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MAY 31 – JUNE 6, 2019
VOLUME 27 NO. 22
DEATH IN A FOREIGN PRISON In an exclusive first-person story written for the Florida Courier, former State Representative Dwayne Taylor describes his experience as a prisoner in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary’s minimum security prison camp. Editor’s note: After a four-day jury trial in Orlando in August 2017, Dwayne Taylor was convicted of eight counts of wire fraud in connection with alleged misuse of campaign funds. A federal appeals court denied his appeal in August 2018. He completed his prison sentence in December 2018, but is still on federal probation. BY DWAYNE L. TAYLOR SPECIAL TO THE FLORIDA COURIER
I will not identify my family and friends who were contacting officials regarding me and the condition of the Atlanta Federal Prison Camp. I want to protect them
PART 3 from being attacked and want all the attacks directed towards me. This story is about me, so I don’t care what people say or believe. When I was able to communicate, I asked my family and friends to contact the congressional district representative, the Honorable John Lewis, to let his office know about the terrible and degradable conditions of the prison and about my health. His office needed to be made aware of the cruel and unusual punishment, a violation of the Eighth Amend-
Dwayne Taylor says that his months-long imprisonment in the minimum-security Atlanta Federal Prison Camp will end up being a death sentence. ment and several other constitutional laws.
Nothing to be done After making several attempts to contact his office, they were
told that there was nothing Rep. Lewis’ office could do for me and to try and contact my own congressman back in Florida. This was amazing for me to hear. As a former elected official, it didn’t matter to me where a per-
son was from reporting something in my district. My staff and I were going to investigate and get to the bottom of what was happening. See PRISON, Page A2
‘Totally overlooked’
5000 ROLE MODELS / MIAMI DOLPHINS
On the road to success
Study says Black girls viewed as less innocent COMPILED FROM WIRE REPORTS
COURTESY OF THE MIAMI DOLPHINS
The Miami Dolphins FOOTBALL UNITES™ program partnered with Congresswoman Frederica S. Wilson’s 5000 Role Models of Excellence Project to host the Wilson Scholar Academic Signing Ceremony at Hard Rock Stadium in Broward County on May 28. At the event, 47 Wilson Scholars announced and signed with the colleges they will be attending, in addition to receiving computers for their academic studies.
SNAPSHOTS
Perry may run to succeed Orlando prosecutor Ayala COMPILED FROM WIRE REPORTS
FLORIDA | A3
Driver charged in death of Miami teens
NATION | A6
SPORTS | B3
Laws could outlaw racially motivated calls
Robinson’s daughter carries on legacy
ALSO INSIDE
ORLANDO – More than two years after she created a firestorm by saying she would not seek the death penalty, Central Florida State Attorney Aramis Ayala announced Tuesday she will not run for re-election in 2020. Her decision may open up a lane for retired Circuit Court Judge Belvin Perry, the current chairman of Bethune-Cookman University’s Board of Trustees, to succeed her, according to reliable Florida Courier sources in Central Florida. Perry is an experienced former prosecutor and felony trial judge who has tried or presided over numerous
notable high-profile criminal cases during his 30-year legal career.
Elected, criticized Ayala was elected in 2016 as state attorney in the 9th Judicial Circuit, which is made up of Orange and Osceola counties. But in March 2017, she sparked a controversy – and a legal battle with thenGov. Rick Scott – by saying she would not pursue the death penalty in capital cases. Scott removed Ayala from handling capital cases, which he reassigned to Ocala-area State Attorney Brad King. Ayala challenged the decision, but the Florida Su-
Aramis Ayala
Belvin Perry
preme Court later backed Scott. Ayala, the state’s first elected Black state attorney, announced her decision to not seek a second term in a video posted on Facebook. She touted accomplishments such as expanding diversity in her office. But she said that “after the Florida Supreme Court’s decision on the death penalty, it became abundantly clear to me that death-penalty law in the state Florida is in direct conflict with my See PERRY, Page A2
WASHINGTON, D.C. – A new report from the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality reaffirms that being a Black girl isn’t easy. A survey of 325 adults found that compared with young White girls, people think young Black girls need less nurturing, protection, support and comfort. They’re seen as more independent, and participants think they know more about mature topics, such as sex. Dubbed “adultification,” it’s the notion that girls of color, especially those 5-14, are less childlike and, as a result, more likely to be assigned greater culpability for their actions. “Our earlier research focused on adult attitudes and found that adults think Black girls as young as five need less protection and nurturing than their White peers,” said report co-author Rebecca Epstein, who leads the Initiative on Gender, Justice & Opportunity at Georgetown Law’s Center on Poverty and Inequality.
Listening to the voices “Our new research elevates the voices of Black women and girls themselves, who told us that they are routinely affected by this form of discrimination.” The Center’s original 2017 study, “Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood,” applied statistical analysis to a national study of adults on their attitudes toward Black girls. The current survey is small, but the results are mighty – hard evidence that Black girls are seen as less innocent. “The statistics in that report were mind-blowing. This is how society views us?” said Greta Young, 40. “We have to educate other people to get rid of this stigma. You don’t just come in the world mature and adultlike. Your situation makes you this way. If anything, our young Black girls need more nurturing than anybody else.” As a mother of two girls – Lyric, 8, and Michaela, 19 – the Chicago-area hair salon owner expressed anger about the toll adultification has taken on Black youth.
‘Nonfactors’ “I do see a lot of it: younger girls having to grow up so soon. A lot of it has to deal with the household that they’re in, what they’re experiencing in the household, like becoming caretakers See GIRLS, Page A2
COMMENTARY: REV. JESSE JACKSON: WE CAN FREE A GENERATION FROM COLLEGE LOAN DEBT | A4 NATION: TRUMP: BLACKS WON’T BACK BIDEN OVER TOUGH-ON-CRIME BILL | A5
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FOCUS
MAY 31 – JUNE 6, 2019
‘Baby, I need a break!’ When a woman tells her spouse or committed man that she needs “a break,” it could mean a number of things. The woman could be talking about a girls’ trip, a family visit, a business trip or perhaps just some “me time.”
All about you Regardless of what men may think, it has little to do with bills, help with the kids, help in the kitchen or help around the yard. When the word “break” is used, it’s all and only about YOU! Believe me, before “a break” is heard by you, the woman has discussed “a break” with her mama, her sister, her coworkers and her friends; oh yeah, and her new love interest!
LUCIUS GANTT THE GANTT REPORT
You feel me? The decision to say “break” was made weeks, months or years ago. I think men and women that have different ideas, different needs and different desires should talk to each other about it. Some women, when they are fed up, will leave a man at the drop of a hat. However, most women are patient when considering breaking with a man that loves his children and pays some or all of the bills.
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Why do they leave? They get the courage to leave once they get mama approval, friend approval and coworker approval. “Superfly” and “The Mack” are masters at another reason for break-ups: “pimp talk!” Pimp talk is anything a man says when he’s chasing the cat! Beware of men that will tell a married or committed woman, “I’ll sleep with you, but I won’t marry you because you’ll go back to baby daddy.” If you like a man that says that, you’re stuck. The pimp has taken control. Now a woman has to do whatever the pimp-talking man tells her to do, while wishing that the pimp will marry and take care of her instead of taking care of “the stable.” “I wouldn’t treat you like that,” “I love you more than he does,” and “I want you to marry me and have my baby” are all pimp talk lines when a man doesn’t know
PRISON Many of the people in that camp that were sick and needed medical attention were from Atlanta, and their families had tried to contact his office as well. I figured that because I was a former state House member that they would at least investigate the matter. Wrong! They did not.
On the other hand, I never had a working relationship with Congressman Mica’s successor, who was considered to very partisan and lazy. People in the community called him Ron “Do-Nothing DeSantis,” “Racist Ron” and “The Weasel.” He was never visible working in the community, and I don’t recall a single initiative he established. We also knew he was not going to lift a finger to help me, because people in the community felt like he was partly responsible for my being in prison. I may have seen him in the community once a year at a large event. I can go on with many stories about him, but I will save that for another time. His ambitions were to always
GIRLS from A1 at a very young age. Young Black girls are treated as nonfactors in society,” she said. “They are totally overlooked.” Biologically, humans are 99.9 percent genetically identical, yet African Americans are still seen as “other.” Recent studies on health deserts and residential segregation reveal that systemic racism shortens lives. University of Chicago researchers found that living in an area with heavy exposure to violent crime can lead to elevated blood pressure and obesity. According to the CDC, the risk of pregnancy-related deaths is 3 to 4 times higher for Black women. The new report’s authors say their findings reveal a potential contributing factor to the disproportionate rates of punitive treatment in the education and juvenile justice systems for this population.
Call for action “I think that it is nice that the
A woman or a man can grow apart or meet someone other than you that they absolutely fall in love with. Just make sure the person you fall in love with loves you – and also loves you more than your spouse and your sidepiece do! Some people get married to obtain a green card. Others get married to honor vows, commitments and promises or to raise children a have a good family life. Most men and women cheat at some time in marriages and relationships either in the streets or in their hearts and minds.
I may be wrong But more often than not, when a woman tells me she wants “a break” and walks away from me, I
Continued to suffer
Dismal staff
‘Do-Nothing’ congressman
Don’t get it twisted
looked like my 6-year-old daughter wrote them. I really don’t know why I was surprised by this because everybody in the prison knew he didn’t care and was trying to get the next job at a regional level. He was just buying time. This is their best?
from A1
I love and admire Congressman John Lewis. I know this man is an icon and a legend and was willing to give up his life marching for civil rights in this country. I am not blaming him personally, but his staff was unacceptable. THIS DID HAPPEN. My family and friends knew they could not contact the congressman in my Daytona Beach home district because he had a horrible reputation of not doing anything unlike former Congressman John Mica who was very visible in the district. As a city commissioner and Florida state representative, I had worked with Congressman Mica on many issues in the community: public housing modernization, beachside beatification, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Research Park, and storm flooding relief. He was the person who gave me the initial funding for a new community center. He and I worked in a bipartisan way to help benefit the people we served.
much about you, your family, your spirit or what touches your heart.
