Florida Courier, October 13, 2017

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McNair center among sites to see near Florence, S.C. See Page B1

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OCTOBER 13 – OCTOBER 19, 2017

VOLUME 25 NO. 41

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ON FIRE

California burns and the death toll rises as wildfires, compounded by climate change, spread.

COMPILED FROM WIRE REPORTS

SONOMA, CALIF. – The death toll rose to 21 Wednesday – the Florida Courier’s press day – as multiple wildfires continued to spread across Northern California, according to state fire officials.

As a devastating firestorm continued to spread in Sonoma and Napa counties Wednesday, crews launched a desperate effort to

extinguish key hot spots before heavy, fire-stoking winds could kick back up later in the day.

Officials fear that strong winds, which reached 50 miles per hour near Santa Rosa – and with some gusts topping 70 miles per hour, according to the National Weather Service – will spread embers from what’s called the “Tubbs fire” to populated areas that have so far been spared the flames.

Evacuation orders were issued.

Already, the Northern California fires have scorched more than 160,000 acres. Cal Fire, also known as the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention, estimates that around 3,500 structures have been destroyed.

By Wednesday, the Tubbs fire had reached 28,000 acres with no See FIRE, Page A2

MARCUS YAM/LOS ANGELES TIMES/TNS

This aerial view shows the damage caused by a fire that destroyed the Coffey Park neighborhood of Santa Rosa, Calif., on Wednesday.

‘Natural’ or negligence?

MIAMI BROWARD ONE CARNIVAL 2017

Pageantry and color

Lawmaker questions nursing home deaths

BY CHRISTINE SEXTON THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

TALLAHASSEE – A Republican state senator – and funeral director – is suggesting that a South Florida nursing home may not be to blame for 14 deaths that occurred in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma.

Sen. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, said Wednesday he isn’t convinced that all 14 deaths now associated with The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills stemmed from sweltering heat that filled the nursing home after it lost power following the powerful storm.

“Look at the population. You’re dealing with the 90-someSen. Dennis things. Some of these deaths would natuBaxley rally occur, storm or no storm,” Baxley said Wednesday at the Senate Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee, adding “eventually everyone who was in that nursing home will die. But we don’t need to attribute those all to the storm and bad policy.”

Governor critical KIM GIBSON / FLORIDA COURIER

The Mascots International masquerade (‘mas’) band put on their show during the Band of the Year competition after the annual Carnival parade at the Miami Fairgrounds on Oct. 8. Look for a recap of this year’s Carnival events with pictures in next week’s Florida Courier.

SNAPSHOTS SPORTS | B4

FLORIDA | A3

Taddeo becomes first Hispanic Dem in Senate

ESPN suspends Jemele Hill for two weeks MLB seeking applicants for Diversity Fellowship Program

NATION | A6

Why states took so long to respond to Puerto Rico

ALSO INSIDE

State House panel supports creating slavery memorial COMPILED FROM WIRE REPORTS

TALLAHASSEE – With little discussion, a House panel Wednesday approved a bill that would lead to the creation of a slavery memorial at the Florida Capitol.

The House Oversight, Transparency & Administration Subcommittee approved the measure (HB 67), which Rep. Kionne McGhee, D-Miami, has filed for the 2018 legislative session.

The bill would direct the Department of Management Services to develop a plan for a slavery memorial at the Capitol Complex and to consider recommendations from

the Florida Historical Commission. The department also would oversee the memorial.

“It is the intent of the Legislature to recognize the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the American colonies and to honor the nameless and forgotten men, women, and children who have gone unrecognized for their undeniable and weighty contributions to the United States,” the bill says.

Sen. Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg, has filed a similar measure (SB 286) for the 2018 session, which starts in January.

Baxley became one of the few politicians to take a different stance following the high-profile deaths at the South Florida nursing home. Many leaders, including Gov. Rick Scott, have sharply criticized the nursing home. A criminal investigation is underway.

Baxley made his comments during a meeting where legislators reviewed actions taken by Scott in the wake of the deaths. Eight residents died Sept. 13, three days after the air-conditioning system went out.

Six others died subsequently after being evacuated.

On Sept. 16, Scott’s administration issued emergency rules that require nursing homes and assisted living facilities to have enough emergency power to keep facilities at temperatures at or below 80 degrees for four days.

The proposed emergency rules gave facilities 45 days to submit their plans to the state and 60 days to implement the plans. Nursing homes have estimated that it could cost upward of $350,000 to have generators large enough for a 120-bed nursing home.

Owners fight back Industry groups LeadingAge Florida, the Florida Assisted Living Association and Florida Argentum See DEATHS, Page A2

COMMENTARY: MARGARET KIMBERLEY: WAS THE LAS VEGAS SHOOTING A TRUE CONSPIRACY? | A4 COMMENTARY: CLARENCE V. MCKEE: SHOOTING RENDERS NFL PROTESTERS IRREVELANT | A5

A2

FOCUS

OCTOBER 13 – OCTOBER 19, 2017

Let me tell you who’s keeping hope dead When you have hope, you have a feeling that what you want you will get or what you want to happen will happen.

Back in the day, the Rev. Jesse Jackson talked a lot about hope.

So did other people in the socalled civil rights movement.

Jackson’s go-to phrase was “Keep Hope Alive.” He said it everywhere he went. He said it every time he talked. He said it every time he preached!

Not any more Today, Rev. Jackson, now in his mid-70s, is still doing some things like getting help for hurricane survivors in Puerto Rico and calling for gun control. But I haven’t heard him say his catchphrase in a long time.

From my viewpoint, I don’t see much hope in African-American communities. Trying to find hope is like trying to find Casper the Friendly Ghost or a fourleafed clover in a concrete jungle. It may be there, but it’s very hard to find.

When I look at Black communities I see sadness, despair, depression, melancholy and hopelessness!

Somebody call 911! Hope is

cial systems, or to hope that one day you will be handled like every other man or woman.

But the people that hate you will do all they can to convince you your hope is an impossible dream!

A better life LUCIUS GANTT THE GANTT REPORT

not alive. Hope is practically dead as a doornail. Hope is down and out. Hope is in critical condition in the proverbial intensive care unit and on its last leg, so to speak!

Here’s why Your haters don’t want you to have hope. Haters know if you believe it, you can achieve.

People that hate you hate themselves and are quick to give up on you and give up on life.

Hopeful people are oftentimes avid dreamers. They hope for and dream about better days and better times!

You don’t have to have a lot of money, a big house, a great job or an expensive car to hope you can get those things or dream about getting those things.

You don’t have to have equal rights and justice to hope that one day you’ll be treated fairly by police, law enforcers or judi-

When I was a highly sought-after political campaign consultant I used to say, “Don’t hope for a better day. Vote for a better life!”

Well, every election year, Black people are told if you vote for this candidate or this political party, things will get better for you and your community.

However, it seems that the more we elect candidates and support political parties we are told to love, the worst things get for people with dark skin and neighborhoods across the train tracks.

More and more devilish politicians are falsely accusing us of voter fraud, purging our people from voter rolls, and passing laws to suppress our vote.

We sometimes feel that our votes are worthless and that our hopes for political help to improve us individually and as a group are nothing but pipe dreams!

Changing language Political hope-killers use political words to disguise, not to illuminate their actions. Politicians “civilize, liberate or renew”

a Black community by destroying it. Most political ads seek to confuse so that at election time, people will solemnly vote against their own interests.

The political hope-killers are tricky!

Today, many African-Americans carjack, pimp slap and hijack their own hopes, dreams and ambitions by allowing themselves to get “took” on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other forms of social media.

You feel you don’t have to be hopeful anymore because you have 5,000 “friends” on Facebook! You feel if someone likes your booty picture, your cat picture or your greasy food picture on social media, everybody likes YOU. If you have 5,000 friends on Facebook, I’ll bet you a dollar to a dime that 4,900 of your social media friends are people you don’t even know!

You won’t do it You don’t have time to read a book. You won’t even dream about buying or reading a Black newspaper. and you’ll never support someone in your own community that will stand up and speak out and fight for causes that are important to you because you don’t want to offend your White, your Uncle Tom and your backward Facebook friends!

You get your news from social media, you get your direction

from social media, you get your hopelessness from being tied to and controlled by the lies and misinformation you crave for on social media!

You go to church on Sunday, or to the mosque on Friday, and sing songs like “What a friend we have in Jesus.” But Jesus isn’t your friend and Muhammad isn’t your friend. If they can’t be pulled up on your smartphone at a social media site, that friend is nobody!

Black Americans and all Americans do better when they have faith, hope and charity. But hope is like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X and Marcus Garvey: good but dead!

Believe and support If you’re hoping for a better life and believing in a better time, believe in God and believe in yourself!

Support the people that have always supported you, because the hope killers that you think are your friends might just be enemies that haven’t revealed themselves yet!

Devils in your life are keeping hope dead!

Buy Gantt’s latest book, “Beast Too: Dead Man Writing,” on Amazon.com and from bookstores everywhere.

“Like” The Gantt Report page on Facebook. Contact Lucius at www.allworldconsultants. net.

DEATHS from A1 have challenged the proposed emergency rules in state administrative court. A two-day hearing on the challenge has been scheduled for Thursday and Friday. The court will issue a final order within 14 days of the hearing. The groups also challenged the emergency rules in a state appellate court.

With his emergency rules facing the challenges, Scott on Tuesday directed the Agency for Health Care Administration and the Department of Elder Affairs to also begin the traditional rule-making process.

Nursing-home industry officials have said they support the idea of having backup power for air-conditioning systems but that the 60-day timetable in the emergency rules is unreasonable.

‘Starting point’

PEDRO PORTAL/EL NUEVO HERALD/TNS

Messages were left on the sidewalk of The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills nursing home a day after eight people died at the nursing home in the wake of Hurricane Irma. Six more former residents died after being evacuated, increasing the death toll to 14.

FIRE from A1 containment. Other fires ranging in size from 1,800 to 21,000 acres burned throughout the area and in surrounding counties.

Many people missing Large areas were destroyed in the multiple fires, including one that destroyed much of northeast Santa Rosa, a city of 175,000 people. There, the Tubbs fire incinerated hotels, a high school, a mobile home park and vast neighborhoods, the worst one-day wildfire destruction in California since 1991.

Sonoma County has received about 300 reports of missing persons, and has confirmed that 110 of those people are safe, said Sonoma County Sheriff’s Deputy Brandon Jones.

On Wednesday, the Lake County Sheriff’s Department issued an advisory evacuation order for residents of Middletown – which was heavily damaged in a fire just two years ago and rebuilt – as the Tubbs fire approached from the south.

How weather contributes A cascade of extreme weather events fed Northern California’s wildfires that exploded on Oct. 8. Unusually high winds

blew flames through unusually dense and dry vegetation, which sprung up following last winter’s heavy rains and then were toasted by months of record hot temperatures.

“The dice was really loaded because of the big wet winter,” said Park Williams, a California native and a research scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University.

“That set up the West with a lot of fuel to burn, and this summer has been exceptional in terms of dryness.”

