Still No Justice in Germany

I received info of this case from Tahir Della, head of ISD (Initiative of Black Germany). I'll summarize what happened below and provide a link to the film project's website in case there are any of you who can understand the German.

I'm moving beyond the cry for equality everywhere because I don't think it's a realistic goal at the moment. A more attainable objective, however, is the push for AWARENESS. Word 'em up yall.

Synopsis of the Situation:
Tibor Sturm, Afro-German hip-hop activist and educator, was attacked by 6 neo-Nazis in December of 2005 on his way home from a farewell party for a good friend in Nurnberg. He had been trained in Ju-Jitsu as a youth and was able to defend himself by grabbing an unknown object and fighting back his attackers. Tibor's martial arts training was used against him in trial to cover up the incessant racism practiced throughout the German penal system. One of his attackers was badly injured and Tibor was convicted and sentenced to 7 months in prison. Tibor's attackers have yet to be sentenced.

Pure bullshit and fuckery at its best.

Link to film website: http://www.alptraum.be/

The Real Danger

Photo credit@: http://tinyurl.com/9z96kz

I’m trying to think of what I can do about the Middle East
From my comfort zone
Here in the West
Where buildings fall but not near me
Where I can tune in to bombs dropping, imagine the bodies decapitating and view the demise of the world online
As if I were watching Willie Wonka or Sponge Bob on television
The War in Gaza is really a looking glass from my position
If I close my eyes hard enough I can even shake the ball and imagine snow falling
That is how far away I am from what is happening
This is how detached I feel from the danger
And thus how dangerous it is to be detached from the world
Because even asking the question of what can I do means I cannot tap into to what needs to be done right now fast enough to do it right now
And that’s not good
Because in war
You are either fighting the other side or spectating
And gazing is just as guilty as not giving a damn
And not giving a damn is a crime in Universal law
Even the fences, trenches and blockades that separate the perspectives are temporary and are at some point engaged in battle
No thing can be neutral in WAR
Yet in America we seem to be Aliens
Moving in and out of planet and celestial status when it suits us
When there is oil to be had or domino effect to be thwarted
And when not
Then who cares about Darfur? Or Gaza? Or babies who never see the world from the “human” perspective because of the “hefty price tag” of their native fathers rocket launching sins
They lose limbs before they ever get to walk upright
And never ball a fist to protest the damage done to their chances at life
What one can do should not be thought of in recipe terms
Adding milk and eggs and baking for 45 minutes
We have to start re-imagining what can be done and by all means doing something.
Anything.
Screaming randomly in the street.
Sending emails that say only STOP WAR
Writing letters, poems, short stories or fragmented sentences to our families that explain why we should at least think about the innocent affected by WAR
Even if we never give a damn
But at least give a thought
Because if it were us and it could very well be one day soon
We would want to know that somewhere in the world someone would be thinking of us while we lay dying
in a hospital in harm’s path
I want someone to think of me when I’m in trouble
And I want them to do something
Whatever is
I just want them to do something.

Khabo translates : and...Obama pt.2 - translation of an article in Munich’s daily newspaper “AZ” on November 5th

To be filed under: "No, seriously... this is Germany!"
check this out. Fucking outrageous (and you think I'm making this all up...)

---

Publication: Abendzeitung
Author: Michael Heinrich (Editor at Abendzeitung)
Publishing Date: November 5th, 2008
Circulation print version: 148,000 sold copies, 290,000 readers
Circulation online version: not known
Circulation areas: mainly Munich and Nuremberg

(Added by Flow) Picture credits (left): German caricature. 19th century.


The Mystery of Skin Colour

In the past, all people were black. The fact that at one point they turned white, red or yellow, is due to the duration of sunshine.

Barack Obama's victory means that for the first time a Coloured has been elected into the highest office of the US. His frizzy black hair, negroid lips and dark complexion stem from his parentage: his father is a black African from Kenya, his mother is white. A good occasion to pose the question: Why is it, actually, that people have such diverse skin complexions?

In the past we were all black. The undisputed scholarly opinion is that humans originated in Eastern Africa - and this region had massive sun exposures already millions of years ago. "In that region those humans had better chances of survival whose strong pigmentation protected them from harmful ultraviolet rays", Wulf Schiefenhövel told Abendzeitung. Schiefenhövel is a Munich based Professor of Anthropology. During the course of thousands of years skins turned ever darker until they were black. Until today, the populations of some parts of Africa and also Melanesia are nearly inky.

