Latimer Williams

This month’s installment of African-American Trailblazer pays tribute to Dr. Marc Hannah. Dr. Hannah has been a major player in the world of software and 3d graphics for more than 20 years.He is chief architect of the Personal IRIS, Indigo, Indigo2, and Indy graphics subsystems. Dr. Marc Hannah founded Silcon Graphics(SGI), an internation market leader in 3d graphics, in particular 3d graphics in movies. You have seen alot of SGI’s work. Some of the movies that Dr Hannah and SGI worked on are , Field of Dreams, Beauty and the Beast, Batman, Jurrasic Park, Terminator 2 and The Nutty Professor.

Dr. Hannah was born in Chicago, IL on October 13,1956. Marc Hannah took an interest to math and science and received his BS in Electrical Engineering in 1977 from the Illinois Institue of Technology,a MS in Electrial Engineering in 1978 from Stanford University, and a Ph D. in 1985 from Stanford University.

Dr Hannah left SGI and went on the head Songpro software, a presentation and projection software company. Dr. Marc Hannah has help revolutionize the way we view movies and what movies can do for us. Let’s appluad Dr. Marc Hannah, an African-American Trailblazer.

In case you missed it, Check out last month’s African-American Trailblazer:
African-American Trailblazer - David Hedgley, Jr. , Father of 3-D Graphics

By Latimer Williams

With all the talk of of Iraqi kaos where raping and pillaging is abound all over the cities , we forget sometimes that there are still places in the USA that need to be patroled with almost military-like forces. I read a story about Dunbar Village housing project in West Palm Beach, Fla. This place is a warzone and absolutely no order is present in this community. I can’t imagine having to come home to a place like this and expecting anything to happen at any given minute.

A woman was recently gang raped there while here 12 year-old son had to listen and be beaten by a group of teenagers as they violated his mother. What has our country come to where in this Dunbar Village housing project cries of rape are unanswered, not even by the police. The lack of feelings of crimes here are so rampant that one woman was quoted as saying, “So a lady was raped, big deal, there is too much other crime happening here. ”

Rape is such a common thing at Dunbar Village that the mother of one of the accused teenages stated that she was raped twice at the West Palm Beach projects. The offenders that are commiting these crimes are not men thought, they are teenagers, babies. The sheer hatred and dispect of women behind these rapes are disturbing to say the least. The West Palm Beach Police just cannot handle the amount of crime that is going on at Dunbar Village. In 2006 the police was called 717 times or atleast twice a day. I can go on about the stats of crime and violence at Dunbar Village but there is probably a Dunbar Village in every metropolitan in the country and we have to come up with a solution for this anarchy and violation of our women.

We are losing to many young men both directly and indirectly and far too many women are being assulted by our own. So what is the solution for Dunbar Village specifically? Well if I had the answer to that , I would run for some sort of political office. The first thing would probably be to have 24-hour patrol at the project but would that really help? The next solution would be to level the damn buidlings but where do you place all the families that would be homeless?

In the black community it has been common place to say that if things don’t change we will lose a generation of men, but that statement has probably never been more true then the times we are going though now.

Read the story of the the Rape and Dunbar Village

By Latimer Williams

Well it’s the summer and I have been on vaction the last couple of weeks enjoying the outdoors with my family. The great part is that I feel rested and energized and I couldn’t wait to get back to blogging as I put myself on a self-imposed Technology strike, no laptops, blackberries, and limited cell phone activity. It was refreshing.

But as the summer is moving on, we have our usual rapper who is involved in a shooting and runs incident. This time its a female representing for the ladies out there. Remy Ma was involved in shooting on Saturday where another woman was shot in the hip. The police found the car of Remy Ma a few blocks down and it was abandoned with Remy Ma nohwere in sight. There was an apperent altercation between the victim and Remy Ma. The rapper who’s real name is Remy Smith turned herself into Police on Sunday and will be charged with attempted murder. Remy Ma pleaded not guilty and she paid the $250,000 bail.

With the NAACP burying words in real ceremonies it seems that we forgot to bury to things that are holding our people back, responsibility and accountibility comes to mind. I am also tired of alot of these rappers user their background as an excuse to act up in public and blame it on the streets. I don’t hold this to just African-Americans I hold all people accountable for their actions however it is no secret that black people are judge the majority of the time on the actions of others and everytime something like this happens the entire hip-hop industry must bear the weight of this action.

The kids usually pay the most attention to these situations as rappers like Remy Ma have become their role models. The message is redundant and clear to these kids from these artist: Shoot and ask questions later, if someone disagrees with you or doesn’t bow down to you, destroy them. It has become to common a theme with these kids and it seems to be growing, and everytime someone in the limelight such as Remy Ma gets arrested it’s like validation to their actions.

As parents we have to keep a constant watch over everything our kids come in contact with and the messages that are sent to them in videos and songs and TV. It is become all to easy to let the TV and the computer babysit our kids, but it is time to stop and take back the power from the outside influences. It’s as hard as you make or as easy as you make it. The choice is all of ours to make.

Well I have been away for awhile, spending time with the kids going on vaction. It is always wonderful when I get to get away with them, they grow up so fast and before you know it you are watching them graduate from High School. Kids should be our #1 priority and that is just what my man Derek Fisher chose, his daughter over sports.

I can’t tell how good it makes me feel to see a story like this in the sports world. A man in the prime years of his career chose to walk away from it all,(permenantly if need be) to care for his sick daughter. Candace Fisher has a rare form of cancer called retinoblastoma, and is need of specialized treatment and Derek and his family have to move to one of 7 major cities that have hospitals that specialize in this treatment.

Now being that the NBA is a business it is also a class act by the Utah Jazz to release without any compensation to move on and find the right hospital for his daughter. That being said he is now an unrestricted free agent and can sign with any team he wants to but I don’t see this as a priority for Derek Fisher.

With the Pacman Jones’ the world, it is refreshing to see a black man who gets it.

Check out the story: Read More