Sept. 22 - New York Beacon

Transcription

New York
Beacon
website:
NewYorkBeacon.net
Vol. 18 No. 38
Showing the Way to Truth and Justice
September 22, 2011 - September 28, 2011
E-Mail
[email protected]
75 Cents
CLEMENCY DENIED
Death-row inmate slated for execution
TROY DAVIS — Protesters gathered outside the building where the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles held a hearing for death row inmate Troy Davis on Monday
(See Story On Page 3)
Walter Fauntroy feared dead in Libya returns home
(See Story On Page 3)
Councilman Comrie joins McDonald’s
in roll-out of Improved Happy Meal
NEW YORK BEACON, September 22, 2011 - September 28, 2011 newyorkbeacon.net
2
Clyde Frazier JR on the Memorial Wall. Location—C-27
Clyde Frazier SR. with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
at the Memorial wall 9/11/11
Conyers: Concealed guns
could endanger people
The House Judiciary
Committee’s Subcommittee on
Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland
Security held a hearing on H.R.
822, the “National Right-to-Carry
Reciprocity Act of 2011.” The bill
would override the laws of almost every state by obligating
each to accept concealed handgun carry permits from every
other state, even if the permit
holder would not be allowed to
obtain such a permit or carry a
gun in the state in which he or
she is traveling. House Judiciary
Committee Ranking Member
John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) issued the following statement in
response to the hearing:
“This bill would endanger citizens in states across the country, including my home state of
Michigan, because it would allow people from other states who
do not meet the requirements of
local laws for a concealed carry
permit to carry concealed handguns,” Conyers said. “Each
state must be allowed to make
critical public safety determinations like these without Congress
overruling them. For example, the
chances of being murdered for
African American males in Detroit between ages 15 and 24
have risen rapidly in recent years,
and nationally, almost 300 African American youth aged 15 to
Cong. Conyers
24 are injured by gun fire each
week. We must do more to fight
violent gun crimes instead of making it easier for people to carry handguns in violation of our local laws.”
A long list of law enforcement and
government associations oppose
H.R. 822. This list includes Mayors Against Illegal Guns; the International Association of Chiefs of
Police; the Major Cities Chiefs Association, which includes the Police Chiefs of 56 major U.S. cities;
the Police Foundation; National
Latino Peace Officers Association;
and National Organization of Black
Law Enforcement Executives.
New York City Council Deputy
Majority Leader Leroy Comrie (DQueens) joined the McDonald’s
Corporation last week for a press
conference to announce the rollout of their new, healthier Happy
Meal at McDonald’s, 216-07 Linden Boulevard, Cambria Heights,
Queens.
Representing McDonald’s
were Marcos Quesada, director
of Operations for McDonalds
Metro New York; Dr. Cindy
Goody, senior director of Nutrition, McDonalds USA and several New York City franchise operators. They were joined by
Community Board #13 manager
Lawrence McClean and members
of the Alpha Phi Alpha Senior
Center. Additionally, students
from the Montessori Progressive
Learning Center were present to
sample the new meals.
According to Dr. Goody,
McDonald’s “Commitment to Offer Improved Nutrition Choices”
initiative is now offering an array
of nutritional improvements in
their Happy Meals, including:
*Automatically including produce or a low-fat dairy option in
every Happy Meal;
*Promoting nutrition messages
in 100 percent of its national kids’
communications, including merchandising, advertising, digital
and the Happy Meal packaging;
*Reducing added sugars, saturated fat and calories through
varied portion sizes by 2020;
*Reducing sodium an average
of 15 percent overall across its
national menu of food choices by
2015.
The new Happy Meal will automatically include both produce
(apple slices, a quarter cup or half
serving) and a smaller size of
French fries.
By the end of 2012, they will
provide apples in every Happy
Meal and promote options that
meet the new, rigorous Council
of Better Business Bureaus Food
Pledge nutrition standards.
The impact will be an estimated
20 percent reduction in calories
of the most popular Happy Meals,
also reducing fat in those meals.
They are also exploring alternatives to the automatic apples,
Council Member Comrie applauds McDonald’s for taking this muchneeded step forward in providing healthier choices for our children and
demonstrating good corporate citizenship by acknowledging the need
for healthier options in their menu. (Photo: William Alatriste/NYC
Council)
such as other produce or low fat McDonalds that placed a focus on
dairy items. In 2012, McDonald’s good nutrition and now congratuwill also raise nutrition awareness late McDonald’s for their renewed
among children and parents commitment to improved nutrition for
through national marketing initia- our children. I believe that healthier
tives.
meals for our children will be better
The company will promote nu- for our youth and also better for
trition and/or active lifestyle mes- McDonalds’ sales margin.”
sages in 100 percent of its national
“I want to take this opportunity to
kids’ communications, including applaud McDonald’s for taking this
merchandising, advertising, digi- much-needed step forward in providtal and the Happy Meal packaging healthier choices for our chiling. McDonald’s will also provide dren. Obesity is a national epidemic,
funding for grass roots commu- particularly among youth, and today
nity nutrition awareness pro- McDonald’s has demonstrated good
grams.
corporate citizenship by acknowlLast April, Council Member edging the need for healthier options
Comrie introduced the Healthy in their menu. Ultimately, the final
Kids-Healthy
Meals responsibility rests with parents who
legislation, which would prevent are purchasing these meals for their
fast food restaurants from giving children. However, I believe that fastaway toys with kids’ meals unless food businesses, who invest millions
they met certain satisfactory nu- of dollars in marketing their products
tritional requirements. “I firmly to children, have a moral responsibelieved such action would com- bility to provide their customers with
pel the fast food industry to re- safer, healthier options. I also believe
view their marketing practices to- that government should play a role
wards children and realize that in encouraging the private sector to
there is a strong, vibrant market have an open dialogue about
for parents and caretakers who healthier options for children.
want to provide children with a
The proposed bill, known as Inhealthy and nutritious meal,” troduction 530, would amend the
stated Council Member Comrie. “I administrative code of the City of
applauded the subsequent release
of healthy-themed commercials by
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 25)
African-American poverty rates
said to be highest in four years
Special to the NNPA from the Los American poverty rate is twice as
Angeles Sentinel
high as the poverty rate for whites
reveals that African-Americans
For a fourth year in a row, the continue to suffer disproportionAfrican-American poverty rate ately from social injustices.”
more than doubled that of non- African-American children sufHispanic white Americans, ac- fered from poverty at an even
cording to 2010 data released to- higher rate - 39.1 percent. Last
day by the U.S. Census Bureau. week, the U.S. Department of AgAt 27.4 percent, the African- riculture released annual food inAmerican poverty rate also nearly security data revealing that 25.1
doubled the overall U.S. poverty percent of African-Americans were
rate - 15.1 percent. “The figures reported hungry in 2010. Wideare both startling and very tell- spread and prolonged unemploying,” said Rev. Derrick Boykin, ment, among other factors, conassociate for African-American tributed to these high figures. At
Leadership Outreach at Bread for the same time, real median housethe World. ”That the African- hold income for African-Ameri-
cans declined to $32,068 in 2010-less
than two-thirds the real median income of white households.
Accounting for the Earned Income
Tax Credit (EITC) would show 5.4 million fewer people - including 3 million children - living in poverty. The
figures would have been much
higher without federally funded
safety net programs which help keep
poverty and food insecurity numbers down as families work to get on
their feet. The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction - or “Super
Committee” - met recently to determine how to balance the federal bud(CONTINUED ON PAGE 25)
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Walter Fauntroy
Walter Fauntroy, feared
dead in Libya, returns
Special to AFRO American words, the French and Danish were
ordering the bombings and killNewspaper
ings, and giving credit to the
Former U.S. Congressman rebels.
“The truth about all this will
Walter Fauntroy, who recently
returned from a self-sanctioned come out later,” Fauntroy said.
While in Libya, the former conpeace mission to Libya, said he
went into hiding for about a gressman also said he sat down
month in Libya after witnessing with Libyan leader Moammar
horrifying events in Libya’s Gaddafi for a one-on-one converbloody civil war — a war that sation. Gaddafi has ruled Libya
Fauntroy claims is backed by since 1969, when he seized power
European forces. Fauntroy’s in a military coup. Fauntroy said
sudden disappearance prompted he spoke with Gaddafi in person
rumors and news reports that he and that Gaddafi assured him that
if he survived these attacks, the
had been killed.
In an interview inside his mission to unite African countries
Northwest D.C. home last week, would continue.
“Contrary to what is being rethe noted civil rights leader, told
the Afro that he watched French ported in the press, from what I
and Danish troops storm small heard and observed, more than 90
villages late at night beheading, percent of the Libyan people love
maiming and killing rebels and Gaddafi,” Fauntroy said. “We beloyalists to show them who was lieve the true mission of the attacks
on Gaddafi is to prevent all efforts
in control.
“‘What the hell’ I’m thinking by African leaders to stop the
to myself. I’m getting out of here. recolonization of Africa.”
Several months ago, Gaddafi’s
So I went into hiding,” Fauntroy
leadership faced its biggest chalsaid.
The rebels told Fauntroy they lenge. In February, a radical prohad been told by the European test movement called the Arab
forces to stay inside. Accord- Spring spread across Libya. When
ing to Fauntroy, the European Gaddafi responded by dispatching
forces would tell the rebels,
“‘Look at what you did.’ In other
The Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole has denied
clemency for death-row inmate
Troy Davis.
Davis was convicted of the
1989 killing of Savannah, Georgia, police officer Mark
MacPhail.
Davis is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at 7
p . m . We d n e s d a y a t a s t a t e
prison in Jackson, Georgia.
“Monday September 19, 2011,
the State Board of Pardons and
Paroles met to consider a clemency request from attorneys
representing condemned inmate Troy Anthony Davis. After considering the request, the
Board has voted to deny clemency,” the board said in a statement Tuesday morning.
The five-member parole
board votes in a secret ballot.
Since Davis’ conviction in
1991, seven of the nine witTroy Davis
nesses against him have recanted or contradicted their
Paroles has denied relief to Troy
testimony. There also have
Davis. Allowing a man to be sent
Amnesty International was to death under an enormous
been questions about the
among
the
organizations
apphysical evidence - and, accloud of doubt about his guilt is
c o r d i n g t o s o m e , t h e l a c k pealing for clemency for Davis.
“It
is
unconscionable
that
the
thereof - linking Davis to the
Georgia Board of Pardons and (CONTINUED ON PAGE 36)
killing.
Obama outlines $3 trillion
debt plan opposed by GOP
President Barack Obama released his long-awaited debt reduction plan Monday, outlining a
roughly $3 trillion savings blueprint that was immediately criticized by top congressional and
other Republicans.
The president’s plan includes
$1.5 trillion in new revenue generated largely by higher taxes on the
wealthiest Americans, a proposal
strongly opposed by GOP leaders who insist that any tax increase will undermine an already
shaky economy.
The measure — which would
add to nearly $1 trillion in savings
signed into law under the debtceiling deal enacted in August —
does not include changes to Social Security. It would increase
Medicare premiums for individuals with higher incomes starting
in 2017 — the year Obama leaves
office if he wins a second term.
“We are not going to have a
one-sided deal that hurts the folks
President Obama
that are most vulnerable,” Obama
said at the White House, offering
a defense of tax hikes on the highest earners.
Spending cuts alone “will not
solve our fiscal problems. We
can’t just cut our way out of this
hole,” he added. “It’s going to take
a balanced approach. If we’re going to make spending cuts — many
of which we wouldn’t make if we
weren’t facing such large budget
deficits — then it’s only right that
we ask everyone to pay their fair
share.”
Obama explicitly promised to veto
any debt-reduction legislation that
cuts benefits while failing to include
higher taxes on the wealthy.
“I will not support any plan that
puts all the burden on ordinary
Americans,” he insisted.
Republicans responded by dismissing the plan as little more than a
cheap political gimmick.
It’s “a thinly veiled attempt to score
political points,” said Republican
National Committee Chairman
Reince Priebus. “By raising taxes on
job creators, Obama may win back
some support from disgruntled liberal voters, but America will lose
even more sorely needed jobs.”
“Veto threats, a massive tax hike,
phantom savings and punting on
entitlement reform is not a recipe for
Spike in child abuse blamed on economic downturn
By J. Zamgba Browne
Special to NY Beacon
Impact of the nation’s economic woes is blamed for sharp
increase in child abuse, mostly
infants, according to a new research.
The results are in a study of
422 abused children from mostly
lower-income families, known to
face greater risks for being
abused. The research involved
some 74 counties and four states.
Lead author of the study, Dr.
Rachel Berger of Children’s Hos-
pital of Pittsburgh said the results
confirm anecdotal reports from
many pediatricians who have seen
increasing numbers of shaken
baby cases and other forms of
brain-injuring abuse.
Berger said she decided to study
this type of injury, known as abusive head trauma, after noticing an
increase at her own hospital from
late 2007 through June 2009. She
said her hospital averaged 30 cases
per year during those recession
years versus 17 yearly before 2007.
Though this abuse is still uncommon, the number of cases in
the counties studied increased
sharply, rising from about 9 cases
per 100,000 children in pre-recession years, to almost 15 per 100,000
kids during the recession – a 65
percent increase.
By contrast, the report says that
juvenile diabetes – a better known
condition – affects about 19 per
100,000 children younger than
years old.
Unemployment rates in the 74
counties rose during the five-year
study. The production of children
of Medicaid in those counties also
increased, from 77 percent before
the recession to 83 percent. However, insurance and family employment information was not reported
for the abused children in the
study.
Combine with the stress of raising a young child with wage cuts
or lost jobs and you get “a sort of
toxic brew in terms of thinking
about possible physical violence,”
said Mark Rank, a social welfare
professor at Washington University in St. Louis.
He said the study echoes sociological research linking violence
with declines in economic well-be-
ing
Along with recent U.S. Census
data indicating that a record of 46
million Americans are poor, the study
shows that “as poverty goes up and
economic stagnation continues,
there are really human costs involved,” said Rank.
The counties studied included
Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania; central and southern Ohio; and
a handful of counties in northern
Kentucky and in the Seattle area.
The researcher examined medical
3
Troy Davis denied clemency
and scheduled to be executed
Former Obama aide Van Jones
leads Tea Party counter-punch
4
By Charles D. Ellison
Special to the NNPA from the
Philadelphia Tribune
Norm Bond
Norm Bond is elected
as chairman of NAMD
The National Alliance of Market Developers, Inc. (NAMD)
has announced that Norm Bond
has been elected as chairman of
the board of directors for the organization. Bond, an entrepreneur and twenty year marketing
veteran is president of
NORMBOND & Associates, a
strategic marketing and consulting company. He is also the immediate past national president.
Bond defeated Deborah Crable of
Chicago for the position.
Born in Philadelphia, PA, Bond
is widely recognized as an international authority on marketing,
corporate diversity, sales and
multicultural issues. His specific
marketing experience includes
broadcast media, print, radio,
electronic communications and
live events. During his career in
NAMD Bond served for eight
years as president of the Philadelphia Chapter and two years as
the national president.
The election results were announced at the NAMD Board of
Directors meeting following the
NAMD 59th Annual National Conference which was held at the
Schomburg Center for Research in
Black Culture in Harlem, New York.
“ There is an urgent need in society for the continued success and
vitality of NAMD. I am ready to
embrace the challenge of directing
the long range planning of this
legacy organization,” said Bond.
A total of 10 board members were
chosen by the membership to lead
the organization for the next two
years.
Board members elected include
National President Louis Hicks, Jr.,
National President-Elect Lamonia
Brown, Secretary/Assistant Treasurer Vera Primus, Vice President
of Communications, Christopher
Mack, Vice President of Marketing,
Ny Whitaker, Directors Donna
Smith-Bellinger, Tiffany Ellzy and
Errol Muhammad.
Seeking to match the intensity
and scorched earth politics of the
Tea Party movement, liberals are
scrambling to muster their own
form of grassroots punch to offset Republican momentum in 2012.
It’s a colorful patchwork of efforts
seeking an opportunity to coalesce around one central theme,
and it remains to be seen just how
much Democrats and their leader,
President Barack Obama, can gain
from it. Among plans to even the
2010 midterm score and take back
lost ground is Rebuild the Dream,
a new mix of progressive groups
and organizations tightly wrapped
as one of MoveOn.org’s more
ambitious projects heading into
next year’s cycle.
But, it’s also a fresh new attempt
by former Obama administration
official Van Jones, the controversial White House environmental
adviser fired from his gig in 2009,
to recast himself as a leading voice
in the Democratic universe. Observers say Jones is eagerly waiting for his political stars to align,
teaming up with MoveOn.org not
only as a way to bring muscle back
into a deflated liberal movement,
but to also use the opportunity as
a platform for future ambitions.
The Jackson, Tennessee-born and
Yale Law educated Jones has
never shied away from the spotlight of controversy as an up and
coming activist and lawyer
throughout the years. And, over
the past decade he’s been busy
cooking up a menu of civil rights
and environmental justice joints,
from the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in 1996 to
ColorofChange.org (which he cofounded) in 2005. More than
likely, it was the much-hyped
Green for All non-governmental
organization and his best-selling
“The Green Collar Economy”
which caught the attention of
Obama hacks.
But, in line with usual form, the
ever so cautious and temperamental Obama White House put Jones
under the proverbial political bus
as Republicans used the activist
for target practice.
Since being canned, Jones has
struggled to regain his footing,
signing up as a Senior Fellow at
the Center for American Progress
and pressed to find new ground
to stomp on. With many, particularly in the African American community, not feeling the allure of
“green jobs,” Jones partners up
Van Jones
with Moveon.org to raise both
money and noise.
“We voted
for peace and prosperity, not war
and austerity,” was Jones earlier
in the summer during a star-studded launch rally for Rebuild the
Dream backed by organic grooves
from Philly’s own The Roots. “It’s
not about a fight between rich and
poor, it’s about something deeper.
America itself is at risk.” Jones
has been fairly vocal about his
plans for the American Dream
Movement, despite being
strangely unavailable for comment for this article. The Center
for American Progress, typically
fast on media response, has yet
to respond to initial contact. And,
when the Tribune touched base
with fundraising outfit PowerPAC,
listed as a Rebuild the Dream partner, Chairman Steve Phillips
punted to Rebuild CEO Natalie
Foster.
“She can best answer your
questions,” noted Phillips in a
cryptic email. Still, by filing, Foster and Jones was pretty much
ghost. Lack of response from a
famously loquacious political activist like Jones adds a layer of
mystique surrounding Rebuild the
Dream and its goals. Ari Melber
in The Nation dubbed it the “ …
liberal alternative to the tea party”
with subtle praise for Jones as the
next biggest thing in the progressive world. But, it’s still not clear
the American Dream Movement,
with its conspicuous patriotic
tones, will be an effective counter
punch to the down-and-dirty tea
party rank and file.
Hiram
College’s Jason Johnson, author of
“One Day to Sell” and a prominent
political scientist, is skeptical.
“That stuff does not work if you
don’t go to the mat for what you
want,” argues Johnson. “That’s the
thing about the tea party — they
don’t have any real policy platform.”
“If [Jones] wants to create a movement like the tea party, then he has
to obstruct until he gets what he
wants. The movement is nothing
but a bunch of words, means nothing if you’re not willing to use it as
a vehicle to force the change you
want.” Johnson suggests Rebuild
the Dream should be willing to “primary” Democrats into submission,
similar to how tea party activists
threatened Republicans in key Congressional districts with primary
challenges.
ColorofChange.org Executive Director Rashad Robinson partly attributes some of RTB’s growing
pains to it “still growing” and being
relatively young. “I think they’re
just getting started and it’s been less
than a year.”
And while ColorofChange might
be highlighted as a major partner in
the RTB consortium of liberal titans
like Sierra Club, Daily Kos, AFSCME
and others, Robinson is quick to
emphasize that “… our work is separate from Rebuild the Dream.”
But, Robinson cautions against
Rebuild the Dream or any movement
making this only about the election.
“Voting is just a piece of … political
participation,” argues Robinson.
“Many on the left confuse an election with a movement. It’s not about
a candidate.”
GOP’s vote plan seen as blatant and unfair
cans tout the plan as a way to give
By Eric Mayes
Special to the NNPA from the individual voters more power in
the voting booth.
“They are
determined that he is going to be
Many Democrats see the a one term president,” said state
drive to change the way Rep. Ron Waters (D-Philadelphia/
Pennsylv-ania’s Electoral Col- Delaware), head of the Pennsyllege votes are counted — a vania Legislative Black Caucus.
movement that seems to be gath- “Many of my colleagues believe
ering momentum — as a blatant that voters gave them a mandate
attempt to block President to carry out their agenda — not
Barack Obama from winning the voters’ agenda, but their
Pennsylvania in 2012. Republi- agenda.”
Since 1804, Pennsylvania’s
electoral votes have all gone to
the candidate who won a popular majority in the state. In 2008
that was Obama.
Now, state
Sen. Dominic Pileggi (R-Chester/
Delaware) wants to change that.
Pileggi suggested changes to
Electoral College rules last week
and is expected to introduce legislation that would allocate electoral votes by congressional district rather than through the winner-take-all system.
“There is no question that our
current winner-take-all system
for choosing electors does not
reflect the diversity of Pennsylvania,” said Pileggi when he announced his plan. “This proposal will more fairly align
Pennsylvania’s electoral college
votes with the results of the
popular vote.”
Pennsylvania will have 20 electoral votes in the 2012 presidential election; one for each member of the U.S. House of Representatives and one for each sena-
tor. Pileggi’s plan would give voters statewide the chance to choose
two presidential electors. The others would be chosen based on the
vote for president in each congressional district.
“There is no mistaking that this
is nothing other than a blatant attempt by Republicans to have a
lopsided, unfair playing field for
national elections,” said state Sen.
Vincent Hughes (D-Philadelphia/
5
6
Bernice King praises her mother’s devotion to Dr. King
Article and Photo By Kenya King
Special to the NNPA from the Atlanta Daily World
Perhaps if it were not for Coretta
Scott King, there would be marginal remembrance of Dr. Luther
King Jr. today. Elder Bernice King,
the youngest of the King children, expounded a reminder of
that possibility during her keynote address at the Women Who
Dare to Dream event honoring
women in the Civil Rights Movement.
The event was part of the King
Memorial Dedication week activities in Washington, D.C., in August; the dedication ceremony
was postponed because of Hurricane Irene. It has been rescheduled for Sunday, Oct. 16, and
President Barack Obama will
speak at the dedication. “Where
would the world be without
women who have dared to dream
and women who have sacrificed
and women who have often put
their own dreams aside that the
dreams that lie in the hearts of
men might come to pass,” said
King. “The greatness of a man is
usually because of the woman
who walks by his side. This certainly was the case for Coretta
Scott King…and we thank God for
her laying the groundwork for this
day.”
The defining moment of Mrs.
King’s efforts was in 1983 when
President Ronald Reagan signed
into law the Martin Luther King
Jr. Holiday, ensuring that Dr King
would always be recognized on
every third Monday in January.
King explained that although others discouraged Coretta in her efforts, she never waivered and listened to a ‘higher calling.’
“Many told her, in fact, many
men told her, ‘stay home and raise
your children and let the men do
the job,’ said King. “But ladies,
thank God that Coretta Scott King
heard another voice. A voice that
sounded forth from heaven that
said “Coretta King I have called
you as Ester for such a time as
this. You have come into the
Bernice King
Kingdom and so go forth in the
power of love. Go forth in the
power of strength and low I will
be with you until the end of your
assignment. And so God stood
with Coretta Scott King as she
married that banner and championed that cause.”
King also shared the story of
when her parent’s home was
bombed in 1956. Coretta was
home with her first born, Yolanda,
and Martin was away speaking at
a mass meeting concerning the
Montgomery Bus Boycott. “My
father said my mother had an amazing calm about her at that time,”
said King. When Coretta’s father,
Obadiah Scott, came to get Coretta
after the bombing, Coretta refused
to go. “My mother looked at my
grandfather and said, ‘daddy, I’ve
got to stay here with Martin.’”
King’s notable preaching skills illuminated as she described how
Coretta’s calm and steadfastness
remained even in Dr. King’s death.
“When he died, she could have
been consumed in her grief,” said
King. “She could have been overwhelmed in her grief.
In fact, she could have been
consumed with bitterness and hatred. But no, this courageous
woman, this dignified woman, this
determined woman, this committed woman, this called and
anointed woman decided that she
would continue to champion the
legacy and the work of Martin
Luther King Jr., as she founded
the King Center and told us that
we need to study the principles,
and the techniques and the philosophy of nonviolence. And so
in some vain I say to people that
Coretta Scott King is really the one
who helped to raise a nation while
also raising four kids at the same
time. She was an awesome
woman.”
King also recognized other
women in the movement including Dorothy Cotton, who was a
part of Dr. King’s executive staff;
Doris Crenshaw, who worked with
NAACP and Rosa Parks; and Cleo
Orange, wife of the late James Orange, a “master organizer and
mobilizer” for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
A rare glimpse into what went
on in the inner circles of the
women in the Civil Rights Movement came to light as King emphasized how those who followed her
father were able to adhere to the
principles of nonviolence in the
face of racism.
“We had training going on behind the scenes. You see the
marches and you see the water
hoses. You see the demonstrations, but this was a movement that
was filled with discipline and training and teaching and simulation,”
said King. “They didn’t just turn
another cheek. They were doing
it because they had it simulated, embodied and modeled by people who
showed them how to turn the other
cheek. So we thank God for the
women who were teaching and
training in the fields and in the
churches.”
King drew applause when she
spoke of Dr. King’s admission that
Coretta taught him many things
about civil rights. She said that Dr.
King was once asked if he researched Coretta’s background before marrying her and educated her
on his philosophies.
“And my father said, well it may
have been the other way. I think at
many points, she educated me.
When I met her she was concerned
with the same issues as I was…So I
must admit I wish I could say to satisfy my masculine ego that I led her
down this path, but I must say we
went down this path together. She
was as actively involved and concerned when we met as she is now.”
King explained that Coretta, also
known for her work in the peace
movement, had taken a stance
against the Vietnam War well before
Dr. King did.
“She was perhaps one of the very
few people who stood with him during that very difficult time when
people misunderstood his stance
against the Vietnam War. Many had
turned their backs on him … but
Coretta Scott King continued to
encourage him and applauded him
and said she was waiting for the day
when he would take a stance because she knew that his moral voice
was needed in the peace movement.
And so began a glorious journey
toward continuing to rid the nation
of what he calls the triple evils of
poverty, racism and military.” In an
unmistakable biblical reference to
John 12:14, King was not remiss to
include a spiritual meaning on how
Coretta Scott King had the strength
to persevere and why Dr. King’s
legacy still lives despite his death.
