Monday, July 28, 2008
Myong Cha "Mia" Blount
Born:
June 16, 1960
Died:
July 17, 2008
Biography
Myong Cha “Mia” Blount was born in 1960 and passed away in 2008. To all those that knew Mia, she was kind and funny and always helped people. Because to know Mia, was to love Mia.
Mia left behind her husband, Hyun Yoon Kim, her two daughters, Jessica and Cheryl Blount, and many friends who loved her. Her family asks for everyone to remember her with love and to wish her to be in a better place.
Mia loved everyone very much.
Thank you for coming.
~Her Family
Myong Cha “Mia” Blount was born in 1960 and passed away in 2008. To all those that knew Mia, she was kind and funny and always helped people. Because to know Mia, was to love Mia.
Mia left behind her husband, Hyun Yoon Kim, her two daughters, Jessica and Cheryl Blount, and many friends who loved her. Her family asks for everyone to remember her with love and to wish her to be in a better place.
Mia loved everyone very much.
Thank you for coming.
~Her Family
Friday, November 03, 2006
White House Shuts Nuke Secrets Web Site
The nation's top intelligence official took down a government Web site with captured Saddam Hussein-era Iraqi documents, after questions were raised about whether it provided too much information about making atomic bombs.
In a statement Thursday night, a spokesman for National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said his office has suspended public access to the Web site "pending a review to ensure its content is appropriate for public viewing."
The action came after The New York Times raised questions about the contents of the government site, called the "Operation Iraqi Freedom Document Portal." The Times' Web site reported Thursday night that weapons experts say documents posted on the government site in recent weeks provide dangerous detail about Iraq's covert nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf war.
"While strict criteria had already been established to govern posted documents, the material currently on the Web site, as well as the procedures used to post new documents, will be carefully reviewed before the site becomes available again," said Negroponte's spokesman, Chad Kolton.
Former White House chief of staff Andrew Card said Friday that top officials knew there were risks when they decided to post the documents.
"John Negroponte warned us that we don't know what's in these documents, so these are being put out at some risk, and that was a warning that he put out right when they first released the documents," Card told NBC's "Today" show.
Pressed by Republican members of Congress, Negroponte's office last March ordered the unprecedented release of millions of pages of Iraqi documents, most of them in Arabic, collected by the U.S. government over more than a decade.
Until this week, the information had been posted gradually on public Internet servers, run by the military. In announcing the postings, Negroponte's office said the U.S. government had made no determination regarding the authenticity of the documents, their factual accuracy or the quality of any translations, when available.
The International Atomic Energy Agency declined to comment Friday on the report.
A spokesman for the chief U.S. envoy to the nuclear agency, Gregory L. Schulte, denied that he was approached by agency officials about the posted documents.
"Ambassador Schulte did not receive any protest or expression of concern from the IAEA on this issue," spokesman Matthew Boland told The Associated Press in Vienna, Austria. "No representative of our mission was approached by a representative of the IAEA on this issue."
The nation's top intelligence official took down a government Web site with captured Saddam Hussein-era Iraqi documents, after questions were raised about whether it provided too much information about making atomic bombs.
In a statement Thursday night, a spokesman for National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said his office has suspended public access to the Web site "pending a review to ensure its content is appropriate for public viewing."
The action came after The New York Times raised questions about the contents of the government site, called the "Operation Iraqi Freedom Document Portal." The Times' Web site reported Thursday night that weapons experts say documents posted on the government site in recent weeks provide dangerous detail about Iraq's covert nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf war.
"While strict criteria had already been established to govern posted documents, the material currently on the Web site, as well as the procedures used to post new documents, will be carefully reviewed before the site becomes available again," said Negroponte's spokesman, Chad Kolton.
Former White House chief of staff Andrew Card said Friday that top officials knew there were risks when they decided to post the documents.
"John Negroponte warned us that we don't know what's in these documents, so these are being put out at some risk, and that was a warning that he put out right when they first released the documents," Card told NBC's "Today" show.
Pressed by Republican members of Congress, Negroponte's office last March ordered the unprecedented release of millions of pages of Iraqi documents, most of them in Arabic, collected by the U.S. government over more than a decade.
Until this week, the information had been posted gradually on public Internet servers, run by the military. In announcing the postings, Negroponte's office said the U.S. government had made no determination regarding the authenticity of the documents, their factual accuracy or the quality of any translations, when available.