COURTESY OF DWAYNE TAYLOR
As an elected Florida State representative, Dwayne Taylor was also a community activist. run for president of the United States. He would do anything to place himself in position to do so. You heard it from me first.
Looking elsewhere Since we knew this was not going to be an option, we had to seek help from others. I know many people may not believe this, because he is now the governor or Florida and such a likeable person to many. I know Dwayne Taylor is a convicted criminal and can’t be trusted. But this is STILL THE TRUTH! My family and friends were relentless in trying to find help for me. They were able to contact Senator Bill Nelson’s office in Orlando. His staff and office did respond and inquired. They followed up and requested information and started an investigation on the matters. I kept a log of the encounters and email communications I had with the medical staff. I sent the information to the Nelson staff regarding my situation and the
report is trying to put extra special focus on the plight of African American girls, and that they are circulating a call for action,” said Alvin Tillery Jr., director of Northwestern University’s Center for the Study of Diversity and Democracy. “In some ways, it seems like they are trying to match the special emphasis that some think tanks and foundations have put on the plight of African American boys, and that is a good thing.” Aria Halliday, assistant professor of Women’s Studies at the University of New Hampshire, applauds the new research for connecting the dots between implicit bias and the way Black girls are criminalized in public systems. “We know things have been happening in the news and in the media, but to have Georgetown Law stamp this idea and say, ‘Yes, this is something that we studied and we know it to be true’? Unpacking that is important because the policy becomes ammunition when you walk into a room,” she said.
Paying attention Black and Latinx boys have
prison. His office always tried to do the right thing, and I will always thank them for that. I would also write and file complaints to the warden, following the administrative procedures rules. He ignored them while I was in prison. He was not that smart… or maybe he was, because he put me off for that long.
Finally, a response After months of trying to get through to him and his help, he finally responded to me 91 days after I made my first complaint. He basically stated I was getting treatment and the doctor who was treating me did not see me in any distress or pain. WHAT? The warden never came and interviewed or spoke with me to know if I was in fact telling the truth. How did the warden make his determination? I know: “All prisoners lie.” But I did, however, keep the notes, sir. This clown was hilarious to me. He would send out memos and letters to the prisoners that
been in the educational spotlight as of late, Halliday pointed out, but she believes it’s time for girls to get some attention. After all, their plights are similar. Jessica Davenport-Williams, co-founder of Black Girls Break Bread, a Chicago-based organization focused on social/emotional wellness programming for Black women and girls, agrees. “We always see the boys and the gun violence and the killings that we see taking place in Chicago, but there’s this underlying epidemic that is happening for Black women and girls,” she said. “We’re either hyper-visible or invisible – there really is no in between.” She and her fellow co-founders hope to change that narrative and show that the mental and physical well-being of Black females, no matter what the age, needs to be nurtured. “We need to have some attention,” she said. “We need to understand the gravity of what’s happening to our young girls.”
Training is necessary When asked for suggestions to help overcome adultification bias against Black girls, fo-
I would have to continue suffer through another two months of pain and distress until my release came to the halfway house in Orlando. The prison continued to deny me any legal representation to come in and help me and any medical treatment for my heart. Not only was my physical condition deteriorating, but my mental state felt like I was having a transorbital lobotomy. It felt like a section of my brain was being extracted because of the pain and suffering and the lack of medical attention. I have seen firsthand how and why recidivism is so high in prisons. With the lack of meaningful educational and vocational programs and the inhumane treatment, inmates are destined to return. Many of the times they want prisoners to return because they need someone to do the work. Prisoners are only used for one thing – slave labor.
Finally released I was discharged from prison and endured a long seven-hour drive – the prison refused to allow me to buy my own plane ticket. I reported to the Dismas Charities halfway house in Orlando. I hoped my medical situation would get better, but that didn’t happen. The long journey made me feel worse and I was still having chest pains, so I immediately informed the staff and was told to go the emergency room at a REAL hospital. Dismas was supposed to provide medical treatment for my last two months before my final release. I did not receive my weekly injections and medications and Dismas did nothing other than tell me to go to the emergency room. They denied my doctor’s office visits and to this day have not reimbursed me for expenses they promised for medications. I know they saw the cost of treating all my illnesses and said, “No way.” Like the federal government, they are only interested in the money they can make off in-
tell her to keep walking and don’t come back! But don’t do what I do. Do what’s best for you. I’m a journalist. Perhaps I never would have heard the “break” word if I had been more expert at interpersonal communications as I am now. If there is a “break” in your future, figure out what you contributed to the situation like I did. Whoever suggests that they were perfect and blames relationship breaks all on the man or woman they left is the “breaker,” or the person that I would investigate first!
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.
mates. They were taking 25 percent gross pay from the inmate’s income and they were not interested in paying for anyone’s expenses. After all, I did not have a job and no money to give them. Therefore, it is impossible for inmates to succeed sometime on the outside. The prison paid inmates slave wages – 50 cents an hour with minimal health care, and now you have to pay this when you are released from prison. Yes, I know. “They are criminals, so who cares? Treat them like slaves.” A legal form of human trafficking. Again, why was I expecting something different? Did I mention I had never been to prison before?
Finally getting help I sought treatment at Florida Hospital in downtown Orlando. I was admitted, monitored and given multiple tests over the course of about a week. During these numerous tests, a cardiac catherization was performed and that was the one to reveal the shock of my life. The cardiologist told me I had so many arteries that were completely blocked that he was not able to place any heart stints in nor would he be able to perform any type of cardiac bypass procedure. I WAS INOPERABLE. I WOULD NEED TO HAVE A HEART TRANSPLANT. He told me that my heart was so bad he could not even finish the procedure. He explained that when I didn’t receive those vitally important weekly injections, my arteries became inflamed and created the blockages. I asked if it could have come from eating bad food over the years; he said no. These arteries are completely blocked and not like those that come from poor eating habits. Wow. Now I am literally one more blocked artery from leaving this earth. This was a death sentence. Next week: Grief and living day to day.
Editor’s note: Rep. John Lewis office, Atlanta Federal Prison personnel, Atlanta General Hospital, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office and Dismas Charities will be requested to respond to Dwayne Taylor’s allegations. Their responses, if any, will be published in this space.
cus group participants said they hoped that the awareness raised by the Center’s research would lead to meaningful action to decrease this bias, and emphasized that targeted training for teachers and other authority figures would be most effective in helping them overcome their biases. Nationally, Black girls are suspended more than five times as often White girls, and Black girls are 2.7 times more likely to be referred to the juvenile justice system than their White peers.
participant (age group 13-17). “[W]e go to school and ... we still should be cared for ... And it doesn’t matter if we’re ... Black.” To continue to demonstrate the widespread impact of adultification bias on Black girls and to build the case for effective interventions, the Center is asking Black women and girls to share their stories at their new storytelling portal, www.EndAdultificationBias.org.
Need protection
Darcel Rockett of the Chicago Tribune / TNS contributed to this report.
“As teenagers, we still need to be protected,” said one study
PERRY from A1 view and my vision for the administration of justice. Now, as state attorney, those views will not impact the administration
of law, and I will continue to follow the law. But I also realize that it’s time for me to move forward and to continue the pursuit of justice in a different capacity.”
Information from the News Service of Florida was used to prepare this report.
MAY 31 – JUNE 6, 2019
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levard at 8 a.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2015. Margate police ticketed her for speeding, having a tag that’s been expired more than six months and knowingly driving with a suspended license. Eventually, the suspended license ticket was dropped, she pleaded nolo contendre (no contest) to the speeding and license tag violations and was fined for the speeding violation. That fine is now $490.05 and was sent to collections in 2017.
Drove too fast
COURTESY OF MIAMI HERALD
Gedeon Desir, 13, Lens Desir, 15 and Richecarde Dumay, 17, were all members of the Little Haiti Football Club.
Mourning teens with ‘promise in their eyes’ Driver charged in death of three in Miami’s Little Haiti BY MONIQUE O. MADAN AND DAVID J. NEAL MIAMI HERALD/TNS
MIAMI – The woman who sources say crashed into three teenagers, killing them on impact, acknowledged from her hospital bed early Tuesday that she was in a crash and suffered serious injuries. Mariam Coulibaly, 31-yearold exotic dancer, was charged late Tuesday on charges of DUI manslaughter after initial toxicology tests showed she was driving drunk, sources told the Miami Herald. Mariam She was placed Coulibaly under police guard at the hospital, and will be booked into a jail when she is well enough to be discharged. “I’m very much depressed about everything going on,” Cou-
CARL JUSTE/MIAMI HERALD/TNS
Nineline Dumezile, 17, second from the left, grieves as Little Haiti FC Soccer Club teammates gathered for a press conference on Monday in Miami’s Little Haiti’s neighborhood. libaly told the Miami Herald from her intensive care bed at Aventura Hospital. “I came from a blackout. When I woke up I didn’t even know that I hurt people.” She continued: “I shattered my chest. I had surgery on my stomach. Shattered my hip. I don’t know what’s going on. I need to let this sink in. That’s what I need.”
Driving about 60 Coulibaly did not go into any more detail about what happened Saturday morning and did
not acknowledge any deaths. “This is terrible, especially for someone who has never been in trouble before,” she said. She said she needed to speak with her attorney before saying anything more. Sources say Coulibaly smelled of alcohol at the scene, and that she also told medical staff she had been partying all night. Investigators estimate Coulibaly was driving around 60 miles per hour before crashing into the three teens in Miami’s Little Haiti
neighborhood.
Walking to bus stop Gedeon Desir, 13, Lens Desir, 15, and Richecarde Dumay, 17, all members of Little Haiti Football Club, a local soccer team for at-risk, low-income youth with athletic talent, died at about 5:22 a.m. Saturday. They were walking to the bus stop, eager for a long-awaited soccer tournament in Weston. Records show Coulibaly had two misdemeanor criminal arrests in Miami-Dade: a petty theft in 2017 and marijuana possession in 2008. Both cases were dropped. According to online MiamiDade county traffic records, Coulibaly’s license was suspended Jan. 19, 2018, for not paying a $293 ticket after getting busted by a red light camera in Coral Gables on Feb. 18, 2016. There is no notation of payment or reinstatement since then. The online records say the fine amount, now $410.20, was referred to a collection agency April 10, 2018. But Coulibaly’s driving record extends outside Miami-Dade into Broward, documents show. All incidents appear to have happened in the early morning hours.
