Anjuan Simmons

I have moved this WordPress installation from a sub-folder to the root of my hosting folder.  It’s a minor change, but I like that it allows me to use the main URL for my site.

I am working on finding the themes and widgets that will allow me to align this web site with the design I have in store for it.  So, expect changes to its look and feel unti l announce that the final version is ready.

In 1944, Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal published a study called An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy.  In this study, Myrdal claimed that white people, in general, want to see black people (then called ‘Negros’, although this term is usually inappropriate to use today) disappear from America.  This is due to the perception by whites that blacks are inferior in every way.  Without earning the benefits of having them as slaves, white people saw no use for black people in America.

However, Myrdal believed that the “the Negro problem” was a “white man’s problem”.  This is due to the fact that white people, through enslavement and institutionalized racism, were responsible for the low estate of black people.  Only by using the privileges that the social and economic structure of America gave to whites could blacks be elevated.  Once blacks were able to improve their situation, then white people could look at them favorably and cease to see them as inferiors, thus leading to improved racial harmony.

I suggest that there is a “new” Negro problem.  As black people have improved their situation, white people see fewer and fewer reasons to accept the problems (social, economic, health, etc.) that have historically plagued the African American population of this country. Furthermore, black people who have been successful, such as athletes, actors, politicians, etc., give the impression to other races that there is no longer a need to pay special attention to racism.  Since many blacks have “made it”, then the struggle for racial equality must be over.

This unprecedented level of success in the African American community, particularly in the ascension of Barack Obama, is a potential problem because there are many black people who still struggle with the many damaging legacies of slavery.  Without a focus on their needs, then a large segment of the African American population will continue to suffer from racist attitudes directed at them from blacks as well as whites.  While toiling in darkness, their problems will be ironically hidden by the blinding lights of black luminaries such as Oprah Winfry and Dick Parsons.

The solution to this problem is for successful black people to be ever vigilant in the defense of those African Americans who still have not found success either through racism, ignorance, or simply bad luck.  Also, white people need to understand that the crippling effects of centuries of racism cannot be reversed by the relative new phenomena of equality and inclusion.  Only then can the appropriate assistance (educational, economic, and social) be extended by those who have often been denied the American Dream.  I am not calling for eternal welfare for African Americans, but I am calling for help for black people who have a desire to improve their situation but simply cannot due to the realities of our nation’s history.  As Myrdal postulated, the improvement of the state of African Americans will help all Americans free themselves of the historical negative view of blacks.

I received a link to download the beta of the Skyfire Mobile Browser. I installed it on my Sprint Mogul, and it is pretty slick.

It seems to do a lot of server side processing so it is not as snappy as Opera Mini. However, it does a great job at handling YouTube and other video sites.

Copyblogger is having a Twitter short story contest. That’s right, you have to write a short story in 140 characters (and that means EXACTLY 140 characters). Here’s my entry:

Eva built her vast wealth through treachery and deceit. Only the revelation of her sole child’s terminal illness made her question her life

Here’s the link to my entry on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/anjuan/statuses/816185939

We’ll see how I do. The prize is an iPod Nano.

I know I haven’t updated this blog in a while. I am working on a schedule that will allow me to regularly blog, but that won’t be possible for a while. However, I do want to share three updates:

1. I had lasik eye surgery a few days ago, and the experience was wonderful! I went from VERY near sighted to 20/20 vision in about four minutes
2. I plan to update this blog to WordPress 2.5.1 in a few days (however, I think 2.5.2 is coming up pretty soon so I may wait for that).
3. I am looking for a better theme. I want a clean theme that is widget friendly.

Thanks for your patience and feel free to leave a comment!

While Twitter is doing well more than a year after its “coming out” at South by Southwest 2007, it is not a mainstream tool. Most of the praises given to it consists of “preaching to the choir” since most of the people who write about it are in the same demographic as most Twitter users: tech enthusiasts. If you ask an average person in the streets of any major city around the world what they think about Twitter, I am sure the overwhelming response would be, “huh?”.

