Florida Courier - January 29, 2016

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CELEBRATING OUR 10TH YEAR STATEWIDE!

Remembering the Challenger disaster 30 years later See Page B1 www.flcourier.com

JANUARY 29 – FEBRUARY 4, 2016

VOLUME 24 NO. 5

UNBELTED WHILE BLACK According to a new American Civil Liberties Union report, Black motorists in Florida are cited for seatbelt violations nearly twice as often as White motorists.

SPECIAL TO THE FLORIDA COURIER

MIAMI – All over the country, it seems Black Americans must be concerned about being shot and killed for driving while Black (Samuel Dubose); walking while Black (Trayvon Martin); running while Black (Walter Scott); asking for help while Black (Renisha McBride and Jonathan Ferrell); or even shopping while Black (John Crawford III).

Though other “…while Black” activities may not get a Black American killed, it CHARLES TRAINOR JR./MIAMI HERALD/TNS could certainly cause AfriDaniel Cross commutes daily from his home in Boca Raton to his office in Suncan-Americans to disprorise and puts on his seat belt before returning home. If he forgets to buckle up, portionately be ticketed, Cross is much less likely to get a traffic ticket than would a Black motorist. fined, arrested, criminalized

Download the full ACLU often statewide, and up to report at www.flcourier.com. four times as often in certain counties.

The ACLU is calling on – or “all of the above.” the Florida Attorney GenerLast year, the Florida Cou- al’s Office of Civil Rights to rier reprinted a Tampa Bay investigate.

Times report that Black Floridians in Tampa were often ‘Shocking’ numbers arrested for bicycling while “The numbers are shockBlack. ing.

These racial disparities Now, a new American Civil Liberties Union (AC- raise serious concerns that LU) report, “Racial Dispar- officers are engaging in raities in Florida Safety Belt cial profiling when enforcLaw Enforcement,” adds a ing the state’s safety belt new racial concern: driving law,” said Nusrat Choudhury, an attorney with the unbelted while Black.

According to the report, ACLU’s Racial Justice ProBlack motorists in Florida gram and co-author of “Raare stopped and ticketed cial Disparities in Florida for seatbelt violations in far Safety Belt Law Enforcegreater numbers than White ment.

See SEATBELT, Page A2 motorists – nearly twice as

2015-16 BASKETBALL SEASON

In full swing The University of Connecticut’s Moriah Jefferson (4) drives past the University of Central Florida’s Kayla Thigpen (11) as many basketball teams around the country reach the midpoint of their seasons.

Defending NCAA women’s champ UConn destroyed UCF, 10651, last week.

Finally at rest Lawmakers may aid dead boys’ families

BY JIM TURNER THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

TALLAHASSEE – Legislation started moving Tuesday in the House and Senate to help relatives rebury bodies unearthed by researchers looking into abuses at a shuttered reform school in Northwest Florida.

The Senate Governmental Oversight and Accountability Committee and the House Government Operations Subcommittee backed measures (SB 708 and HB 533) that would allocate $1.5 million for the reburial of bodies removed from the site and to establish a memorial at the 1,400-acre former Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna.

The votes on the similar bills came less than a week after Cabinet members apologized to generations of boys who endured hardships they may have suffered while wards of the state.

‘Anguish and pain’ Senate Minority Leader Arthenia Joyner, a Tampa Democrat who is sponsoring the Senate bill, recalled teaching boys in Tampa in the 1960s who had spent time at Dozier and said more may need to be done for former students of the reform school, which operated from 1900 to 2011. But the goal now, she said, is to help the families of those buried at the site.

“We need to provide some

JOHN WOIKE/ HARTFORD COURANT/TNS

See REST, Page A2

SNAPSHOTS

Lawmakers considering ‘pastor protection’ law FROM THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

In the wake of last year’s landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage, a bill dubbed the “Pastor Protection Act” has cleared its first Senate panel.

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday voted 7-3 to approve the measure (SB 110), filed

by Sen. Aaron Bean, R-Fernandina Beach. The bill is aimed at preventing clergy members from being forced to perform marriage ceremonies contrary to their

ALSO INSIDE

principles.

‘Bitter pill’ “It is a huge, bitter pill to swallow,” Bean said of the Supreme Court ruling that said same-sex couples have a fundamental right to marry. “This (bill) makes it a little easier.”

The measure’s supporters said religious leaders need to know that their churches, temples and mosques won’t lose a tax-exempt status if they refuse to perform same-sex weddings.

Senators questioned Bean

about whether the bill was necessary, given that religious freedom is guaranteed under the First Amendment.

“I would never concede that Florida pastors are not protected,” said Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg.

The bill passed along party lines, with Republicans in support and Democrats opposed.

forming marriages to which they object. But they said the landscape is changing so fast that additional protection is needed.

“We’re in a different world,” Bean said. “Pastors are in doubt as to their religious freedom.

The House version of the bill (HB 43), filed by state Rep. Scott Plakon, R-Longwood, has been approved by the House Civil Justice Subcommittee and was Changing quickly scheduled to be heard Thursday Supporters of the bill acknowl- – after the Florida Courier’s press edged that religious leaders are time – by the House Judiciary currently protected from per- Committee.

FLORIDA | A3

FSU settles lawsuit by Winston accuser Theme parks boost security in light of terrorism NATION | A6

COMMENTARY: HARRY C. ALFORD: DEALING WITH THE FILTHY RICH AND DANGEROUS | A4 COMMENTARY: GLEN FORD: EMPTYING BLACK CITY CENTERS IS A BIPARTISAN AFFAIR | A5

Black women underrepresented in public office Hoverboards under review amid safety concerns

FOCUS

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JANUARY 29 – FEBRUARY 4, 2016

It’s time for the Black political ‘SOS’ It’s 2016. Once again, so-called Negro leaders are rushing to endorse non-Black candidates for president of the United States and for other federal, state and local offices!

How dumb can they be?

Everybody has a right to endorse, support, contribute to and campaign for the political candidates of their choice. But can’t Black people wait until they find candidates that support Black people?

The political perpetrators that you love know you are going to put them first. They also know they are going to put you last!

Hispanics won’t rush to endorse until they find the candidates that will support Hispanic issues like immigration reform.

Gays won’t rush to endorse until they find candidates that support gay rights and same-sex marriage legislation.

LUCIUS GANTT THE GANTT REPORT

Farmers won’t endorse candidates until they hear politicians address agriculture concerns.

Builders won’t endorse politicians before they hear what candidates have to say about construction regulation issues.

Women won’t pick and choose candidates to endorse until women’s rights issues have been debated and decided.

But the modern-day Uncle Toms, Sambos and Jemimas want to be the very first to bow down to political candidates seeking election so they can get what the individual Negroes want: a job!

Yes, they lead you. But they

have to jockey, beg and plead for a government job or a government title.

No, those sellouts can’t create their own jobs; they can’t start businesses; and they can’t create employment opportunities for the masses of African-Americans. All they can do is get on their knees and hope and pray whoever they endorse will give them a paltry job.

When they endorse a candidate, they never give you a solid reason why you should adhere to their endorsement suggestions.

It’s too early for candidates to reveal political platforms, and candidates don’t have specific proposals yet about exact political proposals. All candidates have nine or 10 months before an election are false election promises!

All candidates claim to love Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. All candidates support Historically Black Colleges and Universities. All candidates clap when they are paraded down the aisles of Black churches across America!

Smart Black people know that American politics are all about the money. People donate large amounts of money to political

parties and political candidates that they can control!

The best candidates – the candidates that will do the right things and vote the right way – never even enter political contests, because big business, big bankers, big labor groups and others will not donate a dime to candidates that will forsake the powerful and vote for the people’s best interests!

Too many times this year, Black Jezebels and Black Chicken Georges will try to convince you that the 2016 elections are the most important elections ever.

But don’t fall for the okey-doke!

Every election is important.

Every election is crucial. And every election, it seems, Black voters have to choose between the lesser of two evils!

Before and after Let me tell you an easy way to decide which candidates are worthy of your votes and support.

If the candidates won’t hire Black people during the campaign before an election, he won’t hire Blacks if he wins the

election.

If they believe that Black political professionals, Black media outlets, Black printers, Black caterers, Black pollsters, Black Internet marketers and others are inferior before the election, they will feel Blacks are inferior after the election!

The only difference sometimes between Democrats and Republicans is their names. From some vantage points, White Democrats and White Republicans love each other more than they love Black voters and Black citizens!

The Gantt Report encourages you to vote for the candidates of your choice. But vote like you got some damn sense! Vote for candidates that will vote the way you want them to!

Every election year in the Black community, it is the SOS. The same old sheet!

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.

REST

up for sale before orders were given in 2013 to research the site because of accounts of violence at the school and bodies being left in unmarked graves.

The 168-page report, which doesn’t verify any students were killed by Dozier staff, outlines the 51 sets of remains unearthed from an area known as the Boot Hill Burial Ground.

Martinez called the buried grounds a “potter’s field.”

from A1

measure of relief to these families, to let them know that we are concerned and share the anguish and pain that they’ve experienced as a result of all that has occurred to their loved ones,” Joyner said after the meeting.

Former Gov. Bob Martinez, making a rare appearance Tuesday before a legislative committee to support the proposal, told senators about growing up in Tampa where the reform school was viewed as a threat to keep kids in line.

Seven returned

‘A hellhole’ “I can recall as a youngster that if you misbehaved or disobeyed you’d often hear, ‘You’re going to end up in Marianna,’ “ Martinez said. “You sort of grew up thinking that must be one hell of a hellhole.”

The proposal, sponsored

by Joyner and Rep. Ed Narain, D-Tampa, would direct the Department of State to establish a committee to preserve the historical resources and create a memorial to the victims of Dozier.

The state agency would also be required to lo-

SEATBELT from A1

“It raises a red flag when seatbelt enforcement by specific agencies leads to racial disparities that exceed even the dramatic statewide gap. These agencies must take steps to address the disparities and promote fair and impartial policing.”

The ACLU’s analysis is based on publicly available data reported by law enforcement agencies across Florida. The law requires each agency to annually report the race and ethnicity of anyone ticketed for failure to wear a seatbelt to the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.

“These findings contribute to concerns about racial profiling – the targeting of people for humiliating and often frightening detentions, interrogations, and searches without evidence of criminal activity and based on the individuals’ perceived race, ethnicity, nationality or religion,” the report states. “…(These) findings underscore the need for policy reforms to help identify and address racial profiling, including expanded data collection and publication as well as enhanced training and supervision on biasfree policing.”

Law’s history The Florida Safety Belt Law was enacted in 1986.

It gave law enforcement officers the authority to stop and cite a driver for a violation of Florida’s safety belt requirements.

EMILY MICHOT/MIAMI HERALD/MCT

In 2008, Roger Kiser visited the graveyard at the former Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna. Kiser was locked up and beaten after being sent to the school as a “juvenile delinquent.” cate by Dec. 31, 2017 the families of all children exhumed and provide each with up to $7,500 to cover the costs of reinterring remains, including grave markers.

“These expenditures may be reimbursements

to the family members or payments directly to a funeral home, or other appropriate entity, if the family is unable to pay for the costs of re-burying the child,” a staff analysis of the bill said.

Initially, the law was a “secondary enforcement” statute, which permitted an officer to stop and cite a motorist only after seeing another legal violation.

Because of concerns about racial profiling , the law was amended in 2005 to require “each law enforcement agency” to “adopt departmental policies to prohibit the practice of racial profiling.” Agencies are legally required to record the race and ethnicity of every driver ticketed pursuant to the statute.

The laws continues to require that all law enforcement agencies maintain such policies and annually provide information to the governor, state Senate president and the speaker of the state House of Representatives about the race and ethnicity of people issued tickets for not buckling up.

Annual reports are required to be submitted to the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.

nually collect and report race and ethnicity data concerning seatbelt citations to state authorities.

Years later, the ACLU report indicates that the Black legislators’ concerns were valid. And many law enforcement agencies don’t bother to report race and ethnicity statistics.

Amended again In 2009, the safety belt law was amended to permit “primary enforcement,” which allowed law enforcement officers to stop and cite drivers solely for violating safety belt requirements. The Florida Conference of Black State Legislators and the ACLU of Florida fought the amendment.

They were concerned that primary enforcement of seatbelt requirements would open the door to racially motivated traffic stops.

In enacting the amendment, the Florida Legislature seemed to rely on requirements for law enforcement agencies to prohibit racial profiling and to an-

Still profiled The report recounts events that have underscored the concern of communities across Florida that racial profiling continues to be a problem.

“In 2013 and 2014, media disclosed shocking reports that the Miami Gardens Police Department conducted thousands of illegal stops, frisks, searches, and arrests between 2008 and 2013 under a racially-motivated quota system that directed officers to target Black men between the ages of fifteen and thirty. Those reports led to a civil rights lawsuit in federal court and disclosed that Miami Gardens police officers had even subjected Black children to police-civilian encounters.

