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Monday, June 23, 2008
Good: Michael Jackson @ Neverland 01-16-04
By Askia Muhammad  Michael Jackson turns 50 on August 29, 2008 (Charlie Parker's 88th). On January 16, 2004 Michael Jackson appeared at
Santa Barbara County Courthouse, and later entertained supporters at his Neverland Ranch. You can view the day's events...
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
I've got your 'terrorist fist jab' Lady
By Askia Muhammad I’ve got your "terrorist fist jab" right here lady, and I know just where
to put it. Please excuse the coarse language. I am more than just a bit agitated. On June 6 on that "Fair
and Balanced" Fox News network’s "America’s Pulse," host E.D. Hill promoted an upcoming discussion
on the gesture Sen. Barack Obama shared with his wife Michelle after clinching the Democratic nomination. They touched fists.
It’s the "Cliff’s Notes" version, it’s what has become of the "Soul Handshake." And
so there was an actual prime time, network cable television news discussion about that gesture!? Let me get this straight.
We also have to pay in order to watch cable news networks? Right? "America’s Pulse" host E.D. Hill teased:
"A fist bump? A pound? A terrorist fist jab? The gesture everyone seems to interpret differently." "A
terrorist fist jab?" have you lost your mind lady? What’s next, a collard greens joke? Maybe a "Watermelon
Jihad" reference, or a "Fried Chicken Hostage?" What in heaven’s name made the word "terrorist"
come out that Fox News Network anchor’s mouth? I’ll tell you what she meant. She was planting the seed of
an idea, that this particular candidate for President of the United States, is secretly a terrorist! When he becomes President,
he’ll quickly be accused of hiding a Muslim terrorist behind every desk in the entire U.S. Government. Vintage. Straight
from the Joe McCarthy, J. Edgar Hoover dirty tricks book. Then what do you call the gymnastics performed by President
George W. (for Worst in history) Bush at the U.S. Air Force Academy commencement recently with one of the graduating cadets?
What do you call that? "An Imperialist Chest Thump?" "A Bombardier’s War Dance?" "Caveman Congratulations?" Maybe
it was "The George Custer Bottom-of-the-Class Boogie?" (Gen. Custer finished dead last in his class at West Point.
Sen. John McCain finished 894th in a class of 899 at the Naval Academy. And of course Pres. Bush was at best a mediocre "C"
student at Yale and a virtual no-show for duty in the Air National Guard. On the other hand, Pres. Dwight Eisenhower finished
61st in his class of 164 at West Point. But I digress.) A terrorist fist jab? Yeah. I’ve got your "terrorist
fist jab" right here, Ms. E.D. Hill of Fox News Network’s "America’s Pulse," and I’d like
to show you exactly where you should put it!
Friday, May 2, 2008
8:22 pm est
Sunday, April 20, 2008
All's well at 'God's White House'
Bishop S.C. Madison: "Daddy’s Gone…Long live Daddy"  By Askia Muhammad
Bishop S.C. Madison, the Presiding Bishop of the United House of Prayer for All People has been laid
to rest in grand fashion April 14. He was only the third leader of what must be considered the first Black "Mega Church." My
hat is off to the UHOP. May God Be Pleased With You. UHOP members don’t stand out from other middle class, "Raisin
in the Sun" type, striving Black folks, they don’t change their names to "El" or "Bey" or Rashideen.
Of course their clean, well dressed, well represented. But there’s something else about their strength I admire. The
way they worship, their exuberant musical tributes. Bishop Grace—Sweet Daddy Grace—founded his first church
in West Waltham, Massachusetts, around 1919. By the mid-1920s he had moved South, and was holding large, popular revivals
and tent-meetings around Charlotte, North Carolina. In 1927, with an estimated 13,000 followers, Bishop Grace incorporated
The United House of Prayer for All People of the Church on the Rock of the Apostolic Faith. The church grew rapidly and soon
included branches all along the eastern seaboard, claiming some 500,000 people in 100 congregations in 67 cities. Was
he "charismatic" or merely "flamboyant?" Charles Manuel Grace was of mixed African and Portuguese
descent, born in the Cape Verde Islands around 1882. His family came to the United States during the first decade of the twentieth
century. In the Cape Verdean communities of New Bedford and Cape Cod, Massachusetts, the young Charles Grace worked as a short-order
cook, a cranberry picker, and a sewing machine and patent medicine salesman, before giving his life completely to his ministry. Bishop
Grace was said to have been a showman, but he was always a generous benefactor. He sponsored bands and parades, and tossed
candy to his followers (hence "Sweet Daddy") and to this day UHOP marching bands and steppers travel up and down the east coast in bright, shiny, dream-mobile-looking buses where they perform at various
congregation meetings and rallies.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
I sold my chance to be President
 by Askia Muhammad
In the summer of 1961, when “Negro” anything, always meant “first” something, I was a rising high school senior
in Los Angeles. I was a member of the Scholastic Sports Association, a sports reporting network associated with the Los Angeles
Examiner newspaper.
One of the SSA brass was affiliated with the Hollywood Post of the American Legion. As it had always done, the
American Legion took 800 boys to the State Capital for a week-long camp-out-reality show, and exercise in American government
called California Boys State. I represented the American Legion Miracle Mile Post in 1961. I was their first Negro. At the
conclusion of Boys State, two boys are chosen to represent that state in the ultimate assembly: Boys Nation.
It was at Boys Nation one year later when William Jefferson Clinton had his picture taken with Pres. John F.
Kennedy, at Boys Nation 1962. This caused young Bill to believe he was destined to become President of the United States.
Which he did.
Me? I was a Class Clown. Hey: Dare to Giggle. Dare to Grin. That’s my motto.
So, in a cynical moment, I sold my chance to be President for $5. Here’s how the deal was “structured.”
(I realize that no White Boy worth his salt would have paid any Negro Boy good money for the Negro Boy’s life-long chance
to be President.) He paid me in special 1961 California Boys State money! Worth only slightly more than your basic “Monopoly”
money.
But I still think I got the better part of that deal. I think the fact that I had sense enough to barter
my chance to be President, makes me think I wasn’t the outright “square” I always thought myself to be. So, I pat myself on
the back for having been that “Nickel Slick,” back in the day. Go Obama.
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