Scientists such as Williams say California is especially prone to wildfires, in part because of the state’s dense population, which makes it easy for sparks to be ignited and turn into raging fire storms.

But this week’s blazes also show the fingerprints of climate change, he said, a harbinger of what the West should expect in the years to come.

“The fingerprint is definitely there,” said Williams, who last year contributed to a study on climate change’s impact on western wildfires. “The connection between temperatures and fire is one we see again and again in the correlation analyses we do.”

‘Devil winds’ Meteorologists term the winds that struck Northern California as “Diablo winds,” similar to the Santa Ana’s that contribute to large wildfires in Southern Cali-

fornia nearly every fall.

In both situations, inland high pressure combined with offshore low pressure draws dry winds in from the northeast. As these winds race down the slopes of the Sierra Nevada, they compress and become warmer and stronger.

Firefighters hoped to take advantage of the lull in the winds to attack hot spots and put out as many embers as possible before they can be revived and blown into areas that haven’t burned yet, they said.

Taken by surprise California’s fire chief said he and other firefighters were stunned by the fury and speed of the blazes that erupted.

“We’ve raised the bar again in California just in terms of the conditions that we’re facing and the destruction and devastation,” Cal Fire Chief Ken Pimlott said Monday.

The surface dew points, a reading of moisture in the air, were in the mid-teens, lower than values in Las Vegas and Phoenix, according to Jon Erdman, a senior meteorologist with Weather.com.

It is unclear how the multiple blazes started, but even small sparks from a car or campfire could have ignited the fires, given the winds, said Williams.

Fire jumps Once ignited, the fires jumped

“We believe that the governor’s rule can serve as a starting point for the discussions, but you can’t just back up a generator to a nursing home and plug it in,” Bob Asztalos, a lobbyist for the Florida Health Care Association, told the Senate panel Wednesday. “It just doesn’t work that way.”

Hurricane Irma knocked out a transformer at the Hollywood-based nursing home. The building was evacuated Sept. 13, and the state has filed a moratorium to prevent new admissions. It also has suspended the facility’s license and moved to eliminate the nursing home from the Medicaid program.

The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills is challenging those actions in a lawsuit pending in Leon County circuit court.

from one patch of vegetation to another, much of it bone-dry because of this summer’s record temperatures. On Sept. 1, Santa Rosa recorded its hottest day of the year, 110 degrees. That surpassed the city’s previous Sept. 1 record of 105 degrees, set in 1950.

The combination of a wet winter followed by extreme heat and dryness has caused record wildfires in many Western states, including Montana, where more than 1 million acres burned. The federal government estimates it spent more than $2 billion fighting wildfires nationwide this year.

In terms of U.S. acreage burned, nine of the 10 worst fire seasons in the past 50 years have occurred since 2000, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Foresters attribute part of that increase to past fire suppression policies, which have resulted in forest unnaturally thick with underbrush. But rising temperatures are also a factor.

Miles of destruction Last year, Williams contributed to a study that found that human-induced climate change had doubled the area affected

by Western forest fires the last 30 years. The study, which appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded that higher temperatures and increased aridity caused an extra 16,000 square miles to burn beyond what would otherwise would have caught fire.

The study, led by John Abatzoglou of the University of Idaho, warned that Western wildfires could increase exponentially in size with future expected warming.

Williams, who grew up in Folsom, Calif., cautioned that the 2016 study focused on wildfires in Western forests, as opposed to those that erupt in grasslands and the “urban wildland interface,” such as the outskirts of Santa Rosa.

Introducing ‘chaos’ He also said that California is particularly unique in that its large population allows wildfires to ignite more frequently than they would otherwise.

“Humans introduce a lot of chaos into otherwise natural fire events,” he said.

Yet even in California, said Williams, climate change is compounding the risks of wildfires by extending the length of the fire season and adding to the intensity of droughts and heat waves.

“I’m highly confident that the combination of dry fuel, extreme heat and climate change is a recipe for what we are seeing,” he said.

Phil Willon, Paige St. John, Louis Sahagun, Cindy Carcamo and Sonali Kohli of the Los Angeles Times and Stuart Leavenworth of the McClatchy Washington Bureau (TNS) contributed to this report.

OCTOBER 13 – OCTOBER 19, 2017

FLORIDA

Taddeo becomes first Hispanic Dem in Senate

BY JIM SAUNDERS THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

TALLAHASSEE – Two weeks after pulling off a major victory in a special

election, Annette Taddeo was sworn in Tuesday as the first Hispanic Democratic woman to serve in the Florida Senate.

Florida Supreme Court

Justice Peggy Quince administered the oath of office to Taddeo, who was joined by her 11-year-old daughter, Sofia; husband, Eric Goldstein; and mother,

Elizabeth Taddeo. Annette Taddeo defeated former Republican House member Jose Felix Diaz during a Sept. 26 special election in Miami-Dade County’s Sen-

ate District 40.

“I’m looking forward to serving with each and every one of you,” Taddeo told senators gathered in the Senate chamber for the ceremony. “It’s been a long journey to get here, to say the least. But I am very familiar with long journeys.”

A3 ‘Historic day’ The ceremony was held just minutes after the state Elections Canvassing Commission certified the results of the special election, along with Republican Daniel Perez’s victory Sept.

26 in a special election in Miami-Dade’s House District 116.

The Colombia-born Taddeo replaces former Sen. Frank Artiles, a Miami Republican who resigned in April after a crude, racially tinged tirade at a private club near the Capitol. Diaz resigned from the House District 116 seat to run for Senate, setting off a ripple that led to Perez’s election.

While the Senate has had Hispanic Republican women – and Hispanic Republican and Democratic men – lawmakers said Taddeo is the first Hispanic Democratic woman to serve in the chamber.

Boost for Dems Taddeo’s victory also was a major boost politically for Democrats, who have been in the Senate minority for more than two decades.

The GOP still holds a 24-16 advantage in the chamber, but Taddeo defeated the well-known, better-funded Diaz in a swing district.

Taddeo, a former chairwoman of the MiamiDade County Democratic Party, was U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist’s running mate in Annette Crist’s unTaddeo successful gubernatorial campaign in 2014. She also unsuccessfully ran for a South Florida congressional seat in 2016.

But she handily defeated Diaz by a margin of 51 percent to 47.2 percent, with a no-party candidate receiving the rest of the vote.

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Nursing home tragedy claims lives of couple married 61 years

BY DAVID J. NEAL MIAMI HERALD/TNS

MIAMI — Cecilia Franco, 90, died at 3:45 a.m. Monday, becoming the 14th Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills resident to die from ailments suffered when the nursing home turned into a hotbox following Hurricane Irma.

Franco lived only 26 days after her husband of 61 years, Miguel Antonio Franco, who was among the eight Sept. 13 deaths at the overheated Hollywood Hills facility across a parking lot from Hollywood Memorial Regional Hospital.

Cecilia Franco, one of the residents evacuated hours after residents began dying, was described by family lawyers as being in serious condition. She died at St. Catherine’s Rehab Hospital in Hialeah.

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“The Franco and Navarro families are now mourning the passing of their mother and grandmother Cecilia Franco, this on the heels of losing her husband of 62 years, their father and grandfather Miguel Franco, both of whom perished in a horrific avoidable tragedy which should never have occurred,” read a statement from Albert Levin, attorney for daughter Margarita Navarro. “Their pain cuts deeply having lost not one but two loved ones.”

Navarro filed a wrongful death and negligence suit against Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills Sept.

22.

Three days after Hurricane Irma knocked out power – including air conditioning — residents began dying in the facility.

The nursing home and rehabilitation center is now just a homicide investigation crime scene after the state revoked the facility’s license on Sept. 20 and the facility laid off all 245 workers the same day.

EDITORIAL

A4

OCTOBER 13 – OCTOBER 19, 2017

Was the Las Vegas shooting a true conspiracy?

American history has many examples of governmental and corporate plots that deceive, kill, create wars, and ruin lives.

United States covert operations destroyed movements domestically and overthrew governments overseas. No one has to prove the existence of highlevel conspiracies that furthered the interests of the state and or its corporate partners.

But these facts do not mean that every shocking and inexplicable occurrence is a plot concocted by powerful forces. The recent killing of 59 people by a Las Vegas gunman is the latest event to draw speculation for all the wrong reasons.

Nothing more or less The official explanation – that a man brought guns into hotel rooms, broke windows with a hammer, and then proceeded to shoot more than 300 people – is entirely plausible. Yet there is an impulse to pursue questionable reasoning and prove that the official story is a lie meant to cover up a nefarious purpose.

Seizing upon incidents such as this to prove larger conspiracies is a waste of time. This bad habit actually gives the rulers a greater ability to do wrong.

Instead of focusing on very clear and obvious efforts to deprive us of our human rights and our very lives, otherwise intelligent people spend precious time debating how someone gets luggage into a hotel room.

Another distraction The search for cover-ups is understandable because so much official subterfuge abounds. But the eagerness to question any and everything is misguided and disempowering. While amateurs

MARGARET KIMBERLEY BLACK AGENDA REPORT

suddenly consider themselves experts on ballistics the system grinds on, committing acts of evil under our very noses.

The media work hand-inhand with the imperialist duopoly to spread tall tales about election interference from Russia. These falsehoods are worthy of greater examination. They are very dangerous because they further the cause of the neoconservative, imperialist duopoly and make the case for war.

We are told to believe that Russia used social media to sow discontent. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus – a useless relic full of Democratic Party hacks – respond with a chorus of approval. While websites are being “disappeared” under spurious claims of fighting fake news, the people most impacted by governmental wrongdoing give full support.

Always more lies There is always a conspiracy afoot to start wars. There is always a lie used as a pretext – Iraq has weapons of mass destruction (WMD); Libya plans to massacre its people; North Korea is planning to kill us all; Syria is killing democracy and using WMD to do it. The targets keep changing, but the game is the same: a never-ending conspiracy meant to get buy-in for American aggressions.

While there is endless questioning about whether someone could fire multiple rounds

The treachery of ‘grateful Negroes’ While flipping through my television, I heard a host on the comedy show, Fox and Friends, denouncing an NFL player who sat down during the playing of the National Anthem. Their guest on that subject was Burgess Owens, a former player with the Oakland Raiders.

Owens, looking every inch like a Black wannabe, proceeded to vigorously attack the protesting player and any other Black person who is insufficiently grateful for the “opportunities” that have been provided us by Whites in general and the country in particular.

Bloodshed and death There are few people I find more despicable than those Ne-

A. PETER BAILEY TRICE EDNEY NEWS WIRE

groes who talk about the United States having given us anything, including opportunities. Every single gain we have made in this country resulted from some Black folks being murdered to make it happen.

Those warriors include Nat Turner, Gabriel Prosser and Denmark Vesey, who were murdered for leading uprisings against enslavement by White supremacists/racists; James Chaney, Samuel Younge, Jr., Ver-

Is Hollywood more righteous than the ‘Bible Belt?’

When Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein was outed as a sexual predator last week, righteous indignation compelled Hollywood actors to rebuke him. By contrast, when Donald Trump was outed as a sexual predator last year, political opportunism compelled evangelical Christians to embrace him.

But this oxymoronic state of moral consciousness is hardly surprising. Here is a little of what I wrote in “Evangelicals Supporting Donald Trump Like Israelites Worshiping Golden Calf ” in January 2016:

ANTHONY L. HALL, ESQ. FLORIDA COURIER COLUMNIST

I know Evangelicals. As the son of an evangelical preacher, I grew up amongst them. So trust me when I say that, for any sober Evangelical, Trump is the very personification of Mammon.

This, after all, is a man who takes diabolical pride in boasting that he never asks God for

There is always a conspiracy afoot to start wars. There is always a lie used as a pretext – Iraq has weapons of mass destruction (WMD); Libya plans to massacre its people; North Korea is planning to kill us all; Syria is killing democracy and using WMD to do it. The targets keep changing, but the game is the same: a never-ending conspiracy meant to get buy-in for American aggressions. of ammunition from a 32nd story window, no one is asking how Congress and the New York Times have concluded that photos of puppies in a Facebook ad are part of a plot to attack the United States.

Election interference is a non Dahmer, the Rev. George Lee, Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, Virgil Lamar Ware, Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King, Jr. All of whom were murdered

by White supremacist/racist opponents of equal rights, equal justice and equal opportunity.

And Brother Malcolm was murdered by Black collaborators with racists Whites.

No gratitude Also murdered by the same forces were Whites such as John Brown, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, Viola Liuzzo, the Rev. James Reeb and Paul Guihard. Most of their murderers were never punished by the states or the country. Thus, the states and the country deserve no gratitude from us.

Thousands of other warriors such as Fannie Lou Hamer and the children who marched in

forgiveness because he’s without sin, he’s rich, and he’s like a god himself. He even boasts that “The Art of the Deal,” his book about the virtues of greed and the salvation of wealth, rivals the Bible.

Not to mention that he made most of his money building gambling casinos. Because gambling is as great a sin for most Evangelicals as usury is for most Islamists.

But Trump is probably best known for building a gilded tower in New York City as a monument to himself. And, given his delusions of grandeur, one could well imagine him challenging Jesus by channeling the Devil from atop that tower as follows: “Finally, the Devil took Jesus to a very high mountain. He showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. ‘If You bow down and worship me,’ he said, ‘I will give You all of this.’

VISUAL VIEWPOINT: BETHUNE STATUE IN D.C.

BILL DAY, CAGLE CARTOONS

purely American affair. The Republicans have stolen local elections, the presidency itself in 2000, and may have done so again in 2016. No puppies were used in the process.

A federal judge ruled that Green Party candidate Jill Stein did not have legal standing to demand a vote count in Michigan. But the person who did, Hillary Clinton, refused to do so.

The duopoly rolls along, playing at phony differences. One political party habitually refuses to speak up for itself and its voters; suspicious behavior indeed.

The ‘Big Lie’ The most effective lies are the biggest, the ones created by influential people who insist on having their way in the world.

They want to keep us distracted and frightened. They want to intimidate other nations, or take their resources, or keep their own people incarcerated.

So they tell us to be afraid of crime or WMD or North KoreBirmingham were brutalized by White supremacists/racists.

Owens and too many others who think like him bring to mind quotes from George Schuyler and Carter G. Woodson.

As Schuyler, a journalist noted in his book, “Black and Conservation,” “…a Black person learns very early that his color is a disadvantage in a world of White folks. This being an unalterable circumstance, one also learns very early to make the best of it.

So the lifetime endeavor of the intelligent Negro is how to be reasonably happy though colored.”

Mind control Dr. Woodson, the founder of what is now known as Black History Month, also had people like Owens in mind when he wrote in his book, “The Miseducation of the Negro,” that “In like manner, the teaching of history in the Negro area had its po-

(Matthew 4:8)” Of course, Jesus rebuked and then admonished the Devil to humble himself before God. You’d think Evangelicals would do what Jesus did, especially given that Trump challenges their Christian faith almost every day. Instead of rebuking and admonishing him, however, they invariably hail him as if he were, well, the second coming of Jesus Christ…

Again, it would be one thing if Trump troubled himself to show a little regard for their purported Christian values. But meanspirited, bullying, even profane language is the feature attraction of his campaign rhetoric, which makes a mockery of those values…

Evangelicals are sacrificing their Christian faith at the altar of Trump’s political ambition.

Moreover, they have ceded their moral authority to speak truth

Charles W. Cherry II, Esq., Publisher

Opinions expressed on this editorial page are those of the writers, and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of the newspaper or the publisher.

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an rockets. We are whipped into a frenzy of fear about Vladimir Putin, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, Bashar al-Assad, Kim Jong Un or some other villain du jour.

We are most likely to be correct if we assume that these assertions from the corporate media and politicians are themselves meant to create dissension. A distracted and hypnotized public won’t ask questions, make demands, or build movements.

If Stephen Paddock was part of a conspiracy in Las Vegas, it might have worked in this way: create a crime that would make millions of people ask questions, but not about the right things.

Now that would be a conspiracy worth discussing.

Margaret Kimberley’s column appears weekly in BlackAgendaReport.com. Contact her at Margaret.Kimberley@ BlackAgendaReport.com. litical significance. Starting out after the Civil War, the opponents of freedom and social justice decided to work out a program which would enslave the Negroes’ mind...If you can control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his actions.

When you determine what a man shall think, you do not have to concern yourself about what he will do...”

The program to enslave the minds of Black folks, as cited

by Dr. Woodson, has been very successful with people like Owens. And he and others with his beliefs are perfect examples of those Negroes who are grateful to Whites and the country for making it possible for them to be “reasonably happy, though colored.”

A. Peter Bailey’s latest book is “Witnessing Brother Malcolm X, the Master Teacher.”

Contact him at apeterb@verizon.net.

to power and champion family values until kingdom come…

I am constrained to ask: What will it profit an Evangelical if he gains Trump as president, but loses his own soul?

Hypocrites, too Meanwhile, these Trumpsupporting Evangelicals are compounding their apostasy with hypocrisy. For only this explains them leading the chorus of those damning Weinstein’s liberal friends (in Hollywood and Washington) for not rebuking him fast enough.

I fear a “jealous” God, so prone to “wrath,” cannot have mercy on their souls.

Anthony L. Hall is a native of The Bahamas with an international law practice in Washington, D.C. Read his columns and daily weblog at www.theipinionsjournal.com

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OCTOBER 13 – OCTOBER 19, 2017

White rights, neoliberal isolation and incompetence in Las Vegas Gun rights in the U.S. are mainly White rights. It’s always been that way, sort of baked into the North American experience.

The “well regulated militia” to which the Second Amendment to the federal Constitution refers were a creation of colonial North America, as I explained back in July 2008:

Guns as compensation Colonial America and the early U.S. was a very unequal place.

All the good, cleared, level agricultural land with easy access to transport was owned by a very few, very wealthy White men.

Many poor Whites were brought over as indentured servants, but once they’d completed their periods of forced labor, allowing them to hang around the towns and cities landless and unemployed was dangerous to the social order. So they were given guns and credit, and sent inland to make their own fortunes by encroaching upon the orchards, farms and hunting grounds of Native Americans, who had little or no access to firearms.

The law, of course did not penalize White men who robbed, raped or killed Indians. At regular intervals, colonial governors and local U.S. officials would muster the free armed White men as militia, and dispatch them in murderous punitive raids to make the frontier safer for settlers and land speculators.

Slavery remained legal in New England, New York and the midAtlantic region till well into the 1800s, and the movements of free Blacks and Indians were severely restricted for decades afterward.

So colonial and early American militia also prowled the roads and highways demanding the passes of all non-Whites, to ensure the enslaved were not escaping or aiding those who were, and that free Blacks were not plotting rebellion or traveling for unapproved reasons

BRUCE A. DIXON BLACK AGENDA REPORT

Historically then, the principal activities of the Founding Fathers’ “well regulated militia” were Indian killing, land stealing, slave patrolling and the enforcement of domestic apartheid, all of these, as the Constitutional language declares “being necessary to the security of a free state.” A free state whose fundamental building blocks were the genocide of Native Americans, and the enslavement of Africans.

White protection That, my friends, is why the United States of America in 1791 needed a Second Amendment. It was about deputizing every available White man for what the Constitution called “the security of a free state.” Those were the original intentions of the nation’s founding fathers, baked into its body politic at birth.

With slavery gone and the genocide of Native Americans accomplished 80 or 90 years later, what we know as “gun culture” – along with a substantial arms industry – existed, serving a civilian mass market. They needed to find new reasons to exist. They did exactly that.

Advertisers and marketers have been hard at work the last 12 or 15 decades creating and expanding the market for civilian arms.

They’ve been so successful that the National Rifle Association and allied organizations now get tens of millions each year from small donors, to match other tens or hundreds of millions in corporate and big donor largesse. Today’s corporate-sponsored NRA makes no bones about appealing to fearful White supremacy. It’s

As I watched the heroic efforts of Las Vegas law enforcement rushing to stop the carnage from the gunman who turned Las Vegas into a killing field, I could not help but think of the relative smallness and irrelevance of National Football League players who continue to disrespect our flag and national anthem.

They raise their fists and kneel in support of a man who equated those and all cops to pigs. As one witness to the mass shooting told NBC News, “…God bless the police officers…in a world where everyone’s kneeling, these guys stood up…”

Someone praising the police.

That’s the last thing the major media want their viewers to hear.

That eyewitness hit the nail on the head.

going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color.”

His protest is definitely about not showing pride in the flag.

As to the U.S. being a country that “oppresses Black people and people of color,” if that were the case, this biracial athlete would not have been adopted and raised by a White family and siblings.

An oppressive America, like the former apartheid South Africa, would not have allowed it.

No pride

Real oppression

Regardless of how these athletes and their defenders try to clean up the truth surrounding Colin Kaepernick’s intent and attitude about police and country, they are either disingenuous or ignorant of the words of the man who originated the fad: “I am not

For Kaepernick’s benefit and that of many copycat protesting athletes, South Africa is at the southernmost tip on the continent of Africa. From 1948-1991, it had a system of real oppression known as “apartheid” – institutional racial segregation, discrim-

CLARENCE V. MCKEE, ESQ. GUEST COMMENTARY

Las Vegas killings through another lens, Part 2

Celebrating destruction They specialize in Shock Doctrine to exploit disasters at home, inflict Shock and Awe to facilitate aggressions abroad, and celebrate the destruction of whole

A5

VISUAL VIEWPOINT: THE NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION

great for business.

Las Vegas shooting renders NFL protesters irrelevant

The near-absolute cultural hegemony of the rich, through their control of the means of communication and education, allows the self-worshipping Lords of Capital to turn human language – which evolved to explicate phenomena and ideas – into its maddening opposite.

The rulers describe the vast dislocations and suffering of deindustrialization and financial meltdown as “creative destruction” – destructive of the livelihoods of those without capital, but engines of opportunity-creation for the big capitalists left standing.

