Washington, DC - Spider-Man has a new sidekick: The president-elect. Barack Obama collected Spider-Man comics as a child, so Marvel Comics wanted to give him a "shout-out back" by featuring him in a bonus story, said Joe Quesada, Marvel's editor-in-chief.
"How great is that? The commander in chief to be is actually a nerd in chief," Quesada said. "It was really, really cool to see that we had a geek in the White House. We're all thrilled with that."
The comic starts with Spider-Man's alter-ego Peter Parker taking photographs at the inauguration, before spotting two identical Obamas.
Parker decides "the future president's gonna need Spider-Man," and springs into action, using basketball to determine the real Obama and punching out the impostor.
Obama thanks him with a fist-bump.
Marvel comics have featured most presidents, but generally in walk-on roles, Quesada said.
"I think President Nixon might have appeared on the cover, but not in a good way," he said.
Obama has said that as a child, he collected Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comic books. His Senate Web site used to have a photo of him posing in front of a Superman statue.
LONDON (NNPA) – In the wake of the terrorist killings of nearly 300 people in Mumbai, India’s largest city, Black leaders are pressing for more information and cautioning African-Americans to be clear that they are not exempt as targets at home or abroad.
“Terrorism must not be seen in Black-White terms. There is no safe haven for Blacks when terror strikes,” says the Rev. Jesse Jackson during an NNPA interview as he toured London, Birmingham and Liverpool this week. “For example, Al-Qaida struck Kenya before it struck New York…When the terror attacks hit New York, there were no reserve spots for Blacks. It’s deeply ideological.”
Early news reports said the attackers were trained in Pakistan and appeared to be seeking to kill Americans, British and Israelis.
Outgoing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, also in London on Monday, called on full Pakistani cooperation with the investigation. Headed to India, she urged its government to focus on the investigation of the attacks, and to avoid troop maneuvers or other actions that could cause “unintended consequences,” according to the news website Guardian.Co.UK.
The greatest danger of conflict between Pakistan and India is that they both have nuclear weapons, Jackson said in the interview.
“One motive of the terrorists is to turn those governments against each other, which would be indescribable loss of life. We must not allow the terror attacks to be successful in turning Pakistan and India into overt enemies because it makes the whole world less secure.”
On the heels of issuing a critical report about Hollywood's minority hiring, the president of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People threatened the entertainment industry Thursday with unspecified political actions if it did not increase diversity.
"At a time when the country is excited about the election of the first African American president in U.S. history," said Benjamin Todd Jealous, who was appointed in May to head the civil rights organization, "it is unthinkable that minorities would be so grossly underrepresented on broadcast television."
The statement came shortly after the organization's Hollywood bureau released a 40-page report called "Out of Focus, Out of Sync -- Take 4" that found blacks and other minorities continue to be underrepresented in "nearly every aspect of the television and film businesses."
Though he declined to be specific, Jealous said the organization "could bring the hammer down," including "shaming the industry," if it does not improve diversity.
The report marks some of the most pointed criticism of the industry by the civil rights organization and signals a return to the issue for the group, which has been inconsistent in recent years in keeping tabs on networks' efforts to embrace multiculturalism. Then-NAACP President Kweisi Mfume first lashed out at the networks in 1999, pointing out that none of the 26 new comedies and pilots that season featured a minority lead.
Today, only three network series -- CBS' "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and "The Unit" and ABC's "Ugly Betty" -- have minorities in leading roles.
Cross burnings. Schoolchildren chanting "Assassinate Obama." Black figures hung from nooses. Racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars.
Incidents around the country referring to President-elect Barack Obama are dampening the postelection glow of racial progress and harmony, highlighting the stubborn racism that remains in America.
From California to Maine, police have documented a range of alleged crimes, from vandalism and vague threats to at least one physical attack. Insults and taunts have been delivered by adults, college students and second-graders.
There have been "hundreds" of incidents since the election, many more than usual, said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate crimes.
