Greene County Democrat

Tag: Sean “Diddy” Combs

  • Newswire: Twenty-Seven years later: suspect arrested in murder of Tupac Shakur 

    Tupac Shakur

    By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Contributor

    Twenty-seven years after the death of one of the most noted rappers in history of the genre, a man has been arrested for the murder of rapper Tupac Shakur.
    As the years have gone by some suspects have come into the news while others have passed away. On September 29, 2023, a man named Duane Keith Davis was arrested in Las Vegas and charged in connection with the murder of Shakur.
    The rapper and actor was killed on September 13, 1996 in Las Vegas, at the age of 25, after being shot four times. He died less than a week later at the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada. Since then, Shakur’s death has lingered on as a mystery that has never been brought to a conclusion.
    Davis is a member of the California-based gang known as The South Side Compton Crips and was a childhood friend of N.W.A. member Eazy-E. During the early ’90s, Davis built a friendly relationship with Sean “Diddy” Combs. Rumors that someone would be charged in Shakur’s death have swirled for years with no arrests made.
    Tupac’s life was short but marked by artistic achievement in music and acting. His family moved to Baltimore and he attended the Baltimore School for the Arts, where he studied acting, poetry, jazz, and ballet. In the late 1980s, Tupac moved to California, where he joined the hip-hop group Digital Underground as a backup dancer and rapper. He gained recognition for his skills and charisma on stage.
    In addition to his storied music career, Shakur pursued acting and appeared in films such as “Juice” (1992), “Poetic Justice” (1993), “Above the Rim” (1994), and “Gridlock’d” (1997). He received praise for his acting talent.
    Tupac Shakur was born in East Harlem to Afeni Shakur, a former Black Panther, and Billy Garland. He was given the name Lesane Parish Crooks at birth but later changed it to Tupac Amaru Shakur after he was inspired by the 18th-century Peruvian revolutionary Túpac Amaru II.

  • How Did African Americans Fare In The Obama Era?

    Many say the first Black president didn’t do enough to improve the lives of African Americans.

    Written By Nigel Roberts

    president-obama-copy-3

     President Barack Obama
    Many African-Americans have expressed disappointment in President Barack Obama, even those who voted whole-heartedly for him twice.
    In an October interview, Sean “Diddy” Combs, in an interview on Politics Nation with Al Sharpton, said the Black community “got a little bit shortchanged.”
    He explained it this way: “I feel like we put President Obama in the White House, and when I look back I just wanted more done for my people. Because, that’s the name of the game, this is politics.”
    Here are a few gauges in evaluating how African-Americans fared under the Obama presidency.
    Sense of well-being
    First, are African-Americans really disappointed in the performance of the first Black president? Gallup and Healthways asked Americans to rate their current and future lives throughout his presidency. Researchers found that Americans of all races who say they are thriving have increased. African-Americans’ life evaluations improved nearly 13 points from 2008 to 2010. However, it declined during Obama’s second term, now registering below other races.
    “These results dovetail with Blacks’ collective sentiment that Obama has not done enough to improve Black Americans’ standard of living,” the researchers concluded.

    •Income/Wealth
    Wages remained stagnant for nearly all Americans during the economic recovery. CNN Money reported that income dropped to $33,926 in the period of 2009 to 2011, but then rebounded to $35,398 by 2014. African-Americans were hit particularly hard during the Great Recession, with many falling into poverty. By 2011, the poverty rate within the Black community reached 27.6 percent, which was almost 2 percent higher than when Obama took office. In recent years, it has fallen to 26.2 percent.
    Meanwhile, the wealth gap grew between Black and White Americans during the Obama presidency. The Pew Research Center, based on an analysis of Federal Reserve data, found that family wealth was eight times higher for Whites than Blacks in 2010 and ballooned to 13 times greater in 2013.

    Education
    The academic achievement gap between Black and White students remains stubbornly high. In fact, for many decades Black students have lagged significantly behind their White counterparts on just about all academic measures. However, in October the White House announced that the high school graduation rate reached a record level for all students in the 2014-2015 school year. African-American students made strides toward on-time graduation, increasing by 8 percent since the 2010-2011 school year.

    Unemployment
    The high unemployment rate among Black youths was shuffled around like a political tennis ball, some would say exploited, during the 2016 campaign season. However, CNN Money reported that the unemployment rate in two categories—teens and those 16 to 24—declined more than half during the Obama administration.
    For Black teens, the unemployment rate reached a high of 48.9 percent in Sept. 2010. For job seekers 16 to 24, the unemployment rate spiked to 32.5 percent in Jan. 2010. While still high, the jobless rates dropped this year to 23.3 percent and 14.5 percent, respectively.

    Healthcare
    Access to health care improved significantly for African-Americans, thanks of course to President Obama’s signature policy, the Affordable Care Act. According to White House.gov, since open enrollment in 2013, more than 3 million uninsured African-Americans obtained coverage, reducing the percentage of Blacks who lack health care by more than half during the Obama presidency.