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The high profile sites are listed below:

eTour Stop #1:
Marguerite Press website where avid readers, writers, event planners, and literary organizations will find the Speakers Bureau, and the ever-popular, Around2It Talk Show with host, Delores "Queen of Promotion" Thornton. www.margueritepress.com/eTours.html.

eTour Stop #2:
Let's Talk Honestly, a site of African American opinion, poetry, news, and literature all hosted by George Cook host of his weekly online talk show LTH WEEKLY. Join us to check out great poetry and author interviews. George L. Cook III author of Let's Talk Honestly Vol. 2 A book of poetry and essays on African American Issues.

eTour Stop #5:
LeRue Press, LLC is committed to helping writers publish and promote their work. Writers benefit from both Internet and traditional publishing and promotion including Marguerite Press Author eTours. With a variety of poetry, children's books like "Pick Me, Pick Me!" by Elizabeth Horton, and opportunities to write and be published in the "History of," we invite you to join LeRue Press, and find your voice and your chance to be published.

 

 

 

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Sydney Chase a member of our Afro European Sisters Network, debuts in a co-starring role as Althea; her first feature film to be released by Maverick Entertainment on DVD, September 19, 2006 called Mayas Soul.

 

 

Maya's Soul is a poignant look at the power of ones will, determination, spirit, faith and humanity. Have a box of tissues handy because this film is certain to stir your emotions.

 

After a fire destroys the home Maya shared with her mother, Maya, (Nicholl Jones ) unconscious in a hospital bed awakens to news she cannot allow herself to comprehend.. Mayas faith in God is shattered, when she learns her mother, the only family shes ever known, has died in the fire. Hitting rock bottom, Maya encounters Johnny B (Rashawn Underue),"a pimp of the worst kind" who promises her the pleasures and luxuries of life. Maya's road to recovery is fraught with obstacles but with the help of two unlikely people; a homeless man, Manny (Jaime Velez) and a devout religious woman, Althea (Sydney Chase); the question becomes, can she rise above her struggles to make a new life for herself and regain her faith?"Homeless is not Helpless when you Walk with the Lord"

 

Sydney always had a dream in her heart and decided last April, 2005 to take the plunge into the world of acting. She began by getting her feet wet doing extra work on movie sets. Her first extra gig was in"Freedomland" starring Samuel L. Jackson and Julianne Moore.

 

"They worked us like we were on a plantation," says Sydney laughing."But I knew that this was what I really wanted to do. I loved being on the set even if I was an extra."

 

The payoff came earlier this year when she was invited to the Premiere of Freedomland.

 

"I took my sister with me. I told her I just wanted to see if I was cut out of the film. Most extras dont get to see themselves on screen. They are either blurred out or cut out completely. But there I was, right on screen, big as day, walking behind Samuel. I was only visible for about 15 seconds, but what a rush.

 

With that under my belt, I got my headshots done, typed up my resume and kept submitting myself for more extra work while I got my acting skills together. Once I felt confident in my skills, I started submitting myself for Independent Films that I thought I could be cast in. I got my first speaking role a few months after the Freedomland gig in a film called"Black Pearl". It was a day of filming on a mountain in Poughkeepsie, New York. We had to dress in the woods with bugs everywhere, but the cast and crew were fabulous."

 

Sydney booked several more roles after that and has been making her way in the Indie film industry pretty much on her own.

 

"I dont have a talent agent or a manager. I submit for a role, audition and go on to find the next role to submit to. Sometimes I book them, sometimes I dont. But for Althea, I knew that role was for me. I just felt it in my gut. I submitted through e-mail and regular mail for this one."

 

The call came and she got the part of Althea in September and filming began in October 2005.

 

"I was shocked and excited because this film already had distribution, and that was huge to me. And the Director already had two films under his belt, so I just figured this one would be good.

 

I loved becoming Althea. She is what I call a Bible-toting, do-gooder. She runs a soup kitchen for the homeless in Harlem, New York. She has a kind heart and a helpful spirit. Althea, along with one of her soup kitchen regulars Manny, came together to help a young woman regain her faith, spirit and soul after she is left homeless, on the street and in the clutches of a nasty"bad-ass" pimp. Hes really something else. Scary barely begins to describe this guy. . Thats all Ill say about him. You just have to get the DVD to see the rest. I can say its a tear jerker. I felt very comfortable with the dialogue in the script and the script itself was well written. I so enjoyed being part of this cast. Everyone brought their A-Game and I think you will see that on the screen."

 

 

All Sydneys hard work has paid off again. Mayas Soul is being released September 19, 2006 one year after landing the role. Sydney has several other films to be on the look out for.To find out what is next for her or to become one of her friends you can visit Sydney Chase at

www.myspace.com/sydneychase584

 

Check out the trailer for Mayas Soul at www.myspace.com/jocofilms and be sure to set the date for the release. To locate the best deal for purchase of the DVD just Google Mayas Soul.

