BOBBEE BEE: Crocodile Tears: It was the CIA that helped jail Nelson Mandela

By Brian Becker

This article was published in July 2013

Today is Nelson Mandela’s 95th birthday, but forget the crocodile tears from the U.S. government about Mandela’s poor health. Imperialist diplomacy with all of its sugar-coated phrases is nothing more than a form of historical perjury.

Nelson Mandela’s arrest in 1962, which led to 18 of his 27 years of imprisonment on Robbins Island, was based on the work of the CIA.

The CIA and National Security Agency worked as partners with the racist, apartheid regime’s vicious military and intelligence services.

Mandela was a leader of the African National Congress (ANC) that organized civil resistance and an armed struggle against South Africa’s white racist apartheid regime.

The United States and the other western capitalist governments supported the racist, fascist apartheid regime.

Mandela was labeled a terrorist by the United States.

So was the entire ANC.



Even as late as 2008 the U.S. State Department had to pass special waivers so that Mandela or any ANC leader could visit the United States because he and the ANC were still on the “terrorist watch list.”

The ANC’s struggle for Black majority rule and the liquidation of apartheid received critical support from Cuba, the Soviet Union and other socialist countries.

The ANC had an active alliance with South African Communist Party in the struggle for Black majority rule.

Even after the fall of the apartheid government ANC members applying for visas to the USA were flagged for questioning and forced to ask for waivers to enter the country. Former ANC chairman Tokyo Sexwale was denied a visa in 2002.

In an act of shameless duplicity, the various leaders of the U.S. imperialist government have pretended that they were always opposed to Mandela’s imprisonment.

 

In 2007, Barbara Masekela, South Africa’s ambassador to the United States until the year prior was denied a visa to visit a dying cousin living in the United States.

U.S. Imperialism was the enemy of African Liberation

The CIA and NSA spy services—with the full collaboration of such transnational corporations at IBM,  Kodak and many others—worked at all levels and for decades for apartheid and against the African National Congress activists who were routinely murdered, tortured and sentenced to life terms in the hell holes of South Africa.

The ANC was labeled and treated as a terrorist organization and pro-communist by the CIA and successive U.S. administrations, Democratic and Republican alike.

Congress, too, was an enthusiastic cheerleader for this vile partnership with the planet’s most disgustingly racist regime.

The House of Representatives only voted to call for Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in 1986 when it was clear that the fascist apartheid regime’s days were numbered, leading the United States and Britain to abruptly shift course and broker a negotiated end to the white supremacist system.

A mass worldwide anti-apartheid movement had completely isolated South Africa.

Dick Cheney voted against the House resolution in 1986, pointing out that the U.S. government was still retaining the ANC on the official  U.S. “terrorist list.”

The U.S. and Britain knew the end had finally come for the usefulness of the apartheid government when its seemingly invincible military was decisively defeated by the Angolan army and thousands of Cuban volunteers in the historic battle of Cuito Canavale.

As Mandela said, “When Africa called, Cuba answered.”

Shameless duplicity

In an act of shameless duplicity, once Mandela was released from prison, each successive U.S. administration  has pretended that the United States was always opposed to Mandela’s imprisonment and stood with him against apartheid.

After getting out of prison, Mandela came to the United States to meet President George H.W. Bush on June 25, 1990. He was being touted as a hero and a champion in the fight against racism.

The U.S. government, working through propagandists in the corporate-owned media, tried to instill a society-wide case of amnesia about the fact that they were the defenders of apartheid and directly responsible for Mandela’s imprisonment.

But one reporter had the gall to ask an unscripted question.

Bush’s press secretary, Marlin Fitzwater, was asked in the days before the June 25 meeting with Bush whether the president would apologize to Mandela for the U.S. role in his arrest.

Fitzwater was angry and caught off guard. He said, “I just don’t like it when people question our motives on blacks or on Mandela because of an incident that happened 20 years ago in another administration.”

Today, on Mandela’s 95th birthday and when the U.S. government celebrates Mandela, will any of the corporate media expose the bloody role of the CIA, NSA and other U.S. intelligence services in their war against the African liberation movements?

Nelson Mandela is a beacon for the oppressed. He is a hero and he will be remembered as such. Not true for the CIA and NSA which worked as the spy service for the racist, apartheid regime as it hunted down and captured Mandela and captured or killed his comrades.