This is a shame, because Twitter is a great learning tool. Due to the nature of Twitter itself and the manner in which third parties have used its API, there are three ways to learn a great deal about any subject by using Twitter.

1. The Wisdom of the Crowds
The learning potential of Twitter is directly proportional to the number of people you follow. This goes against what many Twitter users (Jason Calacanis comes to mind) seek to do: gain as many followers as possible. Instead of trying to horde followers, I suggest following as many people as you can (to be honest, Jason does follow a huge number of people). As you follow more people, you will inevitably see who they interact with via the use of the “@” symbol in their tweets. For example, the following Tweet came across my Twitter stream a few minutes ago:

Mickipedia: @boboroshi I went to HS in VA beach. going home to deal with some family stuff.

Obviously, I follow Mickipedia since the update appeared in my stream, but I don’t follow boboroshi. I use Google Talk to receive updates from my Twitter feed (all I had to do was add twitter@twitter.com as a Google Talk contact). This allows me to send commands to Twitter via Google Talk. You can also issue commands by using SMS to interact with Twitter. Since Mickipedia usually offers interesting updates, I assume that boboroshi probably does the same. In order to learn more about boboroshi, I send the following command to Twitter via Google Talk:

whois boboroshi

The whois command simply asks Twitter to send profile information about a user. By doing so, I get this response from Twitter:

John Athayde, since Mar 2007.
bio: www.boboroshi.com/about
location: Washington, DC
web: http://www.boboroshi.com

So, I know that boboroshi’s real name is John Athayde. Clicking the links in his profile shows me that he and I share the same interests so I type the following command into Google Talk:

follow boboroshi

Follow is another command that is used to tell Twitter that I want to receive updates from a user. Twitter responded with the following:

You’ll receive a message every time boboroshi updates. To silence, send ‘off boboroshi’. For more commands, send ‘help’.

So, I have expanded my Twitter network simply by adding a person who follows someone I follow. Since I tend to use the whois command to find people who have interests similar to mine, my Twitter feed tends to contain a lot of technology related updates. As the people I follow post thoughts and URL links, I receive information that I often would not encounter.

2. The Track Command
Getting updates by following a lot of people does have a drawback. I often get a lot of random information that does not center around one topic. However, what if I want to know if someone tweets (i.e., posts a message on Twitter) about a certain topic? Instead of waiting for someone I follow to tweet about a topic, Twitter offers the track command.

Let’s say that I want to learn what people on Twitter are saying about the Democratic presidential candidates. Using Google Talk, I can enter this command into Google Talk:

track barack obama

Twitter responds with:

You’ll now receive updates matching ‘barack obama’. To stop, send ‘untrack barack obama’.

Since I have a track on Barack Obama, I received this update from ryanbrenizer (who I do not follow).

(ryanbrenizer): loves Barack Obama giving Gob’s “COME ON!” as a political line.

As you can see, Twitter lets me know that this is a tweet resulting from the track command by putting the name of the user in pararenthesis. By using the whois command, I can determine if I want to add ryanbrenizer to the list of people I follow (in line with point #1).

Of course, I can also put a track on “hilary clinton” to keep up with what is being said about her.

If I ever forget what I’m tracking, I can enter this command into Google Talk:

tracks

And Twitter will send the following:

You are tracking: “veronica belmont”, “tom merritt”, “molly wood”, “neha tiwari”, “kevin rose”, “anjuan”, “amber macarthur”, “vonage”, “barack obama”, “hilary clinton”.

Yes, you can see that I keep up with my favorite Internet personalities as well as a vanity search and a few other terms.

If I get tired of receiving updates on a particular term, I can stop tracking it. So, if I no longer want to keep up with what the Twitterverse is saying about Kevin Rose, I can type the following:

untrack kevin rose

And Twitter will send this response:

You’ll no longer receive updates that match ‘kevin rose’.

By using the track command, I can receive targeted updates about the subjects in which I am most interested.

