NobleMag

WASHINGTON (AP) — Deep-seated racial misgivings could costBarack Obama the White House if the election is close, according to anAP-Yahoo News poll that found one-third of white Democrats harbornegative views toward blacks — many calling them "lazy,""violent," responsible for their own troubles.The poll, conducted with Stanford University, suggests that thepercentage of voters who may turn away from Obama because of his racecould easily be larger than the final difference between the candidatesin 2004 — about two and one-half percentage points.Certainly, Republican John McCain has his own obstacles: He's anally of an unpopular president and would be the nation's oldestfirst-term president. But Obama faces this: 40 percent of all whiteAmericans hold at least a partly negative view toward blacks, and thatincludes many Democrats and independents. More than a third of all white Democrats and independents —voters Obama can't win the White House without — agreed with atleast one negative adjective about blacks, according to the survey, andthey are significantly less likely to vote for Obama than those whodon't have such views.Such numbers are a harsh dose of reality in a campaign for thehistory books. Obama, the first black candidate with a serious shot atthe presidency, accepted the Democratic nomination on the 45thanniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, aseminal moment for a nation that enshrined slavery in its Constitution."There are a lot fewer bigots than there were 50 years ago, but thatdoesn't mean there's only a few bigots," said Stanford politicalscientist Paul Sniderman who helped analyze the exhaustive survey.The pollsters set out to determine why Obama is locked in a closerace with McCain even as the political landscape seems to favorDemocrats. President Bush's unpopularity, the Iraq war and a nationalsense of economic hard times cut against GOP candidates, as does thatfact that Democratic voters outnumber Republicans.The findings suggest that Obama's problem is close to home —among his fellow Democrats, particularly non-Hispanic white voters.Just seven in 10 people who call themselves Democrats support Obama,compared to the 85 percent of self-identified Republicans who backMcCain.The survey also focused on the racial attitudes of independent voters because they are likely to decide the election.Lots of Republicans harbor prejudices, too, but the survey foundthey weren't voting against Obama because of his race. Most Republicanswouldn't vote for any Democrat for president — white, black orbrown.Not all whites are prejudiced. Indeed, more whites say good thingsabout blacks than say bad things, the poll shows. And many whites whosee blacks in a negative light are still willing or even eager to votefor Obama.On the other side of the racial question, the Illinois Democrat isdrawing almost unanimous support from blacks, the poll shows, thoughthat probably wouldn't be enough to counter the negative effect of somewhites' views.Race is not the biggest factor driving Democrats and independentsaway from Obama. Doubts about his competency loom even larger, the pollindicates. More than a quarter of all Democrats expressed doubt thatObama can bring about the change they want, and they are likely to voteagainst him because of that.Three in 10 of those Democrats who don't trust Obama's change-making credentials say they plan to vote for McCain.Still, the effects of whites' racial views are apparent in the polling.Statistical models derived from the poll suggest that Obama'ssupport would be as much as 6 percentage points higher if there were nowhite racial prejudice.But in an election without precedent, it's hard to know if such models take into account all the possible factors at play.The AP-Yahoo News poll used the unique methodology of KnowledgeNetworks, a Menlo Park, Calif., firm that interviews people onlineafter randomly selecting and screening them over telephone. Numerousstudies have shown that people are more likely to report embarrassingbehavior and unpopular opinions when answering questions on a computerrather than talking to a stranger.Other techniques used in the poll included recording people'sresponses to black or white faces flashed on a computer screen, askingparticipants to rate how well certain adjectives apply to blacks,measuring whether people believe blacks' troubles are their own fault,and simply asking people how much they like or dislike blacks."We still don't like black people," said John Clouse, 57, reflectingthe sentiments of his pals gathered at a coffee shop in Somerset, Ohio.Given a choice of several positive and negative adjectives thatmight describe blacks, 20 percent of all whites said the word "violent"strongly applied. Among other words, 22 percent agreed with "boastful,"29 percent "complaining," 13 percent "lazy" and 11 percent"irresponsible." When asked about positive adjectives, whites were morelikely to stay on the fence than give a strongly positive assessment.Among white Democrats, one third cited a negative adjective and, of those, 58 percent said they planned to back Obama.The poll sought to measure latent prejudices among whites by askingabout factors contributing to the state of black America. One finding:More than a quarter of white Democrats agree that "if blacks would onlytry harder, they could be just as well off as whites."Those who agreed with that statement were much less likely to back Obama than those who didn't.Among white independents, racial stereotyping is not uncommon. Forexample, while about 20 percent of independent voters called blacks"intelligent" or "smart," more than one third latched on the adjective"complaining" and 24 percent said blacks were "violent."Nearly four in 10 white independents agreed that blacks would be better off if they "try harder."The survey broke ground by incorporating images of black and whitefaces to measure implicit racial attitudes, or prejudices that are sodeeply rooted that people may not realize they have them. That testsuggested the incidence of racial prejudice is even higher, with morethan half of whites revealing more negative feelings toward blacks thanwhites.Researchers used mathematical modeling to sort out the relativeimpact of a huge swath of variables that might have an impact onpeople's votes — including race, ideology, party identification,the hunger for change and the sentiments of Sen. Hillary RodhamClinton's backers.Just 59 percent of her white Democratic supporters said they wantedObama to be president. Nearly 17 percent of Clinton's white backersplan to vote for McCain.Among white Democrats, Clinton supporters were nearly twice aslikely as Obama backers to say at least one negative adjectivedescribed blacks well, a finding that suggests many of her supportersin the primaries — particularly whites with high school educationor less — were motivated in part by racial attitudes.The survey of 2,227 adults was conducted Aug. 27 to Sept. 5. It hasa margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.

