Read: CDC Says Black Suicides In Men Have Rapidly Increased

Planned Parenthood said representatives for Komen have been notifying Planned Parenthood divisions throughout the country that it will stop providing funding for breast cancer screenings and prevention.

“We are alarmed and saddened that the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation appears to have succumbed to political pressure,” Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America said in a statement. “Our greatest desire is for Komen to reconsider this policy and recommit to the partnership on which so many women count.”

Planned Parenthood said Komen did not respond to requests to meet about the termination of the partnership, the support of which has directly enabled 170,000 women to receive breast cancer exams in the past five years.

Planned Parenthood is the subject of investigations by Republican members of Congress for allegedly using federal dollars toward providing abortions. Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), chair of the House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee, opened an investigation into the matter in 2011 but nothing has yet come of it.

A statement by Komen to CBS News denied that the charity was politically pressured. “Grant making decisions are not about politics,” Komen wrote. The statement also said the organization did make changes to its grant-making process and “implemented more stringent eligibility and performance criteria.”

Read: Should A Candidate’s Religion Matter?

Leslie Aun, a spokesperson for Komen, told the Associated Press that Komen crafted new guidelines that prohibits organizations under investigation from the government from receiving financial support.

Anti-abortion groups have in recent months been targeting Komen, an organization that raised more than $400 million to fight breast cancer in 2010, for its relationship with Planned Parenthood. The anti-abortion organization Life Issues Institute launched a campaign to persuade Komen to halt its partnership with Planned Parenthood, which, according to the Associated Press, granted $650,000 to Planned Parenthood last year.

Read:What’s Drake’s Favorite Vacation Destination?

On its Facebook page, Bradley Mattes, executive director of the Life Issues Institute wrote: “The continued, collective efforts of the pro-life movement have paid off. Our work to educate Komen donors to the reality that the organization has financially supported the nation’s largest chain of abortion mills has caused Komen to halt the financial hemorrhaging. Evidently, Komen had to choose between political ideology and financial viability. They made a good choice.”

Read:Game Show Network To Create Bible Based Show

“We are excited to work with TLC to profile the lives of these strong-willed women,” True Entertainment president Steven Weinstock says. “With most praise in religious communities directed towards male preachers, we are thrilled to give these remarkable ladies the spotlight they crave and deserve.”

The series will not only follow the women as they play out their role as preacher’s wives in the congregation, but also give a view of their home lives and how they balance both roles.

True Entertainment’s Weinstock and Glenda Hersh will serve as executive producers. The production company’s projects also include OWN’s Season 25: Oprah Behind the Scenes and Unfaithful, Logo’s The A-List,  and Bravo’s Platinum Hit. TLC did not announce a projected airdate.

Read: Popular Pastor Says TD Jakes Is The Worst Thing For Black Church!

The series marks the network’s entire into the type of programming that has become the half-billion dollar reality gold of the Real Housewives franchise for Bravo, a formula that has been picked up by several other networks like VH1 and its Basketball Wives.

Make sure to follow Elev8 on twitter for updates.

Sad news in the music world this morning.

Don Cornelius, the man behind classic 1971 – 2006 dance show Soul Train, was found dead in his Sherman Oaks, Calif., home this morning.

Reports show that law enforcement sources say he died from a gunshot wound to the head and officials believe it was self-inflicted. He was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Cornelius was 75.

Whenever he was asked about the impact of his race on the 2008 election, President Obama would often say that he presumed his race would cost him some votes, and maybe gain him some votes too just like a lot of other characteristics over which he had little control such as how he looked and where he was from. Of course as we all later learned there was another trait President Obama also had little control over that had, and continues to have, the potential to cost him and other candidates even more votes than race: perceived religious beliefs. The fact that 1 in 5 Americans believe President Obama is not a Christian and view that as a justification for questioning his leadership and patriotism represents a political land mine for the President, and increasingly for his 2012 GOP opponent as well.

Make sure to read more here.

Keep up with Elev8 on twitter and facebook during this important election year.

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In the 2007 Super Bowl, quarterback Eli Manning managed to escape the grasp of Green and completed a pass to David Tyree that would later result in a winning score. The end result was a 17-14 loss for the Patriots to the Giants.

Green couldn’t sleep for weeks because of that play and would sometimes wake up in cold sweats. Today, he’s still wide awake to watch the rematch of the Giants and the Patriots, hoping for redemption.