The International Atomic Energy Agency declined to comment Friday on the report.
A spokesman for the chief U.S. envoy to the nuclear agency, Gregory L. Schulte, denied that he was approached by agency officials about the posted documents.
"Ambassador Schulte did not receive any protest or expression of concern from the IAEA on this issue," spokesman Matthew Boland told The Associated Press in Vienna, Austria. "No representative of our mission was approached by a representative of the IAEA on this issue."
Monday, October 16, 2006
Sen. Harry Reid Accounts for Shady Land Deal
NewsMax - Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid announced Monday he is amending his ethics reports to Congress to more fully account for a land deal that allowed him to collect $1.1 million for property he hadn't personally owned for three years.
Reid acted several days after The Associated Press reported the senator didn't disclose to Congress that he first sold the land to a friend's company back in 2001 and took an ownership stake in the company. He didn't collect the seven-figure payout until the company sold the land again in 2004 to others.
Reid said his amended ethics reports will list the 2001 sale.
"I directed my staff to file amended financial disclosure forms noting that in 2001, I transferred title to the land to a Limited Liability Corporation," Reid said in a statement issued by his office.
Reid said he believed the 2001 sale did not alter his ownership of the land but that he agreed to file the amended reports because "I believe in ensuring all facts come to light."
Reid blamed the AP story as a "latest attempt" by Republicans to affect the election. AP reported last week that it learned of the land deal from a former Reid adviser who had concerns about the way the deal was reported to Congress.
Reid also announced he failed to disclose two other land transactions on his prior ethics reports and would account for those on his amended reports.
NewsMax - Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid announced Monday he is amending his ethics reports to Congress to more fully account for a land deal that allowed him to collect $1.1 million for property he hadn't personally owned for three years.
Reid acted several days after The Associated Press reported the senator didn't disclose to Congress that he first sold the land to a friend's company back in 2001 and took an ownership stake in the company. He didn't collect the seven-figure payout until the company sold the land again in 2004 to others.
Reid said his amended ethics reports will list the 2001 sale.
"I directed my staff to file amended financial disclosure forms noting that in 2001, I transferred title to the land to a Limited Liability Corporation," Reid said in a statement issued by his office.
Reid said he believed the 2001 sale did not alter his ownership of the land but that he agreed to file the amended reports because "I believe in ensuring all facts come to light."
Reid blamed the AP story as a "latest attempt" by Republicans to affect the election. AP reported last week that it learned of the land deal from a former Reid adviser who had concerns about the way the deal was reported to Congress.
Reid also announced he failed to disclose two other land transactions on his prior ethics reports and would account for those on his amended reports.
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
The Limbaugh Laws
Call it The Limbaugh Laws:
First: If you immigrate to our country, you have to speak the native language. You have to be a professional or an investor; no unskilled workers allowed. Also, there will be no special bilingual programs in the schools with the Limbaugh Laws. No special ballots for elections. No government business will be conducted in your language. Foreigners will not have the right to vote — or hold political office.
If you’re in our country, you cannot be a burden to taxpayers. You are not entitled to welfare, food stamps, or other government goodies. You can come if you invest here: an amount equal to 40,000 times the daily minimum wage. If not, stay home. But if you want to buy land, it'll be restricted. No waterfront, for instance. As a foreigner, you must relinquish individual rights to the property.
And another thing. You don’t have the right to protest. You're allowed no demonstrations, no foreign flag waving, no political organizing, no bad-mouthing our President or his policies. You’re a foreigner: shut your mouth or get out! And if you come here illegally, you're going to jail.
You think the Limbaugh Laws are harsh? Well, every one of the laws I just mentioned are actual laws of Mexico today! That’s how the Mexican government handles immigrants to their country. Yet Mexicans come here illegally and protest in our streets!
How do you say “double standard” in Spanish? How about: “No mas!"
Call it The Limbaugh Laws:
First: If you immigrate to our country, you have to speak the native language. You have to be a professional or an investor; no unskilled workers allowed. Also, there will be no special bilingual programs in the schools with the Limbaugh Laws. No special ballots for elections. No government business will be conducted in your language. Foreigners will not have the right to vote — or hold political office.