Obama

Hip-Hop mogul Jay-Z has teamed up with mega hit producers Stargate -known for their work with Ne-Yo, Beyonce' and Rihanna- to officially launch the record label StarRoc, according to SOHH.com. Norwegian duo Tor Erik Hermansen and Mikkel S. Eriksen have confirmed the deal with the multi-platinum rapper, as announced on the international music site 730.co. The pair are known for creating smash hit records with artists such as Nas, Chris Brown, Mary J. Blige, Usher, R. Kelly and others. Stargate will be based out of Jay's Roc The Mic studio in Manhattan. In addition to their new venture, Eriksen will be joining his partner at EMI Music Publishing as he has signed a new global deal with the company. Eriksen's relationship with EMI will further the publishing company's involvement on Stargate's future projects, according to Music Week. Prior to the deal, EMI was involved in the developments of Hermansen for nearly ten years. Stargate is globally known for their work on No. 1 Billboard Top 100 hits "So Sick" by Ne-Yo, "Irreplaceable" from Beyonce' and Rihanna's "Take A Bow." [source]

Filed Under: Rest and ReLaxitiveation

Rapper Busta Rhymes has dumped his record label Aftermath/Interscope and is officially signed with Universal Motown. Motown reps tell SOHH.com, the New York rapper has signed an agreement to release his next project on the famed label, which is also home to Lil’ Wayne and Chamillionaire. The hip-hop icon (???) was in talks earlier this week about leaving Aftermath to pursue a run with Motown, after it was rumored he was being dropped from the label. "I can’t confirm or deny anything," an Interscope/Aftermath rep previously told SOHH about the then rumored split. In addition to an alleged industry beef with label chairman Jimmy Iovine, Busta suffered major delays with his eighth studio album, Blessed, originally slated for an early July release. Blessed was never released, despite the label dropping two videos for the songs "We Made It" and "Don’t Touch Me (Throw Da Water On ’Em)." If released on Motown, Blessed will feature contributions from Linkin Park, Dr. Dre, Green Lantern, Cool & Dre, Nottz, Timbaland and Pharrell. While it hasn't been confirmed, the album is expected to be released around December 9.

Busta

The republicans are at it again. As there is a lot at stake in this presidential election and the current polls have McCain and Obama in a statistical dead heat. Looks like the bandits are trying to attack the voters and the polls as a way of cheating.. AGAIN.

