Posted by: Jimmy Got SouL | June 9, 2010

Re: Open Letter to Slim Thug

Yea, he said it...

Alright, I haven’t written in awhile, but I was on allhiphop.com and got inspired to jot a few words down. Recently Slim Thug made some comments about Single Black Females:  “Most single Black women feel like they don’t want to settle for less. Their standards are too high right now. They have to understand that successful Black men are kind of extinct. We’re important. It’s hard to find us so Black women have to bow down and let it be known that they gotta start working hard; they gotta start cooking and being down for they man more. They can’t just be running around with their head up in the air and passing all of us. I have a brother that dates a White woman and he always be fucking with me about it saying, ‘Y’all gotta go through all that shit [but] my White woman is fine. She don’t give me no problems, she do whatever I say and y’all gotta do all that arguing and fighting and worry about all this other shit.” <—- read entire interview

Now, I’m not going to defend Slim Thug. I think he had a valid point if he had the intelligence to elaborate, it would have made for a better back and forth conversation. I’m not sure why he included himself as being a successful black man (he kinda is) but he’s not moving major units to include himself in that realm of “successful.” Honestly, he may have been dealing with a personal situation and like most people started to generalize when they are dealing with that. As a grown man that has a has a job, is college educated, and deal w/ day to day problems at work or about work - you don’t want to come home to nagging , worrisome female, or a female w/ too much drama around her. Read More…

Posted by: Jimmy Got SouL | April 27, 2010

By The Time I Get To Arizona

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Institutionalized racism makes a comeback

Institutionalized racism makes a comeback

 So about 18 years later, we find ourselves in a similar predicament as when thee state of Arizona refused to have a state-wide holiday to honor Martin Luther King Jr… Now, to those opposed against that holiday, they probably believed they had some pretty rational reasons. However, to the rest of the country the state of Arizona was in competition with Kentucky for thee most red neck friendly state. Mark Twain once said, “when the end of the world comes, I want to be in Kentucky, because everything there happens 20 years after it happens anywhere else.” However, he may have wanted to have inserted Arizona on in there while he was at making infamous quotes about ass backward states… Read More…

Posted by: Jimmy Got SouL | March 7, 2010

Change: What Have U Done For Me Lately?

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quick change only happens in the movies

Okay, I just heard a speaker last night that brought up some good points about what ‘change’ in America really means and how people are complaining about Barack Obama not getting things done… I must say, I was quite amused to see the people on CNN (video below) in almost a state of disarray about why Obama hadn’t created change in a New York Minute. Seriously folks, Health Care reform took about 7 decades to get to this point, but somehow you thought it would happen in the first 10 days of a presidency? Talk about a lack of attention span. The speaker, Roland Martin, made a point about the civil rights act taking about 10 years (1955 to 1964) to happen, and what if folks had said after  14 months, “it’s taking too long, I wish things would hurry up cause if they don’t, I’m gonna quit” (paraphrasing of course)… You get the idea, don’t you? This isn’t going to be some long drawn out plea to anyone. However, this is a piece of advice, quit complaining if you haven’t done a damn thing to create some kinda change in your own immediate world. Read More…

Posted by: Jimmy Got SouL | February 22, 2010

As Black History Month Comes To a Close, We Salute POTUS

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Without a past, there can be no future...

I would be remiss if I didn’t pay homage to the man who just recently made history by becoming the 1st Black President of The United States of America… This isn’t going to be a political statement. This is more of a statement about paying homage to those who had the courage to be the first. Son of a father from Kenya & son of a mother who was once on food stamps, Barack Obama will be honored today and beyond. Without a doubt, he embodies the idea of it doesn’t matter where you start in life, it’s where you finish. The day of making excuses has reached a cross roads with the election of Barack Hussein Obama. While recognizing the struggles that many go through on a daily basis, those recognized struggles do not limit who we are. However, they do define our character and resolve to do better and be better. Frederick Douglass once said: “If there is no struggle there is no progress.” Those words should hold true for each and every one of us, no matter what the color of our skin is. When struggling for greatness, it’s not a question of how great we can be, it’s a question Read More…

Posted by: Jimmy Got SouL | February 16, 2010

Rhode Island Superintendent Gets Joe Clark on Teachers!

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Don't Lean On Me!

Morgan Freeman, who played Joe Clark in the movie Lean on Me, once said ~paraphrasing of course: “They have disrupted this school… Well, times are about to change. You will not be bothered in Joe Clark’s school. These people are incorrigible. And since none of them could graduate anyway, you are all expurgated. You are dismissed! You are out of here, forever. I wish you well!” Now, of course he was talking to students that failed to live up to their end of the bargain in that instance. The same could be applied in this situation with what just happened in Rhode Island. Superintendent Frances Gallo must have watched the movie recently, and had a role reversal for her teachers…

Here’s the run down from the Huffington Post: “The Providence Journal reports that that School Superintendent Frances Gallo blamed the union’s “callous disregard” for the measures she suggested — adding that the union leaders “knew full well what would happen” if they rejected the proposed conditions (listed below).”

“The conditions are adding 25 minutes to the school day, providing tutoring on a rotating schedule before and after school, eating lunch with students once a week, submitting to more rigorous evaluations, attending weekly after-school planning sessions with other teachers and participating in two weeks of training in the summer.”

Keep in mind, the school is failing… Here’s how things might have gone Read More…

Posted by: Jimmy Got SouL | February 15, 2010

Heart Breaks a Specialty for Daniel Hale Williams [Black History]

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Dr. Daniel Hale Williams

All those that got their heart broken yesterday on Valentine’s Day needn’t worry thanks to Daniel Hale Williams because he was the first surgeon to successfully [without the patient dying afterwards, which is kinda important!] perform open heart surgery. As we continue to acknowledge those that came before us with their great accomplishments, we have to honor a man that set standards for internal surgery. When our health is often our primary concern, we never stop to think about what if people hadn’t taken the time to perfect their craft in order to ensure our safety at our most vulnerable time. I honor Daniel Hale Williams for his dedication as should you. Below is a brief description about the man as well as a video clip about his life….

“Willams is sometimes regarded as the first man to have performed cardiac surgery, though earlier surgeries on the pericardium were performed by Francisco Romero in 1801, Dominique Jean Larrey prior to 1842, and by Henry Dalton in 1891.  It should be noted however that while he is still known as the first person to perform an open heart surgery, it is actually more noteworthy that he was the first surgeon to open the chest cavity successfully without the patient dying of infection. His procedures would therefore be used as standards for future internal surgeries. Also in 1891, he started the Provident Hospital and training school for nurses in Chicago, Illinois. This was established mostly for African-American citizens. In 1893 he repaired the torn pericardium Read More…

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