The Students spoke, and the University listened. University of Missouri President Tim Wolfe has now resigned.
This resignation comes after several racially-charged incidents occurred at the university.
Just recently in September, the president of the MSA spokeon his Facebook pageabout how he was called racial slurs while all he was doing was walking across campus.
“I really just want to know why my simple existence is such a threat to society,” said Peyton Head, president of the Missouri Students Association and member of Alpha Phi Alpha® Fraternity, Inc., the first historically black collegiate social Greek-letter organization.
Well Mr. Head, the state of Missouri has awell known history of racism, so your simple existence being such a threat has a very simple answer.
Bred racism.
This history was seemingly solidified by what occurred at the beginning of the following month when Legion of Black Collegians members were called the N-word while rehearsing for the school’s yearly homecoming festivities.
Think that was bad?
Almost three (3) weeks later, a swastika, the symbol best known for its symbolism of the hate and genocide of over 6M Jews carried out by the German Nazi Party under the direction of Adolph Hitler; arguably one of the most hated men in earth’s history, was drawn with human feces at a university residence hall.
That was the last straw for Student Jonathan Butler, a member of the historically black Greek-letter organization Phi Beta Sigma® Fraternity, Inc.
This prompted him todeclare a hunger strikeuntil Missouri President Tim Wolfe resigned for what he felt was the the lack of an appropriate response by the university.
A meeting with Butler and some Missouri football team members pushed the envelope even farther when they decided to join in Butler’s solidarity and declared that theywould not play another gameuntil the university President vacated his position.
Pressure mounted on Mr. Wolfe, as time passed and the story grew on social media and eventually reached the mainstream media.
Today, that pressure finally became too heavy for the university president to push to the side any longer.
Needless to say, today, for those who haven’t noticed, minorities nationwide are no longer sitting or laying down and taking racism, and the resignation of this university President is a large piece of positive symbolism of that.
Today, Butler’s hunger strike ended and Missouri football resumed.
Moral of the story: Don’t mess with Missouri football or a man willing to endure pain for his principles. Your ancestors are proud of you, Mr. Butler, at least we strongly believe so.
We have to completely agree with Floyd Mayweather, Jr.
He’s the best fighter, ever.
Now, I’m a huge Floyd Mayweather, Jr. fan. We don’t hide that at all. However…
…I’m a much bigger fan of the truth, and whether his opponents were bigger or smaller, faster or slower, younger or older, more experienced or less experienced, champions or contenders, he not only beat them, but he beat them with an almost +30% average connect percentage.
That’s unprecedented truth.
Half the time, after the fight, he didn’t even look like he’d just been in a professional boxing match! That’s because, simply put, he was better than everyone who entered the ring to fight him, period.
He was so much better to where out of 69 judges’ scorecards, he only ever lost on one (1).
That’s more unprecedented truth.
Look at his ‘loss, draw, no contest’ record in comparison to these current and future Hall of Famers:
Floyd Mayweather, Jr. – 0 losses, 0 draws, 0 no contests
Sonny Liston – 4 losses
Robert Duran – 16 losses
Muhammad Ali – 5 losses
Diego Corrales – 5 losses
George Foreman – 5 losses
Félix Trinidad, Jr. – 3 losses
Oscar Dela Hoya – 6 losses
Joe Frazier – 4 losses, 1 draw
Ray Leonard – 3 losses, 1 draw
Lennox Lewis – 2 losses, 1 draw
Floyd Patterson – 8 losses, 1 draw
Miguel Cotto – 4 losses (still fighting)
Hector Camacho – 6 losses, 3 draws
Mike Tyson – 6 losses, 2 no contests
Genaro Hernández – 2 losses, 1 draw
Julio César Chávez, Sr. – 6 losses, 2 draws
Jack Dempsy – 6 losses, 11 draws, 1 no contest
Pernell Whitaker – 4 losses, 1 draw, 1 no contest
James Toney – 10 losses, 3 draws, 3 no contests
Manny Pacquiao – 6 losses, 2 draws (still fighting)
Ray Robinson – 19 losses, 6 draws, 2 no contests
Rocky Marciano – 0 losses, 0 draws, 0 no contests
Jack Johnson – 13 losses, 10 draws, 5 no contests
Evander Holyfield – 10 losses, 2 draws, 1 no contest
Juan Manuel Marquez – 7 losses, 1 draw (still fighting)
Roy Jones, Jr. – 8 losses, 1 disqualification (still fighting)
Bernard Hopkins – 7 losses, 2 draws, 2 no contests (still fighting)
As you can see, Rocky Marciano is the only universally considered ‘great fighter’ to hold the exact same record as Mayweather (49 wins, 0 losses, 0 draws, 0 no contests), but with one significant difference.
