With The 2019 NFL Draft now in the rearview, sports fans have now had a couple of weeks to scrutinize, agonize, and/or celebrate the moves made by their favorite teams. But for me, good or bad, I’ve always had my eye on scrutinizing those making the choices. Who are the General Managers, and Personnel Directors, behind who gets drafted and when? Well, I’ll tell you who they are not…They are overwhelmingly Not Black. Roughly 70% of the players in the league are Black, but yet there are only three Black Coaches (plus one Latino) & only one Black General Manager. There are a plethora of Black NFL scouts, and assistant coaches; but rarely are they given the opportunity to prove themselves in higher roles. For those that break through, the leash is very short. But for their white counterparts, it’s a completely different story.  
When looking at the most controversial and/or questionable roster moves made so far this year, those picks were made by NFL front offices led by two retreads (Dave Gettleman & John Dorsey), a former TV analyst (Mike Mayock), and a couple of former players with zero front office experience (John Elway & John Lynch). Meanwhile, Jerry Reese (who built the two-time Super Bowl Champion New York Giants squad) remains unemployed. Rick Smith built The Houston Texans into a relevant franchise; but has yet to see a second opportunity. And the 2016 Executive Of The Year Award Winner-Reggie McKenzie turned The Oakland Raiders into a 12-4 team of the future; but was ousted so that Jon Gruden could consolidate his power over the franchise (what would Al Davis think?) Ray Farmer and Sashi Brown were fired for not turning water into wine; but arguably eleven other teams continue to flounder in mediocrity & bad decision making without questioning the choices made from up on high. Coaches continue to be fired, and this past season brought new meaning to “Black Monday,” but the GMs for these teams remain safe-even though they are the ones that built these horrible teams (more on that later). And these GMs continue to fire/refuse to hire Black & Latino Coaches-preferring instead to hire from a coaching tree that does not yet exist, one rehire, a couple of new faces from losing teams, and one coaxed out of retirement. Four Black Coaches were fired during, or after the 2018 season. The most eye-popping firing was the dismissal of Steve Wilks, by The Arizona Cardinals, after only one year. And who did they replace him with? The Cards replaced him with Kliff Kingsbury, who had just been fired at Texas Tech after posting a losing 35-40 record during his six years there. Yep, that makes sense (Not!). Denver’s firing of Vance Joseph, after only two seasons, never raised enough eyebrows either-being that John Elway keeps wasting money & draft picks on bad quarterbacks.
So who is that lone Black General Manager in The NFL? He is Chris Grier of The Miami Dolphins, who ironically made the only new hire of a black coach this season. Grier, who came up as a New England Patriot’s Scout, chose New England Defensive Coordinator Brian Flores to take The Dolphins to the next level. The pressure will surely be on for both Grier, and Flores, as history says that brothers do not get much time to implement their programs. Add the reality that The NFL’s first ever Black General Manager (Ozzie Newsome) has retired, and coaches like Mike Tomlin are going into the season on the hot seat. Regardless of roster moves, that let two elite level superstars leave-while giving yet more money to an interception prone QB, Tomlin will surely be forced to fall on the sword if The Steelers do not shine this season. Let’s also keep an eye out for the Senior Vice President of Player Personnel, in Washington, Doug Williams. The D.C. franchise is yet another one known for dysfunction; so hopefully this legend will actually get a fair shake at proving he belongs amongst the front office elite.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/terencemoore/2019/01/02/nfl-teams-keep-firing-black-head-coaches-but-thats-not-the-problem/#4a75b9406a55
http://insidethepylon.com/nfl/2019/03/25/towards-a-level-playing-field-the-hiring-and-firing-of-minority-gms/

