Credit: AP Image

From The Grio

The families, and especially the children, of the commander-in-chief are almost always considered off-limits by the media and the political opposition, and yet, some conservatives can’t seem to help themselves when it comes to Malia Obama.

In the wake of President Obama’s statement that he would support the selling of Plan B, a birth control product, to girls as young as 15, Fox News host Andrea Tantaros speculated about the sex life of the president’s 14-year-old daughter.

“Are they gonna put her on birth control? Because he’s very concerned with contraceptives and pharmaceuticals that are going in the mouths of everybody else’s 15-year-old daughter,” she said, according to Media Matters.

Tantaros also lashed out at the Obama administration: “They consider 15-year-olds to be women. They want to tell grown women what to do. They know how grown women feel. They have no idea how women feel. They should stop talking about it, because they have no clue.”

Read more at TheGrio.com.

Source: YouTube

It takes a brave person to appear on Fox News, especially if that person is liberal, female and especially black. We’ve seen it time and time again. It’s certainly admirable to cross “enemy” lines and try to bring intelligent argument and rational thought to the masses who watch Fox News; but unfortunately, the often racial backlash these minority, liberal guests receive is just a part of the process. Political analyst and rapesurvivor, Zerlina Maxwell was the most recent victim of this sick cycle when she appeared on the Sean Hannity show to discuss the use of firearms as a r@pe prevention tactic. Zerlina argued that instead of trying to push guns on women or tell women what they should do or should have done differently to prevent their assaults, we should be telling men not to r@pe women.

Watch Zerlina’s appearance on Hannity’s show.

After her segment aired she began receiving hate mail from Fox News viewers. Much of the hate mail not only targeted her as an assault victim but also as a black woman. Maxwell acknowledged that though she was affected by the hateful comments, she wouldn’t allow them to silence her. She appeared on Democracy Now to further defend the comments she made on Hannity’s show. Check her out.

What is the solution to rape prevention? Should women be carrying guns around or should we all be making a concentrated effort to teach our sons, our friends, our nephews and all boys and men in between what constitutes involuntary sex and why it’s so important that they don’t perpetuate it against women or other men? If you’re wondering how we can encourage men not to do this, check out Maxwell’s piece about teaching men not to r@pe at Ebony.com.

Source: Sodahead.com

There are so many things wrong with the picture I’m about to paint for you. One, a mother thought it was cute to have little girls under the age of 2 fight for entertainment. Two, she recorded it with a cell phone so she could relive the moment I assume; and three, she posted it on Facebook presumably so others could enjoy the show as well. That’s the story that’s being reported from Fox News in St. Louis after an acquaintance of the mother alerted them to the video clip.

Thankfully, Missouri’s Department of Social Services may now be investigating this situation after viewers came across the clip of two toddlers fighting barely clothed to the taunts of the mother telling them, “Y’all better ball up some fists!” and exclaiming “We got some action” when the babies followed her orders.

The associate who reported the video told Fox:

“It’s just sickening and I feel like there should be some kind of criminal action taken. I couldn’t even watch the whole video.  I had to stop it and look again. It was sad.”

Speaking on the encouragement to ball up their fists, she added:

“It’s like she’s training her before she starts school or something.  It’s sad because today’s society in the black community its really sickening that these kids are learning how to fight, get guns and stuff, and it shouldn’t be going on.”

Fox isn’t naming names since the mother in question hasn’t been charged with anything, but they have asked  social services to look into the situation. St. Louis child psychologist Russell Hyken agrees that someone other than curious YouTubers should watch the footage.

“That’s pretty overwhelming.  Those are small children that really don’t even understand what is going on. I mean one child is screaming and the other child continues to go after her.  I mean what is going on here?

“I think it is something that they at least need to be looking at.  I don’ t know the law in that area, but as a therapist, and a family therapist at that, I’m pretty concerned the parents are encouraging violence and putting their kids in a physically abusive situation.”

