State of the Black Web?

What can be done to improve the “Black Web”?

You Won’t Believe This!

Can you believe this? This is Simply Racist!
Outrage Over Texas College MLK Day Party

JANUARY 25–Students at a Texas college threw a Martin Luther King Jr. Day party that featured attendees wearing gang apparel and Afro wigs, carrying malt liquor, handguns, and fried chicken, and even one woman dressed as Aunt Jemima. Photos of the January 15 event were discovered on a Facebook.com page by a Tarleton State University sophomore who heads the school’s NAACP chapter. A selection of party photos can be found on the following pages. When he discovered the images, Donald Ray Elder told TSG, he sent an e-mail to Tarleton student Jeremy Pelz, on whose Facebook page the photos were placed in a folder titled “MLK.” In a reply e-mail, Pelz (seen in the picture at right) told Elder that he would rename the folder in which the photos were placed “so it does not bring any disrespect to Mr. King.” Pelz noted that the party was started a few years earlier “because one of best friends is black or African American, whichever you deem politically correct, to be his day not to dishonor him.” He added, “So I do apologize if you felt any disrespect because none was intended.” School officials have launched an investigation into the party and the university’s president, Dennis P. McCabe, has denounced the photos as despicable. In a subsequent post, Pelz–who has yanked the party photos from his Facebook page–stated that the party was not meant to be “racist or discriminating.” (18 pages) Story and Photos Here

The ABC’s of Achieving Your Dreams!

Avoid negative sources, people, places, things and habits.

Believe in yourself.

Consider things from every angle.

Don’t give up and don’t give in.

Enjoy life today, yesterday is gone, tomorrow may never come.

Family and friends are hidden treasures; enjoy their riches.

Give more than you planned to.

Hang on to your dreams.

Ignore those who try to discourage you.

Just do it.

Keep trying no matter how hard it seems, it will get easier.

Love yourself first and most.

Make it happen.

Never lie, cheat or steal, always strike a fair deal.

Open your eyes and see things as they really are.

Practice makes perfect.

Quitters never win and winners never quit.

Read, study and learn about everything important in your life.

Stop procrastinating.

Take control of your own destiny.

Understand yourself in order to better understand others.

Visualize it.

Want it more than anything.

‘EXcellerate’ your efforts.

You are unique of all God’s creations, nothing can replace YOU.

Zero in on your target and go for it!

You Might be Ghetto if …… ?

The post below is crazy! This was posted by others, but I had to post this. There are just some qualities, behaviors, and traditions that are specific to our ethnicity! Despite some of the things below, I Tremendously Love Our People! I am proud to be Black!

You put sugar on your frosted flakes.

Your kids were in your wedding.

You call your mama by her first name.

You iron dirty clothes.

You wear house shoes to the grocery store.

You’re nineteen and you just met your father.

Your mom does your hair in the kitchen.

You put on panty-hose instead of shaving your legs.

You buy clothes for a party and return them to the store the next day.

Your first name begins with Ta’, La’, or Sha’ and your brother’s name begins with De’ or Le

You think putting batteries in the refrigerator recharges them.

You yell “Pookie or Poochie” in your house and five people turn around.

If you say AXE instead of ASK

Your kids are older than your girlfriend

Your shoes cost more than your car

Your uncle sleeps in the Kitchen.

You bring the shopping cart from the super market home full of groceries.

Listen to Boom box on the porch (Stoop) and watch people walk by.

If your child’s birthday party includes a barbeque, a game of dominoes, and a Spades Tournament.

Your screen door doesn’t have a screen

You wear work clothes because you think they are fashionable. (Leave the Dickies Alone!!!)

Turning up the heat means turning on another burner on the stove.

All of your drinking glasses used to be jelly jars.

Your furniture is covered in plastic.

You refer to the refrigerator as the icebox.

The back of your toilet is always off and you have to manually flush it.

You have more than ten uses for Vaseline and one of them is shoe polish.

You don’t think of yourself as clean unless you have a splash of baby powder all over your chest, back and neck (ladies you know where you put the powder…)

The heels of your feet look like you’ve been kickin’ flour. (lightly battered or a gymnast chalked up)

You use black eyeliner for your lips.