While listening to a podcast about the strange case of The Atlanta Child Murderers, and the theory that a Georgia KKK member named Charles T. Sanders was actually responsible for some of the murders, the long-suppressed memory of 14-year-old Kerrick Majors suddenly came to mind. Majors was brutally tortured, raped, and murdered by three white assailants, after he accidentally broke a $2 vase a The Nashville Flea Market in April 1987. Donald Ray Middlebrooks, Tammy Middlebrooks, and Robert Brewington were each convicted in the case. The trio beat Kerrick with brass knuckle knife, yelled racial expletives at him, forced him drink urine, sodomized him with a stick, burned him, carved an X into his chest, and later stabbed him to death. According to court documents, the entire ordeal lasted for three to four hours. Young Kerrick was left in a wooded area, naked, and hidden under a mattress. His body was not found until the next day.
Donald Ray Middlebrooks was sentenced to death-and has failed in multiple attempts to appeal. Robert Brewington received consecutive sentences 40 & 35 years, and Tammy Middlebrooks was sentenced to life. Kerrick Majors story was buried in the archives, never to be mentioned again, by a city that has always aggressively pursued control over how it is viewed by the rest of the country. Buried so much so, that after an hour long Google Search, I could not find his obituary nor a single stand alone photo of this young martyr.
http://tncourts.gov/press/1999/07/06/supreme-court-upholds-middlebrooks-death-sentence
https://law.justia.com/cases/tennessee/supreme-court/1992/840-s-w-2d-317-2.html
https://books.google.com/books?id=wrMDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA36&lpg=PA36&dq=Kerrick+Majors&source=bl&ots=jpq9MRyym5&sig=ACfU3U2l8hUNDxRxqVp8kxuIY2iCfNDS3g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj2grW844niAhUPnKwKHbnwBpgQ6AEwCnoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=Kerrick%20Majors&f=false
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In 1995, I started what would become a 19-Year Loc Journey. I remember my mother immediately, and repeatedly warning me that I would never get a good job-as long as I had those “dreadlocks.” I ignored her warnings, and though there were absolutely some challenges, but even she eventually embraced this Black Man’s Crown. But for so many others, and especially for Black Women, the struggle is all too real. Many of our sisters have been fired, and/or had job offers rescinded, simply for wearing their hair in its Natural State. Adding insult to injury, last year The U.S. Supreme Court TWICE sided with employers that sought to discriminate against those who dared to leave the perms, wigs, and weave alone. Can anyone tell me how one’s hair style reflects his or her work ethic, and/or ability to perform within one’s job description? Yeaaaaahhhhhhhh, I thought so.
The good news is that, for at least one major city, there is now a movement in place to pushback against those who would seek to discriminate against any brother or sister who chooses to wear his or her hair in its natural state. The 1st law of its kind, is a small victory; but hopefully will lead to similar legislation in other urban areas. This new mandate was authored by New York City Commission On Human Rights, and provides protections for this with “natural hair, treated or untreated hairstyles such as locs, cornrows, twists, braids, Bantu knots, fades, Afros, and/or the right to keep hair in an uncut or untrimmed state.”
In addition to future protections, the city ordinance provides a standard from which previously targeted citizens can now sue, and also mandates for stiff penalties for any school or business in violation. Violator could be hit with fines of up to $250,000, without a cap on damages; and can force employers to rehire anyone fired, demoted, harassed or punished based on the choice to go natural.
New York has set the bar, now it’s your turn Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, Nashville, Charlotte, Atlanta, Memphis, and the list goes on…
https://www.essence.com/hair/new-york-city-hair-discrimination-law/
https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/02/224697/new-york-city-natural-hair-discrimination
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/18/style/hair-discrimination-new-york-city.html
https://rewire.news/ablc/2018/05/16/u-s-supreme-court-ignoring-black-hair-discrimination/
https://www.ebony.com/culture/black-news-anchor-fired-unprofessional-natural-hair/
https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-city-classifies-hair-restrictions-as-discrimination-11550537156

Since the buildup to the buildup to the 2016 elections, it feels like almost daily we are inundated with at least three or more ridiculous stories and/or soundbites that show just how insane the world of politics has become. It’s hard to keep up sometimes-and some individual stories are so bad, that several others seem to fly under the radar. Honestly, I’m not sure if you even want to know some of this; but most of this should be a reminder to get in line & get out the vote in 2020.
Here are just a few from the past week…

INDIANA IS FOR THE CHILDREN…
Indiana Republican State Senator Chip Perfect has introduced a new bill that would overhaul the state’s current child labor laws. Under present guidelines, minors in the state cannot work more than 30 hours per week (18 hours, if under 16 years old); and cannot work late nights, without parental consent. Under the legislation proposed by Mr. Perfect, each of those rules would be eliminated. Problem is, Chip’s business holdings would directly benefit from said rule changes. Chip owns a local ski resort, that employs almost all minors (hundreds of them) reportedly. Even worse, the state’s Bi-Partisan Senate Ethics Committee has ruled that Chip’s positioning as owner of Perfect North Slope do not constitute a conflict of interest in this case. Disguised as a way to help local business owners, this appears to just be an effort to help his own. This is why political education, on the local level, is so important. If the asses understood that most of these elected officials are working for themselves (and other special interest groups), and not for the people that elected them, then more of them would be shut out of positions of authority.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/a-gop-lawmaker-wants-to-repeal-child-labor-laws-in-his-state-he-employs-hundreds-of-minors/ar-BBSWPtC?ocid=spartandhp

