Florida Courier - February 1, 2013

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FEBRUARY 1 - FEBRUARY 7, 2013

VOLUME 21 NO. 5

Ministers call for state pay hike Group says state employees ‘overlooked’

IN THE 13th GRADE

BY LYNN WADDELL AND JOHN O’CONNOR FLORIDA CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING

PART 4 Computers are allowing remedial students in Florida colleges to take control of their educations.

COMPILED FROM WIRE AND STAFF REPORTS

A group of Tallahassee preachers led by the Rev. R.B. Holmes, vice chair of Gov. Rick Scott’s task force on the “stand your ground” selfdefense law, on Tuesday called for a raise for state workers on moral grounds.

In a letter to Black-owned media outlets around the state, Holmes accused state legislators of taking state employees for granted. “...(B)udgetary constraints or revenue shortfalls over the last few years may have caused the Legislature to re-evaluate the role of state government and reassess and prioritize the programs that have been traditionally funded,” Holmes wrote. “Unfortunately, this situation has resulted in a reduction of services offered.

Hit hard Holmes believes state workers have taken the brunt of legislative budget-cutting. His letter also cites statistics indicating that Florida has the lowest state worker-to-citizen ratio in the nation, which leads to reduced service levels, especially to the poor and the elderly.

“During the last six sessions... some of our elected officials have chosen to balance the state budget on the backs of our hardworking, dedicated state employees by not granting a general pay adjustment. Adding insult to injury, state employees were forced to contribute three percent of their income into their retirement, further draining their household budgets.

“The state employee workforce has dwindled; jobs have been outsourced in the name of efficiency; family incomes have suffered. Nevertheless, I guarantee you that while these streamlining efforts have been underway, millions of dollars were still earmarked for pet projects for key legislators!”

SVEN VIETENSE / FOTOLIA

Jamille Cunningham’s primary learning tool in her remedial reading course at St. Petersburg College is a computer program.

When Cunningham, 20, started the course, the program diagnosed her as weak in all but a handful of reading skills. It then directed her to a series of learning modules focused on skills she needed to improve, including reading comprehension and organizing ideas.

The program also allowed her to bypass exercises in skills she had proficiency in.

Her instructor goes over exercises in class and also follows her progress in the computer modules online.

Her own pace A high school dropout who passed her G.E.D. test on the third try, Cunningham has worked hard to complete the learning exercises, games and tests at her own pace. She can move through the material faster than if she were in a traditional remedial class where all students must sit through the same lessons. On her computer screen, she proudly points out the checkmarks beside more than half of the listed modules, indicating she has now mastered those skills.

“I’m really excited. I like this class,” Cunningham said. “It helps me write papers and to actually think about what I’m saying.”

The computer modules Cunningham uses to get through her remedial reading See STUDENTS, Page A2

FLORIDA COURIER / OUT AND ABOUT

’Canes blow Seminoles away

Rally during session At Holmes’ Bethel Missionary Baptist Church, preachers said they’re planning a faith-based rally at the Capitol during the upcoming legislative session to urge Scott and the Legislature to grant the first raises to state workers in six years.

Holmes’ letter calls for an acrossthe-board pay raise “to correct past neglect and to ensure that we retain a qualified workforce.” Scott recently called for a pay raise just for Florida teachers.

“When the governor proposed an across-the-board pay raise for the state’s public school classroom teachers, I had to applaud him. But

KIM GIBSON / FLORIDA COURIER

Florida State University’s Michael Snaer goes to the hoop against the University of Miami’s Durand Scott, but the Hurricanes defeated the Seminoles 71-47 before a sold-out crowd in Miami last week.

Florida Courier photojournalist Kim Gibson was there.

See PAY, Page A2

Smith wants ‘stand your ground’ tweaks

FLORIDA COURIER FILES

Senate Minority Leader Chris Smith is pushing for changes to Florida’s infamous ‘stand your ground’ law.

ALSO INSIDE

hood watch volunteer shot and

BY MARGIE MENZEL killed an unarmed 17-year-old, THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA Trayvon Martin, who was visitSenate Democratic Leader ing his father in a Sanford gated Chris Smith said Wednesday community. that the state’s culture of violence calls for changes to the No GOP support “stand your ground” self-deAfter weeks of national profense law, but the president tests when the Sanford police of the Florida Senate sent a initially declined to arrest the clear signal that major changes shooter, Gov. Rick Scott aparen’t likely. pointed a task force to study “To put our heads in the sand the law and make recommenwhen it comes to this contro- dations on its use. The panel’s versial (law) is wrong,” Smith draft findings did not call for told a gathering of newspaper significant changes. editors at the Associated Press Senate President Don Gaetz, Annual Legislative Planning R-Niceville, said he won’t supsession in Tallahassee. port any major changes, either.

The law propelled Flori“I don’t plan to vote for any da into the national spotlight repeal of stand your ground or last year when a neighbor- any weakening of the Second

Amendment,” said Gaetz, who also spoke to the AP gathering.

Smith had asked to be appointed to the Scott task force, but was not. Instead, he convened a task force in his Fort Lauderdale-area district.

SNAPSHOTS FLORIDA | A3

Borrowers slow in applying for mortgage settlement

Jury decision On Wednesday, Smith said the Florida Department of Law Enforcement should keep records on the use of “stand your ground,” a proposal (SB 136) in a bill he’s already filed. He also suggested giving law enforcement officers the ability to detain someone who claims “stand your ground” in order to do an investigation.

And he called for prevent-

METRO | B1

Jimmy Jackson: Looking for his piece of the pie FINEST | B3

Meet Jasmine

See SMITH, Page A2

COMMENTARY: CHARLES W. CHERRY II: RANDOM THOUGHTS OF A FREE BLACK MIND | A4 COMMENTARY: REV. JESSE L. JACKSON: CHANGE MUST BE FORCED BY AMERICAN PEOPLE | A4

FOCUS

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FEBRUARY 1 – FEBRUARY 7, 2013

Until housing is a right, Blacks will live marginalized lives This year’s Martin Luther King Day report from United for a Fair Economy critiques U.S. housing policy, which has always been geared towards individual family home ownership.

In recent decades, as Wall Street consolidated its political and economic dominance, government policy has been to treat housing as an asset whose value is to be constantly boosted; that is, housing as a wealthbuilding mechanism.

It is a policy that ultimately serves the financial capitalists – a class that produces nothing, but grows more and more wealthy by manipulating the value of assets ever upward.

Artificially inflating the price of housing also creates value against which homeowners can borrow –

GLEN FORD BLACK AGENDA REPORT

which is great for the banks but creates artificial bubbles in the economy that finally burst with catastrophic consequences.

No discussion In all of this mad, artificial wealth and bubble building, the very notion that housing should be affordable to all – much less that housing is a right – has all but disappeared from major party political discourse.

United for a Fair Economy’s report, “State of the

Dream 2013: A Long Way From Home,” puts housing policy at the center of what’s wrong with economic policy. Author Tim Sullivan says the steady “hemorrhaging of wealth in communities of color stems largely from treating housing policy as an assetbuilding policy.”

Home ownership accounts for roughly half the total wealth of Black and Latino families, “but only 28 percent for White families,” who have other sources of wealth.

The report urges that the government invest “in affordable housing and policies that reach people for whom homeownership is not the best or most viable option” – that is, renters, or forms of communityowned housing. Housing

should be treated as a right, and housing policies must be informed by the realities of race.

Worse than reported If anything, the report is understated. In a pervasively racist society like the United States, race becomes an overwhelming factor.

Race has shaped the social geography of the United States – and, therefore, the geography of wealth – as in no other modern society.

Just as Black life is devalued in the criminal justice system, so the very presence of Blacks devalues the surrounding land and structures, in terms of market price. Race – and by that, I mean White racism – distorts and deforms this country’s market system, lowering the value of

assets based on their proximity to concentrations of Black people, and artificially boosting the value of land and buildings that are located at a distance from Black neighborhoods.

Invisible line Informal racial redlining remains probably the most powerful pricing mechanism in the American real estate market. One can cross an invisible line from a largely Black and Brown city to a mostly White town, and the property values immediately soar upward, regardless of the quality of the actual houses.

Urban development schemes pre-suppose the breaking up or clearing out of Black population concentrations before any economic revitalization is

even attempted.

Public housing has been marked for extinction, based, at root, on the assumption that concentrations of Black people are bad for business and for society.

These facts of American life require that Blacks demand that affordable housing be provided as a right, not as something that trickles down. Otherwise, African Americans will remain marginalized people living on marginalized properties.

Glen Ford is executive editor of BlackAgendaReport.com. E-mail him at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com. Click on this story at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.