“They did not understand that unless a seed fall into the ground and
die it abides alone but if it dies, it
LA mayor nominates 3rd consecutive Black to head Fire Department
By Peter Brown
plan and moving the department
Special to the NNPA from the Los forward into the 21st century. I
Angeles Sentinel
look forward to Chief Cummings’s
tenure as Chief as he continues to
In a historic and unprecedented build upon our world-class fire
move, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa department. “
Cummings replaces Chief Millnames a third consecutive African American to lead the Los An- age Peaks, who announced his regeles Fire Department. Recently, tirement this past May after servat Fire Station 34 in South Los ing in the position for nearly two
Angeles, Villaraigosa announced years. Peaks, the second African
his selection of a veteran of the American to serve as LAFD Chief,
LAFD, Brian Cummings, to be- replaced Chief Douglas Barry, who
come the new department Chief. became the first African American
Villaraigosa made him the Interim Chief to take over the department
Chief in July before undertaking in 2007 at the height of a hazing
a national search for a permanent controversy and allegations of racial bias within the LAFD. All
replacement.
“With over 30 years of experi- three appointments were made by
ence, Chief Brian Cummings has Villaraigosa who has demona proven track record of personal strated an unrelenting effort to
dedication to the Los Angeles Fire root out hazing and to eliminate
Department-the son of a pioneer racial or gender bias in any form
of the department, his legacy is within the department. Like both
key to his commitment to LAFD,” of his predecessors, Cummings
Mayor Villaraigosa said. ”When has a long and outstanding career
the department was faced with fi- within the city’s own department.
nancial constraints, Chief Over the past three decades,
Cummings stood out as the vi- Cummings has risen through the
sionary architect responsible for ranks after serving in several Endeveloping a new deployment gine Companies throughout the
Brian Cummings
city before becoming a training academy instructor and eventually becoming Assistant Chief. “I am honored and excited to accept the position as the 17th Fire Chief of the Los
Angeles Fire Department,”
Cummings said in a released statement. ”I look forward to working
together with our talented men and
women, sworn civilian and volunteers, as we provide world-class
public safety and service for all the
communities of Los Angeles.”
Born and raised in Los Angeles,
Chief Cummings followed in his
father’s footsteps, a 30 year veteran
of the Los Angeles Fire Department.
In fact, Cummings’ is not the only
active firefighter in the family; he
has a brother who is a Captain I in
the Harbor Gateway area.
Chief Cummings graduated from
Loyola High School before attending both West Los Angeles College
and the UCLA. Cummings started
his career in 1980. He is married and
is the proud father of two beautiful
daughters.
Cummings selection as Chief now
goes to the Los Angeles City Council for final approval.
7
8
Editorial
New York
Beacon
Walter Smith: Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
Miatta Haj Smith: Co-Publisher & Executive Editor
William Egyir: Managing Editor
Debilitating poverty is corrosive
BY Julianne Malveaux
NNPA Columnist
The fall of the Roman Empire is
best captured in the phrase that
“Nero fiddled while Rome
burned”. Set on pursuing his
own pleasures and indulgences,
Nero could not see the walls crumbling around him. Similarly, our
leaders seem oblivious to the
walls crashing in on us, bickering
about the way that relief on our
employment situation should be
structured, while poverty rates are
soaring.
The data that came out last
Tuesday included no surprises,
but in some ways, it was a stunning indictment of the economic
gridlock that has plagued us for
the past year. While Congress
has been yammering on about
debt ceilings, more and more
Americans are without work;
more and more have experienced
poverty.
The poverty rate rose from 14.3
percent to 15.1 percent between
2009 and 2010. That means that
the number of poor Americans
grew by 2.6 million people, from
43.6 million to 46.2 million. For the
past three years the poverty rate
has continued to rise, and income
has continue to decline. In the
past year, the average income has
dropped by 2.3 percent to
$49,445. Of course, the African
American level of income saw a
steeper decline, from $33,122 to
$32,068, or by 3.2 percent. While
median Black income dropped by
more than a thousand dollars a
year, white income, from a higher
perch, saw a lesser decline of
about $900, or from $52,717 to
$51,846, about 1.7 percent. With
much less, African Americans are
hit much harder.
Thus, while the overall poverty
rate is 15.1 percent, it is 27.4 percent for African Americans, 26.6
percent for Hispanics, and 9.9 percent for whites. More than 40 percent of African American children
live in poverty. There are further
indications of increased poverty
and dire news for years to come.
There are 2 million more
“doubled up” households, meaning that more than one family is
living in the same home. Yes, we
used to do this “back in the day”,
but today entire families are moving in together because of economic exigencies. Poverty rates
for youngsters, those under 18,
have risen from 20.7 to 22 percent.
Nearly a third of those families
headed by women are in poverty,
and women are still earning 77 percent of what men earn. Are civil
rights laws being enforced in this
age of so-called fiscal prudence,
or would the likes of Michelle
Bachman throw the civil rights
agencies under the bus, as she
promises to do with the Department of Education if she is elected
President?
As poverty rises, the number of
Americans without health insurance is also on the rise. 49.9 million people, one in six Americans,
have no health insurance.
For African Americans, it’s one
in five; for Hispanics, it’s nearly
one in three. Those who sit at the
margins of this economy languish
there without the ability to deal
with preventive health care, and
unable to afford medical treatment
in times of illness. This erodes our
national productivity and well being. Why can’t health care be a
simple human right in our nation?
The Census report Income, Pov-
erty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010:
(http://www.census.gov/prod/
2011pubs/p60-239.pdf) details
the ways that poverty has increased in just one year. In some
countries, this would be a cause
for alarm. In the United States, it
seems to be business as usual.
While poverty strikes come communities harder than it does others, the fact is that we have more
people in poverty than we have
had since we began to measure
poverty in 1959, and we’ve only
seen poverty at this level twice
since 1965. Then, we declared a
war on poverty. Now, we seem
content to accept it.
Those who are poor are victims
of a corroded economy. While
many would like to blame the 46.2
million Americans who are experiencing poverty, the real culprit
is our nation’s economic failure.
We are economically unhealthy,
we are not generating jobs, compelling investment, or focusing
on our future. Our children have
fewer prospects that many of us
had because even those who follow the rules find the payoff lower
and the risks higher.
This does not mean that we
should give up. It means that we
should organize and galvanize
ourselves to take our economy
back.
Dozens of congressional representatives have ignored the
poverty data, but they wouldn’t
be able to ignore it if we grabbed
their attention. More than 40
years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr. planned a Poor People’s Campaign. Who will plan it now?
Julianne Malveaux is president
of Bennett College for Women in
Greensboro, North Carolina.
Black is beautiful
all over the world
By Harry C. Alford
Beyond the Rhetoric
There was a time when I was
very young that people would intimidate me because of the color
of my skin. My mother would put
me on a Greyhound bus in Los
Angeles and send me to Shreveport, Louisiana to bond with my
grandparents and other relatives.
Once that bus got to El Paso, Texas
the driver would announce “From
here on out we will observe segregation rules. Coloreds must sit in
the back of the bus.
When we come to rest stops you
must use restrooms and cafeterias
designated as colored.” It wasn’t
just the Deep South. You could go
into a restaurant in Los Angeles,
San Francisco or Chicago and if it
wasn’t Black owned you would
receive unwelcome stares. It was
tough being Black back then. General Colin Powell in his book “My
American Story” recalls going into
a restaurant wearing his army
officer’s uniform in Columbus,
Georgia outside of Ft. Benning
Army Base and being told by the
hostess, “I can’t sit you. If you
tell me that you are Puerto Rican, I
can do it.” He replied “but I am
not.” She then concluded “Then
you must leave.” Such was the life
of a descendent of Africa back
then.
Things changed in the nation
during the 1970’s as we implemented the Civil Rights Act of
1964. That act, the prize of Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr., made all
the difference in the world – not
just the nation, the entire world.
Its success led to the inspiration
of African nations who threw off
their colonialist shackles and demanded sovereignty and independence.
It even led to the abolishment of apartheid in South Africa and Mozambique. Today, the
world is better because of Dr. King
and a few others of his ilk. Faith
inspired and driven with the fact
that only Jesus shall be King, this
movement brought freedom.
In the last 20 years I have trav-
eled to many parts of the world. One
thing seems to be clear. Blacks,
people of the African Diaspora, feel
free and demand equality. We are
everywhere! I remember standing
outside of the Savoy Hotel in
Prague, Czech Republic, and being
approached by Blacks with a warm
welcome.
There are more than
one hundred million Blacks living in
Brazil. Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Columbia and
Velenzuela have millions of Blacks,
descendents of slaves, who now
stand tall and are becoming empowered politically. Wherever I go, I see
that all of these Black folks look at
the United States as their model for
empowerment. They emulate our
fashion, cosmetics and swagger.
Thus, it is the calling of Blacks in
America to continue to “chisel” this
model. Independence and freedom
are good as well as political power.
However, without an economic empowerment component it is just
symbolism without substance.
This is the final frontier. We are
happy but we are also at the bottom
rung of the economic ladder regardless of which nation you are in.
It is time for us to strive for economic greatness. Form our businesses from maid service to nuclear
science, we should strive to excel.
All legal business is good. As we
develop wealth we must be conscious of giving back. Scholarships, jobs, charitable giving and
other blessed events should be a
matter of common protocol. It will
make us vibrant and forever
undefeatable. We went to politics
immediately after civil rights when
we should have gone to economic
empowerment first. That’s all right
though as it is never too late to start.
We are involved in a very strong
movement for Blackness in France.
Next week, I will be giving an introduction speech for my friend, Patrick
Lozes. Patrick is the founder of the
French African Diaspora Chamber
of Commerce. He will now run for
the Presidency of France.
This is a very giant step for this
Discouraging news on child poverty
By Marian Wright Edelman
Child Watch
Thirteen-year-old Brittanie Potter and her 12-year-old sister
Sydney held a bake sale and garage sale at their Marion, Ohio
home this summer with a simple
goal in mind: raising money for
their school clothes and supplies.
Their father’s unemployment
insurance ended earlier this year,
their mother is still recovering
from an accident last fall that
broke her leg so badly she needed
several surgeries and now gets
around in a wheelchair, and their
family has virtually no income.
Brittanie worries: “I hear them talking about bills and it makes me
upset. I just think we’re going to
be okay…but sometimes, I don’t
think we’re going to be okay.”
New data just released by the U.S.
Census Bureau reveals 46.2 million
poor people in America, the largest number in the last 52 years.
One in three of America’s poor
were children—16.4 million, over
950,000 more than last year, and
7.4 million children were living in
extreme poverty. More than one
in three Black children and one in
three Hispanic children were poor.
Brittanie, Sydney, and their 15year-old brother Tre are three of
the children behind these grim statistics. Their father John’s most
recent job was at the local
ConAgra snack food plant, and
their mother Brandy’s was at the
nearby Marion Industrial Center,
which made minor repairs to new
Hyundai cars. “We were making
it,” Brandy says. “John made $16
something an hour and I got
$10.50. Between the two of us it
was decent money. The kids had
the things they needed. We were
able to pay our bills and do things
as a family. Then it all fell down.”
First, John lost his job at
ConAgra. He was on a medical
leave from ongoing problems related to a serious car accident
years ago when he was let go,
Brandy says. Then Hyundai
ended its contract with her company and it went out of business.
They were already struggling to
pay bills with their unemployment
checks when John’s unemployment insurance ended in June and
they lost even that income.
Brandy stopped getting unemployment insurance when she
broke her leg; you have to be able
to work to receive unemployment.
“It’s just so hard,” Brandy says.
She hates telling the children “no”
when they need something, and
she regrets that they can’t do
things as a family anymore—“we
can’t even afford to go to
McDonald’s right now with the
five of us.” Brandy is thankful for
the government safety net: “If we
didn’t have food stamps, we would
starve. Without Medicaid—oh my
God!
This morning I went to an appointment to apply for cash assistance (Temporary Assistance for
Needy Families, or TANF) because
we have no income. That was hard.
But what’s really hard is going from
taking care of your family, and having not a lot of money but making it,
to having to pretty much beg.”
The Potter family isn’t alone. The
new poverty numbers are grim and
shameful, and child and family suffering is widespread. Twenty-two
percent of children—over one in
five—were poor in 2010. Children
under five suffered most: one in four
infants, toddlers, and preschoolers—
5.5 million—were poor. Shamefully,
9
Silver lining in Obama poll numbers
By George E. Curry
NNPA Columnist
We are reminded almost daily
that President Obama’s favorable
poll numbers are at an all-time low.
While that is unmistakably true,
that’s only half of the picture.
Let’s first take a look at the numbers.
A Gallup poll pegged Obama’s
August monthly approval rating
at 41 percent, the lowest of his
administration. However, Gallup
found that Congressional job approval was only 15 percent at the
beginning of September, up two
percentage points from the
record-tying low of 13 percent in
August. Stated another way, 84
percent of Americans disapproved of the way Congress was
handling its job in August, a figure that has fallen only slightly
to 82 percent so far this month.
A poll conducted for NBC News
and the Wall Street Journal (Aug.
27-31) found President Obama’s
approval rating was 44 percent in
August, the lowest level of his
presidency and a long way from
his highest rating of 61 percent in
April 2009. A bare majority – 51
percent – disapproved of the job
Obama was doing in August and
5 percent were not sure.
The last time Obama enjoyed an
approval rating of at least 50 percent among all Americans was the
first week of June. Over the past
three months, the steepest drops
have been among better educated
and high-income Americans, according to Gallup. Support among
African-Americans over that period
slipped from 89 percent to 83 percent. Obama’s support among
Latinos fell from 56 percent to 44
percent, which is 2 percent greater
than the 42-32 percent decline
among Whites.
Another sign of trouble for
Obama was the decline of support
in the 18 to 29 age category, a key
segment of his base. Over the last
three months, support in that category has declined from 59 percent
to 46 percent, a drop of 13 percent.
Not surprisingly, voters’ view on the
direction of the economy has also
soured. Only 19 percent in the NBC
poll thought that the country was
headed in the right direction. Another 73 percent disagreed, saying
the nation was on the wrong track.
Five percent expressed mixed feelings and 3 percent were not sure.
The most amazing finding in the
NBC/Wall Street Journal poll is that
while Americans give President
Obama low approval numbers, they
agree with his major proposals to
lower unemployment, decrease
the deficit and strengthen the
economy.
When asked if they favor reducing the deficit by ending the
Bush tax cuts for families earning $250,00 or more, 60 percent
said the proposal is totally acceptable or mostly acceptable.
Only 36 percent said it was totally unacceptable or mostly unacceptable to them. On the proposal to reduce the deficit by a
combination of increasing taxes
and reducing spending, 56 percent found the idea acceptable
and 42 percent found it unacceptable.
When asked about the Republican proposal to reduce the deficit only through spending cuts
and no tax increases, 34 percent
found that totally unacceptable
and 26 percent found it mostly
unacceptable, with 3 percent unsure.
Only 15 percent said it was totally acceptable and 22 percent
mostly acceptable. The public
also favors key elements of
Obama’s proposed jobs plan.
According to the NBC/Wall
Street Journal poll, Americans
favor:
* Paying for long-term unemployed workers to train at private
companies for eight weeks, and
then giving the companies the
option to hire them (62 percent say
it is good idea, 17 percent say it’s
bad and the remainder don’t know
enough or aren’t sure);
* Funding a new road construction bill (47 percent favor; 26 percent oppose);
* Continuing to extend unemployment benefits (44 percent say it’s
a good idea, 39 percent feel it is a
bad idea) and
* Extending the payroll tax rate (40
percent favor, 20 percent oppose,
38 percent say they don’t know
enough about it and 2 percent are
not sure).
Interestingly, 37 percent of
those polled by NBC consider
Obama a moderate, 32 percent consider him very liberal, 16 percent
say he is somewhat liberal, 7 percent consider him somewhat conservative, 2 percent say he is very
conservative and 6 percent are not
sure.
There was a mixed message on
how voters will cast their ballot in
the next election. Given a choice
between Obama and an unnamed
Republican opponent, voters said
in the NBC poll that they were more
likely to vote for the GOP candidate by a margin of 44 percent to
40 percent.
But when Mitt Romney’s name is
inserted, Obama narrowly defeats
him 46 to 45 percent. When the candidate is Rick Perry, the Republican
front-runner, Obama wins 47 to 42
percent.
In an attempt to paint Obama as
politically impotent, critics point to
Republicans capturing the old congressional seat of Rep.
Anthony Weiner in New York as
an example of a loss of support for
the president among Jews. New
York’s 9th Congressional District
has the highest concentration of
Jews in the country.
As Gallup noted, 54 percent of
Jews supported Obama’s job performance in a poll taken earlier this
month. That’s 13 percentage points
higher than his overall approval rating of 41 percent.
As a barrage of numbers are
tossed around to discredit the prospect of Obama getting a second
term, remember the maxim: Figures
don’t lie, but liars will figure.
. George E. Curry, former editorin-chief of Emerge magazine and
the NNPA News Service, is a keynote speaker, moderator, and media coach. He can be reached
through his Web site:
www.georgecurry.com. You can
also follow him at www.twitter.com/
currygeorge.
Toyota: Top choice among African Americans
By William Reed
Business Exchange
The “Black Market” will play
a major role among automobile
makers for the next two decades. The African-American
market is “the best thing going”
and if automobile manufacturers
don’t establish creditable linkages for their brands with this
audience they will, undoubtedly,
lose significant market share
and growth opportunities. The
U.S. Census Bureau projects that
the African-American population will grow 12 percent by 2020
and by nearly 25 percent in 2030.
In 2010, the Black car-buying
pace totaled 10 times that of the
general market. Last year,
Toyota led all automotive brands
among new vehicle purchases
made by African Americans.
New vehicle registrations
among this audience totaled
641,090 and amounted to 7.4 percent of all 2010 new vehicle registrations.
. Ford ranked second among
African-American buyers with
Chevrolet rounding out the Top
three. The demand for Buick
jumped 70 percent. Korean
brands are also making gains
among this key buying group.
In a well-publicized campaign
about “respect and reciprocity”
Black Newspaper publishers
dared Toyota to forge better
business relationships with
them and the communities that
they serve. In their approach to
Black media operators and market
experts, Toyota is setting the trend
in illustrating “how to curry favor”
with Black buyers.
Deals are being “put in place”
to align automotive manufacturers’
and dealers’ to market initiatives
targeted toward this specific audience. America’s Black newspaper publishers have reached an advertising agreement with Toyota
that will soon have their local publications promoting the benefits of
owing a Toyota product.
Toyota’s Lexus is America’s
luxury market leader, but Buick,
Hyundai, Kia, Cadillac, GMC and
Infiniti are doing extremely well in
the African American market and
should be on Black newspaper client lists as well. Acura, Land
Rover, Mercedes and BMW are
not increasing their share of the
African-American market as effectively. These companies have a
significant opportunity to connect
more with this audience and increase their market shares by attracting more affluent African
Americans to their brands. On
the downside, “I want a 2012
Toyota Prius” is not a mantra of
many Black car buyers. Blacks
have not been vocal hyping the
Prius or any of the environmentally-conscious automobiles.
First and foremost is concern
about the overall cost, a 2011 Prius
ranges from $23,225 to $30,700.
And rarely have you seen a basketball player, hip-hop artist or
actor stepping out of a batterypowered Prius.
In 2011, executive leaders at
Toyota had their hands full, but
fought back from massive safety
recalls, the global credit crisis
and factories damaged in the
March 11th Japan earthquake.
Despite those challenges, the
world’s largest automaker has
ramped its North American production back up to normal levels. This production schedule
surpassed the company’s initial
expectations.
Shortly after the March 11th
disaster Toyota had forecast a
return to normal production by
November or December. But, in
June Toyota said that eight of
its 12 North American-built
models returned to 100 percent
output - Avalon, Camry, Corolla,
Matrix, Highlander, Sienna, Sequoia and Venza. In August,
Toyota confirmed 100 percent
production of Tacoma, Tundra,
RAV 4 and Lexus RX 350. Together, the 12 models account for
nearly 70 percent of the
company’s U.S. sales.
Over
coming years, automotive manufacturers will be seeking to capture larger numbers of Black buyers. Drive by any African-American church on Sunday, and you
will see that Blacks are also purchasing Cadillacs, Lincolns,
Mercedes and BMWs. Those
companies aren’t “ponying up”
like Toyota. The pact between
the Black Press of America and
Toyota sets standards Black consumers should demand. Black
publishers want local companies
and multi-nationals to understand
the value of using their publications as advertising mediums;
conversely, it’s important that
Black consumers demand that minority-owned media firms receive
a fair share of corporate or governmental advertising expenditures.
So, it’s necessary that Black
consumers insist on retailers’ “respect” and “reciprocity” that result in advertising purchases that
equal the level of Black patronage
of their products. Companies’ use
of Black media to reach AfricanAmerican consumers with language and content that resonates
among them makes good sense.
William Reed is available for
speaking/seminar projects via
BaileyGroup.org.
ALG endorses House bill to rein in NLRB
Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson
has urged House passage of a
bill by Rep. Tim Scott (R-SC)
that would prohibit the National Labor Relations Board
(NLRB) from forcing an employer to relocate, shut down
or transfer employment under
any circumstance:
“The
Obama
Administration’s NLRB has
gone too far as it attempts to
block Boeing from setting up a
non-union shop away from its
Washington state base of operations. It cares more about protecting union jobs than creating
new jobs. While millions of
Americans struggle to find work
in the Obama economy, the
NLRB is busy making sure
Boeing cannot create jobs in
right-to-work South Carolina. A
company should be allowed to
choose which state it wants to
build a factory in free of any
governmental interference.
“Rep. Tim Scott is to be applauded for bringing forward
legislation that will begin to
counter the NLRB’s war on rightto-work states.
This is a positive step, and we
urge passage. But Congress
needs to move past simply adopting stop-gap measures after the
damage is already done. A comprehensive overhaul of our broken labor relations system is
needed that will abolish the
Board’s quasi-judicial powers allowing it to serve as prosecutor,
judge, and jury in favor of big labor.”
Opinion
10
African Scene
Zambia: Heavy security ahead of elections
By Tome Jones
Kenya fire burned victims
Over 100 burned to death
in Kenya ‘avoidable tragedy’
Special to the NNPA from the GlN According to Amnesty International, over half of Nairobi’s popuA fireball that raced through lation - some two million people Nairobi’s densely populated Sinai live in makeshift shacks on just one
slum recently incinerated over 100 per cent of the city’s usable land.
residents including many who ran They live without adequate acto a sewage-filled river for cover cess to water, hospitals, schools
but were burned alive there. and other essential public serCharred bodies lay scattered in vices.
the twisting alleyways of the Sinai
The leaking pipeline was owned
informal settlement that lies half- by the Kenya Pipeline Company,
way between the airport and the which has been dogged by corcity center.
ruption, mismanagement and highSurvivors sobbed as they level incompetence, according to
walked through the explosion site: John Njiraini of the Kenyan Stanone man found the body of his dard newspaper. The company
child, still smoldering. Other has denied responsibility for the
people just stared, as they tried disaster but admitted the leak was
to come to terms with their loss. from a pipe due to be replaced.
‘Hate speech’ verdict
shocks ANC loyalists
By Fungai Maboreke
Special to the NNPA from the GlN
The African National Congress
says it is “appalled” by the judgment against ANC Youth League
leader Julius Malema, who was
found guilty of “hate speech” in
a just-ended trial.
A civil rights group, AfriForum,
brought the charges against
Malema for singing”Dubula
l’bhunu” or “shoot the Boer,” at
youth rallies. An apartheid-era
freedom song, the lyrics include a
call to shoot the white farmer.
Video evidence produced in court
showed Malema making gun gestures while singing.
ANC spokesperson Keith
Khoza denounced the ruling for
failing to consider the history of
South Africa. The ANC supported Malema in the court fight.
But Judge Collin Lamont of the
“Equality Court” called the lyrics,
“discriminatory and harmful” to
the Afrikaner community. The
song was “hate speech” and
should not be sung in public or at
private meetings, he said.
According to its charter, the
ANC is formally opposed to ra-
Thousands of policemen have
been deployed in Zambia to prevent violence in Tuesday’s
fiercely contested elections, the
police chief says.
Francis Kabonde said he had
ordered his officers to arrest anyone carrying axes, machetes and
other weapons.
The 2008 election was marred
by rioting after opposition leader
Michael Sata rejected President
Rupiah Banda’s victory by two
percentage points.
The two septuagenarians are
again contesting the election.
The BBC’s Mutuna Chanda in
the capital, Lusaka, says the highest number of voters ever - about
5.2 million - have registered to
vote in the presidential, parliamentary and local elections.
Mr Kabonde said the police
were determined to ensure the
elections went off peacefully.
“Thousands of police officers
have been deployed. The police
will be in all townships and
streets,” he said.
A ban has been placed on the
sale of axes and other weapons
during the election period.
Mr Kabonde said anyone who
carried weapons or potential
weapons would be detained.
The election commission said it
was confident the polls would be
free and fair.
“What the commission has put
in place is really a transparent system where there will not be any
space or chance for anyone to
manipulate,” commission spokesman Chris Akufuna told reporters.
Earlier, Mr Sata’s party, the Patriotic Front (PF), accused Mr
Banda’s Movement for MultiParty Democracy (MMD) party of
trying to seal the vote.
The PF alleged that the MMD
had tried to bus in people from
Opposition leader Michael Sata’s supporters are confident of victory
neighbouring Malawi to vote in
an attempt to bolster its chances
of winning.
The PF said it had blocked the
bus from entering Zambia but the
MMD denied it had been involved
in any attempt to rig the elections.
Eight other candidates are contesting the presidency.
Mr Banda beat Mr Sata by
about 35,000 votes in the 2008 poll.
Mr Sata’s defeat triggered riots in
Lusaka and other PF strongholds
after he claimed that Mr Banda stole
the vote.
Mr Banda has campaigned on a
platform of infrastructure development and economic growth, largely
spurred by Chinese investments and
the government’s decision to scrap
a windfall tax of 25% on mining companies.
Mr Sata has promised to re-introduce the tax and to promote policies that will bring greater benefit to
poor.
British archbishop is seeking meeting
with Mugabe over religious persecution
GlN
Hate speech protest
cial distinctions and seeks a nonracial society.
The judgment has raised concerns about freedom of speech,
and has been described as one
step away from “thought control”.