BOBBEE BEE: “The Role and Influence of Environmental and Cultural Factors on the Academic Performance of African American Males"

" 76% of black boys in the Baltimore public schools never make it to high school graduation"

By Pedro A. Noguera, Ph.D, a professor in the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University

In many school districts throughout the United States, Black males are more likely than any other group to be suspended and expelled from school. From 1973 to 1977 there was a steady increase in African-American enrollment in college.

However, since 1977 there has been a sharp and continuous decline, especially among males.

Black males are more likely to be classified as mentally retarded or suffering from a learning disability and placed in special education and more likely to be absent from advanced placement and honors courses.

In contrast to other groups where males commonly perform at higher levels in math and science related courses, the reverse is true for Black males.

Even class privilege and the material benefits that accompany it fail to inoculate Black males from low academic performance.

When compared to their White peers, middleclass African American males lag significantly behind in both grade point average and on standardized tests. It is not surprising that there is a connection between the educational performance of African American males and the hardships they endure within the larger society.

In fact, it would be more surprising if Black males were doing well academically in spite of the broad array of difficulties that confront them.

 

Scholars and researchers commonly understand that environmental and cultural factors have a profound influence upon human behavior, including academic performance.

What is less understood is how environmental and cultural forces influence the way in which Black males come to perceive schooling and how those perceptions influence their behavior and performance in school.



There is considerable evidence that the ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds of students have bearing upon how students are perceived and treated by the adults who work with them within schools.

BOBBEE BEE: UNMASKING THE MIND Rated: R (strong language)

by Dr. Amos Wilson

Suicide is the pre-eminent expression of Black-on-Black violence.

It is the other side of Black-on-Black homicide. Both homicide and suicide are different forms of the collective self-destruction of a race by death. Both actualize a death-wish instigated externally, and executed internally.

Both are assassinations by proxy: victim murdering victim.

Both involve the killing of someone considered expendable, someone lodged between the assailant and some form of settlement or satisfaction.

As in murder, in suicide there is the killer and the victim, the executioner and the executed, the judge and the condemned.

Suicide, like homicide, is dyadic. It is therefore a social act. It is the deadly vectorial outcome of a cataclysmic convergence of socially interactive forces.

As in murder, in suicide killing is always done in public, in the presence of another, whether that other is physically or mentally present and accounted for.

There is always the final judgment without appeal.

Someone’s hopes have been unrealized, someone’s vanity injured, someone’s been mistreated and demands that the ultimate price be paid. Someone must be sacrificed to the need of another, whether that other be inside or outside the skin of the victim.

Both the homicide and the suicide are victims of ideas, sacrifices made to some ideology, some system of values.

Both are attempts to palliate some unbearable hurt or pain, some sickness of the soul.

 
The Black Family, the Black Male and Suicide

The Eurocentric organization of American society is such that its stability depends on the dsyfunctionality and near disorganization of the Black family.

Infected with the germ of self-alienation, self-abnegation, self-misrepresentation, and economic deprivation, the resultant intra-familial conflict often is actualized as various forms of suicide by its young.

African-Americans are the most patriotic of all American ethnic groups-they sacrifice their lives every day for their country. The frequent breaking up of the African American home by many-proned attacks on it by the racist system in which it is embedded, frequently leaves it children without warm, caring, protective and wise parental system with which to identify and with which they can overcome an encroaching sense of emotional and social isolation: a system which can be their ally in their embattled struggle against a hostile world.

For the male child the loss of his father’s love and protection, or his failure to find a worthy substitute as the result of White supremacy’s unrelenting and murderous assault on Black manhood, are most often the apparent stimuli which instigate his committing suicide.

The chronic and over determined negation of African-American males, if not countered by strong Black male egos, may subject them to fits of depression and dejection.

These mood disorders very frequently precipitate suicidal behavior, either directly and swiftly by lethal weapons, substances, and mechanical contrivances, or indirectly and slowly by injurious addictive habits politically-based stress, negative health practices, neglect, and reckless behavior.

The rite of passage through racist white American dominated society is extremely stressful for Black youth. This is more so the case for the Black male since he receives the brunt of the White supremacist attacks against Black America.