PAY

SMITH

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I wondered why was he not willing to recognize the contributions that all state employees are making?

“Not only have state employees been overlooked, but in some instances they have been made to feel insignificant and unnecessary by those who claim that state government is too big and needs to be downsized. Downsizing has taken place, regrettably, to the point of denying or not providing adequate services for our most needy and vulnerable citizens,” Holmes said.

ing the aggressor in an incident to claim “stand your ground.” Instead, Smith said, a jury should decide if the aggressor was rational in his or her actions.

Other lawmakers are filing bills directed at “stand your ground,” including Rep. Alan Williams, D-Tallahassee, who filed an outright repeal with the support of Trayvon Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton.

Rep. Dennis Baxley, ROcala and sponsor of the original 2005 “stand your ground” law, also has resisted major changes.

“I’m going to be very cautious about doing anything that will diminish the ability of a law-abiding citizen to defend themselves from harm,” said Baxley, who sat on the Scott task force and chairs the House Judiciary Committee.

“We will consider anything,” Baxley added. “That doesn’t mean we’ll hear it in committee.”

‘Answered the call’ “State employees are hired to protect the health, safety, and welfare of all the citizens in this state,” Holmes exclaimed. “State employees have answered the call.

When there is a hurricane or some other natural disaster, our state employees are first-responders.

When a child is missing or a crime is committed, our state employees do not stay at home. They are first in line, running to the scene! They deserve a pay raise.”

Up to lawmakers Holmes wouldn’t say how much the raise should be or what part of the state budget it should come from.

“I think we leave that to the politicians,” he said. “They’re smarter than I am. What I’m trying to say is, ‘We need to do it.’ And they can find a way to do it instead of balancing the budget on the back of state employees.”

State employees would see a 7 percent raise on July 1 under leg-

STUDENTS from A1 class are increasingly common at community and state colleges across Florida.

The colleges, which are open to anyone with a high school diploma or G.E.D., are dealing with an unprecedented surge of incoming students who require help with the basics of reading, writing and math before they can move on to college-level coursework in those subjects.

In response, the colleges are trying to find ways to move unprepared students through those remedial classes more efficiently.

Money and time From 2004 to 2011, the cost of providing remedial education, split between the colleges and students, ballooned from $118 million to $168 million. At the same time, state funding for colleges has been declining. So, one purpose of revamping remedial classes is to teach more people for less cost per student.

The other reason is that the students who need these classes are in a race against time.

Research shows that students who take remedial classes are less likely to graduate from college than those who arrive ready for college-level work. They have a longer path to graduation: Remedial classes don’t count for college credit, and students can’t move on to classes that do count toward a degree until they’ve passed their remedial classes.

Revamped classes like the one Cunningham took are intended to speed up this process – and give the students their best shot

CHARLES W. CHERRY II / FLORIDA COURIER

State workers may get a raise for the first time in six years. islation filed by Rep. Michelle Rehwinkel Vasilinda, D-Tallahassee, though the measure is likely seen as a long shot.

State workers haven’t had an across-the-board pay raise in seven years, and while general revenue is expected to be up by a few percentage points this year, state coffers will be far from flush with extra cash.

The measure (HB 289), filed last week, hasn’t yet been assigned to a committee.

Reached out Holmes said he’d reached out to Sen. Bill Montford and Rep. Alan Williams, both Democrats from Tallahassee, and that he was sure Scott, Senate President Don Gaetz and House Speaker Will Weatherford – all Republicans – would “listen to the voice of reason…I have a lot of good Republican friends in at making it all the way through to graduation.

Roads to reform Florida is poised to become the nation’s petri dish for new approaches to the remedial education problem.

That’s partly because the problem is so pronounced here. Some 54 percent of Florida students who went from high school to a community or state college in 2010-11 required remedial work in at least one subject. The national average for first-time students needing remediation is 40 percent.

Florida’s history as a laboratory for education experimentation also makes it an attractive testing ground.

The state’s regime of standardized testing was the blueprint for the federal No Child Left Behind law that instilled a similar approach around the country. Florida’s long experience with its most crucial test, the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT), makes it one of the few states that can statistically measure the results of new approaches.

Getting grants Due in part to Florida’s datarich education system, several colleges around the state have won national grants to try new ways to increase the success rate of remedial college students.

For example, a handful of Florida colleges participated in the Developmental Education Initiative funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Lumina Foundation.

Building on earlier national grant-funded programs, college instructors experimented with computerized learning in redesigned courses such as the reading course Jamille Cunningham took at St. Petersburg College.

the Legislature,” he said. “This is a bipartisan effort.”

Holmes last month wrote to the three state leaders but has not heard back.

Conditional support Gaetz, R-Niceville, did tell reporters last week he supports giving raises to state employees, though the issue likely will come down to whether the state has enough money for pay hikes.

“If we can afford a pay raise for state workers, I’d like to see it in the budget,’’ Gaetz told reporters.

The president noted that it has been six years since state workers received raises. “Six years is a long time to wait,’’ he said.

State effort The ministers plan to gather letters of support from other churches throughout the state.

Pilot shows promise Although the experimental courses required students to master the same skills, the participating colleges varied their methods.

All of the courses incorporated a degree of computer-assisted learning. In some classes, students only communicated with instructors face-to-face when they had questions. Other classes combined in-person lectures and discussion with the independent computer modules.

St. Petersburg College was the only participant that experimented with remedial courses in all three subject areas — math, writing and reading. Courses included a combination of classroom lectures and independent computer modules.

Educators such as Martha Campbell, dean of communications at St. Petersburg College, said the overall results were promising.

“Generally what was happening was pretty desperate,” Campbell said of the pass rate in the college’s traditional remedial courses.

Only 46 percent of students passed developmental algebra courses taught only through inclass lectures, she said. In the redesigned remedial algebra classes, the pass rate increased to 71 percent.

Traditional remedial courses run for a full semester. They require students to do coursework in all areas, even the areas they already understand.

Early completion possible Some colleges participating in the pilot program offered the remedial courses in mini-semesters, which allowed students to knock out two classes in one tra-

“It is our responsibility to encourage our legislative leaders to do the right thing in the upcoming legislative session...A decision can be made regarding granting performance or merit increases. These issues should not be a ‘one or the other’ decision. This is not the time to have our dedicated teachers juxtaposed to other equally committed state employees for a pay raise,” according to Holmes.

Holmes is a longtime Florida activist and former trustee at Florida A & M University. He is president of the National Save the Family Now Movement headquartered in Tallahassee and heads the company that owns the Capital Outlook newspaper, as well as WTAL-1490 AM radio station in Tallahassee.

The News Service of Florida contributed to this report. ditional semester. Since the computerized curriculum allowed students to progress at their own pace, a couple of the colleges let students complete the courses early.

Santa Fe College in Gainesville was one of those. Laurel Severino, an assistant professor of reading there, said she had one student who finished a class in just three weeks.

Other instructors who participated in the pilot program said the computerized courses also forced students to interact with material and take control of their own education.

Other efforts Florida colleges also have embarked on their own initiatives to help developmental students.

Tallahassee Community College is testing a program that streamlines two remedial math courses into one semester.

The program, Statway, swaps out algebra for statistics because it’s easier to teach the real-life uses, said Smart professor Jim Smart. It helps older students whose math skills have atrophied.

“The students seem to enjoy learning math they can relate to, that they understand and see in the media every day,” Smart said.

Statway students are two and a half times more likely to finish their remedial math courses than those in the traditional program, Smart said.

Hillsborough Community College opened a new Student Success Center in the fall of 2011.

The new center houses tutorial services, a radio station and a G.E.D. program for those not yet enrolled in college. It also hosts seminars on subjects such as note taking and navigating college.

No more nice guy Smith said he knew Republican legislative leaders were reluctant to give his ideas a hearing, but he’s digging in.

“I’ve tried to do it the nice way of waiting,” he said.

“And now I think we’re going to put more pressure and really start really making it a major issue.”

Career counseling and basics St. Petersburg College devoted more resources to career counseling this fall and now requires remedial students to see college advisors each semester. Studies have shown that students with clear career goals are more likely to graduate.

Florida State College in Jacksonville offers courses that combine lessons in basics such as time management and writing with academic subjects. That allows students to receive partial college credit while learning core skills.

Hunter Boylan, director of the National Center for Developmental Education, said these kinds of programs may prove more effective than computerized learning in the long run. Computer-driven courses in other states initially produced good results, he said, only to falter when funding was cut for advisors and instructors.

“What happens in the experimental mode is they put a lot of students in a room with lots of computers and lots of help,” Boylan said. “As long as there is a good ratio of teachers to students, it might work. But people are expensive and computers, cheap. The public wants a cheap solution and that doesn’t exist.”

