The Cost Of School Bullying

Posted by THEJNSREPORT on October 19, 2017
Posted in: Social Commentary. Tagged: , . Leave a comment

Welcome to THEJNSREPORT’S:  The Cost Of School Bullying

In recent headlines we heard about a student Abel Cedeno from the Bronx who stabbed and killed a fellow student Matthew McCree and critically stabbed another student Ariane Laboy over alleged bullying.  The family of the victim Matthew McCree is seeking justice in a city and world that values life (in particular Black life) less and less everyday.

What I heard on the evening news compelled me to write on this because the family of the alleged killer acted as if he was an innocent victim.  I heard a man standing with the killer’s mother say on camera that they believe he will be “acquitted” as if he was wrongly charged with the crimes he’s been charged with.

Astonishment overtook my mind hearing those words uttered.  We all as children at one point or other in our lives have gone through bullying.  However, killing fellow schoolmate (3 years younger mind you) and attempting to kill another can’t be condoned as the answer to bullying.

Growing up in the Bronx and going to High School there, metal detectors was an tacit way of life.  I didn’t know what it was like to attend High School and there not be any metal detectors and body search before I even made it to first period. There were warning signs prior to this tragic turn of events.  What disturbs me even more was the killer’s sexuality was brought up as a valid justification for his willful act of committing murder and attempted murder.

If we as a society can use the excuse that one’s sexuality ought to be justification for the taking of another’s life then anyone can use that as a defense.  For example what if the family of this 18 year old were on the other side of this and their son’s life would have been taken by a “heterosexual” student?  Would we be saying that this killing was acceptable?  Would they be happy to hear someone say they believe their son’s killer would be “acquitted” of all charges?  Sexual orientation was a part of this tragic tale but shouldn’t be the main focal point.  Bullying and it’s repercussions should be the focus as well as accountability.  Our choices as human beings matter.

Another point worth mentioning is that students who attended school with both the killer and his victims have said he was bullied by other students not necessarily the victim Matthew McCree who was also 3 years younger than his killer Abel Cedeno.  The local news reported that Abel Cedeno’s lawyer said this was a case of self defense.  I’m wondering what scenario (or lie) they’ll tell to try and justify this case of murder and attempted murder.

What message does this send to the rest of the kids in school if he’s not held accountable for his choices and actions?  Reducing the charges of murder against Abel Cedeno is just the latest slap in the face of black people across the country.  This should be a slap in the face of all America when we say kids killing kids is not okay nor should it be justified away.  I wonder now what Matthew McCree would say in his own defense if he were alive to tell us what Abel did to him.

We’re still looking to the sky for answers and strength but at some point if things don’t change, and if people aren’t held accountable for their actions, we won’t see heads bowed or eyes looking to the sky any more.  We’ll see blank stares and hearts of solid ice acting in retribution because their voices aren’t heard and/or don’t seem to matter to this world.  Their lives are being taken for granted.

Self defense has become the defacto code word for “hey he was just a N….. or some black guy/kid, what’s the big deal?” Then comes the character assassination to add insult to injury and devastation.  This is a case of ultimately one kid killing another younger kid in perhaps misplaced anger and frustration but does that mean we excuse it simply due to age or sexual orientation?

 

The Final Heist

Posted by THEJNSREPORT on September 6, 2017
Posted in: Social Commentary, Sports. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

😀

Welcome to THEJNSREPORT’S: The Final Heist

In what will go down in history as the most effective and blatant modern-day fleecing of America outside of the Federal Reserve & “Income Tax”, Floyd “Money” Mayweather & Conor McGregor demonstrated to the entire world yet and still, why America is the greatest nation on earth.  Mayweather & McGregor gave the fans of both MMA & Professional Boxing what they wanted to see.

All the subplots attached matter least when we take into account that those subplots would never have come to fruition if the amount of money to be made didn’t rival that of the largest fight purse ever to date.  McGregor, I believe truly believed his physical talents from his MMA career would be more than enough to beat the undefeated and aged legend Floyd “Money” Mayweather.

After having watched the fight for a second time from start to finish its abundantly clear that the viewing public were willfully had.  Yes this fight was more entertaining because it went longer than anticipated.  Mayweather also fought counter to his known defensive brilliance walking Conor McGregor down while taking his best shots  & not being phased.  He did show however, that the 2 year layoff as well as “Father Time” had indeed caught up with him to a certain degree.  Floyd turning has back repeatedly to McGregor had myself & family scratching our heads if not screaming at the TV, “What the hell are you doing Floyd?!”