Stripped of appropriate male support, guidance, protection, education, and other important coping skills by a white racist system which fears his Afrocentric competence, he is left vulnerable to the thousands of little nicks and burns, physical and psychological insults, which cumulatively push him toward self-annihilation.

Not allowed the privileges and status of full and unfettered manhood by white racist male domination, a significant number of African American males are immaturized or are often led to express their “manhood” in self-destructive ways: in ways harmful to other Black males and the Black community in general. Immaturized by white racist oppression, void of overarching and long-term Afrocentric goals which provide them with maximum and healthy control over their impulses (including impulses to kill themselves) they may commit suicide.

Without Afrocentric self-definition, possessed by an introjected alien identity, and racked by neurotic and psychotic conflict, the Black male readily becomes subject to white racist psychopolitical, psychopathological promptings and persecutions. Consequently, he may come to think that the only effective solution to his problems lie in physical or mental self-abnegation. To be an African-American male in white America is to live with anger and hostility, to feel the need to attack, to violently retaliate to even the score. These murderous feeling without appropriate catharsis, sublimation, channeling, or targets….yet in need of outward expression…are often turned inward resulting in self-annihilation.

White racist American society, harboring a poorly concealed death-wish against its Black captives, generally leaves but a few outlets for the release of societally provoked Black male rage: all inappropriate! They include the abject submission to oppression, narcosis by drugs or religion, deliberate ignorance, unending, unrewarding protests, futile sub rosa grumbling, over-compensatory status striving, criminality, and homicidal attacks on other Black males or on himself (suicide). Having internalized white racist values and attitudes, having been possessed by this introjected white racist demon, the suicidal African American blames his victimized self. Identified with his implanted alien spirit, he harbors a death-wish against the victims of white racist oppression amongst whom he himself is numbered. Looking at the world through jaundiced white racist eyes, he sees the enemy:

And the enemy is himself.

 
Suicide Morality of Black Males

The suicide morality rate reaches its peak in African American males between ages twenty-five to thirty-four and in white males at age sixty-five and over. Homicide and suicide are two of the leading causes of death among young Black males between ages 15 and 24. They are probably the leading causes if “accident-tal” deaths, and the many suicides on the installment plan-addictions, poor health habits, etc. –are included. Thus, Black men kill themselves with their futures ahead of them, and white men when their futures are behind them.

One dies a blossoming in the Spring, the other after the first frosts of Autumn.

Apparently, the young African American suicide is one who has grown old while very young, He has packed all the guilt, failure, shame, fatalism, pain, hopelessness, and cynicism of a lifetime within a life-span of three decades.

Somehow the cavalier optimism of youth and the willful self-confidence of young manhood are dissipated at or before the point of actualization and assumption of their powers to transform the world.

Somehow Black youth and young adults are born into and come early to exist in a different and ominous reality: one that was created for them; one under the control of others. That created “reality” negates, diminishes and saps their will to live, make their lives pointless, an absurdity filled with hitter ironies, a happenstance, a quick stand wherein every effort at self-rescue seems to pull them more rapidly under, and where every branch thrown to a sinking man breaks as he struggles to reach safe ground.

 

That created reality is the handiwork of the introjected white supremacist spirit by which the African-American is possessed, with which he identifies, and with whose eyes he peers out and surveys an alien and wasted landscape which promises him no surcease and which tantalizes him with ever-receding beauteous mirage.

It is that internalized Eurocentric spirit which he misindentifies as his mind and thoughts, his superego and conscience: It is those internalized racist stereotypes speaking inside his head which drive him to murder, to die, to want to be murdered in order quieten their cacophonous chorus. It is that internalized racist spirit unopposed by hope of African triumph, love of African self, self-determined competence and self-confidence and faith, which, taking possession of his body and mind, uses his own hands to take his own life. Black-on-Black suicide is the tail face on a coin on which Black-on-Black is the head face.

Both are welded together by violence. Both represent violent attempts to triumph over hopelessness and despair.



Both represent abject reactionary surrender to what is perceived as an immutable, oppressive ordering of the universe. While the BlacK-on-Black homicidial criminal seeks to triumph through the externalization of murderous aggression, the Black-on-Black suicide victim seeks to triumph through his internalization of murderous aggression.