One was in Snellville, Ga., where Denene Millner said a boy on the school bus told her 9-year-old daughter the day after the election: "I hope Obama gets assassinated." That night, someone trashed her sister-in-law's front lawn, mangled the Obama lawn signs, and left two pizza boxes filled with human feces outside the front door, Millner said.
She described her emotions as a combination of anger and fear.
"I can't say that every white person in Snellville is evil and anti-Obama and willing to desecrate my property because one or two idiots did it," said Millner, who is black. "But it definitely makes you look a little different at the people who you live with, and makes you wonder what they're capable of and what they're really thinking."
Potok, who is white, said he believes there is "a large subset of white people in this country who feel that they are losing everything they know, that the country their forefathers built has somehow been stolen from them."
Grant Griffin, a 46-year-old white Georgia native, expressed similar sentiments: "I believe our nation is ruined and has been for several decades and the election of Obama is merely the culmination of the change.
"If you had real change it would involve all the members of (Obama's) church being deported," he said.
Change in whatever form does not come easy, and a black president is "the most profound change in the field of race this country has experienced since the Civil War," said William Ferris, senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina. "It's shaking the foundations on which the country has existed for centuries."
"Someone once said racism is like cancer," Ferris said. "It's never totally wiped out, it's in remission."
If so, America's remission lasted until the morning of Nov. 5.
The day after the vote hailed as a sign of a nation changed, black high school student Barbara Tyler of Marietta, Ga., said she heard hateful Obama comments from white students, and that teachers cut off discussion about Obama's victory.
Tyler spoke at a press conference by the Georgia chapter of the NAACP calling for a town hall meeting to address complaints from across the state about hostility and resentment. Another student, from a Covington middle school, said he was suspended for wearing an Obama shirt to school Nov. 5 after the principal told students not to wear political paraphernalia.
The student's mother, Eshe Riviears, said the principal told her: "Whether you like it or not, we're in the South, and there are a lot of people who are not happy with this decision."
Other incidents include:
_Four North Carolina State University students admitted writing anti-Obama comments in a tunnel designated for free speech expression, including one that said: "Let's shoot that (N-word) in the head." Obama has received more threats than any other president-elect, authorities say.
_At Standish, Maine, a sign inside the Oak Hill General Store read: "Osama Obama Shotgun Pool." Customers could sign up to bet $1 on a date when Obama would be killed. "Stabbing, shooting, roadside bombs, they all count," the sign said. At the bottom of the marker board was written "Let's hope someone wins."
_Racist graffiti was found in places including New York's Long Island, where two dozen cars were spray-painted; Kilgore, Texas, where the local high school and skate park were defaced; and the Los Angeles area, where swastikas, racial slurs and "Go Back To Africa" were spray painted on sidewalks, houses and cars.
_Second- and third-grade students on a school bus in Rexburg, Idaho, chanted "assassinate Obama," a district official said.
_University of Alabama professor Marsha L. Houston said a poster of the Obama family was ripped off her office door. A replacement poster was defaced with a death threat and a racial slur. "It seems the election brought the racist rats out of the woodwork," Houston said.
_Black figures were hanged by nooses from trees on Mount Desert Island, Maine, the Bangor Daily News reported. The president of Baylor University in Waco, Texas said a rope found hanging from a campus tree was apparently an abandoned swing and not a noose.
_Crosses were burned in yards of Obama supporters in Hardwick, N.J., and Apolacan Township, Pa.
_A black teenager in New York City said he was attacked with a bat on election night by four white men who shouted 'Obama.'
_In the Pittsburgh suburb of Forest Hills, a black man said he found a note with a racial slur on his car windshield, saying "now that you voted for Obama, just watch out for your house."
Emotions are often raw after a hard-fought political campaign, but now those on the losing side have an easy target for their anger.
"The principle is very simple," said BJ Gallagher, a sociologist and co-author of the diversity book "A Peacock in the Land of Penguins." "If I can't hurt the person I'm angry at, then I'll vent my anger on a substitute, i.e., someone of the same race."