EDITORIAL

GLEN FORD BLACK AGENDA REPORT

economies and nations. They gloat over new opportunities for investments and profits before the blood has dried.

Thus, after more than a hundred thousand Blacks were permanently evicted from New Orleans following Katrina, a Democratic cabinet member could see a silver lining in the disaster, based on the imposition of charter schools – classic Shock Doctrine, resulting in near-instantaneous gentrification and school privatization.

The ongoing torture of Black Detroit, initiated by a Republican

Black gun control The Kerner Commission, convened to address causes and cures for the series of Black urban insurrections of the late 1960s, recommended tough urban gun control laws. These were adopted in many Northern cities with large Black populations like Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. No cops or lawmakers though, would ever seriously imagine disarming White Americans. It’s pretty much unthinkable. But when two Chicago cops were shot from a Cabrini Green high-rise project in 1970, I recall seeing police seal off a quarter square mile and search more than 1,000 apartments without warrants, seizing every gun and some other goods they could find.

Reported gun ownership among Blacks is less than half that among Whites, 19 percent compared to 42 percent. The Pew Research Center breaks the U.S. into four regions with gun ownership lowest in the Northeast at 27 percent, 34 percent in the West, 35 percent in the Midwest and 38 percent in the South. About half of all AfricanAmericans live in the South, so the reported gun ownership for Southern Whites is highest of all, around 50 percent.

Two factors Two obvious factors might impact the lower rate of reported gun ownership among AfricanAmericans.

The first is that firearms and ammo are expensive and seldom-used items, luxuries less likely to be owned by people with lower incomes, and Blacks generally do have lower incomes.

The second is that after 40 years of vicious racially selective policing and mass incarceration, far higher proportions of Black

ination, and state sanctioned violence against those categorized as “Black,” “Colored,” or “Asian.”

As to those who say the antianthem protest is a matter of freedom of speech, would they say the same if White players carried a Confederate flag as they ran onto the field to protest the removal of monuments to Confederate generals?

Would Black and White members of Congress kneel in support of those players’ rights to express their views? I doubt it!

Sadly, politically correct, leftwing, progressive group-think philosophies have infiltrated the NFL, allowing a few disgruntled athletes to give the finger to the vast majority of Americans from whom they derive their wealth.

Disrespect abroad If failing to respect the flag and the anthem at home weren’t enough, some NFL owners and teams have allowed a few disgruntled players to export America’s political correctness and divisiveness to the international stage.

Two weeks ago, several members of the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens and Jacksonville Jaguars took a knee during the national anthem before a football game in London. All of the kneeling players rose for the British national governor but facilitated by Barack Obama’s administration, does not violate the social compact as perceived by most White Americans; clearly, such a compact hardly exists.

And President Trump’s callous attitude towards his fellow citizens in Puerto Rico is totally expected; he and his constituency – and plenty of White Democrats – do not view the island and its people as part of their “America.”

The carnage in Las Vegas is, however, yet another example of the uniquely American – and characteristically White – propensity to engage in mass domestic murder: crowd killing. It is the ultimate anti-social crime, most often committed by White Americans against their “own” people.

It is true that mental illness is a given in such cases, but mentally disturbed people live in all countries. Yet no nation comes close to the U.S. in crowd killing. I submit that such mass slaughter is dramatic evidence of the extreme weakness of the social compact, even among White people in the United States.

STEVE SACK, THE MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE

promoters in Las Vegas packed 21,000 paying customers into a stadium overlooked by multiple high-rise buildings. Helicopter drones with remote cameras are dirt cheap, starting around $300 retail. A couple drones in the air monitoring the sight lines between those vantage points and the stadium might well have spotted the shooter breaking out multiple windows in his 32rd floor hotel suite before the first shot was fired. That’s a mistake that cops and insurance companies likely will not make again.

But neoliberal capitalist America isn’t built on solidarity.

America won’t stop, can’t stop producing dislocated, disaffected, disconnected people whose manhood, whose personhood is Disconnected tied not to their class status but from people to fantasies of rugged individuThe Vegas killer was a high- alism and to the gun. And we’re stakes gambler and real estate in- a long, long way from disarming vestor with relatively few social White Americans. and family connections. As Glen Bruce Dixon is managing Ford points out this week, neoliberal capitalist America produc- editor of BlackAgendaReport. es more than its share of dislocat- com. Contact him at bruce. ed, disaffected and disconnected di xon@blackagendareport. people. Some of them are armed, com. Click on this commentary at www.flcourier.com to write and not just with privilege.

Hindsight is 20/20. Concert your own response. families include one or more person convicted of a felony. In most states convicted felons are banned from owning guns for life unless they file special paperwork which must be accepted by state authorities.

It makes sense that fewer Black households would have guns, and that fewer of those that do would report it to pollsters. Again in practice, gun ownership is a White right.

The U.S. leads the planet in civilian and domestic gun violence, and gun suicides, and of course it’s the place where the phenomenon of the nonpolitical mass shooter first emerged, the place where this kind of thing still happens most often.

anthem.

This past Sunday, in the same London stadium, three members of the Miami Dolphins kneeled during the American national anthem but stood for the British anthem.

Miami Herald sports writer Armando Silguero had it right when he said that “having the right to protest doesn’t mean it’s always the wise thing to do. And doing it on foreign soil raises questions about the moral clarity of the protesters.”

‘A few truths’ Prior to Sunday’s game, he had a message for players who might kneel for the American anthem but have no problem rising for the British anthem. He asked them to “consider a few truths” including, “The country whose anthem you are thinking of disrespecting has had a Black president.

The country whose anthem you intend to honor has never had a Black king or queen or prime minister.”

He went on to say that disrespecting “your national anthem abroad and in the next moment honoring another country’s national anthem is an outright betrayal you may never be able to overcome.” Well-said. So true.

Those Black players who claimed to protest racial injustice

in this country by kneeling for our anthem and standing for the British flag anthem, apparently don’t know much about history.

First, it is estimated that between 1640 and 1807, Britain transported 3.1 million Africans to the British colonies in the Caribbean, North and South America, and to other countries during the British slave trade.

Don’t appreciate history Second, they probably don’t know that it was the oppressive rule of the British under King George III that prompted the founders of this country to break away from England in search of the liberty, freedom, and justice the flag they dishonor represents.

They also don’t realize that the real goal of many of those on the left encouraging them is to have the flag and national anthem removed from public events like prayer has been removed from schools.

Clarence V. McKee is a government, political and media relations consultant and president of McKee Communications, Inc., as well as a Newsmax.com contributor. This article originally appeared on Newsmax. com. Click on this commentary at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.

No human bonds

Unintended victims

Majorities of White Americans are deeply racist – as can be shown by various measures – but that does not mean they share an intense bond with other Whites.

In a society that has historically denied the humanity of people of color, killing and enslaving them, and which has waged modern wars of annihilation against nonWhites around the world, solidarity with other human beings does not come naturally.

In a country where cutthroat capitalism is the national ethos, social compacts wither, or are stillborn. Such is the collateral damage that White America has suffered from its failure to fight White supremacy in its ranks; it has poisoned its own soul, creating monsters that turn on their “own.” (Of course, when the social compact is totally lacking, nobody is one of your “own.”)

White Americans also suffer much higher levels of incarceration than Whites in other developed nations. That, too, is collateral damage.

Mass Black incarceration was politically popular among White constituencies all across the nation. A police and penal state was created to imprison as many Black people as possible, but such an infernal machinery cannot help but ensnare millions of unintended White victims as well.

Lack of solidarity with Blacks and Browns created a prison trap for Whites. The extreme weakness of the White social compact with darker U.S. populations has spawned a cancer of non-solidarity among Whites, who have been encouraged to own arsenals to defend themselves against the “Other.”

But when the social compact is weak, everybody is the “Other”– and, therefore, a target.

Glen Ford is executive editor of BlackAgendaReport.com. Email him at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com. Click on this commentary at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.

TOJ A6

NATION

OCTOBER 13 – OCTOBER 19, 2017 Emergency Management Association.

Texas made 90 such requests in the corresponding period around Harvey.

Puerto Rico has made 49 requests so far, two weeks after the storm hit the island.

“We cannot deploy personnel, equipment or other aid without a formal request from the impacted state,” Jeff Caldwell, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Emergency Management, said in an email. “We respect the EMAC process and will not selfdeploy.”

Still waiting New Jersey deployed when the exact expertise and resources were identified and requested through EMAC and FEMA, said Brian Murray, press secretary to Governor Chris Christie.

The island has yet to formally request help from Florida, according to Alberto Moscoso, a spokesman for the Florida Division of Emergency Management.

On Oct. 1, Gov. Bruce Rauner of Illinois sent Rossello a letter urging him to ask for more help.

“We are all deeply concerned about your safety and welfare,” Rauner wrote. “Nearly 550 Illinois National Guardsmen are on alert for deployment if you determine they are needed and request our help through EMAC.” PEDRO PORTAL/EL NUEVO HERALD/TNS

Residents line up on Oct. 4 to collect water from a tanker parked next to the road in Naranjito with supplies for the residents as part of the relief efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria’s devastation of Puerto Rico.

Why states took so long to dispatch aid to Puerto Rico

other 45 members two days later.

The day after Irma hit Florida, Pennsylvania sent 23 people to help with storm cleanup. But it wasn’t until a week after Maria that Pennsylvania sent help to Puerto Rico through the compact.

Puerto Rico was slow to ask for or accept assistance, officials say

Quick response

BY CHRISTOPHER FLAVELLE AND JONATHAN LEVIN BLOOMBERG NEWS/TNS

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Within a week of Hurricane Harvey slamming into the Texas coast, Virginia had dispatched a 14-person urban search-andrescue team, a 17-person team to save people trapped by flood waters, and a National Guard team with 40 soldiers and seven helicopters.

But in the two weeks since Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, Virginia had sent just a single person though an interstate compact for managing disaster response. His job: helping the island coordinate its requests for aid to other states.

Critics have focused on the pace of federal aid reaching Puerto Rico. But states — a significant source of disaster assistance — also took far longer to dispatch equipment and personnel to the island after Maria than

to Texas or Florida after Harvey and Irma, prolonging the suffering of Puerto Rico’s residents and delaying its recovery.

Reimbursement issue State officials say Puerto Rico was slow to ask for or accept assistance — a charge the commonwealth governor disputes, saying Maria proved more powerful than expected and that he acted appropriately.

There were also worries how the bankrupt island would reimburse the states as required by the compact. Assistance began moving after the federal government agreed — six days after the storm — to foot the bill for the recovery.

“There were some concerns” about Puerto Rico’s ability to repay the states, said Mike Sprayberry, president of the National Emergency Management Association, a group of state disasterresponse coordinators. It runs the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, which coordinates most state-to-state assistance.

Sept. 21 request Puerto Rico was slower than

Texas or Florida to make its first formal request to EMAC for help from other states.

Texas first requested help on the day that Harvey smashed into the coast northeast of Corpus Christi and days before it began flooding the streets of Houston.

