Voices In Color

Today's Black Fact

On this day in 1992, the Cosby Show Ends. Bill Cosby's successful show of upper middle class black family life ran its final original episode after an eight season run.

Analysis: Wright Does Obama Little Good

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright is going after his critics on an incendiary tour that is doing his one-time congregant, Barack Obama, little good.

After weeks of staying out of the public eye while critics lambasted his sermons, Wright made three public appearances in four days to defend himself. The former pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago has been combative, providing colorful commentary and feeding the story Obama had hoped was dying down.

"This is not an attack on Jeremiah Wright," Wright told the Washington press corps Monday. "It has nothing to do with Senator Obama. It is an attack on the black church launched by people who know nothing about the African-American religious tradition."

Read more: The Associated Press

Obama On Rev. Wright: "He Does Not Speak For Me"

Sen. Barack Obama wants everyone to know that he is not the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and the talkative Rev. Wright does not speak for him.

On a day when his longtime pastor at Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ seemed to pop up every five minutes in the mainstream media and the blogosphere, Obama emphasized the distance between them.

"I have said before and I will repeat again that some of the comments that Rev. Wright have made offend me and I understand why they've offended the American people," Obama said in a brief airport tarmac press conference in Wilmington, N.C.

"He does not speak for me," Obama said. "He does not speak for the campaign. He may make statements in the future that don't reflect my values or concerns."

Obama was asked if he felt betrayed by Wright, who played a significant role in Obama's spiritual life for 20 years, performed his wedding and inspired the title of Obama's most recent book, "The Audacity of Hope."

"I just want to emphasize that this is my former pastor," Obama said. "Any of the statements that he's made both to trigger this controversy and that he's made over the last several days are not statements that I've heard him make previously. They don't represent my views. And they don't represent what this campaign's about."

Read more: The Washington Post

Verdict In Sean Bell Case Draws A Peaceful Protest, But Some Demand More

The circle of people was thin but spread wide, looping an intersection in the heart of Harlem on Sunday and blocking long lines of cars and buses in four directions. In the middle of the circle stood a cluster of angry people, and in that cluster stood a young man with a bullhorn and a question.

“Why isn’t everyone else out here with us?” the man, Robert Cuffy, 22, asked. The circle of people, roughly 150 strong, stared back. It was two days after a judge acquitted three New York City detectives in the shooting death of Sean Bell, who died on the morning of his wedding day 17 months ago after the detectives fired a total of 50 bullets at his car.

Unlike some previous verdicts in police shootings, the acquittals in the Bell case have so far been largely met with a muted response. Thousands of protesters did not fill the streets, no unrest ensued. Still, on Sunday, some protesters and advocates around the city demanded federal investigations into the case and greater oversight of the police, while others puzzled over why the verdict had not yielded a stronger response.

At a news conference at the Harlem headquarters of the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, Mr. Sharpton and other activists, politicians and community leaders praised the overall peaceful response that followed the verdict, and vowed to fight the judge’s decision in strategic rather than bellicose ways.

“Some in the media seemed disappointed, they wanted us to play into the hoodlum, thug stereotypes,” Mr. Sharpton said. “We can be angry without being mad.” And while many onlookers shouted their support, others admitted restlessness and a yearning for something more.

“People are hungry for leadership that’s not there,” said Calvin B. Hunt Jr., who listened to the news conference and joined the protest that followed, marching down Malcolm X Boulevard and blocking the intersection at 125th Street. He spoke longingly of prominent black activists in the 1960s and 1970s, among them Malcolm X, Angela Davis and Huey Newton. “After the Amadou Diallo verdict, we marched till we had corns on our feet, and nothing changed,” he said. “In this verdict, there was no justice. So why should there be peace?”

Read more: The New York Times

Angela Bassett Makes Rounds For Last "ER" Shift

"ER" is adding star power for its final season. Angela Bassett will join the cast of the medical drama as a regular in the fall, the first full-time series gig for the Oscar-nominated star of "What's Love Got to Do With It."

Bassett will play a troubled physician who's coming back to Chicago after a few years in Indonesia doing tsunami relief. Her arrival in the second episode promises to shake County General's ER to the core.