The Florida Center for Investigative Reporting is a nonprofit news organization supported by foundations and individual contributions. For more information, visit fcir. org. StateImpact Florida is an educating reporting project of NPR, WUSF in Tampa and WLRN in Miami. For more information, visit http://stateimpact.npr.org.

FEBRUARY 1 – FEBRUARY 7, 2013

FLORIDA

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SUSAN STOCKER/SUN SENTINEL/MCT

The city of Fort Lauderdale demolished this home in April 2012, deeming it an unsafe structure. The home had been in foreclosure limbo with CitiFinancial for over three years.

Borrowers slow in applying for mortgage settlement Financial assistance available for homeowners affected by housing crisis

BY MICHAEL PELTIER THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

TALLAHASSEE – An $8 billion effort to compensate Floridians who were

caught up in the mortgage fraud that enveloped the country has only reached about half of those affected by crisis, state officials said last week.

While about 50,000 homeowners have secured financial assistance totaling $3.6 billion under a $32 billion national settlement reached with mortgage lenders last year, about 49 percent of eligible Florida residents have yet to apply, a statistic Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said last week was “frustrating” as she tries to distribute the state’s share.

Last week, the Joint legislative Budget Commission approved a $60 million package of relief that will include $35 million in down payment assistance to first-time homebuyers, who under federal guidelines have not owned a home in the previous three years. The maximum benefits of $7,500 can be used

to help with closing costs on 30-year, fixed rate mortgages.

Slow response Meanwhile, a state-imposed deadline passed last Friday for applicants to be guaranteed they would receive the maximum benefits available under the program.

Qualified residents include those who had their mortgage loans serviced by Ally/GMAC, Bank of America, Citi, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo. The website is http://www.nationalmortgagesettlement. com/ Bondi encouraged homeowners on Jan. 24 to continue to submit claims.

Florida officials were

paid $334 million directly as part of the settlement.

The bulk of the money, however, goes directly to homeowners in the form of modified loans and reduced mortgages.

Flanked by Senate President Don Gaetz, House Speaker Will Weatherford and Florida housing officials, Bondi said as of Jan. 24 about 51 percent of eligible homeowners had applied for assistance. Many others, however, have not responded to multiple mailers and direct telephone calls advising them that they may be eligible.

“Many people don’t even recognize that they qualify for this money,” Bondi said. “That’s what has been so frustrating.”

Lawmakers weigh in Money not spent in-state from Florida’s share of the national settlement will be dispersed to other states.

Lawmakers are expected to decide how to spend about $200 million in settlement funds when they return. Legislative leaders did not have spending details but said the money would be spent on housing issues including direct financial assistance, credit counseling and other related topics.

“We’re not going to be spending this money on members’ favorite projects that have nothing to do with the crisis,” Weatherford said. “The idea is to focus on helping the people who are in the greatest need.”

Governor: 23 colleges have accepted $10,000 degree challenge

BY BRANDON LARRABEE THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

TALLAHASSEE – Eleven more state colleges have joined Gov. Rick Scott’s “$10k degree challenge,” Scott announced Monday, meaning that all 23 colleges that currently offer four-year degrees have backed the initiative.

But the colleges are also making clear that they intend to be flexible in how they define and achieve the goal laid down by Scott, who has installed higher education affordability as a central plank in his education agenda.

“It is important our students can get an affordable education, and our state colleges have stepped up to the challenge to find innovative ways to provide a quality education at a great value,” Scott said in a statement released by his office.

“Our goal should be that students do not have to go into debt in order to obtain a degree – and today’s announcement of nearly all of our state colleges meeting this challenge puts us closer to achieving that goal for our students and families.”

‘Walmart’ approach?

CHUCK FADELY/MIAMI HERALD/MCT

Geralyn Graham, center, is convicted of kidnapping and child abuse charges but the jury deadlocked on murder charges on Jan. 25 in Miami. She was on trial for the murder of Rilya Wilson, a foster child who disappeared in Graham’s care a decade ago. Defense attorney Michael Matters, left, talks to Graham as she is led out of court.

Woman escapes murder conviction in death of girl in foster care A jury last week convicted Geralyn Graham, 67, of kidnapping and aggravated child abuse in the 2000 disappearance of Rilya Wilson.

The girl disappeared from her foster home with Graham, her caretaker, at age four, but the state Department of Children and Families (DCF) did not realize it for 15 months.

When the agency discovered that a caseworker had

falsified reports about the child’s well-being, an uproar ensued, leading to high-level resignations at DCF and new legislation designed to better track children in state care.

Feb. 12 sentencing Graham had been charged with first-degree murder based on the testimony of jailhouse sources, who said she smothered the child with a pillow, but a lone holdout on the 12-person jury refused to convict her on that charge.

The kidnapping and child abuse counts on which Graham was convicted carry potential sentences of 30 years, and her attorneys said they would appeal. Assistant State Attorney Joshua Weintraub said the state would not try Graham a second time on the first-degree murder charge.

Circuit Judge Marisa Tinkler Mendez set sentencing for Feb. 12.

Rilya’s body has never been found. Her name is an anagram for “Remember I Love You Always.”

Democrats have slammed what they call the “Walmart” approach to higher education and dismissed the idea as a gimmick.

But state colleges also have indicated that they see the mandate as somewhat open to interpretation. And many of them have said that they’re not entirely certain how they will meet Scott’s push for each school to offer at least one degree at a total cost of $10,000.

“Do not ask me how all the details will come together on this, okay?” said St. Petersburg College President Bill Law at a November press conference unveiling the initiative.

“We know that we have some significant work to do with our friends in the legislative arena. We’re going to need some new thinking on how we do some of the tuition pieces, how we put it all together, how we package this, how we support students, how we can use these as pilot projects.”

Presidential support As an example: Polk State College said Monday that it had met Scott’s challenge – as far as students are concerned. The cost of a degree at the school is about $13,700, college officials said, but is less than $10,000 when financial aid is taken into account.

“We couldn’t be happier to know that the governor is using his influence to spotlight affordability within our system,” President Eileen Holden said in a press release from the college. “Now we will turn our attention to the challenge of securing appropriate state support during the upcoming legislative session. The governor can be a key ally in that task.”

EDITORIAL

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FEBRUARY 1 – FEBRUARY 7, 2013

Change must be forced by American people “We the people declare today that the most evident of truths — that all of us are created equal — is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.”

President Barack Obama offered a bold vision in his inaugural address on the day we commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday.

He then sketched the challenges we face to create a more perfect union.

lution that will sweep the

Fundamental

than they imagine possible.

ident laid out fundamental challenges that we have to address. But we know from his first term that progress will be made only if the current gridlock in Washington is broken.

And that will depend not on the president, but on the American people. The president will seek to make as much progress as he can, given the current distribution of power. It is up to the American people to change that distribution of power.

That means not simply providing the wind at the president’s back, but building a powerful movement that drives Congress and the White House to go further

requires empowering workers, curbing the privilege of the few, transforming a global economic strategy so it works for working families, not just for multinational corporations.

Redressing climate change will require overcoming the resistance of Big Oil. Curbing gun violence runs directly into the powerful gun lobby. Extending rights to gays and immigrants will meet the resistance of those who prey on our fears and gain from our divisions.

Historic leaders like President Obama can point the way and open the possibility of change. But from

Rev. world, the president rightly challenges New movement needed Jesse L. called on us not to resist, but Each of these changes The eloquence and the will meet fierce resistance.

Jackson, to lead. historic moment should not Reviving the middle class Sr. mislead, however. The pres-

Rescue our elections

TRICEEDNEYWIRE.COM

First, we must redress our extreme inequality for we know the country “cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it.”

We must ensure that all of our children — from the streets of Detroit to the quiet lanes of Newtown — are safe from the scourge of poverty and gun violence.

We must take on the threat of climate change, for failure to do “would betray our children and future generations.” And in the transition to sustainable energy and the green industrial revo-

We must rescue our elections from the domination of money. The president mentioned at the very least voters should not have to stand for hours to cast a vote. But that surely is only a small reform needed for a system that is now an insult to democracy.

We must continue the march of freedom. Dr. King transformed America by bringing us from segregation to equal rights under law. Now President Obama calls for us to extend equality and freedom to gays and lesbians, to bring immigrants out from the shadows.

VISUAL VIEWPOINT: GUN LAWS

Random thoughts of a free Black mind, v. 167 Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton – Took a look at the “60 Minutes” joint interview with Bro. Prez and Hillary.

The body language was instructive.

They were leaning into each other, and occasionally Bro. Prez made “sweet eyes” at Hillary. I won’t tell you everything that was going through my mind as I watched.