"We saw the same thing happen after the 9-11 attacks, as a wave of anti-Muslim violence swept the country. We saw it happen after the Rodney King verdict, when Los Angeles blacks erupted in rage at the injustice perpetrated by 'the white man.'"
"It's as stupid and ineffectual as kicking your dog when you've had a bad day at the office," Gallagher said. "But it happens a lot."
Femi Kuti (the son of Nigerian music legend Fela Kuti) is set to release Day By Day, his first studio album since Fight To Win seven years ago and first overall since the live Africa Shrine four years ago, on which he recorded early versions of three of the songs on this new album. Day By Day will be released Nov. 18 by the independent label Downtown Records’ newly launched imprint, Mercer Street.
Femi Kuti’s sabbatical from recording gave him time to learn to play piano properly and to return to the trumpet, his first instrument, which he gave up in favor of the saxophone. Kuti recorded the album with Positive Force, his 17-piece band.
Since Fela’s death in 1997, Femi, a songwriter, performer and bandleader in his own right, has brought his music to audiences that might never have heard of Fela. Femi toured America with the alt-rock band Jane’s Addiction, sang on Rachid Taha’s Made In Medina album and reached out to the American hip-hop community connecting with people such as Mos Def, D’Angelo, Nile Rodgers, Erykah Badu and the Roots.
As with all Femi Kuti releases, remixes will be released of these new tracks from internationally renowned DJs. January tour dates for Femi to be announced.
WASHINGTON (NNPA) - As the Black unemployment rate leaped another eight percentage points last month – from 10.6 percent to 11.4 percent, the White unemployment rate actually remained the same – at 5.4 percent, less than half the rate for Blacks. In addition to that in every economic category, from the poverty rate to housing loss African-Americans remain historically and consistently at rock bottom – a condition exacerbated by the national housing and Wall Street financial crisis that forced Congress to reluctantly pass a $700 billion bailout last week.
''We're in a weaker financial position related to the mainstream in the first place,'' said Alfred A. Edmond, Jr., editor-in-chief of BlackEnterprise.com, in an interview with the NNPA News Service. “The saying goes, 'when the rest of America gets a cold, Black America gets pneumonia.''
Edmond is just one among Black economic experts across the nation who say as America observes the economic fall out even after the congressional bailout of lending and investment agencies last week, African-Americans must establish creative ways to stay afloat.
“In every relevant economic number, Black people are worse off today than they were in 2000,” says Natioal Urban League President and CEO Marc Morial, in an interview following a Black Leadership Forum telephone conference pertaining to get out to vote efforts as well as the economic bailout. “We’ve lost ground in home ownership, we’ve lost ground in employment, we’ve lost ground in wage verses inflation, we have just lost ground economically in the last eight years.”
Morial says the bailout was not a rescue but just something to help stop the bleeding. “The ramifications of not doing it were worse than the ramification of doing it. For there not to be any credit, obviously, when it hurts big businesses, it hurts small business and it hurts the average consumer, automobile loans, personal finance loans, credit cards, that kind of thing,” said Morial. “My position would have been that we have to hold our noses and go forth.” Morial, who predicted the mortgage crisis in the spring of last year, said the bailout will not be enough for Black people and will take many months to execute.
A report released by a non-profit organization concluded that Black and white youth have been treated differently by the criminal justice system over the years, and the mistreatment continues today.
In September, the Washington, D.C.-based Campaign for Youth Justice organization released a report that summed up the findings of their study, which looked at the treatment of African American and white youth by the criminal justice system from 2001 to 2006.
The report, Critical Condition: African American Youth in the Justice System, identified a number disparities among Black youth, including disproportionate arrest rates and harsher prison sentencing, as compared to white youth.
“It is baffling that we are still faced with this serious problem of racial disparities in our justice system,” said Liz Ryan, president and CEO of Campaign for Youth Justice. “It is time for states to reverse punitive laws that result in the transfer and incarceration of African American youth in the adult criminal justice system.”
According to the report, African American youth make up 30 percent of youth arrested while they represent only 17 percent of the overall youth population. Additionally, African American youth are 62 percent of the youth prosecuted in the adult criminal system and are nine times more likely than white youth to receive an adult prison sentence, the report revealed.
