The Horse who lost a Rider

For want of a shoe a horse was lost.
For want of a horse a rider was lost.
For want of a rider...



The motorcycle in this picture has ejected its rider in a traffic accident. The bike is crushed. And, here is the picture of the bike rider.



For want of a rider a life was lost.

I see a man, racing down the highway, at a high rate of speed. He becomes distracted. And, when he wakes up, he is face to face with God.

Eddie Griffin has created a religious bible study blog. It is recommended only for those who come with bibles. If you do not have a bible, there are direct links to scriptures.

I am a man who seeks to know God better before I have to meet him face to face.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Eddie Griffin, 60 years old, survived a Texas Ranger sharpshooter at close range, the death penalty for bank robbery, kidnapping, and commandeering a police squad car- at age 26. In prison, Eddie Griffin was a peacekeeper among inmates. Encountered with numerous life-threatening situations, Eddie (also known among inmates as Mwana or M1) once had to face down two knife-welding inmates to keep them from stabbing a brother to death. Griffin also survived innumerable days in a refrigerated prison strip cell, held incommunicado, with running water for only 30 minutes a day.

CONVERSION EXPERIENCE

My conversion experience was a de ja vu dance with death when I stepped up to an inmate welding a pipe and disarmed him after he crushed his skull. It happened just the way I had trained and practiced for it. In real life drama, I got clonked and dazed, surprised that I did not strip him of his weapon. I made the same mistake in practice after practice of stepping outside my defense parameters. So, I found myself holding on to the arm with the pipe, hanging on for dear life, bleeding like a skinned pig, willing myself not to fall to the ground, refusing to blackout. It took everything I had, every ounce of strength I could muster, to wrestle the pipe away.

It was also the same de ja vu dance with death for Raymond “Cadillac” Smith, ("Samson", I call him) my training partner, who died in handcuffs after prison guards abandoned him to two knife-welding white Aryan Brotherhood assassins. (Current FBI files are full stories of the prison warfare between the AB and DC gangs, originating with the assassination of Raymond “Cadillac” Smith). Cadillac and I had both trained in the same prison cage for that very moment to come- that is, how to protect ourselves by blocking batons and pipes and how to fend off an assailant while in handcuffs. De ja vu, by the grace of God, I came out alive.

Eddie Griffin was recognized as an international political prisoner. This history is fully documented, including the lawsuit and national protests that caused the United States government to release him. Also released from prison by President Jimmy Carter were Marion Brothers Rafael Cancel Miranda and Lorenzo Komboa Ervin. Other Marion Brothers still incarcerated include American Indian Movement leader Leonard Peltier and Black Liberation Army leader Herman Bell.

Eddie Griffin is the author of “Breaking Men’s Minds”, a dissertation and real life experience of the government’s research on mind control techniques using prisoners as guinea pigs. During the 1970s, Griffin was the most interviewed prisoner in the US prison system on issues of prisoner human rights, torture by psychological stress techniques and sensory deprivation, and forced and coerced drugging of prisoners without their consent.

“Breaking Men’s Minds” is still cited by prisoners and their lawyers today.

RESUBMITTED JENA SIX PROTEST

Why Black Children are being sent from Schools to Jails

Resubmitted By Eddie Griffin

Monday, July 30, 2007

The case of the Jena 6 black youth is hereby being resubmitted for your consideration, along with the following explanation of why certain children as harshly disciplined and prosecuted through our education system.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Office of the Governor
Attn: Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco
P.O. Box 94004
Baton Rouge, LA 70804-9004

866-366-1121
225-342-0991
225-342-7015
Fax: 225-342-7099

RE: Pardon Mychal Bell & Free the Jena 6

BACKGROUND OF CASE:
On July 31, 2007, there will be a national rally behalf of six Jena juvenile defenders from further prosecution by the state of Louisiana. It is a fact that, in public schools around the United States, black children are disciplined more than white children. The harshest form of punishment is doled out through criminal prosecution. We find black boys being disproportionately criminalized.