But I will tell you that “Get a room already!” did pop up in my head...

Why would Bro. Prez give a public 30-minute “exit interview” to Joe Biden’s strongest contender for the next Democratic presidential nomination?

What’s the best way for an aging White woman to get revenge for an adulterous husband caught dead to rights getting “a hummer” at the office? To be seen on international TV having “chemistry” with the most powerful Black man on the planet who happens to be younger, good-looking and swagger-ish.

I’ve heard that Bro. Prez has a long memory. Remember when Bill Clinton said Bro. Prez played “the race card” on him, and then called Bro. Prez’s qualifications “the biggest fairy tale” he’d ever seen? This is despite the fact that Bill – who was famously (and now ironically) designated as “the first Black president” by some brownnosing Negroes back in the 1990s – saved Bro. Prez’s ass at the 2012 Democratic Na-

quick takes from #2: straight, no chaser

Charles W. Cherry II, Esq. PUBLISHER

tional Convention by ‘splaining basic economics to White folks.

I’ll just remind Bro. Prez of three words he should remember if he’s ever tempted to make a presidential booty call: “Black man’s Kryptonite.” Don’t know what that means? Ask Herman Cain...

Real talk. Should Michelle be worried?

Umm...Naaaw.

Bro. Prez and Libya – Same interview, on a very serious note. When asked about America’s unwillingness to get involved in the Syria conflict, Obama smirks and cites Muammar Gaddafi’s death at the hands of a Libyan mob (with American military assistance) as proof of his tough leadership.

That’s the same post-Gaddafi Libya where a U.S. ambassador and others were killed, and where Al Qaeda has walked in and taken heavy weapons it will use to destabilize Africa. Unfortunately, chickens do come home to roost...

Contact me at ccherry2@gmail.com.

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

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Rev. Jesse Jackson is founder of Rainbow/ PUSH coalition. Click on this story at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.

Obama should address evils affecting African-Americans President Barack Obama has the opportunity in this second term to put his feet on history. He won an election that his opponent had essentially claimed, he has been firm about that which he would negotiate on, and he has offered a progressive inauguration speech that offers up a liberal agenda, embracing Social Security and Medicare, uplifting immigrants and gay rights, and embracing ways to address inequality.

Bob Englehart, The Hartford Courant

the Declaration of Independence on, change in this country has come only when Americans mobilized and forced the change.

That is the historic lesson of Dr. Martin Luther King, the experience of the movements that have made America better — from the abolitionists to the populists, from civil rights marchers to feminists, antiwar activists, environmentalists, and now those in the LGBT movement. Citizens of conscience mobilized must break through the roadblocks, challenge business as usual, and force the change.

Disregard of Blacks One could not help but applaud the strong direction of President Obama’s speech.

But those of us in the African-American community wonder why we could not get a shout out about high unemployment and poverty rates, inner city challenges, and income, economic and unemployment disparities.

Failing to address the community that offered him 97 percent of their vote indicates that there is a reckless disregard of his strongest supporters.

I understand that President Obama is the president of the whole United States, not the president of Black America. At the same time some of the evils that affect African-Americans are issues that any president would address. To be sure, some of the gaps that are recorded and experienced have not changed since the 60s.

Imagine the impact this President could have if he

DR. JULIANNE MALVEAUX TRICEEDNEYWIRE.COM

made a minor attempt in closing the gaps.

Progressive agenda The inauguration speech spoke to all of us when it offered a progressive agenda. It spoke to some when it called out other communities and offered advancement to some of them, but it spoke to none of us in the African-American community unless we chose to parse the subtleties, the Bible, the references to Detroit, and the acknowledgement of inequalities.

Hundreds of thousands of people thronged to the site of the inauguration speech.

Many of them were parents and grandparents who were determined that their children and grandchildren had the opportunity to witness history.

A second term for President Obama is actually more exciting than a first term because now this president is freed from the shackles of re-election possibilities and free to do his thing. Will his thing improve the lot of all of us, some of us, or none of us.

In the African-American community, many think we won’t get a thing but an amazing and uplifting symbolism. There are still those

who cheer simply because we have an African-American president. Can we put our cheer on for results?

Embrace inner cities In the next 18 months, President Obama has the opportunity to do whatever he wants to do. He can target resources and opportunities to any community he choses to embrace his targets.

For example, more than $500 million was directed to a failed wind experiment in California. What about offering the same opportunity to inner cities?

President Obama can make a difference by targeting the African-American community, either directly or subtly in his choices about pubic policy. While this president has a window of opportunity, who will gain? All of us, some of us, or none of us?

Our president will leave a legacy when he decides that African-Americans deserve the same focus that other communities do. We need our president to target disparate unemployment, unequal wages and wealth, and differential access to education and opportunity.

Immigration and marriage equality addresses some of us. Why can’t we address the inequality that faces all of us?

Julianne Malveaux is a D.C.-based economist and author. Click on this story at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.

End epidemic of gun violence One month after the shooting deaths of 20 firstgraders and six adults in a school in Newtown, Conn., New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed into law the most comprehensive gun legislation in the nation. Passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, the New York SAFE Act strengthens the state’s assault weapons ban, reduces gun magazine capacity from 10 to seven bullets, increases penalties for purchasing illegal guns and using guns on school grounds, mandates universal background checks, and takes guns out of the hands of mental health patients deemed likely to commit violent acts.

Two days later at the White House, President Obama unveiled the most sweeping federal gun control proposals in a generation. In addition to calling on Congress to reinstate the assault weapons ban and close background check loopholes, the president signed 23 executive actions to immediately strengthen background checks, make schools safer, increase access to mental health services and reduce gun violence.

MARC H. MORIAL TRICE EDNEY WIRE

Obama. We are encouraged by their commitment to increase resources for mental health counseling and programs that help create safer communities. The National Urban League stands ready to work with the governor, the president and others to end the epidemic of gun violence in America.

Each year on average, more than 100,000 people are shot or killed with a gun in this country. The American people have had enough.

A Siena College survey shows that 73 percent of New Yorkers support the state’s expanded assault weapons ban and new limits on high capacity magazines. Recent national polls also show that the American people believe sensible gun control measures are more important than protecting gun rights.

Children first

State legislatures and Congress must put the safeEncouraging actions ty of our children and the We applaud the actions of wishes of the people before Gov. Cuomo and President the demands of the gun lob-

by, which has used extremist rhetoric to promote a tortured and distorted interpretation of the Second Amendment.

We understand the desire to promote safety and protect our children, but we are adamantly opposed to arming teachers or placing armed guards in schools.

Guns do not belong in schools.

Since the Newtown massacre, there have been more than 1,000 additional gun deaths in this country, and several more school shooting incidents. The time for half-measures is over.

As the president said, “I will put everything I’ve got into this and so will Joe Biden…but this will not happen unless the American people demand it.”

We urge you to join the National Urban League in calling on Congress to work with the president to enact common-sense gun reforms. Our goal should be to make America the safest big country in the world.

Marc H. Morial, former mayor of New Orleans, is president and CEO of the National Urban League.

Click on this story at www. flcourier.com to write your own response.

FEBRUARY 1 – FEBRUARY 7, 2013

Blacks among new class of Americans easy to exploit “They are saddled with debt from school loans, working two and three jobs at subsistence wagDR. WILMER es with no health care, no pension, J. LEON III and no sense of permanency or security.”

TRICEEDNEYWIRE.COM Post Racial America, New Normal, Austerity, and The Precariat Class. in the African-American community is more than double the naThese concepts, when dis- tional average and the wealth accussed individually, make for in- cumulation of the average Euroteresting dialogue. Moreover, pean American family is 20 times when assessed in a larger context, that of the average African-Amerthese same concepts should be- ican family. come a cause for concern.

The dangerous subtext to that Right after Senator Obama be- question is that it ignores the came president there were many struggle for justice and equality discussions and articles written that African-Americans still face. about a Post Racial America. Had It also reinforces the conservative we evolved into an America de- view that the government should void of racial preference, discrim- no longer enact and enforce legination, and prejudice? islation guaranteeing the rights of During the 2008 presidential minorities. campaign The New York Times As the American economy has published an article by Matt Bai remained stagnate with 1.3 perentitled “Is Obama the End of cent growth, the national unemBlack Politics?” ployment number has stayed The premise of the article was close to 8 percent, 17 percent in that in 2008, 60 years after Strom the African-American commuThurmond left the Democratic nity. Close to 5.4 million people Party over the issue of integrat- have dropped out of the workforce ing the armed forces and 45 years and now analysts and commentaafter Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream tors have started talking about a Speech” the Democratic party was “New Normal.” poised to deliver its nomination for the nation’s highest office to an Trickling up African-American.