A man is being held in Florida by federal authorities on charges of threatening to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Raymond Hunter Geisel was ordered held without bail Thursday at a brief court hearing.
The Secret Service says Geisel made the threat during a training class for bail bondsmen in Miami in late July. Another tipster said Geisel also threatened President Bush.
A search of Geisel's SUV and hotel room uncovered a loaded handgun, knives, dozens of rounds of ammunition, body armor and a machete. The SUV was wired with emergency lights.
Geisel told the Secret Service he was originally from Bangor, Maine. He contended he made no threat against either Obama or the president.
Three white teens were charged Friday in what officials said was an epithet-filled fatal beating of an illegal Mexican immigrant in a small northeast Pennsylvania coal town. Brandon J. Piekarsky, 16, and Colin J. Walsh, 17, were charged as adults with homicide and ethnic intimidation in the July 12 attack on Luis Ramirez.
A third teen, Derrick M. Donchak, 18, was charged with aggravated assault, ethnic intimidation and other offenses. All are from Shenandoah, where the attack occurred.
Additional charges are expected in the case that has roiled Shenandoah, a small, economically depressed town where police have reported friction between whites and a growing Hispanic population.
The suspects played football at Shenandoah Valley High School; Donchak, now enrolled at Bloomsburg University, was the quarterback last season.
"As a result of this crime, a young man has lost his life. Many other lives have been devastated, and the borough of Shenandoah has been filled with tensions between many ethnic groups," Schuylkill County District Attorney James Goodman said.
"Now that the criminal charges have been filed, we must let this case be handled in the criminal justice system," he said.
According to a police affidavit, the defendants and three 17-year-olds encountered Ramirez, 25, and a teenage girl in a park the night of July 12.
The youths goaded Ramirez and the girl, saying, "You should get out of this neighborhood" and "Get your Mexican boyfriend out of here," documents said. After Ramirez and the girl began walking away, someone yelled an ethnic slur at him, court documents said. He responded, "What's your problem?"
A fight ensued, during which police said Walsh punched Ramirez in the face. The victim fell and hit his head on the street, leaving him unconscious, after which Piekarsky kicked him in the head, police said.
All three suspects used ethnic slurs during the fight, which ended with Ramirez in convulsions and foaming at the mouth, authorities said. The attackers fled the scene; Ramirez underwent surgery but died July 14 of head injuries...
Luis Ramirez, a twenty-five-year-old Mexican immigrant, was beaten to death last week by a group of teenagers in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. He was walking home last Saturday night when six white high school students brutally beat him while yelling racial slurs... Watch the Democracy Now! Interview:http://i1.democracynow.org/2008/7/24/friend_of_mexican_immigrant_beaten_to
In the 21st Century world of race-neutrality and color-blindness, it is hard to imagine that a record-breaking 2004 Olympic Silver Medalist, who unequivocally won a fight, is informed that she indeed lost -- the fact that a video evidence that documents her victory exists, notwithstanding. Nia Abdallah is the 2004 US Silver Medalist in Taekwondo. She is also the first woman from the United States to earn a medal in this sport since it became an official Olympic sport. In a qualifying match for the 2008 Olympics, Nia fought Diana Lopez - a fellow Olympian - and is believed to have won by a stretch. Upon the announcement of the result and the purported victor, the crowd can be heard booing in dissapointment and disbelief, as Diana Lopez is awarded the victory. In light of this, Nia is now fighting three fights; one against her athletic opponents, one against the political administration that governs the US Olympics Committee, and one against the big-name networks who have persistently refused to tell her story. The "We Support Nia" campaign is urging everyone to "contact the US Olympic Committee Ombudsman (john.ruger@usoc.org or 888-Athlete... ESPN, ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX" and to "implore your local media, and your congressmen to force the US Olympic Committee to review this decision and right this wrong." In solidarity, I urge everyone reading to join in this struggle against the arm of injustice.