“Also in 2013, an ACLU report analyzing 2010 data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program and the United States Census Bureau revealed that Black people in Florida were 4.2 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than White people – despite the fact that the federal government has documented that Black and White people use marijuana at comparable rates,” the narrative states.

Lopsided differences Black people are ticketed, occasionally arrested,

Report submitted University of South Florida researchers, who did extensive excavation work at the Dozier site, presented Gov. Rick Scott and the Cabinet with a final report on the work last Thursday. and subsequently fined or even imprisoned for lowlevel offenses at rates far out of proportion to their population figures, according to the report.

“An investigation into the Fort Lauderdale Police Department’s enforcement of a bicycle registration law from 2010 to 2013 found that 86 percent of citations were issued to Black people, who constituted only 29 percent of the Fort Lauderdale population in 2013.

“In April 2015, a Tampa Bay Times investigation revealed that 79 percent of Tampa Police Department bicycle citations issued in the previous twelve years were given to Black people, who comprised only about a quarter of the Tampa population during the time.

“A CBS Miami report examined 44,860 marijuana cases closed between 2010 and 2014 in Miami-Dade County and found that 55 percent of the cases involved Black defendants, even though Black people made up less than 20 percent of the county’s population,” the report explains.

County culprits In 2014, Black motorists were stopped and ticketed for seatbelt violations at nearly twice the rate as White motorists overall.

Specific counties saw even greater disparities. Black motorists were stopped and cited: • 4 times more often than White motorists by the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office (Panama City area) in 2011 (the most recent year that this agency reported seatbelt citation data); • 3 times more often than White motorists by the Palm Beach County

While former Dozier students attending the meeting received apologies from Cabinet members, no direction was provided to the state Department of Environmental Protection about what to do with the land. The site had been put Sheriff’s Office (West Palm Beach area) in 2014; • 2.8 times more often than White motorists by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office (Orlando area) in 2014.

• 1.9 times more often than White motorists by the Broward County Sheriff’s Office in 2014.

U.S. Census Bureau data indicates that in 2014, non-Hispanic Black people made up only 13.5 percent of Florida’s estimated statewide population of driving age (15 to 85 years old) living in a household with access to at least one vehicle.

Thousands fewer tickets “If non-Hispanic Black people had been cited for seatbelt violations in proportion to their share of the estimated Florida driving age population with access to a vehicle in the household, they would have received 20,296 fewer citations in 2014,” according to the report.

The report notes that the differences in seatbeltwearing behavior between Black and White people, as documented by statewide and national studies, do not explain the racial disparities in seatbelt citation rates identified in this report.

“Florida law enforcement agencies need to study these findings and ensure that the law is being applied without bias and is not being used as a tool to target some drivers based on race,” said Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida.

Miami, Tampa ignore law “What is also troubling is the failure to comply

Seven of the bodies have been identified through DNA testing, of which four have been turned over to relatives and buried in family cemeteries. The rest of the remains are housed at the Tampa university.

Some former Dozier students said any unidentified remains should be laid to rest outside Jackson County, which includes Marianna. Others have said the bodies should be returned to a mausoleum near the Dozier site, which is now locked behind a high chain-link fence.

Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam said the state must find a use for the Dozier site that could be recreational, educational or even for veterans’ services. with the reporting requirements. We cannot have a law that requires the reporting of the race of ticket recipients and has no consequences for the agencies that fail to comply. Agencies such as the Miami Police and the Tampa Police (Departments), which have failed to report seatbelt citation data to state authorities in violation of the Florida Safety Belt Law, should promptly do so.”

The ACLU is urging the Florida Attorney General’s Office of Civil Rights and local commissions charged with oversight responsibility to investigate agencies whose implementation of the law has met or exceeded the already large statewide racial disparity.

Among those agencies are the sheriff’s offices for Escambia, Palm Beach, Orange, and Broward counties.

Enforce requirements The ACLU also wants the Florida Legislature to pass a measure penalizing law enforcement agencies that fail to comply with the statute’s reporting requirement. These agencies include the Miami Police Department, the Tampa Police Department, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, and the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office.

In addition, the report recommends that law enforcement collect and analyze data for all traffic and pedestrian stops; provide testing on implicit bias and training on bias-free policing to all officers; and retrain officers whose stopand-citation practices result in large racial disparities.

JANUARY 29 – FEBRUARY 4, 2016

FLORIDA

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FSU settles lawsuit with Winston accuser Former student said university violated her Title IX rights by not appropriately investigating rape claim

BY BRANDON LARRABEE THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

TALLAHASSEE – Florida State University has agreed to pay almost $1 million to settle a lawsuit by a woman who accused the school’s Heisman Trophywinning quarterback of sexual assault in a case that sparked a national conversation on athletics and rape.

Even as they announced the settlement, though, FSU officials made it clear they didn’t believe the university had failed to address seriously Erica Kinsman’s claims that she was assaulted by Jameis Winston. In 2013, Winston led the school’s football team to a national championship; he now plays for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the NFL. University President John Thrasher said Monday the school wanted to avoid “fighting over the past rather than looking toward its very bright future,” portraying the settlement as an economic decision.

“We have an obligation to our students, their parents and Florida taxpayers to deal with this case, as we do all litigation, in a financially responErica sible manner,” Kinsman Thrasher said in a statement released by the school. “With all the economic demands we face, at some point it doesn’t make sense to continue even though we are convinced we would have prevailed.”

Record Title IX payment FSU said Kinsman was expected to receive $250,000 under the settlement, pointedly adding that the woman’s legal team will get $700,000. Kinsman’s attorneys said the total payment would be “the largest in history to a single

STEPHEN M. DOWELL/ORLANDO SENTINEL/TNS

Then-Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston is interviewed and photographed during the BCS Championship Game Media Day at the Newport Beach Marriott Hotel & Spa in Newport Beach, Calif., on Jan. 4, 2014. plaintiff to settle Title IX discrimination claims of this kind.”

Title IX is the portion of federal law guaranteeing equal opportunity in federally funded education programs regardless of gender.

The university also agreed to a five-year effort to combat sexual assault on campus, the lawyers said.

In a statement released through her attorneys, Kinsman said she was grateful for the settlement.

“I’ll always be disappointed that I had to leave the school I dreamed of attending since I was little,” she said. “I am happy that FSU has committed to continue making changes in order to ensure a safer environment for all students.”

Media reports traditionally do not name women who say

they were sexually assaulted, but Kinsman has gone public with her story.

Part of documentary The settlement of the legal case against FSU will not affect an ongoing civil-rights investigation by the U.S. Department of Education or a lawsuit against Winston, according to Kinsman’s lawyers.

Winston has said his encounter with Kinsman was consensual, and former Florida Supreme Court Justice Major Harding ruled after a two-day hearing in 2014 that the quarterback couldn’t be found in violation of the student conduct code.

Kinsman’s allegations, which burst into the open in the middle of Winston’s Heisman-winning campaign and FSU’s quest for its first national title in more

than a decade, helped ignite a nationwide discussion of sexual violence and higher education – particularly in regard to big-money college football. Her story later served as one of the central anecdotes in “The Hunting Ground,” a controversial documentary arguing universities have turned a blind eye to sexual assault.

‘kNOw more’ campaign Kinsman’s lawsuit accused FSU of failing to act quickly to address Kinsman’s allegations, which she first made months before Winston took the field. But the school said her accusations against Winston didn’t get to the appropriate university officials until the football season was underway and that the officials who were aware of the accusations

Florida theme parks boost security in light of terrorism, mass shootings

BY SANDRA PEDICINI ORLANDO SENTINEL/ TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

ORLANDO — Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando are hiring additional security employees as theme parks enter what experts say is a new era of stepped-up efforts to shield visitors from possible terrorism and mass shootings.

The theme parks would not say how many people they are adding or give details on the security measures they are taking. At Disney, many of the new security personnel will help staff metal detectors. A third-party company has overseen the detectors since Disney — along with the two other major parks — put them up last month. Over the coming weeks, Disney is moving the operation in-house.

One expert said the number of new security hires at the parks would likely be large.

“I would say given the nature of their operation, we’re not talking about tens. We’re talking about hundreds,” said Abraham Pizam, dean of the University of Central Florida’s Rosen College of Hospitality Management.

Metal detectors In the wake of recent deadly attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., attractions are focusing more on security, said Dennis Speigel, president of the con-

Trees on campus are painted blue with a biologically safe, water-based ultramarine mineral pigment.

COURTESY OF EDWARD WATERS COLLEGE

sulting firm International Theme Park Services.

“I think in 2016, we’re going to see the implementation of more security measures, heightened security … than we’ve seen in the last three decades,” he said.

Last month Disney made several security changes, including forbidding costumes on adults in the theme parks and banning toy gun sales. As it announced those restrictions Dec. 17, Disney — along with SeaWorld and Universal — began using metal detectors at its gates.

That same day, President Barack Obama said that the United States had no “specific and credible” information about a terrorist threat over the holidays, but that the country was seeing “a new phase of terrorism, including lone actors and small groups of terrorists like those in San Bernardino.”

‘Like at the airport’ Universal describes its detectors as in an experimental phase.

“We really wanted to test what we see as best practices when it comes to security in today’s world,” spokesman Tom Schroder said. “It’s just part of our dedication to the safety of our guests.”

Universal started out with metal detector wands, then installed walk-through detectors at entrances.

Monday morning, it appeared everyone leaving a parking ga-

ELLEN CREAGER/DETROIT FREE PRESS/TNS

Universal Studios in Orlando has installed walk-through detectors at entrances. rage with a purse or backpack had to walk through a metal detector. Guards scanned people with wands if they didn’t have bags.

At SeaWorld recently, there were at least two sheriff’s vehicles in the parking lot and a deputy stood at the entrance. Visitors were randomly selected for scanning with a wand. There were metal detectors at the gates, to the side, but no one was go-

ing through them early Monday morning.

Guests shrugged off any inconvenience.

“With all the news stuff going on, it will help,” said Kathy Frasure of Kentucky, who was visiting Universal. “It’s like at the airport.”

Drones next?

Disney and Universal have

earlier didn’t know enough to take action. FSU also said Kinsman initially decided not to take her allegations to the student discipline process at the university.

In Monday’s announcement, FSU highlighted the steps it has taken since Kinsman’s allegations to try to fight sexual assault.

The school established a Sexual Assault Prevention Task Group, launched the “kNOw more” campaign and hired an expert on sexual assault as Title IX coordinator. It also created six new positions aimed at making the campus safer.

“In this time, we have increased our institutional commitment to tackle this complex problem,” Thrasher said. “There should be no doubt that Florida State is serious about fighting sexual assault.” been advertising for the security guards. Disney’s pay starts at $10.55; Universal doesn’t specify. Also, a security guard is now watching over the offices of Reedy Creek, the Disney-controlled taxing district that provides government services such as fire rescue.

Speigel said industry leaders have discussed measures including printed materials warning visitors to report anything that seems suspicious, though it is unclear whether local theme parks are considering that. He said he also would expect that the drones Disney is seeking federal permission to fly for nighttime entertainment could be eventually used for surveillance.

Tim Stromsnes, president of the Reedy Creek firefighters’ union, hopes the new emphasis on security will persuade the Disney taxing district to keep its special-operations-and-response team, whose members get specialized training on jobs such as rescues from collapsed buildings and detection of chemical agents. The district last year suggested disbanding it — one of the issues that the union and Reedy Creek have disagreed on as they negotiate a new contract.

Security has been a major concern of theme parks for years because of the large crowds they attract.

An attorney for a Disney security officer suing the company for discrimination noted during the lawsuit that she had once detected “a possible terrorist issue” that involved a subject who was later killed in a drone attack in Pakistan. A Disney security director confirmed that account in a 2013 deposition.

Edward Waters College becomes part of global art installation SPECIAL TO THE COURIER

JACKSONVILLE – Edward Waters College (EWC) became part of a global discussion on deforestation when it participated in “The Blue Trees” project on Jan. 18 during the MLK Day of Service.

EWC students joined worldrenowned artist, Konstantin Dimopoulos to color the tree trunks

on campus blue. This project has been hosted in London, Singapore, Vancouver, Seattle and Houston as part of a worldwide conversation about deforestation and its global impact.

“Every minute the planet loses natural forests at the rate of 50 soccer fields per minute. This art installation brings awareness to this global problem,” said Dimopoulos.

He colors the trunks with biologi-

cally safe, water-based ultramarine mineral pigment. The trees will gradually revert back to their natural state within six months.

EWC partnered with Greenscape of Jacksonville, Inc. and Wells Fargo for the project. Greenscape of Jacksonville is a nonprofit organization founded over 40-years ago to enrich Jacksonville through planting, protecting and promoting trees.

EDITORIAL

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JANUARY 29 – FEBRUARY 4, 2016

Filthy rich and dangerous (Part 1) My early days of being an activist seem so simple now. A hotheaded reporter or radio personality would challenge my actions, and I would simply shut him/her down with quips and verbal jockeying.

An IRS series of audits, police interrogations, and being pulled over by the state police for no reason were some of those tactics back then in Indiana. A strange car following our sons home from school was about the lowest tactic.