Your lipstick matches your clothes.

Your boy wears white socks with sandals or house slippers outside.

Your car cost more than your house but you don’t have any Auto Insurance

You live in you momma’s basement and you’re 42 years old…and you still get women to come to yo momma’s house for the nasty…..Ladies what’s up with that?

Nobody has known your real name for 20 years including your cousins, neighbors, and boss cause everybody has been calling you Peaches since 3rd grade.

If “mybabyfavah” or “mybabymovah” is the name of your significant other…you might be ghetto.

If you own more than one pair of gold shoes…you might be ghetto.

If you have the gold lipstick to go with those gold shoes…you might be ghetto.

If your grandmother is under 40 years old…you might be ghetto.

If you have a brother or cousin named “stink”, “man” or “boo”…you might be ghetto.

If you find yourself in a physical confrontation because someone stepped on your sneakers…you might be ghetto.

If your 4 yeard old can’t talk, but can do the “tootsie roll”…you might be ghetto.

If you constantly use *69 on your telephone and you say, “Did you just call here?”…you might be ghetto.

If you name your child after a character on the Young and the Restless…you might be ghetto.

If you do not have a job, but your hair and nails are done on a weekly basis…you might be ghetto.

If you believe that the words mother and father have the letter “v” in their spelling…you might be ghetto.

If “arts and crafts aids” (such as spray paint, glue, and glitter) are hair products to you…you might be ghetto.
Your grandma has gray Shirley Temple curls.
You buy kids’ social security numbers to get a larger income tax return check.
You’re a dark-skinned woman, but you dye your hair blond because you think it makes you look lighter.
You are at the Maxwell concert, but your lights are turned off.
You can’t answer a question without phrases from a rap song. (ex: “Mr. Johnson, are you ready for your interview?” answer “I love it when you call me Mr. John-son, throw your hands in the air…”
You still don’t know what Y2K stands for, but you bought a bunch of water and batteries.
When you are at the bus stop and hear loud music, you start jammin’.
You don’t have a job because you are “in the studio.”
You and your friends say “AAAAAAAAA!” when you hear a song that you like.
You are scared to use the phone during a storm, because you think that electricity is going to come through the line.
You are doing the butterfly and your 2 year old child is raising the roof saying, “Go Angie, get busy!”
You shake sunflower seeds in your fist.
You think you’re intelligent by mentioning your “comprutah” skills
You still grease your scalp with Vaseline.
You refer to the Wayans Brothers as the Way-Nans.
Your grandma told you that you were related to the ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Jackson family or Thomas Jefferson.
You don’t come to work on your birthday.
You have the bootleg cable man’s number in your wallet.
You dig in your ears with bobby pins.
You have to wait on your settlement to make a purchase.
You make that irritating scratching-the-inside-of-your-throat noise.
You thought “Belly” was great Black Cinema.
You buy jewelry at the train station.
You still wear pom-pom footies.
You don’t know whether you have a checking or savings account, because you refer to it as a “bankin’ account.”
You live in the projects but you only wear Versace.
You coordinate the color of your clothes down to the underwear and tennis shoes.
You don’t eat pork, but you drink forties and smoke cigarettes.
You keep used grease in a can on the stove.
You say, “lightskin-ded, skreet, vomick, frew, baffroom, ambalams, and rockweiler.”
Every time you hear a song, you do the routine from the video.
You wash plasticware.
You always use the suffix “nem” when talking about your mama.
You say “finna” and “cain’t”.
You don’t wash your hair because you think dirty hair grows faster.
You have a technique to starting up your car.
You can’t eat anything without sauce. (honey mustard, hotsauce, ketchup…)
You say your grandma is Indian even though her name is Jessie Mae Jackson.
You refer to diabetes as ‘SUGAR’
You consider ‘clubbing’ as a monthly expense
You have at least 1 relative who will always have a jheri curl
You have mothers who can use curse words and religion ALL IN ONE SENTENCE. i.e. Lord, give me strength because I’m bout to knock the sh– out of this child!
You remember historical moments by R&B hit singles such as COMPUTER LOVE, KEITH SWEAT’S MAKE IT LAST FOREVER, ETC
You swear that the Korean lady at the flea market gives them the best deals!
You have at least 1 uncle that “almost went pro” playing basketball
You spend the insurance money on everything EXCEPT getting the dent fixed.
You refer to your dresser as “the bureau”
You wear any of the following: Brute, Hai Karate, Jean Nate, Old Spice, Chloe, English Leather, Charlie, Faberge’
You use Tussy deodorant
You dry-clean your washable clothing (e.g. Jeans, t-shirts, baseball jersey, etc.) but you still take 10 garbage bags full of clothes to the Laundromat.
You refer to the Laundromat as the “wash house”
You go to the beauty shop for a press and curl (men & women)
You’ve ever waited several hours in a salon to get your hair done and you had an appointment
Your daughter is under sixteen and has extensions
You perm your five-year-old’s hair
You have to put a towel on your furniture so that your curl activator won’t stain it
You refer to the hair at the nape of your neck as your “kitchen”
You still think there’s such a thing as “good” and “bad” hair
you use but mispronounce these words:
skrimps or strimps – shrimp (note: there is no “s” on the end)
pacific vs. specific (note: these are not interchangeable. In order to determine which is appropriate, listen to clues to such references to large bodies of water, as opposed to body of water)
skreet – street
look dead – looked
member – of or pertaining to a recollection (e.g. ya’ll member the time…?)
spisketti – spaghetti
zinc – sink
alblums – what we used before CD’s
showliz – that sure is
wayment – wait a minute