ACISM IS BIPARTISAN…
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam publicly admitted to indeed be the man in photos from 1984, that show him dressed in Blackface & a Ku Klux Klan Robe. The pictures are from the Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook. Additionally, a page in his undergraduate yearbook (at The Virginia Military Institute) shows him as referring to himself as “Coonman.” All this from a Democrat, who relied heavily on The Black Church for votes, and campaigned as the opposite of current President Donald Trump. Smh. There have been multiple calls for his resignation; but as of the time of this writing, Northam has asserted that he will not be doing so. The governor released at least two apology statements; but they are much the same denial-based crafted comments. Hopefully the pressure for him to step down will outweigh the apologists, and minimizers that will come to his defense in the coming days. It is interesting to note that Northam was outed by conservative opposition; but regardless as to how this information made its way to the public, this dude has to go!
https://pilotonline.com/news/government/politics/virginia/article_67fdd682-2662-11e9-a7d1-c7ed70e09b50.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47098776
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/gov-ralph-northam-admits-he-was-in-1984-yearbook-photo-showing-figures-in-blackface-kkk-hood/ar-BBT3X66?ocid=spartanntp

​“ALL OPTIONS ARE ON THE TABLE”
Vice President Mike Pence issued statements questioning the legitimacy of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, amid threats of U.S. Military intervention. For those that missed it, The Trump Regime has ratcheted up its efforts to undermine the authority of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro. All diplomatic relations were broken off last week, after a push by Trump officials to recognize opposition party leader Juan Guaido as the new Venezuelan President. Since then America has put crippling sanctions on the country’s export of oil, and The Bank Of England has refused to return $1.2 Billion of Venezuela’s gold. To justify said actions, the Trump Regime, and their imperialist allies are flooding the media with the usual playbook of lies and difficult to prove accusations (i.e. supporting terrorism, human rights abuses, theft of resources, etc).
Venezuela has been a target going back to at least 1998, when former President Hugo Chavez was elected to power and began making reforms to redistribute the nation’s wealth more equally amongst its citizens. Chavez would prove to be a very outspoken critic of Western Imperialism and sought to form strong alliances between nations in The Caribbean, South America, Africa & Asia. Upon his death in 2013, Maduro was selected to carry on these reforms. Imagine the outcry if another nation demanded that an American President be deposed, simply because they disagree with his or her socio/economic policies.
Sidebar: On January 25th, it was also announced that former diplomat Elliot Abrams has been brought in to assist with efforts to remove President Maduro from power. For those unaware of his history, Abrams will forever be linked to Iran-Contra which allowed the flooding of South Central Los Angeles with crack cocaine to finance military support for Nicaraguan rebels seeking to overthrow the Sandinista Government. President Ronald Reagan denied knowledge of these activities, and his operatives mostly got rich instead of going to jail. But Black and Latino Communities, across this nation were damaged in ways that few have recovered from almost three decades later.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-25/u-k-said-to-deny-maduro-s-bid-to-pull-1-2-billion-of-gold
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/02/venezuelas-guaido-rejects-mediation-offer-eu-russia-190202103935083.html
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/01/venezuela-crisis-latest-updates-190123205835912.html
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/01/intensifies-anti-maduro-push-russia-backs-venezuelan-ally-190125200417182.html
https://www.britannica.com/event/Iran-Contra-Affair
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/10/gary-webb-dark-alliance_n_5961748.html​

IT WASN’T ME…
“I had the shoes. I had a glove. And I used just a little bit of shoe polish to put on my cheeks and the reason I used a very little bit because – I don’t know if anyone’s ever tried that – you cannot get shoe polish off,” he said. “I had always liked Michael Jackson. I actually won the contest because I had learned to do the moonwalk.”
After initially admitting to being in the recently unearthed picture, showing him and others in Blackface & KKK uniforms, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam now says that he was not in those pictures. Northam claimed that, after looking more closely at the picture, he realized that it was not him. He did however, admit that he had once appeared in Blackface to make himself look like Michael Jackson for a dance contest. Northam asserts that he never owned a copy of the yearbook that holds the photo at the center of this scandal; and went even further to avoid responsibility for the “Coonman” nickname-explaining that two classmates gave him that name, but never explained why.
How one can pretend to be that dumb is beyond me; so we’ll just leave this right here. 
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/02/ralph-northam-yearbook-photo-racist-1144276