Both seek to violently cheat destiny as they have been made to see it. Their plan blinds them to other alternatives, obscures obvious, through perilous, pathways through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Free to choose only the wrong things they both choose to murder the wrong persons for the wrong reasons.

Suicide as Displaced Aggression

 

Suicide is a form of displayed aggression. To internalize the white racist spirit is to internalize the White supremacist’s death-wish directed at the African male. When a young Black male commits suicide it is usually a sign that the implanted white racist incubus has executed the order of its archetypal racist masters.It is the introjected white racist superego in black face which mercilessly chastises him for having sinned, and “fallen short of the glory of God” (European man). It is this implanted Euro-centric conscience which threatens him with eternal damnation for having committed the original sin of being born African in America, which derides him for his alleged helplessness and unworthiness:

The same Eurocentric conscience tells him he will never be any good, never succeed on his own terms or otherwise, that he deserves punishment, that he is deservedly the object of hatred and revilement, that he has been cursed by God and sentenced to unending servitude, and that his death would be a favor to the world; tells him that he is unlovable, unprotected, incapable of happiness, unemployable and that his only enemies are himself and the blackness of his skin.

Have internalized the accusative self-serving conscience of his oppressors, the African American suicide victim exaggerates his self-accusation, the hopelessness of his future, his incapability for redemptive transformation.

He considers his situation incorrigible.

His internalized alien spirit screams its recriminations and he masochistically submits to severe feelings of guilt and self-devaluation. It is this spirit which splits his psyche into executor and executed; into the person and depersonalized, judge and condemned. Thus, when he kills he does not kill himself; he kills the “nigger” within.

Through apparent Black-on-Black suicide the white supremacist establishment obscurely pushes on more African toward the Final Solution it plans for all Africans.

The Black victim may think that suicide represents a sort of grim triumph, a having of the last word, the last laugh on his tormentors; that his suicide represents the ultimate protest, the penultimate defiance of the will of his enemies.

Suicide may be his way of refusing to live a life of quiet desperation, of masochistic screaming, and squealing supplication, while fulfilling the sadistic needs of others. Maybe, like his ancestors who voluntarily gave up the ghost during the Middle Passage by jumping overboard to feed the sharks, he sees living the life of a slave as not living life at all. And yet, he must know, or he quickly must be told, that such a triumph, such a hollow victory is pyrrhic, more costly to the “victor” than the vanquished; that it is illusion of overcomance.

How much more heroic to die fighting one’s true enemies than to die fighting false ones; to live five minutes as a man than die forever a coward! For the fight is not against the shadows cast on the walls of one’s mind but with the caster of shadows, the Wicked Witch of The West. “For God gave us not a spirit of cowardice, but that of power and of love and of soundness of mind.” The power of European man over others is the power of deceit, illusion, life and hatred over honestly, reality, truth and love.

Such power cannot last.

BOBBEE BEE: ANGER MANAGEMENT

by Family Therapist Michael Gurian

Some boys get angry a great deal during puberty. It’s their body’s and brain’s way of expressing their hormonal surges and disequilibrium. Boys also can become angry because they model constant anger from a caregiver.

Other boys become angry excessively as an expression of trauma they’ve experienced-humilation or abuse. If a boy is getting angry but handling it –going to his room, or going for a run, or hitting a punching bag-and not hurting others with his anger, then he is to be congratulated for his self-control as well as nurtured in calming himself down.
But when does his anger have moral implications?

We must allow his anger to be expressed, and we must honor legitimate anger. But we must not allow him to rely on anger and rage too often, nor to humiliate or hurt others with it in bullying ways.

Here are questions you can ask yourself regarding your son’s anger:

1.How many times a day (or week or month) does your son swear out loud?
(If it is once a week, there is cause to worry?)
2.How many times a week (or month or year) does he break something in anger?

3.How many times a year does he physically fight in anger with another?
If it is six times a year, there is cause to worry?)
4.Would you consider him a “hothead” or “bad tempered”?
If so, is he showing it physically or verbally in inappropriate ways?

5.Have other people you trust called him hotheaded or bad-tempered or implied that he fits these descriptions?

If so, it’s probable that you and your son should take steps.
6.Does he get angry, then often feel ashamed afterwards?
If so, he himself knows he needs help controlling his anger.

