Instant Blackness with a ticket and a name badge at the General Mills Foundation’s – MLK Breakfast 2010
The closer we get to the beginning of 2010, and the possibility of Corporate America getting closer to “Blackness” in anticipation of Martin Luther King’s birthday and Black History Month, there are important questions that we must ask ourselves. Why has Black America let the commemoration of our history and achievements slip into the hands of White commercialization?
By Donald W.R. Allen, II – Editor in Chief/IBNN
In 1961, my birth certificate said I was born a Negro. In 2009, given the existence of a playing field that is only semi-level—and even that, only for certain blacks- black Americans as a whole are still in the “Realm of Negroism.”
On January 18 2010, General Mills Foundation and the United Negro College Fund will present the 20th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Breakfast.
The Breakfast “is an opportunity to celebrate the legacy of service of Dr. King and create an imperative to live out his legacy today in our homes, our communities and our world,” according to the MLK Breakfast website.
But wait. Next question.
Just what is Dr. King’s legacy? And how can we claim to honor this legacy, with no real engagement with the urgent issues that affect people of color every day?
Dr. King’s legacy cannot be lived and made real today over breakfast and tea, but requires grassroots organizing, protest, and activism. To fully understand this fact, we must look at the history of the Civil Rights Movement.
The Civil Rights Movement was at a peak from 1955-1965. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, guaranteeing basic civil rights for all Americans, regardless of race, after nearly a decade of nonviolent protests and marches, ranging from the 1955-1956 Montgomery bus boycotts to the student-led sit-ins of the 1960s to the huge March on Washington in 1963.
We must realize that Dr. Martin Luther King’s words and actions were considered radical at the time. They gained popularity because he spoke Truth to the People of the United States. Dr. King said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
Today, Black America has become mute and non-confrontational. Read more
African American Leadership Meetings assume power and representation where there is none. More important: Who speaks or represents the Twin Cities Black community in 2009?
“They’d like to say, ‘Well, you know, that’s just a handful of niggers out there. Just a handful of them. And they don’t represent nobody. They ain’t doin’ nothing,’ says Staten. “Well, that’s just the most insane thing in the world.”
…Rev. Randy Staten – serves as the head of the Coalition of Black Churches and serves as an official spokesman for the African American Leadership Summit. Comments from a 2003 interview with MPR’s Brandt Williams. See it here.
With the recent “waffling” of the Council on Black Minnesotans as it pertains to addressing issues in the Black community (including Somali’s in Rochester; Stimulus dollars; Economic Development; Health Care issues; and Civil Rights) within the last 90 days and the attempt by the Minneapolis Urban League to present propaganda to accomplish relevancy in the form of articles which appear in weekly issues of Insight News, who continues to give “photo ops” to people that don’t represent the African American community in Minneapolis, but continues a grand public relations coup without being fair and balanced to sway and skew the community, one thing going unnoticed by the group is that people are catching on quickly to what is going on. What you think you have…you don’t; most African Americans in the Twin Cities now look elsewhere for news and information, including IBNN. Read more
Stairstep Foundation Part 3: Where has the money gone for Programming in 2007, 2008 and 2009?
Editors note: Just for fun “Google” the Stairstep Foundation and see what comes up.
“Based on factual information taken from the Stairstep Foundations 2007 IRS 990’s, IBNN attests that “No programming” in accordance to ‘line item’ listings happened in 2007. Furthermore we give the foundation the opportunity to respond and show the community on a National platform that funds were spent, lives were changed and that the listings on the 2007 IRS 990’s for the Stairstep Foundation are true and correct beyond a reasonable doubt.”
In reviewing the most recent and available (2007) IRS 990’s for the Minneapolis’ Stairstep Foundation, Part II: Statement of Functional Expenses and Part III: Statement of Programming Service Accomplishments, IBNN has questions as it pertains to line item expenditures and also programming dollars for the calendar year 2007.
The reason for concern is that in 2007 Minneapolis had a significant rise in Gang activity and Gang related deaths within the Black, Hispanic, Asian and Somali communities and we were wondering what programs affected the reduction or engagement with local Gang leaders. Read more
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