Back in December of 2016, Cam Newton was benched for the first series of the game, as punishment for an alleged “dress code violation” as punishment. That punishment only lasted for ONE PLAY; as Derek Anderson immediately threw an interception on the first play. Carolina Panthers Head Coach Ron Rivera could have stood on whatever measure of principles he thought mattered and extended the punishment; but he knew that this would be the very definition of insanity. 
But this week, Derek Anderson (who has only thrown the ball 6.7 passes in the past three years) will be the starting QB for The Buffalo Bills. Oh, and of those 67 passes, five of those were intercepted. He did throw for two touchdowns; but ummm yeah. Another career backup, that’s a backup for a reason, is being sent out to start a game while Colin Kaepernick remains unsigned…
A few weeks ago, I wrote about some teams that I felt should consider at least adding Brother Kap to their roster. Let’s take a look at the state of affairs, as week seven begins... 

​The Buffalo Bills currently rank last in Total Offense, Passing Yards, Receiving Yards, and First Downs. Collectively, between Josh Allen and Nathan Peterman, The Bills have only THREE Touchdown Passes thru six weeks. Add nine INTs and an injured Josh Allen to the mix, and you what you get is one big mess. Prior to all of this, they ran Tyrod Taylor out of town in very disrespectful fashion. And now they want Derek Anderson to put down his clipboard, and throw some more interceptions…

As a resident of The State Of Tennessee, I’ve seen and heard a lot in regard to it’s lineage of quarterbacks. From McNair to Young to Mariota, and all the trash in between, it’s been a lot of good and a lot of bad. But never have The Titans been this impotent. Based on the callers to the various talk radio shows, the fans have largely lost all optimism that the once-heralded Marcus Mariota would lead the team to a brighter future. And to have been sacked 11 times this week, by a Ravens Team that does not include Ray Lewis or Ed Reed??? The Titans rank in the bottom three in Total Offense, Passing Yards, Receiving Yards, and First Downs. And Mariota still can’t stay healthy. Last year, it was reported that Colin Kaepernick actually reached out to The Titans requesting an opportunity to workout for a roster spot. Instead they chose Matt Cassel; and this year Blaine Gabbert. Don’t you think it may be time to return that call and reach back?  

​In my earlier piece, I questioned if The Cardinals understood the ramifications of going forward with an injury-prone Sam Bradford and an unexperienced Josh Rosen under center. Predictably, Sam Bradford went down to yet another injury. Josh Rosen did okay at first; but after being mauled by Denver 45-10 Thursday Night, it is clear that he may already be damaged goods. Last night Rosen threw the ball 39 times; but for only 194 yards. He threw one touchdown, versus three pics, for a QBR of 3.0. Horrible. Offensive Coordinator Mike McCoy was fired after the game; and Byron Leftwich will now be tasked with saving this kid’s career. As if reviving an offense that ranks in the bottom five in every statistical category so far this year. More specifically, the rank next to last in passing yards and total offense-while ranking dead last in third down conversion percentages at a lowly 23.1%. 

​Eli Manning threw the ball 43 times on Sunday; but could not throw a TD. He did throw an INT though. His teammates are publicly and privately expressing frustration over his play. For the season, he has only thrown six touchdowns-versus four interceptions and four fumbles. Colin may not be the shiny new toy in which a high 1st round pick this year would have been viewed as; but he would at this point be a breath of fresh air and new energy. Currently at 1-5, what do The Giants have to lose? In a pretty weak NFC East, it’s not to late to make a comeback? 

​Like The NY Giants, The Oakland Raiders throw the ball an awful lot to not be scoring many points. I don’t even have the patience to do the math on calculating the Yards Per Pass Average for the 142 yards gained off Derek Carr’s 23 completed passes. I know I haven’t been watching; but does anyone throw the ball downfield anymore? Like The Giants, The Oakland Raiders are in a weak division, that can still easily be won. Perhaps a little fresh energy would help energize the squad and muster a turnaround for a team that has fast become the laughingstock of the NFL.