The Wall by debra blair abron

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January 27, 2017 Volume 58 Edition 03 www.dfwelitenews.com

What’s the Next Step after the Women’s March? By Eddie Bernice Johnson pg. 13

News Updates

Telling it like it is!

Jan. 27, 2017 Volume 58 Issue 3

“The Wall” By Debra Abron pg. 8

January 27, 2017

Do’s and Dont’s

Let’s Get You off Those Meds by Debra Blair Abron

Millions of people go the doctor every day and are told they have high blood pressure. They are put on medications and even told that they will be on the medications for the rest of

their lives. In some cases this may be true. But do you know there are other ways to lower your blood pressure? Many people have tried certain holistic oils and others are simply changing the way they eat. By decreasing your sodium intake and adding certain fruits and vegetables to your meals can be a sure way to reduce hypertension. Below are few things that will help, as well as pointers on what foods are high in sodium: • Foods high in potassium give you a better ratio of potassium to sodium. This allows your kidneys to get rid of more sodium through your urine, which lowers your blood pressure. • Leafy greens such as romaine lettuce, arugula, kale, turnip greens, collard greens, and spinach are high in potassium. • Opt for fresh or frozen greens because canned vegetables often have added sodium. Frozen vegetables contain as many nutrients as fresh vegetables and they are easy to store • Berries, especially blueberries, are rich in natural compounds called flavonoids. One study found that consuming these compounds might prevent hypertension, and possibly help to reduce high blood pressure. • Blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries are easy to add to your 3

diet. Keep frozen berries on hand for a quick and healthful dessert. Beets are great too! You can juice your own beets or simply cook and eat the whole root. Beetroot is delicious when roasted or when added to stirfries and stews. • Garlic significantly lowers elevated blood pressure. One study even found garlic was just as effective as prescribed medications after 24 weeks. • Cashews and almonds or Tree nuts—not to be confused with peanuts, which come from the ground—are linked with many metabolic health benefits. Almonds and cashews really stand out, particularly when it comes to metabolic problems such as high blood pressure. What makes them so influential is their rich magnesium content. Magnesium is an essential mineral involved in over 300 bodily processes. A lack of magnesium in the diet is strongly associated with blood pressure complications. Replacing that lack of magnesium has been shown in numerous studies to greatly reduce high blood pressure. • Add flaxseed and fish oil to your diet. • Replace sugar with raw unfiltered honey or getting rid of sugar in your diet. Try Stevia if you’re looking to replace sugar. Stevia appears to be the best choice for those with elevated blood pressure. It’s by no means a quick fix, but the longterm effects are safe and beneficial. • Also Turmeric, Turmeric is a popular Indian curry spice. For centuries, Indians used it not only in their cooking but also as a medicinal herb. • Avocados – Avocados attack high blood pressure from multiple angles, with the potassium they con-

tain, the fiber, and the monounsaturated fat that they’re high in. This approach really sets you up for having a better chance of keeping things stabilized. It’s easy to start eating more of them as well. They complement many health conscious meals, and can be used to top off anything from salads to taco bowls like the one you had the other day They can also be eaten directly, and used as a snack to hold you over between meals and because of the fat content you end up feeling fuller longer.

Editor

Debra Abron

Consultant

Darryl E. Blair Sr.

Administrative Assistant Sherry Christian

Production Manager Tamara Amos

As always don’t stop taking your medication unless you consult your physician first. Here’s to a healthier you! I want to praise God for His healing. I also want to praise Him for His promises to forgive all our sins and heal all our diseases (Psalms 103:13)

dbabron.elite@aol.com

Please adhere: there are changes made at the Elite News.

Lorie Blair, former editor, of Elite News, is no longer with us, at the paper. We would like to thank Lorie for her dedication to the Elite News family. We are grateful for the time she was with us and wish her the best of luck in her future endeavors. As of Tuesday January 24, 2017, please forward all correspondences to, Debra Blair Abron, publisher or Darryl E. Blair Sr. editor. Thank you, Debra Blair Abron, publisher 214-405-8335 January 27, 2017