3. Third Party Websites
Twitter’s publication of their API means that websites and applications can use Twitter to expand its capabilities. There are several web sites that do this in innovative ways, but I want to focus on two: Quotably and Tweetscan

Quotably provides a way to view the conversations of a particular Twitter user. For example, if I wanted to see what Dave Winer has been discussing on Twitter, I can go to quotably.com and enter his Twitter username:

After clicking the “Follow” button, I get a list of not only the conversations that Dave started but also those in which he participated via replies.

Tweetscan is similar to the Twitter track command. However, instead of having to wait for someone to tweet about a subject, I can use Tweetscan to immediately receive a list of tweets about a topic. So, let’s say I wanted to use my earlier example of seeing what Twitter is saying about Barack Obama. I can enter this search term into Tweetscan.

Clicking the Search buttons results in the following:

So, in many ways, Tweetscan is like Google for Twitter.

Conclusion
By following large numbers of people based on their interests, making use of the built in track command, and using third party tools like Quotably.com and Tweetscan.com, Twitter becomes a powerful tool for learning about any topic. I think that this functionality is what will help it become a mainstream success.

Tags: quotably, track, tweetscan, twitter

I have upgraded this blog from Wordpress 2.5 RC1 to the full 2.5 version. You won’t see any differences from the front end, but the back end administration is nice. I am still having problems with administering comments, but I have found a workaround. I think I need to do a fresh install and restore instead of “install in place” to fully resolve the problem.

I would greatly appreciate it if you left a comment on this post letting me know something about you. It can be as simple as just the name you like to go by and how you came across my blog. I have shared a lot of my thoughts via my blog, and I would like to get to know my readers better!

I posted this question to YouTube for the CNN Republican Debate in November where they took questions from YouTube:

While my question was not aired during the debate, I think it is an important question since the election of Barack Obama would truly be a historic event in America, and I think a lot of thought has to be put into protecting the first African American President of the United States.

Many of the comments on my question (which can be found here) were hostile to the idea of granting additonal protection to Obama. The more civil comments made the reasonable argument that Barack should not be given any special treatment. I think these comments were made out of ignorance of what has been done in the past to protect an African American candidate for President.

When Jesse Jackson ran in 1984, he received more death threats than any other candidate in the history of America combined. Therefore, his Secret Service protection was larger than the others due to the tremendous amount of threats of open violence directed against him.

Obama was given “special treatment” when he began receiving Secret Service protection in March 2007 which was earlier than any other presidential candidate in the 2008 race. In fact, it was the earliest for any candidate since the practice of Secret Service protection for presidential candidates was instituted after the 1968 assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

Mark Potok posted a message on the Hatewatch site stating that online expressions of hatred have steadily increased as the success of Obama’s campaign has increased. These posts sometimes include calls to assassinate Barack Obama to prevent him from becoming a “Nigger President”. It is almost certain the the early granting of Secret Service protection to Obama is due to these threats.

So, if Barack Obama is receiving special protection as a candidate, then should special measures be in place if he successfully wins the general election?

I think the answer lies in understanding the history of violent threats against the holders of the highest political office in America. One can assume that the President of the United States is one of the most protected people in the world. However, one also has to realize that four Presidents have been killed in office: Abraham Lincoln in 1865, James Garfield in 1881, William McKinley in 1901, and John F. Kennedy in 1963. Also, since the 1960’s, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush were attacked while appearing in public. Ford was not injured, but Reagan was hit by gunfire. Bush was not injured when a grenade thrown at him failed to detonate. So, despite the protection of the Secret Service, it is possible, even in the modern era, for attacks to get through and harm, if not kill, the President.

The tactics of the Secret Service are reasonably shrouded in secrecy, but I suggest, given the high level of threats against Obama, that a special investigation into their practices be instituted by Congress. Their security practices need to be reviewed and additional measures need to be instituted in order to minimize the risk of harm to Obama should he become President. I believe that even a numerical increase in the size of is detail would be a valid measure. For example, if, for a given event, the current President is assigned 10 Secret Service Agents, then Barack should have 15 assigned to cover him.