If you’re in our country, you cannot be a burden to taxpayers. You are not entitled to welfare, food stamps, or other government goodies. You can come if you invest here: an amount equal to 40,000 times the daily minimum wage. If not, stay home. But if you want to buy land, it'll be restricted. No waterfront, for instance. As a foreigner, you must relinquish individual rights to the property.
And another thing. You don’t have the right to protest. You're allowed no demonstrations, no foreign flag waving, no political organizing, no bad-mouthing our President or his policies. You’re a foreigner: shut your mouth or get out! And if you come here illegally, you're going to jail.
You think the Limbaugh Laws are harsh? Well, every one of the laws I just mentioned are actual laws of Mexico today! That’s how the Mexican government handles immigrants to their country. Yet Mexicans come here illegally and protest in our streets!
How do you say “double standard” in Spanish? How about: “No mas!"
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Bubba Boots Dubya Outta the Dubba-Wide, or: Dubai, Cruel World
Tim Cavanaugh: Left-wing Bush opponents have spent six years fuming about an exquisitely irksome trait in George W. Bush's character: He's not really a man of the people! He's actually really rich and stuff! Now, they're so eager to join the frenzy over the Dubai Ports World deal that they're not even savoring the moment they've been praying for: For the first time, Bush has been completely out-populisted. And by Democrats, for Christ's sake!
If there's one thing the DPW dustup proves, it's that Bill Clinton really was a better Man of the People than George W. Here's why:
There's a very short list of concepts the president needs to spell out:
• The DPW deal is just a contract for services—the Arabs are not going to own our ports.
• This doesn't involve port security, and if opponents think there's a security risk they haven't provided any evidence for that.
• It's in our best interest to be engaging "moderate" Arab business types like our friends in the UAE, where gay marriage is legal and every citizen is the CEO of a private company that does nothing but manufacture "I Love America" bumper stickers.
•Yes, it seems scary to be turning over port services to this foreign company, but actually this kind of transnational deal carries many benefits, among them blah blah blah...
• It's not true that foreigners will be doing all our port services. All the employees will still be Americans. In fact, I've had my brain trust run the numbers and calculated that this deal will actually create umpteen new jobs.
• The fact that DPW is state-owned isn't substantially different from, say, Continental buying some planes from the heavily subsidized Airbus.
• And so on.
It's a simple bunch of talking points, but it's become very difficult to get out there because we're in the heat of a full-scale populist panic, and against a populist panic only a golden tongue can argue logic. Bush has been caught totally flat-footed. He tried first to play the race card—a tactic that worked back in 2003, when skeptics made the absurd, bigoted, America-hating claim that Iraq's factions might be just as happy attacking each others' mosques as voting for a new future together. But the race card doesn't work because a) it's not 2003 anymore, b) a general opposition to Arabs is a badge most Americans would wear proudly by this point, and c) go hold hands with another oil sheik, Gaylord.
His next gambit was what they call in The Sunshine Boys the A-1 material: I'm the President, so it's my way or the highway. That argument's worth nothing because what, after all this time the first veto you're going to use is in favor of some screwy deal to give away our country to a bunch of Arabs?
So that leaves only rhetorical Plan C: Terrorist terrorist terrorist, war war war, I've made my decision and these questions aren't helpful. You can see why that one doesn't work.
Who could get out of this fix?
I'll tell you who: NAFTA-era Bill Clinton, that's who! Explaining stuff like this is what Bill Clinton lived for. Just think back to that Clintonian love of factoids, that congenial explanation of the benefits that you, the listener, will directly receive, that enthusiastic drive to get you to share the president's love of policy minutiae. Clinton was great at this stuff because, whatever else he was, he was a man of the people. He understood (as Bush does) the benefit of a barrier-free market that might leave, say, Dubai Ports World providing services to American harbors. And he knew that populist panics are stupid and almost always wrong. But unlike Bush, he realized that populist panics come from deep within people's hearts, and that you have to respect that. (It just sweetens the deal that this time the populist panic is being driven by another Clinton, that Around the Way Girl in the Yankees cap who always has her finger firmly up the ass on the pulse of the Average American.)
Will Bush weather this storm? All signs say yes: A PR machine that can turn Sunday's The Vice President had "one beer" and then shot a guy story into Wednesday's Why is the media picking on the Vice President and why hasn't the guy who was shot apologized already story can do pretty much anything. Allahu Akbar, DPW! Welcome to our ports!