Not afraid Our opponents, politicians and local business owners found that we were afraid of nothing.

We took a vow of near-poverty.

That meant we had nothing serious to lose, and they had nothing to leverage us into submission or contrition.

When my wife Kay and I decided that Indiana was not beneficial to our twin sons’ upbringings, we left for Washington, D.C. and began to live an upscale lifestyle. We brought with us an understanding of local political harassment and how to dodge it.

We relied on that experience – until now.

It appears that we have arrived in the major leagues and the enemies would not be some “Hoosier hicks.” All of a sudden we were in the arena of billionaires who saw money as no object and

HARRY C. ALFORD NNPA COLUMNIST

vengeance as a requirement.

Total destruction These guys make presidents, congresspersons, senators, etc.

They take no prisoners (literally). One of my friends explained to me: “You have been used to dealing with people who seek to knock you down. These folks here will take you all the way out.

They will seek to destroy you!”

One of my first examples of this was during the first Clinton administration. The No. 2 person at the Small Business Administration was a sister who decided that the SBA would no longer get into the procurement business and concentrate on lending and technical support. That was a declaration of war to us and we prepared for battle.

We raised some serious noise on a national basis and this caught the attention of the White House. Some elderly guy met with some of our principals. No one really knew who he was. But when he realized that we were prepared for “war,” he made a suggestion.

“If I talked to Bill (the pres-

Add Haiti to Obama’s ‘bucket list’ Much attention has been made of President Obama’s “bucket list,” those things he would like to accomplish before the end of his term.

Among the items on his list is a visit to Cuba, climaxing one of the signature achievements of his presidency – breaking the decades-long diplomatic and economic isolation of Cuba. The sight of the first African-American president being welcomed in Cuba, an Afro-Hispanic nation, would be stunning and historic.

Obama should also visit Haiti.

Defeated the ‘masters’ The Haiti Support Project of the Institute of the Black World 21st Century always views January as Haitian Independence Month because it was on January 1, 1804 that General Jean Jacques Dessalines declared Haiti’s independence.

This was after a long, brutal but glorious struggle for self-determination during which the Haitian freedom fighters defeated the

RON DANIELS GEORGE CURRY MEDIA COLUMNIST

British, Spanish and ultimately decimated the army of Napoleon Bonaparte of France. Never in the history of humankind had an enslaved people defeated their slave masters to create an independent nation.

The Haitian Revolution, which gave birth to the world’s first Black Republic, was one of the greatest feats in history. Haitian freedom fighters created an independent nation at the height of the European and American slave trade, and further declared that any enslaved person who set foot on Haitian soil would be free.

Obama ‘s recognition would be particularly significant since Haiti was stigmatized, marginalized and punished by the U.S. and oth-

In Flint, ‘We Charge Genocide’ Previously, I’ve written about environmental racism and the untold and unpredictable impact it had and will have on communities of color. Common to these episodes have been motives of profit and financial gain. Additionally, there’s been a total disregard for the welfare and humanity of affected communities.

You are probably aware of the callous and systematic poisoning of Flint, Mich. residents over the past eighteen months. Reflecting on Flint, I am struck by the severity and long-term impact of this case of environmental racism.

Controlled by Dems Typical of the industrial Midwest, Flint is overwhelmingly controlled by elected officials affiliated with the Democratic Party. The racial makeup of its cur-

DR. E. FAYE WILLIAMS, ESQ. TRICE EDNEY WIRE

rent population is 56.6 percent African-American, 37.4 percent White, 3.9 percent Hispanic/Latino, and the remainder a mixture of Native American and Asian.

Forty percent of Flint’s population lives below the poverty line.

By all measures, Flint flourished because of a robust auto industry. Like its neighbor Detroit, Flint played a major role in the automotive industry, serving as home to Buick and Chevrolet. As the industry declined, companies consolidated their manufacturing facilities and Flint was

VISUAL VIEWPOINT: GUNS IN MOVIE THEATRES

ident) and told him if we removed this lady from her position, the problem would go away – would that work?” We said yes.

Two weeks later, she was gone!

She went to one of Vernon Jordan’s companies (he was a board member for about a dozen Fortune 100 companies). That spoke volumes. It also made us aware that there was a force out there that was more powerful than the president.

Real ‘Empire’ As the “body count” under the Clinton administration started to multiply and the overwhelming scandals started to appear, it was clear to me. Forget about the movies or TV. This was the real “Empire.” My advocacy remained strong, but I purposely remained under the “radar” of these real power brokers; a few “jabs” here and a “duck” there.

The pro-business arena saw talent in me and the National Black Chamber of Commerce (NBCC). We were considered to be the voice of Black business.

Fortune Magazine, the House, the Senate and cable television looked to the NBCC to measure the mood of Black businesses.

Then, as Earth, Wind and Fire would say, “Something happened along the way, and what used to be happy turned sad.”

The presidential race for 2008 brought the fiercest political bat-

Haitian freedom fighters created an independent nation at the height of the European and American slave trade, and further declared that any enslaved person who set foot on Haitian soil would be free. er slave trading nations for fear that the example of an independent Black nation would be infectious, spreading among enslaved Africans everywhere to fuel rebellions.

This was indeed what happened. Denmark Vesey planned the most extensive insurrection of enslaved Africans ever conceived in the U.S. His destination? Haiti.

A debt owed The U.S. owes a huge debt of gratitude to Haiti for its contributions to this nation’s struggle for independence and the expansion of its territory. Under the leaderabandoned. Insolvency followed.

Uniquely, the emergency financial manager laws of Michigan allow Republican Governor Rick Snyder to usurp the authority of elected officials of cities in financial insolvency. Almost as an act of racial/political subjugation, Snyder has used his power to appoint emergency managers who have total autonomy over Flint.

This system allows emergency managers to act independently of any laws passed or decisions enacted by duly elected officials.

By 2013, six Michigan cities and almost half of the state’s AfricanAmerican population were under emergency management.

Saving dollars This brings us to the decision to change Flint’s water supply.

Prior to April 2014, Flint obtained its public water through Detroit’s system sourced from Lake Huron. In a cost-saving effort to trim $12 million in annual costs, the sitting emergency manager decided to obtain water from the

MILT PRIGGEE, WWW.MILTPRIGGEE.COM

tle in the history of the United States. It was do or die. There were a lot of organizations: environmental, taxation, education, military, labor, economic parity, civil rights, homosexual, etc. But now, there was a major movement to take all of these organizations and classify them as “Group 1” and “Group 2.”

Terms like “progressive” and “free market” became defining roles. The NBCC was classified as “free market.” America and the Western world became divided into two groups of tribes.

The progressives came up with this project named Barack Hussein Obama. Muslim name, African blood mixed with Caucasian blood, and early roots in Islamic Indonesia. It was unique, to say

the least.

So when the progressive groups launched a physical attack on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its members, the format was set. They viewed capitalism as their enemy and a socialistic/communistic philosophy as their mantra. The White House was on their side and they would not compromise in the least.

The world, as we know it, was about to change. Chaos was in charge!

ship of General Henri Christophe and at the behest of the French, Haitian troops contributed to the defeat of the British in the battle of Savannah during the Revolutionary War. Indeed, during the commemoration of the bicentennial of Haiti’s independence in 2004, Haitian-American Daniel Fils Aime led a successful campaign to have a monument to this achievement erected in Savannah.

The colonies achieved their independence and were able to found a new nation on what was Native American land, because the Louisiana Purchase was a direct outgrowth of the defeat of Napoleon’s armies by the Haitian freedom fighters. This disastrous defeat ended Napoleon’s grand vision of creating an economic axis between Saint Dominique (Haiti), the most prosperous “colony” in the Caribbean and the vast French territory in North America, anchored by the city of New Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi River.

After the humiliating defeat at the hands of the Haitians, Napoleon abandoned this ambitious goal and sold the Louisiana Territory to the U.S. at a bargain basement price. The size of the U.S. nearly doubled as a result of this

acquisition – a fact that Americans should forever be thankful to the Haitians for facilitating.

Flint River that was toxic, corrosive and unfit for consumption.

In September, Flint’s Hurley Medical Center released a study that found the number of infants and children with elevated lead-blood levels had doubled.

In high-risk areas, it tripled. It’s estimated that among those exposed, significant learning disabilities will result and the need for special juvenile services will develop.

Instead of a prudent and remedial response to complaints and evidence of polluted water, the Snyder administration acted with reckless disregard. Residents were told to “relax” and were assured that, despite the brown color and noxious odor, the water was “safe” to drink. Such action against Flint’s large AfricanAmerican population can most assuredly be called GENOCIDE.

Lives Matter.” It should also teach African-American communities that we are our own best caretakers. We cannot continue to put full faith and trust in government or institutions to do the right thing.

In his 1970 preface to the book, “We Charge Genocide,” Ossie Davis wrote: “We will submit no further to the brutal indignities being practiced against us; we will not be intimidated, and most certainly not eliminated.

“We claim the ancient right of all peoples, not only to survive unhindered, but also to participate as equals in man’s inheritance here on earth. We fight to preserve ourselves, to see that the treasured ways of our life-incommon are not destroyed by brutal men or heedless institutions.”

Do for self

Dr. E. Faye Williams is national chair of the National Congress of Black Women, Inc. Contact her via www.nationalcongressbw.org.

Water is the source of life. The callous mismanagement of that essential commodity gives greater meaning to the phrase “Black

Charles W. Cherry II, Esq., Publisher

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History of mutuality King Henri Christophe’s first minister of education was an African-American. And scores of African-Americans migrated to Haiti to escape oppressive life in the U.S. Frederick Douglass was appointed the first ambassador to Haiti and pointedly warned against treating the Black republic as a U.S. colony.

When the U.S. invaded Haiti in 1915, it was the NAACP that led the opposition to the U.S. occupation. The reality of an independent Black nation in the Caribbean undercut the argument of Black inferiority as a rationale for legal and de facto segregation in the U.S. Haiti was a beacon of hope to African people everywhere.

A state visit by President Barrack Obama would be an occasion to acknowledge these historical wrongs and properly recognize Haiti’s contribution to the U.S. and the world.

Ron Daniels is president of the Institute of the Black World 21st Century. Contact him at info@ibw21.org.

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JANUARY 29 – FEBRUARY 4, 2016

EDITORIAL

Microcosm, micro-aggression, and the ‘offended generation’ Scores of dead White men glared back at them from the walls of the college dorm. The thought that some of these esteemed alumni could have actually owned their ancestors have apparently haunted the dreams of some of the privileged, elite students at Yale so much that they took to the yard in protest. The dorms at Yale, they declared, are no longer a “safe space” for Black students.

In Yorktown, Virginia, a 13-year-old kid forced to deal with the usual cruelties meted out by middle school kids, compounded with an extra dose of racial hostility, wrote an open letter to his school demanding redress late last year.

“To Whom It May Concern: Yesterday on the football bus coming from our football game a kid…started saying racist things to me…he told me 200 years ago my ancestors hung from a tree and after he said that I should I hang from a tree. That made me super mad, so in the locker room I told him not to call me n—-r or that I should be hung on a tree…

I’m tired of boys messing with me because of my skin. I’m at my boiling point with this. Please do something about this because when I bring it to the office/principle you do nothing about it and I’m tired of the racism.”

ARMSTRONG WILLIAMS NNPA COLUMNIST

On the one hand, they are evidence of the immense progress that has taken place in the country over the past sixty years or so.

The very fact that there are significant numbers of Black students at elite universities is a testament to that progress. And the fact that a 13 year-old boy attending a public school in a predominantly White Pennsylvania county has openly voiced his frustration speaks to his expectation that the grownups in the room must exhibit better leadership. That’s progress, too.

But we have regressed in some ways. At the University of Missouri, students demanded (and received) the resignations of university administrators who they perceived as being inadequately responsive to their complaints about racial hostilities on campus.

But their need to be coddled was so strong that even the ouster of the university’s president and provost were not enough. Their list of eight demands included the creation and “enforcement” of a “comprehensive racial awareness and inclusion curriculum throughout all campus departments and units, mandatory for Progress and regression all students, faculty, staff and adThese two fragments represent ministration.” in microcosm the state of racial Despite commanding the unirelations faced by a new genera- versity to implement mandatory tion of Black Americans. “inclusion” curriculum, the Black

The return of the ‘happy slave’ Despite the obviously cruel nature of chattel slavery and the well-documented atrocities used to maintain it, the much-loved White American fantasy of the “happy slave” is periodically resurrected.

This sick propaganda has two important functions. It trivializes any demand, complaint or expression of anger from Black people as being insignificant. It also gives White people license to do anything they want, just as their forebears did.

Slavery is ‘good’ In the past year, two children’s books were published which put slavery in rather a good light. In both stories the protagonists are enslaved house servants and their lives are depicted as being not so bad after all.