You Know You’re A Ghetto Christian If . . .

You lie on an application to get a job and then get up and testify that “God

made a way out of no way!”

You get mad at a visitor and call them out for sitting in YOUR seat.

You tell the preacher to baptize you from the neck down because you just got your hair done!

You take 2 hours to get ready for church, get there late, and leave early!

You open your Bible and you cough from the dust that flies out.

Your wedding song is ‘Secret Lovers’.

You say aliens abducted you, but the Lord set you free.

You do not lift your hand during worship because your acrylic nail is broken.

The only time you like to sing in the choir is when they let you sing “your” song.

You do not tithe because you say, “the preacher might be crooked and stealing the Lord’s money, so I don’t want to give it to him”

After you’ve done wrong and someone has rebuked you, you don’t repent but say, “Well the Lord knows my heart.”

You have ever said, “show me in the Bible where it says, thou shall not smoke”.

Your favorite part of the service is the benediction.

Your pickup line to all the single women in church is “the Bible says, greet one another with a holy kiss”.

You thought “the Gospel” was a concert.

You overheard someone say, “We got fed today at service” and you asked if they served chicken.

You think “The Trinity” is a new female gospel group.

You just got finished smoking on the outside of the church and then try to lead a song, get choked up, holding your throat and say to the congregation, “The devil don’t want me to sing this song.”

The only scripture you know is, “Jesus wept.”

Every church auxiliary has fried chicken dinners for sale as a fund raiser.

You know you attend a ghetto church when they stop worship to announce someone parked in the pastor’s spot and they are currently being towed

You can learn the latest dances from your church choir
The offering plate at your church goes around five times
The person doing the opening prayer lists all the Greek and Hebrew names for God.
Either the bride or groom sings a solo to each other, or both
Nobody in the wedding can really fit in their dresses, including the bride
The reception meal was cooked by the bride’s mother.
There are more people in the wedding than there are in the audience
Everybody’s exes were invited because they’re all remarried to somebody else in the family
Your wedding dress is also a maternity dress
Your wedding march is actually a march
You sing ghetto wedding songs: “Always & forever” “I’ll always love you” “You and I” “wind beneath my wings” “Here and now” “Ribbon in the sky” “always”
The deceased and his widow are wearing matching outfits
Someone tries to climb inside the coffin
More than one person thinks that she is the current spouse of the deceased
The majority of the flowers at the burial site are plastic and are taken back the following day
The service lasts for half a day
Polaroid shots are being taken of the deceased
No one knew the deceased by his real name (“who’s Ravon Williams, III? I thought his name was Bookie”)
Most of the mourners comment that the deceased didn’t look that good when he was alive
You just get out of church praising the Lord and get into a fist fight in the parking lot.