More tickets Online Broward County court records and traffic citations say Coulibaly got caught going 77 mph in a 35 mph zone between 7600 and 8000 on Atlantic Bou-
— Disneyland in California — by more than 2 million people. SeaWorld had 4.6 million visitors, a 16% increase over 2017, which was its worst year in recent history. Infinity Falls, a whitewater thrill ride, opened in October 2018 and is likely to have a bigger impact on 2019 numbers. Disney’s Animal Kingdom jumped 10% in one year — 27% in the last two years — to 13.7 million guests, largely boosted by the opening of World of Avatar in May 2017. It’s now the second most popular park in Florida.
Other parks
JOE BURBANK/ORLANDO SENTINEL/TNS
Florida’s theme parks saw a sharp spike in attendance in 2018.
Record number of guests visit Florida theme parks BY MARJIE LAMBERT MIAMI HERALD/TNS
Florida’s theme parks saw a big jump in attendance in 2018, a fact that will come as a surprise to no one who stood in line for a roller coaster, the train to Hogwarts or a character meet-and-greet. In Florida, which gets more theme park visitors than any country in the world or any state in the U.S., 87.5 million people visited its eight biggest parks last year, the
largest number on record. The increase in visitors was led by SeaWorld, making a comeback after years of declining attendance, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom, during its first full year since the World of Avatar opened. And with only a 2% increase, Disney World’s Magic Kingdom remains the most popular theme park in the world, despite higher ticket prices. Across North America, the number of people going through
the gates of the 20 largest theme parks increased by 4% to 157 million, according to a report by the Themed Entertainment Association and the Economics Practice at AECOM, released last week. Around the world, more than half a billion people visited theme parks, the biggest number in history.
20.8 million at Disney In Florida, the report covers its eight biggest parks — four Disney parks, two Universal parks, SeaWorld and Busch Gardens. Legoland’s attendance is not big enough to be included. Magic Kingdom had 20.8 million visitors, leading its closest competitor
Epcot grew 2% to 12.4 million visitors. Disney’s Hollywood Studios, where Toy Story Land opened in 2018, grew 5% to 11.2 million visitors. Universal Studios, which opened the Supercharged: Fast and Furious ride in April 2018, had 10.7 million visitors, a 5% increase. Universal’s Islands of Adventure had a 2.5% increase in visitors, to 9.8 million. Busch Gardens jumped 4.5% to 4.1 million. For the Disney and Universal parks, the numbers are their largest ever. Busch Gardens and SeaWorld, both owned by the same parent company, have had higher attendance figures. What’s driving the increases? The growth of attractions tied to intellectual properties including Harry Potter at Universal and Avatar at Disney’s Animal Kingdom played a big role, the report said. That influence will continue with Star Wars lands opening in Disney’s Florida and California parks this year. “We can expect that next year’s numbers will likely show massive attendance impact for Disney in North America, from the 2019 openings of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland in May and Walt Disney World in August,” the report said. Even SeaWorld, which generally relies on animal-themed attractions, is expected to benefit from an intellectual prop-
That came just three months and four days after Coulibaly was ticketed for the same three violations, including doing 75 mph in a 45 mph zone, by Davie police around 4600 S. State Road 7 at 6:47 a.m. on July 5, 2015. In that case, she pleaded nolo to driving on a suspended license, and the other two tickets were dismissed. She paid the $355 fine. She was ticketed, but not convicted, for driving too fast for the conditions after a 7:30 a.m., Nov. 10, 2013, crash on Interstate 95 around the Hallandale Beach Boulevard exit. As Florida Highway Patrol Officer Christian Flores described the crash, Coulibaly was on I-95’s southbound side in the far righthand lane when she rear-ended a car in front of her to start a crash that eventually involved a car in the lane to their left.
Sued in civil court Progressive Insurance, the insurance company of the driver in the third car, sued Coulibaly and the driver of the second car in Broward County civil court. They got a default judgment against Coulibaly of $11,695.06 when she “failed to appear, serve or file any pleadings as required by the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure,” the final judgment said. The ticket was dismissed for lack of prosecution, online records say. Over the weekend, North Miami Police identified the three minors killed in the crash, but refused to confirm the name of the driver. “It’s Memorial Day weekend and the investigation is still ongoing. It only happened a few days ago and we have to make sure the investigation is done right,” said North Miami Assistant Police Chief Franzia Brea.
Miami Herald staff writer David Ovalle contributed to this report.
erty with its Sesame Street land, which opened this spring.
Immersive environments Another factor is the growth of what theme parks call immersive environments. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal’s Islands of Adventure doesn’t have just a single ride, it has an entire land with three rides, shops and restaurants, all based on the Harry Potter books. Toy Story Land at Disney’s Hollywood Studios has three rides, a restaurant, and a shop. SeaWorld and Busch Gardens have also built immersive environments, usually animal themed. For example, at SeaWorld, the Mako roller coaster is the centerpiece of a sharkthemed plaza that has a shark sculpture built of beach litter, a shark mural painted by Guy Harvey, a walk-through aquarium, some educational exhibits and Sharks Underwater Grill. SeaWorld has a different story than the other parks. Its attendance dropped from 5.8 million in 2009 to 5.1 million in 2010, when one of its trainers was killed by an orca whale, and began a serious slide in 2014, the year after “Blackfish,” a documentary about the treatment of whales at SeaWorld parks, came out. Only 4 million people visited SeaWorld in 2017. In 2018, that number jumped to 4.6 million. In recent years SeaWorld has aggressively promoted its rescue and rehabilitation of manatees, sea turtles and other marine creatures, lessened its emphasis on its killer whale shows, built more thrill tides and added Sesame Street land. “SeaWorld’s good performance is creditable to investments in new rides and programming and leveraging the Sesame Street (intellectual property), in addition to working actively to change the conversation about the parks — internally and externally — and other positive changes,” the report said.
EDITORIAL
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Malcolm X, Russiagate and the FBI The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses. The press is so powerful in its image-making role, it can make the criminal look like he’s the victim and make the victim look like he’s the criminal. This is the press, an irresponsible press. If you aren’t careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. – Malcolm X On May 20, the day after Malcolm’s birthday, NBC correspondent Richard Engel posted a breathless report, claiming to possess documents showing “Russian operatives” hatched a plot to “recruit African-Americans with criminal records, giving them sabotage training at camps in Africa and returning them to the U.S. Another proposal: encouraging African-Americans to push for independent statehood in the South.” Over footage of Black Lives Matter demonstrations, Engel said his sources linked the plot to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russian catering magnate often referred to in U.S. media as “Putin’s chef.” Prigozhin was among the 13 Russians indicted by Robert Mueller for allegedly “communicat[ing] with unwitting individuals” on social media with the aim of disrupting U.S. politics. Engel said NBC got the documents from a Russian “investigative group” called The Dossier Center, which has “in the past revealed authentic material to us.” What Engel neglected to tell viewers is that the Dossier Center is financed by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once the richest oligarch in Russia, who is now the world’s most prominent Putin-hater after spending a decade in prison before being released to exile in Switzerland, where he coordinates a steady stream of anti-Russia propaganda and intrigue that is lustily consumed by U.S. and European corporate media.
Updated FBI scheme The Dossier Center/ Khodorkovsky allegation is tailor-made to fit the political profile of so-called “Black Identity Extremists” concocted by the FBI to repackage and resurrect COINTELPRO (the FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program) in the Black Lives Matter era. According to a 2017 Intelligence Assessment by the Bureau: “The FBI defines Black identity extremists as individuals who seek, wholly or in part, through unlawful acts of force or violence, in response to perceived racism and injustice in American society, and some do so in furtherance of establishing a separate Black homeland or autonomous Black social institutions, communities, or governing organizations within the United States.” Note that, by the FBI’s political reckoning, Black Identity Extrem-
GLEN FORD BLACK AGENDA REPORT
ists include not only those who call for outright secession of liberated Southern territories from the United States, but also advocates of “autonomous Black social institutions, communities, or governing organizations within the United States” – a definition that encompasses demands for community control of police, schools, or any other “governing” or even “social institutions” in the U.S. By such definition, damn near all Black folks are Black Identity Extremists.
Blacks led by Russians? In an extended print report for NBC, Engel does inform readers of the exiled Khodorkovsky’s involvement. He then delivers a one-paragraph history vignette designed to give credence to the claim that Russians are the Rasputins behind Black American yearnings for self-determination: “The idea of African-American statehood has an intellectual precedent in Russia. During the early 20th Century, communists in America proposed forming a ‘Black-belt nation’ in the South. Some party members traveled to the Soviet Union for training.” Engel assumes the “Russian connection” – in this case, Soviet – is damning to all involved. But the truth is during the 1930s, the Communist Party USA was, by some estimates, as much as 25 percent Black. Many of the Black members were drawn to the party by its position on self-determination for the “Black Belt.” Although Marcus Garvey was deported from the U.S. in 1927, his Universal Negro Improvement Association had galvanized Black nationalist aspirations throughout the country, and some of his followers wound up in the Communist Party. The CPUSA leadership were never comfortable with the “Black Belt” position, which was adopted in accordance with the Soviet policy to allow autonomy, or even secession, to national groups within the borders of formerly Tsarist Russian territories. By 1956, the FBI was bragging that the CPUSA “had failed to attract even a significant minority of the Negroes in the United States to its program.” Actually, a decade of frenzied red-baiting had driven away all but the most committed members of all races. But the party’s Black self-determination position had attracted far more Black people than it repelled.
