This is the absolute closest that I'll ever be to prison. After watching this six part series of "Prison Scarfaces" I feel like I took a tour inside of the penitentiary, and spoke to all those inmates. Today I'll post videos one through three, and I'll put the remaining three videos up some time tomorrow. The material in these videos can be very graphic, so if you have a week stomach go watch Prison Break on NBC or whatever channel it's on!

Peace

Trevor Winston Lee

I don't know.... it cracks me up when I hear or see attempts to acknowledge some of the true crime that really goes on in this world. You know when Kanye came out with that "Diamonds are Forever" song, and everybody got enlightened about BLOOD DIAMONDS. Converted diamonds, conflict diamonds, hot diamonds, war diamonds, whatever you want to call them people die everyday because countries, including this great one LOL worship them. You hear these slogans like "Every Kiss Begins With K", and you totally forget about mothers who will never be able to kiss their sons, and fathers who will never hold their daughters again because they have to go get American rappers some ICE. I mean when the movie Blood Diamonds came out everybody put their chains up for a couple weeks, but do you think those kids in Angola, the Congo, and Sierre Leone stopped working! Honestly, the ones to blame are us because we praise those you have the jewelry,Ice, and Bling Bling. I'm not mad at you if that's how you get down, I just respect you more if you just acted like you didn't know what was really going on! Im just sayin...

Peace

Trevor Winston Lee

Title: Strange Fruit

By: Lewis Allen

Southern trees bear strange fruit,

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,

Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,

The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,

Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,

Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,

For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,

For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,

Here is a strange and bitter crop.

Going through one of my textbooks from the previous semester, I thought that I should talk about the Black Codes of 1865. Throughout all the confusion and reconstruction that the South was going through after the Civil War they still stayed focused when it came to controlling blacks. Black Codes controlled all aspects of life and basically denied African Americans all of the freedoms that were just won. For example, if you couldn't find any work (which was very common) you could be arrested and charged with vagrancy. For those who do not know what vagrancy is, it is the state of wandering from place to place; having no permanent home or means of livelihood. It gets even more ridicuolous though. For some reason, white southerners thought that African Americans were predestined to work in agricultural labor. Not only did it not come to their minds that you wouldn't want to work in the fields, but they didn't even feel that we were capable to show productivity in anything that didn't involve simple steps, and long hours of grueling labor. The thought of a black man or woman using their minds obviously never crossed theirs. How sad it is when someone doesn't even have the freedom to roam. Yup, many codes prevented blacks to enter towns without permission. Basically, you had to have a letter stating your business in that particualar town, and how long you would be there. If you were caught out after 10 o'clock without one of these notes you would be arrested and imprisoned. Oh yeah, the President in 1865 was Abraham Lincoln, you know that guy with the top hat that everyone loves!

Peace

Trevor Winston Lee

So, I'm reading a very good book now passed on to me by my brother called, Lies My Teacher Told Me. It's very interesting because it focuses on the topic of how a lot of the things that our history textbooks have taught us since grade school have either been complete lies, or a bunch of half truths. I would be here forever telling you some things about this country that you just wouldn't believe, but my post today will simply focus on how textbooks can be used as a source of propaganda to make you feel a certain way about people, lifestyles, and cultures. I use the word propaganda because of its definition. Propaganda is information that is spread for the purpose of promoting some cause! My question to you is simply, what's the cause? On page 113 of the book in the chapter titled Red Eyes the author quotes a commonly used history textbook called The American Way ( You can get a feel for the type of propaganda I'm talking about just by the title.) In this chapter the textbook makes Native American religion seem ridiculous and pointless. It goes a little something like this...

"These Native Americans [in the Southeast] believed that nature was filled with spirits. Each form of life, such as plants and animals, had a spirit. Earth and air held spirits too. People were never alone. They shared their lives with the spirits of nature."

The author brings up a good point that when you explain anything in this context it doesn't seem sophisticated, and it almost sounds make believe. Then the author flips the script and describes Christianity in a similiar summary. It goes a little something like this...

"These Americans believed that one great male god ruled the world. Sometimes they divided him into three parts, which they called father, son, and holy ghost. They ate crackers and wine or grape juice, believing that they were eating the son's body and drinking his blood. If they believed strongly enough, they would live on forever after they died."

When you put it this way, Christianity almost sounds like a joke. When you insert words like crackers, juice, and you don't capitilize words like god and father it doesn't have the same effect. I'm not knocking anyones religion, I'm just sayin...

Peace

Trevor Winston Lee

Peace

Trevor Winston Lee

So I was watching that movie National Treasure 2 last night, and I was surprised to find out that there isn't just one Statue of Liberty, but infact there are three. Where the French playin us? Did America really think that she was special! Ok, so everyone knows about the Statue of Liberty on Ellis Island in New York, but did you know about her two sisters in Paris. One of the twins are located in Luxembourg Garden, and the oldest of the bunch is located on the River Seine which is also in Paris. If you don't believe me, just check out these images that I found for you guys.

Peace

Trevor Winston Lee

"the hustlers in Small's and the entertainers in the Braddock, began to call me "Red," a natural enough nickname in view of my bright red conk." -Malcolm X