Month: March 2018

 

By HEATHER MCDOUGALL

 

Easter is a pagan festival. If Easter isn’t really about Jesus, then what is it about? Today, we see a secular culture celebrating the spring equinox, whilst religious culture celebrates the resurrection. However, early Christianity made a pragmatic acceptance of ancient pagan practises, most of which we enjoy today at Easter. The general symbolic story of the death of the son (sun) on a cross (the constellation of the Southern Cross) and his rebirth, overcoming the powers of darkness, was a well worn story in the ancient world. There were plenty of parallel, rival resurrected saviours too.

The Sumerian goddess Inanna, or Ishtar, was hung naked on a stake, and was subsequently resurrected and ascended from the underworld. One of the oldest resurrection myths is Egyptian Horus. Born on 25 December, Horus and his damaged eye became symbols of life and rebirth. Mithras was born on what we now call Christmas day, and his followers celebrated the spring equinox. Even as late as the 4th century AD, the sol invictus, associated with Mithras, was the last great pagan cult the church had to overcome. Dionysus was a divine child, resurrected by his grandmother. Dionysus also brought his mum, Semele, back to life.

In an ironic twist, the Cybele cult flourished on today’s Vatican Hill. Cybele’s lover Attis, was born of a virgin, died and was reborn annually. This spring festival began as a day of blood on Black Friday, rising to a crescendo after three days, in rejoicing over the resurrection. There was violent conflict on Vatican Hill in the early days of Christianity between the Jesus worshippers and pagans who quarrelled over whose God was the true, and whose the imitation. What is interesting to note here is that in the ancient world, wherever you had popular resurrected god myths, Christianity found lots of converts. So, eventually Christianity came to an accommodation with the pagan Spring festival. Although we see no celebration of Easter in the New Testament, early church fathers celebrated it, and today many churches are offering “sunrise services” at Easter – an obvious pagan solar celebration. The date of Easter is not fixed, but instead is governed by the phases of the moon – how pagan is that?

All the fun things about Easter are pagan. Bunnies are a leftover from the pagan festival of Eostre, a great northern goddess whose symbol was a rabbit or hare. Exchange of eggs is an ancient custom, celebrated by many cultures. Hot cross buns are very ancient too. In the Old Testament we see the Israelites baking sweet buns for an idol, and religious leaders trying to put a stop to it. The early church clergy also tried to put a stop to sacred cakes being baked at Easter. In the end, in the face of defiant cake-baking pagan women, they gave up and blessed the cake instead.

Easter is essentially a pagan festival which is celebrated with cards, gifts and novelty Easter products, because it’s fun and the ancient symbolism still works. It’s always struck me that the power of nature and the longer days are often most felt in modern towns and cities, where we set off to work without putting on our car headlights and when our alarm clock goes off in the mornings, the streetlights outside are not still on because of the darkness.

 

 

By HENRY MANSELL

 

HEMPSTEAD, NY – DJ Scratch has provided more information about the services for the late Craig Mack, noting that Diddy was actually unaware of the recent memorial. The veteran DJ raised some eyebrows when he noted he was the “only famous person” to attend.

According to Scratch, the service was put together by a childhood friend of Mack because his friends and colleagues weren’t allowed to attend the actual funeral. In fact, Diddy offered to pay for the funeral but was turned down by Mack’s fellow church members.

“When I left Craig’s memorial service I called @Diddy to thank him for giving Craig the platform for the world to know Craig Mack’s music,” Scratch wrote. “I told him I just left the service, he said “They buried Craig already, what service are you talking about?!?”. He didn’t know about the memorial service. @diddy offered to pay for Craig Mack’s funeral, but the religious community Craig was in declined. None of his Friends or colleagues were allowed to attend his funeral. Diddy respected their wishes. Craig was immediately buried on the property where he lived. Yesterday’s service was a memorial for Craig’s friends in NY & for fans to attend thrown by Craig’s childhood friend Alvin Toney.”

Much of the post details Scratch’s history with Mack, but it’s mainly a clarification of his previous remarks. His original comments prompted some criticism of Diddy.