Civil rights ‘communists’ The party finally dropped its “Black Belt” stance in 1959. But in 1956, while concluding that the CPUSA was weak in Black America, J. Edgar Hoover launched a new program of surveillance and
Random thoughts of a free Black mind, v. 334 QUICK TAKES FROM #2: STRAIGHT, NO CHASER
CHARLES W. CHERRY II, ESQ. PUBLISHER
Dems and impeachment – What’s the risk of the Democratic House impeaching King Don, and the Senate Republicans refusing to convict him? We get four more years of the King. Well, if the Dems don’t impeach, we’ll probably get four more years of him anyway. Why? There’s no fight in them. An example:
disruption: COINTELPRO, based on the assumption that “communists” had infiltrated the growing civil rights movement. “Black separatists,” loosely defined, would soon be at the top of the target list. Some of them would advocate a Black State in the South, but freedom fighters like Denmark Vesey (1822) and Nat Turner (1831) long ago had plans for Black Belt liberation – by knife and fire – without benefit of the Soviets. Richard Engel and his ilk are simply acting as annexes to the FBI’s updated COINTELPRO, repackaged as Black Identity Extremism, in the context of the New McCarthyism of Russiagate. And like the Old McCarthyism, with its red-baiting Black collaborators (most notably, the NAACP under Roy Wilkins), the Congressional Black Caucus is ever-ready to prove its allegiance to U.S. empire.
Demings: ‘No surprise’ NBC’s Engel had no trouble finding a House Negro to authenticate his story. “It does not surprise me at all the extent to which Russia would go to undermine democracy, and really to target divisions that already exist in our country,” said Black Congresswoman Val Demings (D-FL). Demings is a career cop and former police chief of Orlando, and made it her business to get appointed to the Homeland Security, Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, the better to serve the National Security and Mass Black Incarceration State. Along with 75 percent of the rest of the Congressional Black Caucus, Deming voted for the Protect and Serve Act of 2018 ,which made law enforcement officers a “protected class” and assault on police a “hate crime.” Four years earlier, 80 percent of the Black Caucus voted to continue the Pentagon’s infamous 1033 Program that funnels billions of dollars in military weapons, gear and training to local cops – making the Black Caucus the Great Enabler of U.S. militarized policing.
VISUAL VIEWPOINT: TRUMP, PELOSI AND IMPEACHMENT
JOHN COLE / TIMES TRIBUNE
homeland or autonomous Black social institutions, communities, or governing organizations within the United States” – a broad political cohort that includes most activists associated with Black Lives Matter, as well as all 17 of the Chicago aldermen that say they support the CPAC community control of police bill, as well as community control of schools. That the FBI treats such activists as enemies of the state is proof the Bureau is, and has always been, a secret political police. Yet the House Negro Rep. Demings – a native of Florida, the state with the highest percentage of Black people ineligible to vote in the country – collaborates in pointing fingers at Russians.
CBC silent
They are resisting nothing – not police surveillance and armed occupation of Black communities, and certainly not the endless austerity and war that are their party’s – and the Republicans’ – only foreign and domestic policies, the only vision that is permitted by the oligarchs that rule both parties. Russiagate was invented to give the Democrats another chance to run against Trump and his narrow White base, and – the overarching aim of the “deep state” operatives – to keep the fires of endless war burning. The betrayal of the Black Misleadership Class is complete. They have utterly forsaken peace and justice in Ferguson, Caracas, Damascus and Kinshasa – their only solidarity is with Empire. The FBI has spelled out in clear language that it surveils people that advocate “a separate Black
Black Congressional Democrats could demand the FBI halt its unconstitutional political surveillance. But they won’t because they are in bed with the national security state. Since Russiagate, all the Democrats are fawning toadies of the FBI and the CIA, including “Auntie” Maxine Waters, the Los Angeles Congresswoman who once charged the CIA with bringing crack cocaine to her city. Now she’s all-in with the spooks. “Here you have a president who I can tell you and guarantee you is in collusion with the Russians to undermine our democracy,” Waters told attendees at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Town Hall on Civil Rights in Washington, D.C., last year. She is certain of this because then-FBI Director James Comey told her so, just as the corporate media “report” that the DNC emails were “hacked” by Russians and then given to Wikileaks because the CIA said it was “confident” that’s how it happened – despite Wikileaks denials. Wikileaks, however, has never been caught in a lie, and the CIA virtually never tells the truth. The FBI cannot tell the truth about its new COINTELPRO operation without admitting to high crimes and misdemeanors. Therefore, the ACLU Real Justice Program sued the FBI in March to “demand answers about why and how the FBI is targeting Black people based on racial stereotypes rather than true security threats based on evidence.” The Bureau cannot admit that it spies on Black people because
Many of the current presidential candidates refused to take 90 minutes of FREE TV time worth MILLIONS of dollars to do town hall meetings on Fox News and make their case in front of GOP voters who couldn’t pick them out of a police lineup. Their reasoning? “Fox is about hate and division. We shouldn’t bring more viewers to them so they can make more advertising money off us.” I call BS. Y’all are LAZY and SCARED. It was a golden opportunity to get a typically hostile crowd to consider your message. Dems would rather air simplistic
TV commercials, talk to the nice Starbucks crowd, show up late in Black churches, and hope TrumpHate wins the day rather than doing the hard work of actually ENGAGING people who disagree with them. Yeah. It’ll be four more years of Trump. Ain’t no Obama Trojan horse ‘lightning’ in this Dem crowd…and that’s no compliment. Fried by the current heat – Attending Carnivals and photographing ‘mas’ bands are your humble writer’s favorite journalistic events. Travelled from South Florida to Orlando Carnival, but
No CBC ‘resistance’
Charles W. Cherry II, Esq., Publisher
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its political mandate and purpose is to subvert Black aspirations for self-determination, by any means necessary. That’s illegal. So they will lie and promise to stay within the bounds of the law in the future. The Black Misleadership Class’s job is to believe them, accept their contrition, and declare a civil rights victory. And then attack the Russians.
Stirring up ‘our Negroes’ Malcolm X, known as much for his smile as his sternness, would find today’s Russiagate idiocy almost laughable. Just as in the 1960s Southern segregationists demonized “outside agitators” for stirring up “our Negroes,” today’s corporate media blame Russians for the presence of a White nationalist in the White House, and for exacerbating every homegrown ill of U.S. society. Funny, how Russia went from “a gas station masquerading as a country,” in the words of the late degenerate John McCain, to a super-power so skilled at political manipulation, its operatives stole a national election with $100,000 in Facebook ads, and threaten to wreak more havoc in 2020. Malcolm would ask, “Who does the lie serve?” After three years of Russiagate, it is now forbidden to take the same position as Putin on issues of war and peace – even when Putin is right. Folks fear being called “witting or unwitting dupes.” And when Russian click-baiters mimic the language and symbolism of the Black liberation movement, corporate media infer that the Black people that genuinely hold those positions might have absorbed them through Russian-tainted social media. All in all, it’s been a marathon of a mass psychological operation, initiated by the CIA and FBI and sustained by a determined corporate media. Malcolm would urge Black folks to double down on struggle and stop listening to the Trickster. “I just don’t believe that when people are being unjustly oppressed that they should let someone else set rules for them by which they can come out from under that oppression.” – Malcolm X
Glen Ford is executive editor of BlackAgendaReport.com. Email him at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
the 101-degree heat ran me back to Daytona Beach for some airconditioned relief… The insurance trap – Got a renewal notice that windstorm insurance will cost Mom almost $5,000 to cover her home just as hurricane season starts. She needs a new A/C unit. Cost: $5,000. Which choice – go “bare” while hoping and praying in 72-degree comfort that all storms pass us by? Or sweat through the season knowing storm damage is covered? I say “Pray frosty…”
I’m at ccherry2@gmail.com.
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MAY 31 – JUNE 6, 2019
STOJ
Dems will stop Bernie by any means necessary In a compact and effective video that appeared in leftish publications last week, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez delivers an uplifting “Message from the Future” projecting a decade of sweeping social democratic legislation following a Democratic capture of the White House and both chambers of Congress in 2020. A succession of progressivedominated Congresses passes Medicare for All; a federal jobs bill “guaranteeing dignified living wages” for all workers; a Universal Child Care Initiative “that started paying real money to teachers, domestic workers and home health aides”; and the Green New Deal, which AOC’s voice from the future explained, “didn’t just change the infrastructure” of the nation, but also showed that America could be “not only modern and wealthy but dignified and humane, too.”
Something left out It’s a well-done, inspiring piece that actually touched my heart strings. While she was at it, AOC could have also painted a picture of a world that wasn’t being bombed and regime-changed day and night by her homeland’s military, but maybe that’s a subject for her and Naomi Klein’s next animated vignette. Meanwhile, in the real world, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last week told “60 Minutes” that “only five” members of Congress share Ocasio-Cortez’s “socialist” vision. As soon as the votes were counted in last November’s congressional elections, Pelosi dispatched her minions to assure the health insurance industry they need not worry about Medicare for All passing the House under her watch. The bill that AOC-of-the-future calls “the most popular social program in American history” is to Pelosi an “unhelpful distraction.” And the speaker is downright contemptuous of the Green New Deal. “It will be one of several or maybe many suggestions that we receive,” she told Politico in February. “The green dream, or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they’re for it, right?”
How will they win? Ocasio-Cortez’s “Message from the Future” is flawed from the start, because it fails to tell us how the “progressives” defeat the corporate wing of her own party per-
GLEN FORD BLACK AGENDA REPORT
I don’t know what tricks and travesties the corporate Democrats will employ against Sanders and his supermajority issues, but it will be the ugliest political fight since the crackers bum-rushed Reconstruction in Dixie. sonified by Nancy Pelosi, who is about right in her estimation that there are only one or two handfuls of Ocasio-Cortez-type leftists in Congress. The party’s corporate leadership is determined to make AOC and her left-Democrat colleagues an endangered species on Capitol Hill. That’s why the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee imposed a new rule blacklisting political consultants that back challengers to Democratic incumbents. “Let’s be clear,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, a leftish Democrat from California. “If this policy remains in place, it will mean that we will not allow new Ayanna Pressleys or AOCs to emerge. It’s simply wrong.”
Corporate defender No, it’s simply the job of corporate Democrats to defend corporate interests, especially when Medicare for All is supported by 85 percent of Democrats (and even 52 percent of Republicans), and an amazing 92 percent of Democrats (and 64 percent of Republicans) support a Green New Deal. The Democratic Party is the first line of defense of Corporate America, the place where progressive legislation can be smothered in its crib and supermajorities are corralled and neutered.