The town of Jena, Louisiana, its public school system, and law enforcement allowed white children to tease, threaten, intimidate, and assault black children with impunity. When black youth defend themselves by retaliating, the local dominant white population assailed them with Jim Crow law and discriminatory practices. They prosecuted the black youth, while letting their own pass with egregious wrongdoings, along race lines.

Monday, July 30, 2007

Dear Governor Kathleen Blanco:

Please stop the prosecution of the Jena 6. Drop all charges and pardon Mychal Bell.

This is a classic case of racial injustice much like the Scottsboro boys. Do realize that these are children, high school students, who were caught up in a race tense situation. The Jena High School administration is the blame for allowing a white prank to go unpunished. The Jena police have acted as protectorates of white wrongdoers. The Jena district attorney’s office leveled some of the heaviest criminal offenses against six young black boys. Reading the sequence of events, you cannot help but realize that the “alleged” crimes were nothing more than a schoolyard fight, common to most high schools. But every high school does not take racial sides when administering punishment, as in the case of Jena, Louisiana.

The reputation of this great state is at stake.

REMEMBER: One out of every three African-American males, who go through the nation’s public school systems end up going to jail and prisons. Why so?

The Jena 6 case takes a common school yard fight, which grew out of racial tension, and treats it as a serious criminal offense. The application of law is so arbitrary that it can be said: The white people in Jena make the law up as it goes along. In so doing, they suppress the minority black population in submission, albeit aided by the school system, prosecution office, and local judicial system.

There are hundreds of school disciplinary incidents prosecuted each year as criminal offenses against black youth. The result is a pattern of misdemeanors, leading to incarceration.

In Paris, Texas, a 14-year old teenager shoves a teacher’s aide while trying to enter a school building. They charged her with “aggravated assault upon a public servant”. The minor incident then became a major felony by local officials and school administrators arbitrarily applying the Texas Criminal Code.

The child was tried in a court of law by a judge, who applied adult standards equivalent to that of an assault of a prison inmate upon a guard. ShaQuanda Cotton was incarcerated in the Texas Youth Commission (TYC) lockup facilities, hundreds of miles from home and family.

If she was a “good girl”, she could go home in 9 months. If she received any prison infractions, her stay could be extended up to her 21st birthday. As a prerequisite to gaining her freedom, little Ms. Cotton must confess and show remorse for the crime of assaulting a “public servant”- a dubious and concocted offense. Otherwise, she would not be released. In fact, her nine-month stay was extended, because of a TYC disciplinary report for the offense of “possession of contraband”, to wit an extra pair of socks.

The Texas legislature was so appalled at the case of ShaQuanda Cotton that the teenager was immediately released. She and hundreds of other incarcerated teens were released immediately because their original sentences had been arbitrarily extended.

It seems ironic that, during the Texas legislature’s investigation into the children sexual abuse scandal by TYC prison officials, district attorneys around the state fought vigorously against the mass release of these youth. And, small rural Texas prison towns who, otherwise would not exist except for these lockup facilities, protested depopulating the youth prison system. To them, it would mean the loss of jobs- but, to us, it would be jobs that depended on the continued rate of incarceration of our children.

Texas Governor Rick Perry has seen fit to shut down two or three of these facilities as a result of trying to reform the Texas Youth Commission. And, many Texas counties are beginning to look at keeping their own youth offenders and working at finding an in-house solution to juvenile delinquencies, rather than send the kids off to these scandalized facilities.

But the statistics speak for themselves. More black youth are being sent to prison straight out of the school system- a practice condoned by the office of many district attorneys and courtroom benches.

The case of the Jena Six should never have been prosecuted as a criminal offense, but handled as a school disciplinary matter, in context of the overall tense racial climate. Only as last resort does a public school disciplinary action warrant being processed through the criminal justice system. It appears that teachers and administrators are using the punitive concept of “Zero Tolerance” to comport youth behavior and language to server forms of social control. It is a bully weapon against minority children and their parents.