Just as Obama’s election would signal a new era of possibility in America, his assassination would cast serious doubt on the ability of America to truly rise out of the racist hatred of its past. Therefore, I believe it is reasonable for him to receive additional protection if he succeeds in becoming the 44th President of the United States.

As I write this, Barack Obama has a large delegate lead over Hilary Clinton who is also running for the Democratic nomination. It is virtually impossible for Hilary to surpass Obama’s delegate count before the Democratic National Convention so it will probably be up to the super delegates to determine if Obama will become the Democratic Party nominee. Even if that happens, he will probably have a hard fight against John McCain in the general election.

However, if Barack Obama does become the 44th President of the United States, it will clearly be a historic event. Selecting an African American man to lead this country will communicate many things about the American people. Some may question if Obama is truly an African American, but a honest inspection of his features shows any rational person that his genetic heritage has much in common with blood that flows in the veins of the descendants of African slaves. As a man whose bloodline also strongly links me to the survivors of the Middle Passage and the rigors of slavery, his ascension to the White House would tell me a lot about America’s past, present, and future.

An understanding of the significance of Barack Obama’s Presidency must be rooted in an understanding of the history of African Americans in the United States. The bulk of this history involves slavery. Although present before the 18th century, it was in the 1700’s that enslavement of black people became widespread and codified in the laws of the land. Due to the need for labor intensive work such as harvesting tobacco and cotton, slavery spread widely in the Southern states causing blacks to become a third of the population by the late 1800’s. Slave codes gave masters a legal right to brutalize their slaves and treat them as they were defined by law: property. The United States Constitution counted slaves as 3/5th’s of the population for the purpose of allocating seats in the House of Representatives to Southern States which gave those States a disproportionate amount of power in Congress. The harsh life of slaves caused many to oppose it, and this rift soon led to division including violent uprisings by Nat Turner, John Brown, and others. The Dred Scott decision by the United States Supreme Court in 1857 and the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 along with other national events led to the start of the Civil War in 1861.

The American Civil War led to the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and eventually to the ratification of the 13th Amendment of the United State Constitution in 1865 which formally ended slavery in America freeing approximately 4 million black slaves. The ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868 and the 15th Amendment in 1870 granted former slaves citizenship and the right to vote, respectively. This significant improvement in the legal standing of freed blacks was hindered by the realities of widespread illiteracy among the black population, segregationist Jim Crow laws, and often violent harassment by groups such as the Klu Klux Klan. Decades of of institutional racism against African Americans passed until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the National Voting Rights Act of 1965 helped to undo the legal framework that had historically denied African Americans equal access under the law.

Against this historical tapestry comes Barack Obama, a man who, if born in the America of the 17th or 18th century would probably be able to work as a house slave based on his light skin tone. However, a house slave was still a slave denied the essential freedoms upon which this country was founded. If he had been born in the late 19th or early 20th Century, he would be able to enjoy the free life that people of African descent were able to finally universally obtain. However, running for President of the United States would have been an exercise in foolishness and futility.

Obama’s strong campaign shows that America is a country that may now be ready to close the doors of discrimination and open the doors of the White House to an African American man. Elevating a member of a group of people whose ancestors were once considered inhuman property to the highest office of the land would allow the United States to finally act in accordance with the principle that all people are created equal.

The election of President Barack Obama would demonstrate that this country can let go of the paradigms of the past and embrace a new future where everyone can fully participate in improving America regardless of any physical characteristic. Those who bring fresh ideas and are willing to work to bring them to life will have the opportunity to do so. As we continue to write the early history of the 21st Century, his Presidency will allow the creation of a bright future by a country in a truly united state.

I am not naive enough to believe that the United States will transform into a Utopia if Barack Obama wins the White House. He will face difficult times, and there are many challenges facing this country. However, I believe that Obama is the person who can uniquely motivate American citizens to work collectively to solve our national problems. After all, the very existence of a President Barack Obama would mean that anything is possible if one is willing to, against all hope, believe in hope and achieve a dream.

Tags: barack, campaign, hilary, obama, white house