“If you look at my post the day Craig passed I praised @Diddy for signing Craig because I saw what he went through,” he continued. “I said no famous people showed up to Craig’s memorial service was weird because I saw so much love online, but I didn’t see a line outside. If @Diddy didn’t say yes, there be no Flava in our ears. Salute Diddy!!!”

 

DJ Scratch hit Instagram late last night to reveal that he was “the only famous person to show up” at Craig Mack’s memorial service at the Faith Baptist Church in Hempstead, New York on Wednesday (March 28).

Scratch — who was one of the first to post about Mack’s passing earlier this month — shared an image of the late rapper’s order of service along with a startling caption.

“I’ve never been to a service for someone famous & I was the only famous person to show up. Very weird day today, but what puts a smile on my face is that Lil Bro was at peace way before he passed away. That’s what matters most to me,” he wrote.

He later shouted out memorial organizer Alvin Toney.

R.A. the Rugged Man and well-known Hip Hop journalist Shaheem Reid both posted clips from the service to social media. Reid also reported that the memorial was attended by Mack’s friends and industry associates International Special, former Bad Boy executive June Balloon, and DJ Curt Flirt.

Mack passed away. on March 12 at the age of 47. It was later reported that the “Flava In Ya Ear” rapper died from heart failure at a hospital near his home in Walterboro, South Carolina.

Many Hip Hop stars, including Bad Boy Records founder Sean “Diddy” Combs, turned to social media to pay tributes and share their memories of Mack following his passing.

 

By STEPHEN A CROCKETT JR

 

The White House is proving that when it comes to drugs destroying white communities, there are no limits to what it is willing to do to stop the threat, including death: to the dealers, not the users.

Because the White House is completely invested in solving the Opioid epidemic, which disproportionately affects white people, it is willing to kill the people who sell them drugs.

According to Politico, Donald Trump is set to unveil a new plan that would call for the death penalty as an option when drug dealing and trafficking are “directly responsible for death” in cases involving Opioids.

The plan, which is still being finalized, could be released early next week. But Trump has been gushing privately for weeks about using the death penalty in drug cases in which the user dies. Because Trump can’t stop campaigning, he’s even praised countries that execute drug lords, The Hill reports:

“If you go to Singapore, I said, ‘Mr. President, what happens with your drugs?’ ‘We don’t have a problem. We have a zero tolerance. We have a different type of people,’” Trump said in discussing Singapore’s policies, according to The Hill.

“They don’t play games,” he continued. “I said, ‘How are you doing on drugs?’ ‘No problem.’ I said, ‘What do you mean no problem?’ ‘We have a zero tolerance policy.’ ‘What does that mean?’ ‘That means if we catch a drug dealer, death penalty.’”

Politico notes that Trump’s plan is expected to include recommendations from his opioid commission and is a mixture of increased law enforcement measures and increased prevention and treatment, among other efforts.

Because the opioid addiction largely affects swaths of white communities, this divisive and openly racist-ass administration declared it an epidemic and a national public health emergency in October, which it last extended in January.

Sounds like the Trump administration plans to criminalize those who sell the drug while working on treatment plans for those who use the drug. We won’t know this for sure until the plan is released, but I assure you that there is nothing racist to see here. Nope, not one thing.

 

By KYLE EUSTICE

 

AUSTIN, TX – The Austin Police Department has arrested a man suspected of making a bomb threat that resulted in the cancellation of The Roots and Friends Jam at SXSW. Trevor Ingram, 26, was apprehended on Saturday night (March 17) and booked on charges of terroristic threat, a third-degree felony.

Police say that after their search, no threat was found in the area around the Fair Market venue where the event was scheduled to take place. Bud Light, which was hosting and sponsoing the show, chose to cancel it due to safety concerns.

 

As Austin’s annual  South by Southwest SXSW, music festival begins to wind down, it’s ending on a terrifying note.

On Saturday night (March 17), The Roots’ performance was cancelled following an alleged bomb threat. At the JW Marriott hotel in downtown Austin, where The Roots were staying, bomb-sniffing dogs were called in to thoroughly search the premises.

The Roots’ James Poyser told HipHopDX, “So crazy … God is good tho … we’re all safe.”

A press statement obtained by DX reads, “Due to a security concern, we have made the difficult decision to cancel tonight’s Bud Light x The Roots SXSW Jam. After working proactively with SXSW, the Austin Police Department, and other authorities, Bud Light believes this is the best course of action to ensure the safety of our guests, staff and artists. We appreciate your understanding.