Church Chat

January 27, 2017

We Are Survivors By Wanda McKinley, survivor of childhood molestation, rape and domestic violence ‘Why didn’t you just leave?’ That is the question that everyone asks. I don’t think you can really know until you are in that person’s shoes. For me, I was in love. If I needed to suffer to be with my soul mate, so be it. Love is meant to hurt, right? I was divorced and had two children from my first marriage when I met him. He had been married twice before. We moved quickly, and within six months we were living together. One night he went out with some friends and didn’t come home. The next morning, when he finally walked in the door, I angrily asked him where he spent the night. He didn’t even answer me; he just hit me in the face. I was stunned. At the time, I didn’t really grasp what had happened. I backed up and went into my daughter’s room. At 3 years old, she was old enough to tell I was hurt. I minimized it to her and rationalized it to myself. Later on, he was very apologetic and I swept the incident under the rug. I wasn’t in a great place with my own self-esteem. My prior husband was verbally abusive towards me and had torn down my confidence. I felt lucky to have a new boyfriend who was, for the most part, good to me. I didn’t want to lose him over one mistake. Things returned to normal for half a year. Then he hit me again. The abuse followed a pattern: He would be loving and sweet for about six months, and then he would blow up and hit me. I always thought each time was the last. I believed I could love the abuse out of him. I thought if I were a good enough girlfriend; if I just loved him enough he wouldn’t want to hurt me again. It was almost a sick game in my head that I thought I could conquer. I am going to make him not want to abuse me. I will love him so much he won’t hurt me anymore. I romanticized my role. I would be the one woman who was strong enough to teach him not to abuse. I would be the savior, the hero, the woman who stood by him despite the rough times. We, the survivors, we think that our abusers are going to have this ‘aha’ moment. The day they realize what they are doing to the women who love them. Every day we’re hop5

ing it’s that day. I got stuck on the fact that he could be a good man when he wasn’t abusing. I wanted that man, the kind, sweet, funny man, all the time. I thought he was capable of being that man. Five years into the relationship, I got pregnant. I thought he wouldn’t hit me while I was carrying our child, but I was wrong. I went into labor with a black eye. Not one doctor asked me what it was from. After our son was born, I thought things would be OK. But that year turned out to be the worst. He was using a lot of alcohol and prescription drugs, and he started to have schizophrenic episodes. He would self-medicate to alleviate his high anxiety, using Xanax and alcohol, which always made him worse. He had episodes of paranoia, and he’d accuse me of having the FBI put cameras in the house to catch him abusing. The paranoia would pass, but it was unpredictable. When he went out in public, I always had to be there to make sure nothing happened. Around my son’s first birthday, we went to a concert in downtown Salt Lake City. Things had been good, and we planned on having a nice night out together. But the concert was small and crowded, and his anxiety started to grow. He took 8 milligrams of Xanax. Then he started to fall asleep, so he drank to stay awake. He said he was going to the bathroom and then never came back. When I went looking for him, I found management looking after him. They told me to take him home and walked him to my car. When we started driving, it looked like he was going to be sick, so I pulled over to the curb. I reached across and I pushed the door open, turning his body so he was facing out of the car. But he didn’t recognize that the car had stopped, and he thought I was trying to push him out of a moving vehicle. He accused me of trying to kill him and went ballistic. He shut the door and swung with his right hand. I felt my cheekbone break. Within the first few seconds, he broke all the bones in the left side of my face and broke my nose. I knew if I didn’t get away from him, there was a good chance I would die. I got in the back seat, I don’t even know how. He got back there too. I was try-

ing to unroll the windows. He kept grabbing my hands, hitting and biting me. He had me upside down. My neck and my head were almost under the driver’s seat. He got on top of me and put his hands around my throat. I was adamant that I didn’t want to die. I had a 1-year-old and preteens. Somehow, I was able to get my foot on his chest and kick him away. I rolled the window down and screamed for help. After that assault, I was in the ICU for four days. I had to have reconstructive surgery on my face. I still have tons of medical problems because of that night. He went to prison for seven years. He’s out now. He has a girlfriend, I’m told. It took that incident for me to say “that’s enough.” During my recovery, I made a list of all the reasons I stayed. I had 25. I was strong enough to stick it out. I wasn’t ready to leave him. This is going to be this great story — I took this abusive man and turned him into a loving husband. In my mind, he didn’t know any better. Which is the dumbest thing, you know beating your wife is not OK. We rationalize until we can’t rationalize anymore. When you are in the middle of it, you’ll do anything to make them happy. I was so naïve that I didn’t realize no matter how much I loved him, he was always going to abuse me. If you have a survival story to tell, let me share it. If you have any questions please contact me,