“A Fine Dessert,” by author Emily Jenkins and illustrator Sophie Blackall, includes the story of an enslaved woman and her daughter in Charleston, S.C., who prepare a lavish dish for the slaveholders. After waiting on master, mistress and family, they hide in

MARGARET KIMBERLEY BLACK AGENDA REPORT

a cupboard and lick the cooking bowls. Enslaved people were often denied food and had to hide if they wanted more than they were allotted. This reality is turned into amusing anecdote for the 21st century literary minstrel show.

The New York Times included “A Fine Dessert” on its list of the best-illustrated children’s books of 2015. It has been mentioned as a serious contender for prestigious book awards.

This dubious story would not have been given the green light unless it had passed psychological muster with White people in the publishing and newspaper world. It is not surprising then that any coverage of Black people in the corporate media is problematic at best.

How does a writer make slavery a light and breezy read for chil-

Emptying Black city centers is a bipartisan affair It has taken the poisoning of an entire city of 100,000 people – 52 percent of them Black – to draw national attention to the human effects of systematic corporatization of the public sphere under neoliberal U.S. capitalism.

Republican Governor Rick Synder promises to “fix” the ruined water infrastructure of Flint, Mich., now hopelessly corroded and saturated with lead – a repair that could cost as much as $1.5 billion. But even if Snyder is forced to resign, as demonstrators demand, or is jailed, as filmmaker Michael Moore would prefer, it won’t fix the irreparably damaged brains of the city’s children or prevent a cascade of Flint-like catastrophes from unfolding across the country.

Tip of the spear We are experiencing another Katrina moment, a dreadful epiphany in which the nature of the beast that is preying upon us becomes horrifically clear. Michigan’s emergency financial manager system – a weapon of corporate dictatorship imposed selec-

GLEN FORD BLACK AGENDA REPORT

tively on heavily Black and Brown cities and school systems – is the lead-tipped point of the spear that is gutting urban Black America.

It is not a unique instrument – and certainly not a Republican invention – but part of Wall Street’s tool kit to starve, bulldoze, redline, over-price, oppressively police, and even poison Black people out of the urban centers.

Katrina should have been the wakeup call, but the hegemonic influence of the bankster-infested Democratic Party in Black America muted the warning, that the Lords of Capital were determined to eject Blacks from valuable real estate by any means necessary.

After their success in expelling 100,000 Black people from New Orleans under cover of a hurricane, the corporate designers of the New American City stepped up the pace of gentrification, de-

A5

VISUAL VIEWPOINT: BILL CLINTON

student activists then proceeded to ban White students who had joined in their protests from some of the planning activities, citing the need for a Black-only space for “healing.”

It begs the question whether given the recent hostility, whether any White students felt injured and also need healing rather than more divisiveness and hostility.

One wonders how at a university which is over 90 percent White, Black students hope to be able win friends and influence sustainable change using such immature tactics.

Safe space invaded A group of “poor, righteous” and indignant Black students at Dartmouth took us back even further. They actually invaded what should be the safest space of all at a university – the library. They barged into the library as other students were studying and actually assaulted White students, hurling despicable racist epithets, which have been widely publicized and do not bear repeating.

This group of rash, immature youngsters needs to immediately issue apologies to the students they harmed, and seek to make amends. Or they should be suspended or otherwise appropriately disciplined by the university.

These incidents are about attempting to achieve more inclusion or redress of age-old racial wrongs. They about the “offended generation” expressing its inherited right to be coddled, entitled,

STEVE SACK, THE MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE

and accorded a group privilege based on the assumed mantle of victimization.

They have grown up on a steady diet of liberal media hogwash that finds a bigot behind every door to achievement and a racial slight in almost every utterance which challenges their world-view – whether it was intended or not.

But above all they have come to expect that the world owes them something. And they have not yet come to grips with the reality that much of life is about striving to correct the infelicities in our own character.

Toward fascism The belief in an engineered “equality” to the exclusion of freedom of thought and speech leads inevitably down the road towards fascism. Hitler attempted engi-

dren? By presenting a story that’s comforting to white bosses at corporate publishing houses, that’s how. The same racial hierarchy that prevailed under the slavocracy calls the shots in today’s book selling industry. The rules haven’t changed: don’t make Mr. Charlie angry, or hurt Miss Ann’s feelings.

great inconvenience to Washington because any enslaved person who lived in Pennsylvania for more than six months was entitled to freedom. The president was forced to rotate slaves between Philadelphia and his plantation in Mount Vernon, Va., to prevent their freedom. This action was a violation of the letter of that law, but Washington exemptStory of Hercules The Scholastic company rang ed himself and kept his human in the new year with the an- property. nounced publication of “A Birthday Cake for George Washing- Teach the facts If a children’s book were to ton” by Ramin Ganeshram. It tells the story of a man named Hercu- teach these easily provable facts les who was enslaved by George there would be no harm done.

Washington. Hercules was a well- Instead, the author revealed anknown cook and one of those who other very dangerous truth about lived in bondage with Washing- herself and others. She wanted ton when the nation’s capital was to focus on how enslaved people found some happiness amid the located in Philadelphia.

The story of Hercules should be cruelty and tortures inflicted uppart of an important chapter in on them.

“In our modern society, we abAmerican history. New York City was the nation’s first capital. It hor holding two competing truths was followed by Philadelphia be- in our minds,” Ganeshram said. fore a new city was created along It is simply too hard. How could one person enslave another and the Potomac River.

The purpose of moving the seat at the same time respect him? It’s of government further and fur- difficult to fathom, but the fact rether south was not coincidental. mains it was true.”

Despite the author’s claim of The final location between the states of Maryland and Virgin- respect and trust, Hercules ended ia put the city out of reach of any up as a laborer at Mount Vernon Northerners who might have abo- before he was able to make a successful escape in 1797. But a larglitionist tendencies.

Philadelphia proved to be a er question remains.

ploying every soft and hard tool available to them.

The Black-removal machine was revved up to maximum, erasing Black urban majorities and pluralities with dizzying speed.

Party doesn’t matter Having met little organized resistance, the corporate ethnic cleansers grew bolder. Republicans like Rick Synder get elected by trashing Black people; they hardly need an economic motivation for race-baiting.

Corporate Democrats are more subtle. Rick Snyder wasn’t the first governor to disenfranchise Black urbanites in Michigan; his Democratic predecessor, Jennifer Granholm, a reputed “liberal,” appointed emergency managers to lord it over mostly Black Benton Harbor, Highland Park, Pontiac, and the Detroit Public Schools (where teachers have been on a sick-out to protest the ghastly conditions wrought by that bipartisan legacy of plantation-like governance).

The Obama administration was a full partner in the deal that finalized the bankrupting of Detroit, providing federal funds to protect prime city assets necessary for future “revitalization” (to benefit anticipated new residents) but uttering not a word in protest of the disenfranchisement of the current 83 percent- Black population.

The U.S. Justice Department failed to file a brief in support of the local NAACP’s appeal to the

federal courts that Michigan’s emergency financial manager law is racially selective, sparing financially troubled “municipalities with majority-White populations” from financial oversight, while negating the votes of more than half of the state’s Black citizenry.

Vote nullified

neered exclusion and failed miserably. The engineered equality attempted by Stalin wasted scores of millions of lives. The appeal to authoritarian intervention to guarantee outcomes almost always leads to disastrous consequences.

Real equality doesn’t mean everyone gets the same things, or even has access to exactly the same opportunities. It means that no institution – whether government or university – is biased in favor of one group or another.

As the lessons of history have taught us, “Equality” without freedom is utterly useless.

Armstrong Williams is the sole owner/manager of Howard Stirk Holdings, LLC. Follow Williams on Twitter at @arightside.

The ‘natural order’ Why is it so important to defend the institution of slavery at all? The answer is obvious. The defenders see servitude of Black people and the supremacy of White people as part of a natural order that should not be disturbed. They think racial hierarchy is just fine, and that telling a heart-warming story can make inconvenient facts disappear.

Ganeshram’s Trinidadian ancestry has been used by her defenders as a shield from criticism.

Likewise, a Black editor at Scholastic was called in to defend the indefensible. Both ended up with egg on their faces after Scholastic decided to end the public relations disaster and withdraw the book from publication.

Black people who spoke up about this travesty are to be congratulated for using social media in an important way. The publishing industry may shy away from any slavery stories for the rest of 2016. However, it is best to assume that stories of happy, smiling chattel will return.

Margaret Kimberley’s column appears weekly in BlackAgendaReport.com. Contact her at Margaret.Kimberley@BlackAgendaReport.com. boards are swept away in favor of state or direct mayoral control, while suburbanites retain the old, hands-on democratic model.

Invisible activity The Michigan Legislature took over Detroit’s schools in 1999.

Corporate tentacles encroach upon the traditional powers of “tooBlack” cities in ways not visible to ordinary citizens – through regional agencies, special industrial and development zones, targeted tax abatements, etc. – until there is little left for the local Black government to tax or administer except its largely impoverished constituents.

Black governance is discredited – even though, in the last stages of urban distress, there are few resources with which to govern. The city writhes in protracted pain until “rescued” by the state for the purpose of corporate makeover (“renaissance”) and repopulation.

The corporate rulers and their minions must be held responsible for all of the pain that is inflicted on the people of intentionally distressed cities, whose residents are stripped of the means to defend themselves against the tortures, humiliations and various poisons of the state.

“You do not throw out the right to vote on the basis of economic distress,” said Detroit NAACP president Rev. Dr. Wendell Anthony. On the contrary, that’s exactly what corporations do when they set an economic or political goal that cannot be achieved at the local ballot box: they disenfranchise the uncooperative voters.

In the United States, Black votes are the easiest to nullify, because huge numbers of Whites don’t think Blacks are worthy of full citizenship. They take pleasure in bringing Detroit low, and in the enforced shrinking of Black New Orleans, never considering that the weakening of democratic norms will ultimately expose Whites to the whims of Capital as well.

It is the oldest story in the United States. White racism thus shapes the corporate model for direct rule by moneyed interests.

Typically, the urban disenfranchisement process begins with Glen Ford is executive editor the public schools, which become overwhelmingly Black and Brown of BlackAgendaReport.com. Eahead of the general population. mail him at Glen.Ford@BlackLocally elected inner city school AgendaReport.com.

TOJ A6

NATION

JANUARY 29 – FEBRUARY 4, 2016

Black women underrepresented in public office Report cities low numbers in key local, state and national positions

BY JAMES WRIGHT TRICE EDNEY NEWS WIRE

Despite the high-profiled Black women office holders like Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D), Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (D) and the women of the Congressional Black Caucus, Black women hold few elected positions, particularly in statewide offices, according to a new report.

It was commissioned by Higher Heights, a non-partisan organization dedicated to getting Black women elected to public office.

The report, authored by Kelly Ditmar and produced in conjunction with the Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics, said that Black women make up 7.4 percent of the nation’s population but only 3.4 percent of the U.S. Congress, 3.5 percent of state legislators, 1.9 percent of mayors in cities with more than 30,000 people and less than one percent of statewide elected officials.

Higher voter turnout Ditmar said that low numbers

are discouraging given Black women’s level of voter participation.

“Black women have registered and voted at higher rates than their male counterparts in every election since 1998,” Ditmar said. “Moreover, they surpassed all other race and gender subgroups in voter turnout in 2008 and 2012. Black women also turned out to vote at a rate of seven percentage points higher than their Black male counterparts in the 2014 midterm elections, outnumbered Black men at the polls by over two million votes and are at the highest rate among any non-White group.”

State leadership There are only three Black female statewide elected officials in the country: California Attorney General Kamala Harris (D), Connecticut State Treasurer Denise Nappier (D) and Kentucky Lt. Gov. Jenean Hampton (R).

Ditmar said that there are some “distinct hurdles” to Black women seeking political office.

“Black women are less likely to be encouraged to run for office and are more likely to be discouraged from running than Black men and White women,” Ditmar said. “Black women also navigate race and gender stereotypes and the intersections therein, while running for and serving in office. Finally, Black women repre-

ALLEN J. SCHABEN/LOS ANGELES TIMES/TNS

Negeen Sadeghi-Movahed, chair of the National Iranian-American Council Action in Orange County Calif., embodies the attitude of Iranian American youth who seize the deal with a sense of adventure – including liberal use of Twitter and Instagram.

She is shown in Irvine.

‘Period of uncertainty’ about Iran deal

BY SARAH PARVINI LOS ANGELES TIMES TRIBUNE NEWS

LOS ANGELES — Negeen Sadeghi-Movahed dreams of hopping on a plane from John F. Kennedy International Airport straight to Iran, where she would spend weeks learning about her roots.

It is, for the 22-year-old, one of

the simple, hoped-for fruits of a nuclear accord with Iran.

Roozbeh Farahanipour, 44, has a darker vision — of a deal that strengthens a regime that doesn’t care about human rights.

The historic pact is stirring diverse reactions in Southern California, home of the largest community of Iranians outside of Tehran, whose experiences with the motherland can be starkly different.

Hoverboards under review amid safety concerns

BY ED BLAZINA PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

PITTSBURGH — Hoverboards went from virtually unknown in the United States a year ago to the hottest gadget around this past Christmas.