“We are truly sorry to have to cancel the event but we felt it was necessary to take all safety precautions.”

The Roots were scheduled to perform alongside Ludacris, Dermot Kennedy, Jessie Reyez, Rapsody, Tank & the Bangas, Moon Taxi, and other surprise guests at the Bud Light x The Roots & Friends Jam. The event was being held at the Fair Market on E 5th Street.

Questlove, who frequently tends to his social media accounts, reportedly addressed the situation in a since-deleted tweet.

“Uh, welp can’t say much but for those in Austin waiting in line to see us tonight,” he wrote. “Tonight’s show has been cancelled. They’ll make official announcement but I’d rather save y’all the trouble of waiting in line.”

One Twitter user responded to The Roots’ drummer, “Safety first.”

 

 

By SUNNUBIAN

 

 

By TAJ-AKOBEN

 

“…Candid authorities like the British Egyptologists Gerald Massey and Albert Churchward, the Scottish historian David Mac Ritchie, and the British antiquarian Godfrey Higgins, have done exhaustive research and brought many facts to our knowledge. Tacitus, Pliny, Claudian and other writers have described the Blacks they encountered in the British Isles as “Black as Ethiopians,” “Cum Nigris Gentibus,” “nimble-footed blackamoors,” and so on.

From all indications, the ancient dwellers of the British Isles and Ireland, like the Kymry (one of the names given to the earliest inhabitants, from whom the Picts and Scots descended), were Blacks. David Mac Ritchie has provided substantial evidence in his two-volume work, Ancient and Modern Britons that the Picts as well as the ancient Danes were Blacks. The Partholans, Formorians, Nemeds, Firbolgs, Tuatha De Danann, Milesians of Ireland and the Picts of Northern Scotland were all Blacks.

The Firbolgs (believed to be a section of the Nemeds) are believed to be so-called pygmies or the Twa. They are the dwarfs, dark elves or leprechauns in Irish History. The British Egyptologist Albert Churchward is convinced that the Tuatha-de-Danann, who came to Ireland, were of the same race and spoke the same language as the Fir-Bogs and the Formorians…” (http://culturalhealth.blogspot.com/2011/03/irish-leprechauns-were-originally-black.html)

According to legend, St. Patrick was well known for “chasing the serpents out of Ireland”. Now on the outside they make it sound like some miracle that he saved the people from deadly serpents. There is in fact no evidence that real serpents ever existed in Ireland. But if you understand that the “serpents” they are speaking of are really a symbol for something else, this particular plot point in the story becomes a lot more interesting. As will be demonstrated below the “serpents” of the story are an allusion to the people of African descent (the Twa) who lived in Ireland.

Its important to note, that in addition to Twa, some of the names for our people include; Naga, Nagar and Negus, which means loosely “serpent people” or “people of the serpent”. The name is also synonymous with Pharaohs and Kings. In many African cultures the serpent is not a symbol of evil but one of eternal life, regeneration, power, protection and wisdom.

Chasing the serpents out of Ireland is a metaphor for genocide.

So what St. Patrick is really famous for, is waging a genocidal war against the indigenous people of Ireland who had migrated there many thousands of years before the Caucasians and before Christianity, who where African (and coincidentally, thought to be Pagan). (http://culturalhealth.blogspot.com/2011/03/irish-leprechauns-were-originally-black.html)

Excerpt from page 19:

Speculation has run somewhat wild over the question of the composition of the Early Britons. But out of the clash of rival theories there emerges one–and one only–which may be considered as scientifically established. We have certain proof of two distinct human stocks in the British Islands at the time of the Roman Conquest; and so great an authority as Professor Huxley has given his opinion that there is no evidence of any others. [Thomas Henry Huxley (1825 – 1895) 19:1 Huxley: On Some Fixed Points in British Ethnology. 1871].