Don’t skip the work My father always told me I needed to “pay my dues” in life and I never truly understood what that meant and why I needed to. My life was planned: you go to school, you go to college, you graduate, and you get a good job. I learned the hard way that life isn’t a step-by-step puzzle and the pieces will not fit perfectly or easy together. It doesn’t matter if you went to a prestigious school or come from a great family – no one is going to just hand me success. I have to earn it.
Not just millennials The media has inundated us with various articles and studies stating that millennials feel entitled and privileged. I can agree to a certain point, but I think it applies to more than just millennials. I feel many of us feel so eager for success or accolades that we
MORGAN A. OWENS NNPA COLUMNIST
forget to do the steps. To appreciate the journey of highs and lows, to learn from our mistakes and from our achievements. I talk in my book “Finding My Sparkle” about how I hated the way I looked, but had to take a deeper dive into what I was doing about it. I was complaining, I was living in my feelings of sadness – but what was I doing to change it? I had to put in the work. In that case, it was making a plan to change my eating habits, working out more and overall making a lifestyle change. This applies to everything in life, including climbing the corporate
Black federal procurement hasn’t bounced back As the George W. Bush administration ended, Black federal procurement was coming in at eight percent. During the Obama administration, levels fell consistently. As President Trump entered the White House, levels were at 1.8 percent and falling. Today, the levels have yet to turn around. For first half of fiscal year 2019 (October 1 to March 31, 2019) the average is 1.3 percent. Hopefully, we have now hit bottom and the subsequent re-
HARRY & KAY ALFORD GUEST COLUMNISTS
ports will show an upward trending consistent with an improved economy. Federal agencies are encouraged to utilize the Small Business Administration’s 8(a) procure-
EDITORIAL
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VISUAL VIEWPOINT: RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE
Nancy Pelosi is the Democratic leader precisely because corporate moneybags trust her to neutralize the party’s base at every stage of the “money-soaked” (as Paul Street likes to say) process. The Democratic Party is half of the governing duopoly of the United States, and indispensable to the ongoing rule of the rich. Indeed, after three years of Russiagate, with Trump delegitimized in the eyes of majorities of Americans and his Republican base shrunk to an overtly racist rump (although the GOP White Man’s Party remains the largest organized ideological bloc in the country), the Democratic Party has become the ruling class’s most important political instruResistance already ment. If the core corporate imperial underway policies of austerity and endless AOC’s animation envisions one war are to be preserved, the Dem- of her young Bronx protégés jourocratic base must be kept in check neying to Louisiana to help re– supermajorities be damned! store wetlands, working alongside “former oil workers” tranThe rich will fight sitioned out of that (apparently Maybe Ocasio-Cortez and Nao- doomed) industry, but earning mi Klein don’t want to scare the the same salary and benefits in children, but they have paint- their new, eco-friendly jobs. Big Oil’s resistance to the verdict ed a scenario in which the rich of Green New Deal supporters is roll over and accept the wishes already being expressed, through of the majority without shedding the leadership of Ocasio-Cortez’s oceans of blood. own party. The looming battle The U.S. empire is now engaged to-the-death in that turf does not in a desperate bid to restrain and appear in AOC’s video fairy tale. contain the rising forces of glob- Does she think it can be avoided? al majorities determined to throw Bernie Sanders, in whose 2016 off the shackles of half a millenni- campaign AOC became an acum of racist, Euro-American dic- tivist, is an austerity-buster, and tatorship. Since its rise to super- therefore beyond the pale for the power after World War II, the U.S. imperial ruling class. Austerity is has caused the deaths of tens of the universal global policy of latemillions and held the planet hos- stage capitalism. It is designed tage to nuclear annihilation. to cap any expectations the lowThe U.S. and European ruling er classes might have of a better classes have tried to exterminate standard of life in the future, and every government and movement to squelch notions that society in the formerly colonized world should be organized for the betthat attempted to address the terment of the masses of people. needs and aspirations of popular Under austerity, there is never majorities. The same people that any money to even think about organized this carnage also bank- that. Medicare for All would not roll and buttress Nancy Pelosi and only bust austerity wide open Chuck Schumer and their Repub- (even while lowering overall health costs), but would be a lican counterparts. Ocasio-Cortez’s favored candi- death sentence for a trillion-doldate for president is unacceptable lar section of finance capital – the to the ruling class, and therefore holy sanctum of the ruling class. to the leaders of the Democratic Therefore, as the Wall Street JourParty. Never in U.S. history has a nal should know, the Lords of candidate of a duopoly party run Capital have decreed: Stop Beron a promise to wipe out a major nie – the corporate Democrats’ sector of the ruling class. But that assignment from on-high. is what Bernie Sanders is pledging to do with Medicare for All, which Bernie a target would smash the trillion-dollar Although Sanders remains an imperialist pig who is incapable health insurance industry.
NATE BEELER, THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH, OH
of solidarity with other socialists in the world unless they are Scandinavian, I don’t think U.S. rulers and their military and national security state henchmen trust Bernie to protect the empire. They didn’t trust Trump, and he’s an oligarch like them. The corporate Democrats will thwart Sanders’ presidential bid by any means necessary. The national security state folks may kill him. It is inconceivable that finance capital – which is to the Democratic Party what Big Oil is to the Republicans – will tolerate a financial industry-slayer in the White House, or accept Sanders opening up the Pandora’s Box of social spending on education and all the other “rights” he talks about. This is anathema to the ruling class in the 21st Century, and they will not allow such agitation to triumph in either of their houses: Democratic or Republican. The Lords of Capital have paid the cost to be the boss of these institutions, and will not be defied. This season may be the final showdown between supermajorities of Democrats and the corporate party apparatus whose job is to betray them. I don’t know what tricks and travesties the corporate Democrats will employ against Sanders and his supermajority issues, but it will be the ugliest political fight since the crackers bum-rushed Reconstruction in Dixie. At the end of the carnage, we’ll see if Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the millions that think like her still want to be Democrats.
Glen Ford is executive editor of BlackAgendaReport.com. Email him at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
ladder or building a successful ceed you have to start. There is business. no magic pill, secret sauce or easy button – the magic is in the action. Here are a couple ways to Master current level Too often, I see clients and oth- help you navigate the work: • Do it with purpose. Don’t coners give up because life is not gofuse purpose with passion. Many ing their way, but then when asked, “Did you do XYZ?” they of us lead with passion because only did X. You can’t skip to the we are ready for an end result next level without mastering the such as a paycheck or an award. At the end of the day, purpose will level you are on currently. Often, we get wrapped up in prevail due to it being your callsomeone else’s journey and want ing. Many people working in corto compare theirs to ours. Truth porate or as an entrepreneur lead is, you never know what work with purpose because it’s what we they did behind the scenes to get truly love doing. We wouldn’t ento where they are today. People dure the sacrifices, long nights, only show you what they want to stress if we weren’t truly doing it show you. The struggle and work for purpose. I’m not saying you can’t have passion about your are often left out. The work can be unsexy. I to- purpose, but make sure purpose tally get it and understand. We is your number one focus. • Don’t skip the steps. Make a often find ourselves unmotivated to just even start. Our checklist plan. Want to move up the corpois next to us but then we seem to rate ladder? Map out a 5-year plan use every excuse and distraction on how you’re going to get to your to delay us from diving into what desired position(s). Along the way you may need to complete addineeds to be done. This is where determination tional educational or professional kicks in. If you truly want to suc- development courses. Do them.
You can’t jump from an assistant to the vice president overnight. • Do it over time. There is no such thing as an overnight success. Social media can be very misleading where people seem to pop out of nowhere with the perception that are doing great things. Most certainly, they have been working hard at their career or business for a while, but their work is just now starting to “bloom” from the seeds they have planted. Stay consistent and you will see growth soon. • Do the work. There isn’t much explanation needed for this one. You have to devote the time, sweat and tears into making your goals realities. Seek out mentors that will help you stay accountable, steer towards what you need to do, and give constructive criticism (and not just a pat on the back). Wake up, get dressed and do the work, every day.
ment program which emphasizes utilization of designated minority firms. The SBA is a proven example of the value of this program. This agency’s Black procurement levels are at 34 percent which leads all other agencies by far. During the second Bush administration, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson committed his procurement to 8(a) utilization. His agency approached the 30 percent Black procurement level during his tenure. The Congressional Black Caucus formally recognized his achievement. Secretary Jackson is no longer at HUD and those numbers have shrunk. Today, HUD is at 5.9 percent. The NBCC encourages all decision makers and associations of influence to encourage our federal agencies to improve their status
• Garner Trump administration support. Here is a few federal agencies and their current procurement rates: Labor, 9.3 percent; Transportation, 3.2 percent; Treasury, 2.8 percent; Agriculture, 2.6 percent; Homeland Security, 2.3 percent; Justice, 2.1 percent. The 1.3 percent total Black procurement is intolerable! We must all come together and improve this performance. Business growth, employment and economic empowerment are at stake.
of Black business procurement. Positive activity will result in an improved overall economy and increased employment levels. The federal government is the No. 1 business customer. Improved performance will strengthen the weakest link of our economic chain. Here is our strategy to increase the numbers: • Contact each agency head and inform him/her of their procurement level status. Suggest increased utilization of the SBA 8(a) program on a recurring basis. • Encourage our members to apply for 8(a) status. • Make quarterly updates on Black procurement status for each agency and follow up with correspondence to agency heads. • Worldwide marketing and publicity.
Need more motivation? Stay connected with me at www.morganaowens.com and IG miss_ morgan86.
Harry C. Alford is the cofounder and president/CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce (NBCC). Kay DeBow is the NBCC co-founder. Contact them via www.nationalbcc.org.