NewsOne: What are the differences between the team today and what are their chances?

Jarvis Green: There are seven guys from the ’07 year that are still there now, and they are a very important part of the chemistry of the team. Of course, they’re also older players.

I think what’s different is that we have a really strong defense compared to then, so that’s the biggest thing. [The Giants have] an Eli Manning. He had a helluva game in ’07, but he’s playing probably the best football of his career this year, so that makes a difference.

I think the front seven this year is better than the front seven we had in ’07. They got a good line. I think the biggest thing for this upcoming game is they get rid of the ball and make some big plays.

NewsOne: What do you think the Patriots need to look out for?

JG: I think the pass rush and watching them dive on second and third down, because the Giants have plenty of good cornerbacks. Also, they have to make sure that Gronkowski, the big tight end, doesn’t get jammed, if he gets jammed, the game is over.

NewsOne: What do you think the Giants should look out for?

JG: They need to look out for their tight end, make sure not to allow [quarterback] Tom Brady to get hot, and also I think the sleeper of the game are the running backs. If the Giants rush the way they rush the middle, it’s going to be pretty much wide open for them to get in there and have a power running attack.

NewsOne: Do you think the momentum is that much stronger because of the momentum from 2007?

JG: I think so. I remember I talked with one of my friends that owns a restaurant at the stadium and she said the pep rally had 25,000 people in the stands. I said that was probably the biggest crowd ever. I think it’s gonna something different.

NewsOne: What’s your prediction?

JG: I gotta say that with these two teams, it’s not gonna be a blowout. It’s gonna be a helluva game all the way down to the wire.

NewsOne: Talk about that 2007 game. What were some of the major mistakes for the Patriots?
JG: The major mistake was that the Giants got to Brady a lot. He played the game on his back. We had a lot of momentum changes in the game.  We played them all the way through the entire game until that last drive—I think that changed my life. After that game I didn’t sleep at all, because I kept replaying that play.

NewsOne: Do you think there’s more momentum for the Patriots or are people rooting for the Giants?

JG: I know when I played, people loved to hate us because they thought we were too successful. It’s sad because the Giants beat the Patriots this year, but who is the underdog for this Super Bowl? The best team is gonna win. That’s all I can say.

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Jennifer Hudson recently released a book titled “I Got This,” an inspirational memoir. During recent book signing Jennifer shared her thoughts on life, saying:

“If it’s meant to be it will be.”

“What God has for you is for you.”

“When you look back on things and wonder why they didn’t work out, and then they finally do, you say to yourself, it worked out the way it was suppose to. Thank you God. You always know the best for my life!”

Watch the video

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Part II

I had no idea who Tyler Perry was when I first saw him perform in his stage play “Diary of a Mad Black Woman” at the Fox Theater in Detroit 11 years ago. A friend of mine had some extra tickets and invited me to see this tall Black man dress up as a sassy pistol-packing grandma named “Madea.”

“It’s really good,” my friend told me. “You gotta come see it.”

With nothing to do that night, I reluctantly said, Yes, but my expectations were rather low. Neither Eddie Murphy’s “Nutty Professor” nor Martin Lawrence’s “Big Mama’s House” tickled my fancy, so I was not expecting much nourishment from seeing another brotha dramatize our already hyper-stereotyped Black women.

But, quite surprisingly, the play’s pronounced Christian themes and “I-can-do-all-things-through-Christ” narrative evoked the worst memories of my teenage battles of low self-esteem and bouts with an emotionally and physically abusive relative. More importantly, the play made me believe I could actually heal inside and share my newfound joy, unashamedly, with the rest of the world.

When Perry walked out onstage dressed in fresh Air Force Ones, jeans, and a well-fitted print sweater, the shoulder-to-shoulder packed audience erupted in thunderous applause. And so did I.

“Hollywood doesn’t know who you are and doesn’t care to know you,” he said. “Thank you so much for coming out to support this play and I have much more in store for you.” He spoke several minutes more before thanking us again and leaving the stage with his small yet committed cast of Black actors and actresses.

I bet no one in the audience thought that Perry would go on to turn that gospel-infused stage drama into a multimillion-dollar media empire. That succes was to go to the highly educated John Singletons and Spike Lees of the world — not Perry, a high school dropout without a single academic credit from a fancy film school in L.A. or New York.

(He did eventually earn his GED.)