Americans are supposed to get used to dismal rates of growth and Deracialized campaign high unemployment while the Bai’s article asked if Obama’s stock market soars and American nomination somehow signaled corporations sit on record cash the end of Black politics? balances.

The answer to Matt Bai’s quesAccording to CNBC, corporate tion is; of course not. America “cash balances have swelled 14 cannot be closer to being post ra- percent and are on track toward cial when a candidate for pres- $1.5 trillion for the Standard & ident has to run a deracialized Poor’s 500, according to JPMorcampaign in order to make the gan. Both levels would be histormasses comfortable with the ob- ic highs.” vious aesthetic.

These record amounts of cash We are not in a post-racial Amer- being stockpiled by corporations ica when the unemployment rate are not “trickling down” to the

EDITORIAL

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VISUAL VIEWPOINT: SECOND TERM AGENDA

working and middle-classes. The “job creators” are not creating jobs.

According to Pimco Investment founder Bill Gross. “It’s time to recognize that things have changed and that they will continue to change for the next — yes, the next 10 years and maybe even the next 20 years.” This is the “new normal” and it’s not good.

The solution being proposed by conservatives and subtly endorsed by President Obama to address the financial crisis is “austerity.” Austerity is the policy of deficit-cutting by lowering spending Steve Sack, The Minneapolis Star Tribune via a reduction in the amount of benefits and services provided by the government. Instead of focus- their precarious existence makes A different America ing on what to save, they are de- them easy to exploit.

When you assess the implicaThey are saddled with debt bating what to cut. tions of a Post Racial America, the from school loans, working two New Normal, Austerity and The and three jobs at subsistence wagInvest in economy Precariat Class in a larger context, In challenging times such as es with no health care, no pen- you begin to see a different Amerithese the government should be sion, and no sense of permanency ca than the one being portrayed in investing in the economy not cut- or security. mainstream media. ting back. Reductions in governWhen you connect these dots ment spending tend to increase New class catastrophic with a government that is engagAs the African-American com- ing in warrantless wiretapping, unemployment which increases demands on social programs or munity continues to be plagued by calling for the ability to indefinitedisproportionate rates of unem- ly detain American citizens, stop “safety-net” programs.

Increased unemployment al- ployment, poverty, hunger, wealth and frisk laws, and an American so reduces tax revenue. As with disparities, incarceration rates Attorney General who states that the Great Depression, short-term and other social ills the develop- the president has the authority to government spending, financed ment of a precariat class will prove assassinate American citizens any by deficits may be required to sup- to be catastrophic. African-Ameri- place in the world without judicial port economic growth when con- cans and many others would con- review, you get a very frightening sumers and businesses are unwill- tinue as Dr. King said in 1963, to picture. ing or unable to do so. live “…on a lonely island of poverThe picture reflects a battle beWhen you start to connect the ty in the midst of a vast ocean of tween democracy and fascism and dots between, New Normal and material prosperity…languishing the battle for democracy should Austerity, you see a new picture. in the corners of American society begin now.

There is a new class of existence and find(ing) (themselves) an exDr. Wilmer Leon is the producbeing created in this country. ile in (their) own land.”

Professor Guy Standing calls this If the underclass, working class er/host of the nationally broadnew class the “precariat”. “Millions and precariat become dissatisfied cast call-in talk radio program of workers, mainly young and edu- with their existence what will they “Inside the Issues with Wilmer cated are being habituated to a life do? Will there be an uprising from Leon.” Go to www.wilmerleon. of unstable labor and uncertainty, the masses? What would the gov- com or email: wjl3us@yahoo. a precarious existence…The pre- ernment do? How would the gov- com. Click on this story at www. cariat is wanted by multinationals ernment protect its interests and flcourier.com to write your own and many corporations”…because repel the domestic uprising? response.

Black Americans made difference in Obama’s re-election What was it that made watching the ceremonies of President Obama’s second inauguration more satisfying than even the thrilling spectacle of four years ago?

Certainly, part of it was its occurring the same day as the celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday and amid the month-long commemoration of the Emancipation Proclamation – underscoring the direct line of descent from Black Americans’ longtime freedom struggle to the present.

Certainly, part of it was also savoring Obama’s success in making history the second time around – knowing that he had endured the extraordinary test of staunching a wrenching economic crisis; extricating the U.S. from the Bush administration’s tragic misadventure in Iraq; maneuvering around the obstructionist tactics of the congressional Republicans; and beating back the fat-cat power grab the atrocious Supreme Court Citizens United decision, which approved unlimited corporate donations to political campaigns, was supposed to further.

And part of it was knowing that, albeit the operational genius of the president and his campaign staff, the credit for his victory doesn’t wholly belong to them. To

LEE A. DANIELS NNPA COLUMNIST

borrow a phrase, they didn’t build that by themselves. They had help from the multiracial, multicultural coalition of voters that enabled the Democrats to keep control of the White House and the Senate.

Barack Obama has been wreathed in “making history” since he gained the presidency of the Harvard Law Review 23 years ago. But voluminous evidence exists that the foundation for his current history-making lies in the astutely-waged, post-1960s political gamesmanship of the Democratic Party’s most sustaining voting bloc: African-American voters.

Black turnout That point was driven home most recently by a report the Pew Research Center released in late December. Its title tells the tale: “The Growing Electoral Clout of Blacks Is Driven by Turnout, Not Demographics.”

The study’s preliminary analysis of the 129 million votes cast November 6 indicates that Blacks

not only voted at a substantially higher rate than Hispanic-American and Asian-American voters – who also voted massively for Obama – but may have voted at a higher rate than Whites as well.

If so, it would be a “first” in the history of the presidential-election vote. But the mere fact that it’s a possibility underscores several powerful recent developments about the political participation of Black voters and other voters of color.

For one thing, even as Blacks’ population growth and, therefore, growth in eligible voters has been leveling off, their rates of turning out to vote have increased markedly.

In 2008 that rate hit a high-water mark of 65.2 percent – a rise of 5 percentage points from 2004.

By contrast, Whites turned out to vote that year at a rate of 66.1 percent, a percentage point lower than their 2004 showing.

Of course, Obama’s candidacy was partly responsible for Blacks’ march to the polls. But, in fact, their turnout for presidential elections had been climbing sharply since 1996. That means that even before the Obama candidacy, the Black electorate was on a path to maximizing its voting potential.

The importance of these facts and trends is that this past No-

vember President Obama won the support of 93 percent of Black voters; 73 percent of Asian-American voters; 71 percent of HispanicAmerican voters; and the majority of votes from women as a group and the 18-to-29 voting bloc. That support, along with gaining 39 percent of White voters, gave him his 4.7 million popular-vote margin and 332-to-206 Electoral-College margin over Mitt Romney.

GOP efforts backfire To try to blunt these groups’ rising voting power, Republican Party officials – whose efforts at using voter-identification measures to limit the electoral power of Blacks and other Democratic-leaning voters clearly backfired in November – are now boosting a variety of legislative schemes in such states as Virginia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Those measures seek to split up the state’s total Electoral-College votes according to which presidential candidate wins what congressional districts in that state.

Only Maine and Nebraska do it that way now. If such a scheme, which favors rural – and thus, overwhelmingly Republican — districts over the more heavily-populated, diverse and Democratic-leaning urban districts, had been in place in November,

it would have enabled Romney to eke out a win over Obama.

Donald A. McEachin, a Virginia Democratic state legislator, interviewed about such measures by the Washington Post, called them “sore-loser bills.”

Anti-democracy measures Progressive advocacy groups must now do some doublingdown of their own on these policies that come straight from the tawdry playbook of the Jim Crow South. They must mobilize to defeat these anti-democracy measures and intensify efforts to increase both the registration of new voters among White progressives and Americans of color – and to ensure that they turn out at the polls in coming elections in ever-increasing numbers.

History is repeating itself, yes.

The forces of progress need to make sure that for today’s neoracists, in 2014 and 2016 as in 2012, history repeats itself not only as farce, but also as defeat.

Lee A. Daniels is a journalist based in New York City who was most recently Founding Editor of TheDefendersOnline. com. Click on this story at www. flcourier.com to write your own response.

Reversal of affirmative action by Supreme Court hurts all On October 10, 2012, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, a lawsuit about the constitutionality of the affirmative action programs in which colleges and universities consider the race of applicants in an effort to maintain diversity.

For several decades, the debate about affirmative action has been dominated by conservatives who have divided this nation by claiming that some people are “winners” and other people are “losers” under any such program.

Generations of Republican politicians and their campaign managers have used the issue to develop resentment toward racial minorities.

YVETTE D. CLARKE TRICEEDNEYWIRE.COM

tive action for every student and for our society as a whole.