The earliest of these two races would seem to have inhabited our islands from the most ancient times, and may, for our purpose, be described as aboriginal. It was the people that built the “long barrows”; and which is variously called by ethnologists the Iberian, Mediterranean, Berber, Basque, Silurian, or Euskarian race. In physique it was short, swarthy, dark-haired, dark-eyed, and long-skulled; its language belonged to the class called “Hamitic”, the surviving types of which are found among the Gallas, Abyssinians, Berbers, and other North African tribes; and it seems to have come originally from some part either of Eastern, Northern, or Central Africa. Spreading thence, it was probably the first people to inhabit the Valley of the Nile, and it sent offshoots into Syria and Asia Minor. The earliest Hellenes found it in Greece under the name of “Pelasgoi”; the earliest Latins in Italy, as the “Etruscans”; and the Hebrews in Palestine, as the “Hittites”. It spread northward through Europe as far as the Baltic, and westward, along the Atlas chain, to Spain, France, and our own islands. 1 In many countries it reached a comparatively high level of civilization, but in Britain its development must have been early checked. We can discern it as an agricultural rather than a pastoral people, still in the Stone Age, dwelling in totemistic tribes on hills whose summits it fortified elaborately, and whose slopes it cultivated on what is called the “terrace system”, and having a primitive culture which ethnologists think to have much resembled that of the present hill-tribes of Southern India. 2 It held our islands till the coming of the Celts, who fought with the aborigines, dispossessed them of the more fertile parts, subjugated them, even amalgamated with them, but certainly never extirpated them. In the time of the Romans they were still practically independent in South Wales. In Ireland they were long unconquered, and are found as allies rather than serfs of the Gaels, ruling their own provinces, and preserving their own customs and religion. Nor, in spite of all the successive invasions of Great Britain and Ireland.

 

By CORKY SIEMASZKO

 

The two Texans killed by package bombs in Austin, Texas, this month were members of prominent African-American families and knew each other, the local NAACP president said Wednesday.

“They have a long history and go to the same church,” Nelson Linder said of the two victims, Stephen House and Draylen Mason, in an interview with NBC News.

Linder identified their church as Wesley United Methodist Church, which was founded 152 years ago by newly freed slaves.

House was killed on March 2, and Mason on Monday. In another bombing on Monday, investigators believe that a Hispanic woman, Esperanza Herrera, 75, picked up an explosive package that was intended for somebody else. She remained hospitalized in critical condition on Wednesday.

“The intended target was another person who might be connected to the House and Mason families,” said Linder, who declined to identify the targeted person or discuss a possible motive.

The revelations came as the city remained on high alert after the spate of blasts. Austin police — backed by the FBI and investigators from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — were continuing to search Wednesday for whoever was responsible.

Austin Police Chief Brian Manley has already called the three blasts, which happened in different parts of east Austin, “related incidents.” But other than confirming that the packages weren’t delivered by U.S. mail, he has not yet said how they are related.

Manley has also not ruled out the possibility that these could be hate crimes.

The death of House, 39, was initially listed as “suspicious.” Ten days later, Mason, 17, a talented musician, was killed in a blast that also injured a woman whose name police have not released.

Herrera was injured a few hours later, police said.

Linder said he hired House a decade ago to help build the NAACP website and knows his stepfather, Freddie Dixon. He said Dixon and Mason’s grandparents — Norman Mason, a dentist, and LaVonne Mason, a co-founder of the Austin Area Urban League — are friends.

The bombings Monday happened as thousands of people were attending the South by Southwest music, film and technology festival, but Manley said there was no connection to the event.

BY KYLE EUSTISE

Matt Dike, producer and co-founder of the iconic Los Angeles Hip Hop label Delicious Vinyl passed away on Tuesday (March 13). According to a press release on the label’s website, Dike died at his home after a brief illness. He was 55.

Dike established Delicious Vinyl in 1987 with fellow co-founder Mike Ross. He produced timeless hits for everyone from the Beastie Boys to Tone-Loc. The latter’s single, “Wild Thing,” went on to sell over two million copies. Tone-Loc’s platinum follow-up “Funky Cold Medina” and Young MC’s hit “Bust A Move” solidified the imprint’s legacy.

Most notably, Dike lent his sampling skills to Beastie Boys sophomore album, Paul’s Boutique, which was produced in his apartment with production assistance from The Dust Brothers. The album is lauded for being almost completely sample-based with the exception of Ad-Rock, MCA and Mike D’s voices. Although it was initially considered a flop by Capitol Records’ standards, it has since gone double platinum and is considered one of the best Hip Hop albums of all time.