The only way to correct the egregious injustice in Jena, Louisiana would be:

1. CEASE PROSECUTION OF ALL JENA SIX YOUTH
2. DROP ALL THE CHARGES
3. PARDON Mychal Bell
4. REFORM SCHOOL POLICIES ON DISCIPLINE

ALERT! FREE THE JENA 6 Rally July 31, 2007

Free The Jena Six


An all-white jury in the central Louisiana town of Jena swiftly convicted a black teenager Thursday for attacking a white student in an incident that capped months of racial unrest and attracted the scrutiny of civil rights leaders concerned about the application of justice in the town.

Jurors convicted Mychal Bell, 17, of aggravated second-degree battery… He allegedly jumped the victim as he emerged from the gymnasium at the local high school on Dec. 4, knocking him unconscious.

This case is important to all African-Americans who are suspicious of disparities in the administration of Justice. A young black man being convicted by an all-white southern jury is nothing new. In fact, the disparities in charging and convicting blacks are so one-side. This case merits shame of white justice upon African-American children, who get caught up in the southern criminal justice system.

The white students started the fight at Jena High School when they hung three nooses across a tree in front of the school. The black students had appealed to the school principal to allow them to sit under the tree. But the display of the three nooses anger the black students. The school administration played it off as a childish “prank”.

It proved to be no prank, as the situation escalated into racial violence over the next several months, culminating in the charging of six Jena black male students with aggravated assault… and, with a “deadly weapon”, to wit, “a pair of tennis shoes worn on the feet of Mychal Bell as he allegedly kicked and stomped a white student”… deadly weapon equal a pair of tennis shoes. How arbitrary can the law be? Is it arbitrary enough to satisfy a blood-thirst revenge of white authority against black youths retaliating for previous violent incidents instigated by white but wholly unpunished?

Mychal Bell, the first of the Jena 6 defendants, is scheduled to be sentenced on July 31, 2007.

PLEASE REVIEW the Michael David Murphy video, if you agree that this is a grievous miscarriage of justice, PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION to the US Justice Department Civil Rights Division. And give your support to FREE THE JENA SIX Campaign organized by Friends of Justice.


The Sacred Rule Of Law in the South is as much a farce as Jim Crow, which is why African-Americans have always had to call upon the international community for Justice. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 37 provides:

States Parties shall ensure that:

(a) No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offences committed by persons below eighteen years of age;

(b) No child shall be deprived of his or her liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily. The arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child shall be in conformity with the law and shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time;

What Alternative Have We to Offer vs BET

My first impression about mass media influence on black youth culture

Originally published:
Monday, February 06, 2006


Dear E. R. Bills,

I appreciate your letter and must admit that I am more clueless than you are about hip-hop culture, music, language, and credo. Indeed, it is a counter-culture hard to understand, with derivative roots in the black radicalism of the 1960s and 1970s. I recognize much of the slang as originating among convicts inside the prison systems. But the negative rap and vulgar displays is purely a mass media creation. VH1 and MTV are the main culprits. Hip-Hop is Big Business, though the hip-hoppers themselves are the least benefited.

We African-Americans have been trying to get control of this counter-culture and turn it around, in a positive direction, for some time. But we do not have control of the educational institutions. Our standards and discipline are rejected by Anglo-American culture. In the segregated school system, we had prayer, pledge allegiance, corporal punishment, and kids who obeyed and had a sense of common sense and direction. But the integrated school system seems to proceed on the theory of racial inferiority and treat our kids like little monkeys gone out of control.

Many black leaders are beginning to conclude that integration have undermined our traditional family value system and our system of motivating high achievement. But we do not control what comes on TV. We can do nothing about white teachers who cannot handle hip-hop kids. In fact, we find ourselves fighting the backend of the same problem. The superior intellects will not concede defeat and let the real experts handle the problem. As we would have once said, “It’s either a white man’s fix of the problem or no fix at all. And, if he cannot fix the problem, it cannot be fixed”.

As an Old School OG, I have some credibility with the younger generation. They give me my “props”. But some people may believe that we OGs set the original bad example that kids now follow. They vilified the Black Panthers as a gang, similar to the gangs of today. We were discredited and suppressed by the government. This allowed the “pimps” and “players” to rise to become role models in the black community, in place of the Panthers.