Hopefully Social Services will feel the same. Take a look at the clip here. What do you think?

Brande Victorian is the news and operations editor for madamenoire.com. Follow her on twitter @Be_Vic.

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Man, Common can’t catch a break these days.

I’m thrilled that Common is finally getting some mainstream national publicity after raking and scraping it in the underground rapper niche for the better part of two decades.  He’s a talented man (if not actor), and I think he finally deserves his due in the national spotlight. But not like this, man.

First, there was that drama a few months back with the White House invite and Fox News, and then the alleged beef with emo-rapper Drake over their admiration for Serena Williams. But let’s not forget about the recent kerfuffle: the so-called “beef” between the rapper and renowned poet laureate Maya Angelou. The first track on his new album, The Dreamer/The Believer, is titled “The Dreamer” and features a speech written and read by Angelou at the song’s conclusion. A sweet touch sure…except in the song itself, Common spends an ample amount of time flouting around the N-Word. This apparently offended Ms. Angelou’s sensibilities, considering that she’s a living beacon of why one would decide NOT to use the word under any capacity. This makes perfect sense to me, however, my issue is with what she had to say about it.

“I’m surprised and disappointed. I don’t know why he chose to do that. I had never heard him use that [word] before,” she said in an interview. “I admired him so because he wasn’t singing the line of least resistance.”

Hol’ up. We’re talking about the same Common, correct? Dude that’s been rapping explicit lyrics and peddling them to the public for about 19 years, right? The same cat who spit some of my favorite two bars in all of hip-hop way back in 1994?!?: “I stand out like a n**** on a hockey team/ I got goals, and I can like a pop machine” – “Watermelon”

See, through her smoke-blowing, Maya Angelou has revealed that she probably never actually listened to the music of a man she claims to admire. She can’t possibly have ever listened to one full song of his on any of his eight albums before delivering the “singing the line of least resistance” bit. I get Angelou’s disdain for the word, but this is not Common’s fault.

Also, she didn’t seem to make much ado over the rest of the lyrics from “The Dreamer,” like “Tried to f*** the world, she only let me finger” and “Rock Rolls like a Phantom/Mad hoes like they throwing tantrums/I tell them I need space like Richard Branson.” I’m willing to bet she never even made it that far into the track. If one is 243 years old and woefully out of touch with the contemporary music of one’s people, so be it. But perhaps Ms. Angelou needed more people to explain to her that she would be laying down a poem on the album of a rapper who, despite his reputation as a “soft” rapper, has lyrics laden with misogyny and thinly-veiled homophobia. Let us not be too enamored by Maya Angelou’s status of reverence to ignore that this is an issue that didn’t have to be an issue if she’d simply understood and acknowledged Common’s artistry beforehand. I guess this is an example of why it pays to do a little research.

And this is just an aside, but “The Dreamer” is one of the best songs on an already solid album. Just saying.

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A tall, skinny Frappuccino with a shot of espresso and light foam is a luxury item most middle-class working folks don’t indulge in on a daily basis, so the fact that the notoriously expensive coffee chain is accepting food stamps in some of its outlets has more than a few people upset.

A Fox News 12 investigation revealed that food stamps could be used to buy a $5.25 tall Frappaccino and a slice of pumpkin bread from a branch of Starbucks in Salem, OR, and taxpayers are outraged at the “misuse” of their money which is intended to buy necessities like bread and milk, not fancy morning beverages.

A spokesperson for the Safeway store where the foot stamps were accepted in Starbucks, told Fox the store made the change as an added convenience to customers.

According to guidelines from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), food stamps cannot be used to buy hot foods or foods that will be eaten in the store. A spokesperson for the State Department of Human Services said they weren’t aware of the loophole in the program and they would contact the grocery stores to get more information and make sure they are operating within the SNAP guidelines. If they are, I guess it’s a #win for Oregon Trail users in the city.