Somehow Perry, who spent time living in his car while trying to transfer his notebook-written script to a stage, found his own audience, cultivated it, and made films that drew them into theaters nationwide by the millions. Unlike many Black directors before him, Perry didn’t look to Hollywood for approval. He sought and earned the support of a particular segment of the African-American community that affords him the independence to film and finance his own films in Atlanta, however he wishes, without needing a single dime from an L.A. studio.

Unlike Spike Lee, Perry’s sharpest critic (and hater), he didn’t waste time “fighting the power.” He sought the support of his own people and became a power broker instead.

Tyler Perry doesn’t try and cast his films with highly paid actors and actresses he cannot afford to pay. He hires great talent and keeps them working. His directorial taste is indeed an acquired one, but as one critic says, “[His films] are a force of nature.”

And I am certainly not suggesting that we should support Perry just because he is Black. You do not have to like his films. (I mean, not every white person likes Quentin Tarantino.)

Still, critics shouldn’t denigrate his work just because it doesn’t reflect Afro-centric renditions of Shakespeare, and they shouldn’t chalk up his success to “the white man has anointed him the Negro of Hollywood because he creates films that make Blacks look like buffoons.”

Remember, the brotha is based in Georgia.

What these critics fail to consider is that it is Perry that brings Black audiences to the box office. He does not ask White executives in California to do that for him. But even as Perry racks in strong box office numbers and continues to maintain a devoted fan base, his films are criticized for having weak character development, being poorly written, and lacking intellectual depth.

For many people, Perry will never be good enough. But Perry doesn’t care about many people. He cares about a particular segment of his people. In turn, they love and support him unconditionally.

Rather than critiquing his films and wondering, “Why does Perry do so well making these “crappy movies,’” you should be asking him, “How do I get millions of people to support my work just like they support your work?”

It is the distinction in these two questions that determines whether you are a business man or simply jealous. Or more accurately, a hater. Many people commented in my Spike Lee article that Perry’s critics are not haters. Perhaps, but if you are still confused, let me break it down for you:

Objective critic: “I do not like the way Black women are often depicted as down-trodden sistas struggling to get over herself to find a good, educated Black man who actually likes sistas. There needs to be more intellectual development in his female characters.”

Fair enough.

Hater: “I made a film about dignified African Americans and Black folks didn’t come see it, but they go see Tyler Perry.”

See the difference?

Perry may never be considered a candidate for an Oscar or Golden Globe. Most successful directors aren’t, and to be honest, I do not think Perry really cares. I am sure he would be pleased if his work one day earns one of those golden statuettes, but you don’t see him crying or cussing to high heaven about it, do you?

When reporters asked Perry why he didn’t go the Hollywood route, he replied, “I didn’t want to play the game.” So he became a game changer. And if you do not like the “games” Perry has created, fine. Don’t hate the playa.’ And don’t even hate the game. Create your own.

And on that note, may Madea say, “Amen,” and “Halleluyer.”

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In order to maintain its existence, we need to expeditiously reinvigorate our economic equality. There is no time to waste. We are at risk. American households and small businesses are threatened to make ends meet. Now, is the time if we want to start reshaping our families, businesses, and economy, said Jackson.

Jackson, who is hosting his 15th annual Wall Street Project in New York City, is focusing on ways to make things better for America’s beleaguered middle class. The event, which ends Friday, focuses on bringing  everyone to the table in a bid for economic fairness. The founder and president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition sat down with NewsOne to discuss why economic equality is needed more than ever in the United States.

NewsOne: The theme of this year’s Wall Street Project sounds similar to what President Barack Obama talked about in his State of the Union Address. What are your concerns regarding this country’s middle class?

Jesse Jackson: There are clear patterns of discrimination against Blacks and Latinos. The big banks targeted Blacks and Latinos with toxic packages of subprime predatory lending. Your house is your first small business. It’s where your investment is and [where] our greatest asset is. The wiping out of millions of homes took away Black and Brown wealth. It drove poverty, it drove unemployment, it drove people to food stamps.

The Black public sector middle class teachers, policeman, firemen, and post office workers, those jobs have been on the decline but there hasn’t been a corresponding increase in the private sector. What is especially painful is government policy bailed out the banks without making them make reinvestments for rebuilding. The result is 53-million Americans are food insecure, 50-million Americans are in poverty, 44 million are on food stamps, 26 million are looking for a job.  We must renew the economy from the bottom up, not top down.