Tim Cavanaugh: Left-wing Bush opponents have spent six years fuming about an exquisitely irksome trait in George W. Bush's character: He's not really a man of the people! He's actually really rich and stuff! Now, they're so eager to join the frenzy over the Dubai Ports World deal that they're not even savoring the moment they've been praying for: For the first time, Bush has been completely out-populisted. And by Democrats, for Christ's sake!
If there's one thing the DPW dustup proves, it's that Bill Clinton really was a better Man of the People than George W. Here's why:
There's a very short list of concepts the president needs to spell out:
• The DPW deal is just a contract for services—the Arabs are not going to own our ports.
• This doesn't involve port security, and if opponents think there's a security risk they haven't provided any evidence for that.
• It's in our best interest to be engaging "moderate" Arab business types like our friends in the UAE, where gay marriage is legal and every citizen is the CEO of a private company that does nothing but manufacture "I Love America" bumper stickers.
•Yes, it seems scary to be turning over port services to this foreign company, but actually this kind of transnational deal carries many benefits, among them blah blah blah...
• It's not true that foreigners will be doing all our port services. All the employees will still be Americans. In fact, I've had my brain trust run the numbers and calculated that this deal will actually create umpteen new jobs.
• The fact that DPW is state-owned isn't substantially different from, say, Continental buying some planes from the heavily subsidized Airbus.
• And so on.
It's a simple bunch of talking points, but it's become very difficult to get out there because we're in the heat of a full-scale populist panic, and against a populist panic only a golden tongue can argue logic. Bush has been caught totally flat-footed. He tried first to play the race card—a tactic that worked back in 2003, when skeptics made the absurd, bigoted, America-hating claim that Iraq's factions might be just as happy attacking each others' mosques as voting for a new future together. But the race card doesn't work because a) it's not 2003 anymore, b) a general opposition to Arabs is a badge most Americans would wear proudly by this point, and c) go hold hands with another oil sheik, Gaylord.
His next gambit was what they call in The Sunshine Boys the A-1 material: I'm the President, so it's my way or the highway. That argument's worth nothing because what, after all this time the first veto you're going to use is in favor of some screwy deal to give away our country to a bunch of Arabs?
So that leaves only rhetorical Plan C: Terrorist terrorist terrorist, war war war, I've made my decision and these questions aren't helpful. You can see why that one doesn't work.
Who could get out of this fix?
I'll tell you who: NAFTA-era Bill Clinton, that's who! Explaining stuff like this is what Bill Clinton lived for. Just think back to that Clintonian love of factoids, that congenial explanation of the benefits that you, the listener, will directly receive, that enthusiastic drive to get you to share the president's love of policy minutiae. Clinton was great at this stuff because, whatever else he was, he was a man of the people. He understood (as Bush does) the benefit of a barrier-free market that might leave, say, Dubai Ports World providing services to American harbors. And he knew that populist panics are stupid and almost always wrong. But unlike Bush, he realized that populist panics come from deep within people's hearts, and that you have to respect that. (It just sweetens the deal that this time the populist panic is being driven by another Clinton, that Around the Way Girl in the Yankees cap who always has her finger firmly up the ass on the pulse of the Average American.)
Will Bush weather this storm? All signs say yes: A PR machine that can turn Sunday's The Vice President had "one beer" and then shot a guy story into Wednesday's Why is the media picking on the Vice President and why hasn't the guy who was shot apologized already story can do pretty much anything. Allahu Akbar, DPW! Welcome to our ports!
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Osama bin Laden Used John Kerry's Talking Points
9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden may have borrowed some of Sen. John Kerry's talking points for the audiotaped message he released on Thursday - veteran CBS newsman Bob Schieffer said Saturday.
Asked whether bin Laden had expressed "almost the same" sentiments that Kerry did during an appearance on Schieffer's "Face the Nation" broadcast in December, the CBS anchorman told WABC Radio's Mark Simone: "Well, he did. That's exactly right."
Back then, Kerry complained to Schieffer: "There is no reason that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids."
In his message, bin Laden also complained that the U.S. was terrorizing Iraqi innocents, saying that "the oppressive measures adopted by the U.S. Army and its agents" show "there is no difference between this criminality and Saddam's criminality, as it has reached the degree of raping women and taking them as hostages instead of their husbands."
Schieffer said he wasn't sure whether bin Laden was consciously borrowing from Kerry, but he added it was possible.