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MAY 31 – JUNE 6, 2019
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Laws could outlaw racially motivated 911 calls BY JAWEED KALEEM LOS ANGELES TIMES/TNS
The hashtag “Living While Black” went viral on social media in the last two years as videos proliferated of incidents around the nation in which White people called police on Black people going about their everyday activities. The most well-publicized episodes came last year, including two Black men confronted by Philadelphia police after asking to use a Starbucks bathroom without first having made a purchase; a Black Yale graduate student questioned by cops for napping in a dorm common room; and a Black man in Oakland, Calif. whose wife filmed his encounter with a woman who dialed 911 to say he was illegally barbecuing in a park. A lesser known one took place in 2017 in Grand Rapids, Mich., on a June afternoon when squad cars showed up at a public park during a graduation party. The event was permitted, the attendees were mostly Black, and they said a noise complaint against them was really about White residents who were uncomfortable with a large gathering of Black people. That instance, and another last September in which police handcuffed two unarmed Black 11-year-old brothers after a phone call reported a teen with a gun, added to complaints about race and 911 calls, as well as policing, in western Michigan.
Subject to fine Now, the city of 200,000 could be among the first in the country to make such calls illegal. A proposed ordinance would make it a “criminal misdemeanor to racially profile people of color for participating in their lives” and subject people behind those 911 calls to a $500 fine. “A policy like this makes it so people have to think about whether their decision to call 911 is grounded in something significant,” said Senita Lenear, a Grand Rapids city commissioner who is the first Black person in her position. “Our resources can’t be wasted on police addressing nonissues. You can’t ignore that people of color are the ones who have been victimized … . That is a part of a pattern.” The debate in Grand Rapids joins efforts to either outlaw or discourage similar calls introduced by elected officials in Oregon and New York and which activists have pushed for elsewhere.
JESSICA GRIFFIN/PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER/TNS
Protesters demonstrate at the Starbucks at 18th and Spruce Streets in Philadelphia on April 16, 2018, after a video of two men being arrested there went viral. Aurica Hurst poured out coffee in protest.
Lawsuit bill In Oregon, state Rep. Janelle Bynum was going door to door in her district outside Portland to speak to constituents in July when a resident called police on her because she looked “suspicious.” Now, Bynum, the state’s only Black legislator, is backing a bill that would allow victims of racially biased 911 calls about noncrimes to sue the callers in small claims court for up to $250. “I thought my incident was isolated and odd, but as time went on I realized, no, it’s not,” said Bynum, a Democrat. “My goal has always been to spark a conversation on issues, especially in Oregon where people don’t have a great understanding of civil rights history.”
Other bills failed Bynum’s proposal recently passed the state’s House and a Senate committee. In Grand Rapids, the proposed ordinance has received a mix of support and criticism at City Commission meetings.
Other attempts to enact such laws, including measures proposed last year by state legislators in New York and Michigan, have failed. Opponents of each have raised similar concerns. One is that making false crime reports is already illegal in many parts of the U.S. Another is that although it’s relatively easy for police who show up at a scene to determine that there’s no crime, it’s harder to decide whether the 911 caller was acting in a racist manner in making a report.
Vote pushed back Ronal Serpas, a criminal justice professor at Loyola University New Orleans, questioned whether the potential laws would discourage people from calling police when there are real crimes. “We don’t want to thwart people from calling when they think there is something suspicious in their neighborhood,” he said. “But we don’t want it to be a racial proxy. We can do both. Whether we need new laws, I
don’t know.” In Grand Rapids, the proposal is part of a larger human rights ordinance that has been under debate since early this year. A vote scheduled this month was pushed back to allow more community input and because of questions over how such a law would work in practice.
Power for accused Jeremy DeRoo, executive director of the Grand Rapids community development nonprofit Linc Up, has attended commission meetings to show his support. “Police can charge a person for filing a false report, but this puts more power in the hands of the person who has police called on them,” said DeRoo. One city resident who gave only his first name, Joshua, showed up at a commission meeting last month to voice opposition. “It is good that we as a community value leaving people alone and letting them live their lives without fear of discrimination, but we already have laws saying
it’s illegal to discriminate based on their class, and to create additional redundant legislation does nothing,” he said.
Mom reacts Juanita Ligon, the mother of the twin boys who were handcuffed last year in Grand Rapids on the false suspicion that one of them was carrying a gun, disagreed. “There are too many people calling police on people in the community who are just going about their business, like they did with my sons,” Ligon said. “My only concern is that police would use the ordinance to blame any wrong things they do to the community on the people who make the 911 calls.” In a statement, the city’s interim police chief, David Kiddle, declined to take a position. “I look forward to the community and stakeholders having the opportunity to weigh in and discuss the proposed ordinance and I look forward to working with the city as it moves forward,” he said.
Trump: Blacks won’t back Biden over tough-on-crime bill BY CHRIS SOMMERFELDT NEW YORK DAILY NEWS/TNS
of Congress last year in a rare moment of bipartisanship.
President Donald Trump, who infamously demanded death penalties for a group of Black and Hispanic teenagers wrongfully convicted of raping a woman in New York’s Central Park, claimed Monday that African Americans won’t vote for Joe Biden in 2020 because the former vice president backed controversial toughon crime legislation over two decades ago. On his way back from a trip to Japan, Trump thumbed out a couple of tweets taking aim at Biden over a 1994 bill he supported as senator that imposed the “three strikes” rule mandating life imprisonment for certain repeat offenders. “Anyone associated with the 1994 Crime Bill will not have a chance of being elected,” Trump tweeted. “In particular, African Americans will not be able to vote for you.”
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Touts reform law
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Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, and Yusef Salaam, three of the five men known as the ‘Central Park Five’ wrongfully convicted of raping a woman in Central Park in 1989, speak at a press conference on the steps of City Hall after it was announced they they had settled with New York City for approximately $40 million dollars, in New York City on June 27, 2014.
Brushing aside his own toughon crime advocacy, Trump continued, “I, on the other hand, was responsible for Criminal Justice Reform, which had tremendous support, & helped fix the bad 1994 Bill … That was a dark period in American History, but has Sleepy Joe apologized? No!” Spokespeople for Biden’s 2020 campaign did not return requests for comment. The president was likely referring to the First Step Act, which enacted some sentencing reforms and passed both chambers
However, long before the First Step Act, Trump wanted five teenagers executed for a crime it turned out they hadn’t committed. “BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY. BRING BACK OUR POLICE,” screamed an ad Trump took out in all four New York City newspapers in 1989 after five black and Hispanic teens were charged with assaulting and raping a jogger in Central Park. “I want to hate these muggers and murderers,” Trump’s ad continued. “They should be forced to suffer, and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes.”
Never apologized The defendants in the case — who became known as the Central Park Five — all had their convictions overturned in 2002 after a prison inmate confessed to the brutal crime. The city gave the five a $41 million settlement for wrongful convictions in 2014. Nonetheless, Trump has never apologized for his harsh ad. A White House spokesman did not return a request for comment Monday evening. Some of Biden’s Democratic primary opponents have criticized him for supporting the 1994 bill, including California Sen. Kamala Harris, who said at a recent campaign rally that the measure “did contribute to mass incarceration in our country.”
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Women with hijabs tell what it’s like to wear the Muslim headscarf
Asma Akhras, 44, is photographed near her home in Darien, Illinois on April 10.
PREJUDICE & PROGRESS BY NARA SCHOENBERG CHICAGO TRIBUNE/TNS
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rapped tightly around her head, with no softly draping fabric to distract her during meetings at her tech startup, Dilara Sayeed’s hijab is American in more ways than one. Her hijab, or Muslim headscarf, has a sleek, professional profile that is mostly seen in the U.S. And the spirit with which Sayeed, a former Democratic candidate for the Illinois House of Representatives, wears her hijab is American as well. When Sayeed’s Indian-born father questioned her decision to cover her hair at age 19, saying, “You’re in America now; you don’t have to do this,” Sayeed’s comeback was the stuff of a high school civics class: “It’s because I’m American that I can choose to cover, Daddy.”
Controversial headwear At a time of fraught debate about immigration and national identity, the hijab has become a flashpoint and a symbol of solidarity, with New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern donning a hijab after the Christchurch mosque shootings, and Fox News host Jeanine Pirro drawing criticism for asking whether U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar’s hijab reflects beliefs “antithetical to the U.S. Constitution.” Controversy flared locally last year when WGN-TV news anchor Robin Baumgarten told Chicago fashion blogger Hoda Katebi, who wears a hijab, that she didn’t sound like an American when she criticized U.S. policy. Baumgarten later apologized.
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Dawn Beasley, 39, was raised Christian but converted to Islam four years ago. see that, because the timing was really incredible,” El-Amin said.
DAWN NAJMA BEASLEY
Symbol of power In response to such high-profile incidents, the Tribune interviewed six Chicago-area women about why they wear the hijab, what it means to them, and what kinds of reactions they get. The women interviewed were from families with roots in Syria, India, Africa and Palestine. They were Black, White and Brown, suburban and urban, immigrant and American-born. They spoke of bigotry and acceptance, of religious devotion and personal identity. “Hijab is part of me, a part of who I am, something I can call basically home,” said Saeda Sulieman, a college student. “If I don’t wear the hijab, I feel less secure, less powerful.” While the Muslim holy book, the Quran, does not explicitly require head covering, it does call on Muslims — both men and women — to be modest in speech, action and self-presentation, according to Aminah Al-Deen, a professor emerita of Islamic studies at DePaul University.
Very personal meaning Some Muslim women believe they are required to wear the hijab, while others do not. And even beyond religion, the hijab has layers of nuanced and often very personal meaning: It can be a reminder to stay true to one’s own beliefs. It can be a signal to teenage boys that you demand respect. The hijab can be a very American assertion of the right to self-expression. It can be flat-out feminist. “It’s a big ‘screw you’ to beauty standards, you know?” said graduate student Naima Zaheer, 25. “Sometimes we buy into the idea that we’re not enough, that
Saeda Sulieman, 18, a freshman at Moraine Valley Community College in Chicago, started wearing a hijab in seventh grade. we have to do a certain thing a certain way to be considered beautiful, and I feel like this is a way to say, ‘No, I’m just going to be who I am.’ ”
Hannah ElAmin says wearing the hijab is a religious statement for her: “It definitely attests to my priorities in that I put faith first, period.”
