The Hip Hop Anthropologist

The piece dated November 26, 2013 in Newsday by Ridgley Ochs - http://www.newsday.com/news/health/frustration-over-pace-of-9-11-VCF-distribution-1.6502431 - is an unacceptable puff piece: a rationalization of Special Master Sheila L. Birnbaum's utter mismanagement of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund (VCF). I expected much harder hitting reporting from Newsday. The piece reported that many of the claims remain incomplete because many claimants reported no income information, or the lawyers helping neglected to complete all required forms. That is why the 75 person VCF staff, comprised in large part of bright, young lawyers with white shoe Washington DC law firm Dickstein Shapiro LLP, cannot do economic loss determinations. That assertion belies reason - for the vast majority of these claims - if you look at the application process, however. One of the first documents requested is a claimant's Social Security Administration "earnings record," which si...

Al Sharpton quietly fired National Action Network executive director Tamika Mallory over the Labor Day weekend. Rumors have been swirling for months that Sharpton was unhappy with Mallory. The abrupt move was spurred by an on air exchange where Mallory joked that she was underpaid. The exchange prompted Sharpton to publically rebuke her for being “smart mouthed…" threatening to “deal with [her] later when I get back to headquarters" on his popular nationally syndicated radio show “Keepin It Real.” Mallory, 33,  spearheaded numerous initiatives against violence, women and children in her four year, high profile tenure with the 20 year old civil rights organization that is headed up by the controversial preacher. Mallory issued a short statement on the organization’s website dated August 29th stating that her work with NAN “is not ending but transitioning into a new exciting chapter of advocacy” without specifying exactly what that new role would be fueling spe...

Since President's Obama’s first inauguration in 2008, the Black Intelligentsia, media, and notable civil rights leaders have been tripping all over themselves to embrace a GLTB agenda – still widely reviled in mainstream African American churches if not larger community - as a bona fide civil rights issue. This position is keeping with the progressive black community’s most destructive impulses born in the ante-bellum south of a visceral desire to assimilate, which runs against an inherently traditionally conservative worldview for good reason. Beyond that is a simple issue of loyalty. Gays and Lesbians stood with the Civil Rights movement during its heyday in the 50s and 60s. Problem is these high profile Gays were inevitably Negro; notably James "Jimmy" Baldwin, Bayard Rustin to name the two most prominent. Nowhere to be found were any White or Jewish Gay or Lesbian activists of note during a tumultuous 1960s. I would challenge the Black intelligentsia, media, or...