cecil Newton Sr.] wanted something different for him. He could have gone anywhere in the country, and they could have paid his tuition anywhere. But they wanted an HBCU [historically black college or university], and they figured if it’s going to be an HBCU, why not the school that is considered to be the highest of all HBCUs.”

Everybody knows the University of Alabama is Trump Country so EYE have to question the motivation behind the PSA. 

EYE just do. 

"Racism shouldn't be a part of college campus culture"

📷 A threat has been issued against Howard University students tonight at 10pm. Praying for my alma... https://t.co/AFBPr5G0QD

— Melech E. M. Thomas (@MelechT) November 12, 2015

OK, it's official.  Recent events have shown us they hate us for our freedom, but the question is why? What could we have possibly done to deserve such...hatred?  There was a time EYE believed the old, die heart racist would well....die, but they aren't dying, they are multiplying, breeding a new generation of Haters.

Please read this article and take about 4 minutes to watch the video produced by University of Alabama Students about racism and being called the N-word on campus.  At last count there were 1823 comments posted, most of them by white conservatives.  Read them too.




Then read a letter from a Virginia teen as he details daily racial abuse he faces in middle school.

RedEye tip toeing away from the computer to go pray.

RedEye's Monday Morning Meltdown #WhitePrivilege #ChapelHillShooting #PatelAlabama #JackieRobinsonWest #HBCU #Selma #LorettaLynch

📢 White Privilege: "We'll decide what is racist & what is not racist. We are the deciders of everything." pic.twitter.com/pf7y31Mpd4
— Nanticoke Lenape Bae (@MochaLisaccino) February 16, 2015

EYE am back! Did you miss me?  EYE am playing catch up, but here are some issues that caught my EYE to get the ball rolling.

A 57 year old grandfather from India,  Blogger Legal Schnauzer and three Muslim students discover what it's like to be black/brown in America.  Welcome to our world.

What's that you say?  Stripping the Jackie Robinson League of the their title is all about race?  I'm shocked!  Shocked I tell you!  NOT.

Given the racial politics of Chicago and a few of it’s surrounding suburbs, having one mostly white team start a witch hunt against an all black team just smells of racist attitudes.  I rarely use the term racist because often times people act on their ignorance based on prejudices and bigotry, but racist ideals and sensibilities often present themselves in larger ways that affect the metanarrative; it’s hard to label a person racist when so much of the system is slanted and a preferential treatment is automatically given to whites.  Operating in white privilege often means the subconscious, and perhaps unintentional discrimination of denial of persons of color, but in this case it is clearly intentional on not just the denial, but the removal of an earned prize and more importantly, the title.

I can't believe  HBCU's(Historically Black Colleges and Universities) are being criticized by the first African American President of the United States of America.  Strike that.  Yes.  EYE.  Can.   So much for Hope  for  Change we can  Believe  in.

Say it ain't so Joe! Lorretta Lynch is Codoleeza Rice with a law degree and the Senate committee is delaying a vote to confirm her? 

Today's Must Read
Selma in February

No keener an observer than Thurgood Marshall has rightfully made the point that, with the exception of Abraham Lincoln, no other president in American history did more for the equal rights of African Americans than Lyndon - not Jack Kennedy, not Bill Clinton (the first "black" president) not even Barack Obama! In fact, Obama's presidency owes its very existence to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, both of which were signed into law by Johnson. I know it's fashionable these days to portray half-witted presidents from Texas in the most negative light (I'm guilty of that, believe me); it's just that Lyndon B. Johnson and George W. Bush just aren't in the same league - it's not even close. Think of it as comparing apples with decomposing ravens.

EYE Shall Return

What black folks still live with continued

It is a brazen, right wing, media enabled, LIE most black students don't want to learn. It is a historical FACT blacks were prohibited from learning.

The most oppressive limits on slave education were a reaction to Nat Turner's Revolt in Southampton County, Virginia during the summer of 1831. This event not only caused shock waves across the slaveholding South, but it had a particularly far-reaching impact on education over the next three decades. The fears of slave insurrections and the spread of abolitionist materials and ideology led to radical restrictions on gatherings, travel, and—of course—literacy. The ignorance of the slaves was considered necessary to the security of the slaveholders (Albanese 1976). Not only did owners fear the spread of specifically abolitionist materials, they did not want slaves to question their lot; thus, reading and reflection were to be prevented at any cost.

African Americans recognize the power and the importance of education hence the formation of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, which to this day are full of black student who not only want to learn, but are learning.

HBCUs actually were "invented" in 1837, 26 years before the end of slavery. Richard Humphreys, a Quaker philanthropist, founded the Institute for Colored Youth to train free blacks to become teachers.

The school had moved from Philadelphia to Cheyney, where it eventually became Cheyney University, and by 1902 at least 85 schools were set up by white philanthropists, free blacks, states or churches to educate sons and daughters of former slaves.

Until 1954 and the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education, which ended "separate but equal" school systems, HBCUs were the number 1 option for most blacks interested in attending college.