7.Does he seem unable to stop himself from lashing out?
If so, get help immediately.
Has he gotten angry enough to hurt another physically?
Again, if so, he needs help.8.How often is he disrespectful to you in anger episodes?
If it is often enough to make you even the least frightened, it is definitely too much.(Developed by Dr.Ichiro Kawachi Harvard University.)If your son is swearing, hitting, disrespecting parents and authorities to an extent that you and at least one other caregiver believe is inappropriate, his pubescent years are the right time for you to address this behavior –through anger management programs, reconnection of the boy with a tough father or other caregiver, marital arts, church activities, counseling and school alternatives.

No boy wants to be excessively angry.

Take a Look "In the Mind of Bobee Bee "The Hater" as he confronts and copes with his anger

in the classroom and at home. Learn how Bobbee Bee practices self-control when he is frustrated and humiliated by his classmates. Even "the former Heavy Weight Champion, Mike Tyson could learn something from this book.

Go to www.barnesandnoble.com, www.amazon.com, www.authorhouse.com and purchase "In the Mind of Bobee Bee" and "Larry Long Legs" by Eric and Terrence Graham

This is an excellent book for parents, teachers, counselors, and children dealing with anger issues.

NOW AVAILABLE AS AN EBOOK FOR ONLY FOR ONLY $3.49!!!

BOBBEE BEE: TRAIN YOUR STRESS

by Darren Verbout

BOBBEE BEE: TRAIN YOUR STRESS

You need stress in you life!" That is what the National Institute of Mental Health says, "Without stress, life would be dull and unexciting. Stress adds flavor, challenge and opportunity to life. Too much stress, however, can seriously affect your physical and mental well-being. A major challenge in this stress-filled world of today is to make the stress in your life and work for you instead of against you.

Are you up for the challenge?

Violins and Concrete

Think of yourself as a violin. When there's not enough stress applied to a violin string, it produces a dull, raspy sound. Too much stress makes a shrill, annoying noise, or causes the string to snap. However, just the right amount of stress creates splendid tones.

Not a violinist? Perhaps you're the concrete type. Hoover Dam, on the border of Arizona and Nevada, was finished in 1935. As its builders knew, concrete gets stronger when it is compressed-when stress is added. To exploit this, engineers designed the dam so the weight of the water behind it presses against the dam wall, sealing the joints and making it stronger. Stress can actually strengthen!

According to Gale Encyclopedia of Good Medicine, "Stress is the body's normal response to anything that disturbs its natural physical, emotional or mental balance." The entry goes on to say that stress is a natural phenomenon of living. If it's so normal and natural, then why does it frustrate, confuse, and demoralize?  The answer lies simply in how well (or not so well) we control stress in our lives!

Notice the irony. Today we find ourselves living in a fast-paced, push-button society of conveniences. Leisure-supporting lifestyles cater to comfort and often reject anything over-challenging or demanding. In truth, this kind of environment is fertile ground for out-of-control stress. Using shallow human reasoning, one might carelessly assume that this life of ease could and would produce happiness free of worry and harmful stress. If so, why is 16 percent of the U.S. population on Prozac or some other form of depression medication?

With so much "self" in society today, it's tragic that the most important "self," that of SELF-CONTROL, is rarely found.

The Stress Test

Stress can be simply defined as a non-specific response to events or situations. It's how we react physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually to what's going on around us.

There are basically two kinds of stress- POSITIVE STRESS- the constructive kind that pushes us to perform at our very best, and NEGATIVE STRESS, also known as hyperstress- the destructive kind that harms others or us physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually.

The bottom line: Negative stress occurs when we feel out of control of our own lives. Are you experiencing any of the following symptoms commonly associated with stress?

Physical: Tension, fatigue, stomach problems

Mental: Forgetfulness, poor concentration
Emotional: Anxiety, depression, mood swings, temper outburts, or suicidal thoughts

Spiritual: Emptiness, hopelessness, lack of purpose or faithlessness

That is not to say stress is the only cause for these symptoms, but in many people, it is a major contributor. If you are able to relate to some of the above symptoms, you're not alone.