Skip Bayless thought (much like all the classic stereotypical haters of greatness in their delusional world) that McGregor would have beaten Floyd if not for stamina issues.  Last time I checked stamina is part of fighting and the book was already out on McGregor that if you can get him fatigued he isn’t as invincible as he seems.  The “game plan” Mayweather Sr. & Junior pulled off shows everyone yet again just how brilliant and beyond his contemporaries Floyd actually is.

Floyd didn’t need to train as hard as say for a Tripe G or Canelo but against a novice boxer 12 years his junior known as a “Knockout Artist”, He slowed down enough to make Conor McGregor appear far more competitive than he actually would have been had he fought Floyd several years ago.  Despite his slowing down at 40 years of age Mayweather’s stamina was vastly superior to that of McGregor who literally had to be saved from being put down on his “shield” by a vintage Mayweather drubbing in which McGregor could only stagger and absorb shot after unanswered shot to the face with Floyd prepared to grant McGregor his wish.

Pride, money, and legacy were all on the line for Mayweather who stood the most to lose but the most to gain with another staggering Mollywop of a pay-day looming for dispatching a cross promotional fighter of legends from two different worlds of combat sports.  Where else could such a spectacle take place in which both combatants would be paid well in excess of $100 million each?

The blueprint of “Money” Mayweather will be studied for years to come and whether another superstar fighter is able to capitalize to the extent that Floyd “Money” Mayweather has remains to be seen.  One thing appears to be sure at least if you believe Mayweather’s post fight interview in which he stated that was his last fight.  He pulls of his final heist as a master class lesson on boxing and saunters off into the sunset having accomplished his goal of 50 and 0 with more total prize money won than any other athlete in the history of sports to date without any endorsements to speak of.

Haters will decry this last fight as a “farce” because they didn’t get to see their ultimate wet dream come to fruition i.e Floyd losing a boxing match.  Fight fans and purists will recognize that this was everything they hyped it up for and worth every penny charged especially when considering how much they hated the Mayweather – Pacquiao fight.

Lastly, everybody won.  The fans won getting to see the fight they wanted in a timely fashion.  Mayweather won both at the bank and inside the ring.  McGregor won with his largest pay day ever outside the sport that’s made him internationally famous & wealthy even though he lost the fight.  Boxing won because for now the argument about whether an MMA fighter could beat a professional boxer in the boxing ring has been definitively answered, and the IRS won because they will receive their cut of all that generated fight revenue plus the back taxes owed.

MMA fighters won because they now have another avenue opened up to them to make potentially way more money fighting at another discipline if things don’t work out in MMA.  It’ll mirror WWE wrestlers who ended up leaving the WWE to pursue a career in MMA.  Either way it seems everybody won.  Again I ask you where else could such things happen?  Answer… only in America.

America 2017: What’s Changed? What’s Changing?

Posted by THEJNSREPORT on August 19, 2017
Posted in: Social Commentary. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Welcome to THEJNSREPORT’S: America 2017: What’s Changed? What’s Changing?

If you ask this question to most people you come across I’d like to think they’d reply “Well a lot”.  In my humble opinion not much has changed.  This country’s history is a rich, flawed and abhorrent one from the past till now.  Have there been many victories? Yes.  Have there been many losses? Yes.

Victory: America elects first Black President of the United States

Loss: America follows by electing Donald Trump his successor.

Victory: Muhummad Ali refuses to be drafted for Vietnam & pays heavy price for his refusal yet ultimately becomes the social conscience blueprint of the modern day professional athlete thinking outside of sports & celebrity to impact others not just his own bottom line.  He is immortalized in the minds, hearts, and memory of the historians because of the stance he took at the peak of his celebrity and prime of his professional fighting career.  He served jail time and later returned after 3 years in prison to fight and reclaim his rightful title as Heavyweight Champ of the world which was stripped from him for his refusal to be drafted.

Loss: NFL chooses to blackball Colin Kaepernick for exercising his right to protest the killing of unarmed Black people in America at the hands of law enforcement.  He chooses to simply kneel in protest of the flag that fails to live up to the simple tenets it’s supposed to represent in the constitution of the United States of America.

NFL owners and their PR spin teams headed by their very own versions of an “Olivia Pope” will say he’s not signed on with any team as a free agent due to poor performance on the field even though his career stats speak to the opposite of that assessment.  We all know it’s because he chose to take a knee in protest is the real reason no team will sign him.  It’s a loss for the NFL not so much for Kaepernick.  Sure for now he’s out of a job in the NFL but that’s not the be all end all.