The leaders of our corporations, our institutions of higher education, and our military know from their experience the importance of diversity in our classrooms.

In 2003, the Supreme Court held in Grutter v. Bollinger that public colleges and universities could consider the race of applicants in selecting a class of students with the diversity to succeed in the modern world.

Importance of diversity A brief submitted to the SuWe need to have other voices in preme Court by several large corthe conversation - voices that ex- porations explained that students plain the importance of affirma- could develop “the skills need-

ed in today’s increasingly global marketplace” only through interactions inside and outside the classroom with “widely diverse people, cultures, ideas, and viewpoints.”

Leaders of our military, such as General Wesley Clark and former Secretary of Defense William Cohen, submitted a brief in Grutter which stated that the recruitment of a diverse class of officers at our nation’s military academies, such as the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, was necessary to fulfill the military’s “principle mission to provide national security”.

Obvious benefits For our leaders in business and the military, the benefits of affirmative action are obvious.

To compete with students from around the world, our students

must have the opportunity to interact with people whose experiences are different from their own. Students educated in classrooms that are diverse will have the resources - social and intellectual - to become full participants in our civil society and its economy.

But in Fisher, the Supreme Court has been asked to reexamine the determination that colleges and universities have the ability to consider the race of applicants, with several other factors, in admissions. This determination has been the law in the United States for more than 30 years.

A reversal of the Supreme Court’s precedents on affirmative action would undermine the efforts of college administrators to select a class of students that has the ability - as a result of diversity - to excel in the world beyond the classroom.

We must continue forward, not backward. As Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote, “Unless our children begin to learn together, there is little hope that our people will ever learn to live together.”

U.S. Rep. Yvette D. Clarke (D-N.Y.) has represented New York’s Ninth Congressional District since 2006. She currently serves on the Homeland Security and Small Business Committees. This article is the third of a 20-part series - is written in commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. For more information, visit www.lawyerscommittee. org. Click on this story at www. flcourier.com to write your own response.

NATION

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FEBRUARY 1 – FEBRUARY 7, 2013

Congressional medals sought for Birmingham girls Lawmakers push to honor 4 girls killed in church bombing

BY RICHARD SIMON LOS ANGELES TIMES (MCT)

WASHINGTON — On this year’s 50th anniversary of a 1963 Birmingham, Ala., church bombing that became a key moment in the civil rights movement, a group of lawmakers is seeking to award the Congressional Gold Medal to the four Black schoolgirls who died in the explosion.

A bill backed by Alabama’s congressional delegation would award the nation’s highest civilian honor posthumously to Denise McNair, 11, and Cynthia Wesley, Addie Mae Collins and Carole Robertson, all 14 — all four killed by Ku Klux Klan members who planted dynamite and set it off Sunday, Sept. 15, 1963, at the 16th Street Baptist Church.

“This tragedy galvanized the civil rights movement and sparked a surge of momentum that helped secure the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and later the Voting Rights Act of 1965,” Rep. Terri A. Sewell, D-Ala., said a in letter to colleagues seeking their support.

Murder conviction in 1977 Rep. Spencer Bachus, RAla., said in a statement, “It is important to reflect, especially for each new generation, how an act of evil that killed four innocent young girls at the 16th Street Baptist Church jarred the conscience of the American people and led to permanent change in our society.”

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the eulogy at the girls’ funeral.

While the FBI identified suspects in the bombing, it closed the case at the direction of former Director

DALLAS MORNING NEWS/MCT

A statue of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. faces the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., where a 1963 bombing took the lives of four young Black girls.

The girls who died J. Edgar Hoover, who con- life in prison in 2001, and tended that an all-White Bobby Frank Cherry was in the Alabama jury would never convicted a year later.

BirmingCherry died in prison convict the men. ham, Ala., But in 1971, Alabama’s in 2004. A fourth suspect, church then-Attorney General Wil- Herman Cash, died in 1984 bombing, liam Baxley reopened the without being charged.

Among the civil rights are Denise case, leading to the 1977 McNair, murder conviction of Rob- leaders who have been congressional ert E. Chambliss, who died awarded 11; Carole gold medals are King and in prison in 1985.

Roberthis widow, Coretta Scott son, 14; King; Dorothy Height, who Kings, Height Addie Mae led the National Council of honored Negro Women for four deCollins, After the FBI reopened cades; Rosa Parks; and the 14; and the case in 1993, Thomas E. Little Rock Nine, who inteCynthia Blanton Jr. was convicted of grated a Little Rock, Ark., Wesley, 14. murder and sentenced to high school.

Texas judge postpones Black woman’s execution

BY MOLLY HENNESSY-FISKE LOS ANGELES TIMES (MCT)

HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A Texas district judge on Tuesday postponed the execution of a female inmate hours before she would have been the first woman put to death in the United States in more than two years.

Kimberly McCarthy, 51, was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection for stabbing her elderly neighbor to death in 1997.

State District Judge Larry Mitchell postponed McCarthy’s execuKimberly tion until April 3 McCarthy after her lawyer successfully appealed for a delay, arguing the jury that convicted McCarthy of murder was improperly selected on the basis of race, according to court records.

McCarthy is African-American and the Dallas-area jury that convicted her included one African-American and 11 Whites, according to Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins.

Watkins, the first AfricanAmerican district attorney elected in Texas, has gained national attention for his efforts to address wrongful convictions, creating a conviction integrity unit and, this year, proposing legislation that would allow defendants to appeal convictions and sentences on the basis of race.

Seeking racial justice Watkins told the Los Angeles Times that the Racial Justice Act is due to be introduced in Texas soon.

Other states have passed similar laws, he noted: Kentucky’s law, passed in 1998, allows a defendant facing the death penalty to seek a hearing under the act before trial; North Carolina passed similar legislation in 2009, although after Republicans won control last year they barred

many statistics from being used, limiting defendants to direct evidence applying to their cases.

Watkins also noted that 40 percent of death row inmates are African-American, compared with 11 percent of Texas’ population, and that most of those inmates who are later exonerated are minorities.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

492 executions since 1982 Texas has executed 492 inmates since it instituted lethal injection in 1982. Of those, about 46 percent were White, 37 percent African-American, 17 percent Latino and a negligible percentage “other” race.

“We’ve seen in the past that race really has played a part in certain cases,” Watkins said. “It’s time for us to balance the scales of justice.”

Watkins said his office did not oppose postponing McCarthy’s execution, which relatives of her victim had planned to attend, according to Jason Clark, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

“We feel for the victims, and we know this prolongs things,” Watkins said, but he added that it’s important to be cautious and make sure officials do “everything possible to make sure this person was rightfully executed.”

Female executions rare He said that after he was elected in 2007, McCarthy’s case was among those his office reviewed for guilt or innocence, but that they didn’t delve into racial issues.

Female executions are rare. A dozen women have been put to death nationwide since capital punishment was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976, according to the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center. Three of them were executed in Texas.

The first woman put to death in Texas after lethal injection was instituted in 1982 was Karla Faye Tucker, 38, of Houston. Tucker

Students in KKK robes at Las Vegas school prompt debate

The Change.org website shows a protest in support of Kimberly McCarthy. was sentenced to death in connection with the pickax murder of a couple during a burglary committed when she was 23.

Her case stirred controversy given her sex, age, and statements she made to the press expressing remorse after she became a born-again Christian. She was executed on Feb. 3, 1998.

Victim stabbed 5 times Unlike Tucker, McCarthy and the last woman executed in Texas, Frances Newton, are AfricanAmerican.

Prosecutors say McCarthy entered the Dallas-area home of her 71-year-old neighbor, Dorothy Booth, on July 21, 1997, ostensibly to borrow some sugar.

Instead, McCarthy stabbed Booth five times, hit her in the face with a candelabrum, took her purse and cut off Booth’s left ring finger in order to steal her diamond ring, according to the Texas attorney general’s office.

McCarthy later pawned the ring and used Booth’s credit cards to buy drugs.

The following year, a Dallas County jury found McCarthy guilty of murdering Booth and sentenced her to death.

Conviction upheld in 2002 Her conviction was overturned by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in 2001 because no attor-

ney was present when McCarthy was questioned after the crime even though she had requested a lawyer, court documents show.

She was tried a second time in 2002, again found guilty by a Dallas County jury and sentenced to death. That conviction was upheld by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in 2004, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied McCarthy’s appeal on Jan. 7.

McCarthy had previously been convicted of forgery, theft of services and prostitution, according to the attorney general’s office.

290 on Texas death row There are 290 inmates on death row in Texas, 10 of them female. McCarthy is being held at the Thomas Goree Unit in Huntsville, according to prison records, about 70 miles north of Houston.