"You can never know about things like that," he told Simone. "But these people seem to have tremendous access. And television being what it is, and now with satellites and so forth, these things go all over the world. Perhaps he did."
9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden may have borrowed some of Sen. John Kerry's talking points for the audiotaped message he released on Thursday - veteran CBS newsman Bob Schieffer said Saturday.
Asked whether bin Laden had expressed "almost the same" sentiments that Kerry did during an appearance on Schieffer's "Face the Nation" broadcast in December, the CBS anchorman told WABC Radio's Mark Simone: "Well, he did. That's exactly right."
Back then, Kerry complained to Schieffer: "There is no reason that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids."
In his message, bin Laden also complained that the U.S. was terrorizing Iraqi innocents, saying that "the oppressive measures adopted by the U.S. Army and its agents" show "there is no difference between this criminality and Saddam's criminality, as it has reached the degree of raping women and taking them as hostages instead of their husbands."
Schieffer said he wasn't sure whether bin Laden was consciously borrowing from Kerry, but he added it was possible.
"You can never know about things like that," he told Simone. "But these people seem to have tremendous access. And television being what it is, and now with satellites and so forth, these things go all over the world. Perhaps he did."
Saturday, July 30, 2005
Sharpton: Stop Blind Support of Dems
Former Democratic presidential candidate Al Sharpton blasted blacks Thursday for what he described as their blind support of the Democratic Party without demanding anything in return.
Sharpton, during his remarks at the National Urban League's annual conference in Washington, noted that his fellow Democrats, including former President Bill Clinton, have taken African-American voters for granted and failed to act in the best interests of the black community.
"The whole network of incarceration (of African-American men) happened under this president and the last president. So it wasn't just George Bush. Bill Clinton - I wish Hillary had hung around - Bill Clinton built a lot of jails and passed the omnibus crime bill," Sharpton said shortly after Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, had addressed the same panel discussion, entitled "The Black Male: Endangered Species or Hope for the Future?"
Sharpton noted that African-American men make up 6 percent of the U.S. population but 44 percent of the nation's prison population.
"And just because Bill can sing "Amazing Grace" well doesn't mean the omnibus crime bill was not a bill that hurt our people," Sharpton told the several hundred people gathered at the Washington Convention Center.
Clinton enjoyed significant African-American support and was affectionately referred to by many in the black community as America's "first black president."
"We must stop allowing people to gain politically from us if they're not reciprocating when dealing and being held accountable," said Sharpton, referring to the allegiance that African-American voters maintain to the Democratic Party.
Sharpton said many politicians who court the black vote "come by and get our votes 'cause they wave at us on Sunday morning while the choir's singing. And we act like that is reaching out."
The problem is these same politicians "never addressed why they sit here in Washington with an epidemic proportion of HIV AIDS in our (black) community, unemployment in our community and they do nothing to deal with eliminating those problems," Sharpton explained.
"Imagine me going to a convention of whites who half of them were unemployed and I smiled, waved, sing a hymn and leave. They would whip me in the parking lot before [I left]," he said to laughter and applause.
"As long as we allow people to get elected off of us and deliver nothing to us, then part of our problem is that we have such low political self esteem," he said. "Every time we give them support for no support, we add to the marginalization of black men."
Sharpton said the situation has "gotten so bad that we hold black leaders accountable and give white leaders a pass."
'People emulate what they see'
Sharpton also took aim at black popular culture. Noting that in some U.S. cities, black male unemployment exceeds 50 percent, Sharpton said black music and movies only aggravate the situation.
"We come out in response to that with movies like (the 2005) "Hustle and Flow" and tell our kids that the personification of black men is a black pimp of a white prostitute that wants to be a rapper who shoots the rapper and at the end of the movie, [a] black woman he had as his prostitute has his baby and the white prostitute becomes the head of the record company and makes the money while he's in jail. That don't make sense," Sharpton said to applause.
"People emulate what they see ...We cannot succumb to a generation that acts like it's all right to celebrate being down. It's one thing to be down, it's another thing to celebrate being down," he explained.
Referring to gangster rappers, Sharpton said, "We've gone from 'black and proud' to groups now calling themselves "Niggers with an attitude."
Sharpton told the panel discussion of how he has confronted rappers about their lyrics only to be told that the rappers simply "reflect the times." Sharpton said black art and culture used to project its "hopes for the future."