All the NFL has done is show that what Kaepernick’s stance is for has validity that literally threatens the status quo.  If not, he’d be employed.  The owners have told us all by his non hiring that his message, his protest, which is to bring light to something we’ve been harping about long before Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Akai Gurley, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, and on and on.  The fact that those who say they hate Kaepernick’s form of protest or that they revere cloth more than human life tells you who’s who.  Who’s a true American patriot and who’s an “American” in name only, not principle.

They’d rather hide behind fake patriotism and straw man arguments than acknowledge that racism, bigotry, hatred, prejudice, and injustice reign supreme in America.  That all of the aforementioned are engrained if not entrenched in the psyche and make up of the American fabric that history has born out.  The guilt and the lack of accountability weighs heavy on the collective American conscience.  If not there wouldn’t be so much avoidance to say what the reason for Kaepernick’s protest is for in the first place.  He’s successfully created a discourse on American and world society at large but especially here in the “Greatest Nation on Earth”.

I once heard a sick freestyle from an amateur MC who said he’d spit on the American flag or any humanitarian fallacy claiming things they didn’t actually live up to.  Kaepernick didn’t burn the flag, spit on it, curse it, or desecrate it, he simply said I’ll kneel until you live up to your credo and people address this ever present issue of the killing of black men, women, & children unarmed at the hands of the police.  For that he’s been vilified and blackballed.  It’s a worthy price to pay and I believe he knew that going in when he decided to first make his protest known.

No matter what happens going forward he’s forever an icon and town crier if not whistleblower, a modern day socially conscious activist pro athlete who thought beyond himself and his celebrity or wealth.  Make the flag your argument if you want and ignore the principles behind what the flag is supposed to represent but do so at your own peril.  If a house be hollow with sand for its foundation how will it stand even against the smallest of floods?

 

 

Is The NFL Black-Balling Kaepernick?

Posted by THEJNSREPORT on August 8, 2017
Posted in: Social Commentary, Sports. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

Welcome to THEJNSREPORT’S: Is The NFL Black-Balling Kaepernick?

The above title question is a rhetorical one.  The answer in short is 1000% yes, the NFL is “black-balling” Kaepernick.  Let me start by saying it’s not that we all should feel sorry for Kaepernick because his former employer the NFL no longer deems him worthy to represent or earn a living under the “shield”.  It’s the optics and the not so subtle message being sent to all the remaining gainfully employed players within the league.

This is America… the land of opportunity… so long as you play by the unwritten rules.  While we can’t say that the NFL owners got together in secret to collude against the hiring of Colin Kaepernick, say the way Rockefeller & his peers did on a subway car decades upon decades ago to create a tacit system of control and concentrated power among the elites, the effect is no less chilling or real.  By the very fact that Kaepernick who is in his youthful athletic prime hasn’t been offered a job to continue his career in the NFL to date speaks volumes.

When owners are willing to on the surface say let’s “talk” to Kaepernick but no job ensues team after team while career losers who have proven less than Kaepernick are offered jobs even out of retirement speaks volumes.  Why is it that no team wanted Jay Cutler until Tannehill got injured in practice and he’d already agreed to a commentator job that he signs a $10 million 1 year deal, but Kaepernick remains unsigned.

Can we really doubt that had Kaepernick not taken a stand last season and become the face of protest for the murder of unarmed black citizens male/female at the hands of police around the country that he would be employed today?  And let’s look at what he did.  He didn’t shoot anybody, he didn’t drive drunk and kill anybody, he didn’t as far as we know, fail any drug tests, or commit domestic violence.  He simply took a knee.  He took a fucking knee during the national anthem to say “America you aren’t living up to what you’re supposed to stand for and until you do I feel it appropriate to take a knee.”

America for the youth and those who have forgotten is supposed to stand for “Freedom” and the right to protest, to have an opinion, to express it without fear of reprisal for expressing dissent.  If this isn’t the case then there should be no hateful tweets or objection to the tyranny that is Kim Jong Un in North Korea. It is this basic concept that distinguishes America and it’s greatness from the non free world and dictatorships around the globe.

This country was founded on dissent and often VIOLENT dissent.  Civil war is not a peaceful action.  War by its literal definition is devoid of peace until a victor is declared and America fought for its independence through protest and dissent.  I wonder if the same people who wrote to the NFL that they’d no longer buy season tickets even know about the founding principles of the very country that gives them the opportunity and privilege to work, live and pursue happiness within.