 

 

 

 

 

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I often patronize a hip Los Angeles barbershop to get my 12-year-old son a haircut. Even though they have been cutting my sons hair for the past 4 years, recently I noticed a quietness, calmness, and maturity to this all Black-owned and all Black-employed business that featured only Black men working their trade of meticulously lining, cropping and trimming the heads of Black males of every age.

The big TV screens that are usually fixed on Black Entertainment Television (BET) have been turned off. The music that played in the background no longer featured any hip-hop songs, only soul and R&B music from the 70s and 80s. So, I decided to ask if the TV was broken? The 28 year-old barbershop owner answered, No, we just decided to make a change. I went on to ask about the new music playing in the overhead speakers. He responded, we have lots of children and young males coming into this shop and realized hip-hop music was being used as a tool to destroy and we arent participating in our own destruction anymore. I immediately got out of my seat, walked up to him and gave him the biggest hug. Then I looked into the depths of his eyes and told him, Im so proud of you! He replied, the responsibility for saving ourselves is up to us and the videos on BET are continuously disrespecting and devaluing Black women and teaches Black males that THUG LIFE equates to manhood. He further explained, it teaches our children not to fear prison life. He looked down and shook his head in a disappointing manner.

Getting the vibe that he didnt want to entice a big conversation about social issues in his shop due to not knowing what type of dissention would be invoked by such a powerful stance, I knew it was time to cut the conversation and sit back down. At that moment, I had this feeling of hope that has been missing for the past 20 years.

These barbers arent old men, these are men in their 20s and early 30s. I felt the most exciting feeling that young people, especially Black men are realizing the depictive lie in hip hop music. Rap crap is just another form of racism that is meant to keep a foot on the neck of the Black race, except this reformed tool of racism is elevated to attack the mental souls of, especially, Black people.

Music has always been the soulful essence of African people. The drumbeat was a form of communication and singing in the cotton and tobacco fields made the long and harsh days of slavery only bearable, enabling the field slave to live to an average age of 28. Slaves were simply worked to death, but singing Negro spirituals gave those left to live another day, hope for a better tomorrow.

Todays lyrics in hip hop music adds more degradation towards the promise made in the Declaration of Independence, which states that every citizen is created equal (dah!), they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness . . . that whenever any form of government (FCC allows these destructive messages) becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it . . . as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Under the current tremendously troubling circumstances outlined below, Im announcing the enactment of RAP CRAP to abolish negative lyrics that are targeting the Black race towards voluntary genocide.

Ever since NWA (Niggaz with Attitude) busted on the national scene in the late 1980s, their lyrics were aimed at exposing the dramatic unjust conditions of ghetto life in Compton, California performed in a language that was familiar to most Black people living in the innercity. The once acclaimed rap lyrics claiming injustice was a new form of empowerment and enlightenment has since been twisted around to being utilized as the newest method to keep the Black race so far behind the White race that catching up is a seemingly impossible task.

In the history of the world, there has never been a group of people who have developed more creative musical styles than Black people: Spirituals, Blues, Jazz, Soul, Rhythm and Blues, Disco, and the ever popular Motown sound that named their acts uplifting names such as the Miracles, the Marvellettes, the Supremes, the 4 tops, etc. have all retired into the depths of being archaic to todays dysfunctional youth.

The biggest improvement of the Black race was directly after the civil rights movement from 1965 to 1985. We had Hank Aaron breaking Babe Ruths all time homerun record. We had Michael Jackson selling more albums than the Beatles and Elvis Presley. We had Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan changing the way basketball was played by adding sensational acrobatic moves. We had Mike Tyson being the youngest man to ever be crowned the heavyweight champion. We had Oprah Winfrey smash Phil Donahues ratings and begin a new trend of talk shows. We had Bill Cosby crossing over to having the ..1 show on TV for several seasons. Damn, we were winning and then the enactment of the RAP CRAP TREASON ACT went into full effect and all that was won is now lost and distorted into making one Nigger rich to hurt millions of unsuspecting Black people.

Today, since Russell Simmons sold Def Jam Records, Jay Z sold Roc-a-fella, P. Diddy sold Bad Boy, and Bob Johnson sold BET, we dont own any major entities of Black music and that includes distribution that dictates what gets sold in retail stores which is connected to what gets played on radio stations.

To add insult to injury, our most successful high profile celebrities call themselves low value and corrupting names like 50 cent, Ludicris, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Bow Wow, Missy Misdemeanor Elliot, and Juvenile. Other subsidiary labels owned by the major 5 media companies that control 85% of what we see, hear, and read name their record labels Murder, Inc., Bad Boy, Death Row, and Ruthless Records. What kind of negative mind altering racist bullsh*t is that?