Florida was even faster, making its first request six days before Irma made landfall.

Puerto Rico officials didn’t make their first formal request for interstate assistance until Sept. 21, the day after Maria struck, knocking out the island’s power grid flooding cities and destroying homes and crops.

State comparison Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello defended the timing of the request, saying it took time to appreciate the extent of the devastation.

Once that was clear, Rossello said in an interview, his office “asked for EMAC, and asked for them quickly.”

Like Virginia, Pennsylvania was quick to announce assistance for Texas and Florida. On the day that Harvey struck Texas, the state sent two members of a search-and-rescue team, and an-

New Jersey sent a search-andrescue team to Texas two days after Harvey made landfall through an appeal outside of the EMAC system.

Two days before Irma struck the Florida Keys, New Jersey sent 134 National Guard soldiers to the state. Yet it took New Jersey nine days after Maria before it sent personnel to Puerto Rico through EMAC. Massachusetts announced assistance for Florida through the interstate compact on the same day that Irma hit, dispatching emergency and environmental staff, as well as a nine-person nursing team.

By comparison, it took nine days before the state announced its first assistance for Puerto Rico through that compact.

When asked about the discrepancy, each state had the same response: They can’t send what Puerto Rico hasn’t asked for.

Won’t self-deploy During the week before Irma made landfall and the two weeks afterward, Florida made 115 specific requests for EMAC assistance, according to the National

Uneasiness about Trump’s middle-class tax plan Republican lawmakers concerned about keeping president’s promise of relief

BY SAHIL KAPUR BLOOMBERG NEWS/TNS

WASHINGTON — Republican lawmakers in red and blue states are expressing unease over the limited details about middleclass relief in the tax framework their leaders released last month, which has raised difficult questions about how to prevent some middle-income Americans from paying more due to fewer tax breaks.

As one example, the lack of specifics on how much to raise the child tax credit by has led to “frustration” among GOP lawmakers, said Rep. Chris Collins, a New York Republican and ally of President Donald Trump.

The early concern previews the political arguments that will surround tax legislation as Congress focuses in on it.

Defending plan Collins said more specifics about GOP plans to increase the child tax credit would make the benefit for middle-income fami-

Trump has repeated similar lines — that the middle class will be the plan’s main beneficiaries.

But the rhetoric so far doesn’t match up with the few details released on Sept. 27 — and some recent analyses by Washington policy groups have used specifics from earlier GOP tax proposals in combination with the latest framework to find that some middle-income taxpayers might pay more.

“Of course I want to see more about the middle-class tax relief,” said Senator John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican. “How you fill in the details is going to be left up to Congress. Congress may not even follow the outline.”

One state was quick to move.

New York State responded to Puerto Rico’s first request on the day it was made.

The next day, Gov. Andrew Cuomo flew to Puerto Rico with more than 34,000 bottles of water, 9,600 ready-to-eat meals, 3,000 canned goods, 500 flashlights, 1,400 cots and 10 generators, as well as New York Power Authority engineers, translators and drone pilots.

“New York has the largest population of Puerto Ricans outside of Puerto Rico,” Cuomo told CNN. “So it’s very personal here in New York.”

The slow pace of state aid may also reflect something else: Puerto Rico’s fiscal straits, and its ability to pay states back for their help.

Already in debt Under the rules that govern EMAC, the state or territory that receives help is required to pay for that assistance, then seek reimbursement from FEMA for a portion of those costs. In general, FEMA covers just 75 percent of assistance when a disaster is declared.

But Puerto Rico is carrying $74 billion in debt, and declared bankruptcy in May. That may have been a factor for some states deciding whether to send assistance, according to Sprayberry, the head of the emergency managers association.

Sprayberry is also the emergency director for North Carolina. He said financial considerations didn’t affect his state’s decisions. “Our belief was that in the end, it would be worked out.”

the elimination of personal exemptions for dependents.

A study by the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center found that most middle-income families would enjoy after-tax gains under the GOP framework, but that taxes would go up for almost 30 percent of people making $50,000 to $150,000.

House tax-writing Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady blasted that study as “a work of fiction that Stephen King would’ve been proud of.”

Trump’s chief economist Kevin Hassett said it used “imagined numbers” to fill in the blanks.

The study said it used brackets outlined in the House GOP tax blueprint released in 2016.

lies clearer.

Instead, Republican lawmakers are fending off attacks that some middle-income families would be hurt because the plan calls for eliminating dependent exemptions and the state and local tax deduction.

“We are committed, the Republicans are committed — middleincome earners and even upper middle-income earners are not going to pay more in taxes, whether you live in Alabama, or whether you live in New York or New Jersey,” Collins said during a Bloomberg TV interview on Oct. 6.

Few details

A New York minute

Dems anxious RON SACHS/CNP/SIPA USA/TNS

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan makes closing remarks as U.S. Senate and House Republicans announce the new tax reform plan endorsed by President Donald Trump on Sept. 27.

Three brackets The uneasiness comes as the House and Senate move to kick off the tax debate with a budget maneuver that would allow them to pass a bill without Democratic support.

GOP leaders say they want to complete the bill in 2017 to prevent election-year politics from getting in the way. But divisions linger in the party over core questions such as how much a tax cut can add to the deficit and how to find revenue offsets so changes to the tax code can be permanent.

The plan sets out three tax

brackets for individuals — 12 percent, 25 percent and 35 percent — down from the existing seven rates, which top out at 39.6 percent. But it doesn’t specify the income ranges for the new rates, and congressional tax-writing committees will be given flexibility to add a fourth bracket for the highest earners.

‘Work of fiction’ The framework also calls for a near-doubling in the standard deduction for households, a “significant,” yet unspecified increase in the child tax credit and

Asked about the White House’s position that the tax plan is aimed at helping the middle class, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer was blunt: “I’ve never heard such a fraudulent statement.”

Kennedy said he, along with his fellow senators, are anxious to see the real numbers that will be used for the income brackets.

Those details are still being worked out and will be set by House and Senate tax-writing committees, White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said during a Fox News interview that aired on Oct. 8.

“We’ve not released the details,” he said. “Why? Not because they’re hidden. We don’t have them in a vault someplace. We simply haven’t settled on them yet.”

HEALTH FOOD || HEALTH TRAVEL | |MONEY SCIENCE | BOOKS | MOVIES | TV | AUTOS LIFE | FAITH | EVENTS | CLASSIFIEDS | ENTERTAINMENT | SPORTS | FOOD COURIER

IFE/FAITH

OCT. 13 – OCT. 19, 2017

Former NFL player expounds on anthem and Black agents See page B3

SHARING BLACK LIFE, STATEWIDE

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Dove apologizes for body wash ad See page B5

SOUTH FLORIDA / TREASURE COAST AREA

WWW.FLCOURIER.COM

SECTION

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A fall fling in

FLORENCE There are plenty of must-see African-American sites in and near the South Carolina city.

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BY ELEANOR HENDRICKS MCDANIEL SPECIAL TO THE FLORIDA COURIER

beacon of Southern hospitality shines on Florence, South Carolina. No longer a sleepy town, Florence, located only an hour from Myrtle Beach, has awakened as a bright, contemporary destination.

The new vibe shimmers with excitement, created by new restaurants, trendy and antique shops, outdoor adventures, local produce, unique gardens, fine art and lots of entertainment.

But its exceptional history is still worth exploring.

Revolutionary, Civil War and African-American sites are a must-see. And what better time to visit than autumn when the weather in northeastern South Carolina is temperate.

Relive ‘The Patriot’

3 1.The Ronald E. McNair Life History Center opened exactly 25 years after the fatal Challenger disaster.

COURTESY OF RONALD E. MCNAIR LIFE HISTORY CENTER

2. Ms. Catherine’s cabin is located at Mars Bluff.

4 3. As a topiary artist, Pearl Fryar has won worldwide acclaim.

4. Young Plantations is on the South Carolina Pecan Trail.

ELEANOR MCDANIEL

ELEANOR MCDANIEL

ELEANOR MCDANIEL

They say that Mel Gibson’s character in the film, “The Patriot,” was patterned after General Francis Marion, a.k.a. “The Swamp Fox.” However, there were striking differences between the two men: Marion was a bachelor, not a married father of numerous children, nor as handsome or agile as Gibson because he limped from an earlier accident.

But, during the American Revolution, he ferociously attacked the British troops with an unexpected and unusual battle tactic which he had adopted from the Cherokees: a guerilla-style warfare.

Marion, along with a ragtag band of cohorts, would make surprise raids on the Redcoats, and, just as swiftly, disappear back into the

swamps. This continued for more than two and onehalf years until the Continental Army regained control of the region.

You can paddle or kayak the South Carolina Revolutionary Rivers Trail that follows Marion’s military exploits. There is also a driving tour that includes an audio recording (visitflo. com/screvrivers).

The Gregg shacks On the edge of a wooded copse sits the hewn-timber cabins of Mars Bluff. They date back to c.1836 when slaves belonging to J. Eli Gregg built eight of them on a road that ran through his cotton fields.

After the Emancipation Proclamation, the shacks were moved to another location and were occupied by farm laborers or sharecroppers. Two cabins now rest on the campus of Francis Marion University, and are on the National Register of Historic Places.

One cabin was inhabited by a woman called Ms. Catherine. When you enter, you’ll see and hear the poignant stories of the former residents. On one of the beds lay a quilt sewn by Miss Catherine who used pieces of fabric taken from her family’s clothing.

Scraps of newspaper cling to the walls. That’s what is left of an attempt to buffer the frigid winds that blew through the cracks by papering the walls. They believed the paper would also protect them from evil spirts – after all, the spirit would be too busy reading the news to harm them.

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CALENDAR

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FLORIDA COMMUNITY CALENDAR Miami: Kool and the Gang performs Oct. 28 at the James L. Knight Center.

The show starts at 8 p.m.

St. Petersburg: The SHINE St. Petersburg Mural Festival continues through Oct. 14. It was created to illuminate the power of art in public spaces to revitalize areas, inspire dialogue and unite the community. Details: Shineonstpete.com Tampa: The Hillsborough County affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness will host its second Making Strides for Mental Health 3K Walk/Run on Nov. 4 at YMCA Camp Cristina in Riverview.

Details: NAMIHillsborough.org.

Daytona Beach: Bethune-Cookman University’s football team faces South Carolina State in Daytona Beach on Oct. 14 at 4 p.m. Details: BCUAthletics.com Miami Gardens: Free one-one business consulting sessions are available through December for Miami Gardens residents. Call M.D. Stewart & Associates for an appointment at 305-8904984.

Tampa: A Dashiki in The City celebration is Oct. 29 from 3 to 8 p.m. at the Tampa Heights Junior Civic Association 2005 N Lamar Ave. Free entry.

OCTOBER 13 – OCTOBER 19, 2017

St. Petersburg: Actor and comedian Tracy Morgan will be on stage at the Mahaffey Theater on Nov. 5.

EDWARD WATERS COLLEGE GAME

Lake Wales: Edward Waters College’s football team takes on Webber International on Oct. 14 at 1 p.m.