Although Dike left Delicious Vinyl in 1992, giving sole ownership to Ross, he left an indelible mark on Hip Hop forever. The logo itself has become iconic and the music Dike left behind marks a permanent chapter in the Hip Hop history books.

Dike is survived by his brother, sister and nephew.

Tributes have started to come in on social media, including one from Questlove who regretted never being able to meet him.

“imo his crowning achievement was as one of the producers for one of THE greatest timeless hip hop albums ever # Pauls Boutique The Roots drummer wrote on Instagram. “It simply gets better with time (will be 30 years old in 2 years) it took 10 years to go double platinum and was considered a flop at the time of its release. But EVERY creative agrees that this album was not only.@beastiseboysoffical finest hour —but one of hip hop’s finest hours as well.”

 

BY NICOLE HENSLEY

Craig Mack, the Long Island rapper who found fame on Sean “Diddy” Combs’ Bad Boy Records in the mid-1990s, has died at age 47, his producer confirmed to the Daily News.

Mack — who launched to hip-hop acclaim with the platinum hit “Flava in Ya Ear” in 1994 before being overshadowed by fellow artists such as the Notorious B.I.G. — died of heart failure at a hospital near his Walterboro, S.C., home Monday.

“God bless my friend. He was a good friend of mine,” said Alvin Toney, who produced Mack’s debut album “Project: Funk Da World” and his “Get Down Remix.”

Toney saw his dear friend a final time last week.

He visited the former emcee at the Overcomer Ministry church he attends in Walterboro to film a documentary about Mack, and his decision to pass on fame for a life of deep religious conviction.

“Nobody got to understand his story,” Toney said. “I wanted the world to know the talent he had. It was something I wanted people to enjoy, but it was cut short because he was very religious and wanted to go to church.”

Tony said Mack told him during his visit that he had been ill for some time and knew he wouldn’t live long.

“He was prepared for whatever comes, to go home to the Lord,” Toney said. “He was prepared to do that. He wasn’t scared. He was ready.”

Mack is survived by his wife and two children, both adults, Toney said.

Mack’s career shined bright with the help of Diddy, then known under the pseudonym Puffy.

The Bad Boy Entertainment founder met the aspiring artist at the Manhattan club Mecca and promised to sign him if he could freestyle to Mary J. Blige. Mack did not disappoint.

 

Soon, Mack’s star-studded hit, “Flava In Ya Ear,” was born. The song went on to earn a Grammy nomination for best rap solo but lost to Queen Latifah’s “Latifah’s Had it Up 2 Here.”

A remix to the song featured Diddy’s other up-and-coming stars, including Brooklyn-born rapper Christopher Wallace, known as Biggie Smalls or the Notorious B.I.G. — who was largely responsible for bringing the record label to fame with his hit 1994 album “Ready to Die.”

At the time, Diddy declared both Biggie Smalls and Mack the foundation of Bad Boy Entertainment.

“This is my life here,” Diddy said, gesturing to Mack and Biggie Smalls during an interview with MTV Raps. “We all need each other to live and breathe. That’s the way we treat each other.”

Mack departed the label in 1995, hoping to strike out on his own, but further fame eluded him.

He released “Operation: Get Down,” in 1997 under the Volcano Entertainment label, but it failed to produce a hit single.

Mack appeared in the music video for Diddy’s 2002 hit “I Need a Girl Part 1,” but he was missing when Diddy reunited his Bad Boy crew for the 2015 BET Awards, having disappeared from the limelight to pursue his faith at a troubled South Carolina church.

A bizarre 2012 video of the church’s self-proclaimed prophet, Ralph Gordon Stair, shows the world the famed rapper was still around — and in his congregation.

By DIAMOND DURANT

 

I was always told I was black. I was black, but not quite black enough or not black black but still black to say the least. I was told that in my life, I would have certain privileges. Privileges that darker women would not be able to acquire and I should be grateful for that. I should be happy that I would be more desired for receptionist jobs and I should be overjoyed that if a white boy happened to like me, I would be eligible for a seat at family dinner because I’m not black black, remember?