The last woman put to death in the U.S. was Teresa Lewis, 41, of Danville, Va. She was convicted in 2002 of using sex and money to arrange for the murders of her husband and stepson, and executed on Sept. 23, 2010, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Newton, 40, the last woman executed in Texas, was convicted of fatally shooting her estranged husband and two children at their apartment outside Houston for life insurance money. She was executed on Sept. 14, 2005.

School officials and community members aren’t faulting a Las Vegas Academy teacher for letting two students dress in Ku Klux Klan costumes during a classroom presentation on U.S. history.

But Clark County School District officials investigated and the school principal sent parents a letter calling the incident ``inappropriate’’ after a photo of one of the students wearing a white robe and hooded mask outside class Jan. 9 was posted on social media.

Principal Scott Walker said there was no intention to harm or offend on the part of the students.

The Las Vegas Sun reports that several students, parents, teachers and one school board member backed the teacher at a meeting last week.

The teacher and student weren’t identified, and district officials say he wasn’t disciplined.

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IFE/FAITH

February 1 - February 7, 2013

Cissy Houston writes about Brown, drugs, ‘Sparkle’ in ‘Remembering Whitney’ See page B2

SHARING BLACK LIFE, STATEWIDE

Tips to make a game day party fun for everyone See page B6

SUN COAST / TAMPA BAY www.flcourier.com

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James R. Jackson, Jr. met his granddaughter Denia for the first time at his son’s funeral.

CHARLES W. CHERRY II / FLORIDA COURIER

Looking for his piece of the pie Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of stories framing the life of James Roland Jackson, III, known as “Jimmy” to his family.

un violence in America has become a leading topic of political debate following the Dec. 14 mass shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

The deadly massacre prompted President Barack Obama’s administration to craft proposals for the enactment of new laws, including background checks and bans on high-capacity ammunition clips.

left everyone he encountered with a positive impression.

He was well-mannered and grew into a goodlooking young man with a six-feet, one-inch frame.

He had enough athletic prowess to earn him football and basketball scholarships to Graceland University, a small, liberal arts school in Lamoni, Iowa.

There, he both roomed and participated in sports with his big brother, Anthony Rozier.

Jimmy came from good stock. Both parents earned bachelor’s degrees in business, from Morehouse College (father) and Florida A & M University (mother), respectively. Both were working professionals who nurtured and supported their children’s dreams.

Old news here

Normal kid

BY PENNY DICKERSON SPECIAL TO THE FLORIDA COURIER

G

But gun violence is nothing new on the streets of Florida. And the victims of deadly gun violence are more likely to be Black, young and male, rather than first-graders.

In Part I of this series, a crime database maintained by The Florida Times Union indicated that 71 homicides occurred by gun violence in 2012. Fifty-six of the 71 victims were African-Americans. Forty-six of the 56 African-American victims were Black males.

Jimmy Jackson was among them. He was shot four times at the Silver Fox Night Club and died 11 days later at Shands Hospital.

He will be forever mourned by a strong Black father who struggles to move forward; a mother who grieves for her younger son; siblings who lost their best friend; and a young daughter who will never accumulate more than a handful of memories of him.

More than a statistic James Roland Jackson, III was known as “Jimmy” to his family. He boasted a broad smile and owned an infectious personality that

The middle child of three, Jimmy adored his older brother Anthony. Younger sister Brandi knighted Jimmy as her hero. The three were inseparable.

By all accounts, Jimmy was just a normal young man living in America, paving his own path. He was multifaceted and comedic, ambitious and talented – but with an entrepreneur’s spirit.

After one year in Iowa, he grew restless with the town’s slow pace and left his brother behind. He transferred to FAMU to pursue a degree in business management at FAMU’s renowned School of Business and Industry in support of his first love: music.

As an undergraduate student in Tallahassee, he owned his own hip-hop clothing store, Tallahassee Hot Boys Apparel, and sold CD mixtapes.

Hustler, but no thug While Jimmy’s relatively short journey from crib to casket seems tragically typical in Black America, it’s not.

He was a hustler without question. But stereotypes associated with the world of rap music and a

THE LIFE & DEATH OF

JIMMY JACKSON

during a college relationship with Shante C. (Her full name is not used at her request.)

Although Jimmy was not “running women,” he loved all of the women in his life – especially his mother, Stephanye RozierJackson.

A mother mourns Rozier-Jackson literally meditates on fond memories of her baby boy since his tragic murder in June 2012. She has near-perfect recall of everything from his first step to the last time she saw his face.

The 27 years in between plague her.

“The weekend before the shooting, he was here in Orlando for Memorial Day. He visited with his grandmother who had surgery, attended a barbeque, and gave me a ride in his brand new white Camaro,” said Rozier-Jackson.

‘In a rush’

COURTESY OF SHANTE C.

Jimmy doted on his daughter Denia. She is now the most significant link between a grieving family and their late son and brother. young Black man’s death at a nightclub defy Jimmy’s life’s truth.

At the time of his death, he was gainfully employed by a Jacksonville AT&T call center and worked as road manager for artists signed to the “Nappy Boy” music label owned by Tallahas-

see native producer/singer/rapper “T-Pain.” Jimmy worked closely with “Young Cash,” one of Nappy Boy’s rap prodigies.

He shared an apartment with a steady girlfriend, Kiera Bailey, and doted over his five-year-old daughter Denia, whom he fathered

“At birth, Jimmy was in a rush to get here,” she remembered. “I didn’t know if we were going to make it to the hospital, but he entered this world with the most peaceful smile on his face.

“He loved being a baby and often pretended he couldn’t walk so I would carry him,” Rozier-Jackson chuckled. “It took 18 months for Jimmy to eat solid food; his favorite drink was Gatorade.”

After he eventually shelved his imaginary childhood friend he named “Johnny,” Jimmy yearned to hang with the “big boys” during church and followed in the footsteps of his older brother Anthony.

“Jimmy was lazy and slow to move. Anthony was mischievous and full of energy,” Rozier-Jackson said. “Anthony was the take-charge big brother and Jimmy had no other choice but to fall in line.”

Stern father As a boy, he revered his father, James Roland Jackson, Jr., known by the family as “Big Jimmy.”

All-male Morehouse College and Omega Psi Phi Fraternity instilled an ethical framework in the elder Jackson which he used to encourage Jimmy to avoid social stigmas and gravitate towards a more conventional presence: shortcropped hair cut, a clean shave, and tailored clothing with pants fitted to the waist. Belts for pants were a requirement.

A former corporate manager, the elder Jackson both hired and fired young men–many who were just like his son.

When Jackson speaks of his slain son now, reflective words fall fast and free.

His pillar-of-strength guidance molded and shaped Jimmy, and the elder Jackson is not ashamed to admit that he was a stern father – but not a tyrant.

Jackson still resides near the Atlanta home he built for his blended family. He fought furiously to maintain it by working multiple jobs that ranged from banking, shoe and portrait sales to project management. He has endured hard work most of his life and only wanted the best for his son.

An ‘All-American’ son Anger and regret often trump happy memories, but nothing can erase the abiding love passed from one Jimmy to the next.

“My All-American boy was born on July 2, 1985.

It was close to the fourth of July and he had a strong heart rate,” said Jackson.

“It was the most tremendous thing in the world.

He looked like me, he talked like me, and we shared the same mannerisms. I couldn’t have been happier.”

Jackson and Stephanye Rozier had married a year earlier in 1984 and threeyear-old Anthony, a child from Rozier’s previous relationship, helped form a welcome trio. Jackson treated his stepson as his own, but when young Jimmy was born, the new father struggled emotionally See JIMMY, Page B2

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CALENDAR & BOOKS

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FEBRUARY 1 – FEBRUARY 7, 2013

FLORIDA COMMUNITY CALENDAR

BOOK REVIEW

New book tells how Paul Robeson’s wife made her voice heard

Orlando: Bel Biv Devoe, Dru Hill, El Debarge and various other artists will be at Funk Fest 2013 at Tinker Field on April 6 beginning at 5 p.m. Concerts also are scheduled in Jacksonville and Tampa. Complete lineup: http:// funkfestconcerts.com.

BY DR. GLENN C. ALTSCHULER SPECIAL TO THE FLORIDA COURIER

Eatonville: The 24th Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities takes place through Feb. 3. Celebrity chef Martin Wood will be part of interactive programming focusing on nutrition and healthy lifestyles.

Complete www.zorafestival.com.

St. Petersburg: Get downtown for fun with music, food and a lively crowd in the heart of downtown St. Petersburg. Join the festivities between Second and Third streets on Central Avenue beginning at 5:30 p.m. Free.