Far too often, we allow stress to upset our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual balance. When this imbalance occurs, our nervous system generates a coordinated set of physical actions in our body such as increased heart rate, rapid breathing and sweating. The response are chemically produced by a substance called adrenaline. Adrenaline shoots out of your adrenal glands on a signal from the brain, and when this happens you experience what is popular known as "flight or fight" response.

The major negative effect of stress occur when an individual does not "fight" of "fly." In this instance, the chemicals produced by adrenaline are not used up, and you stay in high gear longer than you should. This usually culminates in a negative or destructive result.

This trouble can be avoided if you know how to channel your stress properly. Even Hoover Dam knows this. The maximum water pressure at the base of the dam is 45,000 pounds per square foot, according to the U.S.Bureau of Reclamation. Imagine 45,000 pounds pushing against one square foot of your body or mind! Something has to give! Hoover Dam knows "when to say when": It releases between 52,000 and 299,000 gallons of water a day. That water is put to productive use by cities and counties down river.

How we react to and channel stress is the key. At this critical point, one decides which way to channel the stress-in a positive direction or a negative one.

Renegade stress is a big cause for abusive relationships, unstable homes and broken families. To deal with their bouts of stress, many people seek the mind-numbing effects of alcohol, drugs and other faulty "solutions"-but these only further compound these out-of-control problems.

Is there a last solution, a workable, tangible way to proactively handle and channel stress? Let's explore some constructive way to handle and manage stress-way that will make stress work for you rather than against you.

The Most Vital Element

In order to completely overcome the most destructive stress and to gain control of your life spiritually, you must learn how by reading and applying the direction mankind's personal operator's manual: the Holy Bible.

Proverbs 12:25 says. "Anxiety in the heart of man causes depression, but a good word makes it glad" (New King James Version). How many "good words" do you have in your life, to help you maintain a positive, constructive, optimistic mindset?

As much as possible, surround yourself with those who will positively support you as you work through your challenge. It really helps to great deal to regularly give and receive words of help, encouragement and support.

The true solution lies with one's approach to life. Herbert W.Armstrong described it as two basic ways of life: 1.)the give way 2.) the get way. Which type of person do you think takes control of stress, and which type allows stress to control him?

In Act 20:35, Jesus Christ said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." Here's the key! Our human nature tends to think only of self and self's desires. This selfish lifestyle is consumed with self-pity and a  "why is this happening to me? attitude. Harmful, negative, destructive stress could be eradicated from this world if we would follow this basic , timeless principle, spoken nearly 2,000 years ago.: "It is more blessed to give than receive."

One of the world's foremost authorities on stress, endocrinologist Hans Selye, acknowledges this fact by saying, "If everyone loved his neighbor as himself, how could there be any war, crime, aggression or even tension among people?"

Is it difficult to figure out where the root cause of harmful stress originates? It shouldn't be! Our own human nature and its self-serving tendencies is the culprit that leaves us empty, anxious and frustrated.

Don't be a victim of stress! If you want to gain more out of life, then put more into it---and for the matter, put more into others. Learn how to harness the power of stress and channel that energy into a productive way of life. Take control of it and learn how to live a life of giving and service. Do this and you will soon eliminate destructive stress from your life. Then you can, as the Apostle Paul put it, "Be anxious for nothing....and the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall guard your heart and minds through Christ Jesus" Phillippians 4:6-7)

You have a choice. You can let stress control you and wreck your health , or you can use it successfully meet the challenge you are sure to face. Will you control stress, or will stress control you?

The choice is yours!

BOBBEE BEE: I AM A BLACK GENIUS

A genius is defined as someone who has an exceptional natural capacity of intellect.  They are people whose lives and work have impacted the physical and cultural milieu of the world. NewsOne has put together a list of geniuses who continue the thread and spirit of Black life and culture. Check them out!

1. Ben Carson:  In fifth grade, Carson was failing and his class mates called him “dummy.”  Since Carson’s mom, Sonja, a third-grade drop-out, didn’t want her two boys to follow in her footsteps, she cracked the whip.

The Mom-on-a-mission limited TV-watching and kept her sons from playing outside until all homework was done.

The Carson boys had to read two books a week then give their mom two book reports on what they had read, even though she could barely make out what they had written.

Within a few weeks, Carson turned his grade average around and realized he was far from stupid.