In the long run, people with dark skin tones have little chances of survival under Northern conditions. Also, their birth rates drop. The reason for this lies in the weather's impact on their bones. Says Professor Schiefenhövel: "Their bones quickly become soft and warped. The womens' pelvises become distorted which eventually renders child-birth impossible for them."

All other skin complexions are hybrid forms of black and white. Schiefenhövel explains: "People always call the Chinese yellow, and the Native Americans Redskins. Obviously, that is wrong." Both these groups have simply developed skin complexions that had the "right" mixing ratio for their respective habitats. I.e., their skins would sufficiently protect them from the ultraviolet rays while at the same time absorbing just the right amount of sunlight.

By the way, the skin shade only plays a minor role in the definition of human "races" or "populations". Decisive factors are, amongst others, the shape of the head and the body height.

---

Yep.
For more info about this crap and quite an interessting follow up discussion visit "der braune mob- media watch"

Berlin Bound: Had to get 'em

I (Floweasy) have been talking about getting back to Berlin since July 07 when Khabo and I met up in Wuppertal. That trip was business and there was no time to venture off on the BAHN. Big up for Khabo for coming to meet me and helping turn my hotel room into a reunion/slumber party.

Since I left Berlin last April, I have had my moments of clarity. Ones where I knew why I left and ones where I missed sitting in Hannibal with my tall glass of steaming Tiger Spice Chai tea so much that my chest ached. The visceral pain of fleeting memories.

Now with new love in tow and fresh ideas for brunch, I've booked me and my sweetness a flight and we're heading back to my old stomping ground to burn a few and chat a bit.

Lovely. Just lovely.

Waking up on the right side of the bed, both sides of the brain

This morning I woke up more philosophical than Plato. Pla-flow. Flow-to. I had a dream that I was interviewing for a job with Diddy on his underwater yacht and Sonya Richards (she was a great dancer in my dream. We chatted in the restroom when I lent her my Aveda moisturizer for her ashy hands) was a guest judge. The interview went something like this:

Who is your favorite author? Toni Morrison.
What is your favorite book by Toni Morrison? The Bluest Eye.
Who is your favorite character from The Bluest Eye? Petunia.
What is your favorite line from the book? (silence) ooooh, I'll have to think about that one because the entire book is my favorite line.
Are you afraid (of being in competition for the job I assumed)? No.
Why aren't you afraid? Because "the man who knows something knows that he knows nothing at all".
What does that mean? Fear is an emotion shy of confidence. Understanding fear is knowing that ones success is not measured against man but relative to how well one understands his or her own place in the universal order. So losing is not about being better or worse it's about being in place, as is winning.
Tell me one of your craziest thoughts? Well, recently scientists have found another planet. I think it's planet number 362. That means that as humans, we have found evidence that there are at least 362 rocks like the one we live on. We don't quite know how inhabitable they are because they don't have the same consistency as Earth, meaning water, land, vegetation, oxygen but we know they are there. I ask myself often what is life and what a brilliant mind God has to have thought up humanity and creation. God is so smart and I know that if God has created the complexity of life and emotion, of course there must be other life forms out there. Crazy about this thought is that I hope the afterlife means discovering that we (earth dwellers) are the last ones to realize that death is not dying but energy transforming. We are so simple when it comes to emotions. Think about it. We've figured out how to fly planes and mimic the birds, we can communicate across hemispheres in seconds, we can even break molecules down and recreate the energy of fire in a microwave but our response to death is to dig a whole in the ground and throw the body in. Cry for a while and store that person in memory, if that. I hope to find out one day that God's other creations have tapped into a different vibe with the Universe, with God and have been granted the opportunity to become whatever they wish just by connecting to God and to the Universe. I think they are both equally important.

Okay, thank you.

And I woke up. I had to blog. My girlfriend chuckled as I recounted my dream but it's such a great feeling to find insight into what's going on in your life. At the moment, I'm looking for a job and have had a few interviews that seemed to go well but didn't get me the position. I feel as if I've been given a pat on the back by God through my dream. Somehow saying don't trip too much, you're on the right track, you just haven't come across the right thing for your life.

Be easy. Be good to each other. Be well.

It's A New Day. At least on my calendar...

November 4th. The day the world got some. Where were you when the Man got an open invitation to pick its cracked face up off the ground? Race relations not healed but definitely took a huge step in a positive direction (not forgetting the setback civil rights received with the passing of Proposition 8.). I was seated in Slice, a lounge slash bar slash hella good pizza joint in the downtown area of Atlanta. As the breaking news alerts continued to push me and my good friends to the edge of our seats, we waited patiently on Hope. We knew in our hearts that America would not leave possibility on the corner, waiting for yet another Freedom bus. Me, Reese and Liz left the house that day knowing anything could happen. If Obama didn't win, we might be compelled to violence, tears and or madness. Seriously, we knew that each of us had invested so much of our emotion into November 4th being the day we lived to see a black president that there was no consolation awaiting us in explanations of the electoral college or the Republican voter populous. Bottom line, we weren't trying to hear anything other than President-elect Obama.