Protest by its very nature is not intended to make others who don’t agree with the protest comfortable.  It’s designed to open eyes, to create discourse, and bring the very issues that are causing protest in the first place to the forefront to be heard.  After all it’s always going to be the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.  If we’re willing to suffer in silence we’ll never be heard.  The dummies who drape themselves in the flag so long as only their interests are cared for, are not true patriots and should first pull their heads from their nether regions long enough to read the history of the country whose flag they worship blindly without respect for, or understanding of the symbolic meaning of the flag.  They hate Kaepernick because he took a knee.  They throw up a straw man argument to distract from the issue he’s raising.  Forget about the military and veterans for a second.  They are important but they died for the very rights Kaepernick and many other pioneers exercise in this great nation.

I’ll make it even more plain.  I’d like to think pretty much everyone loves Superman.  If Superman was running around saying he’s a hero and only serving the public good but was robbing banks on the side or killing unarmed citizens while saying “hey I’m Superman the law doesn’t apply to me because of my stature and powers” what would we say?  Would we as a people protest him?  Would we look at each other and say but that’s Superman, you’re disrespecting Superman? Or would we say Superman has to live up to the standards and ideals he claims he stands for?

The NFL is a hypocritical organization.   It’s blanketing itself in its own perceived self-righteousness by punishing Kaepernick for exercising the power of his platform and his right to dissent.  Shannon Sharpe hit the proverbial nail on the head with his commentary earlier today about what’s happening to Colin Kaepernick.  The NFL is rewarding others with the opportunity to earn money from it who’ve done far worse repeatedly.  I’ll borrow the phrase from Skip Bayless what does the “eye test” tell you?  If we’re being 100% real, every person with a brain can see plain as day what this whole situation is and it has nothing to do with performance or productivity regardless of the apologist pundits out there.  If that were the case every starter or backup who has career stats the same or worse than Kaepernick shouldn’t be employed.  I end with this, Blaine Gabbert has a job in the NFL.  Is Blaine a better QB than Colin Kaepernick?

Okay…

Mayweather V McGregor

Posted by THEJNSREPORT on July 13, 2017
Posted in: Social Commentary, Sports. Tagged: . Leave a comment

With the biggest hyped fight to date between the mixing of the best of two worlds Mayweather V McGregor we ask the following poll question

Thoughts On The Philando Castille Verdict

Posted by THEJNSREPORT on June 20, 2017
Posted in: Social Commentary. Leave a comment

Welcome to THEJNSREPORT’S: Thoughts On The Philando Castille Verdict

At this moment I can say that personally I feel numb anger if that makes any sense.  Numb because of the incessant, and unmitigated blows of injustice received daily as a person of color living in America.  This judicial system has continued to show us one thing.  It’s not designed to mete out true justice equally, or blindly as we were once taught to believe in school.  So what should we expect now from people of color when the wheels of justice continually fail us when it comes to our lives being lost at the hands of both “law enforcement and fellow civilians alike.  How are we to act?

Blue lives aren’t being lost in the same fashion or rate that is occurring with black people in general. To throw up a hashtag about blue lives matter or all lives matter, is to try & distract from  & drown out the fact that we as a people are screaming ENOUGH OF THIS BULLSHIT!  The continuous acquittals of the guilty creates a social powder keg that will not be quenched with obligatory calls to “wait for justice,” and/or “protest peacefully” being extoled.  Those who are sworn to protect and serve and uphold the law can’t be placed above it.

No citizen is safe if those who are to be held to a higher standard can willfully murder in broad day light with or without video accounts and subsequently have investigations led by the same agencies of the very people who perpetrate the crimes.  We can’t talk about healing communities of color or creating a community relationship with those who patrol our neighborhoods when there hasn’t been an addressing of accountability for killer cops and civilians alike.   What kind of a world is this we’re living in when a human beings life is extinguished at the hands of other human beings and no one is culpable?

 

Memorial Day Quick Poll: Should Trump Be Impeached & Subsequently Removed From Office?

Posted by THEJNSREPORT on May 29, 2017
Posted in: Politics, Social Commentary. Leave a comment

Welcome to THEJNSREPORT’S: Memorial Day Quick Poll

While we the American people on Memorial Day 2017 honor the veterans that have served, fought and died for American ideals, rights, and freedoms as well as those servicemen and women who continue to do so, we ask the question of the year.  Should President Trump be impeached and removed from office less than 6 months into his presidency?  America cast your vote and let your voices be heard.