Is She Knocking Their Hustle?

Sometimes, maybe one shouldn’t speak to the media about one’s business! Observe story below!

Photos by Lance Murphey/The Commercial Appeal Markey Granberry (right) and business partner and cousin Derrick Robinson are co-founders of Mo’ Money Taxes

Your super-fast tax refund comes with strings that pull back!

By Wendi C. Thomas

Commercial Appeal.Com
Contact
January 28, 2007

A public service for the poor, or exploitation of those who can least afford it?Markey Granberry and Derrick Robinson, founders of the wildly successful Mo’ Money Taxes, insist they’re doing a noble thing by offering tax refund anticipation loans to their customers, most of whom make less than $35,000 a year.

But the appealing quick loans, known as RALs, can come with a three-digit interest rate and hundreds of dollars in fees.

“Consumers paid an estimated $1.24 billion in RAL fees in 2004 to get quick cash for their refunds — essentially borrowing their own money at extremely high interest rates,” reports the Center for Responsible Lending. The annualized interest rate on a RAL can top 700 percent.

It’s predatory lending, tax-season style, for the impatient and financially naive.

The loans, available in as little as a day, are a savior, Robinson says, for low-income workers who don’t have cash stashed away for the unusually high utility bill or unexpected car repairs.

These folks need their refund now, not in the six to eight weeks it might take if you mail a return to the IRS.

“You’re going to tell somebody who makes $7,000 a year to wait on $5,000? Don’t act like you don’t know real people,” chides Robinson, who with his cousin Granberry grew Mo’ Money from a tiny office on Millbranch in 1995 to more than 50 Mo’ Money sites in nine states.

Besides, he says, the problem isn’t Mo’ Money or any other business that offers high-interest loans.

“If the government would do something about people being broke, then they’d probably get rid of us.”

Here’s how RALs work: Say you can’t, or more likely, don’t want to, wait for your refund.

So you go to a tax preparer that offers RALs.

The preparer does your taxes — using a pay stub and last year’s return, if you haven’t received your W-2s yet — and estimates what your refund will be.

A bank (for Mo’ Money, it’s HSBC Bank) issues the loan for the estimated amount of the return. Mo’ Money cuts the check for the loan, minus its fees of around $200, and when you bring back your W-2s, e-files your return.

When the IRS processes your return, usually within two weeks, your refund check goes directly to the bank.

But when the refund estimations don’t factor in other debts like unpaid student loans, then you’re caught.

“If the bank gives you back more money than you get from the IRS, you would owe the bank,” Robinson explains.

And that’s where the interest rate comes in. On a $3,000 refund, the loan fee would be $62, says HSBC spokeswoman Diane Bergan. That fee represents a 70 percent annualized interest rate. Bergan says customers rarely end up paying astronomical interest because the loans are usually repaid when the refund arrives, usually within two weeks.

But 10 to 15 percent of Mo’ Money’s customers get RALs but no refund, the owners estimate. In those cases, Mo’ Money has to eat its costs, and the customer owes the bank. Big.

In Tennessee, much attention has been paid to predatory lending, but primarily in the home mortgage industry. Last year, the state legislature passed the “Tennessee Home Protection Act,” which limits the worst of the worst lending practices.

Elsewhere, RALs are under fire. California, Oregon, Nevada and Washington are among the states that have passed laws requiring better disclosure of RAL fees.

Mo’ Money would be a fantastic success story of two young entrepreneurs, except it’s a story told at the expense of the poor.

With locations all over the South, Mo’ Money and its owners might be best known for their roles in the company’s elaborate, ghetto fabulous commercials; this year’s version has a “Dukes of Hazzard” theme.

The spot for the 2004 tax season won Granberry, 34, and Robinson, 36, a Telly — the ad equivalent of an Oscar, the two brag.

In their early days, they shared an office suite on Millbranch with two businesses.