Tampa: Catalina Charitable Foundation will present a Trick or Trot 5K benefiting the 1Voice Foundation and the Lawrence A. Martucci Benefit Corp on Oct. 28 from 10 a.m. to noon at the University of South Florida MLK West Lawn. Details: lawrenceamartucci.com/event/182/ Fort Lauderdale: Broward Citizens for Seniors will present its annual Seniors Prom on Nov. 18 at the Bahia Mar Hotel from 5 to 10 p.m. Tickets and sponsorship: Call 954-303-4900.

Tampa: The Tampa Bay Black Heritage Festival and the Entrepreneur’s Collaborative Center will hold a free workshop for property investors and aspiring investors on Oct. 28 from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. 2101 East Palm Ave. (Ybor City).

Register at www.TampaBlackHeritage. org/seminars or call 813-813-250-3131.

LENNY WILLIAMS

The Florida Jam Fest is Oct. 28 at the Miramar Regional Park Amphitheater with Maze featuring Frankie Beverly, Lenny Williams and Third World.

Tallahassee: Florida A&M University celebrates its Homecoming this weekend. The Rattlers’ football team will face North Carolina A&M on Oct. 14. Details: http://homecomingonthehill.com Tampa: The Tampa Bay Association of Black Journalists’ annual Griot Drum Awards & Scholarship Banquet is Nov. 9 at the Florida Aquarium. Details: tbabj. com

BONE THUGS-N-HARMONY

The hip-hop group performs Oct. 28 at Jannus Live in St. Petersburg.

Humble and gracious He has been featured in newspapers, magazines and books, and even a John Deere commercial.

Although self-taught, Fryar has been an artist-in-residence at Coker College, spoken at other universities and exhibited his topiaries at arboretums and museums.

Success hasn’t spoiled Pearl Fryar – he’s still a humble and gracious man Visitors are always welcome. They may catch him trimming the topiaries or riding his John Deere trac-

ELEANOR HENDRICKS MCDANIEL

Ms. Catherine stitched this quilt using scraps of her family’s clothing.

FLING from Page 1 Honoring heritage Listen to an audio recording by Archie Waiters, a direct descendent of the Black Gregg family, who describes the hardships that the slaves endured.

Photos and signage reveal even more, such as the African tradition of growing rice that these people brought with them.

Karl McAlister of Francis Marion University and Coordinator of the Hewn Timber Cabins, says, “The two cabins remaining were preserved to honor the heritage and contributions of those who occupied them.”

Go to fmarion.edu/academics/Cabins for more information. To arrange an informative visit, contact McAlister who conducts in-depth guided tours by appointments only at 843661-1311 or kmcalister@ fmarion.edu.

From fruit to nuts Two farmers’ markets in Florence offer some of South Carolina’s freshest produce.

The Pee Dee State Farmers Market is located on U.S. Highway 52 (exit 164 off I-95 and close to I-20).

You can drive right into the open roofed structure, and park your vehicle.

You’ll find stacks of fruits and vegetables, house and garden plants, wine from the local Hyman Vineyards, boiled peanuts, homemade jams and condiments, and much more.

A pecan trail Amble around the Florence City Center Farmers Market that’s open on Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., all year. Have breakfast there, then grab some veggies,

S

fresh-picked fruit from Little Fruit Farm, meats, dairy, artisan goods and homemade pasta. Wow! Time for their ice cream break!

South Carolina is a big grower of pecans, and to promote their production, Florence has created the South Carolina Pecan Trail (visitflo.com/sc-pecantrail).

Almost 20 restaurants and specialty shops have whipped up dishes, drinks and snacks that feature pecans. They are listed in the Florence Pecan Trail Passport.

As you stop at each establishment, you’ll receive a stamp in your passport booklet when you make a purchase. With four or more stamps, the Florence Convention and Visitors Bureau will give you a special gift.

Remembering McNair Dr. Ronald E. McNair reached for the stars. He achieved his dream of becoming an astronaut in 1978 when he was chosen by NASA to be in their space program.

Six years later, he lifted off on his first mission, which was a success. But, tragically, he perished in the ill-fated Space Shuttle Challenger explosion on Jan. 28, 1986.

Nearby Lake City, where Dr. McNair was born, has erected a fitting memorial on the grounds of the Ronald E. McNair Life History Center. The center opened exactly 25 years after the fatal Challenger disaster.

Ironically, the center was placed in a former public library that had denied a juvenile Ronald the right to check out books. The center focuses the astronaut’s life and work with displays, photos and artifacts, and offers lectures and special exhibitions.

At this time, the center is open on Wednes-

days and weekends. Special group tours can be arranged at any time by calling 843-374-0046 or going to remmf@ftc-i.net.

Garden of ‘Peace’ Tall, unnaturally-shaped cypress trees tower over oddly-shaped holly bushes.

A path weaves through munchkin-sized shrubs, and a hedgerow of whimsically designed junipers edge the property. Giant words etched in the grass say, “Peace. Love. Goodwill.” You haven’t arrived in Oz, you’ve entered the Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden.

Upon retiring from the business world, Pearl Fryar decided to make Bishopville (30 minutes from Florence) his home. He bought a cornfield, and built a house.

When he heard that the local garden club was going to select the Yard of the Month, he accepted the challenge, and went to work. Knowing nothing much about topiaries, he contacted a nursery owner, and after a three-minute lesson, he was off and running.

Fryar’s fame With an innate artistic talent, he formed his plants into fantastic shapes, and won the award.

This encouraged him to continue his horticulture art. His success has spread worldwide. On any day, someone from Japan, France or other countries will stop by.

Fryar attracted national attention by being on television shows like “CBS Sunday Morning’’ and “The Martha Stewart Show.’’

In 2006, a documentary film, “A Man Named Pearl,” that showcased him and his art made it to theaters around the country, and was shown on many TV networks.

tor. He’s always happy to chat with them.

Entrance is free, but he appreciates any donation to his scholarship fund.

Fryar says, “My generation came up from the bottom. I got a lot of help to get me to where I am today. It’s our responsibility to help others.”

Contributions to his non-profit organization can also be made online at pearlfryar.com.

For more information on Florence, log on to visitflo. com.

Eleanor Hendricks McDaniel is a seasoned trav-

el journalist who enjoys writing about girlfriend getaways, history, culture, food, wine, and some of the people she meets along the way. Her travels have taken her throughout the United States, Europe and other countries. Formerly of Philadelphia, she now resides in Ormond Beach.

Follow her on Twitter: @ ellethewriter, Instagram: @eleanor1004, Facebook: Eleanor.hendricks.mcdaniel and her website: flybynighttraveler.com.

ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE FOR BLACK STUDENTS. NO EXCUSES. J^[ YbWii_Y ]k_Z[ \hec <beh_ZW 9ekh_[h fkXb_i^[h" bWmo[h WdZ XheWZYWij[h 9>7HB;I M$ 9>;HHO ??

PRAISE FOR ‘EXCELLENCE WITHOUT EXCUSE’: “This guide for African-American college-bound students is packed with practical and insightful information for achieving academic success...The primary focus here is to equip students with the savvy and networking skills to maneuver themselves through the academic maze of higher education.”

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S

OCTOBER 13 – OCTOBER 19, 2017

Publix Pre-Festival Events october 14–november 6

As a run-up to the Grace Jamaican Jerk Festival on November 12, we’ll host special events at several Publix stores.

Join us for fun giveaways, festival ticket discounts from Western Union, special prices on select Grace Foods items, and a taste of delicious Caribbean cuisine.

Saturday

OCTober 14 12 – 4 P.m.

saturday

OCTober 28 12 – 4 P.m.

PUBLIX SUPER MARKET 6890 MIRAMAR PARKWAY, MIRAMAR

THE SHOPPES AT WESTERN WOODS 8140 W. MCNAB ROAD, NORTH LAUDERDALE

SUNday

sunday

OCTober 15 12 – 4 P.m.

october 29 12 – 4 P.m.

PALM LAKES PLAZA 7230 W. ATLANTIC BLVD., MARGATE

IVES DAIRY CROSSING 19955 NW 2ND AVENUE, NORTH MIAMI BEACH

MONday

monday

OCTober 16 4 – 8 P.m.

october 30 4 – 8 P.m.

PLANTATION TOWNE SQUARE 6921 W. BROWARD BLVD., PLANTATION

THE RIVERLAND CENTER 3500 DAVIE BLVD., FORT LAUDERDALE

Wednesday

wednesday

OCTober 18 4 – 8 P.m.

november 1 4 – 8 P.m.

MIRAMAR COMMONS 11000 PEMBROKE RD., MIRAMAR

RIVER RUN SHOPPING CENTER 9951 MIRAMAR PARKWAY, MIRAMAR

SATURDAY

SATURday

OCTober 21 12 – 4 P.m.

november 4 12 – 4 P.m.

CYPRESS LAKE TOWN CENTER 1297 S. STATE ROAD 7, NORTH LAUDERDALE

INVERRARY FALLS 5855 W. OAKLAND PARK BLVD., LAUDERHILL

sunday

sunday

OCTober 22 12 – 4 P.m.

WELLEBY PLAZA 10155 W. OAKLAND PARK BLVD., SUNRISE

Monday

OCTober 23 4 – 8 P.m.

JACARANDA PLAZA 8101 W. SUNRISE BLVD,. PLANTATION

november 5 12 – 4 P.m

MIDWAY PLAZA 5881 N. UNIVERSITY DRIVE, TAMARAC

monday

november 6 4 – 8 P.m.

SUNSHINE PLAZA • 4121 W. COMMERCIAL BLVD., TAMARAC

wednesday

OCTober 25 4 – 8 P.m.

PEMBROKE COMMONS 600 N. UNIVERSITY DR., PEMBROKE PINES

publix.com/JerkFestival

B3

B4

SPORTS

OCTOBER 13 – OCTOBER 19, 2017

STOJ

Viable option One might think a presence like his is sorely needed in the NFL where 70 percent of the players are Black, but where ownership is nonexistent and representation in executive positions is scarce. Players do not have many agents who look like them.

However, Patterson does not believe most players even know Black agents are a viable option and the ones that do are accustomed to the age-old pattern of signing with White ones.

“I am one of the few Black agents in the league, and not only that, I played,” Patterson said.

“I know this system. Still, I literally have to fight tooth and nail at times for players to sign with me because they are so used to how things have always been.”

On national anthem Elton Patterson is owner of Franchise Sports Agency in Tallahassee. He noted that many Black players are being advised by agents with “ different agendas.’’

Former NFL player says common goal missing in protests SPECIAL TO THE FLORIDA COURIER

TALLAHASSEE – As a former defensive end in the National Football League, Elton Patterson has faced some of the most menacing men on earth.

The 6’2,’’ 270-pounder from

the University of Central Florida played for the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Cincinnati Bengals in the early 2000s. Now he is facing a different challenge, navigating the cut-throat business side of the sport as one of only a few Black agents.

As the owner of Franchise Sports Agency in Tallahassee, Patterson spends much of his time traveling across the country to meet with league executives and NFL owners on behalf of his clients to handle contract negotiations and secure the best possible deals.