Independent political and policy
analyst, Somadoda Fikeni, said the
matter could have been resolved
outside the courts. “If you begin
to criminalize the words you may
be inviting more disaffected youth
to sing these songs and creating
more criminals inadvertently. You
do not regulate attitude, you educate.”
The Archbishop of Canterbury
is seeking a closed door meeting
with Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe over reports of “bullying, harassment and persecution” of members of the Anglican
church.
The visit by Archbishop Rowan Williams is set for
October. Mugabe has not yet offered to meet the cleric.
Zimbabwe’s Anglican church
split in 2007 over the ordination
of homosexual priests.
One-time Bishop of Harar
e
Nolbert Kunonga, opposed to
gays in the clergy, left the church
and declared himself an “archbishop”. He was excommunicated a year later.
In a media interview, Dr
Kunonga was quoted as saying
he aimed to take control the 3,000
Anglican churches, schools,
Bishop NC Gandiya
hospitals and other properties serving 600,000 Anglicans in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana and
Malawi.
After a High Court ruling giving
Kunonga interim custody of
church properties, evictions were
started against the sitting bishops,
including The Rev. Dzikamai
Mudenda, his wife and extended
family.
“Kunonga was given custodianship of Anglican properties when
he is no longer a member of our
church and province and he is now
evicting Anglican priests and we
don’t know who he is going to put
in these houses. God help us,” said
the Rt Rev. Dr. Nicholas Chad
Gandiya, whose own home was
vandalized by thieves taking computers and cellphones.
The Archbishop will become the
first prominent British representative to visit Harare in a decade.
Bishop N.C. Gandiya of Harare
Impact felt deep in the African American psyche
By Cynthia E. Griffin
In fact, the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Special to the NNPA from Our Statistics produces a report called
Weekly
U6, which is a broader measure of
labor underutilization. For example,
As she watched President in June of last year, the DOL unemBarack Obama lay out his jobs ployment rate was 15.7 percent in
plan for the nation and repeatedly July of 2010 while the U6 rate (which
challenge Congress to address includes the officially unemployed,
the issue immediately, Madelyn discouraged workers, the marginally
Broadus was thinking “finally, attached who have fallen out of the
somebody is for the people.”
labor force and those working part“It seems like for the past 12 time because they cannot find fullyears, (the government) is always time work) was 23.6 percent.
for corporations and big fat cats.
The historically high Black unemI really feel like he said it right for ployment rates even prompted rehow we can begin again, the searchers at UC Berkeley to develop
hard-working American people,” a Black Employment and Unemexplained Broadus, one of the 14 ployment Data Brief that is pubmillion unemployed people that lished each month, shortly after the
the president was speaking of labor department releases its unemduring his speech. A sheet metal ployment figures.
The idea beworker who specializes in install- hind the brief said Steven C. Pitts,
ing heating and air conditioning Ph.D., a labor policy specialist with
in commercial and industrial build- the Center for Labor Research and
ings, Broadus has not worked a Education is to make it easy for
job since November 2009.
people to access all the numbers
“I went to a five-year appren- when it comes to Black unemploytice program, and when I was ment. Pitts said the labor departabout to come out that’s when the ment puts out the basic numbers,
construction industry went flat,” but Berkeley’s data briefs drill
said Broadus, who has existed on deeper to look at various segments
unemployment since her last job. within the Black community.
Broadus is not alone as she
“The Data Brief has been out 16
struggles through long-term un- months now, and I think what it has
employment; nor is her situation done is give people a quick way to
unique . . . in the Black commu- get the numbers themselves. It has
nity.
allowed people to talk with some auIn fact, a look at employment thority about Black unemployment.
numbers back to when the United It’s also been able to expand the
States Department of Labor (DOL) conversation around Black unemfirst began segmenting out sta- ployment and economic issues.”
tistics by race (1972), yields the Some of that expanded talk has been
data that shows the Black unem- about the impact on Blacks in pubployment rate has consistently lic-sector employment, where Pitts
been at least double the national said about 20 percent of Black folk
average. In 1982 and 1983, for ex- work.
ample, Black unemployment
The long-term nature of African
ranged from 17 to 21 percent, American unemployment is one of
while the national rate for that the reasons Hodge believes there
same period ranged from 8.6 to are some deeply embedded causes
10.8 percent.
for the problem in the Black comAnd these numbers, just as munity.
today’s 16.7 percent rate for
“There are some structural isBlacks probably understated the sues that are causes of the high rate
number of jobless, believes soci- of Black unemployment,” said the
ologist Michael Hodge, Ph.D. He chair of the Morehouse College
said the numbers do not count Department of Sociology. “I don’t
those who have just stopped want to discount discrimination, belooking.
cause (it) is still a factor in the high
unemployment of African Americans, but there are some structural factors at work as well. One
of which is education. We have
a lower rate of high school
completion and college graduation, and that is particularly true
among Black men today.”
Hodge said the lower educational
attainment is directly tied to a
lower rate of employment.
Another structural challenge is
the shifting of the U.S. economy
away from a manufacturing to a
service one. He noted that these
were the types of well-paid jobs
African American males could get
without a college degree.
But the economy’s serviceward shift, combined with offshore outsourcing, discrimination, and inadequate education
have left Blacks, especially men,
in the precarious position of not
being able to find decent jobs that
enable them to support families.
And this definitely has an impact
on the entire African American
community and contributes in
unexplored ways to many of the
challenges and ills that are prevalent, believe researchers.
“Black America has always had
an alternate vision of work and
work opportunities . . . and has
had an informal, underground
economy that’s always been a
factor in their lives,” points out
Alford Young Jr., a professor of
sociology and African American
Studies and chair of the sociology department of the University
of Michigan in Ann Arbor. This
alternative work often leads to
constant thoughts about how to
supplement your income, noted
Young.
“This is very much a stressor
and provides an interesting spin
on the long-standing notion that
Black people, particularly lower
income folk only live for today . .
. and have an inability to think
about the long run and are not
prepared for delayed gratification,” said Young. In actuality,
the sociologist said these individuals are in almost continual
survivor mode.
Young added that in this situation there is a cognitive dissonance when it comes to understanding mainstream work.
“When, for a good portion of your
adult life, you exist on the margin,
you lose our sense of understanding of the work environment, and
what social ties matter most for
work,” Young said. Consequently,
if they do get a job, in order to
preserve their dignity on the job
such individuals may take actions
that are antithetical to keeping the
job.
Hodge, of Morehouse, said the
other long-term impacts include
an increase in crime, and with more
people interacting with the criminal justice system, that means
more people accruing a record
which exacerbates the problem of
obtaining a job. “You see a decline
in the value of the community . . .
people are losing their homes.
Renters move in, who tend not to
take care of homes like homeowners.”
But the impact goes even
deeper than that, say researchers.
“We are still gender-oriented . . . .
Males are supposed to be the
breadwinners. When they can’t
perform . . . stress is created in a
household,” said Morehouse’s
Hodge. This can lead to high
rates of divorce and domestic violence.
According to Professor Barbara
Carter, Ph.D., at Spelman College,
economically unstable Black men
are less likely to enter into formal
marriages and create stable families.
“The pattern of high male unemployment helps to promote
single-female-headed houses with
fewer economic resources.
(Women earn less than men in
part because the ‘gendered’ jobs
they occupy typically pay less.)
“Many Black women simply
don’t assume that Black men will
be able to support them (even if
that is still their ideal), and families often socialize their girls to
expect to be economically independent. Other women choose to
raise their children alone rather
than have an official/legal marriage
with an economically unstable
man,” noted Carter, who is in the
Anthropology and Sociology Department at Spelman.
All three researchers also talk
about the impact on the psyche of
unemployed Blacks, particularly
males.
“What you see around
you, impacts how you think, and
impacts your way of thinking about
the world. It creates this cycle that
can perpetuate itself; that can be
generational and that can be problematic,” said Hodge.
“Cornel West, I think, talked
about this sense of community
hopelessness. And when he talked
about that, he talked about how unemployment, no jobs, a low graduation rate and all types of things like
this perpetuate this sense of learned
hopelessness. And so once that
happens, it’s very difficult to pull a
community out of that downward
cycle.”
And because Black America has
not escaped the ethos of work concept that permeates the national
psyche, Hodge adds, lack of employment impacts one’s emotional
state. “I’m not going to say that
people have less respect, but we
react how we are reacted to. When
larger society does not treat you
well, there is an attitude not so much
of lack of respect but of ‘I’ll get mine
the only way I can get mine.’”
Young believes the impact is different at the various economic levels.
Many in the lower socioeconomic
levels, who live and operate in communities where joblessness is abundant, are often wholly divorced from
work and work opportunities. “For
those in the stable working class,
they are in a precarious category,”
Young said. “There is a lack of comfort and security at work. At one
point you focused on how to have
your children advance beyond your
status, but now the Black middle
class has abandoned that notion.
Instead now they are struggling to
figure out how to retire.” According to the Los Angeles UCLA Black
Worker Center, the demographic of
Job Corps fights high unemployment with free education
By Ashley N. Johnson
youth. There are currently 124 Job
Special to the NNPA from the Corps programs nationwide. “We
New Pittsburgh Courier
work very carefully to make sure
that (our students are trained) in
Education and employment are areas where they can get employtwo critical issues, especially ment. That is the bottom line for
within the Black community, us,” said Molly Taleb, Pittsburgh
where African-American students Job Corps deputy center and career
are ranking lower than their coun- development services director. She
terparts in education and have the added that their job is not comhighest unemployment rate na- pleted until students have received
tionwide.
training certificates or completed a
While many are dropping out degree and, most importantly, find
and others are struggling to go a job.
onto college, the Pittsburgh Job
With an 87 percent success rate
Corps program offers low-income of students finding employment,
youth an alternative to turning to going on to four-year colleges or
“street life” to survive.
universities, or even enlisting in the
The Job Corps program, which military, Job Corps is giving Black
has served young people ages youths options. Recently, the Pitts16-24 for more than 45 years, is a burgh students and staff of Job
free education and technical ca- Corps, along with local officials,
reer training program adminis- held an assembly for National Job
tered by the U.S. Department of Corps Commencement Day, which
Labor to low-income, underserved celebrated student success of
graduating from the program.
Several students gave testimonies of how making the decision
to enroll in Job Corps had
changed their lives.
According to Taleb, Job Corps
began as a program for inner city
boys and has grown to accommodate both males and females
and allows participants to receive
their diploma or GED; to acquire
a vocational trade and receive certification; to get a driver’s license;
and the program also sponsors
more than 500 students to attend
Allegheny County or Butler
County Community Colleges.
The Pittsburgh center serves approximately 850 students, with
participants being approximately
47 percent African-American, approximately 45 percent White, approximately three percent Hispanic and approximately five percent other ethnicities.
Entrance into the program is
based on social economic needs
and participants must apply
through a recruiter and complete
the application process. But with
entering the program comes responsibility. Taleb said there is a
zero tolerance for drugs, alcohol
and fighting. She said these are
the same expectations that employers would have.
“Students have to want to be
here. It is not a lockdown program,” she said. “If forced then it
is not going to work.” Students
in the program receive a stipend,
housing and clothing allotments,
for things such as uniforms for
their vocational courses.
The Pittsburgh Job Corps offers studies in several technical
careers, but specializes in health
care, construction and culinary
arts, careers where students are
more likely to find employment.
And in the Job Corps’ college program, they also sponsor a number
of majors where students are most
likely to find employment. Taleb
said that at Job Corps, they are constantly looking at what students are
being trained in and where the jobs
are.
Along with training, they also
offer their students academic
and vocational counselors at
each college location, in case
students need training or etc.
While many institutions are
facing financial cuts due to government budget issues, Taleb’s
center is no different. She said
that money used for equipment
has been frozen, but that budget
issues are something they take
into account every year. With
college and university tuition increasing, Taleb said she has not
necessarily seen an increase in
enrollment into Job Corps.
11
Psychology of Black unemployment
12
Opinion
NATO’s war on Libya is an attack on African development
By Dan Glazebroo
Under Gaddafi, Dan
Glazebrook contends, Libya was
rising as a socialist, anti-imperialist and pan-Africanist nation
spearheading African unity and
independence. This threatened
the West’s long imperialist interests in the continent, hence the
NATO-led war.
‘Africa the key to global economic growth’. This was a refreshingly honest recent headline from the Washington Post,
but hardly one that qualifies as
news. African labor and resources – as any decent economic historian will tell you –
has been key to global economic
growth for centuries.
When the Europeans discovered America 500 years ago, their
economic system went viral. Increasingly, European powers realized that the balance of power
at home would be dictated by
the strength they were able to
draw from their colonies abroad.
Imperialism (AKA capitalism)
has been the fundamental hallmark of the world’s economic
structure ever since.
For Africa, this has meant nonstop subjection to an increasingly systematic plunder of
people and resources that has
been unrelenting to this day.
First was the brutal kidnapping
of tens of millions of Africans to
replace the indigenous American
workforce that had been wiped
out by the Europeans. The slave
trade was devastating for African economies, which were
rarely able to withstand the population collapse, but the capital it created for plantation owners in the
Caribbean laid the foundations for
Europe’s industrial revolution.
Throughout the 18th and 19th
centuries, as more and more precious materials were found in Africa
(especially tin, rubber, gold and silver), the theft of land and resources
ultimately resulted in the so-called
scramble for Africa of the 1870s
when, over the course of a few years,
Europeans divided up the entire
continent (with the exception of
Ethiopia) amongst themselves. By
this point, the world’s economy was
increasingly becoming an integrated
whole, with Africa continuing to
provide the basis for European industrial development as Africans
were stripped of their land and
forced down gold mines and onto
rubber plantations.
After the Second World War, the
European powers, weakened by
years of unremitting industrial
slaughter of each another, contrived
to adapt colonialism to the new conditions in which they found themselves. As liberation movements
grew in strength, the European powers confronted a new economic reality: the cost of subduing the restless natives was starting to near the
level of wealth they were able to extract from them.
Their favored solution was what
Kwame Nkrumah termed neocolonialism: handing over the formal attributes of political sovereignty to a
trusted bunch of hand-picked cronies who would allow the economic
exploitation of their countries to
continue unabated. In other words,
adapting colonialism so that Africans themselves were forced to
shoulder the burden and cost of
policing their own populations.
In practice, it was not that
simple. All across Asia, Africa and
Latin America, mass movements
began to demand control of their
own resources and in many places
these movements managed to
gain power sometimes through
guerrilla struggle, sometimes
through the ballot box. This led to
vicious wars by the European
powers now under the leadership
of their upstart protégé, the USA,
to destroy such movements. This
struggle, not the so-called Cold
War, is what defined the history
of post-war international relations.
So far, neocolonialism has
largely been a successful project
for the Europeans and the US.
Africa’s role as provider of cheap,
often slave, labor and minerals has
largely continued unabated. Poverty and disunity have been the
essential ingredients that have allowed this exploitation to continue. However, both are now under serious threat.
Chinese investment in Africa
over the past 10 years has been
building up African industry and
infrastructure in a way that may
begin to seriously tackle the
continent’s poverty. In China,
these policies have brought about
unprecedented reductions in poverty and have helped to lift the
country into the position it will
shortly hold as the world’s leading economic power. If Africa follows this model, or anything like
it, the West’s 500-year plunder of
Africa’s wealth may be nearing a
close.
To prevent this threat of African development, the Europeans
and the USA have responded in
the only way they know how: militarily. Four years ago, the US set
up a new command and control
centre for the military subjugation
of Africa, the so-called AFRICOM.
The problem for the US was that
no African country wanted to host
them; indeed, until very recently,
Africa was unique in being the
only continent in the world without a US military base. And this
fact is in no small part thanks to
the efforts of the Libyan government.
Before Gaddafi’s revolution deposed the British-backed King
Idris in 1969, Libya had hosted one
of the world’s biggest US airbases,
the Wheelus Air Base, but within
a year of the revolution, it had
been closed down and all foreign
military personnel expelled. More
recently, Gaddafi had been actively working to scupper
AFRICOM.
African governments that were
offered money by the US to host
a base were typically offered
double by Gaddafi to refuse it, and
in 2008 this ad hoc opposition
crystallised into a formal rejection
of AFRICOM by the African
Union.
Perhaps even more worrying for
US and European domination of
the continent were the huge resources that Gaddafi was channeling into African development.
The Libyan government was by
far the largest investor in Africa’s
first ever satellite, launched in 2007,
which freed Africa from US$500 million per year in payments to European satellite companies. Even
worse for the colonial powers, Libya
had allocated US$30 billion for the
African Union’s three big financial
projects aimed at ending African dependence on Western finance.
The African Investment Bank,
with its headquarters in Libya, was
to invest in African development at
no interest, which would have seriously threatened the International
Monetary Fund’s domination of
Africa, a crucial pillar for keeping
Africa in its impoverished position.
And Gaddafi was leading the AU’s
development of a new gold-backed
African currency, which would have
cut yet another of the strings that
keep Africa at the mercy of the West,
with US$42 billion already allocated
to this project, again much of it by
Libya.
NATO’s (North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation) war is aimed at ending Libya’s trajectory as a socialist,
anti-imperialist, pan-Africanist nation in the forefront of moves to
strengthen African unity and independence. The rebels have made
clear their virulent racism from the
very start of their insurrection,
rounding up or executing thousands
of black African workers and students. All the African development
funds for the projects described
above have been frozen by NATO
countries and are to be handed over
to their hand-picked buddies in the
National Transitional Council (NTC)
to spend instead on weapons to fa(CONTINUED ON PAGE 36)
Cancer in your ‘Pocketbook’
resides preceded her most challengBy Sandra Jordan
Special to the NNPA from The ing role yet.
“It also started a new chapter in
St. Louis American
my life — I was diagnosed [in 2009]
It’s the female cancer few will with stage 4 ovarian cancer, three
talk about, as if talking about it weeks before I got the phone call to
will make it more deadly – or con- be a part of the Housewives of Attagious – or all of the above lanta franchise,” McGhee said. Her
decision – chemotherapy the next
(and neither is true).
Ovarian cancer. And it’s the week or jump on the creative opporcancer that Pocketbook Mono- tunity of a lifetime to deal with a
logues creator and St. Louis na- cause she is so passionate about –
tive Sharon K. McGhee is in her the HIV epidemic in Black women.
“So what’s a girl to do? I tell you
third fight against in the last twowhat I did. I put my wigs in a suitand-a-half years.
The word “pocketbook” was case and my Vicodin in my overnight
coined a couple of generations bag and we went down to Atlanta
ago by our most senior and sea- and filmed a wonderful show,” she
soned African-American sisters said. “But what people don’t know,
pertaining to those most discreet while it all looked great on televisubjects of a sexual nature. sion, it was the roughest time for
“And there are some rules that me, because in another three weeks,
went with it –keep it closed, I had another chemotherapy treatdon’t people ramble all in it— ment.”
There are three types of ovarian
make sure your pocketbook is
clean.” McGhee said. McGhee cancer, depending on what type of
created the Pocketbook Mono- tissue is involved. Epithelial cells
logues to talk to Black women cover the ovaries, the two eggand girls about taking responsi- shaped organs on either side of a
bility for their own sexual health, woman’s reproductive system.
following the design of Vagina Germ cells create the eggs inside of
Monologues author Eve Ensler. the ovaries. Stromal cells are the tisSoldout performances in Chi- sue which holds the ovaries tocago where McGhee currently gether and makes most of the female
hormones, estrogen and progesterone.
The American Cancer Society
(ACS) says higher risk factors for
the most common type of ovarian
cancer (epithelial) include: ·
* Age- half of all these cancers
are in women over age 63·
* Obesity- an ACS study found a
higher incidence and a higher
death rate among obese women·
Fertility drugs·
* Male hormones, or androgens·
* Estrogen therapy after menopause·
Family history of ovarian, breast
or colorectal cancer McGhee said
it almost felt like she was getting
her blessing in the middle of her
hurricane.
“God was showing me this balance of my life and what it is to
actually live with a cancer diagnosis, deal with everything that
goes with it – the surgery, the depression … to understand this diagnosis happens to a lot of
people and that you can find your
will through God and through perseverance to live and thrive with
it,” McGhee said. “I never wanted
the cancer to have me.” Ovarian
cancer usually strikes women after menopause, but it can occur at
any age. Early detection of ovarian cancer is difficult, because
oftentimes, women with ovarian
cancer have no symptoms or just
mild symptoms until the disease
is in an advanced stage and hard
to treat.
“The day that I was diagnosed
with cancer, my mom died of a debilitating stroke. She had been
sick for almost a year-and-a-half,”
McGhee said. “I would leave Chicago on Friday, go to St. Louis,
take care of my mom.
“So when people would say,
‘Wow, it looks like you are losing
weight,’ I would say, I’m stressed
out because my mom is dying. I’m
tired – my mom is dying,” she
summed up.
“Every symptom that I had that
told me loud and clear that my
body was in need of care, I masked
under the influence of ‘My Mom
Needs Me,’” she said.
“I had every symptom of ovarian cancer known –the bloating,
the heavy bleeding; the weight
loss – but we now know that a
pap smear will not diagnose ovarian cancer.”
After her radical hysterectomy
to remove a cancerous tumor the
size of a grapefruit, McGhee said
she left Chicago to attend her
mother’s funeral in St. Louis, and
returned back to Chicago for chemo.
The cancer returned a year later,
in 2010, and McGhee completed her
scheduled appearances before more
surgery and chemo.
“I call it The Curious Case of Cancer,” McGhee described. “I started
to think of chemo like a carwash. You
can get the $5 wash, the $6 wash,
the $7 wash, right? But if you pay
for the $7 wash, they got this extra
blaster on the side. But when you
come out, there’s still going to be
some little particles of dirt and dust
around. And that’s what I think of
chemo inside of my body. Like we
are washing to get all of these bad
cells out, but we might not get all of
them. And that’s where I am right
now — they didn’t get all of them.”
Her father, best friend and family in
St. Louis and involvement in support groups are providing strong
emotional support through now her
third bout, which occurred six
months ago.
McGhee’s experiences incited a
new voice, another monologue –
this time about the commonalities
among everyone who has a form of
13
Pi Kappa Omega chapter marks
25th anniversary of its charter
This summer the members of
PKO celebrated twenty-five
years of service at their Silver
Anniversary Gala on June 25, at
the beautifully restored Faculty
House at Columbia University.
Chef Marvin Woods, known
as “America’s Healthy Chef”, emceed the event. Alexis Walters,
a representative from Governor
Cuomo’s office, attended the
event to give a special proclamation from the Governor and the
chapter received recognition letters for their 25 years of service
from President Barack Obama,
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and
Congressman Charles Rangel.
“We are proud to applaud this
exemplary organization on its Silver Anniversary, and together
[l-r] Alexis Walters, Governor’s Executive Chamber; Angela C. But- we look forward to making our
ler, President Pi Kappa Omega
great City an even better place in
which to live and volunteer”Mayor Mike Bloomberg
”I am humbled by the dedication, service, and vision of the 39
women who founded the Pi Kappa
Omega chapter 25 years ago,”
said current Chapter President
Angela Butler. “It is an honor to
continue their legacy through
programs and partnerships that
will have a significant, positive
impact in our community for many
more years to come.”
The black tie event featured a
silent auction, and a touching
slide presentation that chronicled
the chapters numerous achievements in New York City since 1986.
Pi Kappa Omega is a graduate
chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha
Sorority Incorporated. Alpha
Kappa Alpha is an international
service organization that was
founded on the campus of Howard
University in Washington, D.C. in
1908. It is the oldest Greek-lettered
organization established by African-American college-educated
women.
Alpha Kappa Alpha is comprised
of a nucleus of 260,000 members in
graduate and undergraduate chapters in the United States, the U.S.
Virgin Islands, the Caribbean,
Canada, Japan, Germany, Korea
and the continent of Africa.
Its membership is comprised of
distinguished women who boast
excellent academic records, proven
leadership skills, and are involved
in the global community through
advocacy and service.
Alpha Kappa Alpha has dedicated itself to improving the quality of life for citizens worldwide and
promoting peace.
No redemption for ex-offender by Tulane’s Law School students
Bruce Reilly is a first-year law
student who received a scholarship from Tulane University and
the NAACP to achieve his dream
of becoming an attorney. Bruce’s
love of the law blossomed after
working in his community as an
activist helping those that were
marginalized.
Before this he served 12 years
in prison for committing the biggest mistake in his life when he
took someone’s life. For the crime
he committed a life-time ago, he
is now going through the ringer
because of the stigma brought on
by carrying the “scarlet letter” of
being an ex-offender. It made me
think if someone could ever move
on from their past and was there
a crime you could commit that
you cannot be forgiven for?
Bruce, a nice guy and wellknown activist in the field of criminal justice reform, had been dealing with the whispers of his past,
but the shit hit the fan when an
editor at a popular legal web site
called Above the Law wrote a
piece on him and tilted it “New
Tulane 1L Is an Advocate, A
Writer, and A Murderer.”
The writer asked readers which
of the nouns in the title had
caught their attention. This ques-
tion prompted a multitude of negative comments by fellow law students, some unbelievably hateful
and downright wrong. One astute
student said “Are the students correct in being worried that, when
placed in one of the most stressinducing environments in the
United States, Mr. Reilly will reach
his tipping point and live up to his
violent past, pulling a Virginia
Tech-esque move and harming fellow students?” I could not believe
that statements like these were written by law students. To my disbelief, many of them will go on to become attorneys to serve their communities.
I’d like to point out to these misguided future lawyers that there is
a lawyer’s code of professional responsibility that points out that the
rule of law is grounded in respect
for the dignity of the individual and
the capacity of the individual
through reason for enlightened
self-government. Law so grounded
it makes justice possible, for only
through such law does the dignity
of the individual attain respect and
protection. So for those hateful lawyer wannbes they need to understand what the word respect means
before pursuing a distinguished
career as an attorney.
Scott Cowen, pesident of Tulane
University
But I want to make clear that
the bashing that Bruce has gotten from Tulane law students is
fairly typical for an ex-offender.
The type of behavior displayed
by them demonstrates how hard
it is to re-enter society as a productive citizen. The road following imprisonment is not an easy
one.
Thanks to long-sought sentencing reforms, a growing number of people now under confinement are being released into the
community before completing
their prison terms. Each year
700,000 prisoners are released,
which is quadruple the number 20
years ago. Sadly, two-thirds of
those released will return to
prison because of a new crime or
parole violation within 3 years.