"In slavery we wasn't singing, 'you a low down cotton pickin ho.' That would've reflected the times," he said to more laughter and applause.
"In the civil rights era, we sang "We shall overcome" we didn't sing 'You in the back of the bus, got gum on your show, no good MF.' I mean we've been down before. We never romanticized it and put melody to it and acted like it was all right," he added.
Sharpton concluded his discussion with a call for the black community to help itself and return churches to "the center of our community."
"Even if we [are] not responsible for being down, we [are] responsible for getting up," he said. "And if we wait on those who knocked us down to lift us up we'll never get up 'cause if they wanted us up we would have never been down," he said.
Former Democratic presidential candidate Al Sharpton blasted blacks Thursday for what he described as their blind support of the Democratic Party without demanding anything in return.
Sharpton, during his remarks at the National Urban League's annual conference in Washington, noted that his fellow Democrats, including former President Bill Clinton, have taken African-American voters for granted and failed to act in the best interests of the black community.
"The whole network of incarceration (of African-American men) happened under this president and the last president. So it wasn't just George Bush. Bill Clinton - I wish Hillary had hung around - Bill Clinton built a lot of jails and passed the omnibus crime bill," Sharpton said shortly after Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, had addressed the same panel discussion, entitled "The Black Male: Endangered Species or Hope for the Future?"
Sharpton noted that African-American men make up 6 percent of the U.S. population but 44 percent of the nation's prison population.
"And just because Bill can sing "Amazing Grace" well doesn't mean the omnibus crime bill was not a bill that hurt our people," Sharpton told the several hundred people gathered at the Washington Convention Center.
Clinton enjoyed significant African-American support and was affectionately referred to by many in the black community as America's "first black president."
"We must stop allowing people to gain politically from us if they're not reciprocating when dealing and being held accountable," said Sharpton, referring to the allegiance that African-American voters maintain to the Democratic Party.
Sharpton said many politicians who court the black vote "come by and get our votes 'cause they wave at us on Sunday morning while the choir's singing. And we act like that is reaching out."
The problem is these same politicians "never addressed why they sit here in Washington with an epidemic proportion of HIV AIDS in our (black) community, unemployment in our community and they do nothing to deal with eliminating those problems," Sharpton explained.
"Imagine me going to a convention of whites who half of them were unemployed and I smiled, waved, sing a hymn and leave. They would whip me in the parking lot before [I left]," he said to laughter and applause.
"As long as we allow people to get elected off of us and deliver nothing to us, then part of our problem is that we have such low political self esteem," he said. "Every time we give them support for no support, we add to the marginalization of black men."
Sharpton said the situation has "gotten so bad that we hold black leaders accountable and give white leaders a pass."
'People emulate what they see'
Sharpton also took aim at black popular culture. Noting that in some U.S. cities, black male unemployment exceeds 50 percent, Sharpton said black music and movies only aggravate the situation.
"We come out in response to that with movies like (the 2005) "Hustle and Flow" and tell our kids that the personification of black men is a black pimp of a white prostitute that wants to be a rapper who shoots the rapper and at the end of the movie, [a] black woman he had as his prostitute has his baby and the white prostitute becomes the head of the record company and makes the money while he's in jail. That don't make sense," Sharpton said to applause.
"People emulate what they see ...We cannot succumb to a generation that acts like it's all right to celebrate being down. It's one thing to be down, it's another thing to celebrate being down," he explained.
Referring to gangster rappers, Sharpton said, "We've gone from 'black and proud' to groups now calling themselves "Niggers with an attitude."
Sharpton told the panel discussion of how he has confronted rappers about their lyrics only to be told that the rappers simply "reflect the times." Sharpton said black art and culture used to project its "hopes for the future."
"In slavery we wasn't singing, 'you a low down cotton pickin ho.' That would've reflected the times," he said to more laughter and applause.
"In the civil rights era, we sang "We shall overcome" we didn't sing 'You in the back of the bus, got gum on your show, no good MF.' I mean we've been down before. We never romanticized it and put melody to it and acted like it was all right," he added.
Sharpton concluded his discussion with a call for the black community to help itself and return churches to "the center of our community."
"Even if we [are] not responsible for being down, we [are] responsible for getting up," he said. "And if we wait on those who knocked us down to lift us up we'll never get up 'cause if they wanted us up we would have never been down," he said.