NewsOne: How do you correct the issues that have negatively affected the middle class?

Jackson: The major companies got bailed out by the government so the victims should get bailed out by the government. The lack of oversight was what allowed the banks to run amok. The bankers who drove homeowners into foreclosure and churches into foreclosure never faced a judge. They faced small fines like Countrywide, but the fines did not correspond to what they stole. The fines became the cost of doing business as oppossed to a detterent. You really need a renewed commitment for the direct investment of jobs at the bottom.

You are not going to revive the unemployment of 26 million Americans with tax cuts. There was a direct jobs program from the Rooselvelt administration in the 1930s. The Justice Department has set up a task force to investigate the banks and the mortgage crisis but that’s a little too late. Whenever they report they will report the obvious. It will be too late to impact the people who need the help the most. We’ve known about mortgage fraud for four years.

NewsOne: What did you think about President Obama’s economic proposals in his State of the Union Address?

Jackson: President Obama projects a strong offense, but he faces a rebellious Congress focused on state’s rights. The interest right now is taking resources back to the state and allowing the minority to have tyranny over the minority. It’s an ideological power grab. It’s like in this Congressional rebellion they are willing to sink the ship to destroy the captain. You look at the Super PAC ads and they are attacking each other. They are not attacking poverty or the lack of health care. They are not attacking issues that matter. They are not discussing how to get people back to their houses.

NewsOne: Why is President Obama so vulnerable?

Jackson: This is such a toxic environment. Look at how the governor of Arizona puts her finger in his face. How disrespectful can you be to anyone, not to mention the President of the United States. That is profoundly disrespectful. It’s not unlike the Congress calling him a liar or Gingrich calling him a food stamp president who comes from some tribe in Kenya. They question his citizenship and his credentials. This is the most-toxic environment that we’ve known in a century.

NewsOne: Talk about one thing that needs to happen in the next few years to give the middle class a chance at recovery.

Jackson: The first thing that has to happen is the protection of voting rights and registration. If the right wing has their way and state’s rights control voting rights, they would remove protections that make it difficult for seniors to vote. It would be harder for students to vote on campus. These are attempts to suppress acts of voting. There are 16-million Blacks registered to vote but 10 million are unregistered. The 10-million unregistered voters may be the key to the election.

The election of President Obama or the right wing will determine what happens in the next few years. They want state’s rights again, they want to remove voting rights protection, they want to undermine Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security. All the infrastructure Lyndon Johnson put in place is vulnerable to a right-wing controlled Congress and White House. The stakes are very high. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that we have the power to fight back. When this happened in the past we didn’t have the right to vote. We couldn’t get into the stadium. We went to bat without a bat. But now we can swing the bat. We can hit the ball, but you have to come out of the dugout and fight. No one has earned the right to do less than their best.

NewsOne: Although the Black middle class has been disproportionately affected by the financial meltdown, isn’t the entire middle class of all races and ethnicities at risk?

Jackson: The liberation of Blacks is not for Blacks only. When Blacks got the right to vote, white women got the right to sit on juries. What’s good for Blacks is good for all of America. What’s good for the very rich might not be good for anybody but them. Why would anyone be able to make $21 million not showing up for work for a single day? That is vulgar capitalism. That is not good for the nation. When Lyndon Johnson kicked off the war on poverty he did so in Appalachia to deracialize the debate. We have a moral concern to feed all of the hungry, wipe out malnutrition, so that every American be housed and every child have access to education. Ours is a broad-based moral agenda. Our moral vision is not limited to race on one part of town.

NewsOne: You’ve been hosting the Wall Street Project for 15 years. Are you optimistic about any change the event has produced?

Jackson: Fifteen years later we are still in the business of opening closed doors and fighting for economic justice. We see measures of bits of progress. We are facing a stiff wind right now, but if we persist and keep fighting back, we will prevail.

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PraiseHouston.com has the exclusive world premiere of Houston’s own gospel recording artist, author and radio show host Yolanda Adams‘ new video, “Be Still”! Watch the video below as Yolanda gives us a glimpse into her day-to-day life while making sure she finds time to “Be Still”.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Video courtesy of PraiseHouston.com

Purchase your copy of Yolanda’s 12th album Becoming which features “Be Still” in stores now!