Just one room, two computers and a printer. Now, they own the building.

Not bad for two college dropouts who smile but don’t dispute my calculations that Mo’ Money made $7 million last year. The company processed 400 tax returns in 1995; last year they did around 35,000 returns, 95 percent with RALs.

Granberry and Robinson own the 13 Mo’ Money offices in Memphis. More than 40 preparers in Millington, Collierville, Mississippi and seven other states have bought the rights to use the Mo’ Money name.

It’s difficult not to be enchanted by their candor and business smarts. They’re charming and witty, the kind of guys you’d invite over to play dominoes.

Robinson, a 1988 graduate of Wooddale High, and Granberry, a 1990 Hamilton High alum, dabble in real estate and plan to send a DVD of their over-the-top commercials to moviemaker Craig Brewer, of “Hustle & Flow” infamy.

Eventually, Robinson thinks, Mo’ Money will be in all 50 states — that’s how popular the RAL business is.

“You ought to hear all the folks praising when they get their checks,” Robinson says. “‘Thank you, Jesus!’ and all that type of stuff.

When they get their paychecks every week, they don’t do that.”

But would Robinson tell his mom to get a RAL? “She does!” he says.

Never mind that with a RAL, you’re paying for the privilege of borrowing your own money, money that you lent to the government for a year, interest-free.

For most people, there’s no reason to pay to have your taxes prepared. On the Free File link at irs.gov are several free electronic tax filing programs for those who have an adjusted yearly income of $52,000 or less, or 70 percent of taxpayers.

Make less than $39,000 and you qualify for free tax help through the IRS’ Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program. To find your local VITA office, call (800) 829-1040.

And, perhaps most importantly, steady yourself financially so that you don’t need or want a RAL.

Set aside at least $1,000 for emergencies. Make a budget and stick to it.

Robinson considers those unreasonable expectations for people who are simply trying to make it.

“It’s hard out here on everybody,” Robinson says. “Not just pimps.”

Contact Wendi C. Thomas at (901) 529-5896 or send an e-mail.

Copyright 2007, commercialappeal.com – Memphis, TN. All Rights Reserved.

Bishop G. E. Patterson Rumours!

Bishop G. E. Patterson has passed away. I have been astonished how the Body of Christ has poured out love for one of the few Generals of our faith. Bishop G. E. Patterson was perhaps the most senior of the African American televangelists as far as being on nationwide television. Bishop Patterson was crying out that “Jesus is a Habit Breaker”, long before Bishop Jakes said “Get Ready, Get Ready, Get Ready”! Bishop G. E. Patterson also cryed out “Be Healed, Be Delivered, and Be Set Free” before Pastor Creflo Dollar proclaimed “I’m Out of Debt My Needs are Met I Got Plenty of More to Lie in Store”. Bishop G. E. Patterson has been on nationwide television for nearly two decades! Bishop told scores of viewers “If you can have it, God can Heal It”, long before many of us got a chance to tell Pastor Jamal Bryant to “Preach Black Man”! He was our standard bearer long before Bishop Eddie L. Long bought his first muscle shirt! Bishop G. E. Patterson preached a simple gospel and he did not pull punches. He did not get carried away with the different whims and waves that the Body of Christ endures. All of America especially Black America should be praying for the many affected by the loss of the man that brought a home cooking style of preaching to each of us every Sunday Morning! What Black Preacher can admit to not stealing a line or two from his sermons? He was my spiritual father and I was blessed to have had the opportunity to interact with the great Bishop G. E. Patterson!

<> Guest Columnist,
Pastor Stephen F. Smith
Sure House Church, Inc.
www.thesurehouse.com

Is There a Black Justice and a White Justice?

Disparities in our criminal justice system are evident to many blacks, yet the mainstream society will not admit it! Our prisons are overloaded with young black men, our drugs laws are so one sided that a peddler in crack cocaine gets more time than a mid-level distributor of powder cocaine. Black elected officials are targeted at a rate of at least 10 to 1 over their white counterparts. The Eyes of Lady Justice must have been uncovered, and all she sees is black! Your thoughts and viewpoints are welcome!