Sean Taylor RIP

[phattymatty]

i would kill all of you for a snifter of brandy right now.

[ice grillin you]

i think i hate brandy
unless GM is brandy then i love it
and i def love brandy alexanders

[reese125]

As black men, we cannot allow ourselves to be defined by anyone - by the media or by ourselves - and accept the premise that one beginning means only one possible ending.

The truest quote in that article. Yes, there are uncontrollable living situations and other extrinsic motivations involved with poverty stricken neighborhoods. Bottom line is....you have to hold yourself accountable and don't let life around you dictate your future. Whether you believe that or not, its up to that person. If you dont believe (which is the majority), then you live as a product of your own stereotype

in the end its not enough to say lift yourselves up this has to stop...it doesnt work that way...you think someone living in a rat infested home with no money to eat and limited to no job opportunities who wasnt given a fair chance at an education cares about a let rise up brothers call....rise up and do what?

So what would you like gov't to do about this?

[ice grillin you]

rebuild the inner cities
give those people humane living conditions
job opportunites
adequete schooling (including competant teachers)
close the open air drug markets
ect
ect
ect

in other words everything they say they are gonna do in iraq....just do it in brookyln and west phil and se dc and....


The truest quote in that article. Yes, there are uncontrollable living situations and other extrinsic motivations involved with poverty stricken neighborhoods. Bottom line is....you have to hold yourself accountable and don't let life around you dictate your future. Whether you believe that or not, its up to that person. If you dont believe (which is the majority), then you live as a product of your own stereotype

this is of course true but what about all the people that do the right thing (and this is the majority) and still have to live a miserable existence...i dont feel just for the person who feels like he/she has to take the wrong path i feel for the people who do the right thing but still get farged on a daily basis

[Munson]

this is of course true but what about all the people that do the right thing (and this is the majority) and still have to live a miserable existence...i dont feel just for the person who feels like he/she has to take the wrong path i feel for the people who do the right thing but still get farged on a daily basis

What, you think that only happens to inner city black people?

[reese125]

are u the majority Munson?

[paco]

i agree with this.  if he has a gun people call him a thug.  if he doesn't than he's not doing enough.  there's no point in arguing about it.

I was thinking more along the lines of, if he has been threatened over the course of a few years, either hiring security or moving away from a bad situation.  Buying a knife in a situation where people will probably have guns is not properly protecting your family. 

(now, if it turns out that the people that they arrested were in fact the ones that did it and that Rolle's and everyone else who said he was being targeted were wrong and that there was nothing that he could have done to avoid the situation, then I'll be the first to admit I was wrong.  But as it stands right now, it seems that he could have taken some steps to better protect himself and his family.)

[paco]

i blame anyone who kills or hurts another person...im just sick and tired of wealthy people sitting at their laptops sipping a brandy telling all these other people what to do...

If it helps, I freaking hate brandy. 

[rjs246]

There was this girl in college named Brandi. I shocked her on the hood of one of my roommates' car. The asscheek prints were still there the next morning.

Relevant.

[Rome]

There was this girl in college named Brandi. I shocked her on the hood of one of my roommates' car. The asscheek prints were still there the next morning.

Relevant.

Brandi?  With an "i"?  Really??

I hope you gave her a sperm enema.

[Diomedes]

i blame anyone who kills or hurts another person...

the gawd Jerome Brown excepted, of course

1.rebuild the inner cities.
2. give those people humane living conditions
3. job opportunites
4. adequete schooling (including competant teachers)
5. close the open air drug markets

in other words everything they say they are gonna do in iraq....just do it in brookyln and west phil and se dc and....

I'm on board.  instead of wasting money in Iraq, the worst we could do is waste it on our own people here..but I have some questions and comments..