Marciano got routinely pummeled in the ring, whereas Mayweather will probably go on to be universally considered the best defensive fighter of all time.
But he’s more than that.
In the age of constant entertainment, Mayweather has the top four (4) highest grossing pay-per-view boxing matches in history.
He is the first boxer to ever make over 9 figures in one fight in history.
He secured the most lucrative deal in boxing history.
He has made over $700M in his boxing career, more than any other boxer in history, and is the highest paid athlete in the world three (3) years running.
But he’s more than that. Much more.
We all know that greatness in boxing is more than your record, more than those statistics above, and more than money. However, if Floyd Mayweather, Jr….
Has been in the sport of boxing professionally for 19 years and has been World Champion 18 of them…
Has beaten more world champions than anyone else…
Has tied the best professional record of all time…
Has the highest hitting to the lowest getting-hit percentage in boxing history…
Has the highest accuracy percentage in the biggest career fights in history (which means he gets better as the competition gets stronger)…
…then it’s pretty hard to argue against those historical facts and statistics. Yet, we don’t think casual boxing fans care about that, and that has led us to one conclusion:
We are now convinced that Floyd Mayweather, Jr. has reached Christian Laettner levels of hate. And the $3.5M Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse he just bought simply added fuel to the hatred fire.
If you don’t know who Christian Laettner is, then you’re probably not a college basketball fan, at least not a Duke University one (or one of its rivals).
Christian Laettner was so hated by the fans that it was scary. Why he was hated was not scary. It was Mayweather-ish, at least record-wise:
His freshman year, Laettner took his team to the Final Four®.
His sophomore year, his team went farther and finished as the runner up.
His junior year, they won the NCAA® Championship.
His senior year, they became repeat champions.
So, out of 24 total NCAA® Tournament games, he played in 23 of them and won 21 of them. Those are both NCAA® records.
Oh, you think that’s all? Not even close. Just look at his college basketball statistics from his Wikipedia page:
“For his career Laettner averaged 16.6 points and 7.8 rebounds per game while making almost half of his three-pointers. He scored 21.5 points per game his senior season, garnering every major national player of the year award; Duke retired his No. 32 jersey later that year. His career is widely regarded among the best in college history, and he is enshrined in the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.”
On top of that, he looked like the quintessential All-American:
Extremely handsome kid.
Looked like he was from a financially-privileged background (even though he is from a working-class background, but perception trumped reality).
All of the women on campus absolutely adored him, he just knew that he was the best in the college basketball game.
And he had probably the most successful college basketball career of all time.
If that wasn’t enough to make you hate him, in ESPN’s 30-for-30 Documentary, ironically entitled, “I Hate Christian Laettner,” his teammates spoke about how he used to taunt them in the locker room, especially Duke point-guard Bobby Hurley, which was more a kin to torture than taunting.
When your teammates hate you, you’re one of the top 10 greatest college players of all time, and you’re both getting to the Final Four® and winning multiple championships, that says a lot about you as a person, both good and bad. Take a look for yourself:
So why do we believe that Floyd Mayweather, Jr. has now reached Christian Laetner levels of hate?
Simply because, like Laettner in the college basketball arena, he played the villain and the boxing game, in and out of the ring, too good for too long.