He also spends time advising players on their finances, playing motivator to keep them ahead of their competition, and even psychologist, counseling them through hard times. Patterson works with players like Tevin Floyd of the Arizona Cardinals and the Cleveland Browns’ Reggie Davis, among others.

“I wear many hats,” he said.

With the current national anthem protests proliferating throughout the league, talk about unity and access for Blacks on the business end of the NFL is at an all-time high.

While more and more players are taking knees, Patterson thinks the one thing that is missing is a common goal. He believes the protests would be more efficient if everyone was on one accord.

“Although the players are passionate about their cause, I am not sure everyone is on the same page with regards to why they are kneeling,” he said.

‘Different agendas’ “Understanding the system of things would help. This is a system that was put in place many years ago, and the focus is making money off of the players. Until Black people have ownership

interests and a seat at the table, nothing will change. The players have far more power than they realize to make that happen.”

He continued, “If you pay attention, the majority of AfricanAmerican athletes are represented by White agents. Players are being advised by people with different agendas.

“They are being told not to speak out because they will lose this endorsement, or they will get fined, go for the money and so on. Maybe that is something players can come together on and say, hey, there are Black agents who are just as capable and who understand our background and stance on certain issues. That is how change starts.”

Educate, empower Current trends indicate that for every 10 athletes that Black agents get to work with, there are hundreds more that they can’t even get access to.

Patterson raises the question, “With everything Colin Kaepernick has endured surrounding his fight against social injustice, does he have a Black agent? It’s something to think about.”

That is why part of Patterson’s mission is to educate and empower the Black athletes he represents to think beyond the field and towards leadership and ownership.

In his mind, until more faces of color are in decision-making positions to upset the status quo, change will be minimal, and efforts like the Anthem protests will never quite reach their mark.

For more information on Elton Patterson and Franchise Sports Agency, visit www.franchisesportsagency.net.

Dolphins offensive line coach resigns after powdersnorting video surfaces

BY ARMANDO SALGUERO MIAMI HERALD/TNS

MIAMI – Chris Foerster has resigned his position from the Miami Dolphins hours after a video surfaced showing the team’s offensive line coach snorting a white powdery substance off what is believed to be his desk at the team’s training facility.

Foerster, in his 25th NFL season, agreed Monday morning to move on from his job rather than be fired, per team sources.

“I am resigning from my position with the Miami Dolphins and accept full responsibility for my actions,” Foerster said in a statement released by the team.

“I want to apologize to the organization and my sole focus is on getting the help that I need with the support of my family and medical professionals.”

No choice It’s still unclear if the substance Foerster taped himself snorting is in fact cocaine. What is clear is the Dolphins believe the episode happened on their time in their building. And the embar-

rassment from the tape, which was released first on social media and has made national news, absolutely touched the team.

So the Dolphins had no choice but to jettison Foerster before the avalanche of negative public opinion stained the team brand and affected the locker room.

Foerster, loyal to the team and coach Adam Gase, agreed to resign before he was fired.

“We were made aware of the video late last night and have no tolerance for this behavior,” the club said in a statement.

2017 video “After speaking with Chris this morning, he accepted full responsibility and we accepted his resignation effective immediately. Although Chris is no longer with the organization, we will work with him to get the help he needs during this time.”

In the video, Foerster is seen snorting a white powdery substance off his desk at Dolphins camp. He says he’s doing it before an upcoming team meeting.

The video is from this year, according to a club source.

ESPN suspends Jemele Hill for two weeks

BY PHIL ROSENTHAL CHICAGO TRIBUNE/TNS

ESPN’s Jemele Hill, who ran afoul of her bosses and the White House last month with tweets on President Donald Trump, has been suspended, the Disney-owned sports media giant’s PR department announced Monday on Twitter.

“Jemele Hill has been suspended for two weeks for a second violation of our social media guidelines,” ESPN said via its ESPNPR account on Twitter.

“She previously acknowledged Jemele letting her colleagues and compaHill ny down with an impulsive tweet.

In the aftermath, all employees were reminded of how individual tweets may reflect negatively on ESPN and that such actions would have consequences. Hence this decision.”

Blasted Trump Hill, who co-hosts a late-afternoon weekday edition of ESPN’s “SportsCenter” program, came under fire in September when she tweeted on her @jemelehill account that President Trump was “a white supremacist,” “a bigot” and “unqualified and unfit to be president.”

ESPN disavowed those remarks. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders called them “fireable offense by ESPN.”

TAIMY ALVAREZ/SUN SENTINEL/TNS

Chris Foerster speaks with Miami Dolphins tackle Ja’Wuan James during a practice in August.

MLB seeking applicants for Diversity Fellowship Program EURWEB.COM

Major League Baseball is accepting applications from college students graduating in 2018 and recent college graduates for its MLB Diversity Fellowship Program.

The initiative, which hopes to accept 23 people (20 at the Club level and three at the Office of the Commissioner) is for people of color and women.

More on talent With only three GMs and three managers who are non-White and a small number of women in top operations spots, MLB has their work cut out for them, but they are up for the challenge.

“I’m sure you’re aware that MLB has had a long history in diversity inclusion that goes beyond Jackie Robinson,” Renée Tirado, MLB’s vice president of Talent Acquisition, Diversity & Inclusion, told the EUR in a recent interview.

“We had a diversity department for over 15 years, fully staffed,” said Tirado.

“We had a robust prior diversity program where we

invested over a billion dollars in minority, women, and veteran owned businesses over the past 20 years or so. This is just the 2.0 of that legacy. We’re focusing a little bit more on talent and creating a pipeline for new talent to join the ranks of baseball.”

More strategy One of the main challenges for diversity at the MLB has been how it positions itself to people of color and women.

“We’ve been very lucky,” admits Tirado. “We’re wellknown. We don’t have to advertise a lot. We get very many (diverse) applications organically. But we haven’t been as strategic around how we’re talking to different audiences that have a different perspective and want to hear different messaging to make it attractive to them.”

Another challenge Tirado faced in the past six months is appealing to affinity organizations, universities and colleges.

“A lot of people don’t understand our business model, she added. “For

ALEX TRAUTWIG/MLB

Renée Tirado is Major League Baseball’s vice president of Talent Acquisition, Diversity & Inclusion whatever reason, the certain demographics I’m talking to don’t really understand all the components of making baseball this amazing sport. They don’t realize that we have a very robust analytics department and that we recruit aggressively for economics majors.”

All majors There is also room for non-traditional business disciplines at MLB. They are looking at all majors.

When Tirado and her team can get that across it makes their job easier.

“I think I’m seeing more aha moments with women and diverse audiences.

They’ll say, ‘Oh, ok, I see where I can fit in here.”

While Tirado has quite the task, she wants to make it clear that the initiative is not at all about affirmative action.

“We’re not hiring anyone because they’re a woman,” said Tirado. “We’re not hiring anyone because they’re African-American. There are no quotas here.

“The reality is that we have 23 spots, if I don’t get 23 candidates, we won’t have 23 fellows. That’s it.

They have to make sense.

They have to be smart. They have to be bright. They have to be able to support the business because at the end of the day it’s about delivering the best product possible,’’ she added.

The deadline for the MLB Diversity Fellowship Program application is Friday, Nov. 17 by 5 p.m.

For more information and to apply, visit MLB. com/Fellowship.

STOJ

OCTOBER 13 – OCTOBER 19, 2017

Meet some of

FLORIDA’S

finest

FINEST & ENTERTAINMENT

B5

Think you’re one of Florida’s Finest?

E-mail your high-resolution (200 dpi) digital photo in casual wear or bathing suit taken in front of a plain background with few distractions, to news@flcourier. com with a short biography of yourself and your contact information. (No nude/ glamour/ fashion photography, please!) In order to be considered, you must be at least 18 years of age. Acceptance of the photographs submitted is in the sole and absolute discretion of Florida Courier editors. We reserve the right to retain your photograph even if it is not published. If you are selected, you will be contacted by e-mail and further instructions will be given.

Thousands of Caribbean culture lovers converge on South Florida every year on the Columbus Day weekend to attend the annual Miami Broward Carnival, a series of concerts, pageants, parades, and competitions.

On Carnival Day, “mas” (masquerade) bands of thousands of revelers dance and march behind 18-wheel tractor-trailer trucks with booming sound systems from morning until nightfall while competing for honors.

Here are some of the “Finest” we’ve seen over the years. Go to www. miamibrowardcarnival. com for information on this year’s Carnival.

CHARLES W. CHERRY II / FLORIDA COURIER

‘Marshall’ portrays civil rights legend as real-life superhero

BY JOHN ANDERSON NEWSDAY/TNS

Let’s admit the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth: We hear there’s a movie about Thurgood Marshall — the crusading civil rights lawyer who argued the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case and became the first Black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court — and we expect something high-minded, noble, earnest and medicinal. With heroic music. And halos.

When it opens Friday, Oct. 13, “Marshall” may force a reordering of our expectations.

“People are responding to this movie like it’s ‘Wonder Woman,’ “said Josh Gad (“Book of Mormon,” “Beauty and the Beast”), who plays Sam Friedman, the real-life lawyer who is dragooned

by Thurgood Marshall (Chadwick Boseman) into fighting a case of racial injustice in 1941 Connecticut.

Gad may not be an impartial witness, but he put his finger on what distinguishes “Marshall” from your standard Hollywood biopic: If they called it “Thurgood Marshall, Superhero” it wouldn’t be that far off.

Smart with swagger “At its core, it’s a crowd pleaser,” said Gad. “That might be something with some negative conno-

Dove apologizes for ad that turned Black woman White

BY JOE ROBERTSON KANSAS CITY STAR/TNS

A Facebook ad by Dove that aimed to represent “women of color thoughtfully” quickly disappeared last weekend after it instead incurred intense social media backlash.

The ad, according to images captured in screen shots, showed a Black woman in a brown shirt, who then removed the shirt to reveal a White woman in a lightcolored shirt.

This was an advertisement for body wash, with the Dove bottle

Chadwick Boseman, left, stars as a young Thurgood Marshall in a movie that debuts this month. tations, but I think it’s also hopeful, and empowering. And let’s not forget that Reggie comes from the world of writing comic books, including ‘Black Panther.’ “ “Reggie” is director Reginald Hudlin, whose eclectic career — which began with the comedy “House Party” (1990), directed with his brother Warrington — has indeed included work in the Marvel Universe. And he freely admits the connection.

“Sometimes,” he said, “to appreciate the achievements of these great men we have to take them off the pedestal. In the case of Thurgood Marshall, our mental image of him is as an old man,

in robes, sequestered away in the Supreme Court. So to see him as a young man, smoking, drinking, flirting, fighting — you’ll be, ‘Oh I know this guy!’

“And when he’s a guy with all this swagger and is the smartest guy in any room he’s in, it’s kind of amazing he’s human. In fact, he’s more than human. So we get back to the superhero place in a very natural, earned way.”

