Playahata

As Jack Nicholson said in a few good men – You cant handle the truth!

Varied and sometimes wild claims have been made about the origins of a group of dark-skinned Appalachian residents once known derisively as the Melungeons.

Some speculated they were descended from Portuguese explorers, or perhaps from Turkish slaves or Gypsies.

Now a new DNA study in the Journal of Genetic Genealogy attempts to separate truth from oral tradition and wishful thinking
The study found the truth to be somewhat less exotic: Genetic evidence shows that the families historically called Melungeons are the offspring of sub-Saharan African men and white women of northern or central European origin.

And that report, which was published in April in the peer-reviewed journal, doesn’t sit comfortably with some people who claim Melungeon ancestry.

‘There were a whole lot of people upset by this study,’ lead researcher Roberta Estes said, noting that many preferred their assumed origins.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2149658/Melungeons-DNA-study-seeks-origin-Ancient-Appalachian-people.html#ixzz2Iu7iASyh

Perry retreat co-host: MLK deserved no credit on civil rights
By Joy-Ann Reid
Source: www.thegrio.com

While hundreds of thousands of Americans converge on the National Mall to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. this weekend as the president dedicates a memorial to the slain civil rights leader, Rick Perry, the newly minted Republican Party presidential front-runner, will be attending a retreat with a man who believes King deserves no such honor.

The “call to action” retreat, reported by Politico’s Jonathan Martin earlier this month, will be hosted by a prominent San Antonio doctor, Jim Leininger, and his wife Cecilia. Among the co-hosts of the Fredericksburg, Texas event, which is being called a “get together to discuss the 2012 election,” rather than a fundraiser, will be David Barton, the founder of the evangelical Christian group WallBuilders. (more…)

MONTICELLO, Miss. — After 10 years of incarceration, and seven years after a jury sentenced him to die, 30-year-old Cory Maye will soon be going home. Mississippi Circuit Court Judge Prentiss Harrell signed a plea agreement Friday morning in which Maye pled guilty to manslaughter for the 2001 death of Prentiss, Mississippi, police officer Ron Jones, Jr.

Per the agreement, Harrell then sentenced Maye to 10 years in prison, time he has now already served. Maye will be taken to Rankin County, Mississippi, for processing and some procedural work. He is expected to be released within days.

Maye’s story, a haunting tale about race, the rural south, the excesses of the drug war, the inequities of the criminal justice system and a father’s instincts to protect his daughter, caught fire across the Internet and the then-emerging blogging world when I first posted the details on my own blog in late 2005. (more…)

Malcolm X and Kenneth Clarke

Race on Broadway by Bruce Banter

Race is a powerful Broadway Play that isn’t going to do anything to help foster better race relations. In fact, if one easily falls prey to suggestion it may make them worse.
Simply because it doesn’t correctly portray African American sentiments toward whites in a post Obama era or a pre Obama era.
Black folk don’t hate white folk for slavery, Jim Crow, segregation etc as a collective although it would make sense.

Three lawyers in a firm, two black and one white, must decide whether to defend a white man charged with a crime against a black woman. (more…)