Estimates are that manufacturers, most of them in China, have sold millions of the two-wheel, battery-operated vehicles here in the past year for prices ranging from $250 to $1,500.

Now, because of concerns about spontaneous fires and injuries from falling off them, hoverboards are under review by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, airlines and professional sports teams.

Universities are banning them.

Amazon is offering refunds to purchasers. And voluntary standards groups Underwriters Laboratories and ASTM are developing the first set of safety stan-

dards for hoverboards.

Hoverboards are about the size of a skateboard, but instead of the rider standing atop the wheels with the board pointed nose-forward, he stands between the wheels with the board parallel to his shoulder. The rider balances atop the wheel wells as the device moves forward. Picture a Segway, the clunky device used for walking tours, with smaller wheels and no handlebars to help with balance.

Fires, serious injuries Safety Commission Chairman Elliot Kaye issued a statement last week in which he said the agency is “working diligently” at its lab in Rockville, Md., to determine the cause of fires that may be linked to the lithium-ion batteries used to power hoverboards. He recommended riders never recharge the batteries while they are asleep or out of the house and called for all riders to

AMY DAVIS/BALTIMORE SUN/TNS

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings Blake, left, and Police Commissioner Kevin Davis, right, are shown during a news conference at police headquarters with other city officials to discuss plans for dealing with the reaction to the announcement of a hung jury in the trial of Officer William Porter on Dec. 16, 2015, in the death of Freddie Gray. sent less affluent districts and are less likely to be part of moneyed networks, posing hurdles to fundraising.”

D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D, At Large), chairman of the D.C. Democratic State Committee, agrees with Ditmar’s conclusions.

“Black women are often charged with taking care of their families so they don’t get involved as much as they want to,” Bonds said, who has served for decades in management levels in political campaigns, D.C. Council members offices and the DisSadeghi-Movahed embodies the attitude of many young Iranian-Americans who welcome the deal with a sense of the adventures they could have — and capture on Instagram — in the land of their fathers and mothers. Farahanipour represents many in an older generation who have watched in anger and disappointment as the Iranian government has isolated the country from much of the international community.

“The only thing that gives me a good feeling is when I see fellow Iranians happy,” said Farahanipour, the president of the West L.A. Chamber of Commerce.

“The thing is … in the near future they will realize nothing is going to change. Poverty will continue, nobody will talk about human rights violations anymore and the regime will get stronger.”

Access to assets Iranian and U.S. officials announced Jan. 23 in Vienna that Iran had complied with the terms of last summer’s landmark deal to dismantle its nuclear program and that the sanctions that have crippled the nation’s economy would be lifted. The move will give the Iranian government access to more than $50 billion in frozen assets and oil revenue. It also allows some exceptions to trade embargoes against Iran.

Any money that comes from Iran’s previously frozen assets, Farahanipour said, will “fund state-sponsored terrorism” instead of advancing human rights in that country.

The deal marks a “period of wear safety equipment such as a skateboard helmet, knee pads and elbow pads.

The agency also is investigating hoverboards manufactured or distributed by 13 companies.

Spokeswoman Patty Davis said the agency has received 40 reports of hoverboards catching fire and dozens of reports since August of riders receiving moderate to serious injuries from falling off them. Kaye said the boards can lurch and throw a rider off balance, something the agency suspects may be related to the size or weight of the rider.

Kaye called it “unacceptable” that hoverboards went on sale with no safety standards, and his agency is working with UL and ASTM to develop some. Although compliance is voluntary, most manufacturers seek UL and-or ASTM approval because stores often won’t sell products without it.

Amazon halts sales Problems with the hoverboard are “an example of what can happen” when products go to market without safety standards, said John Drengenberg, an electrical

trict government. “They tend to look to the males for political direction.”

18 in Congress Nevertheless, Ditmar said that some Black women have succeeded despite the challenges.

“Black women have proven their capacity to overcome these hurdles and, even more, capitalize upon the distinct advantages that they bring to candidacy and office holding,” she said. “Black women’s confidence and political experiences in community work and activism have contribuncertainty” for Iranians across generations, said Majid Rafizadeh, president of the International American Council. But skepticism over the accord — including a lack of faith that Iranians will see sanctions relief trickling down, or fear that hard-liners will be empowered to suppress civil liberties — is more common among older generations, he said.

“The older generation focus on the economic aspect of the deal, while the younger generation focus on building better ties with the world, traveling to the U.S.,” he said.

Eager for change Reza Marashi, research director for the National Iranian American Council, said Persian youth — including those who were part of the Diaspora — should use the deal’s momentum to push for better relations.

“Far be it from me to tell older Iranians what their view or relationship should be, but I can say that for 37 years, talking about how terrible the Iranian government is did not provide actions that would help the situation,” Marashi said. “If you encourage peaceful change, then over time the type of change you would like to see becomes more likely.”

For young Iranian-Americans like Sadeghi-Movahed, the agreement isn’t just about trade, terrorism and other geopolitical questions. It’s also about the simple, even mundane, things she hopes the deal can deliver: being able to wire money to relatives, bring home Persian rugs, or talk on the engineer and consumer safety director at UL, based in Northbrook, Ill. He said the agency will work with manufacturers and experts, but it could take nine months or more to develop standards.

“The reality is once you develop a standard, if you want to sell hoverboards, no reputable retailer is going to sell the product if it doesn’t meet the standard,” he said.

ATSM, based near Philadelphia, works in a similar manner and could take two years to produce standards, said Len Morrissey, an ATSM standards development director.

Amazon quit selling many models of hoverboards in December and said it would give customers a full refund it they wanted one.

‘Drag racing too’ Dr. Victor Prisk, an orthopedic surgeon specializing in foot and ankle injuries at the Allegheny Health Network, said he’s seen “quite a few” foot and ankle injuries in adult riders who either step off awkwardly or are thrown from hoverboards. The most

uted to their political ambition and success.”

There are 18 Black women in the U.S. House of Representatives that includes delegates from the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands and all of them but Rep. Mia Love (R-Utah) are Democrats. There are no Black women in the Senate. The first, and so far only, Black woman to be elected to the Senate was Illinois’s Carol Moseley Braun, who served from 1993-1999.

This story is special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Afro American Newspaper. phone with her family without having to use apps that smooth notoriously choppy connections.

Many of her friends have family members who still live in Iran and can’t afford certain medication as a result of the downtrodden economy.

“Now they can make sure the money to purchase that medicine gets transported,” said Sadeghi-Movahed, who works for an organization in Orange County that mentors Iranian American women.

But maybe the simplest test of all, she said, will be whether young, politically active IranianAmericans like her will be able to travel to Iran without ending up in jail, being harassed by police or generally getting a taste of what older generations fled.

Ready to travel Donya Nasser, the U.S. youth observer to the United Nations, said she would love to travel to Iran every year.

“I’m tired of people telling me, ‘Donya, be careful,’” Nasser, 23, said.

She would like to spend a few months in Iran so she could master the Persian language, she said.

She’d also like an easier way to call her family in Iran. Thanks to constant bans on new forms of communication, Iranians find themselves struggling to download the latest apps to make phone or video calls each month.

“First it was Viber and then WhatsApp and now it’s Imo,” Nasser said. “And it’s like, for God’s sake, all we want to do is talk to our family.” common injuries are sprained ankles or two kinds of breaks of the fifth metatarsal bone known as dancer’s fractures and Jones fractures.

“Those hoverboards seem pretty unstable,” he said. “There’s not much you can do to protect (your feet).”

While the safety commission investigates the vehicles and safety standards are established, various groups are taking steps to control the use of hoverboards.

Because of the fear of fire, Carnegie Mellon University has temporarily banned the vehicles from its dormitories, although they can be used on campus for transportation in appropriate areas. Most airlines also have banned the vehicles.

And the Carolina Panthers football team has told players to quit using them.

“Did you see those things on YouTube blowing up and stuff?

That’s what concerns me more than anything else is something crazy happening,” coach Ron Rivera told The Charlotte Observer.

“I caught them drag racing in the hallways one time too. You’ve got to be careful.”

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REMEMBERING THE

CHALLENGER DISASTER ment around space exploration, which waned when the shuttle program ended in 2011.

But at the Challenger Center for Space Science Education, the tragedy is far from forgotten. The center, founded in 1986 by the families of the astronauts who died, has expanded to more than 40 schools, universities and museums.

“When you enter a Challenger Center all of them have pictures of the crew on the walls,” said Lance Bush, the nonprofit organization’s president. “When children come in to get their briefings, they are told about these heroic individuals.”

Family support

The crew of the space shuttle Challenger. From left, first row: Michael J. Smith, Francis R. (Dick) Scobee and Ronald E. McNair. Second row, from left: Ellison S. Onizuka, Sharon Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis and Judith A. Resnick.

NASA/TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

Exploring the lessons learned after seven astronauts were killed 30 years ago

BY MARCO SANTANA AND KEVIN SPEAR ORLANDO SENTINEL/ TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

A

A solitary bouquet of flowers rests on the Space Shuttle Challenger memorial at Arlington National Cemetery on Feb. 1, 2003.

CHUCK KENNEDY/TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

little more than a minute after launch and high above Kennedy Space Center, shuttle Challenger was ripped apart after failure of a rubber seal allowed a spurt of rocket flame to ignite the spacecraft’s giant fuel tank.

The roiling plume of Challenger’s disintegration would sear an image in the nation’s psyche that spoke of a particular sorrow; among seven astronauts killed 30 years ago on Jan. 28 was teacher Christa McAuliffe.

“We will never forget them,” said President Ronald Reagan in a broadcast hours later evoking triumph from tragedy. “The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we’ll continue to follow them.”

But if Challenger’s meaning seemed clear then, today nearly half the nation is too young to remember the loss or hadn’t been born when it happened. Time has taken a toll on the emotional impetus from America’s first loss of astronauts in flight.

Challenger’s legacy also may have lost relevancy in a nation struggling now to figure out the future of human spaceflight.

‘No redemption’ Howard Lieb, a New York dentist who lives part time in The Villages in Central Florida, remembers Challenger’s fate vividly and, as a father, has not forgotten the faces of McAuliffe’s parents in news photos.

At the time of the disaster, he said, there was national will to try again and do better, to embrace Reagan’s inspiration that “nothing ends here; our hopes and our journeys continue.”

But the country changed as the shuttle program played out its 30 years, he said.

Today, “there is no redemption to the tragedy,” Lieb said.

“We’ve begun to look at such risks as unacceptable.”

How Challenger lessons will serve the nation’s next era in space remains unclear. NASA has neither funding nor a spacecraft to deliver astronauts to Mars any time soon.

17 launches in 2015 More immediately pressing for the nation’s space endeavors is the rise of the commercial rocket business. Cape Canaveral saw 17 rockets launched last year, marking a 12-year high.

The launch count is expected increase this year.

Private, billionaire-led companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin have helped restore excite-

Families of the seven-member crew in the shuttle Columbia accident in 2003 have added their support to Challenger Center, which has had more than 4.4 million students.

“It’s important to have programs like this that inspire adventure and discovery,” said Laura Husband, 25, daughter of Rick Husband, commander during Columbia’s ill-fated flight.

Speaking to the lessons of Challenger, Roger Launius, associate director of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., said NASA’s aura of invincibility collapsed with the disaster.

“Hubris is always a problem, and every Greek tragedy is built around that,” Launius said. “It was valid 2,000 years ago and it’s still valid today.”

After Challenger exploded, NASA pledged to redesign the shuttle’s flawed rockets and remake the agency’s approach to safety.

But after Columbia disintegrated during re-entry 17 years later, the investigator of that disaster said NASA’s safety discipline was “perfect” on paper only.

“When you bore down a little bit deeper, you don’t find any there, there,” retired Adm. Harold Gehman said then. “There’s no people, money, engineering, expertise, analysis.”

Critical concerns Bob Crippen, a Florida resident who was a pilot during the first shuttle flight in 1981 and flew three more times as commander, said important lessons of Challenger and Columbia remain valid today.

NASA struggled to commu-

nicate internally on critical concerns and did not respond adequately to information arising from damage to rocket parts during spaceflight, lapses that may be even harder to thwart with commercial launches, he said.

“NASA doesn’t have the same degree of control and isn’t able to observe contractors as closely as previously,” Crippen said.

Crippen noted that SpaceX and Orbital Science Corp. suffered disasters with unmanned rockets during the past two years, which should provide a valuable learning experience.

Alex Roland, professor emeritus of history at Duke University and former NASA historian, said NASA’s vulnerability at the time of the accidents was huge bureaucracy and intense political pressures, causing the agency’s guard to slip.

He said that leaner, private companies presumably would not be as vulnerable to the failures behind Challenger and Columbia.

“But I’m not so sure,” Roland said. “I think they experience a lot of the same pressures because they are trying to get renewals and increases in their NASA contracts.”

‘Lessons Learned’ launch SpaceX spokesman John Taylor declined to comment and Blue Origins did not respond to several requests for comment.

A new effort at Kennedy Space Center could ensure that private companies learn from past catastrophes.