Formerly incarcerated people reentering society will face a daunting array of problems preventing
them from successfully reintegrating. These include not being able
to find employment or secure
housing, dealing with substance
abuse and mental health problems, and difficulties in reestablishing and developing relationships. On top of this, they also
must face counterproductive and
debilitating legal and practical
barriers, including state and federal laws that hinder their ability
to qualify for a job or get a higher
education. As a result, communi-
ties have been struggling to handle
the extraordinary increase in the
flow of people from prison cells into
society.
So when I hear a story like
Bruce’s where he has strived to
better himself as a human being and
to become a productive citizen in
society, I am sickened by the actions of his fellow law students at
Tulane. When I was released 14
years ago from the living nightmare
of imprisonment, I found that returning to the real world was both
frightening and unbelievably difficult. Freedom smacked me in the
face swiftly, and it was quite overpowering. As the gate of the prison
opened and I walked out a free man,
I should have been the happiest
person alive. But I wasn’t. My first
steps out of prison were full of cautiousness. I was very scared. My
main concern was the question that
every prisoner facing release thinks
about: “Will I be able to survive life
on the outside?” Now, unbelievably, Bruce Reilly is asking the very
same question as a law student on
the campus of Tulane University
Law School. Anthony Papa, author of 15 To Life: How I Painted
My Way To Freedom, is a communications specialist for the Drug
Policy Alliance.
Lovely Ladies of the Pi Kappa Omega Chapter
14
HUD awards nearly $100M to promote jobs, self sufficiency
The U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development (HUD) today awarded
nearly $100 million in grants to
help public and assisted housing residents find employment; connect with needed
services; and help the elderly
and people with disabilities
maintain independent living.
The funding also allows the
grantees to retain or hire “service coordinators” or case
workers to work directly with
these HUD-assisted families to
connect them to the supportive services that meet their individual needs
The funding announced includes: Approximately $35 million through the Resident Opportunities and Self Sufficiency – Service Coordinators
Program (ROSS-SC) Program;
approximately $15 million
through the Public Housing –
Family Self-Sufficiency Program (PH-FSS); and $45 million
through the Multifamily Housing Service Coordinator Program (MHSC).
“Providing housing assistance alone is often not
enough to help individuals increase their independence,”
said HUD Secretary Shaun
Donovan. “The service coordinators funded through these
programs open doors that help
HUD-assisted families find
jobs, access services and assist
the elderly and disabled to continue living as independently as
possible in their homes.”
The ROSS-SC and PH-FSS
programs allow grantees across
the U.S. hire or retain service
coordinators to work directly
with residents to assess their
needs to connect them with
education, job training and
placement programs and/or
computer and financial literacy
services available in their community to promote self-sufficiency.
Only public housing authorities are eligible for PH-FSS
grants. ROSS-SC grants can be
awarded to public housing authorities, resident associations
and non-profit organizations.
Grantees that receive ROSS-SC
grants can also use the funding for this purpose, which allows the elderly or persons with
disabilities who live in public
housing to maintain their independent lifestyle.
In a similar fashion, the
MHSC program provides funding to owners of private hous-
ing developments under contract from HUD to house lowincome individuals. These
owners, or their management
companies, hire or contract service coordinators with backgrounds in providing social
services, especially to the elderly and people with disabilities, to assist their residents
with special needs.
Combined, HUD estimates
this funding will allow the
grantees to hire new employees or retain approximately 650
service coordinators that are
currently working with HUDassisted individuals.
The purpose of the ROSS-SC
and PH-FSS programs is to encourage local, innovative strategies that link public housing
assistance with public and private resources to enable participating families to increase
earned income; reduce or eliminate the need for welfare assistance; and make progress toward achieving economic independence and housing selfsufficiency.
Public housing residents
who participate in the PH-FSS
program sign a contract with
the housing authority, which
outlines their responsibilities
towards completion of training
and employment objectives
over a five-year period.
For those families receiving
welfare assistance, the housing authority must establish an
interim goal that the participating family be independent from
welfare assistance prior to the
expiration of the contract.
During their participation,
residents may create an escrow
account funded with their increasing income, which they
may use in a variety of ways,
including continuing their education or making major purchase.
HUD’s Family Self Sufficiency (FSS) Program is a longstanding resource for increasing economic security and selfsufficiency among participants.
HUD issued a new report
earlier this year that evaluated
the effectiveness of the FSS
Program. Conducted from 2005
to 2009, the study shows the
financial benefits are substantial for participants who remain
and complete the program.
This study is the second of a
three-part series by HUD that
evaluate the effects of the FSS
program. The first study found
individuals who participated in
the FSS program fared better financially than those who did not
enroll in the program.
HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R)
will launch the third and final installment to complete the series
this year.
The MFSC program allows
multifamily housing owners to
assist elderly individuals and
nonelderly people with disabilities living in HUD-assisted housing and in the surrounding area
to obtain needed supportive services from the community, to enable them to continue living independently.
The grants are awarded for an
initial three-year period to eligible owners of multifamily housing for the elderly or disabled, to
enable them to hire and support
a service coordinator.
The funds cover such costs as
salary, fringe benefits, quality assurance, training, office space,
equipment, and other related administrative expenses.
A report HUD released in 2009
noted that aging in place reduces
rates of premature institutionalization for low-income elderly
residents, thus reducing the
costs borne by taxpayers.
Apps to keep your sanity
Rep. Shirley Chisholm, CBC co-founder
CBC founders give witness
to history in open forum
In 1976, the cost of a gallon of
gas was seventy-nine cents, you
could buy a brand new car for
thirty-seven hundred dollars –
fully loaded, the nation was celebrating its 200th birthday, and 12
men and one woman became the
first African Americans to be
elected to the US House of Representatives.
Four decades later, the surviving original Members of the Congressional Black Caucus will hold
a symposium to talk about lessons learned, goals accomplished, and work yet to be done.
The session will take place on
Thursday, Sept. 22 from 6:o’clock
until 8 o’clock in the evening at
the Renaissance Hotel.
The session titled “Conversation with the CBC Founders,” will
offer attendees an intimate look
at the members as they reflect on
how to lead and how to serve.
The original group of 13 consisted of Rep. Ronald Dellums
(CA), Rep. Charles Diggs (MI),
Rep. Shirley Chisholm (NY), Rep.
William Clay (MO), Rep. George
Collins (IL), Rep. John Conyers,
Jr. (MI), Rep. Walter Fauntroy
(DC), Rep. Gus Hawkins (CA), Rep.
Ralph Metcalfe (IL), Rep. Perrin
Mitchell (MD), Rep. Robert Nix, Sr.
(PA), Rep. Charles Rangel (NY),
and Rep. Louis Stokes (OH).
Considered one of the most influential caucuses on Capitol Hill,
the Congressional Black Caucus
now has
43 Members, and continues to pursue its original goal of working to
improve the socioeconomic condition of African Americans and
other underserved groups. From
the beginning, this group dubbed
itself “The Conscience of the Congress,” taking stands that it felt
would enhance the personal lives
and communities
of the constituency it serves.
Two of the original Members,
Rep John Conyers and Rep.
Charles Rangel still serve in Congress.
Both were participants in the
iconic fights that led to the passage of the King Holiday, the Voting Rights Act, and the destruction of apartheid in South Africa.
Reegistration for ALC opens at
the Washington Convention Center on Wednesday, Sept. 21.
sions range from just $4.99 to
By Brandon A. Perry
Special to the NNPA from the $9.99.
Indianapolis Recorder
Terminal
This app, produced by
Contributing to a business,
organization or project can be AppNinjas, is ideal for small
hard enough without the occa- business owners who want to
sional “mishaps” that can seri- offer customers the option of
using credit/debit cards, but
ously derail plans.
Common mishaps include don’t want to buy expensive
dropped appointments, last- payment processing equipminute flight changes, lost in- ment. Terminal lets you accept
formation and lack of trusted credit card payments wherever
contacts, who can perform business takes you, quickly
needed tasks. The good news verifies card numbers and supis that those misfortunes can ports all major credit cards, inbe avoided with technology at c l u d i n g Vi s a , M a s t e r C a r d ,
American Express and Disthe palm of your hand.
Companies have stepped up cover. Terminal is available for
to offer numerous apps that can a s m a l l m o n t h l y f e e f r o m
help manage not only business AppNinjas.
affairs, but also personal itinEncamp
eraries.
This application provides
Available for both iPhone
and Android, these apps can access to all of the Basecamp
do everything from scheduling f e a t u r e s t h a t p r o f e s s i o n a l s
appointments and organizing have found useful, including
files, to checking traffic infor- information about projects,
mation and providing easy pay- messages, to-do lists and busiment options to customers. ness milestones. The app’s
Some of them you may have dashboard allows users to see
heard of, others you may have the latest activity, while the
not, but they are all designed project tab enables them to see
and
completed
to help you keep your sanity c u r r e n t
as you navigate the hustle and p r o j e c t s . E n c a m p c a n a l s o
quickly download PDFs, imbustle of a busy day.
ages and office documents.
iPhone
Linkedin (Mobile)
Flight Track Pro
Eliminates business cards
People who fly frequently
know how much of a hassle it and printed resumes by giving
is to keep track of delayed the iPhone access to one of the
flights, mistakes in reservations nation’s largest networks of
and last-minute gate changes. business professionals. This
Flight Track Pro can reduce means no longer having to
stress by checking airport de- swap business cards -simply go
lays and closures, arrival times, on Linkedin and add a person
weather and flights around the immediately. For
world. Flight Track Pro can not
only check gate numbers and Android
flight cancellations, but also DropBox
This is an application that
search for alternatives. Ver-
gives the ability to synchronize
files online and across different
computers such as Mac, Windows and Linux, automatically
without having to download each
time. There is the option of sharing folders with other people,
restrict sharing or remove shari n g p e r m i s s i o n s c o m p l e t e l y.
Dropbox is also available for
computers.
Documents to go!
M i c r o s o f t Wo r d , E x c e l ,
PowerPoint and PDF files are essentials to managing business
any day, and this app does exactly that. It allows users to edit,
create and view these files in an
intuitive interface. This application is easy to use, and offers a
free version of the app to view
or work on emails and attachments.
Gist
Gist is another popular social
networking business app. It
gives users complete business
profiles for their contacts, including updates from social networks like Facebook and Twitter,
mentions in the news, and email
correspondences across multiple
inboxes. All information is presented in context around an upcoming meeting or recent status
update.
Trip It
This is a free travel application
that helps track itineraries, miles,
points earned, hotel plans, car
rentals, etc. It is all integrated
to make travel easy. You can
share your travel details with
your team, and can also view
their itineraries, locate yourself
or know about places using maps
and directions.
TripIt Pro features include
alerts about flights and alternate
flight information.
15
Reversing alarming HIV increase among Black gay men
than 48 percent.
By Rod McCullom
But government researchers deSpecial to the NNPA from the
Black AIDS Institute
scribed the soaring seroconversions
among young Black MSM as
The first of a two-part series ex- “alarming.” ”The data is not suramining what can be done to re- prising because we’ve been talkverse the high rates of new HIV ing about young Black gay and
infection among Black gay and bisexual men for some time,” says
bisexual men.
A. Cornelius Baker, a member of the
The number of new HIV cases Presidential Advisory Council
in the United States has remained HIV/AIDS (PACHA), the senior
fairly stable at about 50,000 per communications consultant at
year between 2006 and 2009, ac- AED Center on AIDS & Commucording to data from the Centers nity Health and board chair of the
for Disease Control and Preven- Black AIDS Institute. ”Now we
tion (CDC) that was published in have an opportunity to make some
early August in the online scien- progress with bold and compretific journal PLoS ONE.
hensive strategies.” It’s unclear
Predictably, the epidemic con- why seroconversions are increastinues to affect Black America dis- ing. “It’s not just individual risk
proportionately: Forty-four per- behavior. It’s probably behavior
cent of all new infections occurred plus late testing practices,” says
among African Americans, who David J. Malebranche, M.D.,
make up only about 13 percent of M.P.H., assistant professor of medithe population. And gay and bi- cine at Emory University in Atlanta
sexual men, who make up only an and an expert on qualitative HIV
estimated two percent of the behavioral prevention. ”We see
population, accounted for 61 per- late testing across the Black comcent of all new HIV infections in munity, such as in cancer, diabe2009. Young Black gay and bi tes, high blood pressure. Plus, the
men—”men who have sex with heightened stigma of HIV certainly
men” (MSM), in public health jar- delays testing.”
gon—ages 13 to 29 experienced
Experts estimate that African
the greatest increases, with infec- Americans make up 56 percent of
tion rates skyrocketing by more all “late testers”—people who
learn of their positive HIV
serostatus so far along in their illness that the disease progresses
to AIDS within one year of diagnosis. ”That means their viral
loads are off the charts,” Dr.
Malebranche adds. The presence
of high amounts of HIV in the
body makes a person significantly
more infectious.
Once people become aware of
their HIV-positive status, not only
are they more likely to take steps
such as using condoms to avoid
infecting their sexual partners, but
research now shows that beginning treatment soon after diagnosis makes people with HIV/AIDS
significantly less infectious.
But Black HIV-positive gay and
bi men are least likely of all MSM
to be aware of their serostatus.
Among HIV-positive Black MSM
under age 30, 71 percent were previously unaware of their infection.
So not only does their own disease progress unimpeded, but
they may unknowingly pass HIV
to others.
“We also have higher rates of
STDs that can lead to higher risk
for HIV,” says Dr. Malebranche.
”We have to look at sexual networks among Black gay men, especially in Black gay enclaves in
large urban centers and rural areas. We tend to sexually partner
with each other more so than other
races.” A significant body of research has shown that sexual networks can play a critical role in
facilitating the spread of STDs,
including HIV. The apparent rise
in new HIV infections could also
reflect the success of recent efforts to aggressively test Black
gay men, rather than an increase
in new infections themselves, Dr.
Malebranche adds.
For years HIV/AIDS activists
have criticized the CDC for responding inadequately to persistently high increases in new infections among Black MSM. Today, however, the CDC is receiving high marks for a new socialmarketing and public-awareness
campaign to encourage HIV testing among Black MSM. The campaign, titled Testing Makes Us
Stronger, debuted in August at the
2011 National HIV Prevention
Conference in Atlanta and will officially launch on Sept. 27 in Atlanta, Houston, New York, Baltimore and Oakland, Calif.
The new data “underscores the
urgency of reaching young Black
men who have sex with men,”
Kevin Fenton, M.D., Ph.D., direc-
tor of the CDC’s National Center
for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD,
and TB Prevention, told reporters
during a telebriefing. ”We cannot
allow the health of a new generation of young Black gay and bisexual men to be lost to essentially
preventable diseases.”
The testing message is a critical
component of the new campaign.
“Knowing one’s status is important
in order to get medical care and
treatment for their infection,” says
Richard Wolitski, a deputy director
in the CDC’s HIV/AIDS Prevention
Division. ”The CDC has shown
that people who know their status
engage in behaviors that significantly reduce risk for others of contracting HIV.”
“Testing Makes Us Stronger
builds on the strengths of young
Black gay and bisexual men,” adds
Wolitski. “We wanted to show
Black gay couples who are loving
and supportive and, at the same
time, document a diverse range of
strong men in [the] community.”
The program will include transit,
magazine and online advertising—
and outreach across Facebook,
Twitter, blogs and “hookup”
websites popular with Black MSM.
Dr. Willie Underwood III, African American prostate surgeon
Special to the NNPA from the toms men usually ignored them,
and so the disease would spread,
National Cancer Institute
and was usually incurable by the
Dr. Willie Underwood is a man time we saw it.” Unfortunately,
he said, medicine still looks like
on a mission, literally.
At his day jobs he works as a this in many parts of the world,
urologic oncologist, Associate including the country of Nigeria.
Professor and cancer researcher At Shawsand, located in a town
at the prestigious Roswell Park called Port Harcourt, they have
Cancer Institute, and as Clinical well-trained surgeons, but were
Associate Professor at the not performing radical prostatecSUNY Buffalo School of Medi- tomies (surgery to remove a discine and Biomedical Sciences. eased prostate).
Nigerians who could afford it
As a volunteer for an international organization called would travel to India, England or
IVUMed earlier this year, he paid the United States for treatment.
his own fare to travel to a town As a male African American phyin rural Nigeria. IVUMed works sician, Dr. Underwood knows all
to improve health care around the too well the impact of prostate
world through projects that re- cancer on fellow African American
flect its motto, “Teach one, reach men. It is easy to see why he is
so passionate about his work and
many.”
Willie Underwood came to Ni- why he would travel halfway
geria to teach. “This trip was the around the world to heal others.
brainchild of Catherine R. As a grantee of the National CandeVries, President & Founder of cer Institute, he epitomizes the
IVUMed, and Dr. Leslie mission of Prostate Cancer AwareAkporiaye, Medical Director/CEO ness Month. Travelling Medicine
at the Shawsand Medical Centre. Man
Dr. Underwood flew to Port
We wanted to help stimulate the
efforts to improve cancer out- Harcourt earlier this year on becomes in Nigeria,” said Dr. half of IVUMed to perform radical
prostatectomy surgery on a local
Underwood.
“In Nigeria and many parts of patient, and to confer with surthe world,” explained Dr. geons from across the country
Underwood, “it might as well be about the feasibility of creating a
the 1970s when it comes to pros- prostate cancer program in Nigetate cancer. In the United States ria that would improve prostate
35 years ago, the main way we cancer early detection and surdiagnosed prostate cancer was vival for their countrymen. “It
to wait for men who came in com- was important to respect their auDr. Willie Underwood III
plaining of bone pain. We didn’t tonomy,” said Dr. Underwood. “I
to
dictate
how
things
were going only a small part of the challenge.
have a way of diagnosing men had to make sure they didn’t perbefore any clinical signs devel- ceive me as the overbearing to be done. I knew that learning More important was shaping a
oped. If there were any symp- American expert who was going the technical surgery would be context where the Nigerian phy-
sicians––not some American––
would lead the changes necessary
to create and maintain a successful prostate cancer diagnosis and
treatment program.”
There was also another challenge, one that illustrates both the
complexity of prostate treatment
and the importance of the patient’s
buy-in––the surgery often has
significant side effects. “The culture in Nigeria operates very much
by word-of-mouth,” explained Dr.
Underwood. Prostate surgery can
cause patients to become impotent, or incontinent, where patients
leak urine. “The entire project
could fail if we didn’t take account
of the cultural values surrounding
these issues and explain the risks
effectively to patients.”
After much discussion and
preparation, Dr. Underwood finally
met his prospective patient, talked
to him extensively, and entered the
operating room with two urologists, Drs. John Raphael and Ngozi
Ekeke, who would assist him with
this historic operation. “These
guys had been extremely welltrained in several different specialties. Vascular surgery, urology
and gastrointestinal surgery, just
to name a few. They were very talented,” he said. “I have to admit
I was sweating a bit more than
usual,” said Dr. Underwood. Some
of the surgical equipment he normally uses was not available, but
there was a bigger surprise. Dr.
Underwood was making small talk
with the anesthesiologist, waiting
for the patient to be put under with
Health
16
THE ADAMS REPORT
Fashion, Beauty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . .& Stuff
By Audrey Adams
Worth praying for?
Audrey Adams
Just a few blocks downtown,
folks are making decisions
(again) about something we
take for granted, something we
need and must have to be accepted as fully functioning
members of society each day.
I’m going to give you a few
hints, so see if you can guess . .
. Membership is restricted and
entrée into their world is by invitation only. They are coming
from all over the world, as members of an aristocracy of sorts.
They convene twice a year in
exclusive groups to see and be
seen, and to support one
another’s initiatives. They are
judge and jury. Their power is
immeasurable, but they are harmless. They are feared. They are
loved. They believe that they
know you and what you what
them to do for you . . .but they
never ask your opinion. And in
the end, you take what they give
you. Do you know who they are?
If you guessed the captains
of the fashion industry, arbiters
of style or fashion mavens, then
you are right! And they decide
what is going to be in style! Yep,
fashion week is in full swing.
Thousands of retailers, fashion journalists and celebrities
from all over the world are gath-
ering to view the collections. Designers big and small have put all
of their creative efforts, energy and
thousands of dollars into designing a collection and producing a
show to garner the favor of a very
fickle and jaded audience.
But this is The Big Time! Their
efforts culminate in a 20 minute
show for the aristocracy; and those
few precious minutes could mean
the difference between success
and failure. The goal is to gain admittance to the club, attain celebrity status or at the very least be
granted the title of, “The New Visionary” or “Someone to Watch.”
Yes, there will be winners and losers but what about us?
After the movers and shakers
see the shows they will return to
their respective kingdoms to determine what you and I will wear in
the fall of 2012. It’s a little scary
really. What if we don’t like their
choices? Do they know that we
don’t like stripes or that we are
moving towards orange as “The
New Black”? How do they manage
to make those choices without
consulting us?
Do they have any idea how
many times we have tried to shop
for something special and come up
empty handed because we
couldn’t find anything? Mind you,
the stores were full of things to buy.
Our problem: the color isn’t right,
it was too short or made in the
wrong fabric and on top of it all; it
was cut to fit a worm’s body.
The bottom line, it wasn’t fitting
us or our lifestyle! So, you ask,
what to do? How can you have an
impact on what is chosen by retailers? I can only think of one way,
prayer. That’s right prayer! You see,
retailers can only chose from what
is shown to them, so pray for the
designers. Pray that they get it
right and that they will speak for
us. Pray that they give us clothes
we can wear. Pray that they create with at least a size 10 mindset! Pray that they have their finger on the pulse of our workplaces, malls and halls of power;
if they do, they can’t fail.
But alas, the sad truth is that
they aren’t even thinking about
us, but that shouldn’t stop us
from thinking about them! If you
don’t see what you are looking
for in the fall—you’ll know why.
If you miss this chance to mind
meld with the designers you will
have another opportunity to in the
fall of 2012, that’s when the aristocracy meets again to choose
what we will be wearing in the
spring of 2013. Think about it. See
you next week.
Visit my website,
TheAdamsReport.com and
checkout my online radio show,
Talk! with Audrey for a series of
interviews that will inform, motivate and inspire you. Tune in to
listen to a live broadcast of TALK!
with AUDREY . . . every Tuesday
from 6:00 to 7:00 P.M. on Harlem’s
WHCR 90.3 FM.
Audrey Adams, former director
of corporate public relations and
fashion merchandising for ESSENCE and model and assistant
commentator for the world renowned EBONY FASHION FAIR,
motivates and inspires women
through her syndicated columns
and motivational speaking engagements and web site, The
Adams Report.com.
Ask:
Gwendolyn Baines
My lady friend
has been confused
Dear Gwendolyn:
I am 55 and my lady friend
is 45. She had a child when we
met and we have been together
for 10 years, soon to be 11. I
am the only father her daughter knows. Recently she has
obviously distant herself from
me.
Gwendolyn, she went on to
explain that in our 10 year relationship there has been no engagement or marriage proposal. She said she feels I
need to get someone else because she has put enough time
into me. I told her that in those
years she was always trying to
get herself together. To me,
she still is not together.
This is the funny part. She
claims to be a preacher and has
authored several books and
written and recorded several
songs. She has no degrees. The
books and music went nowhere.
My concern is why she
wants to distant herself from
me now. Do you think there is
someone new?
come up with that statement?
You are not waiting for her to get
herself together. From her ministry involvement to the involvement of book writing and music,
this lady seems to have it going
on. And, as to her books etc.
going nowhere – how can they
when she is dragging someone
like you along? And by the way,
you don’t need a degree to
write. People who write have a
gift.
Let me tell you this: She has
waited ten years and that is too
long. Don’t think of giving her
an engagement ring or asking her
to marry. You are not in her class
and you take her career interests
as a joke. No woman needs a man
who cannot identify with her
dreams and goals. I hate to
sound harsh, Matthew. But think
about it. Men used to trade
women like they trade their car –
enjoy it until dents and scratches
are noticeable, then they don’t
want it. Well, it is a new day and
women are not being held back
letting life pass by — waiting for
marriage. (Copyright © 2011 by
Gwendolyn L. Baines)
Got a problem? Don’t solve
it alone. Write to Gwendolyn
Matthew
Baines at: P. O. Box 10066, Raleigh, N.C. 27605-0066 (To reDear Matthew:
ceive a reply, send a self-addressed stamped envelope). or
No, but there needs to be. e m a i l h e r a t : g w e n b a i n e s @
You mentioned you were ready hotmail.com and visit her website
but she is not. How can you at: www.gwenbaines.com.
C2C founder Marie Eusebe becomes Roundtable member
Brooklyn social entrepreneur
Marie Yolaine-Eusebe was recently appointed a member of
the Hatiain Roundtable.
The inaugural group consists
of 35 Haitian-Americans from the
Tri-State area chosen for their
outstanding professional achievements and commitment to the
Haitian community. The embers
have been brought together to
advance the mission of the Haitian Roundtable which calls for
mobilizing the Haitian Diaspora.
As an inaugural member of
Haitian Roundtable, Marie will
join with business, media and
civic leaders to strengthen the
local and national influence of
Haitian Americans, as well as
promote a positive image for
Haïti as it continues to rebuild
its infrastructure. “Like me, the
Haitian Roundtable members feel
a need to get involved and be a
part of something much greater
than ourselves.” stated Marie.
“Collectively, we are working towards strengthening the Haitian
community here and abroad as
well as making some very tactical strides on the ground.”
Marie was born in Port-auPrince, Haïti. She came to the
United States with her family
when she was five. “My dad
wanted my brothers (who were
born in the US), and me, to have
more and better opportunities
than he did,” recalls Marie. “When
we’d say we wanted to be like him,
he’d respond, ‘I want you to be
better. I want you to do more. And
I want your children to do more
than you.’”
At a very early age, the roots of
Community2Community (C2C) –
the service organization Eusebe
founded four months after the 7.0
magnitude quake killed an estimated 300,000 people and left over
one million homeless – were born.
On Jan. 13, 2012, C2C will salute
the second anniversary of Haïti’s
cataclysmic earthquake during its
annual “Hope and A Future” Benefit Concert for Haiti. The event
will once again bring together an
eclectic group of performers with
a heart for Haïti to celebrate the
country’s resilient spirit. This
year’s affair is schedule to take
place at Walt Whitman Theater in
the borough of Brooklyn, which
is home to one of the largest populations of Haitian residence in the
United States.