If you’re too good and too cocky in the eyes of the masses, and then you stay there for an extended period of time, those same masses will initially cheer you, but eventually want to see you somehow, someway ‘humbled.’
Both fortunately and unfortunately, Laettner and Mayweather fit this mold all too well.
People hated and loved Muhammad Ali, but decades later he is almost universally beloved. People hated and loved Martin Luther King, Jr., but decades later there is a holiday in his honor. However…
…although Christian Laettner played college basketball for Duke University from 1988-1992 and was one of the best to ever do it, he was universally hated then and still is to this day, and in that realm is where we believe he and Floyd Mayweather, Jr. will be symbiotically bonded for life.
20 years from now, there will be an appreciation for the genius of Floyd Mayweather, Jr., the champion. However…
…there will be no love for Floyd Mayweather, Jr., the man. There will be no holiday for the best fighter ever. For from the sound of his name will once again rise the memories of this current hatred, fueled by the once-in-a-lifetime greatness for which he will forever be imprisoned.
This past Tuesday was the first Democratic Party Candidate ‘Fight Night’ of the 2016 Presidential campaign season, and did you notice something really obvious?
Presidential Candidate Larry “The Professor” Lessig wasn’t in the ring.
Wait, you didn’t notice that?
Oh, it was probably because you didn’t know who he was or that he was even running, you know, since his name was taken off of the fight undercard; the list of candidates for pollsters to give to the people they were polling around the country.
That was definitely not by accident.
Since the controversial and political-campaign-changingCitizens United ruling, money has increasingly become the primary determining factor politically of which direction to go and what corporate decisions will and won’t be made.
Although he fit every criteria that was required of him to be included, Lessig was excluded from the Democratic Presidential Debate by the very entity that made the rules.
CNN®.
That decision to keep the Harvard Professor from the debate seems to have been a calculated one based solely in money and power.
To understand this rationale, you have to first know and understand what candidate Larry Lessig’s entire campaign is about, and it’s rather simple:
Get money out of politics.
Secondly, you then have to methodically follow the Citizens United corporate-money-to-political-campaigns breadcrumbs.
THE GAME CHANGER
Since SCOTUS’ infamous 2010 Citizens United ruling, money in politics has become a severely corrupting, democracy-crippling force, so much so to where even if “We, The People” don’t want a candidate, they can stay in the race as long as they have a multi-millionaire/billionaire donor.
So essentially one (1) person can fund a massively-unwanted candidate’s entire political campaign. This is done through what’s known as aSuper PAC.
No, I’m not kidding. One single, solitary person, and “We, The People” be da#@!d. That’s power (Did your head explode yet?).
Now I know what you’re thinking:
How do the voices of democracy break through the millions of dollars from multi-millionaire and billionaire donors?
DING, DING, DING, DING! That’s Professor Lessig’s entire point. How do the severely-muffled voices of millions of people compete with the bullhorn-powered millions of dollars?
In today’s money-saturated, political America, there seems to be no way for that voice to compete. No way for that voice to break through, which leaves only one option:
Have the money completely removed from politics.
This, however, can only be done one way temporarily and another way pretty much permanently.
The Supreme Court of the United States overturns the Citizens United Ruling (temporarily).
Since the passing of the infamous Citizens United ruling, companies have been making record political-based profits and entities have been bringing in record amounts of political donations from two things:
The massive increase in ad buys on their television stations and websites (CNN® anyone?)
The passing of court rulings and congressional laws that are more favorable to corporations financially, passed by the very politicians who just so happened to have corporations donating millions of dollars to their campaign-supported Super PACs (Republican and Democratic Parties anyone?).
These corporations and political entities in America work together directly and indirectly for a single purpose.
Money.
Just look at what has happened in the past 32 years to the “objectiveness” of the media:
The laws being passed over the past 32 years that financially-favor corporations have allowed this power consolidation and inevitable control of our media and elected officials to be placed in the hands of a handful of conglomerates, owned by an even smaller handful of billionaires.