Last week, the center kicked off “Apollo, Challenger, Columbia Lessons Learned,” a program that targets the emerging space industry with education related to the disasters.

At KSC’s Visitor Complex, artifacts manager Mike Ciannilli said he often hears stories from visitors who remember exactly where they were: a fourth-grade classroom; at home watching television with family; and outside, neck craned to see Challenger rising.

The memories remind Ciannilli that the moment does not belong only to NASA. Instead, the explosion created a marker in the lives of many who witnessed it, he said.

“It’s such a pivotal event in their lives, much like the Kennedy assassination,” Ciannilli said.

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FLORIDA COMMUNITY CALENDAR Fort Lauderdale: The Love, Soul and Jazz Tour stops at the Nova Southeastern University Arena on Feb. 12: Performers: Will Downing, Chrisette Michelle and Lyfe Jennings.

Tampa: “The Lion King’’ musical by Disney is being presented at the Straz Performing Arts Center through Feb. 14.

JANUARY 29 – FEBRUARY 4, 2016

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tion: 386-416-9699.

ERYKAH BADU

Miami Gardens: The Jazz in the Gardens music festival is March 18-20. Along with Usher, Kool and the Gang and Brian Culbertson, artists will include Najee, Regina Belle. Complete lineup: www. jazzinthegardens.com.

The Gasparilla Music Festival on March 12-13 in Tampa will include Erykah Badu, Talib Kweli, New Breed Brass Band, the Seminole Indoor Percussion Ensemble and Dunedin Highland Middle School Pipe Band. Tickets: GMFtickets.com.

Fort Lauderdale: ASCENT: Black Women’s Expressions Art Exhibition is Feb. 4-March 4 at Cotilla Gallery, Nova University, 3100 Ray Ferrero Jr. Blvd. Free.

MATTEO PRANDONI/BFA/ SIPA USA/TNS

Miami: The “Walk Together Children” walking tour of Historic Overtown is Feb. 20 from 10 a.m. to noon. RSVP at 305-633-3583 or e-mail missgail52@gmail.com.

Miami Gardens: Florida Memorial University will celebrate its Homecoming Feb. 9-13. Events will include the annual parade and basketball games on Feb. 13. The Lions will face Voorhees College.

Details: www.fmuniv.edu.

AYIKODANS

Fort Lauderdale: “The Abolitionists,” film viewing and discussion takes place at 2 p.m.

Feb. 27 at Nova Southeastern University, Cotilla Gallery, Alvin Sherman Library, 3100 Ray Ferrero Blvd. More information: call 954-262-5477.

Riverview: The Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA) will present a free homebuying workshop on Feb. 6 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Covenant Family Church, 6321 US Highway 301 S. More info: 813-7163996.

Sarasota: The Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe is presenting “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’’ by August Wilson through Feb. 20.

Jacksonville: The UniverSoul Circus will be at the Prime Osborn Convention Center through Jan. 31. The circus also has February dates in Tampa and Miami.

Hollywood: The legendary

Tampa: The 10th annual Hillsborough Community College Black, Brown & College Bound’s Dr. Sylvia M. Carley Luncheon will feature former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell as the keynote speaker on Feb. 19 at the Tampa Convention Center at 12:30 p.m. Tickets are $125 each. More information: www. hccfl.edu/bbcb.aspx.

Orlando: Central Florida Community Arts will present “The Crucible’’ through Feb. 7 at Central Christian Church, 250 SW Ivanhoe Blvd. Tickets: Call 407-937-1800 ext. 710 or visit cfcarts.com/events.

The Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County has invited the Haitian dance company Ayikodans to perform Feb. 4-6 as part of the center’s 10th anniversary celebration. www.arshtcenter. org. MARIE OSTENSSON PHOTOGRAPHY

KEM

The 27th Annual Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities is Jan. 23-31 in Eatonville. Performers will include the Isley Brothers, Hezekiah Walker, Martha Munizzi and Kem. Full schedule: www.zorafestival.org.

Diana Ross is scheduled Feb. 9 at Hard Rock Live.

Fort Lauderdale: Jamaica and Bob Marley will again be the theme for the Destination Fridays event on Feb. 5 at 6:30 p.m. at the African-

ROOTS Weekend is underway in Eatonville Alternate ROOTS is hosting a ROOTS Weekend Jan. 28-31 in Eatonville featuring artists, activists and cultural organizers to build community and share work through workshops, dialogues, visual arts, and performances.

Alternate ROOTS, a regional arts service organization with 40 years of history, is working in partnership with the annual ZORA! Festival, and programming will resonate with the art, anthropology, and legacy of Zora Neale Hurston.

Featured artists include Orlando-based

Tampa: Tickets are on sale for a concert by the Black Violin on Feb. 3 at the Straz Center and the Parker Playhouse in Fort Lauderdale on Feb.5.

BET

American Research Library and Cultural Center, 2650 Sistrunk Blvd. Cost: 10. www. broward.org/library.

St. Petersburg: The Pinellas County Urban League’s 3rd Annual Whitney M. Young Jr.

Leadership Awards Luncheon is 11:30 a.m. Feb. 6 at the Hilton St. Petersburg Carillon Park. More information: 727327-2081, ext. 128 Aventura: “Steppin’ Out Live with Ben Vereen’’ is sched-

uled Feb. 14 at the Aventura Arts & Cultural Center.

New Smyrna Beach: The 25th Annual Black Heritage Festival is Feb. 5-7, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Pettis Park, 314 N. Duss St. Free. More informa-

Jacksonville: The Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra will present “Baby Boomers – The Music of the ‘60s” on Feb. 21 at 3 p.m. at the Times-Union Center Performing Arts Center.

It will benefit Edward Waters College. More details: www. ewc.edu.

visual artist Tamerlane Bey and Jacksonville-based cultural organizer Aleta Alston-Toure’. Bey will share “Black Gold; a quest for Reparations,’’ an exhibit. Alston-Toure’ will perform her solo work “Zora as an Anti-Oppression AcAleta Alston- tivist’’ and will lead a PeoToure’ ple’s Movement Assembly.

The People’s Movement Assembly will discuss how the traditions of southern culture embodied in Hurston’s work serve as transformational remedies to some of our new-day genocidal ills. The full line up is listed on Alternate ROOTS’ website, www.alternateroots.org.

For more information, contact Mayaba Liebenthal, mayaba@alternateroots.org, 404-577-1079, ext. 303 or visit our website at www.alternateroots.org.

Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity members Mario Lewis, Vernon Smith, Bryan Jones and youth participants pose for a picture outside the residence the chapter painted.

South Miami-Dade Alphas honor MLK through community restoration project The Iota Pi Lambda Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity participated in the fourth annual SoMi Lights MLK Service Day Project. Over 100 volunteers took part in the event hosted Jan. 18 by Branches South Miami to revitalize four homes in the community, perform the landscaping of a children’s playground, and build two butterfly gardens at and near the Branches satellite location.

Volunteers were assigned to teams to paint, perform general home maintenance, housing restoration, and manicure property lawns within the community. Alpha brothers adopted the task of repainting the home of an ill resident in the neighborhood.

The event was sponsored by Gem Water, AmeriCorps and Mt. Olive Missionary Baptist Church.

Branches is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to educate community members on opportunities that can improve their social condition. For over 40 years, Branches has worked as a vehicle to advocate and tackle social injustices on behalf of disadvantage citizens.

UNIVERSAL PICTURES PRESENTS A WORKING TITLE PRODUCTION JOSH BROLIN GEORGE CLOONEY ALDEN EHRENREICH RALPH FIENNES JONAH HILMUSICL SCARLETT JOHANSSONDIRECTORFRANCES MCDORMAND OF TILDA SWINTON CHANNIPRODUCED NG TATUM “HAIL, CAESAR!” BY CARTERWRITTEN, BURWELL PHOTOGRAPHY ROGER DEAKINS ASC, BSC PRODUCED EXECUTIVE PRODUCER ROBERT GRAF

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HEALTH

B3

Bizarre birth defect in Black babies on the rise CDC says infants being born with intestines outside of their bodies

BY MELISSA HEALY LOS ANGELES TIMES/TNS

Physicians are seeing more instances of a birth defect in which infants are born with their intestines extruding from the stomach wall. The increase has been driven by a sharp rise in the defect among babies born to young African-American mothers, says a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Over the 18 years leading up to 2012, the CDC has documented a 263 percent increase in the birth defect among children born to young Black mothers, said a re-

port released last week by the agency.

Coleen Boyle, director of the CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, said it was urgent that researchers find the cause of the defect and determine which women are at greater risk for having babies with the affliction.

In gastroschisis, the intestines, and sometime other visceral organs such as the liver and stomach, protrude through a hole next to a newborn’s belly button.

Surgery after birth Though the abnormality can be life-threatening, it can often be fixed soon after birth with surgery to return the organs inside the abdomen and repair the abdominal wall. But because the affected organs are irritated by their exposure to amniotic flu-

id inside a mother’s uterus, they can twist, swell, shorten and become infected.

As a result, babies born with the defect can have ongoing digestive and feeding problems.

Some also have difficulty staying hydrated and absorbing nutrients from food, which can increase the risk for a range of medical problems, including stunted growth and malnutrition.

If the number of exposed internal organs is large, surgery must sometimes be done in stages. Recovery times can be long. Many babies born with the condition, which can be diagnosed during pregnancy by ultrasound, do not leave the hospital for six weeks or more, and their care in neonatal intensive units is costly.

Environmental factors Roughly 2,000 babies are born

each year with gastroschisis.

The rise in the defect affected babies born to women across the spectrum of age and ethnicity.

But most cases of gastroschisis occur in babies born to mothers younger than 20. The CDC said this fact was unchanged by a notable decline in live births among teen mothers.

Although researchers do not know what causes gastroschisis, they suspect that environmental factors — a mother’s diet, medicines used during pregnancy or exposures to some toxin — may influence the development of a weak abdominal wall sometime early in pregnancy. What those harmful exposures might be, and whether babies born with the defect have some genetic vulnerability, remains a mystery.

CDC epidemiologist Suzanne Gilboa said “we’re really trying to

dig into the ‘why’” of gastroschisis in a number of federal-supported studies tracking pregnant women and their babies. Researchers have just a few clues to guide their hunt, Gilboa added.

Mothers who consumed alcohol or used tobacco during pregnancy are at greater risk of having a baby with gastroschisis, as are women who had a sexually transmitted disease during pregnancy or who were underweight before pregnancy.

To discern the trend seen in the latest report, epidemiologists analyzed data from 14 states: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Texas and Utah. They compared rates of gastroschisis in the 1995-2005 period with rates seen during the 2006-2012 period.

Cost of injectable insulin ‘out of control’ Diabetics shocked at how price of medicine has skyrocketed

BY DAVID SELL PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER/ TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

PHILADELPHIA — Injectable insulin, which keeps some diabetics alive and keeps others out of serious health crises, has soared in price in the last few years.

“It is out of control,” said Carol Hammond, 72, a diabetic who lives in North Philadelphia and survives on Social Security. “My rent isn’t too bad, but after paying for insulin, I don’t have much left.”

Hammond said she skips buying or taking doses because her Medicare and Medicare Advantage health-insurance plans don’t always cover the cost of her insulin at the pharmacy counter. Her doctor helps her find it cheaper and gives her an occasional sample.

Express Scripts, the largest U.S. pharmacy-benefit manager, said the price of two prominent brand-name injectable insulins, Lantus and Humalog, rose 22.7 percent and 19.9 percent, respectively, from 2014 to 2015.

“Greed,” Penn Medicine endocrinologist Mark Schutta said when asked about the cause.

“There are multiple reasons for this problem,” said Barbara Simon, Hammond’s physician and an endocrinologist. “But, ultimately, it is really devastating for patients. I think it is wrong.”

‘List price’ costs Manufacturers say research for future medicines involves some failures, which still must be paid for, and that recent changes in some insurance plans mean patients have to pay more.

“This means someone who previously paid $25 to $40 copay for a medicine could now face ‘list price’ costs of hundreds of dollars for a prescription until they meet their higher deductible,” Eli Lilly & Co. spokesman Greg Kueterman said in a statement.

“Every day, we negotiate with health plans, pharmacy-benefit managers, and other intermediaries to make sure our medicines are accessible for as many people as possible,” Novo Nordisk spokesman Ken Inchausti said in a statement.

But like other brand-name drugs, these so-called analog insulins have patent protection

Research suggests that reducing sugars added to sugarsweetened drinks by 40 percent during a five-year period could prevent 1.5 million cases of people becoming overweight and obese.

FOTOLIA/TNS

and slices of market exclusivity, which allows manufacturers to push for higher prices.

Even before University of Toronto researchers won the 1923 Nobel Prize in medicine for their discovery of insulin, the university gave Eli Lilly a license to make insulin “for humanitarian purposes,” without requiring royalty fees. Similar licenses were later granted to other companies that now form the big three in insulin sales: Sanofi, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, maker of Humalog.