Founded in 2008, Haitian Round
Marie Eusebe, Community2Community Fire Starter
Table is an organization comprised
of Haitian-American professionals
who are committed to civic engagement as well as philanthropic endeavors benefiting Haïti, Haitian
organizations and causes. The organization seeks to heighten awareness locally and nationally of Haitians as an emerging constituency
among key stakeholders and institutions through networking, forums and events. The Haitian
Roundtable also aims to educate,
advocate and promote Haïti as a
positive brand. Founded in 2010,
Community2Community (C2C) is a
service organization committed to
help build self-sufficient communities worldwide. Its mission is to
serve as an umbrella organization
collaboratively working with others to facilitate broad-based initiatives that mobilize resources to recovering international communities
in an effort to support their transformation into healthier, sustainable, self-sufficient communities.
Currently C2C has a dedicated
team on the ground in Haïti supporting it’s C2C Haiti Restoration
and Transformation Pilot Project
and current efforts on the local
level in the coastal town of Petit
Goâve, just 42 miles from Port-auPrince.
17
Are schools preparing Black boys...for prison?
By Starla Muhammad
Staff Writer
A Chicago mother recently filed
a lawsuit against the Chicago
Board of Education alleging a
Chicago Public School security
guard handcuffed her young son
while he was a student at George
Washington Carver Primary
School on the city’s far south side.
In the lawsuit, filed Aug. 29,
LaShanda Smith says the guard
handcuffed her son March 17,
2010 which resulted in “sustained
injuries of a permanent, personal
and pecuniary nature.” According to media reports, Michael A.
Carin, the attorney representing
Smith says the youngster was
among several six and seven year
olds that were handcuffed by the
guard for allegedly “talking in
class”. The students were also
allegedly told they would never
see their parents again and were
going to prison.
In a another incident April 13
of this year in Queens, New York
a seven-year-old special education
student in first grade was handcuffed and taken by ambulance to
a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation after he reportedly became
upset because he did not like the
color of an Easter egg he decorated. The school says the child
was spitting, would not calm down
and was “threatening”. In New
Orleans, Sebastian and Robin
Weston were plaintiffs in a 2010
class action lawsuit alleging their
then six-year-old son was handcuffed and shackled to a chair by
an armed security guard after the
boy argued with another student
over a chair.
“This must stop now. Our children are not animals and should
not be treated this way,” Weston
said in a statement.
Are these
incidents, in which young Black
boys are treated like common criminals in America’s schools subconsciously, preparing them instead
for life behind bars in the criminal
justice system? “The school system has been transformed into
nothing more than a prison preparation industry,” says Umar
Abdullah Johnson, president of
National Movement to Save Black
Boys.
“The job of the school district
is to prep the children for prison
just like a chef preps his food before he actually cooks it,”
Johnson, a nationally certified
psychologist, told The Final Call.
“Yes We Can: The 2010 Schott 50
State Report on Black Males in
Public Education” states Black
Male students are punished more
severely for similar infractions
than their White peers. “They are
not given the same opportunities
to participate in classes with enriched educational offerings.
They are more frequently inappropriately removed from the general education classroom due to
misclassifications by the Special
Education policies and practices
of schools and districts,” says the
report.
In Chicago Public Schools,
Black boys make up less than 25
percent of the student population
but made up 57 percent of expelled students in 2009 according to Catalyst Chicago an online
news magazine that reports on
urban education.
“In Chicago, Black Boys are 51
percent of those suspended at
the elementary level,” noted Catalyst Chicago.
Johnson says a
false image has been created that
suggests Black boys are not interested in being educated, which
is not true he argues. The emotional and psychological effects
on a six and seven -year-olds from
unfair and out-of-control disciplinary action like handcuffing is
setting them up for criminality he
explains.
“The first thing that type of behavior does is it socializes the boy
at a very young age into criminal
consciousness. He is nurtured
by the school into an understanding that his role in society is that
of a criminal,” says Johnson, a
Pennsylvania certified school
principle, lecturer and motiva-
tional coach. These methods and
practices of handcuffing young Black
boys takes away the stigma, sting and
fear of incarceration he adds.
Overly harsh disciplinary policies
sets the tone for students to become
bored and frustrated with school
which leads to increased drop-out
rates and in many cases leads to
greater involvement in the criminal
justice system say youth advocates.
Johnson agrees.
“When you put handcuffs on a six
or seven year old there’s no need for
that six or seven-year-old to fear incarceration when they’re 17 and 18years-old,” he says.
Schools are the number one referral source to jail and juvenile hall for
Black children and teens. Therefore,
Johnson urges parents to meet and
establish a relationship with their
child’s teacher.
“Once you meet with a teacher, just
the vibration from that teacher - be
they Black or White - are going to let
you know whether they’re there to
get a paycheck or whether they’re
there to teach your child.”
Black leaders to address students in classrooms
Five hundred African American trailblazers will descend
upon classrooms in 107 cities and
34 states across the United
States (including Puerto Rico) on
Friday, Sept. 23, 2011 as part of
the 2nd Annual Back to School
with the HistoryMakers program.
The one-day program, which
comes as students are getting
settled in classrooms throughout
the country, is designed to bring
renewed attention to the needs
of the nation’s educational system and its students.
This year’s participants include: Massachusetts Governor
Deval Patrick; Senior Advisor to
the President of the United
States Valerie B. Jarrett; former
Ambassador Andrew Young, entertainer and author Common;
activist and talk show host the
Rev. Al Sharpton; political commentator and talk show host
Roland Martin; singer/actress
Melba Moore, Broadway choreographer George Faison, poet
Nikki Giovanni, actress Marla
Gibbs, actress T’Keyah Crystal
Keymah, poet/author Sonia
Sanchez and author/filmmaker
Antwone Fisher.
Notable African Americans
will recount their own school experiences and the struggles they
encountered on their paths to
success. The theme of the day is
“COMMIT,” and the goal of the
program is to put black leaders
in direct and sustained contact
with young people in schools all
across the nation, while encouraging youth to commit to excellence, to learning their history
and to achieving beyond what
they think is possible.
The HistoryMakers, the
nation’s largest African-American video oral history archive,
Gov. Duval Patrick
consists of 2,000 videotaped personal histories of both wellknown and unsung African
Americans. Subjects include
President Barack Obama, General
Colin Powell, Marion Wright
Edelman and the oldest living
black cowboy, Alonzo Pettie, cofounder of Colorado ’s first black
rodeo. The oldest person interviewed is Louisiana Hines out of
Detroit , who is 113, and the
youngest is Ayisha McMillan, a
prima ballerina from North Carolina , aged 33.
At last year’s launch, 200
HistoryMakers spoke at 107
schools in 25 states and 50 cities.
Participants included: former Ohio
Congressman Louis Stokes, civil
rights activist C. T. Vivian and
broadcast journalist Carole
Simpson.
In Washington , D.C. , Secretary of Education Arne Duncan
joined civil rights activists the
Rev. Al Sharpton and Roger
Wilkins at the Dorothy I. Height
Al Sharpton
Community Charter School .
In New York , CNN’s Soledad
O’Brien spoke with former Mayor
of New York David Dinkins at the
Harlem Children’s Zone.
Through the group’s efforts more
than 25,000 students were
reached
and
many
HistoryMakers adopted the
schools they addressed.
Antowone Fisher
“Our HistoryMakers embody
our commitment to education
and are a wonderful example of
true service—service that can
literally change the course of the
lives of thousands of young
people,”
said
The
HistoryMakers founder and executive director Julieanna
Richardson. “This is just the be-
ginning as we are making our digital
collection of more than 8,000 hours
of video testimony available, free of
charge, to all participating schools.”
Organizations that have joined
forces with The HistoryMakers for
the second annual Back-to-School
event include The Faison Firehouse
Respect Project, DC-CAP, the Illinois
Network of Charter Schools, the National Education Association, the
Arnold Family Foundation, the Science, Engineering and Mathematics
Link, Inc., the Fernbank Science Center, the Alabama Departments of
Education and Archives and History
and the Mayme A. Clayton Library
and Museum.
Additionally, Comcast, the Chicago Tribune and TheRoot.com have
signed on as media partners, with
Comcast contributing between
$250,000 and $500,000 in public service announcement (PSA) support.
Co-chairs of the event include Marty
Nesbitt and his wife, Dr. Anita
Blanchard.
For more information, visit
www.thehistorymakers.com or The
HistoryMakers digital archive at
http://www.idvl.org/
thehistorymakers/.
Berkeley College is named Military Friendly School
Berkeley College has been selected as a 2012 Military Friendly
School by G.I. Jobs, a magazine
for military personnel transitioning
into civilian life. The list honors
the colleges, universities and
trade schools that do the most to
embrace American’s servicemen
and veterans as students.
“It is an honor for Berkeley
College to receive this award for
the third consecutive year,” said
Richard E. Robitaille, EdD, Berkeley College Assistant Vice President of Military and Veterans Af-
fairs. “The College participates in
the Yellow Ribbon Program under the G.I. Bill, and collaborates
on educational ventures with the
National Guard, the Air Force, the
GoArmyEd distance learning program, and the Navy College Program Distance Learning Partnership. We constantly strive to expand the programs and services
offered to our 400 military and
veteran students.”
The 2012 list of Military
Friendly Schools was compiled
through research and a data-
driven survey of more than 8,000
schools nationwide. Selected institutions offer benefits such as military
scholarships and discounts, veterans’ clubs, and a full-time staff dedicated to veterans’ affairs. Feedback
from the survey provides prospective
military students with insight into the
student veteran experience at a particular institution based on reviews
from current students.
“The Military Friendly Schools list
is the go-to resource for prospective
Education
18
AUDREY'S
SOCIETY
WHIRL
I Don’t Know How She Does
It star-studded NYC premiere
By Audrey J. Bernard
Lifestyles & Society Editor
The Weinstein Company’s “I
Don’t Know How She Does It”
movie premiere at the AMC Lincoln Square Theater on Monday,
September 12, 2011, was one of the
most fashionable premieres ever
with the film’s top star fashionista
Sarah Jessica Parker leading
the charge in a chic floor-length
gown by Antonio Berardi.
Based on the novel by British
author Allison Pearson, I Don’t
Know How She Does It is centered on the life of Kate Reddy
(Sarah Jessica Parker), a finance
executive who is the breadwinner for her husband and two
kids.
Doug McGrath directs the 2011
film adaptation, which also stars
Pierce Brosnan, Kelsey Grammer,
Seth Meyers, Busy Philipps, Sarah Shahi, Christina Hendricks,
Olivia Munn and Jessica Szohr.
After the star-studded premiere
screening, VIPs joined the film’s
stars at a fun-filled after party
sponsored by The Weinstein
Company and The Cinema Society with QVC and jewelers to the
stars Palladium Jewelry at the
Hudson Hotel. All of the ladies
looked gorgeous and Palladium
Jewelry blinged out Hendricks and
Szohr whose jewelry selection was
a cut above the rest. (Photos courtesy Getty Images and WENN)
Pierce Brosnan
Tinsley Mortimer
Christina
Hendricks
Sophia
Bush
Soliel Mon Frye
Sarah Jessica Parker,
Matthew Broderick
Emma Roberts
Hoda Kotb
Greg Kinnear
Rebecca
Zarah Mir
Rachel
Roy
Olivia Munn
Kevin Jonas and
wife Danielle Deleasa
Jordin Sparks
Jessica Szohr
Dr. Janice Carrero, M.S.,
daughter of Suk Cha Carrero
and Saturnino Carrero Jr. of
Moonachie, N.J., will marry
Honorable Walter T. Mosley
III, J.D., son of Marilyn D.
Mosley of Brooklyn, New
York and Walter T. Mosley, Jr.,
of Columbus, Ohio. The Rev.
C l i n t o n M i l l e r, a n d R e v.
Solomon Kim, both Christian
Ministers will officiate at the
Venetian Catering Hall in
Garfield, New Jersey on Sunday, October 9, 2011 at 11 am.
viously, he served as Special
Counsel and External Relations
Specialist for the New York State
Senate Democratic Minority
Conference.
Currently, Mr. Mosley serves on
the Board of Managers with the
YMCA of Bedford-Stuyvesant in
Brooklyn, NY; Board Member,
Inner City Sports Little League;
Board Member, CUSH Campus
Schools in Brooklyn, NY; Ment o r, P e n n St a t e F a s t St a r t
Mentoring Program ; and is Cofounder of Progressive Association for Political Action (PAPA)
in central Brooklyn. In addition,
Mr. Mosley is a former member
of Community Board 2 (Brooklyn, NY) where he served as
Chairman of the Economic Development & Job Creation Committee.
Mr. Mosley also served as the
Kings County Government Outreach/Political Campaign Coordinator for New York State Governor David A. Paterson. He was
Chief of Staff and Senior Consultant for the New York State
Assembly, and Legal Counsel to
the Deputy Speaker of the New
York State Assembly. In both positions, Mr. Mosley was as an
advisor to assembly members on
political, legislative and public
policy issues related to local,
borough and statewide initiatives.
The bride, 30, and the bridegroom, 43, met at a mutual
friend’s birthday party during
the bride’s second year at
Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine in Philadelphia, from which she received
her medical degree, May, 2011. Mr. Mosley’s current responsibilities include serving as a liaiThe bride is keeping her name. son between the Senate and its
She is a first-year medical resi- public and private sector interdent at Nassau University ests throughout New York State.
Medical Center in Long Island. Prior to accepting this position,
She received her bachelor’s Mr. Mosley served as a political
degree in Biology from Seton consultant on several local,
Hall University and a master’s county and city-wide campaigns.
in Bio-Medical Science from In 2004 he was assigned by the
Drexel University.
Democratic National Committee
to work on behalf of United
Her father is a retired baker States Senator John Kerry’s
and currently works for the presidential campaign. From
Paterson, New Jersey Depart- 1998 to 2001, Mr. Mosley was a
ment of Education. Her mother Legislative Analyst for the New
owns and operates Park Av- York City Council.
enue Rentals, an apartment
complex in Paterson, New Jer- In February 2008, Mr. Mosley
was elected as a pledged (alt.)
sey.
delegate for President Barack
The groom serves as New Obama and attended the DemoYork State Committeeman, in cratic National Convention in
Kings County (57 th Assembly Denver, Colorado, representing
District) elected overwhelm- the 10 th Congressional District
ingly in September, 2008. Pre- of New York.
Additionally, he serves as a volunteer youth coach with the
Brooklyn Skyhawks Football
Club and is also an active member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated – Long Island/
Brooklyn Alumni Chapter – the
oldest African-American fraternity in the U.S. (founded in 1906
at Cornell University).
Mr. Mosley graduated with university honors from The Pennsylvania State University at University Park with a Bachelor of
Science degree in Criminology
and minors in African Studies
and American History. In 1998,
Mr. Mosley received his law degree from the prestigious
Howard University in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Janice Carrero to wed Walter T. Mosley III, J.D.
The bride groom’s mother is Senior Policy Advisor to New York
City Comptroller, John C. Liu. His
father is a sales executive with
Met Life Insurance Company in
Columbus, Ohio.
Seed premieres at National Black Theatre in Harlem
Seed, the award-winning play
written by Radha Blank and directed by Niegel Smith, had its
world and Off-Broadway premiere on Friday, September 16,
2011 at the National Black Theatre in Harlem. The powerful
piece is one of two works that
the National Endowment of the
Arts awarded a $90,000 grant to
in 2010 under its New Play Development Program.
Presented by the OBIE
award-winning Classical Theatre of Harlem (Ty Jones, producing director) and Hip-Hop
Theater Festival (Clyde
Valentín, executive director and
Kamilah Forbes, artistic director), Seed drew Hollywood stars
and Harlem figures. The
evening was sponsored by
Harlem Park to Park Association
and WNYC.
Among the luminaries attending the Opening Night festivities, which began with a benefit reception at Red Rooster
Harlem restaurant, were playwright Katori Hall and director
Kenny Leon, whose Broadway
show, The Mountain Top, starring Samuel L. Jackson and
Angela Bassett set to open later
this month.
Actor Frankie Faison, Tonywinning Broadway choreogra-
George Faison, Kenny Leon
pher George Faison, actor Larry
Pine, spoken word artist Lemon
Andersen and famed “B-boy” Ken
Swift were also in attendance.
They joined Blank, Smith, Jones,
Valentín and Forbes, as well as
Sade Lythcott, National Black
Theatre CEO and Nabii Faison,
National Black Theatre managing director.
Ken Swift, Clyde Valentin, Khadim Diop, Radha Blank
Guests mingled with cast mem- reception. Seed runs at the Nabers Jocelyn Bioh, Khadim Diop, tional Black Theatre through OcBridgit Antoinette Evans, Jamie tober 9, 2011. For more informaLincoln Smith and Pernell tion, visit www.seedtheplay.com.
Walker at a post-performance (Photos by Errol Anderson)
Dr. Janice Carrero & Walter T. Mosley, III
19
20
Beacon On
Broadway musicals unites for 911 victims and survivors
The cast members of several major Broadway musical productions converged at Manhattan’s theater district Duffy Square Plaza, located at 47 th Street, with
thousands of New Yorkers and visitors from near and far for a Day of Service and Remembrance of the victims and survivors of the 9/11 terror attacks.
Participating musicals included “Memphis,” “Godspell,” “Billy Elloit,” “The Addams Family,” “Baby It’s You,” “Spider-Man-Turn off the Dark,” “Sister Act,”
“Pricilla, Queen of the Desert and many, many others.
(Photos: Louis Boone lll)
“Godspell”
“Billy Elloit”
Tony Award-winner Montego Glover, “Memphis” belts out song
“Pricilla, Queen of the Desert”
“Sister Act”
In the Village of Harlem
Thousands strut proudly in 2011
African American Day Parade
As the sun shined brightly on the Harlem community, thousands of its residents where joined by neighboring community residents from far and near as together they strutted
proudly on Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard, from 111 Street to West 135th Street, during this year’s annual 2011 African American Day Parade. (Photo: Louis Boone lll)
The Scene
21
CATWALKIN’ with Fashion & Beauty Editor Audrey J. Bernard
22
b michael America spring 2012 collection
salutes New York City Mission Society
Designer b michael
Famed fashion designer b
michael presented his highly anticipated “b michael America Spring
2012 Collection” during MercedesBenz Fashion Week on Wednesday,
September 14, 2011, at The American Museum of Natural History to
a culturally diverse crowd that included Cicely Tyson, Dina Merrill,
Phylicia Rashad, Tamara Tunie &
Gregory Generet, Desiree Rogers,
Melba Moore, Alva Chinn, Kathryn
Chenault, Jean Chatzky, Will & Anthony Nunziata, Myrna Colley-Lee
and Richard Mayhew.
Known for his graceful designs
and fierce use of bold colors, the
designer’s new collection did not
disappoint as it contained both of
these “must have” true fashion elements. The runway came alive as
terrifically tantalizing models appeared in vivid floral assortment of
colors — bright green, orange lily,
daffodil yellow, hydrangea blue,
iris purple, azalea pink and red rose.
Dresses were above the knee;
and what he lost in length, he made
up in collars which were dramatically big with strategic godet openings at the hemline.
The
eveningwear was elegantly chic
silhouettes — some with curved
seamed torsos or fitted like floor
length sheaths. Color was consistent for the evening fabrics combined or embroidered.
The truly standout feature of the
modernistic collection was the
haute separates including a head
turning new trouser of vertical and
horizontal seams in double faced
gandini wool for day partnered
with a tailored short jacket and
metallic threaded silk faille worn
with a bias double faced silk
charmuse top for evenings.
Michael’s little white dress was
retro yet modernistic.
“Overall, the collection was to
reflect an upbeat positive point of
view… reminding us of the beauty
in life and nature and the gift of
color” explained b michael about
his collection — with love. Adding to the allure of the collection
presented by Morgan Stanley
Smith Barney was hair and makeup created by Aveda; jewelry by
Alejandra In Design; and floral
designs by Michael Gaffney.
The philanthropic designer always mixes fashion fluidity with a
great cause and the “b michael
America Spring 2012 Fashion
Show” paid tribute to the great
work of the New York City Mission
Society that has supported children and families for over 198 years
– encouraging resiliency in the face
of many changes, self-confidence
and the ability to make positive life
choices.
The non-profit organization’s
core values include respect for every person served, encouraging
youth to explore their individuality in a safe and nurturing environment, and seeing possibilities
where others see limitations.
(Photos by Christopher Greco)
(from page 3)
military and plainclothes paramilitary to the streets to attack demonstrators, it turned into a civil war
with the assistance of NATO and
the United Nations.
Fauntroy’s account could not
be immediately verified by the
Afro and the U.S. State Department has not substantiated
Fauntroy’s version of events.
Fauntroy was not acting as an official representative of the U.S. in
Libya. He returned to Washington, D.C. on Aug. 31.
When rumors spread about
Fauntroy being killed he went underground, he told the Afro in an
interview. Fauntroy said for more
than a month he decided not to
contact his family but to continue
the mission to speak with African
spiritual leaders about a movement to unify Africa despite the
Arab uprisings.
“I’m still here,” Fauntroy said,
pointing to several parts of his
body. “I’ve got all my fingers and
toes. I’m extremely lucky to be
here.”
After blogs and rumors reported
Fauntroy had been killed, the congressional office of Del. Eleanor
Holmes Norton (D-DC) announced
on Aug. 24, that she had been in
touch with authorities who confirmed Fauntroy was safely in the
care of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Inside his home, Fauntroy pulled
out several memoirs and notebooks to explain why he traveled
to Libya at a time when it was going through civil unrest.
“This recent trip to Libya was
part of a continuous mission that
started under Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr. when he gave me orders to
join four African countries on the
continent with four in the African
Diaspora to restore the continent
to its pre-colonial status,”
Fauntroy said. “We want Africa to
be the breadbasket of the world,”
he said.
“Currently, all the major roads in
every country throughout Africa
lead to ports that take its natural
resources and wealth outside the
continent to be sold to the European markets.”
Obama outlines $3 trillion
debt plan opposed by GOP
(from page 3)
economic or job growth — or even
meaningful deficit reduction,” said
Senate Minority Leader Mitch
McConnell, R-Kentucky.
“Pitting one group of Americans against another is not leadership,” added House Speaker
John Boehner, R-Ohio.
Key congressional Democrats
quickly rallied to Obama’s defense, calling the blueprint a serious attempt to take on one of the
most contentious issues in Washington.
The “proposal is clearly moving
in the right direction,” said North
Dakota Sen. Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. “It represents a significant
and balanced plan for bringing our
deficits and debt under control.”
On Monday night, Obama referred to the Republican response
as predictable and said the issue
shows the fundamental difference
between the parties on how the
nation should deal with mounting
federal deficits and national debt.
“What has been clear over the
last two and a half years is that
we have not had a willing partner,” Obama told a New York
fundraising event.
“Now, we’ve been able to get
some stuff done despite that, and
despite a filibuster in the Senate.
But at least over the last nine
months what we’ve seen is some
irreconcilable differences, let’s put
it that way.”
The release of Obama’s blueprint is likely to set the stage for a
fall dominated by harsh partisan
debates over taxes and spending,
as well as a 2012 presidential campaign focused on growing economic fears.
Under Obama’s plan, $800 billion in revenue would be generated by allowing some of the
Bush-era tax cuts for high-income
households to expire, as the president has repeatedly called for. An
additional $400 billion would re-
sult from capping the value of itemized deductions and other exemptions for high-income households.
The remaining $300 billion would
come from closing various tax loopholes, according to a senior administration official.
A new tax surcharge could also
be imposed on millionaires: the
“Buffett Rule,” named after investor Warren Buffett, who argues that
the richest Americans are not taxed
enough.
Wealthier Americans often derive
much of their income from investments, which are typically taxed at
a lower rate than ordinary income
such as wages. As a result, they
can end up owing a lower percentage of their income in federal taxes
than someone who makes less
money, especially once payroll
taxes are factored in.
The concept behind the Buffett
Rule is that those earning more
than $1 million should not be allowed to pay a lesser percentage
of their income in federal taxes than
Americans lower down the income
scale.
In terms of spending, Obama’s
plan incorporates $580 billion in
mandatory cuts, including $248 billion from the politically popular
Medicare program. Roughly 90%
of those savings will come from
reducing overpayments in the system, according to a senior administration official.
Any changes to Medicare benefits
won’t kick in before 2017, the official said.
An additional $72 billion will
come from Medicaid and other
health programs.
The president’s plan does not include any Social Security reform
proposals or changes to the Medicare eligibility age, reforms that
have reportedly been put on the
table by the administration in the
past but are strongly opposed by
a number of progressive Democrats.
Another $1.1 trillion in savings
By Barbara Daniel Cox
Wouldn’t it be great to be able
to live your dream? Well, this
lady is actually living her dream
of leading a boarding school for
low-income students. It’s been
a dream since she wrote about it
on her entrance essay for the
University of Virginia. Autumn
Adkins Graves is the first African-American woman president
of Girard College.
That’s significant because the
school is the legacy of Stephen
Girard that in 1833 established a
school for white orphan boys
and only admitted African-American males in 1968 after years of
legal battles and picketing and
admitted the first girl in 1984.
Autumn was born in
Monongahela, Pennsylvania,
right outside of Pittsburgh. The
youngest of four children, she
was seen as her mother’s “special project” as there are 16 years
between her and her closest sibling. She came along when her
mother was in her forties and her
parents were planning to adopt.
The family moved to Richmond
when she was in the fourth grade
and her first career goal was to
be a teacher. She later considered something similar to managing a hedge fund so she could
make a lot of money to open a
private boarding school for inner
city children or a sports agent.
A sports colleague advised
against the latter saying that she
was too nice and cared too much
about others rather than about
the money the athletes would
make more for her as a sports
agent. She says that her father
worked a lot and her mother was
the primary caregiver and messenger for the family. They encouraged their children to be
positive, loving and to work
hard. For the family, school was
not an option, it was expected.
There was not a question of if,
only when one would go on to
higher education. Her mother
stressed doing your personal
best, following your passion, and
being a lady…how a lady behaves, sits, walks, talks and conducts herself. When “AJ” (family nickname for Autumn Joy)
was dating as a teenager, her
mother would lovingly admonish
would be generated by winding
down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition, the administration is counting savings that
would result from spending caps
it has proposed on future overseas contingency operations.
The administration also estimates interest savings of approximately $430 billion, a result of less
borrowing and smaller annual
budget shortfalls.
Roughly $450 billion in the
plan would be used to pay for
the American Jobs Act, the economic stimulus measure proposed by Obama last week.
Top Republicans call the
president’s plan a form of class
warfare.
“When you pick one area of
the economy and you say, ‘We’re
going to tax those people because most people are not those
people,’ that’s class warfare,”
Autumn Adkins Graves, president of Girard College, relaxes on the
staircase with her husband, R. Vann Graves. Photo submitted.
her “don’t embarrass me and don’t
ruin my last name.” Some of her
best advice came from her father
who told her “don’t take yourself
too seriously.”