Follow Yolanda Adams on Twitter

Join Yolanda’s Facebook Fan Page

Yolanda Adams Official Website

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Part 1

I wasn’t even a teenager in 1992 when the film “X,” Spike Lee’s biopic of the late civil rights legend Malcolm X, hit theaters. But after watching it, I immediately became a fan of that young, Black pioneering director from Brooklyn. Not only did Lee’s directing of “X” enthrall me, the film indirectly influenced my fashion choices.

I, along with millions of Black men across the nation, copped an “X” baseball cap and a red, black, and green Africa medallion soon after viewing the film. (Yes, the early 1990s were also the days when “Troops” and “Filas” were the sneakers to have on your feet and kids were saving up money to buy a Luster’s S-curl kit.)

A reading of Alex Haley’s “Autobiography of Malcolm X” soon followed. I had never been so conscience about being a Black man, until I saw this landmark film. At the tender age of 12, Spike Lee had me self-assessing my Black male masculinity.

But now, at the age of 31, Spike Lee has me scratching my bald head.

How and when did he become such hater? And when did he stop making those gritty, Afro-centric grassroots films that “fought the power” and start complaining about his lack of it instead? His self-indulgent rants against Hollywood and unprovoked diatribes at fellow directors are becoming so common that I have to wonder if he is experiencing a midlife crisis.

During a Q&A about his new film, “Red Hook Summer,” at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Chris Rock asked Lee, “What would you have done differently if you had gotten a bunch of studio money?”

It was a simple enough question that should have rendered a simple reply. Instead, Lee went on a profanity-laced tangent about how Hollywood doesn’t know anything about Black people. (He said “muthaf*cka” five times and “f*ck” once in the presence of young child actors.)

He sounded less like a sophisticated, avant-garde director and more like DMX. He embarrassed himself as well as those close to him: “My wife is looking at me like I’m crazy.”

Trust me, Spike, she wasn’t the only one.

This is not the first time Lee has pontificated less-than-constructive criticisms of the industry or his colleagues. Back in 1997, he complained about how inappropriate it was for Quentin Tarantino to use the N-word so often in his retro-Blaxploitation flick “Jackie Brown.”

(Isn’t it “muthaf*ckin’” ironic that he, of all people, lectured someone on inappropriate language?)

Samuel L. Jackson, one of the film’s stars, shot back at Lee saying, “I don’t think the word is offensive in the context of this film. … Black artists think they are the only ones allowed to use the word. Well, that’s bull. Jackie Brown is a wonderful homage to black exploitation films. This is a good film, and Spike hasn’t made one of those in a few years.”

He wasn’t lying about that. (Ironically, Tarantino played a small role in Lee’s 1996 film “Girl 6” and Jackson acted in several Spike Lee Joints. Brotha Spike has a penchant for burning bridges, doesn’t he?)

Even Clint Eastwood has been served a dose of Lee’s “hateration.” When Eastwood received rave reviews for his World War II film “Heros of Iwo Jima” several years ago, Lee went into hater mode again, criticizing the film for its dearth of Black faces. When Eastwood counted that his film dealt with a very specific group of soldiers and situation that reflected historical fact, Lee balked. In turn, Eastwood recommended that Lee “shut his face.”

It is becoming a common practice of Lee’s to make less-than-stellar films and then play the race card when no one supports them because he feels they should.

Take his first attempt at a war movie, “Miracle On St. Anna,” for example. Based off of a novel of the same name, Lee’s film focuses on the segregated 92nd Infantry Division, aka the Buffalo Soldiers, who mistakenly fight their way behind enemy lines during World War II. His attempts to capture the heroism of these Black soldiers via film were admirable; however, the film as a whole left much to be desired.

Instead of chalking up his poor box office showing as a learning experience, he ridiculed Black moviegoers for not supporting the movie and blamed them for preferring Tyler Perry’s “coonery” and “baffonery.” Lee’s mean-spirited analysis is perplexing, given that Perry’s business model and artistic taste toward film making epitomizes the anti-Hollywood mantra that defines Lee himself.

Perry ended up telling Lee to “go straight to hell.” But I don’t want him to do that.

I’d rather see Spike Lee stop being a bitter, old grandpa and start making those great, thought-provoking movies that made me want to “waaaaake uuuuuup!”

I want to see that daring, undauntedly aggressive director I remember from the late 1980s get his mojo back because the Spike Lee of today is failing miserably to direct or say “the right thang.”

Watch for Starr’s final installment of this opinion series titled, “Why We Should Celebrate, Not Playa Hate On Tyler Perry.”

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