People forget that we cared for the young and old, protected our community from Klan attacks and drug pushers, and established Freedom Schools, separate and apart from the mainstream school system. We did not, and still do not, trust just anybody to teach our kids. The terrible situation in the school system today is a result of our demise as a left-wing political party. The infiltration of drugs and pimping came in over our dead bodies. The early black-on-black crimes and shootouts were the results of the wars between the Panthers and the drug lords and pimps. But we could not fight them and defend ourselves against rabid law enforcement at the same time.

Stanley “Tookie” Williams and the Crips and Bloods originally came into existence as protectorates of the community, to fill the vacuum created by the demise of the Black Panthers Party. But they had no leadership who could steer them past exploitation and corruption. Millionaires and billionaires financed the drug trade. Drug producing Third World countries base their agricultural economies on it. The victims of the trade are our children. And, yet they are the most criminalized.

The same is true with illegal weapons and violence on the streets. Gun manufactures benefit from the sales, whether legal or on the black market. A new gun straight from the manufacturer, still with that new grease smell, cost four or five times the regular price on the streets. The drug suppliers are generally the same ones who sell the guns and put out hit contracts. This is what perpetuates street violence, and our kids have no idea that they are being played like puppets on a string until they are forced into a life of crime. I say, “forced”, because they must carry out the crime, “make their bones”, or risk becoming the target of a hit themselves. The cycle of violence as perpetual as it is instigated.

This gangster-ism filters down into the culture with the help of media conveyors who promote this violent, lascivious, and wanton lifestyle as something cute. It sells. It sells records, bling-bling, clothes, rides, etc., etc. And, we African-Americans have no control over it. Whatever influence we try to exert in this arena is countermanded by money and powerful forces that exploit our children for their weaknesses and excesses.

It’s almost as if America wants no solution to this cultural problem. What they want, it seems, is scapegoats for propaganda purpose. This is why your kids are turned on and you are turned off. You think negatively of Hip-Hop, but they love it. Politically speaking, Hip-Hop is isolated and alienated, which makes this younger generation more vulnerable. This is why you see people like Snoop Dogg and Kanye West and others trying to step up to the plate and assume responsibility for turning this negativity around.

In this respect, I praise them for the attempt. But the media will most certainly try to discredit them for taking a positive direction. They want the negative out front. They want the half-naked ‘hoes shaking their booties, until their booties turn into 50-year old jello. By then they are ashamed.

Publicly, I have taken a stand to defend the hip-hop generation for these reasons above, mainly their vulnerability. I write for a number of hip-hop publications in order to give kids some insight and direction. They are leaderless, for the most part. They are abandoned by the establishment, out there in left field, in a world of their own, disconnected from the political mainstream. By the time they come out of La La Land (at the rate they are going), they will be gray-headed and 60-years old like me. Then they will be trying to fix the next screwed up generation after them.

Please take this to heart. It is not your race that alienates you, but your complacency and powerlessness.

Sincerely,
Eddie Griffin

PS – I wish to share your letter with my readers. Maybe someone else will see something I omitted.

OMISSION: BET - Part of the Problem or Solution?

BOB JOHNSON TELLS 'OUR STORIES' & TALKS 'MESS':
BET Founder launches studio and new film

By Kenya M Yarbrough,
July 26, 2007

*Robert L. Johnson can easily be counted as one of the top American media moguls. The entertainment executive founded the BET Network in 1980 and in 2004, he became the first African American to be the principal owner of a North American major-league sports franchise after acquiring the Charlotte Bobcats NBA expansion franchise.

Late last year, Johnson founded Our Stories Films, a Los Angeles-based film company whose inaugural release "Who's Your Caddy?" opens nationwide this week…

"Whenever we'd go to forums and meetings involving black creative people, the one constant complaint was, 'Why is there no studio that will tell our stories? Why is there no black executive that can greenlight a film about us?' I heard that ever since I started BET," Johnson shared with EUR's Lee Bailey. "I figured the only way that was going to happen was for somebody African American put up the money, hire the talent, find a strategic partner, and make it happen."
Johnson explained that he named the company Our Stories because of that very complaint...

"I think it's exceedingly important that black people go out and support this film. If this film works, there's going to be more coming down for the audience. If you like going to the movies, you ought to get more films about you, that fit with you and your lifestyle. But it could also spur the other studios to do what we're doing," he said.