The RAP CRAP TREASON ACT denounces these most intoxicating beats that can make even Barbara Bush want to bob her head to these funky tracks, but in reality songs and lyrics like, Bitch better have my money, Bitches Aint Shit, F*ck your parents, Ten Crack Commandments, A Nigga With a Gun and Serial Killa have all contributed to the downward spiraling of the Black race.

Now, I have mixed feeling about Kanye West, who spoke up for the Black victims of Hurricane Katrina by stating that Bush doesnt care about Black people and had a religious ..1 pop hit called Jesus Walks. But his dual personality is similar to the 1970s Black exploitation characters that promoted the local drug dealer to also be the same person who urged youth to stay in school, parallels with Kanyes album titles, College Drop-out and Late Registration. To understand my point fully, one must comprehend this to be a complete smear to his parents accomplishments. Kanyes mother is a college professor and his father holds a Masters degree.

Just this year, the high school drop out rate for Black students is a whooping 50% and Historically Black Colleges and scholarships for Blacks are being left unclaimed without the enough students to take advantage of these much needed services. After all young people are bribed to believe that since Kanye didnt finish college and he is rich and famous, so why learn anything academically, I can be just like him. What Kanye isnt promoting is that he worked his ass off creating beats and was rejected hundreds of times before getting his break many years after starting to make his dream a reality.

The RAP CRAP TREASON ACT also exposes the damaging trend of chronically misspelling words, such as izz (is), wutt (what), tho (though), tha or da (the), wat (what), knoe (know), shud (should), jes (just), fa (for), etc. Judging by the test scores of Blacks, do they really know that these words are spelled wrong, or worse yet, do they care?

Im not being a complete square who has forgotten the natural rebellious nature of most teens. I havent forgotten that we had a secret language that was considered to be cool. In the 1970s, we used a form of pig latin, which was similar to Snoops language. The difference is that during that time, it was a complete embarrassment not to graduate from high school, and the PSAs (Public Service Announcement) for the United Negro College Fund told me every time I watched Soul Train, a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Nowadays, chronically misspelling words is an indicator of the failing school system and indicative of the power of hip-hop to fraud Black people into believing to be wrong is to be right.

THE RAP CRAP TREASON ACT charges the hip hop industry with the crime of abusing the first amendments right to free speech and identifies rap lyrics to be unconstitutional. Rap lyrics yell fire in a crowded theater that has caused pandemonium targeted at a certain group of people who see these studio gangsters as a mirror of themselves, into the danger zone of annihilation.

I further charge rappers with treason due to:

Increasing the prison population of Black males 300% in the just 20 years.

Provoking Black on Black murder rate to being 1,150% higher than White on White homicides.

The declining Black marriage rate and the rising Black divorce rate.

Normalizing the single-parent household.

And damn it, I charge rap artists with faking the diction of a retarded person as something to strive for, when any retarded person would jump at the chance to have a higher IQ. For example, the lazy talk of 50 cent and T.I. being rewarded for sounding like they have no sense at all, and absolutely no education. This subliminal message tells impressionable and vulnerable youth that you can actually win in life by talking as if they have not one year of education. When in actuality these rap fools are being used to fool us into believing the lie that it doesnt matter, when everything in the ghetto is getting worse and an half generation of youth doesnt even have an high school education.

Hell yes, Im charging them with a crime, but the only punishment in my power is to NOT buy any of their music, NOT watch any of their videos, NOT view any of their movies or TV shows; basically BANKRUPT them out of existence.

Destroying the sell-out is my goal.

And for those who act in OUR BEST INTEREST, we must reward them by purchasing books, music, and watching movies and television shows that promote a positive change for our families and ourselves.

Support those who support us. BUY POSITIVITY and ANNIHILATE NEGATIVITY.

Black people we have much work to do. In my book, Black Women Need Love, Too! Exposing the Conspiracy to Keep Black Women Without Love has a chapter called, If you dont want a dawg, then dont raise one that puts us in control of our destiny. Change is within our power and influence.

Ladies, there is a way to talk to Black men that will improve our status as the largest group of single women. We need our men to participate like never before. Its all in my book, Black Women Need Love, Too available on amazon.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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It wasn't until I was 38 that I realized I could do more than take vacations; I could be a traveler. While visiting Paris that year, I met a fascinating man at a dinner party who had made international travel a way of life. He was a fashion and travel photographer as well as a photojournalist. Looking at his passport was orgasmic! I counted 43 stamps to Africa alone! He had arranged his life so that he spent on average two months working and two months traveling. That encounter ultimately transformed me.

 

 

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