Read more: Reuters

Today's Black Fact(s)

1. On this day in 1945, Richard Wright's 'Black Boy' reached first place on the National Best Seller Book List.
2. On this day in 1992, the first day of L.A riots begins, sparked by acquittal of four white cops in the beating of Rodney King, which resulted in at least 50 deaths, thousands injured and estimates of up to $1 billion in property damage.

Congressman To Visit Bell's Family, NYC Shooting Scene

Three days after a judge exonerated three police officers in the killing of unarmed groom-to-be Sean Bell, Rep. John Conyers was scheduled to travel to New York City Monday to meet with the victim's family.

Conyers, a Michigan Democrat and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, also planned to visit the scene in Queens where five officers fired 50 shots at Bell and his two friends, who were wounded in the shooting, the Rev. Al Sharpton and National Urban League President Marc Morial said.

Conyers' scheduled visit comes a day after national and local civil rights leaders and elected officials repeated calls for the U.S. Department of Justice to bring federal charges against the three officers. Also Sunday, other critics of the acquittal proposed a permanent state-level special prosecutor to investigate police misconduct and brutality cases.

Read more: Staten Island Live

Obama Confronts Race Question In Presidential Vote

Barack Obama on Sunday rejected suggestions that prejudice could prevent his winning the US presidency in November, as Democrats mulled whether racial bias makes Hillary Clinton the better Democratic candidate.

With last week's Pennsylvania primary showing party voters riven along racial lines, African-American Senator Obama fended off questions about his viability in the contest during a Fox News interview.

"I don't think that race is going to be a barrier in the general election," Obama said.
"Look, is race still a factor in our society? Yes. I don't think anybody would deny that. Is that going to be the determining factor in a general election? No. Because I'm absolutely confident that the American people, what they're looking for is somebody who can solve their problems."

But an increasing focus on the demographics of the tight Clinton-Obama fight has Democratic party leaders, and the all-important superdelegates who will likely decide the nominee, studying whether American racial bias would give Republican John McCain an insurmountable edge over Obama.

In the Pennsylvania primary, Clinton captured 63 percent of the white vote, while Obama gained 90 percent of the much smaller black vote.

In exit polls 18 percent of Democratic voters in the eastern state said race influenced their decision, with 73 percent saying they would back Obama in a general election versus 82 percent for Clinton.

Read more: AFP

A Hillary Fundraiser Jumps Ship

Gabriel Guerra-Mondragon served as an ambassador to Chile during Bill Clinton's presidency, considered himself a close friend of Sen. Hillary Clinton and became a "HillRaiser" by raising six-figure sums for her presidential bid.

But Guerra-Mondragon has had a fitful time of it in recent weeks as Clinton battled Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination. Last week, he decided he had seen enough and joined Obama's finance committee.

"We're just bleeding each other out," Guerra-Mondragon said, when asked about the switch. "Looking at it as coldly as I can, I just don't see how Senator Clinton can overcome Senator Obama with delegates and popular votes. I want this fight to be over, the quicker the better."

The former Clintonite said the decision to jump ship to join Obama's team "was a very, very difficult decision for me to make. I am an old and longtime friend of Senator Clinton. And I continue to think she is a fantastic and formidable person. But I am first of all a Democrat."

Here's how he explained his decision: "I have found myself in a very difficult situation where you have two very good candidates, but one is ahead. That is Senator Obama. If I look at the remaining contests, beginning with North Carolina and Indiana, I just don't see how Senator Clinton can overcome Senator Obama with delegates and popular votes. I believe the superdelegates, it is going to be very difficult for the superdelegates not to give their vote to the one that has that lead."

Read more: The Washington Post

NBC Says No Way To O.J. Simpson On "Apprentice"

Television network NBC on Thursday dismissed speculation that O.J. Simpson, who was acquitted in 1995 of murdering his ex-wife, would appear on an upcoming version of its reality TV program, "The Apprentice."

"NBC representatives have never considered O.J. Simpson for the next season of 'The Apprentice,' nor will," NBC spokesperson Amanda Ruisi said.

Media reports this week have speculated that business mogul Donald Trump, who is the show's host and executive producer, had been approached by Simpson to participate in a new season of the show in which contestants compete against each other in a series of business endeavors.

Read more: Reuters UK