On that note, Johnson took the opportunity to discuss the latest controversy at BET. The issue concerns the network's new series "Hot Ghetto Mess" (recently renamed "We Got To Do Better"), which has provoked criticism and sent advertisers running out before its debut last night.

"As far as the 'Hot Ghetto Mess' issue, [BET President/CEO Debra Lee] has got the same problem that I had in that BET, for all practical purposes, is the only preeminent voice for African Americans in media and because of that it is given a greater responsibility and obligation by certain people that BET has to be a little bit 'holier than thou,'" Johnson said. "We'll let Jerry Springer get away with that or we'll let Morton Downey get away with that or we'll let the people at VH1's 'Flavor of Love' get away with that. But when it's black folks making the decision to do that, all of a sudden people start saying you can't do that because you have a greater obligation. And then they go to advertisers and many white advertisers will head for the hills the moment they see themselves in the middle of a black controversial issue. They will stop, [partly] because they don't really want to be on it; don't value it; or they don't know how to handle it."

Johnson called the fallout surrounding 'Hot Ghetto Mess' a "knee-jerk reaction that has a chilling effect on creativity."

"All of a sudden, creative people who want to tell stories or produce shows like 'Hot Ghetto Mess' are saying, 'I don't want to work on BET because they can't doing anything that's innovative or pushes the envelope," he said. "I think that would be detrimental to creativity. I think it would be detrimental to the black community in allowing us to mature and let a lot of voices be heard."

The Most Honest & Challenging Opinion

HAT TIP TO: Jack & Jill Politics




The young man agrees with some of the criticism of BET. But what do you have to offered that is better? It is an honest question, deserving an honest answer. The answer must also cover Mr. Johnson's rationalization for what BET offer.

For the latest information on the BLACK MEDIA vs INTERNET WAR, visit Texas firebrand activist Gina at WhatAboutOurDaughters... (Results from BET's July 25th rollout are still coming in, at this report). Also visit The Mo'Kelly Report.

“A Girl Like Me”: An OSCAR-Worthy Black Teen Video

A look through the eyes of young black teenage girls and an introspection on the meaning of skin-color and beauty standards in America

Kiri Davis' A Girl Like Me is the most powerful documentary I have seen in my life- bar none. I cannot stop watching it... over and over. I cannot cease my tears.

Ms. Davis is a 17-year old Harlem student who created a video of the famous Dr. Kenneth Clark’s doll experiment.

The Question behind the Film: Would today’s black children choose the white doll over the black doll again, as they did in the 1940s?

Here is the video. [Editor's Note: The unabridged version contains additional interviews]

[Abridged]


[Unabridged]


BREAKING NEWS

Kiri Davis has won the Cosmo Girl Take Action Hollywood Contest!!!! She will walk away with a much deserved $10,000 scholarship, a Windows Vista Ultimate laptop, an iPod Shuffle, and a Target gift card.

CONGRATULATIONS to Kiri Davis

From Eddie Griffin (BASG)

Posted at http://afrobella.com/?p=297
A truly extraordinary piece of work… with tear-jerking honesty… high quality… some of the most dignified African-American teenage girls confess their feelings about growing up with stigmas of beauty base on skin color. This is truth and integrity at its heart. At age 17, Kiri Davis is on her way to an Oscar.

Posted at http://bronzetrinity.efx2.com/view/86702/Please-Vote-for-A-Girl-Like-Me/
BRAVO! OSCAR, Please!

Posted at http://francislholland.blogspot.com/2007/04/bronzetrinity-highlights-hair-style.html
"A Girl Like Me" is the type of videos they should be showing on BET. Ms. Kiri Davis has given us hope for our daughters.

