There is a whole lot of wisdom and information coming out of Tavis Smiley's 10th anniversary symposium on the State of the Black Union today being broadcast on C-SPAN. I hope people are seeing it and the information gets disseminated and absorbed in the weeks ahead.
The panel today included Rep. Maxine Waters, who called out the banking industry and even event sponsor, Wells Fargo, by name, for their predatory and greedy lending practices. Marc Morial, head of the Urban League, Prof. Tricia Rose ( see other diary here ), Charles Ogletree, Jesse Jackson, Peter Harvey are among other panelists and particularly outstanding, I thought.
Themes covered were holding state and local politicians accountable for how the stimulus money gets spent, what you need to know won't be on cable TV and the newspaper which focus only on tax-cuts vs. spending, education and programs for young people over incarceration, self-reliance, Hip-hop grew out of real pain and oppression then became co-opted by corporate powers, 'commoditized' and now only reinforces stereotypes and negative perception without improving self-image and station in life, etc.
Coming-up on the event schedule is Michael Steele, should be interesting.
Hopefully transcripts will be available soon!
Just added (1:30pm PST) P.S. I wouldn't mind having a few more Rec's on this so the topic and info lives on the right-hand column for a bit longer - and I promise not to write an "OMG I'm on the rec list for first time thank you guys" update, should it even get that high up! Which it won't ;-)