Some hostility Some women reported overwhelmingly positive reactions to their hijabs; others encountered more hostility. But all recalled at least one stranger who reacted badly. “I had someone screaming at me, telling me I’m stupid, I can’t drive, to go back to my own country, all of those Islamophobic things, and I’m just looking at them like, what is your problem?” said Dawn Najma Beasley, 39. “They see me, and they see Desert Storm, they see ISIS, they see the propaganda. I was born and raised in Gary, Ind. My family is from the South Side of Chicago. I live down the street from Obama’s house.”
HANNAH EL-AMIN Growing up Muslim in Chicago in the 1980s, Hannah ElAmin wanted her mom to be like all the other moms at her elementary school, so when her mother started wearing a headscarf, El-Amin wasn’t pleased. “Why would you want to do that?” she asked. “I’m sure she explained it to me as her own personal choice, which I respected,” recalled El-
Amin, 39. “I just didn’t think it was cool. But then I came to realize that there are different definitions of cool.” For El-Amin, the hijab is a religious statement: “It definitely attests to my priorities in that I put faith first, period.” But there’s also a reminder to herself to make good choices and do what’s right. Responses, she said, have been overwhelmingly positive, along the lines of “that’s a really beautiful scarf.” Even the one story she did tell about Islamophobia had a surprising twist. When she worked as a dietitian at a suburban hospital, a man noticed her near the front desk and asked, “Why is she here?” El-Amin asked what he meant. “Well, this is a Catholic institution. Why are you here?” the man said. El-Amin asked the service
representatives at the front desk if they were Catholic. They said no. “Well, it’s not like (they’re) people who people kill people and cut people’s heads off,” the man said. El-Amin told him that she had never cut anyone’s head off, and that there are some Catholics who do awful things. The man denied that. “So there are no Catholics in jail?” El-Amin asked him. No, the man said. Minutes later, the patient the man had been waiting for appeared; it was his mother, and as it turned out, El-Amin was her dietitian. The man watched, stunned, as his mother reached out to hug El-Amin, thanking her for everything she had done for her. “I guess he was just meant to
Raised Christian in Gary, Ind., Dawn Beasley converted to Islam nearly four years ago. “It was a natural conversion; God guided me to a better way of life because I was searching,” said Beasley, 39, who is studying to be a phlebotomist. “I was studying religions. I was looking.” Islam, which has strong ties to Judaism and Christianity, was familiar to her, and she liked how detailed it is and how much practical information it offers regarding how to live your daily life. Praying five times a day and fasting during the holy month of Ramadan resonated with her, as did the hijab. In Islam, the word hijab refers narrowly to a screen that shields you from strangers, and more broadly to rules of modesty in behavior, speech and dress that apply to both men and women, according to Al-Deen, the DePaul University professor. In the U.S., the word hijab is widely used to mean headscarf. After she converted, Beasley, who lives with her husband and children, initially just covered her hair, but as she continued to practice Islam, she began to explore the broader meaning of hijab. “Modesty looks different for every person,” she said. “I’m a Black woman, so for me, covering may be different from another person covering. You have different cultures, you have different body types, you have different understandings of what modesty is. There are universal rules in our religion, but it’s very personal in its application.” For her, modesty has increasingly come to mean looser clothing and more layers. She’ll wear an overcoat, a long sweater or a duster. She stopped wearing leggings outside the house, unless they’re covered by other clothing. “I’m very shapely, and I didn’t necessarily want that to be my ‘hello’ when I walked into a room,” she said. “I wanted to keep it more to just me as a person and make it less about my curves, or glitter, or bedazzling, or even labels. To me, modesty includes not being flashy.” See HIJABS, Page B2
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JACKIEM JOYNER
The saxophonist and flautist will be at Boca Raton’s Funky Biscuit on June 28.
PAPA KEITH
KIRK FRANKLIN
The People Matter Music Fest organized by Miami radio host Papa Keith is June 15 at Gwen Cherry Park. Details: Peoplematterfest. com
The gospel star will be at the Florida Theatre Jacksonville on July 15.
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FLORIDA COMMUNITY CALENDAR Miami Gardens: Mayor Oliver Gilbert will present the Summer Youth Employment Program June 10-Aug. 11: Register at https:// iapps.careersourcesfl.com/syepmg Miami: The annual Sunrise Ancestral Remembrance of the Middle Passage ceremony is Sunday, June 9, from 5:30 -8:00 a.m. at Historic Virginia Key Beach Park. More info: 786-260-1246 or 305-904-7620. Miramar: The Caribbean Village Festival is June 23 at Miramar Regional Park Amphitheater. Miami: The Miami Dolphins Foundation will host its 23rd annual Fins Weekend on June 1, which includes golfing and fishing with area kids. Details: FinsWeekend. com. Jacksonville: Mary J. Blige will be
HIJABS from B1 SAEDA SULIEMAN In seventh grade, Saeda Sulieman felt ready to start wearing a hijab. “My mom wears the hijab, and she was kind of like a role model,” said Sulieman, now 18 and a freshman at Moraine Valley Community College. “Some people in my family don’t, and that’s their decision, obviously, but I chose to because I felt like it made me closer to God, and it made me feel like a better person.” When her friends asked her if she felt different now that she was wearing a headscarf, she told them she felt more confident because she was acting on her beliefs. Over time, her friends realized that she hadn’t changed, she said, and her relationships with them actually grew stronger. There was a difficult time about two months after she started wearing the hijab, when one classmate used the anti-Muslim slur “towelhead” and another called her a terrorist. Sulieman cried when she told one of her teachers, but the school acted quickly, addressing the issue with the two offending students and their parents, and the comments stopped. At high school, where Sulieman, who graduated early, is still president of the Muslim Student Association, there are Muslim students whose families hail from Egypt, Sudan and Palestine,
said Sulieman, whose parents are Palestinian immigrants. Last year, the Muslim Student Association held a World Hijab Day event in which students could try on hijabs during lunch and ask questions. School administrators, she said, have been supportive. “They love to make sure that we feel comfortable,” she said. “It’s all about comfort, and making sure that we have a voice.”
DILARA SAYEED “Can I be honest with you?” says Dilara Sayeed. “I think God’s got so many more problems to deal with than whether I’ve got a scarf on my head or not.” And yet, every morning, Sayeed wraps a scarf around her head. She was wearing a hijab in the 1980s and 1990s, when the Muslim headscarf was so rare that people thought she was just expressing her personal sense of style. She wore a hijab despite the fact that she and her parents immigrated from India, where the hijab wasn’t very common and despite the fact that her mother, a Muslim, did not cover her hair. “It is my identity,” Sayeed, founder and CEO of the online platform for peer-to-peer mentoring vPeer, said of her scarves, some colorful, some professional and sedate. “It is the way I see myself as an American Muslim woman. It means something to me: It means I am a woman who is empowered, I am a woman who has integrity, I am a woman who serves.” In the West, she said, a wom-
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an is considered liberated because she can wear a bikini on the beach. But in her view, liberation doesn’t lie in a particular article of clothing; it lies in the free choice to wear it. And unfortunately the misconception persists that women aren’t freely choosing the hijab. “We need to be real about this: Is putting on this scarf a challenge? I just finished telling you how empowered I am, but hell yeah,” she said. “It’s a challenge every single day. When I put it on, I have to prepare myself that when someone first meets me, they’re going to think, possibly, that I am quiet, reserved, suppressed, not empowered.” That hurts sometimes, and sometimes it makes her angry, but it also makes her all the more determined to change people’s minds. “There’s nothing like dialogue,” she said. “Looking each other in the eyes is the cure to prejudice.”
ASMA AKHRAS Asma Akhras felt respected and included when she wore a hijab as a college student in the 1990s. She moved easily through local public schools while working as a supervisor of student teachers. “I never felt that experience of being unwelcome,” said Akhras, 44. “I’ve always carried myself very confidently and unapologetically: ‘This is who I am.’ But honestly, I feel this has been due more to my racial profile than to my faith profile.” Akhras, whose parents immigrated from Syria, looks White with blond hair and blue eyes,
at Daily’s Place on July 14.
and she said that her experience has been one of white privilege, in which she’s been spared much of the hostility endured by darker-skinned Muslims. Only in the past few years, with new restrictions on travelers from Muslim countries and a rise in anti-immigrant rhetoric, has Akhras’ personal experience as a hijab-wearing Muslim woman grown stressful. “I started sensing this attitude coming into my field of work, into my neighborhood, into my community,” said Akhras, who is studying to be licensed as a school principal. “There’s this look of ‘you don’t belong here.’ ” There was a particularly troubling incident at a local Walgreens, where Akhras took one of her daughters to buy school supplies. Akhras was waiting outside the store in her car when a woman became irate, pounding on Akhras’ car window and screaming that she couldn’t stop there. Concerned for her daughter’s safety, Akhras went inside the store, where the angry woman continued to berate her, yelling, “If you want to fight, let’s fight.” After the woman found out that Akhras had called the police, she left, Akhras said. Akhras finds the heightened response to the hijab to be stressful, and she misses the days when she could simply choose to cover her hair without worrying about how people would react. Sometimes she’ll avoid scrutiny by wearing a baseball cap or a hat instead of a scarf, still covering her hair, but in a manner that’s not recognizably Muslim. “Other people are hijacking my narrative,” she said. “I’m not be-
West Palm Beach: Mary J. Blige and Nas will be at the Coral Sky Amphitheater on July 11 and MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheater on July 13. Ponte Vedra: Catch Leela James at the Ponte Vedra Concert Hall on July 5 and Plaza Live – Orlando on July 8. Davie: The South Florida Institute on Aging will host an aging seminar on June 21 from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Nova Southeastern University. Register at www. theSoFIA.org. Orlando: Pentatonix: The World Tour with special guest Rachel Platten stops at the Amway Center on June 1. Tampa: Hootie & the Blowfish’s Group Therapy tour stops at the MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheatre on June 9.
ing allowed to be me.”