In 2014, Sanofi got $6.93 billion in revenue from its long-acting insulin, Lantus, the best-selling brand and one of the best-selling drugs of any kind.

How insulin works Insulin was discovered nearly 100 years ago. For about 60 years, it was extracted from the pancreases of pigs and cows and injected into humans. Next came socalled human insulin, synthetically created with recombinant DNA. In the mid-1990s, scientists altered the amino acid sequence of molecules to create analog insulins, which act quicker or more smoothly over a 24-hour period, depending on the type.

Insulin helps the body break down sugar and use it. A normal human pancreas secretes a small amount of insulin continuously, then an appropriate burst when a person eats something; it is able to distinguish the sugar differences between a celery stick and a double fudge sundae.

Type 1 diabetics produce no insulin. Without injections of it — via syringe, pen or pump — death can occur in days or a few weeks, and that’s if a diabetic avoids carbohydrates, which contain sugars.

Type 2 diabetics don’t produce the correct amounts of insulin, and their bodies become insulinresistant. Some are treated with diet, insulin, or oral medication — a different multibillion-dollar sector of the pharmaceutical industry — or a combination of all three.

Even within America’s forprofit health-care system, high drug prices are getting greater attention these days. Sometimes, it’s new medicine, such as Gilead Sciences’ hepatitis C drugs.

Sometimes, it’s older medicines, including insulin, that are protected by marketplace quirks and scientific circumstances.

Takes time, care Before he was arrested in

LLOYD FOX/SUN PHOTOGRAPHER/TNS

Suzanne Razaq, right, looks at her daughter Zara’s Cheek’s insulin pump and her glucose meter on Aug. 5, 2014 in Baltimore. Zara, a type I diabetic, participate in a “bionic pancreas” study in Boston that summer. mid-December, accused of securities fraud, and forced to resign as Turing Pharmaceuticals’ CEO, Martin Shkreli drew scorn for boosting the price of an older life-saving drug from $13.50 to $750, then saying he wished he had raised it higher. But more established drugmakers raise prices whenever possible, if less dramatically.

Even generic-drug companies, which were expected to continually lower the cost of drugs through competition, have raised prices when competitors leave the market.

Insulin manufacturers — which must answer to investors, large and small — worry that the price increases actually have crested, pushed down by pharmacy-benefit managers, insurers (public and private), and patients.

On Oct. 29, Sanofi CEO Olivier Brandicourt tried to console Wall Street analysts after telling them sales revenue for Lantus, 18.8 percent of the company’s total revenue in 2014, was slowing and would be flat for 2015 through 2018. “I know that you will all need reassurance given the disappointment in diabetes over the past year,” he said.

Though older forms of insulin can, sometimes, be acquired for less money, it takes time and care, by patient and doctor, to adjust dosages to avoid potentially deadly situations with too much or too little insulin in the body.

Biosimilar coming Most drugs are a combination of chemicals, and copies (generics) are relatively easy to make.

Insulin involves biological substances, which are more difficult to copy. The Food and Drug Administration has moved carefully to devise a formula for evaluating the safety of such copies, called biosimilars. Eli Lilly will sell the first biosimilar for Lantus, but not until late December 2016 — timing resulting from settlement of a patent-infringement case Sanofi filed against Lilly.

Pharmacy-benefit managers are for-profit companies hired by insurers and large employers to manage drug plans and operate mail-order pharmacies. Express Scripts and CVS/Caremark, a subsidiary of CVS Health, are the two largest PBMs. Express Scripts’ chief medical officer, Steve Miller, said its clients spend more on diabetes than any other category. He said the historical “social contract” under which American health-care providers priced their products reasonably had “broken down” because of “extravagant” year-over-year price increases by drug companies.

“If not for Express Scripts using market forces to fight this, it would be worse,” Miller said.

‘I have no choice’ PBMs and insurers create formularies, lists of drugs they will cover and at what price to the pa-

Plenty of reasons to limit soda: Prevent obesity, keep teeth healthy

BY ALISON BOWEN CHICAGO TRIBUNE (TNS)

When Dr. Susan Maples sees patients at her dental practice, she tells them to slash the soda.

And she’s not alone. The government’s guidelines, produced jointly from the Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Agriculture, were released Jan. 7.

Among the key recommendations? Consume less than 10 percent of calories per day from added sugars.

The Mayo Clinic describes these as sugars and syrups added to foods during processing.

The top culprits are desserts, so-

das and sports drinks, where they boost flavor but add more calories with scant nutritional value.

And according to a study just published in the medical journal The Lancet, reducing sugars added to sugar-sweetened drinks by 40 percent during a five-year period could prevent 1.5 million cases of people becoming overweight and obese.

Oral health Researchers note this could also avoid about 300,000 cases of obesity-related type 2 diabetes.

All which explains why cutting out liquid sugar is one of Maples’ passion projects.

A dentist in Holt, Mich., she

tient. Secret negotiations with drugmakers are a big part of deciding what is on the list, and, if a manufacturer is willing to accept less, competing products are excluded. Savings are not necessarily passed on to the client, much less the patient. And changes to the list don’t always reach patients.

Adam Fein, president of Philadelphia-based Pembroke Consulting Inc., wrote in a recent blog post that each big PBM is aligned with a different insulin maker for 2016. Express Scripts excluded two Novo Nordisk insulins in favor of Eli Lilly’s brands, while CVS excluded Eli Lilly’s insulins but included Novo Nordisk products.

Both companies cover Sanofi’s Lantus.

Jeff Bargull, a patient of Schutta’s, said he is grateful that he has health insurance as a union carpenter, so he has to pay only $150 of the $1,100 cost for six bottles of insulin, which he injects into his body, drip by drip, through a pump to control the type 1 diabetes he has had for 19 of his 34 years.

Bargull has to make four or five such purchases a year. In the recession, he said, when his hours were cut and he had no unionpaid health insurance, it was cheaper to buy an individual health-insurance policy than insulin.

“I have no choice,” he said. “If I want to live, I have to pay for the insulin.” feels passionately about how oral health affects the entire body.

“To drink a soda or a glass of juice as an occasional treat is one thing, but the way we habitually drink it is downright dangerous,” she said, noting that obesity from chronic sugar is linked to heart disease, cancer and diabetes.

So consider cutting them out altogether, she said.

And that might include your morning juice. Think juices, soda, energy drinks, sports drinks, sweet tea, lemonade.

These, she said, “turn on the insulin pump like crazy,” she said.

Not to mention the effect on teeth.

“Remember that teeth are the only part of the ectoderm — the body’s outer covering — that will not heal once it is flawed,” she said.

CULTURE

B4

JANUARY 29 – FEBRUARY 4, 2016

STOJ

Barbecue joint rewards patrons for carrying gun Texas Black business owner gives discounts for customers who show their firearms

BY MOLLY HENNESSY-FISKE LOS ANGELES TIMES/TNS

CYPRESS, Texas — The brisket at Brooks’ Place arrives with a deep smoky bark that the grill master here lovingly refers to as “black gold.”

The line outside the barbecue joint, little more than a trailer and a few picnic tables parked outside an Ace hardware in this Houston suburb, starts building midmorning.

Customers need only bring a solid appetite and a bit of time.

And a gun, if you’re looking for a discount.

Out back, a generator hums rhythmically and post oak logs are piled next to an upright barbecue pit, enveloped in a haze of savory smoke. There are signs banning pets, short shorts and sagging pants, and another with a picture of a handgun. “Firearms welcome,” it reads.

“We felt a need to tell gun owners you don’t need to worry about being judged,” said owner and chef Trent Brooks, sitting near another sign that said, “Thank you for carrying your gun today.”

PHOTOS BY MOLLY HENNESSEY-FISKE/LOS ANGELES TIMES/TNS

Brooks Place BBQ, a popular Houston barbecue restaurant, gives a 10 percent discoumt if you are open carrying a gun.

Advertises gun classes Brooks is so gun-friendly he affixed stickers to the walls of the trailer with pictures of targets saying, “Nothing inside worth dying for” and “If you can read this, you’re in range.”

He advertises concealed handgun classes on the restaurant’s menu and website, and has offered numerous discounts to gun owners and first responders during his seven years running what Texas Monthly rated among the 50 best barbecue joints worldwide.

After Texas became the nation’s most populous state to permit gun owners to carry handguns openly, or “open carry,” Brooks offered a 25 percent discount to those who took advantage of the law, which took effect with the new year.

Two break-ins Brooks, 45, a sturdy, bearded man who was raised by a father who kept a gun at home for protection, has a concealed handgun license and became a gun rights proponent after two break-ins at his restaurant.

“In Texas, we have a saying: It’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it,” he said as

Trent Brooks, 45, owner and chef at Brook’s Place, surveys his pit of brisket, ribs and deer sausage before opening for lunch on Jan. 6in Cypress, Texas. he sat at one of the picnic tables on a weekday morning, wearing a Dallas Cowboys hat (he’s a big fan) and red chef’s smock.

Brooks supported the new open carry law for practical reasons: He said it protects gun owners from being charged with a crime for accidentally exposing their guns.

He rejects concerns that, as an African-American man, openly carrying a firearm might put him at risk, especially with police.

“I’ve stood up here hand in hand with police,” he said.

Criticisms, threat Although he doesn’t plan to carry a gun every day, Brooks said he wanted the flexibility.

“Before the open carry law took effect, if the wind blew and your gun was exposed and someone saw it, you get accused of a crime,” he explained. “Now, if I go into Lowe’s and I reach up to a shelf and my shirt comes up, I’m not charged with a crime.”

Not everyone sees it quite that plainly. Soon after Brooks offered the open carry discount, his wife noticed a threat posted on their Facebook page.

“I’ll shoot up the place on Saturday” (New Year’s Day), one person wrote.

“Let’s see how your gun toting patrons will stop me.”

Brooks had received his share of Internet criticism, including some posts by people who vowed never to dine at his trailer because of his stance, but this was his first threat. Determined to stay open, he contacted the sheriff’s office and hired two off-duty constables to stand guard.

Hundreds of supporters When the day came, no

Jeramey Winfield, shown in January 2015, walks to the CTA Green Line station after getting some career coaching at Career Transitions Center in Chicago. At the time, he had graduated from an elite private college more than a year prior but still hadn’t found employment.

A report released by the UIC Great Cities Institute is truly troubling.

Forty-seven percent of 20-24 year old Black men in Chicago were not

Nearby sat Branden Eagle, 28, a Realtor, weekly customer and gun owner who opposes open carry.

What he’s not opposed to are Brooks’ ribs.

“I don’t think we should be living like the Wild West,” Eagle said. “I think

Retired and packing As the lunch hour wore on, dozens of customers slathered heaping plates with jalapeno-infused barbecue sauce and two white-haired women arrived, both wearing handguns on their hips. Most patrons didn’t even turn to look, though one asked to snap a cell phone photo.

“We wanted to show our support” for the restaurant, said Mary Shelton, 67, a retired product manager at nearby Hewlett-Packard. She and her friend had heard about the discount — and the threat — and decided to make their first trip to Brooks’ Place.

Her friend, Sherry Dickson, 69, a retired elementary and middle school teacher, glanced at Brooks’ various warning signs and smiled.

“I also appreciate his sign for pants,” she said.

BY DIANA O. EROMOSELE THEROOT.COM

PHIL VELASQUEZ/

EURWEB

Back to Wild West

a law enforcement officer should be the only one with access to open carry.

On the first day, I saw people trying to show off with .45s on their hip.”

But at another table, oil field worker and gun owner Vincent Facundo, 32, of Houston said he supported open carry precisely because that’s how things were done in the frontier days.

“It takes us back to the Wild West. If you go into a business and try to rob them and there’s three guys with guns, you’ll think twice,” he said.

Stacey Dash’s relative: Fox has to be paying her for ‘coonin’

CHICAGO TRIBUNE/TNS

Report: Nearly half of young Black men in Chicago not working

attacker materialized. Instead, Brooks fed 300 people, including about 200 gun owners carrying openly on their hips.

“We had people walk up here just to shake my hand and say thank you for standing up for our rights,” Brooks said as he prepared to serve lunch, including ribs, deer sausage, brisket, smoky barbecue-infused baked beans, cranberry almond coleslaw, and bacon, onion and garlic potatoes.

Jake West, 38, of Cypress, a pipe maker, arrived with his wife and ordered generous plates of brisket and deer sausage.

“I came because it’s pro gun. You know you’re going to be protected,” West said, noting that lists posted online show which businesses do and don’t allow open carry.

Texas3006.com tracks businesses that have posted signs banning open carry. So does the gun control advocacy group Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

“I don’t like to give my business to ones that won’t let me have them. I see the signs, I just go the other way,” West said.

in school nor working in 2014.

As far as the state of Illinois is concerned, the number is 44 percent, much higher than the national average of 32 percent of young Black men.

The report, officially named “Lost: The Crisis of Jobless and Out of School Teens and Young Adults in Chicago, Illinois and the U.S.,” found the following: In Chicago, the jobless rate for Black 16 to 19 year olds was 88 percent.