An avid history buff, she’s currently reading “The Immortal Life
of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca
Skloot, which relates the story of
an African-American woman from
Virginia who died at the age of 31
and whose cancer cells provided
for major medical research without
her knowledge. It’s a story of cancer, racism, scientific ethics and
crippling poverty.
A defining moment for Adkins
Graves was when she applied for
job to head a New England private
school. She was a finalist and felt
it was good fit after a long interview process. However, in the end,
it was traumatic.
It was, she said, “the first time I
really felt racism.” She was informed that they “must go with a
safe choice in these uncertain economic times.” For Adkins Graves,
it was raw and painful. She says
that she actually wailed for a moment because it took the wind out
of her sail and she thought,
“What’s the point?” However,
two weeks later, the headhunter
for Girard College called.
In retrospect, she believes she
needed to have that experience to
have the drive she has now in preparing students at Girard College.
“Without question, I make sure
they know they have skills and
abilities and that it’s okay to hurt
and to not be paralyzed by it. They
should be aware that there’ll be
another opportunity and to always
be prepared for it and not think all
people are like (the interviewer for
the New England School). I was
tempted to call him and tell him…but
I didn’t.”
Just three days before her Girard
interview, she met her husband-tobe, R. Vann Graves, and discovered
that they had a Virginia connection.
It was a blind date about which
both parties were reluctant. However, Adkins Graves says now, “he’s
my dream and he’s so cute.” She
really enjoys being a wife and looks
forward to starting her own family.
She notes, “I want to be a good wife;
I’ve been a career person for so
long. It’s very different to have another role that I play in a family, and
I take it very seriously. It’s important to have balance between my job
(which is such important work and
good work) and my family life.”
Spending time with her husband and
with family and friends relaxes her.
Travel and great restaurants bring
her joy, noting that Philadelphia has
many great choices. She deems herself a magazine junkie and while she
will read a book using a Kindle, she
doesn’t want to give up the pleasure she gets from turning the pages
of magazines and seeing the many
pictures and reading the many interesting stories they contain. She
wants to integrate technology into
a reading program at Girard. Before she turns 50, she wants to visit
all 50 states (she’s been to 39).
Someday, she’d like to get a Ph.D.
in something other than education,
possibly history or psychology. At
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South
Carolina, said Sunday on CNN’s
“State of the Union.”
“We have a difference of opinion on how best to fix these problems,” House Budget Committee
Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin,
told “Fox News Sunday.” “But when
the president does things like this,
it leads you to believe that he’s not
in bipartisan consensus-making
mood. He’s in a political class-warfare mode and campaign mode. And
that’s not good for our economy.”
Child Abuse
(from page 3)
records and national labor statistics for 2004 through November
2007 and compared them with data
from the recession.
Of the 422 children diagnosed
with abusive head trauma during
the study, roughly 65 cases occurred each year before the recession, versus about 108 yearly during the recession.
Federal government data suggest that the recession did not af-
fect child abuse rates. But the study
authors said those numbers are
based on reports from child protective services, not medical diagnoses,
and did not address brain injuries
specifically.
Dr. Peter Sherman, director of the
residency program in social pediatrics at Montefiore Medical Center
in New York said most parents who
abuse young children aren’t “ill-intentioned.” But he said most of it is
kind of just spanking.
23
Walter Fauntroy, feared Adkins Graves makes history as first
dead in Libya, returns Black woman prez at Girard College
24
(from page 11)
the working class is probably the
most invisible in the African
American community, and that
creates problems when it comes
to looking at issues of work and
jobs. For the Black professional
class, there is a gender imbalance,
which is particularly troubling for
women who are interested in connecting in marriage with someone
of their same race.
Young also noted that for the
professional class, there is a
sense of isolation, and that for
the lower income there is an
emerging concern about how to
make sense of a work world that is
increasingly more technologybased.
The University of Michigan professor also noted another future
impact that is beginning to manifest itself—the “monitoring” of a
growing mass of older African
Americans who have never been
connected to stable employment
and now must be incorporated into
the conversation about social security, Medicaid and healthcare.
While the state of unemployment
in the African American community
is extremely challenging, research-
ers retain their optimism for the
future in part because of the past
resiliency and creativity of the African American community. That
includes “hustling” (whether legitimately or illicitly) to bring in
money. They are also optimistic
because of actions that new generations of Blacks are taking.
One of those sets of actions is
what Hodge sees among the
young college students he observes.
“The Black male students I see
have a hustle they are trying to
create while they are in school.
They set up entrepreneurship op-
Child Poverty
(from page 8)
children are the poorest age
group in our country, are getting
poorer, and have suffered more
than any other age group during
this recession and slow recovery.
A country that does not stand for
and protect its children—our
seed corn for the future—does
not stand for anything. Sixtyfive percent of poor families with
children under 18 have at least
one worker. More than 60 percent
of all poor children—nearly 10
million—lived in single parent
families. But as the Potters know
first-hand, married couple families
with children aren’t immune: almost nine percent of all married
couples with children under 18
were poor.
To give perspective on
America’s shame: The number of
poor children is nearly the same as
the combined populations of the
states of Michigan and Arizona.
The number of poor Black and Hispanic children is slightly more than
the entire population of Michigan,
and the number of poor infants,
toddlers, and preschoolers is larger
than the entire population of the
state of Minnesota.
This is a national disgrace. Parents like John and Brandy have no
control over the massive joblessness and foreclosures and misguided tax cuts for the wealthy that
have ravished our economy. Congress needs to wake up and change
course to protect children and their
families. We must stop this devastation in our communities and pro-
tect children from all budget cuts.
We need to invest in the health
and education of our children
and create jobs for their parents
without a day’s delay.
And every citizen and voter
should demand that they do so
in the richest nation on earth
where there should be no poor
children at all.
Marian Wright Edelman is
president of the Children’s Defense Fund whose Leave No
Child Behind®mission is to ensure every child a Healthy Start,
a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe
Start and a Moral Start in life
and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities. For more
information go to:
www.childrensdefense.org.
Bernice King praises her mother’s devotion
(from page 6)
produces much fruit. So today
the force that they tried to stop
has actually become a stronger
force, an unstoppable force.
“You may slay a dreamer, but look
around y’all and watch what becomes of his dream. There are
those that are carrying and embodying that dream. There are
those that are continuing that
work, and we will, Daddy, continue this movement. Your life will
not be in vain. The blood that
you shed will not be for naught.
We will carry the banner and will
continue on. And as you stand
overlooking that Potomac [River].
We know that it symbolizes you
standing as you looked over the
mountaintop and you saw that
promised land,” said King. King
said that her mother believed that
in order to save the soul of a nation, one “must become its soul.”
“These words spoken by my
mother reminds us of the significance and the importance of women
to the contribution of every nation
on the face of this earth.” The
Women Who Dare to Dream event,
held at Walter E. Washington Convention Center, also included a po-
etry reading by Dr. Mya Angelou,
music by India Arie and others,
as well as commentary from numerous women in civil rights including Myrlie Evers-Williams,
Xernona Clayton and Christine
King Farris.
The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial officially opened for pubic
viewing on Aug. 22, 2011. The
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
Foundation postponed several
dedication-week activities in light
of inclement weather. For more
information about dedication
plans, visit:
www.dedicatethedream.org.
GOP’s vote plan
(from page 4)
Montgomery).
Hughes went on to add to his
concerns that by breaking up
the block of Pennsylvania electoral votes the move would sideline Pennsylvania in national
elections.
“Doing so makes
Pennsylvania, a state that is at
the forefront during national
elections, irrelevant,” he said.
With its 20 electoral votes,
Pennsylvania is among the six
most influential states in presidential elections ranking with: Illinois, which also has 20 votes;
New York and Florida, which
have 29 each; Texas, which has
38; and California, which tops
the list with 55. Obama carried
all but Texas in the 2008 election.
Only two states currently
break up their electoral votes:
Maine and New Hampshire with
four votes each.
But at the moment, the idea
seems likely to sail through the
state House and Senate, both
controlled by Republicans, and
has the governor’s support.
Gov. Tom Corbett, also a Republican, said that he would support
the measure. “It will allow the
people across the state to be better represented when it comes to
the vote for president,” Corbett
said during a radio interview
Thursday on WPHT-AM (1210) in
Philadelphia. He added that the
issue was not driven by partisanship but intended to give a wider
voice to Pennsylvania voters.
This is a talking point shared
by Pileggi.
“It will also make
individual votes across the state
more important, giving voters a
more significant say in presidential elections,” he said. The timing has raised suspicion among
Democrats. “Why change it
now, except for there is an
agenda,” he said. “It’s been
good enough thus far.”
If adopted, the new system
would dilute influence of Philadelphia and the surrounding
counties, all Democratic strongholds. “If they vote strongly like
they did for Obama, [Republicans] know that once we set our
minds and vote for a candidate
that for the most part we can
drive what takes part in Pennsylvania,” Waters said. “They
want to do everything they can
to minimize that power.”
Waters also cautioned that Republicans have more voting
changes in mind — including
voter identification cards.
“Why are we doing this?” he
asked. “It’s only a way, in my
opinion, to disrupt voters and
say they are not even going to
get involved.”
portunities for themselves and
their colleagues. They do things
to promote themselves.”
And they are doing this in large
part by harnessing the power of
technology, adds Hodge. Their
goals, like those of Black entrepreneurs of the past are to give
back to the community, partially
in the guise of jobs.
On the
other end of the spectrum—the
mass worker side—are organizations like the Los Angeles UCLA
Black Workers Center, which Pitts
said are doing much like the legendary A. Phillip Randolph: helping to empower Black workers as
a group.
“A. Philip Randolph and the
movement of sleeping car porters
not only built power—meaning
developing leaders such as Ed
Nixon who could stand up to employers and make the demands of
workers and who knew their individual fate were linked to the collective—but Randolph also was a
strategist and used research and
analysis to understand the political landscape and the dynamics
of the power that he was up
against. He made sure that the
porters understood the railroad
industry and how it worked; that
they understood the boss, his values and motivation; he explored
what political tools he had to fight
with and those that were needed;
he knew the political landscape of
the Black community and the labor
movement and where they were willing to go. All of that led to their
success,” said Lola SmallwoodCuevas of the UCLA Black Worker
Center.
“Today Black workers are on their
own and in the dark, like so many
American workers, and they are
struggling in a complex economy
overlaid with enormous systems of
oppression and greed,” continued
Smallwood-Cuevas.
“At the Black Worker Center, we
believe the organization and development of worker/leaders, community strategic alliances, and smart
analysis, strategies as well as an
agenda out of the grassroots is what
is needed.”
Researchers also believe that
what is needed is to take the conversation about Black unemployment well beyond job training and
creation and deep into an understanding of the future world of work
as well as how to meaningfully connect youth and adults (including the
formerly incarcerated) to this new
and ever-changing employment
landscape. The Black Worker Center, also believes the discussion
needs to include looking at the labor market and repairing the structural policies and procedures that
facilitate creation of “bad” jobs and
employment inequities.
African-American poverty rates
(from page 2)
get and reduce the deficit. The
committee must identify $1.5 trillion in federal deficit reductions,
and funding is at risk for federal
safety - net programs that helped
many Americans offset the ongoing impacts of the recession and
stay out of poverty last year. “If
it weren’t for safety net programs
like WIC, SNAP, and others, many
more African-American house-
holds would be suffering,” added
Boykin.
”We urge the Super Committee to
consider other alternatives to cutting programs that support vulnerable people as lawmakers work to
reduce our nation’s deficit.”
Equally alarming, the Census Bureau
report also revealed that the Hispanic poverty rate increased to 26.6
percent, up from 25.3 percent in
2009. The poverty rate for Hispanic
children increased to 35 percent.
McDonald’s roll-out
of Improved Happy Meal
(from page 2)
New York, in relation to setting
nutrition standards for distributing incentive items (toys, games,
trading cards, admission tickets or
other consumer items) aimed at
children. This bill would prohibit
any restaurant from offering an
incentive item with the purchase
of a meal, single food item, or beverage unless they meet the nutritional standards prescribed in this
bill
Council Member Comrie continued, “Our First Lady Michelle
Obama and nutritional advocates
have rightly championed a nationwide effort to combat childhood
obesity so that children born today will reach adulthood at a
healthy weight.
In response, numerous major retailers, foundations and small
businesses have madecommitments to give parents real choices
and access to healthy, affordable
food, particularly in underserved
communities. In fact, the National
Restaurant Association earlier this
year launched the Kids Eat Well
initiative in which 19 fast food
chains committed to following federal recommendations for salt, fat and
sugar by offering healthier kids
meals.
“As someone who knows toowell the unhealthy effects and
challenges of obesity, I have committed to trying to improve access
to healthy food in my community
where fast-food restaurants outnumber supermarkets and produce
stores 10-1. My colleagues in the
New York City Council and I passed
the FRESH (Food Retail Expansion
to Support Health) Initiative to provide financial and zoning incentives
for grocery stores in underserved
neighborhoods. Additionally, as the
former chair of the Consumer Affairs
Committee, I led the efforts to pass
legislation to expand the licensing
of Green Carts in New York City.
The Healthy Kids-Healthy Meals
legislation I am proposing is a natural progression of these efforts and
I am encouraged by these recent
actions made by fast-food retailers.
It is my hope to have a citywide discussion about healthy options with
the fast food industry and discuss
the nutritional changes that they
have made.”
25
Psychology of Black Unemployment
26
WHAT’S GOING ON
By Victoria Horsford
THE WEEK IN REVIEW
Almost 14 months before election
day 2012 and it seems like old
times, circa 2008. A worrisome U.S.
economy and high unemployment
are not the only obstacles which
President Obama have to address.
He has to confront an obstructionist, tax-cuts for the rich GOP
Congress and a laundry list of
other woes such as keeping his
base intact, African Americans,
Latinos, and his Jewish base. The
electoral contest to replace Democrat Congressman Andy Weiner
resulted in a GOP victory, the first
in that Congressional District,
NY9, since 1923. NY9 boasts an
1/3 Orthodox Jewish population.
Many are saying that the recent
GOP NY victory was a referendum on Obama, a conclusion,
which is beyond my ken!
Yes, there are fault lines in
the President’s relationship with
some Jewish voters, which can be
repaired. The media is having a
veritable feast on the Obama/Jewish situation. However, the most
reasoned political analysis, replete
with facts and historical perspective, which has been published is
the 9/26 NY Magazine cover story,
with a picture of the back of
Obama’s head adorned with a
yarmulke, titled “The First Jewish
President” The Truth? Barack
Obama is the best friend Israel has
right now” by John Heilemann,
who co-wrote the best seller, “The
Game Change” about the 2008
Presidential campaign.
OPPORTUNITIES
WANTED: Talented teens who
sing. Vy Higginsen’s Mama Foundation begins auditions for Gospel Teens, the vocal group, whose
back stories were the subject of a
CBS-TV 60- Minutes segment.
When: September 24 1-3 pm; September 30 6-8 pm; October 1, 11
am to 1 pm, at the Mama Foundation headquarters at 149 West 126
Street, Manhattan: Qualifications:
ages 13-19, Be prepared to sing
one upbeat and one slow traditional gospel song: ie. “His Eyes
On the Sparrow” and “This Little
Light Of Mine.” Call 212.280.1045
or visit mamafoundation.org.
The Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation NMIC
has organized a JOB FAIR on October 5, 10 am to 3 pm at the Christ
Community United Church, or the
United Palace, the late Rev Ike’s
church) located at 4140 Broadway at 175 Street. Applicants
should bring resumes and dress
appropriately. Some of the NMIC
Job Fair participating employers
include Columbia University,
Cablevision, Avon, All Car Rent A
Car, Jewish Home Life Care, Allen
Home Care, Premier Home Care,
Global Business Institute. Applicants are advised to dress appropriately and bring resumes. For
more info, call 212.822.8314.
CULTURE AND TRENDS
Iabo Mandibo
Vy Higgensen
The Caribbean Cultural Center/
African Diaspora Institute is relocating to East Harlem, to the old
Fire House, between Park and Lexington Avenue. CCCADI is looking for partners to develop and
offer programming at its new
venue. Visit www.ccadi.org.
Plans are afoot for the golden anniversary of one of Harlem’s oldest retail establishment, Sylvia’a
Restaurant, the original home of
soul/comfort food. The Woods
family confirms that Sylvia’s 50th
will be like no other in scale or grandeur.
Print media has pulled everyone
out of the Gay American closet,
including some of its African
American denizens. Read “The
Ebony Debate: Gay Marriage, A
Sin Or A Right?” by the Reverend
Dennis W. Wiley, PhD and the
Reverend Kevin Anthony Brooks,
in Ebony’s October issue. Read
the July issue of Black Enterprise
Magazine’s cover story “Black
James H. Ammons
The Georgia Board of Pardons and
Paroles rejected clemency for African American Troy Davis, 42
who is scheduled to die by lethal
injection on September 21.
REST IN PEACE:
Maurice
Thiam, 75, father of Brooklynbased restauranteur Pierre Thiam,
died in Senegal…………..Menola
Neal Upshaw, educator and devoted, lifetime NAACP member,
who served on its National Board
PEOPLE IN THE NEWS
and presided over its Denver
Florida A&M President , Dr. chapter, died. She is the aunt of
James Ammons, visited NY and Wall Streeter Brenda Neal.
attended a reception at the Harlem
Children’s Zone on East 125 ARTS AND BUSINESS STUFF
Street, on 9/20 where he met com- The 8th Annual HARLEM BUSImunity and business leaders. He NESS ALLIANCE ECONOMIC
also offered generous tuition SUMMIT, themed “Small Business, BIG IDEAS,” will be held on
packages to local, HS scholars.
Lester Holt replaces Ann Curry on Monday, September 26, at the
the newsmagazine “Dateline Adam Clayton Powell State Office
NBC,” effective with the 9/23 sea- Building, located at 163 West 125
son opener. He continues his Street, Harlem. Summit begins at
“Weekend Today” TV co-anchor 8:15 am and offers panel discuschores.
sions, workshops re: Procurement
and Gay in Corporate America;
Breaking Through Isolation and
Fear.” Same issue identifies about
40 US corporations, which are
more LGBT user friendly……. A
July NY Times story included
profiled about 4 of the city’s gay
couples, fashionista Audrey
Smaltz and finance guru Gail Marquis who are planning their fall
wedding for 500!
Ops; Marketing Strategies; and
Technology Tools. Bill Thompson,
former NYC Comptroller, current
Chairman of the Battery Park City
will be keynote, Admission is free,
but registraion is necessary. Visit
www.hbany.or or call 347.851.7741
The Center for Culture and Art
,RACCA, will host its First Reading
Series of the new Harlem Playwrights 21, which includes Bill
Beasley, Count Stoval, Tom
Mitchelson, Laurence Holder,
Sabura Rashid and Charles White,
from September 26 to October 2, at
the RACCA Seaport Salon, located
at the Shooting Star Theater, 40 Peck
Slip, NY, NY, near the South Street
Seaport. Donation is $5. For full
schedule, call 917.239.6690
“UnFRAMED, A Man In Progress”
by poet/fine artist/actor Iyaba Ibo
Mandingo, yes, a mouthful and culturally diverse name, is a blank verse
memoir, which begins in the mangosweet island paradise of Antigua,
and moves north to New York’s wintry mean streets and beyond. Directed by Brent Buell, UnFRaMED
is a brilliant, hypnotic Black male
rites of passage theatre piece, which
runs from September 22/24 at the
John Jay College at 899 Tenth Avenue, Manhattan. Tickets are $20.
Call 212.237.8005 or visit
www.unFRAMEDtheplay.com.
The 40th Annual New York Urban
League Football Classic, the battle
between Howard and Morgan State
sports titans, complete with marching bands, will be held on Saturday,
September 24 at the New Meadowlands Stadium, NJ.
Visit
www.nyul.org
BLACK CAUCUS WEEKEND.
President Barack Obama will attend
the CBCF 41st Annual Legislative
Conference on September 24 for the
Awards Dinner Gala whose honorees are Lisa Jackson, EPA Administrator, Georgia Congressman John
Lewis and George Foreman….
Mama Foundation prime mover, Vy
Higginsen takes her Gospel Teens
of “60 Minutes” fame to perform. ….
Piano virtuouso Randy Weston performs in concert…… Melissa Haizlip
will screen excerpts from her documentary opus, “Mr. Soul, Ellis
Haizlip And the Birth of Black Power
TV,” about her trailblazing uncle.
The NY African Festival hosts is 4th
Annual Family Day Celebration at
Governor’s Island, Manhattan, on
September 25, from 12-5 pm. The
Festival is a rich mix of dance
classes, Brazilian and African; live
drumming, storytelling, double
Duth, African films and quilt workshops, all free. And the ferry ride is
only
10
minutes.
Visit
twitter@AfricanFilmFest, Facebook
African Film Festival.
Darryl Lacy Productions presents
its revival of the Samm Art Williams
theatre classic, HOME, a comedy
about a southern farmer traveling
north for the warmth of other suns,
starring Darryl Lacy, Denise Collins
and Zakia Pereira, at the Crown Theatre of the Producers Club at 358
West 44 Street, Manhattan, for four
performances, from September 29
through October 1. Tickets are
$18.$20 and $25.
Visit
darryllacyproductions.com
A media management consultant,
Victoria Horsford is a NY based journalist and pop culture historian who
can be reached at:
[email protected]
NNPA Award Winner
27
By Don Thomas
Jazz Chat
Jazz comes alive in a Crown Heights park
ano, Radu on Base, Gerald
Hayes the Alto Sax, Cyril Green
on Trumpet, Obdus Sabor on
A stroll through the Ronald Drums and the multi-talented
Erwin McNair Park normally re- Al Husband “the Drummer”,
veals a landscape sprinkled who has played with giants like
By Eulene Inniss
Independent Reporter
wind and string instruments,
but he had an untimely death a
year and a half ago. His death
did not stop his wife Malika
from continuing as a soloist
with his now memorial band.
among the crowd, one could not
help but notice how patrons released all their cobwebbed entrapments of years and days
past. There was a jovial oneness.
Malika and Richard Green, chief executives of the Crown Heights
Collective and sponsors of the concert
(Photos: Lem Peterkin)
Bassist Stanley Banks, The Ink S h e w a s a s e n s a t i o n a n d a Jazz Concerts and the famous
Conversations with some
Spots, Billy Daniels and others. crowd pleaser.
966 Fulton Street Friday night of these bystanders provided
T h e B a n d ’s f o u n d e r,
These musicians are well Jazz venue. As the musical an education which could not
Obasala, had an 18 piece or- known throughout the Jazz notes from these artists came to be had in a classroom or from
chestra and played a variety of communities and all have per- life and moved harmoniously textbooks. This generation of
attendees has jazz in their
DNA. They converse about
real life experiences. Among
those enjoying the evening
was Harold Valle, known as
“the Keeper of the Secrets.“
A walking Jazz encyclopedia and loquacious MC at Jazz
966 and Ollie McClean, director of the Sankofa Internat i o n a l A c a d e m y, w h o d i s cussed the cultural perspective of Jazz and the missing
educational link in schools.
A l H u s b a n d , d r u m m e r, w a s
somewhat confident about
the future of Jazz although he
sees today’s youths as being
at a disadvantage.
Their lack of exposure to the
Big Bands and Ballrooms as he
had in the 60’s and 70’s prohibit
them from having places to sitin and observe, opportunities to
practice with experienced musicians and the benefit of being
mentored.
Most would agree with Harold
Valle that, “This jazz in the community is at the right price and
enables people to experience
Jazz at a high degree”. Once
again, the magical power of music transcended all the cultural
barriers and a good time was had
by all.
Musicians Cyril Green (Trumpet), Gerald Hayes (Alto Sax) and Jeff King (Saxophone)
Crown Heights community residents enjoy outdoors jazz concert
with youths playing and alert
seniors challenging each other
in strategic games of Chess,
but, on a recent evening it was
somewhat different. Two jazz
bands, The Jeff King Band and
The Sam Brown Memorial
Band, with exceptionally talented musicians, gathered and
performed in Crown Heights,
Brooklyn under the eyes of an
appreciative, intergenerational
crowd.
Richard Green, chief executive of the Crown Heights Collective and sponsor of the concert stated, “The purpose of
such events was to bring musicians together under the
auspice of music and good
vibes, so that they can have a
chance to mingle and highlight
their talent.”
The section of the park
where the musicians choose to
play was next to the monument
of Astronaut Ronald Erwin
McNair, a gifted Sax player
who is said to have taken and
played his Horn in space. On
this evening of “Jazz in the
Triangle,” McNair stood tall
among musicians such as
Dwayne “Cook” Broadnax, the
gifted drummer with Jeff King’s
Band and Jeff King on his Saxophone.
The Sam Brown Band, a/k/
a, “The Big Band Experience”
which was the main attraction
comprised of Rafik on the Pi-
sonal stories of challenges and
triumphs to tell.
The crowd was saturated
with music lovers who have become fixtures at the Medgar
Evers College outdoor Summer
Enter tainment
WHAT’S PLAYIN’ ON TELEVISION-EMMYS with Lifestyle & Society Editor Audrey J. Bernard
28
Modern Family big winner at Emmys;
Forevermark is diamond of choice
Host Jane Lynch held up by
her Lynchmen
Glee’s Jane Lynch is getting all
kinds of rave reviews as host of
the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards
ceremony held at the Nokia Theatre LA live broadcast in Los Angeles, California on Sunday, September 18, 2011 in which Modern
Family was the biggest winner of
the night walking away with Best
Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, Outstanding Directing and
Writing in a Comedy Series.
The nights other big winners
were Kyle Chandler, Drama Actor for Friday Night Lights;
Julianna Margulies, Drama Actress for Good Wife; Jim Parsons, Comedy Actor for Big Bang
Theory; Melissa McCarthy,
Comedy Actress for Mike &
Molly; and Mad Men for Drama
Series. Jon Stewart and his “The
Daily Show with Jon Stewart” won
for Outstanding Variety, Music or
Comedy Series for the ninth consecutive year. (See page 31 for
complete list of winners.)
This was one of the most stunning Emmy Awards Red Carpet
with many of the stars choosing
Forevermark Diamonds as their
jewelry of choice as the dazzling
jewelry is quickly becoming synonymous with new Hollywood
Red Carpet glamour.
Diamond jewelry trends quickly
emerged in the form of classic
pieces that created fresh and elegant looks. Diamond studs and
drop earrings paired with big
statement diamond rings or bracelets were a go-to pairing for
women donning a variety of fashion styles. Many of the stars
opted for bracelets, bangles and
cuffs, studs and chandelier earrings with lean necklines for a
younger, more vibrant look.