A year later, he topped his class. Carson began to consume books and placed becoming a doctor on his radar. He soon graduated with honors from high school and set his sights on Yale University, earning a Psychology degree from the Ivy League school.

When he attended the University of Michigan’s medical school, he switched from psychiatry to neurosurgery. Upon graduating, Carson completed his residency at the famed Johns Hopkins, and by 32, he became the director of pediatric neurosurgery. 

In 1987, Carson made medical history with an operation to separate a pair of Siamese twins.

Watch Carson talk about his work here:
Carson has pioneered other successful surgical innovations that have actually cheated death. 

The man with the gifted hands, who lives by the belief that “no one should ever get too big for God,” has received the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and is greatly in demand as a speaker.

Carson’s other true passion is the state of education in this country.

Lamenting the lack of quality in this country’s public education system, Carson has dedicated himself to frequently visiting with Black school children in order to motivate them to strive to become all that they can be.

 “I tell them about slavery, when it was illegal for Blacks to learn how to read. I say, Now why do you think that was?

Do you think that was just arbitrary?

No, the reason they didn’t want you to be educated is because education empowers people. So why would you voluntarily do to yourself what was being imposed by an unjust system before?”

2. Brittney Exline: 

When Exline walked across the stage at the University of Pennsylvania graduating cum laude at age 19, she also walked in to the history books. Exline was the school’s youngest engineer and the nation’s youngest African-American engineer. 

In 2007, at age 15, Exline made headlines in her hometown when she graduated from her Colorado Springs high school at 15.  There is no doubt that the young woman, who speaks Spanish, French, Japanese, Russian, Arabic, and German, was born with a genius gene.  Exline was making pyramid designs with blocks at 6 months old, walking at 8 months old, and completing 24- to- 100-piece jigsaw puzzles at 15 months old.

Exline’s stellar academics helped her to secure an internship at a small hedge fund on New York City’s famed Wall Street at 16 and 17.

In addition to all of her great academic and professional feats, Exline has won several pageant titles and is an accomplished dancer.

Volunteerism has also remained a passion for the now-motivational speaker who during her college years worked with Community School Student Partnerships in Philadelphia to train and mentor 30 tutors.

3. Dr. Ronald Mallet: 

Physics? Mallet grew up poor and was the oldest of four children, and at 10 years old, he hadn’t even heard of physics until he read the H.G. Wells‘ classic “The Time Machine,” after his father died at age 33.

The young Roaring Spring, Penn., native thought that if he built a device, such as the one in the Wells’ book, he could see his father again. This longing to reunite with his dad and travel back in time inspired him to become one of America’s first African-American Ph.D.s in theoretical physics.

Ironically, the young Mallett was not terribly enthusiastic about school, but his singular passion to uncover the mysteries of space and time spurred him on to receive his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in physics from Pennsylvania State University.  In 1975, Mallet joined the physics faculty at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, where he has been a professor of theoretical physics ever since.

Dr. Mallet has published numerous papers on black holes and cosmology in professional journals. His breakthrough research on time travel has been featured extensively in the media around the world, including NPR’s “This American Life” and the History Channel, Science Channel, and Learning Channel.

Dr. Ronald Mallett is the personification of brilliance and greatness tempered by a true persevering spirit. He is a man of his own making who has — for the last 50 years — stayed his course, even though he began as a broken-hearted 10-year-old boy whose father was taken away from him much too soon.
Watch Dr. Mallet talk about losing his father and trying to build a real time machine here:

4. Ornette Coleman: 

Saxophonist extraordinaire Charlie Parker was Coleman’s greatest influence when he picked up the alto sax at age 14 and tenor two years later.

The highly respected revolutionary is credited as being among the creators of free jazz.  The innovative musician/composer has been hailed a musical genius and visionary while his “haters” have been unable to comprehend his radical, abstract, and highly cerebral work.

Coleman began working in R&B bands in Texas, including those of Red Connors and Pee Wee Crayton, but his attempts to play in an original style were consistently met with hostility both by audiences and fellow musicians.


Coleman moved to Los Angeles in the early ’50s, where he worked as an elevator operator while studying music books.