The Brown v Topeka Board of Education decision gave us Ruby Bridges and the Little Rock Nine. Brave, black students who volunteered to integrate the public school system.

Let us not forget what Vivian Malone Jones lived through when she integrated The University of Alabama despite then Governor George C. Wallaces' infamous stand in the school house door.

Fast forward to 2011 when an Arkansas school district won't allow a black valedictorian

After four years of nearly straight-As, Honors and Advanced Placement classes, 18-year-old Kymberly Wimberly achieved the highest GPA at McGehee Secondary School southeast of Little Rock, Ark., according to a court complaint.

However, instead of awarding the student for her hard work and dedication, the school denied her the valedictorian status because she was black, claims the document filed by Wimberly's lawyer, John W. Walker.

According to the court document, this is not the first time this has happened in the school's history:

"[The] defendant's actions were part of a pattern and practice of school administrators and personnel treating the African-American students less favorably than the Caucasian ones...Until Wimberly, the last African-American valedictorian in the McGeeHee school district was in 1989."

This is proof they are still standing in the school house door.

Redeye's Week in Review

Congress failed to repeal DADT this week, but the ACLU will keep on fighting.

Congress' failure to repeal the shameful "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy is a devastating loss to the gay and lesbian service members who put their lives on the line for this country every day — and for Americans everywhere who believe in fairness and equality.

Rest assured that the ACLU will not give up on this fight. We are 100 percent committed to ending "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and will do everything we can to bring about its demise.

Not only did the democrats magically grow a pair this week they are standing with *gasp* the Congressional Black Caucus! When you think about it, African Americans will suffer the most if unemployment insurance is not extended since unemployment among African Americans is at an all time high.

Unemployment for African Americans is projected to reach a 25-year high this year, according to a study released Thursday by an economic think tank, with the national rate soaring to 17.2 percent and the rates in five states exceeding 20 percent.

Blacks as well as Latinos were far behind whites in employment levels even when the economy was booming. But throughout the recession, the unemployment rate has grown much faster for African Americans and Latinos than for whites, according to the study by the Economic Policy Institute. Moreover, the unemployment gap between men and women has reached a record high -- with men far outpacing women in joblessness.

Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! Reverend Al Sharpton speaks for me!

Over the course of the last several weeks, we have diligently watched as our President, Barack Obama, and the Democratic Party withstood filibustering and stonewalling from the right. Conducting hearings on the weekend, and doing everything they conceivably could to assist the poor and middle-class, their repeated attempts at compromise were met with fierce resistance and an utter disregard for the majority of this nation by the Republicans. And now, after holding the American people hostage as our President so rightfully pointed out, these self-aggrandizing politicians are sitting back and allowing Obama to be the scapegoat for all that ails us. It’s time we call them out.

Speaking of calling them out, they are who we thought they were.

Today, a right-wing organization called Judicial Watch hosted a panel discussion on the “current and upcoming fights over immigration enforcement” featuring Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce (R). Pearce, the author of Arizona’s controversial immigration law, railed against the Obama administration for “siding with a foreign government” against the state of Arizona. However, looking on the bright side, Pearce joked that Obama may not want to come to Arizona as they will require him to show his papers:

Terri Sewell isn't the only newly elected Congress Critter hiring help this week.

Perhaps to the surprise of many Tea Party populists who helped elect them, the Washington Post reports, “Many incoming GOP lawmakers have hired registered lobbyists as senior aides. Several of the candidates won with strong support from the anti-establishment tea party movement.” These lobbyists are not public servants. They are experts at carving out special deals and tax giveaways to powerful corporations

What's that you say? Soon to be former Gooberner Rob Riley is using his so called ethics reform package for political payback against the evil, awful Alabama Education Association and to silence them there uppity teachers? I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you! NOT.

Despite the fact the NCAA and Auburn found Cam Newton's father Cecil Newton guilty of being a modern day slave trader selling his son to the highest bidder, banning him from attending games and awards ceremony's Cam Newton shows why he is a true winner and stands by his father. If there is any lesson for talented African American athletes maybe they shouldn't play for predominately white Universities and take their talents to a Historically Black Colleges and Universities where they don't have deep pocket athletic boosters. The same thing happened in the movie Blindside, talented black player must have been offered pay for play .

"I'm not sitting up here saying that we all are prefect. Everybody's made mistakes. I'm not sitting up here saying what he did or what he did was wrong. Who am I up here to say that what he did is true or not. But I know that if I can call Cecil Newton right now, he'll pick up the phone."

This week ends with me being talked down from my previous rage over the Obama compromise. I accept the fact he acted in the best interest of the American People, I don't accept the fact that it had to be this way. I still maintain he should have listened to his base instead of suppressing the base. I hope and pray now that the big republican fat cats have received their big tax cut they are going to start creating jobs in America and the banks are going to start loaning money again. I also hope that if they don't, the gop doesn't try to blame it on Obama.

The highlight of my week and the best Christmas present ever was the high honor and privilege of being named Blog I'm Feeling by the Field Negro. Welcome to my world and please don't just lurk, join the conversation!