Elizabeth McGovern elegantly
selected Crossworks for
Forevermark 75 carat Rough Diamond Necklace and Diamond Stud
earrings to compliment her look.
Forgoing a necklace in favor of
earring, ring and bracelet, Julia
Stiles chose a dramatic pair of
Forevermark Diamond Teardropshaped Earrings, Forevermark
Diamond Marquise-shaped Ring
and Rahaminov for Forevermark
Diamond Cuff.
Earrings and bracelet styles
proved popular also with fellow
nominee Joanne Froggatt with a
striking pair of Julius Klein for
Forevermark Yellow Diamond Ear-
Amber Riley
Modern Family cast poses after Emmy Award win
rings and lovely set of Diamond Teardrop Earrings and Forevermark
Bracelets in Yellow and White Marquise shaped Ring, all set in
Gold.
White Gold.
Emmy Nominee Elizabeth
Actress of Emmy Winning Mini
McGovern (Lead Actress in Emmy Series Joanne Froggatt (Downton
Winning Mini Series, Downton Abbey) shined in 20 carat diamond
Abbey) shined in a 75 carat Rough look that included Julius Klein for
Diamond Crossworks for Forevermark Yellow Diamond
Forevermark Necklace and Dia- Chandelier
Earrings
and
mond Studs.
Forevermark Diamond Bracelets
Emmy Nominee Julia Stiles set in White and Yellow Gold. Ac(Best Guest Actress in a Drama tress Anna Faris wore
Series, Dexter) radiated in a 55 carat Hoorsenbuhs for Forevermark
diamond look featuring Rahaminov Phantom Cuff in Yellow Gold and
Diamond for Forevermark Dia- Forevermark Diamond Studs.
mond Cuff, Forevermark Diamond
Footloose Actress Julianne
Kerry Washington
LL Cool J
Loretta Devine
Hough shined in a Julius Klein for
Forevermark 16 Carat Oval Diamond
Ring set in White Gold with
Forevermark Halo Diamond Studs.
The Insider Emmy Awards Red Carpet Correspondent and cast of The
Real Housewives of Beverly Hills
Kyle Richards wore Julius Klein for
Forevermark 17 carat Diamond Cuff
set in White Gold. Top Chef Judge
Gail Simmons wore Rahaminov for
Forevermark 6 carat Diamond Drop
Earrings and Forevermark for
Rahaminov Collection Diamond
Bracelet set in White Gold. (Photos
by Getty Images and WireImage)
Taraji P. Henson
Annie llonzeh
Ty Burrell, Julie Bowen
Katie Holmes
Rachel Taylor
Kate Winslet
Sofia Vergara
Gwyneth Paltrow
Heidi Klum
Bookin’ It
By Kam Williams
“To whom much is given, much
is expected.” This Biblical passage from the Gospel of Luke conveys a belief that I and many of
my African American family and
friends hold dear… We are
acutely aware of what others have
given up to pave the way and
contribute to our successes.
As a result, we share a sense
of responsibility about honoring
and sustaining that legacy. While
this cultural legacy of giving back
prevails today, it is often overlooked by mainstream society and
rarely celebrated within the African
American community.
Media coverage and reports of
prominent philanthropic leaders
and institutions advance a false
view which places African Americans only on the demand side, not
the supply side of philanthropy.
The truth of the matter: African
Author Valaida Fullwood
Americans give 8.6 percent of
their discretionary income to charity—more than any other racial
group in America.”
Excerpted from the Preface
(pgs. xviii-xix). Cultivated by
ancestors in Africa for ages,
Black folks’ spirit of philanthropy
was ingrained way before their
arrival on these shores. During
the slave days, it was evident in
the altruism of fugitive Harriet
Tubman who risked recapture to
help others in chains find their
way to freedom via the Underground Railroad.
Such behavior has basically
been the rule, rather than the exception, for a people whose very
survival has often depended on
selfless displays of compassion
towards the least of our brethren.
For, as mentor Michael Sales
points out, “What’s most remarkable is that even as we help those
who are at risk, we ourselves are
often at risk at the same time.”
This attitude persists despite
the still precarious position of
those African-Americans living
above the subsistence level who
have managed to extricate themselves from poverty. “Giving
Back” is an uplifting opus celebrating the generosity of charitably-inclined Blacks, a touching
tribute told in portraits, proverbs,
anecdotes and micro-biographies.
The book is the brainchild of
idea whisperer Valaida Fullwood
who collaborated with awardwinning photographer Charles W.
“Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness?”
What it means to be Black now: By Touré
By Kam Williams
Book Review
“We’re in a post-Black era
when our identity options are
limitless. And there’s no going
back... Post-Black means we are
like Obama: rooted in but not
restricted by Blackness. Our
community is too diverse, complex, imaginative, dynamic,
fluid, creative, and beautiful to
impose restraints on Blackness.
In this book, I seek to legitimize
and validate… that the definitions and boundaries of Blackness are expanding… into infinity.”
Excerpted from Chapter 1
(pg 12). The election of Barack
Obama as President of the
United States led many a pundit to conclude that America
had entered a post-racial age.
That notion was somewhat easy
to digest given that the Genome
Project had simultaneously determined, scientifically, that
there’s only one race, the human race.
Now, three years later, Touré
is ready to up the ante by suggesting that we’re post-Black,
too, and he’s enlisted the assistance of over a hundred leading African-American luminaries from all walks of life to make
Author Toure (Photo: Jonathan
Mannion)
his case.
By the way, I capitalize “Black”
but not “white” for the purposes
of this review, since that’s the approach employed by the author
in “Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness,” a fascinating examination
of the question of whether 21 st
Century Blacks are simply too di-
verse to be pigeonholed anymore.
Touré intriguing thesis is
based both on anecdotal and
empirical evidence, as his semiautobiographical text is almost
equally divided between his
own personal reflections and
responses elicited from his
subjects on a variety of subjects. The opus was ostensibly inspired by the deep scar
left by his having been embarrassed back in college by a presumably “Blacker” classmate
who questioned his street credentials by shouting “Shut up,
Touré! You ain’t Black!” at him
in a very public forum.
Unprepared for the humiliating slight, Touré sort of slinked
away instead of responding
with a pithy retort. However,
that ain’t the case today, as he
has matured over the intervening years into a rather witty
and loquacious journalist prepared to engage on virtually
any topic of conversation, as
reflected by his omnipresence
on the TV airwaves where he is
regularly consulted as an expert on popular culture.
Arriving at post-Blackness
must have been no mean feat
Thompson, Jr. to create a visuallycaptivating, coffee table book
chock full of intimate homages to
unsung heroes as well as inspirational sayings like the sage notion
courtesy of Frederick Douglass
that “It is easier to build strong
children than to repair broken
men.”
An overdue salute to an
underappreciated segment of Af-
rican-American society. To order a
copy of “Giving Back,” by Valaida
Fullwood with photography by
Charles W. Thomas, Jr. John F. Blair
Books/Foundation for the Carolinas. Hardcover, $36.50, contains 390
pages, Illustrated ISBN: 978-089587-564-8. visit: http://
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/
ASIN/0895875640/ref%3dnosim/
thslfofire-20
Photographer Charles W. Thomas
‘Giving Back,’ a tribute to generations
of African American philanthropists
29
30
AKOO male fashion show a runway success
The AKOO Clothing Brand is
celebrating a successful fashion
show debut during New York
Fashion Week. The event was
held at the luxurious EZ Studios
located in the fashion district of
midtown Manhattan. The show
courtesy of Livestream and was
hosted by actor Hosea Chanchez,
star of BET’s “The Game” and
Angelea Preston of “America’s
Next Top Model.” Fans of AKOO
Clothing were in attendance from
national media, top retailers, to celebrity friends including New York
Giant’s Victor Cruz and Ramses
also feel honored by the crowd’s
responses and outpouring of
support. We have definitely
achieved all of our brand objectives while setting the bar extremely high for the next New
York Fashion Week,” states Jeff
Belizaire, Director of Marketing of
AKOO Clothing.
tionally and internationally. Global
trendsetting celebrities, athletes,
musicians, and actors have become fans of the brand including
Larry King.
Some of these prominent fans
have even taken it a step further
by aligning themselves and their
projects with AKOO such as B.o.B,
is versatile to one’s own lifestyle.
The brand offers the highest quality of materials and craftsmanship
including distinctive prints and fabrics that are unmatched from comfortable denim with custom embroidery, stylish leather jackets, detailed
sweaters and durable lightweight
tees as well as button downs and
began at 7pm when celebrities
made their glamorous red carpet
entry and emerged in front of
tons of awaiting top tier media,
photographers and guests.
The fashion show proved to
be the sexiest and most alluring
event of the evening. Crowds of
attendees waited in lines
wrapped around the block in anticipation to view the brand’s
Fashion Week debut. Surprise
special guest, Nuttin’ But Stringz,
opened the show with a spectacular performance to set the
mood for the rest of the night.
The show was streamed live
Barden, Matt Nordgren of Bravo’s
Most Eligible Dallas, Meeka
Claxton of VH1’s Basketball Wives
and her husband Golden State
Warriors College scout and former
professional basketball player
Speedy Claxton, TV personality
and Bravo’s “Real Housewives of
New Jersey,” Alum Danielle Staub,
Miss Africa USA Nyasha Zimucha,
to superstar BMX athlete, Nigel
Sylvester to name a few.
“This show was a labor of love
for everyone involved. We’re overwhelmed with pride to have organized such a major production during New York Fashion Week. We
Overwhelmed by the amazing
turnout of AKOO Clothing supporters and fans, Ralph Reynolds,
Creative Director of AKOO Clothing, states, “We created a stunning fashion show event all
around that proved to be sexy and
glamorous. We thank all our supporters who helped make the
event the resounding success
that we just knew it would be, it
truly was an experience we will all
remember for years to come,” said
Reynolds.
AKOO Clothing is the new
Americana fashion go-to brand
for top fashion and innovation na-
Curtis Granderson, Carl Crawford,
Hosea Chanchez, Travis Porter,
Tristan Wilds, Meek Mill, and
Mickey Factz to name a few.
AKOO has been featured in national print publications including
VIBE Magazine and GQ, who also
named AKOO’s founder T.I., one
of the “10 Most Stylish Men in
America” in their magazine issue.
polos.
Compiled By Don Thomas
About AKOO Clothing
AKOO, an acronym for A King
of Oneself, is a men’s contemporary clothing line that exudes a
unique sense of elusive style that
AKOO, was founded by
Grammy Award winning artist, music and film producer, song writer
and actor, T.I., and his business
partner and Grand Hustle Entertainment CEO, Jason Geter. AKOO is
manufactured and distributed by
RP55 Group and is donned by celebrities including actors, musicians and athletes.
The brand has been featured on
television in videos, online, and in
print media from around the world.
For more information on AKOO
Clothing, visit:
www.akooclothingbrand.com
‘Giving Back,’ a tribute to generations
(FROM PAGE 29)
for this brother from
Beantown who admits that “It
was impossible for me as a
small child in Boston to not
notice the racism around me”
in a hostile city that “My parents felt was dangerously racist.”
Among the probing questions Touré posed to each of
his contributors were such
thought-provoking conversa-
tion-starters as: “What does being Black mean to you?” “What
is the most racist thing to ever
happen to you?” “Would you
be comfortable eating watermelon in a room full of white
people?” “What do you think of
the N-word?” “Do you love
America?” “Are there advantages to being light [skinned]?”
and “Do you think Blacks have
ways of imposing limits on
Black identity?”
The participants in Touré’s
impromptu survey ranged
from Reverends Al Sharpton
and Jesse Jackson to Professors Henry Louis “Skip” Gates,
Cornel West, Marc Lamont Hill
and Alvin Poussaint to television news correspondents
Soledad O’Brien, Juan Williams and Roland Martin to talking heads Harold Ford, Jr. and
Shelby Steele to artists and entertainers like Questlove,
Chuck D, Talib Kweli, Paul
Mooney and Kara Walker.
The diversity of insights and
opinions and shared in this enlightening treatise leaves no
doubt that, while a monolithic
Black mindset might have
served a very valuable purpose
from the slave days right up
through the triumphs of the
Civil Rights Movement, there
are now as many different ways
to be Black as there are AfricanAmericans.
And if that’s the definition of
post-Black, there’s obviously
nothing to fear about it, so it’s
time to blend inside the proverbial melting pot simply as unhyphenated Americans.
The book’s Foreword is by
Michael Eric Dyson. Free Press.
Hardcover, $25.00, and contains
272 pages, Illustrated ISBN:
978-1-4391-7755-6.
To order a copy of “Who’s
Afraid of Post-Blackness,”visit:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/
obidos/ASIN/1439177554/
ref%3dnosim/thslfofire-20
Coveted EmmyAward
(CONTINUED FROM PAGE 28)
List of winners at Sunday’s 63rd
Annual Primetime Emmy
Awards presented by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences:
Drama Series: “Mad Men,”
AMC.
Actress, Drama Series:
Julianna Margulies, “The Good
Wife,” CBS.
Actor, Drama Series: Kyle
Chandler, “Friday Night
Lights,” DirecTV/NBC.
Supporting Actor, Drama Series: Peter Dinklage, “Game of
Thrones,” HBO.
Supporting Actress, Drama Series: Margo Martindale, “Justified,” FX.
Writing, Drama Series: Jason
Katims, “Friday Night Lights,”
NBC.
Directing, Drama Series: Martin Scorsese, “Boardwalk Empire,” HBO.
Comedy Series: “Modern Family,” ABC.
Actor, Comedy Series: Jim Parsons, “The Big Bang Theory,”
CBS.
Actress, Comedy Series: Melissa McCarthy, “Mike & Molly,”
CBS.
Supporting Actress, Comedy
Series: Julie Bowen, “Modern
Family,” ABC.
Supporting Actor, Comedy Series: Ty Burrell, “Modern Family,” ABC.
Writing, Comedy Series:
Steven Levitan and Jeffrey
Richman, “Modern Family,”
ABC.
Directing, Comedy Series:
Michael Spiller, “Modern Family,” ABC.
Miniseries or Movie: “Downton
Abbey (Masterpiece),” PBS.
Actress, Miniseries or Movie:
Kate Winslet, “Mildred Pierce,”
HBO.
Actor, Miniseries or Movie:
Barry Pepper, “The Kennedys,”
ReelzChannel.
Supporting Actress, Miniseries
or Movie: Maggie Smith,
“Downton Abbey (Masterpiece),” PBS.
Supporting Actor, Miniseries
or Movie: Guy Pearce,
“Mildred Pierce,” HBO.
Directing, Miniseries, Movie
or Dramatic Special: Brian
Percival, “Downton Abbey
(Masterpiece),” PBS.
Writing, Miniseries, Movie or
Dramatic Special: Julian
Fellowes, “Downton Abbey
(Masterpiece),” PBS.
Reality-Competition Program:
“The Amazing Race,” CBS.
Variety, Music or Comedy Series: “The Daily Show With Jon
Stewart,” Comedy Central.
Directing, Variety, Music or
Comedy Series: Don Roy King,
“Saturday Night Live,” NBC.
Writing, Variety, Music or
Comedy Series: “The Daily
Show With Jon Stewart,” Comedy Central.
(Photos by Getty Images)
Christina Hendricks was wearring Palladium Diamond Studs and a Julianna Margulis was wearing 10 ct total weight Palladium diamond
Palladium Diamond Wave Ring all by Simon G. Jewelry
studs
Julianne Hough wears
Julius Klein for
Forevermark diamond
jewelry
Julia Stiles wears
Forevermark
diamond jewelry
Anna Faris in
Forevermark jewelry
Kelly Osbourne was wearing
Palladium and Diamond
ring by Simon G. Jewelry
Elizabeth McGovern
in Forevermark Diamonds
Kyle Richards in
Forevermark Diamonds
cuff
Heather Morris wearing earrings by Simon G Jewelry
Diamonds are a star's best friend
at 63rd annual Emmy Awards
31
32
Hyatt doors open for Fashion Night Out
New York City’s The Hyatt Hotel open its doors for Fashion Night out. Jewelry Designers, Masseuse and Antique Dealers displayed the talents.
The production was a Myrdith Leon McCormack and Sandra Martin Production.
(Photos: Ronnie Wright)
Designer Barbara Campbell proudly displays her magnificent jewelry at the Hyatt Hotel during 2011
Fashion Night Out celebration
Socialites Simo Doe and her sister Jeris Cole were among the thousands in attendance during 2011
Fashion Night Out celebration
Subscribe and Advertising
in the New York Beacon
Producer Kenneth Feld of Feld Entertainment greets, Serena Dave 8, Rohan Dave 11, Chole
Defrancesco 4, Nicholas Natale 4, Jasmine Armstrong 9 and Emma Defrancesco, at pre-reception
for the opening night performance of “Phineas & Ferb: The Best Live Show Ever!” at the Webster
Bank Arena, in Bridgeport, Connecticut. (Photo: Ronnie Wright)
The New York Beacon, 237 W. 37th Street,
Suite 203 New York, New York 10018
Tel: (212) 213-8585
Flick Chat
By Kam Williams
Movie Critic
This riveting cat-and-mouse
thriller represents another solid
outing by Ryan Gosling in which
the underappreciated actor further establishes himself as among
the best actors yet to win an
Academy Award. Here, he plays
a Hollywood stuntman whose secret dream is to save enough money
to become a professional race car
driver on the NASCAR circuit one
day.
When not executing dangerous
rollovers on movie sets, he supplements his meager income by moonlighting as a getaway driver. And
just like Jason Statham’s character
in “The Transporter” (2002), he
Actor Ryan Gosling appears on the “Drive” movie poster
doesn’t even want to know what
each job is about, provided his
price is met and his privacy is respected.
This philosophy works well
for the unnamed loner we’ll call
Driver so long as he religiously
protects his anonymity. But complications ensue soon after his
Achilles heel, attractive women,
rears its pretty head in the person of Irene (Carey Mulligan), a
flirtatious neighbor living right
down the hall.
Driver naturally assumes her
to be a single-mom, since she
shares the apartment only with
her young son, Benicio (Kaden
Leos). Sparks fly, and they start
spending quality time together,
almost like a family.
But before their budding
friendship has a chance to blossom any further, Irene admits not
only that she’s married, but that
her husband, Standard (Oscar
Isaac), is about to be paroled from
prison. When he arrives home a
week later, the two hide their feelings for each other.
The ex-con, who wants to go
straight, is too busy to be suspicious anyway, because he’s being pressured to pull one last
heist by a loan shark (James
Biberi) he’s deeply indebted to.
Against his better judgment,
Driver decides to break his unwritten rule about not knowing
his clients when he agrees to
drive a getaway car for Standard.
Unfortunately, the robbery
goes horribly wrong, and Driver
ends up in sole possession of the
million dollar take. He subsequently finds himself being
hunted by an army of vengeful
mobsters threatening to harm
him, Irene and the boy unless the
cash is delivered.
The chase is on and, again and
again, Driver makes the most of
opportunities to demonstrate his
elusive skills behind the wheel.
The slippery fugitive is forced to
fight on occasion, too, and he’s
not one to shy away from a good
The 15th Annual Urbanworld Film Festival, presented by BET Networks, announced the winners of
the narrative feature, documentary feature, narrative short, documentary short, screenplay, teleplay
and audience award categories. The movie “Life, Love, Soul,” written and directed by Noel Callaway
and produced by Allen J. West, Benny Pough, Dedra N. Tate, won the Audience Award. The five-day
festival was held September 14-18 and concluded with an awards reception at Tribeca Grill Loft.
(PICTURED) The director, producers and superb cast members pose on the red carpet at the AMC
34th Street Theater in Manhattan prior to premiere.
rumble either.
Based on the James Sallis bestseller of the same name, “Drive”
is an alternately atmospheric and
grisly crime saga which devotes
as much attention to character development as to gruesome action
sequences. The film was directed
by Denmark’s Nicolas Winding
Refn who boldly blends elements
of the seemingly-incompatible
blood sport and romance genres.
The picture features a profusion of spellbinding performances
besides Gosling’s, most notably
Carey Mulligan as the femme fatale,
as well as Ron Perlman and Albert
Brooks as a couple of the scariest
villains to grace the screen this year.
Provided you have a strong stomach for gore, don’t miss this novel
cinematic treat offering both an
adrenaline fix and a compelling love
story. Excellent (4 stars). Rated R
for profanity, ethnic slurs, nudity
and graphic violence. Running
time: 100 minutes. Distributor:
FilmDistrict
Grisly crime caper finds
getaway driver on the run
33
THEATER with Second Night Reviewer Audrey J. Bernard
34
Marquee at Marquis Theatre
On Monday, September 12,
2011, Follies – featuring a book
by James Goldman, music and
lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, with
choreography by Warren Carlyle
— opened at the Marquis Theatre (1535 Broadway). The elaborate theatrical revue is an instant
hit with critics and theatergoers.
Directed by Eric Schaeffer and
featuring a 28–piece orchestra,
Broadway’s newest musical featuring some of Stephen
Sondheim’s best-known songs,
including “Broadway Baby,”
Fantastic Follies opens on
Broadway to rave reviews
“I’m Still Here,” “Too Many Mornings,” “Could I Leave You?,” and
“Losing My Mind.”
The amazing cast of 41 stars
Bernadette Peters, Jan Maxwell,
Danny Burstein, Ron Raines and
Elaine Paige with Don Correia,
Christian Delcroix, Rosalind Elias,
Colleen Fitzpatrick, Lora Lee Gayer,
Michael Hayes, Leah Horowitz,
Jayne Houdyshell, Florence Lacey,
Mary Beth Peil, David Sabin,
Kirsten Scott, Frederick Strother,
Nick Verina, Susan Watson and
Terri White.
As the story goes, when former
members of the “Weismann Follies” reunite on the eve of their
theater’s demolition, two couples
remember their past and face the
harsher realities of the present.
Reminiscing of their younger
selves and the years gone by, the
crumbling theater brings back
memories for both couples of good
times and bad.
Rounding out the brilliant ensemble are Lawrence Alexander,
Brandon Bieber, John Carroll,
Mathew deGuzman, Sara Edwards,
Leslie Donna Flesner, Jenifer
Foote, Suzanne Hylenski, Danielle
Jordan, Amanda Kloots-Larsen,
Joseph Kolinski, Brittany Marcin,
Erin N. Moore, Pamela Otterson,
Clifton Samuels, Kiira Schmidt,
Brian Shepard, Jessica Sheridan,
Amos Wolff and Ashley Yeater.
Follies features scenic design
by Derek McLane, costume design by Gregg Barnes, lighting design by Natasha Katz, sound design by Kai Harada, and original
orchestrations by Jonathan
Tunick.
Follies — originally produced
on Broadway by Harold Prince
with orchestrations by Jonathan
Tunick — opened on April 4, 1971
at the Winter Garden Theatre
where it ran for 522 performances
a n d r e c e i v e d s e v e n To n y
Awards, including Best Original
Score. Follies played a limited
engagement at the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater opening
on May 7 and closing with soldout houses on June 19, 2011.
(Photos by Walter McBride / Retna
Ltd.)
Arrivals
Phyllis Newman, Polly Bergen
Barbara Cook, Michael Feinstein Gloria Estefan, Emilio Estefan
Nikki M. James
Blythe Danner
Curtain Call
Follies cast Mary Beth Peil, Terri White, Rosalind Eias, Elaine Paige,
Ron Raines, Jan Maxwell, Bernadette Peters, Danny burstein, Jayne
Houdyshell, Susan Watson, Don Correia, Michael Haynes
Frederick
Strother
Terri White
Ensemble Cast
After Party
Bernadette Peters,
Lora Lee Gayer
Warren Caryle (choreographer), Eric
Schaeffer (director)
Jan Maxwell
Elaine Paige
Rebecca Lucker, Danny Burstein
At Red Bull Loft
Designer Edwing D’ Angelo’s Spring
Collection is a swaggering sensation
Compiled By Don Thomas
The swanky Red Bull Loft,
located at 40 Thompson Street,
in Manhattan’s SoHo district
was the scene of a very fash-
ionable event, where those in
attendance displayed their own
unique styles of dress, prior the
fabulous show.
Designer Edwing D’ Angelo
presented his Spring 2012 Col-
lection. As the models strutted
their stuff on the catwalk, displaying the designers smart,
dress up mens’ and womens’
collection, the audience got an
eyeful of his new Americana in-
spiration based in historical
costuming.
Created with a modern twist that
uses both fine textures and beautiful silks and linens to make swaggering splendid coats, which all
Designer Edwing D’ Angelo (center) takes a bow at the end of his fashion show
Erica Sings!
Sony Japan recording artist Erica performed at New
York Designer Edwing D’Angelo’s Spring 2012 Spring
Presentation held at the Red Bull Loft on September
12. The songstress is already considered a fashionista
in her native Japan has just released her debut single,
“I Know,” a rock-edged song with a tough but fragile
girl spirit about what happens when a girl falls in love.
In contrast to her slender frame, her voice is powerful and reflects her strong personality. No stranger
to New York City, Erica determined to hone her craft,
packed her bags and flew to “The Big Apple” in 2010
to perfect her vocal style. She also worked with a leading choreographer who has worked with Beyonce and
Lady GaGa. Her visit resulted in a SRO performance
at The Bitter End.
“When I saw Erica’s EPK I knew I just had to have
her in my show. I love her energy and style,the fact that
she’s performing is a bonus!, said D‘ Angelo.” “I am
so honored to be in Edwing’s show. It’s like a dream
come true to have my two favorite passions realized at
the same time,” said Erica. (L-R) Erica and Edwing
D’Angelo poses with models following her performance
in fashion show)
(Photo: Ronnie Wright)
capture the culture of along ago
European heritage, fused with our
new American lineage. D’Angelo’s
coats feature highly tailored encrusted details and belts, also made
in silk and amazing details.
(Photos: Ronnie Wright)
Entertainment Special
35
36
Dr. Willie Underwood III, African American prostate surgeon
(from page 15)
a general anesthetic, when he
was told the patient had already
received spinal anesthesia. In
over a decade of surgery on several hundred patients, he had
never done a radical prostatectomy on someone who was
awake.
“I really had to change gears,”
he said. “It was quite a different
experience to operate on someone who was talking to me while
my hand was in his belly holding
a vital organ.” But things worked
out fine, for both doctor and patient. Months later the patient
seems to be doing well, and Dr.