So it begs to reason that if your singular focus is to get rid of the pile of corporate money on which the American political and ‘news’ systems are run, then that is a bad thing for the corporations that run them and the politicians that receive enormous amounts of money from them, wouldn’t you think?
Hence, the dismissal of Lessig by both CNN® and the Democratic Party.
THE UNLIKELY CONTENDER
Unfortunately for those same two entities, Lessig isn’t the only one on the Democratic side of the Presidential Candidate isle talking about the corruption of politics through skewed, immoral capitalism and private campaign donations.
There is another contender, and he’s hungry. He’s Rocky Balboa to current national front-runner Hillary Clinton’s Apollo Creed.
(*Clearing my throat…) “At 74 years young, standing at 5’8″, hailing from Burlington, Vermont, the former 4-Term Mayor, former 8-Term Representative, and current 2-Term U.S. Senator, he is…the Independent Socialist with the Mostalist…Bernie “Feel the Beeeeeeeeeeern” Sanders!“
*And the 19,000-attendee Portland, OR crowd goes wild!*
The question is: Is Sanders Rocky Balboa from the 1stRockywho just wanted to go the distance with Creed, or is he Rocky fromRocky IIwho told his trainer in the corner, “I ain’t goin’ down no more“?
It is increasingly looking like the latter. However…
…just like Lessig, he is up against a juggernaut of corporate conglomerates who have poured massive amounts of money into the party for which he’s running for the Presidential nomination, and neither are going to make it easy for him.
They’re attempting to marginalize him at every turn. Check it out:
However, they really didn’t do their homework on this contender. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders brings a long-held arsenal of political punches to the ring;
A strong women’s rights jab
A straight education reform right hand
A foreign policy left to the mid-section
A right to the economic and political corruption body
A racial justice check left hook
And a right income and wealth inequality uppercut.
His strongest punch is his uppercut, but he also throws a hard right to the body, the same as Lessig.
Without Lessig in the debate, it would be left up to Senator Sanders to make it into the ring so he could throw verbal blows all night at his ‘corporatist Democratic opponent’ Hillary “Apollo Creed” Clinton.
He could throw verbal blow after verbal blow about how the corrupting of the democratic process (due in part to the money from her wealthy donors) has severely weakened the nation’s middle and lower economic classes.
Fortunately for us, but unfortunately for the CEO of Time Warner (CNN’s parent company)Robert D. Marcusand the Democratic Party (to which I wouldn’t doubt they’ve monetarily donated), there was no legitimate or viable way to keep Sanders out of the debate.
This was due to his very high poll numbers achieved months before the debates were even announced, which cut them off before they could even try to kick him out.
Lessig was not so lucky.
Allowing Lessig’s singular-issue-focused voice into the debates would have highlighted, on a national scale (15M people watched the debate…a Democratic debate record, by the way), the biggest, most important problem in current electoral politics:
Legal bribery.
As Cenk Uygur would say, “It’s the money, Lebowski!“
Sadly, even with Senator Sanders fighting hard, building coalitions, garnering massive support, raising record amounts of money from small donors, and ultimately being allowed in the debates (to date), he’s up against the same ‘powers that be’ in the Democratic Party that have allowed donating individuals and corporations to corrupt the political process.
THE POLITICALCORRUPTION EFFECT
Take House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), for example.
On one of the October 12th segments of The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, she said something that was arguably much more damaging to the political process thanwhat House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy saidabout Hillary Clinton and the House Select Committee on Benghazi.
I was absolutely stunned when I watched her say it, so much so to where I rewound it several times. Yet, no one seemed to even pay attention, let along care about its seeming implications:
“Now I think we have all good candidates running on the Democratic side . Any one of them would be a good President, but, in this field, Hillary Clinton is the person who will be our nominee.”
I’m sorry Leader Pelosi, I generally like you and all, but did the 2016 Democratic National Convention already pass and I missed it?
No, it didn’t.
Notice how she didn’t preface it with an “I believe she will be the nominee”? And no. In no way did she sound like she was guessing the outcome.