Seasoned actor Marshall is played by Boseman, who has had some experience playing trailblazers (Jackie Robinson in “42”; James Brown in “Get on Up”).

When the film opens, Marshall is the NAACP’s chief legal counsel and Boseman makes him a charismatic, cocksure crusader for equal rights, one with an unconcealed contempt for institutional racism.

Outside of a tender, often longdistance relationship with his beloved wife, Buster (Keesha Sharp), Marshall’s life is dedicated to cases of racial injustice, one of which he finds in Bridgeport, Connecticut — a Black chauffeur named Joseph Spell (Sterling K. Brown) has been accused of assaulting and attempting to murder his White employer (Kate Hudson).

Close to reality The whole case smells, as do the rulings from the bench: Marshall is barred from participating by the presiding judge (James Cromwell). So while Marshall continues to direct the defense, local attorney Friedman has to take over the courtroom presentation.

“The film is pretty close to what actually happened,” said Gad. “It’s a case that’s sort of been forgotten in light of what else happened in the man’s life, but at the time it was tabloid fodder: You had an African-American chauffeur accused of raping his White employer. You had families all over Bridgeport firing any employees who were ‘colored.’

sitting before the woman on the bathroom counter in front of her.

Bottles controversy The deleted advertisement comes about five months after another Dove marketing move with body wash came under fire.

Movie’s mission The mission of the film, Hudlin said, has changed a bit since they were making it more than a year ago; race relations weren’t so fraught and the U.S. election was just underway.

“Dan Stevens, who’s English, was following the Brexit vote,” he said, referring to the ex-“Downton Abbey” actor who plays prosecutor Lorin Willis. “And we’re saying, ‘Nah that will never happen.’

Then it does and we say, ‘What does that mean?’ And we find out later.

‘The struggle continues’ “So the movie does two things,” Hudlin continued. “There’s a comfort that comes from knowing that when good people come together, dedicated to the truth, the truth will set you free.”

At the same time, he said, the movie ends with more people coming to Thurgood Marshall for help, with more tales of racial injustice, “and audiences are like ‘Right: The struggle continues.’

And we have to keep fighting. The truth is, freedom ain’t free. And every generation has to be tested.” observer on Twitter.

But Dove got a lot of backlash then, as well, including this Twitter response: “Great. Now our soap bottles are judging us too…”

Twitter backlash Whatever the soap company intended to say in the ad, many viewers saw an offensive message.

Said one respondent on Twitter: “White = Clean “Black = Dirty “The World According to #Dove” After taking the ad down, Dove apologized: “An image we recently posted on Facebook missed the mark in representing women of color thoughtfully. We deeply regret the offense it caused.”

“In many ways at that time it was a death penalty to lose your job, so it isn’t just about Joseph Spell. It’s about an entire community.”

History lesson

Screenshots of the ad went viral after Naomi Leann Blake, a makeup artist and model, posted them to her Facebook page on Oct. 6.

The “Real Beauty Bottles” featured body wash containers sold in varying shapes, meaning to convey beauty in all body types

— whether slender, round, curvy, tall or squat.

Some thought it was great.

“Well done Dove,” wrote one

None of Dove’s statements on the Facebook advertisement last week described what the company’s intent had been in making the ad.

Many commentators in social media shared historical images in which other soap companies over time played on the idea that white was clean and black was unclean.

“The historical context makes this sooo much worse,” one responder wrote, adding in a photo of a Dove’s “Summer Glow” nourishing lotion which the bottle said was for “normal to dark skin.”

B6

OCTOBER 13 – OCTOBER 19, 2017

FOR PEOPLE WITH

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MEDICARE AND MEDICAID

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Palm Beach County. CarePlus is a Coordinated Care plan with a Medicare contract and a contract with the Florida Medicaid program. Enrollment in CarePlus depends on contract renewal. This plan is available to anyone receiving both Medicare and Medicaid-covered services: Qualified Medicare Beneficiaries (QMB+), Specified Low-Income Medicare Beneficiaries (SLMB+), and other Full Benefit Dual Eligibles (FBDE). CareNeeds PLUS (HMO SNP) is sponsored by CarePlus Health Plans, Inc. and the State of Florida, Agency for Health Care Administration. Your benefits may vary depending on your level of Medicaid eligibility. Premiums, copays, coinsurance, and deductibles may vary based on the level of Extra Help you receive. Please contact the plan for further details. This information is not a complete description of benefits. Contact the plan for more information. Limitations, copayments, and restrictions may apply. Benefits, premiums, and/or member cost-share may change on January 1 of each year. By calling this number you will reach a licensed sales agent. In accordance with the federal requirements of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), no amounts on the gift cards shall be redeemable for cash and no amount may be applied toward the purchase of any prescription drug under your plan. Rewards (gift cards) must be earned and redeemed in the same plan year. Rewards not redeemed by 12/31 will be forfeited. Discrimination is Against the Law. CarePlus Health Plans, Inc. (“CarePlus”) complies with applicable Federal civil rights laws and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, or sex. English: ATTENTION: If you do not speak English, language assistance services free of charge are available to you. Call 1-800-794-5907 (TTY: 711). Español (Spanish): ATENCIÓN: Si habla español, tiene a su disposición servicios gratuitos de asistencia lingüística. Llame al 1-800-794-5907 (TTY: 711).

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H1019_MKN193023 Accepted

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FOOD

OCTOBER 13 – OCTOBER 19, 2017

TOJ

Simple sheet pan suppers FAMILY FEATURES

At times, spending hours in the kitchen can be a relaxing, enjoyable experience. However, even for avid home cooks, a busy weeknight isn’t one of those times. Fortunately, solutions like sheet pan suppers make it easy to create dishes with exceptional flavor depth that come together quickly and clean up just as fast.

Keeping a variety of vegetables on hand makes it simple to pull together a family meal. Onions, for example, are versatile, flavorful, easy to store, have a long shelf-life and are available year-round from U.S. growers. An added benefit when cooking with onions is that you’re serving up a good source of fiber.

For more tasty recipes to make supper a cinch, visit onions-usa.org and usaonions.com.

EASY DRUMSTICK-QUINOA SHEET PAN SUPPER Recipe courtesy of the National Onion Association and IdahoEastern Oregon Onion Committee Servings: 4-6 8-10 chicken legs 1 fennel bulb 1 large yellow onion, sliced 1 large red onion, sliced 2 garlic cloves, sliced 3 medium-sized potatoes, cubed 1orange (1/4 cup juice and zest) 1/4 teaspoon thyme, dried

SPICY SHEET PAN ROASTED JAMBALAYA Recipe courtesy of the National Onion Association and Idaho-Eastern Oregon Onion Committee Servings: 4-6 1 large yellow onion, diced 1/2 large green bell pepper, diced 1/2 large yellow bell pepper, diced 1/2 large red bell pepper, diced 3 stalks celery, sliced or diced 2 garlic cloves, minced 1-2 jalapenos, seeded and diced 1 pint cherry tomatoes 3 tablespoons olive oil, divided 1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons olive oil 1 teaspoon sea salt 1/2 teaspoon black pepper 2 tablespoons fresh chopped parsley orange rind curls brown rice, cooked according to package directions quinoa, cooked according to package directions Heat oven to 400 F. Line 13-by-18-inch sheet pan with parchment paper.

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Heat oven to 400 F. Line 13-by-18-inch sheet pan with parchment paper.

In large bowl, combine onion, bell peppers, celery, garlic, jalapenos, tomatoes, 2 tablespoons olive oil, salt and pepper until evenly combined. Spread out evenly on pan in single layer. Add slices of Andouille sausage. Roast 15-20 minutes, or until vegetables are tender and start to brown.

Toss shrimp with Cajun seasoning and prepare linguine noodles.

When ready, remove baking sheet from oven. Place shrimp on top of vegetable and sausage mixture in single layer. Top with half the lemon wedges. Return to oven and cook about 5-8 minutes, or until shrimp is no longer pink.

Serve over linguine garnished with green onions and parsley with remaining fresh lemon wedges on side.

SHEET PAN-STYLE BUDDHA BOWLS Recipe courtesy of the National Onion Association and Idaho-Eastern Oregon Onion Committee Servings: 4-6 2 yellow onions, peeled and cut into 1/2inch wedges 1/2head of red or purple cabbage, cut into wedges 2 red potatoes, cut into 1/2-inch wedges 1 small butternut squash, peeled and 1/2inch diced 1 pound Brussels sprouts, halved extra-virgin olive oil salt, to taste black pepper, to taste 1 1/2 cups quinoa, cooked according to package directions Tahini sauce: 1 tablespoon tahini

1/2 lemon, juiced 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard 1/2-1 teaspoon maple syrup 2 avocados, peeled and sliced fresh parsley Heat oven to 400 F. Line 13-by-18-inch sheet pan with parchment paper.

Place onion, cabbage, potatoes, squash and Brussels sprouts in single layer on pan.

Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast vegetables 40 minutes, or until tender. Add more salt and pepper if needed.

While vegetables roast, cook quinoa.

To make tahini sauce: In small bowl, whisk tahini, lemon juice, mustard and syrup until smooth.

To assemble Buddha bowls: Spoon quinoa into bowls. Add roasted veggies and garnish with avocado and parsley. Drizzle tahini sauce over each bowl and serve.

1 link (13.5 ounces) Andouille sausage, sliced 1 pound large shrimp, peeled and deveined 1 tablespoon Cajun seasoning blend linguine noodles, cooked according to package directions 1-2 lemons, sliced in thin wedges 2 green onions, sliced fresh chopped parsley

Place chicken legs on pan.

Spread fennel, yellow onion, red onion, garlic and potatoes around and in between legs.

In small bowl, whisk together orange juice and zest, thyme and olive oil. Pour mixture over chicken and vegetables. Season with salt and pepper. Roast 45 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through and vegetables are tender. Cook rice and quinoa.

Garnish chicken with parsley and orange curls. Serve over brown rice and quinoa.

ALL ABOUT ONIONS Knowing how to buy and store onions can make them true superstars in your kitchen. Growers and shippers of the National Onion Association and Idaho-Eastern Oregon Onion Committee offer these tips: Buying When shopping, buy onions with dry outer skins, free of spots or blemishes. The onion should be firm and have no scent. Avoid bulbs that have begun to sprout.

Yellow, red and white onions are available year-round

from producers in the United States.

Seasonal differences like flavor and texture are noticeable and highlighted during these time frames: Fall and winter onions (available August-April ) have multiple layers of thick, paper-like layers of skin. Known for their mild to pungent flavor profile, these varieties can be eaten raw, and are ideal for roasting, caramelizing, grilling and frying because they have less water content.

Spring and summer onions (available March-August) have thin, often transparent skins and are typically sweeter

and milder than fall and winter varieties. Due to their high water content and mild flavor, they are best used for raw, pickled, lightly cooked or grilled dishes.

Storing Store onions in a cool, dry, well-ventilated place, not the refrigerator. Do not store whole, unpeeled onions in plastic bags. Lack of air movement reduces storage life. Peeled or cut onions may be stored in a sealed container in the refrigerator for up to 7 days.