NAIMA ZAHEER There are times when Naima Zaheer is walking down the street and a stranger smiles so warmly that she gets confused. “Do I know this person?” Zaheer wonders. The answer is no — she doesn’t know that smiling person, or for that matter the one who steps forward and says, “You’re welcome here.” Strangers in the Chicago area are responding to the scarf that Zaheer wears over her hair. Maybe they’re thinking of President Donald Trump’s Muslim travel ban, or a news story about antiMuslim bias, and they want the 25-year-old graduate student to know that they support her decision to express her faith. “I so appreciate that,” she said of the positive reactions from strangers. And yet, at the same time, she said, the underlying assumptions are interesting. “I grew up here my whole life. Of course, I’m welcome here,” she said with a laugh. “You know what I mean?” Zaheer, who is completing her master’s degree in speech pathology at New York University, with a goal of working with elderly stroke and cancer patients, said that the fundamental meaning of her hijab remains constant — “It’s a way for me to show my love for God” — but the nuances fluctuate. “Sometimes I feel like this is a way for me to privatize my sexuality: who sees me or the way that they see me,” she said.
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 before and during 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. Click on www.flcourier to see hundreds of pictures from previous Carnivals. Go to www. miamibrowardcarnival.com for more information on Carnival events in South Florida. CHARLES W. CHERRY II / FLORIDA COURIER
MAY 31 – JUNE 6, 2019
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Robinson’s daughter carries on legacy of breaking barriers BY DOM AMORE HARTFORD COURANT/TNS
HARTFORD, Conn. – To speak with Sharon Robinson is to make a connection with history, baseball and beyond, and with the courage and commitment it takes to make it. She sees much around her that is troubling, that would have troubled her father, Jackie, but she also sees encouraging signs. “I’m most encouraged by children lifting their voices,” Robinson said. “As we’ve seen from Stoneman Douglas and other instances of young people reaching out and saying, ‘I’m going to do something’ about a crisis or a social injustice or inequality, raising money for major storms, whatever the issue is. I really feel encouraged when young people realize they have a voice and are willing to use it to make a difference.” Robinson, 69, and her amazing mother, Rachel, who is approaching her 97th birthday, carry on the work of Jackie Robinson, who shattered baseball’s racial barrier in 1947 and remained an important voice in the civil rights movement until his death in 1972.
‘Incredible force’ Near the end of his playing career, Jackie and Rachel built a home in Stamford and became part of the community’s fabric, hosting jazz concerts on their property during the 1960s. Today, Rachel has a home in eastern Connecticut, though the Robinsons spend much of their time in Florida. “She’s still an incredible force and a joy to have in our lives,” Sharon said. Sharon Robinson changed careers 24 years ago, from teach-
treme poverty; we have so much healing that has to happen in this world. I’m hoping the majority voice will be one of shared humanity and respect.”
June 4 honor
Drop in numbers
There are no limits to what you can accomplish. You have the power to redefine what’s possible. From being the first to graduate college to becoming the next big star in your field — you work relentlessly to knock down barriers and build a stronger legacy. We call that being empowerful. As you continue to create more financial stability for you and your family, Wells Fargo will be right by your side helping to make it happen. You’ve come this far. We can help you go further. Learn how at:
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Rachel Robinson, widow of Baseball player Jackie Robinson, and his daughter Sharon Robinson stands next to a Jackie Robinson mural before the New York Mets play their game against the Milwaukee Brewers at Citi Field on April 15 in New York City.
ing and nursing to baseball, becoming educational consultant to MLB, where she manages “Breaking Barriers: In Sports, In Life,” a baseball-themed character and education curriculum, and serves as vice chair of the not-for-profit Jackie Robinson Foundation, founded by her mother, which provides mentoring and scholarships among its educational programs. “My father certainly believed in legacy,” Sharon said, “and taught us, as a family we should be mission-driven and have purpose in work that we love.” For her far-reaching work, Sharon will receive the Saint Clare Award from the Franciscan Life Center at its 34th annual banquet at the Aqua Turf in Southington on June 4. “I’m thrilled to be honored by the Franciscan Life Center,” Sharon Robinson said, “because it’s based in Connecticut and it has had significant impact in a community where I grew up, so that means quite a bit, means a lot to me to be honored in my own home state.” Robinson remains active on many fronts, for there is much left to be done along the trail her father helped to blaze in the 1940s and ’50s. “My biggest concern is the retrenchment in racism in this country,” she said, “the belief that one type of American is superior to other types of residents of this country. The world is in extreme conditions right now, the rejection of people that are desperate, and treatment of them once they arrive in this country, is very painful to me. “We have issues of race, of ex-
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In baseball, the participation of African Americans has declined in recent decades, as has overall participation in the game among youth, but Sharon Robinson sees the game’s climate as inclusive. “The most encouraging thing about Major League Baseball today is that it is a global game,” she said, “that we’re struggling for inclusion in the rest of the world. Baseball has been inclusive with players from around the world as well as working to maintain a presence of American players, both White and African American. “Our numbers have dropped dramatically with the AfricanAmerican population, but with our efforts in elevating youth baseball (in urban areas), we are seeing at least a stop-gap there so we are not losing numbers. We will gain some, even if we don’t reach the peak period from the past. “I also respect that our youth baseball academies across the country focus not just on the game, on being a player, but also
are exposing kids to a variety of careers within major league baseball and supporting them in their educational advance. It’s not just self-serving, that we’re trying to move youth up the ranks on our playing field, but looking at them holistically.”
Author, teacher Robinson, who has taught at several universities, including Yale, has been a prolific author of fiction and nonfiction, books for children as well as adults. Her latest, to be released in September, is “Child of the Dream (A memoir of 1963),” which chronicles her experiences in that seminal year in the civil rights movement. “It was the year I turned 13, so there is adolescent or pre-adolescent angst,” Sharon said, “mixed in with coming of age and understanding of race and the role race was playing in America, the Civil Rights movement, and our family moving into the civil rights movement — as a family. “In the past, it had been my dad going out and us hearing about it when he came back. We had our first jazz concerts that year. My family marched as a family in Washington, D.C., in the March on Washington, so it was a pivotal year for the movement, and for a
family and for me in beginning to find my voice and feeling I have a right to a voice.”
Museum coming She and her mother are heavily involved in the final details for Jackie Robinson Museum in lower Manhattan, set to open in December. Sharon believes her father, who would have turned 100 this year, would be surprised, and proud, of the relevance his life and work still carries in 2019 — he was often surprised by the receptions he received in his lifetime. And he would applaud when modern athletes speak out on social issues. “We’re lucky in this generation,” Sharon said. “There are many of the type of athletes my dad would admire, the type who works hard at the craft and is talented, but more importantly understands that they can have a voice in social change in this country. That’s how he used his celebrity and I think he would respect players that have done that. “I don’t want to start naming people, but that’s the kind of person — who shows some leadership on and off the field, who has a character that we can respect and is both a good teammate and a concerned citizen.
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Grilling up a homemade gift Impress dad with your DIY skills this Father’s Day FROM FAMILY FEATURES
As a child, you knew dad would be thrilled with whatever card or sculpture your creative mind could conjure. As an adult, you can still give him a homemade gift for Father’s Day, but with a grownup twist he can appreciate just as much. Almost nothing beats a savory steak sizzling hot off the grill, and ribeyes are one of the most popular and flavorful cuts you can choose. Remember, though, not all ribeyes are the same. Learn about the different cuts and styles from the experts at Omaha Steaks:
Classic Ribeye The classic ribeye is rich and well-marbled, a true steak-lover’s steak with flavor that multiplies as marbling melts during cooking, creating buttery richness and irresistible steak flavor. A classic ribeye is easy to cook on the grill, in a pan or seared and roasted in the oven, and it’s easy to season since the rich beef flavor doesn’t require much help.
Bone-in Ribeye Cowboy Steaks A Private Reserve Bone-In Ribeye, often called the “Cowboy Steak,” features flavor and tenderness with plenty of marbling for a signature ribeye taste. The bone-in cut not only lends even more flavor and extra juiciness, it makes for a striking presentation on a special occasion. Season lightly to let the steak’s natu-
ral flavors really shine, and have big plates ready to make a big impression.
Omaha-Cut Ribeye This robust, richly-marbled ribeye is tall and thick, a distinct steak shape you normally find only in filet mignon. The cut, which is available exclusively from Omaha Steaks, combines the tender texture of the filet with the traditional rich, buttery ribeye flavor that makes it a steakhouse favorite. These juicy, flavorful ribeyes cook well thanks to their thicker size, which allows for a more uniform distribution of heat.
SMOKY BACON, CHIVE AND SHALLOT BUTTER Recipe courtesy of Omaha Steaks Cook time: 25 minutes Rest time: 30 minutes Servings: 10
Ribeye Crown Steak A melt-in-your-mouth steak, the Private Reserve Ribeye Crown Steak is uniquely high in both tenderness and rich ribeye flavor. It’s cut from the richest, most buttery portion of the ribeye, and that intense marbling deepens the signature ribeye flavor while extra aging enhances the tenderness. This is a true entertaining selection, ideal for wowing a crowd.
King-Cut Ribeye on the Bone With a flavor-enhancing bone in the middle, this ribeye is truly distinctive. These cuts are perfect for smoking after a pan sear, or try slowroasting, quick-roasting or grilling over indirect heat. The three-pound cut might just break your plate, so plan on a platter and carve to serve. Explore more steak cuts for celebrating dad at OmahaSteaks.com.
Omaha-Cut Ribeye
Ribeye Crown Steak
4 ounces bacon, coarsely chopped 2 sticks unsalted butter, divided 1 small shallot, minced 3 tablespoons chives, finely chopped 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar kosher salt, to taste freshly ground pepper, to taste In small saute pan, cook bacon over medium heat, stirring occasionally until browned and crisp, about 8-10 minutes. Using slotted spoon, transfer bacon to small bowl.
Cut 1 stick butter into pieces. Add pieces to drippings and cook, stirring often, until butter foams and browns, about 5-8 minutes. Strain mixture into medium bowl or bowl of stand mixer. Stir in minced shallot. Allow bacon fatbutter mixture to cool 30 minutes, or until it reaches room temperature. Add remaining stick butter to bacon fat mixture. Using hand mixer or stand mixer, beat until light and fluffy. Add chives, vinegar and reserved bacon. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Place butter mixture in refrigerator and allow to firm slightly. Butter can be made up to 3 days in advance. Remove from refrigerator 1 hour prior to serving to allow butter to soften.