Listen to Coleman’s music here:
Finally in 1958, after many failed attempts to sit in with top L.A. musicians, Coleman found a clique of musicians who could do justice to his unique sound. In 1959, Coleman’s radical jazz sound found a home at the Five Spot in New York City, and each night his music filled the house with curious onlookers who would either label him a “genius” or a “fraud.”

Coleman created music that would greatly influence such noted great improvisers of the 1960s, including John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy.

In 1962, Coleman decided to take a break to teach himself the trumpet and violin, and three years later, he recorded a few mind-boggling sets on all his instruments with a trio featuring bassist David Izenzon and drummer Charles Moffett.

Watch Coleman play here:
Coleman, a jazz giant, would later go on to form more quartets and perform on recordings, and to this day, he has remained true to his still-controversial sound.

5. Tiya Miles:

 A scholar and increasingly authoritative voice in reframing and reinterpreting the history of our diverse nation, Miles is a public historian and the country’s foremost expert on the complex interrelationships between African and Cherokee people living and working in colonial America.

In her first book “Ties That Bind: The Story of an Afro-Cherokee Family in Slavery and Freedom,” Miles explores Cherokee history with attention to the interrelated nature of slavery, race, kin, citizenship, and community.

Miles continues her exploration in to early Afro-Indian relations with a public history project and book centered on the Diamond Hill plantation in Georgia, one of the largest Native-owned plantations in colonial history.

Watch Miles talk about the importance of her work here:
In “The House on Diamond Hill: A Cherokee Plantation Story,” she documents Chief James Vann‘s control of his plantation and abuse of his Cherokee wives and African slaves.

Miles, who received an B.A. from Harvard University, an M.A. from Emory University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, is currently at the University of Michigan, where she serves as a professor in the Department of History and professor and chair of the Department of Afro-American and African Studies. She holds additional appointments in the Program in American Culture, the Native American Studies Program, and the Department of Women’s Studies.

Miles’ work collecting and analyzing information from the U.S. Census, oral histories, and newspapers has been recognized by the MacArthur Foundation, which awarded her with a MacArthur Genius grant last year.  Regarding Miles’ life work, she says, “I think that history matters so much to who we are as individuals, as communities, as a nation, as a global community. I feel that it’s just so important to bring the meaningful stories of the past into the present, into today, and to allow people to engage with them and to connect them back to their own lives.”

6. Elise Tan:

At age 2, Tan who had an IQ of 156, was a card-carrying member of Mensa, the international organization for people with very high scores in IQ tests. Tan was only 5 months old when she looked her dad, Edward (pictured), in the face and called him “Dada.” She was walking by 8 months, running at 10 months, and a year old when she could recognize her written name. At 16 months old, she could count to 10, and by age 2, she knew the capitals of the world and could speak Spanish. 

Before she began to verbally communicate, her parents noticed that she would stare at people and things as if she were taking everything in and then sorting things out.  At a play group, her mom, Louise (pictured), once gave Tan a “rhinoceros” and the little tot corrected her mom by informing her that the toy was actually a triceratops. 

When Tan was evaluated by a specialist education psychologist, he concluded that the child was indeed “gifted.”  Tan’s parents, Edward, a motor consultant and car buyer, and mom Louise, a homemaker, admit that neither side has geniuses in their lineage. The London couple just want their 5-year-old little girl to be happy for now, and as far as what the future holds, perhaps a revision to Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity?


Watch Tan’s story here:

BOBBEE BEE: THE NEW FACE OF DOOM

In the "ground-breaking" independent film by the Graham Brothers, which was written and directed by Eric Graham, the main character Bobbee Bee "The Hater" played by William Isiah Shakur "steps out of his many morning dreams" and walks into a deadly reality, where he gets chased by his innermost demons.

And, shockingly, overtime, what seems illogical is quite logical.

As a result, in a seemingly, meaningless movie, ends up in the end, being quite meaningful.

Why? Because, as Bobbee Bee refuses to "FACE REALITY" he discovers himself in all the humor and horror of his own haunting.

And, as difficult as that maybe to understand, so is this movie.

Besides, as the character "Smokin' Joe Black says, "Hate is the new Love. Because, people love to hate, and hate to love."

Therefore, get your ticket for the best independent film of the year. And prepare yourself for the new face of doom-creeping in your bedroom.