Our day went like this: woke up that morning, had some Cap'n Crunch, watched the news, suited and booted up, rolled up, rolled out. Brunch, jammin and finally landing at the King Memorial that evening. After getting glimpses of Al Sharpton marching over to the new Ebenezer Baptist Church from the tomb of MLK, Jr. we headed back to the car and ended up at Slice after stopping by the Verve lounge. As we the music tuned in and out for commercials and Wolf Blitzer's announcement of poll results, it seemed as if the announcement was planned as a surprise. Seriously, one minute the ticker said Obama was in the lead by over 100 points and then all of a sudden "CNN predicts Obama elected president"! There was about 2 seconds of silence as every one in Slice processed what was happening in that moment and then from then on until I left, an eruption of cheers, Young Jeezy and hell yeahs. Bananas doesn't even describe the energy in the room. Maybe electric bananas. Perhaps acid bananas on jazz emotion captures somewhat the mood. White people happy. Black people happy. Even the po-leese was dapping up. Hell to the yeah. I was proud to be an American for the first time in my life. I felt like my father, brother, cousin and best friend was just elected president. In that moment, Obama was definitely proud relative of mine and when he and his family walked out onto the stage, I was there with them. Standing right there on that stage saying "we did it!".

Since then, I'm on cloud Obama. This joy is something can't nobody take away. Fa real, I'm good. Sinceriously.

Man shot three times in street by racist gunman - for wearing Barack Obama T-shirt

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 6:01 PM on 07th October 2008

• Comments (21)
• Add to My Stories

A man told today how he was shot three times in a London street for wearing a Barack Obama T-shirt.

Dube Egwuatu was buying a mobile telephone top-up card in an off-licence when the gunman confronted him and glared at the top, which carries an image of the Democrat US presidential candidate underneath the legend 'Believe'.

The man then launched into a tirade of racist slurs, shouting 'I f***ing hate n*****s' and urging 36-year-old Mr Egwuatu to leave the shop with him.

Respect: Dube Egwuatu wearing the Obama T-shirt that provoked a racist attack

The man then left the shop but when Mr Egwuatu re-emerged, the attacker was waiting for him in broad daylight with a threatening-looking dog and holding a gun behind his back.

Realising what had sparked the increasingly violent assault, the terrified Mr Egwuatu zipped up his jacket to cover the image of Mr Obama and walked to his car.

But the shaven-headed man, who was white, followed Mr Egwuatu and after pulling open the passenger door pointed the gun at him.

After pleading with the man to leave him alone, the married former street warden put the keys in the ignition and turned the engine on.

The attacker then fired the gas-powered ball-bearing pistol three times, hitting the civil servant in the face, hand and shoulder.

Fearing for his life and bleeding heavily, Mr Egwuatu raced away in his car and found somewhere safe to call for help.

He was taken to hospital and later sent to have a piece of metal removed from his jaw.

Mr Egwuatu, a data analyst with Croydon Council, said: 'The venom in his voice was frightening.

'He was telling me that he was going to kill me.

'I couldn't believe it was happening - and just because I was wearing an Obama T-shirt. He was trying to make me walk somewhere quieter, saying: 'I've got something for you,' and 'I'm going to kill you.'

He added: 'Obama inspires me, his educational track record alone is quite unbelievable - that is why I was wearing the T-shirt.

'I did not think for one minute it could stir up such powerful feelings of hatred and I never said a word to him.'

Mr Egwuatu's wife, Angela, 35, said neither of them had experienced anything like it during their childhood in Nigeria.

Mrs Egwuatu, an immigration officer, said: 'At first my feelings were pure horror and now it is pure anger.

'If he had been carrying a real gun I would have been a widow. It is just ridiculous.

'I don't know how a person's mentality works. Why would a T-shirt get you to the point where you want to shoot someone.'

To the untrained eye, ball-bearing guns like the one used in the attack look every bit like a real firearm.

The potentially lethal weapons are often converted by criminals to fire real bullets, and can be bought easily in high-street shops and on websites.

The Met said it was investigating the incident, which took place in South Norwood, and that police searched a nearby house which the attacker was seen going into.

No one has been arrested.