I should appreciate the automatic assumptions that I am foreign, that if I have a weave it is my real hair, and that I’m way too narcissistic to give most boys the time of day. I should never ever complain about my skin because real black girls go through things every day that I will never be able to relate to.

I understand that my skin has privileged me in some ways. No, I was never bullied or called ‘burnt’, or compared to a monkey or a roach. I was never told by a boy that he didn’t like me because of my skin color. But, being told by people that I wasn’t black or I wasn’t black enough took a different toll on me.

“At a time when some girls my age wanted a boyfriend or bigger breasts, I wanted dark skin”

I remember going to a camp when I was younger, where I became friends with a girl who happened to be white. We had gotten close, well, as close as two 12-year-olds could be. She came to camp one day and told me that her father said we couldn’t be friends anymore. “My father told me that you’re still a nigger even though you look different. He said you’re the sneakiest kind of nigger because you never know what side you’re on.”

I let her walk away and I never spoke about it again. According to him I was the worst kind of nigger because I couldn’t pick a side. I never told my mom or anybody because I felt like I couldn’t. I never wanted to complain to the women in my family because I thought my struggles would never equate to theirs.

When I was in high school, I had never stared at my mother with as much admiration as I did when I started to hate my skin. Her melanin glowed to me and at a time when some girls my age wanted a boyfriend or bigger breasts, I wanted dark skin like my mother’s. I would often look at her and wonder how someone could call her skin ugly or unappealing when I looked at it and saw pure gold.

I grew up repulsed by the way my skin left visible acne scars all over my face and the way hair showed so easily on my body. My skin had became a sheet of just utter hate on my body that I wanted to tear off. I couldn’t tell anybody because it was unheard of, you know?

You never hear about a little light skinned girl wanting to be dark skinned. It’s always the other way around. It’s always the little dark girl picking the light skinned baby doll and believing that it is the most complete and fascinating thing in the world.

The girls I went to school with growing up didn’t like me. I never blamed them though. It wasn’t their fault rather what they were taught, maybe by their parents and then from their grandparents and then their grandparent’s parents. They were programmed to believe that my black was beautiful and their’s wasn’t. It’s crazy how they hated me due to my skin tone and due to preconceived notions about me ‘thinking I was all that’ when I would have traded skin tones with them in a heart beat.

Once I graduated form high school I attended a HBCU, still self-conflicted about my skin. I thought to myself that I would fit right in without a second look. See, at a HBCU the colors vary from white to the most chocolate brown and it doesn’t matter what color you are. In college, people are much more mature and educated.

There wasn’t blatant colorism but it still existed subtly. It was being in History 101, learning about the Bantus and speaking in class and everyone turning around with a face I knew all too well. The face is 50/50. It says “Are you even fully black? Why are you talking?” mixed with “The light skinned girl is woke and she is interested in something besides her own self? Wow.” It all comes down to this: Colorism is another thing that was not created but forced upon us.

“Hate has been so imbedded in us, blacks hate other blacks for being black.””

The white man separated us: darks and lights. We’re so caught up on these preconceived notions of each other, we fail to realize the big picture. Not to mention, black men sometimes don’t make it any better. As black women, we are pitted against each other based off of how we look: lightskin, darkskin, slim, thick, tall, short, weave, natural and the infamous good girl vs girl who shows a little more skin comparison.

Hate has been so imbedded in us, blacks hate other blacks for being black. We forget that as black women our struggles are much more alike than we admit. No one women’s struggle is less important than another one’s.

When it comes down to it we all share bloodlines with greats like Fanny Lou Hamer, Ella Baker, Dorothy Heights and Harriet Tubman, and each day we stand in the merit of their work. We progress and prosper while at the same time facing adversity, from being told we aren’t quite enough of this or too much of that. Despite these things and the various shades that we may come in we are all still black and are the similar in essence.

I grew to love the skin I’m in. All the acne scars and all the hair. I still look at my mother in amazement. I still watch her glow and I know that I glow too. That’s the great thing about black women, we all glow in different shades like crystallized stars across the darkest sky.

Know that your black will never be like her black. Your black is your black for a reason. You were coated in the most beautiful color so that you can be you. Look at the variety of shades of black women you see everyday with admiration and not spite. Her beauty does not take away from your own.