1. What does that mean, rebuild the inner cities?  Seriously..what do you see when you think those words?  I been to West Baltimore.  I've seen pics of Detroit.  There is no rebuilding these places.  They should be razed.  They are as bad as Iraq.  You can't rebuild a whole city..or can you?  Are you really suggesting that we dump billions into hoods  that are completely abandoned and trashed? 
2.  Give humane living conditions has been done over and over again.  Invariably, they trash them.  There is nothing inhumane about the projects.  They have heat, running water, light, enough space, etc.  They aren't the nicest places in the world though.  Do you mean "give those people the nicest living conditions?"
3. Job opportunities....say more.  what does this mean?  Are they willing to dig ditches for ten-twelve bucks an hour?  That's fair honest work and at 40 hours a week, you can make a modest living doing it.  It's a start, anyway.  What are you looking for?  Jobs at 50k for people with little to no skills, professional manners, etc?  Describe this point some, I'd love to hear what you think.
4. Adequete schooling...an easy thing to do if we can get money.  Give teacher big raises to attract talent, put books in schools, etc.  But you don't get an adequete education if you allow disobediance and truancy, so you gotta do something about those things, both of which can be addressed only by the home life, or by expulsion.  If you're willing to expel the disobedient disruptive and truant, and you can get the money...this one can be done.
5. close the open air drug markets.  another relatively easy one.  quadruple police patrols in ghettos, and crime will go down.  put cops on foot throughout the neighborhoods, and there will be a huge improvement in the security of neighborhoods.  Get the cops to enforce the little rules as well as the big ones, and you'll see changes. 
etc.  Guiliani was right...prosecute grafitti, littering, etc. and the neighborhoods will start to revive themselves.  Let everything go to shtein and shtein you'll get.  But you can't do that at the cost of policing the big shtein..you gotta invest heavily in well trained well monitored cops and you gotta be in it for the long haul

Grand Marnier is a liqueur.  It's made of cognac and the essence of a particular kind of orange, and sugared.  Cognac is basically brandy that is made in the cognac region of France.  I love GM, and especially the higher marques (100th and 150th anniversary labels).  Those are awesome.

[rjs246]

There was this girl in college named Brandi. I shocked her on the hood of one of my roommates' car. The asscheek prints were still there the next morning.

Relevant.

Brandi?  With an "i"?  Really??

I hope you gave her a sperm enema.

Hahahaha.

I did.

[ice grillin you]

1. i agree they should be razed...and rebuilt in a clean safe manner...it happens all the time...i can take you around west baltimore where pj's have been rebuilt into brand new townhomes or duplexes...it amazing what having no rats/roaches running water heat ect can do to a persons outlook

we arent talking about rebuilding a whole city...just the very worst areas...and even at that you wouldnt be doing it all at the same time but incrementally...think habitat for humanity but on a massive scale

2. absolutely not true about the heat and water...often that stuff is out and slow to be put back on by the slum lords...as are basic repairs to the insides...and "they" dont trash the place once fixed or replaced...ive worked with organizations who refurbish inner city slums for a long time and when people get their living conditions improved they want to keep it up and generally do that...again poor people want the same things we do if they have something nice they want it to stay that way...who wouldnt?...when you live in hell you tend to treat it like hell

3. absoultely the majority of these people are hard workers...in general minorities wanna work as much as we do or as little as we do depending on the person...now for the short term you may have a higher % that are lazy fargs simply because they have never known the other way...thats what 400 years of getting your ass whipped will do...this isnt gonna change over nite but you have to start somewhere...the has to be a light at the end of the tunnel for people to see before they will go for it

4.  we have plenty of money...easily enough....it just goes to the wrong places and this is where the governmental racism kicks in...the politicians simply dont care about minorities because jobs mean money and money means investment and property and the next thing you know 200 years from now whitey aint runnin shtein...no way they let that happen

5. agree with you...it would unbelievably easy to stop this...but they dont want to...they want blacks killing blacks...also agree with the long haul this is something that will take decades...but you have to start somewhere...problem is there are to many reasons not to help the poor and even fewer reasons to help poor minorities

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

Allow me to clarify two things:

1.  I made it abundantly obvious that Eugene Robinson is an excellent writer.  Writing style = A.  Content/Opinion = F.

2.  I don't fault Taylor for "only" having a machete to protect his house.  I fault him for not moving the hell out.

[Diomedes]

Or having dogs.  I swear to God, even the most desperate crackhead wants nothing to do with a pair of dobermans.