Wanda McKinley at 214-454-2933 and/ or wearesurvivorsfoundation@gmail.com. Also visit us at www.wearesurvivorsfoundation.org

January 27, 2017

Rollin With A Brotha By Kevan Browning

Welcome to the weekend baby! I can count the times I’ve written this column in a sad/angry mood on one hand. Arghhhhhh,lol... Usually by the end of writing, I tend to feel better. I’m sad that one of my all time favorites, Mary Tyler Moore has died. From the Dick Van Dyke Show to her own headlining TV programs there was just something right about this woman. I’ve often thought that her character Laura Petrie from the Van Dyke show would have naturally evolved into her dynamic newswoman role on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Besides being a great talent, Ms. Moore who decided to use her middle name to separate herself from 6 other Mary Moore’s in Hollywood, M.T.M. was a spokesman for Diabetes. She suffered from the illness for 59 years. Most importantly she showed America thru her characters what an empowered woman could accomplish. R.I.P. at 80 Mary Tyler Moore. Now as to what’s got me fired up this chilly Thursday(1/26) morning,lol? Remember a few weeks ago when we were going thru insurance “open enrollment”? Wellllll my family chose a “better” level of coverage based on a Cigna agent’s mis-communicating coverage. That mis-communication has the lovely lady above in the picture and I paying an extra $300 a month on Insurance services we don’t actually have. My wife works in a local school district and her insurance was FREE.

ers. Awwwww... writing really does make u feel better! In Smokin Tidbits... Actress Keke Palmer says Trey Songs used “sexual intimidation” to coerce her into appearing in a music video. The cut was a Songz remix along with Rapper Fabulous of Young Thugs joint “Pick Up The Phone”. Palmer who’s known Trey since she was 12 says she went as far as hiding in a closet after saying no to repeatedly being asked to being in the video. Sounds like there’s something more to this doesn’t it? Palmer came out of the closet in 2016. Hmmmmmm??? Good news from Fox News. The ever goofy Stacey Dash has been fired! Finally if you had to turn in your Samsung Galaxy Note 7 last year, the reason the phones caught fire is out. It’s the batteries! Samsung discovered that 30,000 “bad”Ion batteries from two different companies caused multiple Note 7’s to spontaneously combust! Happy Birthday to YOU and celebs this week:Jennifer Lewis 60, Ellen DeGeneres 59, Kirk Franklin 47, Kenya Moore & Pooh-Man 46, Rick Ross 40, Alicia Keys 36, Draya Michelle 32, J Cole 31 and You Tube Star Will Power is 19. Thanks for “Rollin With A Brotha” both online and in the pages of The Elite News!

Arghhhhh! Perhaps a weekend getaway would change my vibe,lol... We’d planned to peep R&B singer Bryan McKnight’s show with Kelly Price at Fair Park’s Music Hall tonight, but it was cancelled. Ticketmaster will give quick refunds we hear, no reschedule yet. That said, Pitbull jams at Winstar in Oklahoma tonight and you know that’s gonna be crazy. DJ Khaled breaks it off Sunday in The Cambridge Room at Dallas House of Blues! Oh yeah... Big ups to my boy Genuine who’ll be playing the H.O.B. next Friday night! If you’ve got the BLUES and can’t make one of those shows let me suggest seeing the movie “Hidden Figures”. Riiiiight, Taragi P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monet and Kevin Costner’s flick. I’ve seen it 3 times “already” and wouldn’t mind another view. Hard to believe these women’s stories are a regular part of our history books. My second choice for a feel good movie this weekend is “ A Dog’s Purpose”. It’s the heartwarming tale of a dog who tries to discover his purpose over several lifetimes and ownJanuary 27, 2017