Do you care if food stamps are used to buy Frappuccinos or does SNAP need to shut this down?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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By Alexis Garrett Stodghill

Florida congressman Rep. Allen West, the only Republican in the Congressional Black Caucus, had some choice words for Democrats after a CBC town hall held in Detroit on Tuesday. On Wednesday, West went on Fox News program “The O’Reilly Factor” and compared blacks in the Democratic party to slaves on a plantation. He went on to liken the black Democratic leadership to a bunch of overseers, and himself to a modern day Harriet Tubman seeking to lead African-Americans to political freedom. Citing the idea that Democrats take black voters for granted, West slammed the party with the underlying suggestion that Republicans have the answer. FoxNews.com reports:

“You have this 21st-century plantation that has been out there. Where the Democrat Party has forever taken the black vote for granted and you have established certain black leaders who are nothing more than the overseers of that plantation. And now the people on that plantation are upset because they’ve been disregarded, disrespected and their concerns are not cared about,” West said.

“So I’m here as the modern-day Harriet Tubman to kind of lead people on the underground railroad away from that plantation into a sense of sensibility.”

West said Democrats’ “social welfare policies” have failed.

These statements were made after much griping by those who attended the CBC town hall, where voters gathered to complain about the poor service President Obama has rendered to the black community. Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters responded by suggesting that the CBC agrees, and is only waiting for explicit permission from African-Americans to take the president to task over his failure to address our issues.

Waters told attendants of the Detroit town hall: “We’re getting tired, y’all…We want to give him every opportunity. But our people are hurting. The unemployment is unconscionable. … When you let us know it is time to let go, we’ll let go.” She referred to the fact that black unemployment stands at over 17% compared to the national average of about 9% — statistics often mentioned as proof that Obama has failed to help blacks.

While Rep. Waters does have a point about holding President Obama accountable for his actions (or lack thereof) regarding the black community, the CBC has never been the president’s friend. In fact, the Congressional Black Caucus famously supported Hillary Clinton during the 2008 presidential campaign before Obama secured the nomination. Theirs has been a love-hate relationship ever since, and they have never acted as true allies. The CBC has unleashed a string of criticisms on the president since that time.

Thus, it’s hard to take one more CBC bad-mouthing of Obama seriously. It reeks of political posturing. While that’s the name of the game in DC, until all the political interests in Washington work together to create positive change for blacks (including the CBC), it amounts to empty posturing.

(New York Times) — To most news Web sites, what happened at the White House on Thursday night was a private 50th birthday party for President Obama. To an editor at Fox News, it was something a little different.

“Obama’s Hip-Hop BBQ Didn’t Create Jobs,” read the headline on an article on The Fox Nation, a conservative arm of FoxNews.com, which is owned by the News Corporation. Below the headline were photos of Mr. Obama and, separately, three black celebrities who attended the party, the basketball player Charles Barkley, the comedian Chris Rock and the rapper Jay-Z.

Not pictured were any attendees of other racial backgrounds, like the actor Tom Hanks or Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago.

Read More…

By Charlotte Young

As Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul and owner of Fox News, faces allegations of corruption and bribery in the UK, it would seem all of Fox’s scathing and unadulterated criticism should turn to point the finger back at itself. But even with its leader in the public hot seat, Fox News still continues its aggravated attack on hip hop.

Colorlines addresses its latest targeted debate with Lube Fiasco and its increasingly mixed messages. Fiasco appeared on the O’Reilly Factor to discuss his newest albums and lyrics to the song “Words I Never Said.” In the song, Fiasco condemns terrorism, Obama and the US. O’Reilly quickly jumps to defend the president as the rapper attempts to explain his lyrics. If Fox News is angry when rappers support and affiliate with Obama as well as when they criticize his politics, it becomes difficult to tell what Fox News really stands for, and what makes them upset.