Eddie Griffin (BASG)
Editor-at-Large
Literafeelya Magazine
"a literal source of n'ergy by way of ink!"
P.O. Box 667162
Houston, TX 77266-7162

Magazine: (713) 893-5594

Sister 2 Sister Publisher Cheeses Out With DL Hughley

To: Jamie Foster Brown, Publisher of Sister 2 Sister
From: Eddie Griffin

RE: S2S Publisher Interview With DL Hughley

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Since the Fort Worth Bass Hall protest, D. L. Hughley has continually made reference to my booing him while he was here on stage. I have become the butt of his most recent fresh jokes. This I don’t mind. The more he degrades me, the less he degrades our women. I would rather the joke be on me.

But may I beg your pardon, Ms. Brown, one of your readers wrote that essentially you “cheesed it” with Hughley in the August 2007 edition of your magazine. As I re-read the interview, I read these statements:

First:

Jamie: You said those were some of the ugliest girls you've ever seen?

D.L.: Right, that's what I said as a joke, period, because I watched the game. I didn't watch the press conference; I watched the game. So it was a joke. So now, three months later, people are picking up on it and I kinda refuse to apologize for telling a joke. I guess people want a level of controversy.

Tell me, Ms. Brown: How do you “kinda refuse to apologize”?

Second:

D.L.: I guess, Jamie, all I can say is this: When I grew up, everything that a comedian-and I can only speak for myself-almost everything we talk about is painful. And the reason I do comedy now is from pain.

Jamie: All comedians say that; that it's from pain.

D.L.: When I deal with something, even as painful as it is, my mother used to tell me you have to laugh to keep from crying. I was the ugly, nappy-headed Black boy in the neighborhood, I was the dumb dude. So I learned all of that stuff.

Ms. Brown, This is not a comedian. This is a psychosis. Note he admitted: “I was the ugly, nappy-headed Black boy… the dumb dude.”... [Note also his similar reference to the Rutgers female basketball team players]. His comedy seems to be a mask of revenge for a miserable childhood, most vehemently against women.

He says of us religious leaders (whom he called "clowns") should be helping teach some kid to read, or helping someone innocent person get out of jail, and on and on... as if he doesn’t realize that he is one of the distractions from our regular work in the field. Why does an elder have to take timeout and chasten a child?

I do not want my grandson to grow up and be like D. L. Hughley. At 5-years old, he already uses the b-word. Tomorrow, he’ll be sagging, if I let him.

No, Mr. Hughley is not to be honored and respected as a role model. And, wherever he performs should be rated XXX outside the door, in order that the public be forewarned of the type of content to expect.

I'll tell my grandson, if grandpa had his way, he would stamp 666 on the forehead of everybody that like Mr. Hughley’s kind of filth.

The Handwriting on the Wall at VIACOM

Viacom
1515 Broadway
New York, NY 10036
(212) 258-6000

Shari Redstone, Vice Chairman
shari.redstone@viacom.com
sredstone@nationalamusements.com

RE: The Handwriting on the Wall at VIACOM

Dear Shari Redstone:

While everyone on Wall Street is licking their chops over the prospects of your leaving Viacom’s board, we represent a voice of people who wish that you would stay. As a forward-thinking and progressive voice on the board, your views on performance-base compensation for corporate executives are long overdue.

Media giants, like Viacom and CBS, are dominated by old thinking. The values of old corporate executives are no longer the values of the general public. Shareholders should hold corporate executives accountable, not only for their performance, but also on the quality of their performance.

Let me remind you that the Association of National Advertisers have adopted a plan for Family Friendly Programming. Its mission is to support and promote the development of "family friendly" television across all programming genres between the hours of 8 and 10 p.m., when adults and children are most likely to watch television together.

Some media giants have not followed public desires but, instead, have set a bad public trend in television and radio programming. Look, for example, at Imus. Old media corporate executives have given the public an overdose of distorted reality programming, a la “As the World Turns” through the eyes of the “World According to Gorp”. We are long overdue for some revolutionary changes.

SHARI: You probably already know best why there is discontent at Dream Works. But you may not know about the fire brewing at BET. The roll out of “Hot Ghetto Mess” and “S.O.B.” on July 25th could very well be the BET’s empire financial undoing.

Again, we will be looking to you for new thinking leadership against the stonewall executives who recognize no need for change. The cancer has reached critical mass. The handwriting is on the wall. Only you can determine its course.

Sincerely,
Eddie Griffin (BASG)