Underwood will return to Port
Harcourt later this year, this time
in a more consultative role, when
Nigerian doctors will perform the
surgery themselves. More than a
Surgeon
With funding from NCI and
others, Dr. Underwood has been
Alarming HIV increase among Black gay men
(from page 15)
“The young men we are targeting are on these sites,” says
Daniel Driffin, a 25-year-old prevention specialist at the Atlantabased National AIDS & Education Services for Minorities. ”It
makes perfect sense for [the]
CDC to be there—especially because the first place many men
[my age] get information is [the]
Internet.” Kali Lindsey, the 30year-old senior director of federal
policy at Harlem United, was part
of a CDC advisory group on the
messaging. ”The process was
refreshing. They brought in
about 19 or 20 of us who had expertise in delivering messages to
Black gay men,” he says.
Venton Jones, senior program
associate for communications at
the National Black Gay Men’s Advocacy Coalition, also participated in the work group. ”It’s
great that [the] CDC took our responses and made sure that the
campaign portrayed the diversity
of images of Black gay men,” says
the 27-year-old about the photography of the critically acclaimed
Duane Cramer, a San Franciscobased Black gay photographer
who snapped a variety of Black
looking at the effects of personality, information-seeking behavior, and knowledge on how African-American men perceive their
risk of prostate cancer.
Despite being more likely to develop prostate cancer and die of
it than other racial/ethnic groups
in the United States, African
American men generally underestimate their risk and are less likely
to receive definitive treatment
when diagnosed with a clinically
localized prostate cancer.
“That isn’t right, and it’s not acceptable,” emphasizes Dr.
Underwood, an alumnus of
Morehouse College who knew
early in life that he wanted to be a
physician-scientist. “We need to
build a lot of bridges in this community. As doctors we need to
talk in ways that all people can
men for the campaign. “One or two
images cannot fully represent who
we are,” Jones adds. “The campaign is a step in the right direction to raise awareness in the community,” says Harlem United’s
Lindsey, and “to encourage dialogue to where people are regularly
engaging in conversations about
HIV.”
Rod McCullom has written and
produced for ABC News and NBC,
and his reporting and analysis
have appeared in Ebony, The Ad(from page 12)
vocate, ColorLines and other media. Rod blogs on politics, pop “The Big C.”
culture and Black gay news at
“After your initial diagnosis,
rod20.com.
there are some universal themes
that we all share: depression is
depression; chemo is chemo; having your body cut and then body
parts removed … I had to find some
sort of way to make this work for
me,” McGhee said.
One way is point out the cultural differences in dealing with
chemo. “I loved my curly mane, but
British branch of the International I don’t remember anyone mentionUnion of Parliamentarians for Pal- ing you would lose hair there too.
estine. He can be contacted at I am not missing the hair on my
danglazebrook2000[at]yahoo.co.uk. head – I am missing the hair on my
* This article was first pub- pocketbook, and that’s a big thing
lished by Counterpunch.
for women,” McGhee said.
* Please send comments to
“And I notice when I go for
editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or chemo that most of the Black
comment online at Pambazuka
News.
Cancer in your ‘Pocketbook’
NATO’s war on Libya is an
attack on African development
(from page 12)
cilitate their war.
For Africa, the war is far from
over. The African continent
must recognize that NATO’s
lashing-out is a sign of desperation, of impotence, of its
inability to stop the inevitable
rise of Africa on the world
stage. Africa must learn the
lessons from Libya, continue
the drive towards pan-African
unity and continue to resist
AFRICOM. Plenty of Libyans
will still be with them when
they do so.
* Dan Glazebrook writes for the
Morning Star newspaper and is
one of the coordinators of the
Troy Davis scheduled to be executed
(from page 23)
an outrageous affront to justice,” Amnesty International
said in a statement Tuesday.
“Should Troy Davis be executed, Georgia may well have
executed an innocent man and
in so doing discredited the
justice system,” the statement
said.
But the victim’s mother,
Anne MacPhail, said she’s satisfied that Davis will be executed.
“Well, justice is done, that’s
the way we look at it. That’s
what we wanted,” the mother
told CNN. “I am very convinced that he is guilty.”
She said she would not attend Davis’ execution but family members would be there.
Anne MacPhail said she has
not forgiven the convicted of
killing her son.
“Not yet, maybe sometime,”
she said.
The NAACP and Georgians
for Alternatives to the Death
Penalty had joined Amnesty
International in organizing
support for Davis, setting up
about 300 rallies, vigils and
events worldwide in the past
week or so.
In addition, they said that
more than 1 million people
have signed a petition in support of Davis’ bid to be exonerated.
In a 2008 statement, thenChatham County District Attorney Spencer Lawton described how Davis was at a
pool party in Savannah when
he shot another man, Michael
Cooper, wounding him in the
face.
Davis was then driven to a
nearby convenience store,
where he pistol-whipped a
homeless man, Larry Young,
who’d just bought a beer.
Soon thereafter, prosecutors
said, MacPhail - who was working in uniform, off-duty, at a
nearby bus station and restaurant - arrived. It was then, the
jury determined, that Davis
shot the officer three times,
including once in the face as
he stood over him.
Davis’ lawyers, in a federal
court filing, insisted that there
is “no physical evidence linking” Davis to MacPhail’s murder. They point, too, to “the
unremarkable conclusion” of a
ballistics expert who testified
that he could not find definitively that the bullets that
wounded Cooper and killed
MacPhail were the same.
Georgia’s attorney general,
relate to and understand. I’ve
been blessed with an extraordinary
support system of family and have
received great teaching from mentors.”
NCI leads the National Cancer
Program and the NIH effort to dramatically reduce the burden of cancer and improve the lives of cancer
patients and their families, through
research into prevention and cancer biology, the development of
new interventions, and the training and mentoring of new researchers.
For more information about cancer, please visit the NCI web site at
www.cancer.gov/espanol or call
NCI’s Cancer Information Service
at 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-4226237). More articles and videos in
the Lifelines series are available at
www.cancer.gov/lifelines.
Hate speech
(from page 10)
in an online statement, claimed
that the expert said the bullets
came from the same gun type
and noted that casings at the
pool party shooting matched thus came from the same firearm as - those found at
MacPhail’s murder scene.
Two decades ago, a jury convicted Davis on two counts of
aggravated assault and one
each of possessing a firearm
during a crime, obstructing a
law enforcement officer and
murder. The latter charge led,
soon thereafter, to his death
sentence.
While reviewing Davis’
claims of innocence last year,
the U.S. District Court for the
Southern District of Georgia
found that Davis “vastly overstates the value of his evidence
of innocence.”
“Some of the evidence is not
credible and would be disregarded by a reasonable juror,”
Judge William T. Moore wrote
in a 172-page opinion. “Other
e v i d e n c e t h a t M r. D a v i s
brought forward is too general
to provide anything more than
smoke and mirrors.”
The parole board denied had
denied Davis clemency once
before. The board has never
changed its mind on any case
in the past 33 years.
women wear wigs and most of the
white women are bald.”
And
after talking about it at the Missouri Black Expo in August in St.
Louis, McGhee said when the
Cancer Monologues rolls out
this Fall, it will include her presentation and Q & A between a
doctor and the audience.
“When women and when men
leave, they leave knowing more than
when they came,” McGhee explained. “I think telling the truth,
finally, through my grace is what I
should be doing now – telling my
truth.
“Our body speaks to us loud and
clear. We are not listening.” For
more information, visit the American Cancer Society at cancer.org or
the National Ovarian Cancer Coalition at www.ovarian.org.
Malema’s popularity with youth
and his activism pose a major challenge to the ANC old guard. Last
week, he declared “economic war”
against the white minority, saying:
“The day has come, and on Oliver
Tambo’s birthday, we are going to
march to the Johannesburg Stock
Exchange and take the battle to the
monopoly capital.”
The government, he said, was
“in full cooperation with imperialists” and was undermining the “African agenda”.
Malema made his speech at the
67th anniversary of the ANC in
Scwetla, Alexandra.
More than 1,000 ANC loyalists
were in attendance. He continues
to face ANC party charges with
three other colleagues for advocating regime change in Botswana
and bringing the ANC into disrepute.
Black is beautiful
(from page 8)
nation.
In France, you cannot
even declare your race on any
record, including their national
census. They try to hide the issue
of race. The fact is France is at
least eight percent Black but the
government and society refuse to
address any inequity that they may
be victim of. The funny thing is
that French Blacks have higher
educational levels than traditional
white French. However, they are
on the bottom levels of most occupations. Entrepreneurship will
be the only way out and Patrick
will be promoting this.
Yes, we are so beautiful. Physically and charm wise we are at the
top. The current Miss World is from
Botswana, Africa.
The newly crowned Miss Universe is from Angola, Africa. Without any doubt we are the greatest
athletes known worldwide. Now is
the time for us to turn to economic
empowerment and that can only be
obtained through ingenuity via entrepreneurship. There is a God and
all people who follow him and learn
to provide for themselves will be
prosperous. Let us start providing
for each other. What is your business idea?
Mr. Alford is the cofounder, president/CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce®. Website:
www.nationalbcc.org. Email:
[email protected].
Auctions
Lots & Acreage
AUCTION: REAL PROPERTY
TAX
FORECLOSURES
DUTCHESS COUNTY. Selling
Properties October 5 @11am.
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800-243-0061 AAR, Inc. & HAR.
Inc. FRE Brochure:
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IF YOU USED THE ANTIBIOTIC DRUG LEVAQUIN AND
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Notice is hereby given that an
Order entered by the Civil
Court, New York County, on 09/
13/2011, bearing, Index Number
NC-002131-11/NY, a copy of
which can be examined at the
Office of the Clerk, located at
111 Center Street New York, NY
10013, grants Aminata Shaw the
right to assume the name of
Aminata Sow. The place of birth
is New York, NY, the date of
birth is Feb. 3, 2010; Jeinabou
Shaw the right to assume the
name of Jeinabou Sow. The
place of birth is NY, NY, the date
of birth is Feb. 11, 2007;
Soulemane Shaw the right to
assume the name of Soulemane
Sow. The place of birth is NY,
NY, the date of birth is Sept. 14,
2008 and the present address is
500 East 165 th Street Apt. 6E,
Bronx, NY 10456
Notice is hereby given that an
Order entered by the Civil
Court, New York County, on 09/
12/2011, bearing, Index Number
NC-002114-11/NY, a copy of
which can be examined at the
Office of the Clerk, located at
Land For Sale
111 Center Street New York, NY
10013, grants Shen Yan the right
NEW YORK STATE Cozy Cabin to assume the name of Brandon
on 5 Acres $19,995. Beautiful Yan. The place of birth is New
woodlands. Our best deal ever! York, NY, the date of birth is
Call 800-229-7843 or visit Sept. 4, 1999 and the present adwww.landandcamps.com.
dress is 2540 West 3 rd Street,
Brooklyn, NY 11223
CLASSIFIED
37
38
Adkins Graves as first Black woman prez at Girard College
(from page 23)
different times and phases in her
life, she’s had different theme
songs. Her battle cry used to be
the Gloria Gaynor anthem, “I Will
Survive.” Since she got married, she now favors the Bill Withers tune, “Just the Two of Us” as
her relationship with her husband is both tender and special.
Her two all-time favorites continue to be “His Eye Is on The
Sparrow” and “All Hail the
Power.”
With respect to mentoring, “for
me, it’s not formal. I think
mentoring is about wisdom,
knowledge and experience. I’m
just getting to that point where I
feel that I have something of significant value to offer to someone;
I talk to young people and gently
raise questions about where they
are in their careers to help them
lesson themselves.”
Adkins
Graves is a graduate of University
of Virginia (BA), and Columbia University Teachers College (MA).
She was assistant principal at
Friends Seminary in Manhattan,
dean of the Upper School at Sidwell
Friends (Washington, D.C.), director of special programs at
Mercerburg Academy (Pennsylvania) and upper school counselor
and community service coordinator at the Breck School (Minneapolis).
Adkins Graves views education
as much more than books. “One
has to work smart and be able to
have a practical education, to use
it as a vehicle for access to family
sustaining jobs so one will know
how to feed themselves; how to
take care of one’s body; how to
restore one’s soul; how to make
good choices for you and your
partner, and how to be good parents.” She has enjoyed teaching
history and found it exciting to
watch children learn about how
“dead” people impact their lives
Berkeley College is named Military Friendly School
(from page 17)
student veterans searching for
schools that provide the right
overall experience,” said Michael
Dakduk, executive director for the
Student Veterans of America.
A full story and detailed list of
Military Friendly Schools will be
highlighted in the annual Guide
to Military Friendly Schools publication, as well as on a poster
that will be distributed to active
and former military personnel in
early October.
A leader in business education
for 80 years, Berkeley College is
accredited by the Middle States
Commission on Higher Education
and enrolls nearly 9,000 students
— including more than 800 international students — in its Baccalaureate and Associate degree
programs. The College has four
New York locations — Midtown
Manhattan, Lower Manhattan in
the Wall Street area, Brooklyn, and
White Plains. And in New Jersey
there are four locations — Woodland Park, Paramus, Woodbridge,
and Newark. Berkeley College
Online also offers full degree programs. Programs are offered in
more than 20 career fields. The
website address is:
www.BerkeleyCollege.edu.
today and figure how they will impact the future and why we do
what we do. In this position, she
is an employee of the board of directors of the City Trusts, and reports directly to attorney Bernard
Smalley, chairman of the Girard College Committee of the Board of City
Trusts. Notes Smalley, “she has
completed her second year and
has worked extremely hard given
the challenges she’s faced with
the overall school environment as
an outsider coming in and learning the ways of Philadelphia —
and [there are challenges] with the
decreased budget at a time when
there are multi-plans for the future
of Girard College and its vision.
She still has a bit to learn, as do
we all.”
Girard currently has 185 employees, down from 260 due to budget
cuts. One of her priorities is to
make the school open to the Philadelphia community and to break
down the “wall.” As such, Girard
hosts the MLK Day of Service,
works with the Fairmount CDC,
hosts many different events and
serves as a rental facility for special events including weddings, receptions and corporate meetings.
Adkins Graves is building relationships with the alumni association which consists of a group of
people who are committed and supportive. She loves her job! She is
active on the boards of Shipley
School, the Greater Philadelphia Film
Office, the Library Company, the NY
Branch of Children’s Defense Fund
and is a member of The Links-Philadelphia Chapter. She describes her
leadership style as one that is open,
direct (maybe too much), wanting staff
to understand why she’s doing what
she’s doing, wanting staff to take
some direction and mix it with their
own expertise and check in with her.
Keys to success for this driven lady
have been lots of prayer, faith in the
unknown, surrounding herself with
good people (who are smart and have
good souls) and having the ability to
grow.
Her heroes and sheroes are the everyday people from whom she’s
learned so much. Many of them do
extraordinary things that often go
overlooked. She believes that unfortunately, young people underrate the
value of work — they have a sense
that everything should come instantly
because they’ve made “any” effort.
They’ve seen too many experiences
of the flash and glamour and get rich
quick messages and not enough of
how to be a regular person — which
is so meaningful and rewarding. She
encourages young people to “Work
Hard! Play Hard! Pray Harder!”
NC State seeks NCLB waivers
(from page 23)
composite below 60 percent (irrespective of growth),” the letter states.
“This identified group currently subsumes our lowest 5
percent of schools in terms of
achievement at the elementary,
middle and high school levels.
This will allow us to concentrate our resources in lifting up
the performance of these lowest achieving schools and not
add to the increasing numbers
of schools being identified as
“in need of improvement” un-
der the current NCLB requirements.”
Fabrizio said the request is not
a pass on accountability.
“We strongly believe that accountability is there, and we’re
still going to show the public what
we would have shown them if we
had not gotten the waiver,” he
said.
“We have nothing to hide, and
we want to show that continuing
with NCLB the way it was initially
legislated is not an effective way
to reform education if ever and
ever larger numbers of schools are
getting identified as ‘in need of improvement.’”
CLASSIFIED
SPORTS
39
By Andrew Rosario
East Rutherford, NJ - It was really hard to gauge the outcome
of the game between the New
York Jets and the Jacksonville
Jaguars when they faced each
other Sunday afternoon at Met
Life Stadium. Coming off their
come from behind, inspirational
win over the Dallas Cowboys the
week before, the Jets wanted to
continue their momentum.
The same could be said for the
Jags who opened their season
with a 16-14 win over Tennessee
and had not lost to the Jets since
(3 straight games) 2003. If there
has been one blemish on the
record of head coach Rex Ryan it
has been the inability to establish home field advantage for his
team.
Since becoming head coach
and vowing he wasn’t hired to
“kiss the rings of the New England Patriots”, the Jets have a
home record of 9-7. Not exactly
putting fear in visiting teams. Perhaps that’s why Ryan,
uncustomarily, decided to allow
his offense to take the field after
they won the coin toss. It paid
off immediately.
Starting at their own 35, Mark
Sanchez quickly moved the team
to a 7-0 lead after a 6 play, 65 yard
drive, ending in a 17 yard touchdown pass to Santonio Holmes.
Sanchez’ 33 yard pass to tight end
Dustin Keller (6 catches 101
yards) preceded the score. Said
Sanchez (17-24 182 yards, 2 td’s 2
int.) on the importance of the opening drive, “that was huge. Rex challenged the offense last night in the
hotel and said we’re going to take
the ball. Which we never do. So he
put the challenge in on us and we
answered the call.”
So did the defense which never
let the Jacksonville offense develop any rhythm. They pestered
Luke Mc Cown picking him off 4
times (2 by Antonio Cromarite) and
limiting him to a total of 59 yards in
the air. The first time they had the
ball, the Jets took advantage when
Mc Cown was sacked in the end
zone by Temple grad Muhammad
Wilkerson resulting in a safety and
a 9-0 lead. It was his first sack as a
pro. Said Ryan, “that kid is going
to be a good football player.”
Looking to capitalize, Sanchez
made the first of two mistakes that
made him look like the rookie who
struggled at times during his first 2
years in the league. With the ball
on their own 35, Sanchez looked
deep for Derrick Mason. Never taking his eyes of Mason, Sanchez
never saw William Middleton, who
picked off the pass. It temporarily
halted the offense and allowed the
Jags to get on the board before the
quarter ended on a long 55 yard
field goal by Josh Scobee. That was
after the Jets gave them additional
field position due to a 15 yard fair
catch interference penalty by
Marquice Cole.
Sanchez
Nick Folk added 2 more field goals
(39 and 45 yards) before the half,
extending the lead to 12 points (153) but not before Sanchez threw his
second pick, a carbon copy of the
first. This time, eyeballing Holmes,
Rashean Mathis came away with the
pick. It was the last positive thing
the Jags would do on either side of
the ball.
From that point on, the Jets continued their domination, scoring 17
second half points and not allowing Jacksonville to score at all. Still,
you saw issues they are going to
have to contend with when they face
the elite teams.
First, the running game has been
non-existent in the first two games.
Shonn Greene ran for only 49 yards
on 16 carries. After 2 games, he has
a total of 75 yards. Sanchez (32
yards) has gained more yards that
La Danian Tomlinson (24). Second,
the signing of ex-Giant Plaxico
Burress was supposed to open up
the passing game. Burress did not
catch a pass in the win over Jacksonville. He was only thrown to
twice. Ryan attributed the lack of
chances to the way defenses were
playing him. “ He was taking double
coverage a ton,” he said.
The Jets are 2-0 and play the next
three games on the road against
Oakland, Baltimore and the hated
New England Patriots. They need
to address those issues or they can
easily come back home with a losing record.
Flawed but victorious Giants overcome Rams
By Jason Clinkscales
It had been a while since the
New York Giants opened up their
home schedule on Monday Night
Football, but the absence didn’t
make the heart grow fonder.
Rather, the appearance was a frustrating one, even in victory. Big
Blue took advantage of a St. Louis
Rams team that wilted under the
national lights with a 28-16 win,
but not without a first half that
found the offense stalling to the
point of boos from the crowd.
Eli Manning had a troubling
start to the contest, completing
just two of his first ten passes
before hitting a late groove in the
second half. He tossed two
touchdowns to Hakeem Nicks and
Domenick Hixon in the first half,
but balanced the offense better
late by trusting Brandon Jacobs,
Ahmad Bradshaw and D.J. Ware
(131 rushing yards combined, one
touchdown) to push the ball
through the blitzing Rams defense.
Defensively, there were some
dubious moments as St. Louis QB
Sam Bradford targeted whichever
receiver cornerback Aaron Ross
defended. The tandem of Danario
Alexander and Mike Sims-Walker
outleaped him often for 214 receiving yards and a score, but
Ross was bailed out by strong defense upfront late in the game.
Early Rams miscues helped New
York overcome their sputtering,
but much credit should be given
to the Giants for sticking to the
game plan by keeping Bradford
confused in the pocket at times
and slowing down a running game
already without star back Steven
Jackson.
Much as been made about the
Giants’ defections from in the hurried offseason, notably losing WR
Steve Smith and TE Kevin Boss.
There’s good reason for it early
as the offense hasn’t hit its stride
yet. However, when watching the
offense struggle in these first two
games, you have to wonder if Eli
trusts the players that were to
make up for the lost production.
The team was certainly hoping
that Jake Ballard or Travis Beckum
would assert themselves to make
up for the loss of Boss. Only
Ballard had a catch, which was late
in the fourth quarter.
It was bad enough that Big Blue
lost Smith during the free agency
period. On Monday, Domenick
Hixon and Mario Manningham
were knocked out of the game,
leaving Hakeem Nicks essentially
by his lonesome at wide receiver.
Though Manning was able to
spread the passing wealth in the
second half, he was forced to use
his running backs for short passes
since very little came from elsewhere.
The Giants take a short drive for
their next road game; a divisional
battle with the Philadelphia Eagles
at Lincoln Financial Field.
With Michael Vick likely out after suffering a concussion Sunday night in his old haunts in Atlanta and Vince Young on the
mend, the Eagles may have thirdstringer Mike Kafka start at quar-
terback.
The last time these teams met
each other, Vick and wideout/punt
returner Desean Jackson mounted
a historic comeback to essentially
knock the 9-4 Giants out of
postseason contention last winter.
Great catch that propelled Giants to 28-16 win
Good news, bad news Jets
40
BEACON
Marc Rasbury
SPORTS
More than a game
By Marc Rasbury
The New York Urban League
Whitney M Young Football Classic could be considered many
things to many people. Yes, it is
a great afternoon of college football with all of the pageantry.
Some look at it as an opportunity
to gather to see old friends. Then
there are the students who rely
on this contest as a means to
continue their education.
When the 40,000 spectators
got together at last year ’s
Whitney M Young Classic, I do
not think that many of them realized how many students they
were helping that beautiful fall
day. Over 20 million dollars have
been raised since the first game
was held at Yankee Stadium back
in 1971. However, like in past
years, most of the fans that will
attend this year’s game will be
there to soak up the pageantry
of the day.
Morgan State University Bears
and Howard University Bisons
will go at this Saturday in the 40th
edition of the Whitney M Young
Classic at Metlife Stadium. The
1-2 Bears will be looking to continue their success against their
Beltway Rivals, 1-2 Bison.
Howard’s contingent will be seeking revenge for that loss.
One would think that the game
would be the focal point of the
event. However, some would say
that the halftime activities including the Battle of the Bands and
guest performances have started
to trump the game itself. Right
before halftime, you can sense
the energy level rising as the
bands prepare to take the field.
MSU’s and HU’s marching
bands are considered to be two
of the best in the country. Then
you add performances by R&B
sensations Eric Benet and
Chrisette Michele to the mix and
the halftime show is worth the
MSU cheerleaders: Just a sample of the pageantry that will be on Howard: HU will be looking for revenge this weekend
display.
price of admission alone. As a matter of fact, there are some fans that
only enter the Stadium to see this
portion of the event.
You do not have to be a graduate of Howard or Morgan to look
forward to this game. The Whitney
M Young Classic has become the
Unofficial Black College Homecoming for residents of this area.
When you go to the game, you
will see proud alums sporting their
respective college colors and the
same goes for fraternities and sororities. It is an opportunity for alums and supporters of Historically
Black Colleges and Universities to
get together each year and reminisce about the “good old days”.
Patrons are out tailgating hours
before and after the game. It got
to the point that the Meadowlands
Stadium Authority in past years
had to ask the fans to leave the
parking lot long after the game was
over as the party continued well
into the night.
It is hard to believe that this is
Tailgaiting: Tailgaiting is just one of the reason to go.
Marching Band: Some are more concerned with who wins the battle of the bands than the game. (Photos by
Marc Rasbury)
the 40th Whitney M Young Clas- Cleveland RB Leroy Kelly, and lemma – resources from our scholsic. I attended the first game where Minnesota Vikings Visanthe arship fund often makes the differMorgan beat Grambling State 9-7 Shiancoe have played in the Clas- ence between attending college toin front of 64,000 at the old Yan- sic. New York Times senior sports morrow and a dream deferred.”
kee Stadium. Several former and writer and MSU Alum William
In addition to the game itself,
current NFL standouts including Rhoden also played in the ’71 there are other events associated
with the Classic including the AnSuper Bowl MVP Doug Williams, contest.
With all of the pageantry, fun, nual Golf Outing, the Mayor’s Circle
food, music and the game itself it Reception, and Thursday Night
is hard to keep in mind that the Lights in addition to the game day
money raised for scholarships is vendors market and a college fair.
This year’s classic is sponsored
what this event is all about. Since
that first game, over 4000 students by the Home Depot, UPS, Enterhave benefitted from the New York prise Rent a Car and the Municipal
Urban League’s efforts. Some of Credit Union.
For more information about New
those students have gone on to
become leaders in their respective York Urban League please visit
www.nyul.org or call 212-926-8000.
fields.
“Of all of the events that the For information about the game,
NYUL hosts each year, the foot- please visit:
ball classic is an opportunity for www.nyulfootballclassic.com or
everyone to give back. From the purchase tickets at:
$25 sideline ticket to the VIP suite, www.ticketmaster.com.
Both of my parents are MSU alall proceeds benefit our Whitney
M. Young, Jr. Scholarship Fund ums. My father was the captain of
and the educational programs of ’63 team and is a member of the
the New York Urban League, MSU Athletic Hall of Fame, so I
which empowers people to help have a little Golden Bear in my blood
the next generation with their edu- despite going to Morehouse.
It does not matter which schools
cational needs,” stated Arva Rice,
President & CEO of New York are playing. I just want to soak in
Urban League. The nation’s cur- the atmosphere knowing that anrent economic climate puts our other generation of students will
future leaders in a financial di- reap the benefits of this event.

Sept. 22 - New York Beacon

Transcription

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