What does Fox really care about? In a nutshell, ratings. In order to appeal to its strict, conservative fans and keep its haters compelled to watch in disgust, picking a fight with rappers seem to be the easiest way to accomplish its goals.

Fox has been able to feature most of the top hip hop artists in the game from Jay-Z, to Kanye West, Lil Wayne and Lupe Fiasco. But while they are capitalizing on the popularity of these musicians, the musicians are also using them. Jay-Z, Nas and Lupe Fiasco have all picked their own battle with the news network in “traditional style dis records,” that target the big players on Fox. After all, ratings are important to everyone.

According to Colorlines, Fox’s other important concern appears to be “moral virtue and an overwhelming concern for young listeners.” Rap’s popularity has steadily won a place in the hearts of young whites in suburbia, the children of its avid followers. While distaste for black music’s reach to young white listeners is nothing new, the underlying message of Fox’s opinionated personalities doesn’t seem to be all bad. The argument is this: “I am a white person against using the N-Word, and calling women the B-word.” That is a statement most would agree with.

But when Fox begins to attack not only the womanizing, foul-mouthed rap lyrics which make us all occasionally cringe, and attacks the intelligent and well-thought out political opinions of anyone as long as they are classified as a rapper, then we’re faced with an even bigger problem. Fox’s unabated agenda to turn all hip hop culture into the “bad-guy,” seems to point to the belief that what really makes them upset is the entirety of black culture.

By Alexis Garrett Stodghill

50 Cent took to his own personal air waves to call out Fox News over their attack on NBC for Chris Brown’s appearance on the network. Vowing never to watch the conservative news channel again, the outspoken rapper told his millions of Twitter followers:

Hating on NBC for having chris brown on unbelievable…never watching that again. He paid for his mistake #!@%*# holes

It’s strange that 50 Cent has to be upset about a transgression against Chris Brown to swear off Fox News. From calling Obama “Osama,” to referring to Michelle Obama as Barack’s “baby mama,” the inflammatory news organization has many strikes against it when it comes to attacking blacks. This is the news organization whose related arm had an Obama impersonator debate a GOP presidential candidate — clearly mocking our nation’s first black president. But now 50 Cent will never watch Fox News again — over Chris Brown?

It must be interesting, the world of celebrity. A world in which Rapper T-Pain could endorse a rabid conservative like Sean Hannity out of pure ignorance. Or a Fox Business analyst can say Obama Hosts “Hoods” at the “Hizzouse” about Common’s performance there, with little backlash from other rappers. The intense protection of a fellow star like Chris Brown seems to outweigh any other consideration when in comes to rappers’ participation in the discourse of political news.

That’s a shame, because a star like 50 could do a huge amount of good.

50 Cent is a very smart man with a huge platform. Instead of using his powerful voice to speak up about something so trivial, he should try addressing a countless array important issues — like black youth voter turnout and teen joblessness – before investing energy in Brown’s defense. 50 Cent could be tweeting not only to beef, but also to educate.

Imagine the African-American political youthquake he would create.

As the 2012 elections get closer, let’s hope this extremely influential man learns to see beyond what impacts him and his fellow African-American celebrities. 50 Cent’s tweets always make news. If he learns to communicate for the benefit of all and not just his inner circle, 50 Cent’s Twitter account could have a dynamic impact on the course of history.

50 Cent has the ear of the streets — the potential to be a positive mouthpiece of a generation.

(Reuters) – Hackers took control of a FoxNews.com Twitter account on Monday and sent six false tweets saying that U.S. President Barack Obama had been shot dead, prompting an investigation by the Secret Service.  ”Hackers sent out several malicious and false tweets that President Obama had been assassinated,” Foxnews.com said in a statement about the latest in a wave of high-profile cyber security breaches around the world.  ”Those reports are incorrect, of course, and the president is spending the July 4 holiday with his family.”  The conservative media outlet, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, said the incident was being checked.

Read More…