She just seemed to have one of those rare truthful politician moments and made what used to be called a gaffe (which no one has seemed to even notice), but now has become something easily overlooked because the corruption and ‘illusion of choice’ has been placed right in front of our faces due to Citizens United.
So what did her words mean exactly?
Something very simple. The political classes, who are now ruled by the money from corporations, are not interested in what you as a citizen think.
They’re not interested in what or who you want. They’re seemingly and simply trying to control what you think because they already have who they want.
So, they’re just letting you go through the motions so you can think you’re choosing someone and actually feel good about illusion. Yes, choice has become an illusion. Wait…
Speaking of illusions, we all know that Hillary Clinton is the establishment candidate and, although currently a U.S. Senator, her closest rival Bernie Sanders is not.
After Tuesday night’s 1st Democratic Presidential debate, look at how the so-called news organizations judged the first debate (REMEMBER: 90% of all media in America is owned by only six [6] corporate entities):
Now compare that to actual people who were in focus groups around the country who, unlike corporations, will actually be voting. Lookat who the people feel won the debate:
The pattern is simple and clear. Corporations = Hillary. “We, The People” = Bernie.
Unfortunately, because studies have shown that the amount of media coverage affects election polling and six (6) corporations control 90% of the ‘news’ you see in America, all of the ‘news’ outlets seem to be in lockstep with who they ‘think’ won the debate.
It just so happens that their ‘winner’ is the establishment candidate who’s taking their presidential campaign donations (Hillary Clinton) and not the non-establishment candidate who isn’t (Bernie Sanders). So it makes one wonder:
Are we even watching real news?
Which brings me back to CNN®.
CORRUPT SYSTEM PROTECTION PLAN: EXECUTE!
In a genius business move, CNN® removed Larry Lessig not only from the debate, but from the national polls.
In order to protect their future monetary windfalls, they seem to have taken a gamble that Lessig didn’t have a big enough following yet to cause a large enough uproar; an uproar that would more than likely have forced them to do something similar to what they had to do for Republican Presidential Candidate Carly Fiorina, which was give her a non-existent slot on the main Republican debate stage.
You’re probably thinking, “Wait, isn’t Carly Fiorina like a deeply-ingrained part of the corporate and political establishment?“
Yes she is, no doubt. However, she’s also a woman, and to push a man out of a slot for a woman is a no-no in the male-dominated, corporate and political worlds.
So, they just circumvented their own debate entry rules (just like they did Lessig, but in reverse) and scooted one man over and slid her right in there. So, instead of the so-called limit of 10, it became the stage of 11.
(*Robert De Niro voice…) “What debate entry rules? I don’t see no stinkin’ debate entry rules!“
Which brings me to the number 12.
Could 12-time Boxing Champion Floyd “Money” Mayweather, Jr. even beat the corporate and political odds Lessig is up against? Well, now that I think about it, of course HE could. Didn’t you see his middle name?
Money.
So, as a guy worth hundreds of millions of dollars, yes, Mayweather would beat the corporate and political odds, and easily…again…all because he fits into the same monetary bracket of the individuals and entities who/that control the political and economic systems in America.
Unfortunately, CNN® and the Democratic National Committee were 100% correct in their gamble against contender Lawrence “Larry” Lessig, who is worth considerably less, at least to this point. Think about it:
Have you heard any mainstream, viral outrage about Lessig not being allowed in the debate, even though he has secured all of the necessary criteria to do so?
Exactly.
Game. Set. (Fixed) match. A tennis reference, I know, but if it fits, then you must equip.
On the same day of the 20th Anniversary Celebration of the Million Man March, the 2-second killing of a 12-year-young black boy by a white police officer is deemed “reasonable.”
How long? Too long. How many? Too many.
On Saturday, October 10, 2015, reports from retired FBI agent Kimberly Crawford and Denver prosecutor Lamar Sims, two ‘use-of-force’ experts, stated that, although tragic, the shooting of Tamir Rice, in essence, made sense.