In Illinois in 2014, 84 percent of Black 16 to 19 year olds and 72 percent of Hispanic or Latino 16 to 19

year olds were jobless. Employment rates decreased by 13 percent for Blacks and 20 percent for Hispanic or Latinos from 2005 to 2014.

In the U.S. in 2014, 79 percent of Black 16 to 19 year olds and 74 percent of Hispanic or Latino 16 to 19 year olds were jobless. Employment rates decreased 14 percent for Blacks and 21 percent for Hispanic or Latinos from 2005 to 2014.

Across all groups in Chicago and the U.S., the percentages of 16 to 19 year olds employed have dropped from 2005 to 2014, suggesting a long-term downward trend for employment of teens.

Stacey Dash is feeling the wrath of Black America.

She keeps arguing that any effort or initiative to celebrate Black American achievements — e.g., Black History Month and the BET Awards — is segregation and isn’t moving the ball forward on race relations.

Even though family is supposed to present a unified front out in the open, her cousin, hip-hop mogul and serial entrepreneur Damon Dash, couldn’t help weighing in on Stacey’s affiliation with Fox News.

Simply put, Damon thinks that Stacey is getting a check from Fox News to say most of the stuff she says because it sounds super sensational coming from a Black woman. He said as much during an interview with Boyce Watkins, posted on YouTube Jan. 21.

“You know how manipulative they are. I think they wanted her to do some- Stacey thing that would invoke conversation Dash and she did it. I’m quite sure it wasn’t done for free,” Damon said.

He added that Stacey is certainly entitled to her own opinions, which he says associate her “with coonin’,” but at the very least, he’d rather that she went on a Black media platform to keep the conversation productive.

“She didn’t have to say it like that, or there. I would have way preferred, if she had that opinion, to say it on BET, or have a conversation with someone Black and let someone Black have a conversation back with her, as opposed to some White man nodding his head,” Dash argued.

STOJ

FINEST & ENTERTAINMENT

JANUARY 29 – FEBRUARY 4, 2016

Meet some of

FLORIDA’S

finest

submitted for your approval

B5

Think you’re one of Florida’s Finest?

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

JEFF SINER/CHARLOTTE OBSERVER/TNS

ALLEN J. SCHABEN/LOS ANGELES TIMES/TNS

Quarterback Cam Newton, 26, will lead the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl 50 on Feb. 7 in California. A University of Florida Gator in 2007 and 2008, he earned his bachelor’s degree last year from Auburn University.

Toni Braxton is making headlines this month as a movie about her life gained rave reviews. “Toni Braxton: Unbreak My Heart” drew 3.6 million total viewers last week, according to Nielsen data, making it the most watched Lifetime original movie in more than a year. Lex Scott Davis portrayed the R&B singer.

The movie will air again on Jan. 31 and Feb. 15.

What a difference a few years has made for The Weeknd ing Coachella set.

Then came the new album that proved he had a leap to bona-fide pop star on the brain — and the expertly crafted tunes required to make it happen.

While single “The Hills” was classic Weeknd, “Can’t Feel My Face” signaled his clearest, strongest play at mainstream stardom.

Both “The Hills” and “Can’t Feel My Face” rocketed to the top of the charts. His sophomore album, “Beauty Behind the Madness,” opened at the top of the chart as well.

BY GERRICK D. KENNEDY LOS ANGELES TIMES TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

During his 2012 set at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, the Weeknd was every bit the fledgling artist.

Unsure of himself onstage or in front of thousands of screaming fans, his first showing in the desert didn’t deliver on the hype surrounding his Internet mixtapes.

There was even a mass exodus toward Gotye, on a nearby stage.

But what a difference a few years — and a few inescapable hits — makes. The singer, born Abel Tesfaye, has gone from Internet sensation to pop radio rainmaker to Oscar nominee in a little over a year.

And he did it all with a ballad about kinky sex.

‘Earned It’ impact “Earned It,” his slinky anthem from the “Fifty Shades of Grey” soundtrack, is a contender for original song at the Oscars. It’s up against Sam Smith’s Golden Globe-winning Bond theme “Writing’s on the Wall,” David

Top of the pops

ALEXANDER STEIN/BFA/SIPA USA/TNS

The Weeknd performs at the Barclays Center in New York on Nov. 18, 2015.

Lang’s “Simple Song #3,” “Til It Happens to You” by Diane Warren and Lady Gaga, and “Manta Ray” by J. Ralph and Antony and the Johnsons’ Antony Hegarty.

That a quasi-dirty tune such as “Earned It” is in the running for an Oscar speaks to the Week-

Effie Brown: Black women contributed to Hollywood discrimination EURWEB

Effie Brown, the African-American Hollywood producer whom Matt Damon famously tried to lecture on diversity, believes that women and people of color have contributed in part to their own discrimination in the industry.

“Somehow, we cosigned this. Somehow, we participatEffie ed,” she said Monday Brown at the annual Women at Sundance brunch, according to Page Six. Brown, whose exchange with Damon from HBO’s “Project Green-

nd’s bursting pop appeal. In fact, “Earned It” got the ball rolling on what ended up being a massive year for the artist.

More hits Released as the lead single

light” made national headlines, encouraged the women in attendance to acknowledge their own unconscious bias and “blind spots.” She said those who are not taking action against the status quo are actually supporting its continuance.

She reportedly urged everyone in the room to “hire, mentor and invest” in women and people of color.

No ‘innocent bystanding’ According to Page Six, Brown’s stand “was echoed by every speaker at the invitation-only event, including Universal Pictures chairman Donna Langley and actor/director/ producer Elizabeth Banks.”

“Women make up half the population and people of color make up 40 percent,” Brown said. “There is no such thing as innocent bystanding anymore.

“Our voice is powerful. We are a force of nature,” she added. “There’s nothing more fierce on God’s green earth than a woman with her mind made up.”

from the soundtrack, “Earned It” dominated radio, and extended the Weeknd’s audience further months after “Love Me Harder,” his fiery duet with Ariana Grande, landed him his first top 10 single.

The singer then found redemption with a smoldering, headlin-

Filmmaker expresses hate for word ‘diversity’ EURWEB

Despite giving a thumbs up to the Academy for taking steps to increase diversity among its membership, don’t expect Ava DuVernay to use that word to express the hot issue when it comes to the racial and gender imbalance in Hollywood.

“We’re hearing a lot about diversity. I hate that word so, so much,” the “Selma” director shared with media and members of the film industry at a Sundance Film Festival lunAva cheon on Jan. 24, according to DuVernay The New York Times.

In DuVernay’s eyes, words like “inclusion” and “belonging” are better suited to illustrate Tinseltown’s longstanding issue.

‘Emotional issue’ “[Diversity] is a medicinal word that has no

The Weeknd cemented his status with a bounty of Grammy nods, including for record and album of the year. Three of his seven nods are for “Earned It.” While it’s unlikely he’ll get an Oscar — Warren and Gaga’s ballad and Smith’s Bond theme are front-runners — it doesn’t matter.

The Weeknd has managed to go from Internet curiosity to the top of the pops without straying far from his core. That’s more impressive than any gold statue.

emotional resonance, and this is a really emotional issue,” she said. “It’s emotional for artists who are women and people of color to have less value placed on our worldview.”

DuVernay’s comments, which were said at the ‘Fifth Annual ARRAY Soiree, come a year or so after “Selma” helped trigger the #OscarSoWhite hashtag after it emerged without Oscar nominations for Best Actor and Best Director. The filmmaker is noted for being passionate about inclusion and representation in the movie industry.

‘Belonging problem’ Partnering with Indiegogo, DuVernay launched the ARRAY Soiree as a vehicle to celebrate her independent film company ARRAY. The company, founded in 2010, is dedicated to the increase of independent films by people of color and women filmmakers.

“There’s a belonging problem in Hollywood.

Who dictates who belongs? The very body who dictates that looks all one way,” DuVernay expressed at the end of the luncheon, regarding how Hollywood can move forward “…

Change has to happen, it has to happen with the people who dictate who belongs. It’s disconcerting to hear people say that shouldn’t change. That’s the very reason it should.”

B6

FOOD

JANUARY 29 – FEBRUARY 4, 2016

S

Add a HEALTHY TWIST FROM FAMILY FEATURES

to your favorite foods

If you are like most Americans, you might have lapsed a little on your New Year’s resolution to eat healthier. Getting back on track is easy and guilt-free, and can be done with just a few steps.

Celebrity chef and registered dietitian Diane Henderiks offers three simple ways to help you get back on the right track and make sure you are eating the right foods: • Eliminate sugary drinks, like soda, as they don’t offer any nutritional value.

• Identify ways to reduce the amount of food you eat, as we all tend to eat more than we need to.

• Most importantly, limit the amount of carbohydrates you eat – this means trying to reduce the amounts of pastas, breads and sugars you are consuming – and focus on eating more fiber-rich vegetables, healthy fats and optimal protein.

“It’s easy to transform your favorite meals into healthy, low-carb meals that are rich in flavors and will satisfy you,” Henderiks said.

Henderiks has transformed some of her favorite meals into low-carb delicious­ness for each meal of the day, including dessert, because you can still enjoy your favorite sweets and all of their great flavors with a few twists that make them healthier.

Living a low-carb lifestyle can also be effective in helping you lose and keep off unwanted weight – just in time for spring.

Find more recipes that make it easy to eat lowcarb all year long at Atkins.com.

WALDORF CHICKEN SALAD IN LETTUCE CUPS Serves: 2 1/4 cup Greek yogurt 1/2 cup mayonnaise 1 teaspoon rice wine vinegar 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard 1 teaspoon dried thyme pinch of salt freshly ground black pepper 2 cups cooked, skinless chicken breast, coarsely chopped 1 rib of celery, diced 1/4 English cucumber, diced 1/4 apple, washed, peeled and diced

1/2 cup toasted, chopped walnuts 4 large Boston lettuce leaves, rinsed and patted dry 1 tablespoon Parmesan cheese In medium mixing bowl, whisk together yogurt, mayonnaise, vinegar, mustard, thyme, salt and pepper.

Fold in chicken, celery, cucumber, apple and walnuts.

Place 2 lettuce leaves on each plate and spoon 1/4 of chicken salad into each cup.

Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and serve.

In mixing bowl, combine tomato, onion and cilantro.

Season with cumin, garlic, lime juice, salt and pepper, to taste.

MEXICAN STUFFED BREAKFAST PORTOBELLO MUSHROOM Serves: 2 2 large Portobello mushroom caps 1 teaspoon olive oil 10 ounces (about 3 links) sweet Italian turkey sausage, removed from casing 1 cup chopped baby spinach 1/2 cup salsa (jarred or Quick Tomato Salsa recipe) 2 eggs 1/2 avocado, peeled and sliced thinly 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese 1 tablespoon finely chopped cilantro Heat oven to 400 F. Place mushrooms, smooth side up, on baking sheet lined

with parchment paper. Bake 10 minutes. Remove from oven and place mushroom caps smooth side up on platter lined with paper towels to drain some of the water.

In medium frying pan, heat oil over medium heat. Brown sausage and break into small pieces with back of wooden spoon while cooking. Stir in spinach and salsa. Transfer mixture to mixing bowl to cool slightly.

Carefully separate egg yolks then place whites in one bowl and yolks in 2 separate small bowls. Beat egg whites with fork.

On baking sheet lined with parch­ment paper, place mushrooms smooth side down.

Place half of avocado slices under mushrooms.

Add egg whites and cheddar cheese to sausage mixture and

com-bine well. Divide mixture in half and stuff into Portobello caps on top of avocado.

For each mushroom, make well in center of sausage mixture large enough for egg yolk.

Bake 10 minutes and carefully pour yolk into each well. Bake until yolks are set, about 5 minutes.

Sprinkle with cilantro before serving.

QUICK TOMATO SALSA 1 tomato, cored and diced 1 tablespoon finely chopped onion 1 tablespoon finely chopped cilantro sprinkle of ground cumin sprinkle of garlic powder 1 lime wedge, juice only salt and pepper, to taste

LUSCIOUS LEMON SQUARES Serves: 16 Crust: 1/2 cup almond or hazelnut meal 1/2 cup coconut flour 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon pinch of salt 1 tablespoon natural sugar replacement 3 tablespoons melted butter 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract Filling: 1/4 cup coconut flour 2 tablespoons natural sugar replacement 4 large eggs 1/2 cup fresh-squeezed lemon juice Heat oven to 350 F. Line 8-inch square baking dish with parchment paper.

To make crust, in large bowl, combine almond meal, coconut flour, cinnamon, salt and sweetener. Add melted butter and vanilla extract. Combine all ingre­dients together and press dough evenly into bottom of baking dish. Bake for 10 minutes, until lightly golden around edges. Remove from oven and set aside.

To make filling, stir coconut flour and sweet­ener together.

Whisk in eggs and lemon juice.

Pour filling into crust and bake 10-15 minutes, until golden around edges.

Let cool at room temperature then refrigerate a minimum of 2 hours before cutting into squares.