January 27, 2017

Debra’s Bits and Pieces

“The Wall” by Debra Blair Abron Many Americans voted for President Trump solely on him saying he would build a wall between America and Mexico. The “Wall” was No. 1 on President Trump’s “10 Point Plan to Put America First.” President Trump said from the beginning that Mexico would be paying for the wall. On Wednesday night, Mexican President, Enrique Peña Nieto, said his country will not pay for any “Wall”. It seems as though, President Trump, as well as, his supporters really didn’t think through how the “Wall” was going to be paid for and how realistically it is to have it built. The border is about 1,900 miles. It is estimated to cost about 14 billion dollars to build. Who pays for the “Wall” if Mexico doesn’t? Will it be the American people? Some have asked if the “Wall” is built, will President Trump also want a “Wall” built on the border of America and Canada. Where does this insanity stop? At times it seems as though many things the president says, sounds a bit like those of a dictator! A dictatorship is a government or a social situation where one person makes all the rules and decisions without input from anyone else. Dictatorship implies absolute power, one person who takes control of a political situation, a family, a classroom or even a camping expedition. Wasn’t America founded on the principals of Democracy? If we as Americans aren’t careful, and allow our president to get away with words and actions of a dictator, we may find ourselves living in times of Hitler. So, the “Wall” seems to be a plan that needs to be reevaluated to ensure that the purpose that it is meant for is not to discriminate but determine who has the right to be in America. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, [even] in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. (Galatians 5:14) dbabron.elite@aol.com

January 27, 2017

WID-WID by Dr. Terry J. Flowers Education is Everyone’s Obligation

Now that the school year is off and running, it is important for all of us to embrace our

role in helping to yield student success. I am reminded of the phrase that emphasizes the reality that in God’s work, “our observations should lead to obligations.” Those of us who have witnessed education overcome obstacles of every range of social condition, should experience a burden of responsibility. Our obligated role is to ensure EVERY child is blessed with an opportunity to receive an excellent education. Most of us are aware of the potential of educational opportunity, at the same time, we are witnesses to the results of a poor educational system dismantling our nations’ path to a sustainably thriving society. In the words of a prominent Dallas Pastor, “once we know, we owe.” I encourage every citizen to take the time to audit their souls. Evaluate your existence on earth and its contribution to, next to God, the most powerful force ever given unto humanity -- Education. After this personal audit of your soul, if need be, edit your soul to take action. For those who agree with the notions that “our observations should lead to obligations” and “once we know, we owe,” but feel they lack the ability to have a positive impact on education, I offer you Psalms 91:11. In your quest to do God’s bidding, remember this scripture, “For He shall give His angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways.” St. Philip’s students are taught “do your best and God will do the rest.” All of us can contribute to a child’s January 27, 2017

January 27, 2017

What’s the Next Step after the Women’s March? By: Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson ing. Keep doing it. Our nation has been wounded recently. But out of the wounds came something beautiful--millions of women, men, and children marched across the nation and worldwide on January 20th in support of the Women’s Movement that has blossomed after the election. Everyone gathered in solidarity and were passionate in taking to the streets to profess their attitudes about respecting the rights of women, acknowledging that they do not fear immigrants but welcome a conversation to include them in our democracy, protecting our planet and the need to uphold justice and equality for all Americans whether Black, Latino, Asian, or in the LGBTQ community. The Women’s March was so enormous it transformed into a movement, but we must hold this momentum.

We might be witnessing one of the next best moments in history. When people unite together the results of a victory allow a shifting of policies. So my hope is that this protest foreshadows that people will not give up easily during the uphill battle to fight for their rights and will be persistent in organizing. My message to those who have been encouraged and motivated by the actions of the previous demonstration is to be committed to peace, justice and equality for all. I also encourage you to get to know each other, sit around the table and discuss strategic ways how you can contribute to solving local issues and be involved in your community. You are also not in this alone! In order to have a more informed decision on an issue research local organizations that are working to combat the issues of women’s rights, civil rights, climate change, LGBTQ issues and more. You can also keep yourself informed of the issues that most concern you by checking the status of current legislation at www.congress. gov. Lastly, I always welcome the thoughts and concerns from you, the people, who have elected me to represent our district.

Having been in politics for a long time, I have witnessed many become emotionally defeated. However, I want our younger generations to know that their passion cannot be quelled when it gets hard—in fact, it should be stoked. It is imperative that everyone understands the era we are entering and not take for granted the tireless hard work being done by new and seasoned activists in their local communities to May your voices continue to be loud and energy resilient as you protect the rights of all Americans and bring awareness to issues that organize across our state and country to see the change we all desire, gravely impact our lives. What we witnessed Saturday was a demonprosperity of the American dream for all. stration of people saying enough is enough; no longer will they sit aside to watch their rights be taken from right under them. The people have proclaimed they are expectant of change and will demand it by organiz-

January 27, 2017