“There can be no doubt that Rice’s death was tragic and, indeed, when one considers his age, heartbreaking. However, I conclude that Officer Loehmann’s belief that Rice posed a threat of serious physical harm or death was objectively reasonable as was his response to that perceived threat,” stated Sims.
Objectively reasonable?
As an at-risk youth advocate who is trying to positively change the path of so many boys of color within struggling communities, what do I say to this?
How can I change their lives if they have no life left within their bodies due to “objectively reasonable” death by a white cop at as young as age 12, in a park, next to a picnic table?
If that doesn’t show you the state of America regarding race relations and the justice system, then what will?
Just look at the older white woman in the photo above.
The disdain with which she’s seemingly looking at Tamir and the person taking the photo is simply a visual manifestation of what has unfortunately become increasingly apparent in the U.S., yet also fortunate due to the inherent racism, bigotry, and injustice in this country finally ‘coming out of the closet.’
In recent years, people of color have been increasingly getting harassed and/or killed by white police officers at alarming rates.
The officer who shot Tamir Rice, a 12-year-young black boy, was Timothy Loehmann, 26-year-young white man, and, if you know anything about Timothy Loehmann, it is that, in the realm of law enforcement, he is anything but “objectively reasonable.”
During training at his previous job with the Independence police department in Ohio, Loehmann was described by IPD’s Deputy Chief Jim Polak (in a letter dated Nov. 29, 2012 that was in Loehmann’s personnel file) as being “distracted” and “weepy,” not being able to follow simple directions, not being able to communicate clear thoughts nor recollections, and having a “dismal” handgun performance record.
So tell me: How can one believe that a police officer with that history can somehow be ‘objective’ in his/her reasoning?
In that same Nov. 29th letter, the Deputy Chief concluded, “I do not believe time, nor training, will be able to change or correct the deficiencies” and recommended that the department part ways with Loehmann. Yet…
…16 months later, he was hired on in Cleveland, OH as a patrolman without the City of Cleveland even looking at his previous poor job performance reviews from the Independence police department.
So, what, his history doesn’t count when it comes to ‘use-of-force’? Recommendations from his superiors don’t count when it comes to ‘use-of-force’?
That’s ironic, seeing as though the minute a person of color is killed, the first thing that seems to be pushed in the media is their history, and usually mainly the negative side of it, no matter how minute. However…
…here we have an officer who was clearly not qualified for a job with this level of pressure and responsibility. Yet…
…that prior understanding and discussion didn’t seem to come into play when it came to judging his decision to shoot 12-year-young Tamir Rice.
This ‘killing by cop’ was a drop in the bucket of a long-list of killings in recent years of people of color by white police officers, be they in compliance of so-called ‘lawful police orders’ or not.
These killings have been largely considered race-based and not criminal-based by the masses within the race being killed, but seemingly the opposite within the race of the individual cops doing the killings.
With this particular incident, one can argue that this was not a case of racism, but simply a case of incompetence, and they could be right. However…
…how Loehmann saw 12-year-young Tamir Rice as “…um, black male, maybe 20…”in supposedly an‘open carry’ state, yet shot him within literally 2 seconds of pulling up to him, seems to speak for itself.
It supports the long-held, proven belief of police officers, especially white officers, seeing people of color as a bigger threat than we actually may be.
Isn’t that inherently racist?
Yet, here we are talking about how independent ‘use-of-force’ experts for the police department have found this killing, which is based in that underlying racism, “objectively reasonable.”
How can relationships between police officers, prosecutors, judges, just the entire justice system improve if, whenever a situation occurs that places them in a negative light, it turns from the justice system to the just-us system; them closing ranks and immediately protecting their own, even when their own is guilty of something so heinous?
So, to them, who did it was ‘Tamir Rice, with the (toy) gun, in the park,’ and not ‘Timothy Loehmann, with the (real) gun, half-way hanging out of the police car.‘
Maybe that’s why it’s been so increasingly easy for cops to kill black people recently, because they deem killing ‘Any Random Person of Color, with the Dark Skin, on U.S. Soil‘ a game, with ‘death by cop’ being a “reasonable” play, strategically.