According to the Michigan Messenger, James Carabelli, the chairman of the Macomb County, Michigan Republican party says, "We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure those people aren't voting from those addresses." Who do you think was hit hardest by the foreclosure crisis? Three guesses, the first two don't count. If you have foreclosed on your home CHANGE YOUR ADDRESS BEFORE YOU REGISTER. Even though the Obama party is fighting this first round of racist Monopoly this Michigan dick head is gearing up teams in several states to challenge voters with an organized effort titled "the election integrity program." What a great fucking title for people wiht "integrity." The Obama campaign filed a complaint in court Tuesday to stop it.

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This holiday season, It's Cool To Be Smart will introduce their new book series, called "Saving Our Daughters" From a Man's Point of View and will feature 6 leading African American Men in Film, Television, Sports and Music; one of these men will be T.I. and the organizations sponsor and spokesperson for the past 5 years. It was a very special September 13th weekend at this years' event because of the support from V-103's Producer, of The Porsche Foxx Show, Tequilla Whitfield. Tequilla had joined It's Cool To Be Smart and the new book series' efforts to help support and uplift single parent mothers and their daughters in the black community. "I read the first two chapters of Saving Our Daughters and was truly touched by the mother and co-author's quest of overcoming horrific acts in their life", stated Tequilla.

T.i.

DMX feels the need to tell this story to the recent issue of Complex magazine. Doesn't it make you want to go out and grab a copy for the rest of the story? This is about a groupie encounter.. The average person could tell a person is nasty like that just by looking at them. I hope you are not eating when you read this.

“There was one that took a shit and didn’t wipe her fucking ass. I wake up smelling shit. I go into the bathroom to take a piss and see big-ass logs of shit, but no toilet tissue in there. See, paper’s supposed to be the last thing. Paper goes on top of the shit. But I saw shit and no paper.” - - Cousin Earl tells a groupie horror story in Complex magazine."

And the irony, she was probably laying next to him before he got out of bed YIKES. Let's give all glory to Hotel Maids and the shit they have to do.

Hip-Hop crooner Nate Dogg has suffered a second stroke, according to AllHipHop.com. While details are sketchy, sources have stated that the rapper is in serious condition due to the stroke. Sources tell AllHipHop.com that at this time, the singer cannot breathe on his own. This is his second stroke since December 20, 2007, and the first left Nate Dogg, born Nathaniel Hale, partially paralyzed on the left side of his body, although his brain didn't suffer any major damage from the incident. In May, rumors surfaced that Nate Dogg had died as a result of the stroke, but his manager Rod McCrew dismissed the reports, and stated that he was pleased with the progress of Nate Dogg's recovery. Nate Dogg was arrested in June for allegedly making threats against his former girlfriend as he followed her in another car on the 405 Freeway in Los Angeles.

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BET News Lands the First Post-Trial Exclusive Interview With R&B Singer R.Kelly

"R. KELLY SPEAKS" Premieres Tuesday, September 16 at 10:00 p.m. After a six-year court case resulting inan acquittal on all 14 counts of child pornography, multi-platinum recordingartist and Grammy award winner R. Kelly breaks his silence to the world in anexclusive BET News special, R. KELLY SPEAKS, premiering on Tuesday, September16 at 10:00 p.m.* In this half-hour special, Kelly sits down with BET hostand acclaimed journalist Toure in Philadelphia for his first and possibly final interview to discuss his long legal battle leading up to the not-guilty verdict. The verdict came six years after the R&B superstar was first charged with videotaping himself having sex with an underage girl who prosecutorsbelieve may have been as young as 13 at the time. By answering thehard-hitting questions surrounding his recent case, career, critics and more, Kelly hopes to close this major chapter in his life-once and for all. Kelly will speak openly about his feelings during and after the trial, thefans he lost along the way, his brother who openly expressed concern aboutthe superstar's sexual age preference and more. R. KELLY SPEAKS is the third installment in the series of exclusiveone-on-one interviews produced by BET News. Past specials include, T.I.SPEAKS and THE BISHOP SPEAKS, an in-depth interview with Bishop Thomas Weeks III.

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