St. Petersburg: Youths ages 7 to 11 can enjoy a night of football, kickball, ping-pong, foosball, video games and dance parties in an atmosphere that encourages character building and achievement, honesty, discipline teamwork, responsibility and respect during “Freestyle Fridays” at the Fossil Park & Willis S. Johns Center, 6635 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. St. N. First visit free; $6 each following visit. More information: 727-893-7756.

Cocoa: Celebrate Mardi Gras in Cocoa Village. The event will be held Feb. 9 from 5 p.m. – midnight, 100 Harrison St., to include food, the Central Florida News 13 Mardi Gras Parade of Floats at 9 p.m. and live entertainment by the Soul Rebels Brass Band. More information: 321-639-3500.

Tavares: An African-American Heritage Festival will be held Feb. 2 from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. at Wooton Park.

Paul Moseley/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/MCT

ALICIA KEYS

KATT WILLIAMS

Funny man Katt Williams stops by the Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena Feb. 8 and the Tampa Bay Times Forum Feb. 9 for 8 p.m. shows.

QUEEN LATIFAH

Rap and R&B artist Queen Latifah will be at the Kravis Center March 24 for an 8 p.m. show.

Tumors Tampa 5K Run & Walk on Feb. 9 at the Tampa Bay Times Forum. More information or registration: www.breakthroughforbraintumors.

Tampa: The American Brain Tumor Association hosts its inaugural Breakthrough for Brain

Orlando: Comedian Bruce Bruce joins Sheryl Underwood and Tony Rock at the Bob Carr Performing

Arts Centre on Feb. 1 for an 8 p.m. show.

St. Petersburg: First Fridays are held in downtown St. Petersburg at 250 Central Ave. between Second and Third Avenues from 5:30 p.m.-10:30 p.m. More information: 727-393-3597.

JIMMY from B1 to treat both sons equally.

“I loved him so much, but felt inhibited,” said Jackson. “I couldn’t show him (Jimmy) love and didn’t know how to relate to having one son and then another.

I also didn’t want Anthony to be jealous of Jimmy.”

Family transition In 1990, the couple welcomed the birth of daughter Brandi. But post-partum depression and career changes seemed to cause constant turmoil.

In 1991, the siblings and their mother moved back to Orlando.

Following the loss of their home, the four returned and the entire family lived in an Atlanta-area apartment for a short period.

Over time, the relationship was irreconcilably broken.

CHARLES W. CHERRY II / FLORIDA COURIER

Jimmy’s mother, Stephanye Rozier-Jackson leaves the church after his homegoing service in Orlando.

A 1981 love affair that began in Tallahassee ended in Atlanta in 1994; all three siblings and their mother returned to Orlando.

The formative years The untimely divorce of his parents served as an indelible marker, and Jimmy’s formative years were painfully divided between two households – his father’s home in Atlanta and an eventual return to Orlando to live with his more lenient mother.

Jimmy was eight years old when he returned to Atlanta to live with his father.

“I was presented the perfect opportunity to do everything I wanted to with Jimmy,” said Jackson.

“When he came to live with me, we traveled all across the country to football games and other stuff.

He adjusted to attending a new school and making friends.”

In the sixth grade, Jimmy made the basketball team as a point guard and continued playing through his tenure at Atlanta’s Evans High School.

“My son loved basketball and Allen Iverson, but he didn’t have Iverson talent,” said Jackson.“He was a physical specimen. I wanted him to be a football punter be-

In “Eslanda,’’ the first-full length biography of this remarkable woman, Ransby, a professor of African American Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies, and History at the University of Illinois, Chicago, examines her career as an anthropologist, journalist, public speaker, and political activist.

A product of her times and on occasion, ahead of them, Ransby argues, Eslanda Robeson fought against the anti-communist witch hunts of Senator Joseph McCarthy, “compared class exploitation and racial subjugation to gender oppression,” and connected the struggle against colonialism in Africa with the civil rights movement in the United States.

Definite impact

Olivier Douliery/ Abaca Press/MCT

Proud dad

“We Negroes have now passed The Point of No Return,” Eslanda Robeson wrote in 1964. “We are determined, determined to claim our full citizenship and human rights, now, period.”

A year later she advocated resistance and self-defense for Blacks, supporting a range of tactics, including taking formal complaints to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, massive street demonstrations and strikes in the United States.

Coming at the end of her life, these positions were in character for Mrs. Robeson. For decades, according to Barbara Ransby, she had used her status as the wife of singer, actor, and political radical Paul Robeson to speak out about against injustice, wherever she saw it.

Full-length biography

Songstress Alicia Keys brings her World On Fire tour to Florida with performances at the Tampa Bay Times Forum March 24 and Miami’s American Airlines Arena March 23.

Mount Dora: The Battle of Townsend’s Plantation & Civil War Festival featuring Civil War re-enactments, historical exhibits, folk music and camp re-creations will be held Feb. 1-3 from 10 a.m.

– 5 p.m. at the Renninger’s Antique Center, 20651 U.S. Highway 441. Cost: $6 adults, $4 ages 12 and younger. More information: 407-418-2075.

The growing pains of being both a newlywed and a new parent created stressors in the marriage. But the elder Jackson still recalls funfilled days of watching his precocious boys wrestle.

“They were two rough and tough young boys,” said Jackson. “They’d tumble in our two-story Norcross (Ga.) home so hard the roof would sometimes shake. I’d have to go up the stairs with a belt.”

The inquisitive young Jimmy was always big for his age and once won a contest in the first grade for being the biggest child.

“His feet were big, he had a great smile, and everybody liked him,” said Jackson.

Discipline and determination were characteristics Jackson eagerly imparted to prepare all of his children for a better-than-average chance to succeed.

TOJ

cause he had huge legs, but he wanted basketball,” Jackson remembers.

Father-son conflict Young Jimmy’s love for shooting hoops also came with a desire to emulate his NBA idols. He began to explore urban fashion fads.

Conflict between father and son ensued.

“Jimmy wanted to grow braids, and I was just vehemently against that,” Jackson added. “His school life was central to me. I always visited their schools and was proud about how he was received as a student and a good kid. I didn’t want his image to be tarnished because I know how the world views Black men.”

Jackson enjoyed watching his son learn to drive, and typical father-son time.

“Jimmy did great impressions of characters from the animated show ‘South Park.’ I loved that,” Jackson laughed. “He also loved to scare other people and pull pranks, but he was the scariest one of all.”

Time to leave Family, religion, and tradition

Ransby is not a gifted writer.

More importantly, she approaches the biography as an ardent admirer, rather than as a judicious critic. She claims, without evidence, for example, that as a Progressive Party candidate for Secretary of State of Connecticut in 1948, Eslanda Robeson “made her voice heard’ and that her “postwar black left feminist” group, Sojourners for Truth and Justice, “made a definite impact.”

She describes Eslanda’s “behind the scenes intervention” with Kwame Nkrumah, the leader of Ghana, then indicates that her harsh criticism of an American peace activist may have been based on inaccurate information and that, in any event, Nkrumah were all integral to Jackson in his youth in Georgia and in Florida.

He was nurtured by an extended family that included relatives with music performance careers, mentoring uncles and godsisters. And though Jimmy liked Atlanta, he longed to be with his mother and siblings in Orlando.

“I really had no answer for that void, because he could move around unchecked with them and away from me,” Jackson stated. “That was more important to him than anything. He could grow his braids and be free to do as he pleased, and that was OK. He stopped being ‘my Lil ‘Jimmy’ and was gone.”

Unresolved issues When he turned 16, Jimmy left his father’s close supervision and returned to Orlando. It was a painful exit, especially since Jimmy was murdered before he could fully reconcile his relationship with his father.

As he got older, Jimmy defied his father’s conventions with his own sense of style including multiple tattoos, shoulder-length dreadlocks, clothing that gave him pop culture swag and an individuality he turned into an enterprising venture called “Exclusively J.” Jimmy’s business goal: to manage artists’ careers and to “brand” himself as has Puff Daddy/P.Diddy.

The two spent Christmas together in 2005 and the elder Jackson made a few visits to Tallahassee when his son attended FAMU. Their personal contact during Jimmy’s early twenties was so minimal that the elder Jackson didn’t even know he was a grandfather. Jackson met his granddaughter Denia for the first time at his son’s funeral.

Still, by all accounts, the younger Jackson was a family success story. His kinfolk were starstruck

may well have ignored her.

And Ransby asserts that FBI surveillance was a measure of Eslanda’s “influence and success,” only to acknowledge that J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the agency, could not decide whether she was “a threat or just an annoyance.”

Blasted Blacks for begging Nonetheless, Ransby brings Eslanda Robeson to life, as an affluent, aggressive, if sometimes naïve, class and race conscious radical. Eslanda was so taken with the Soviet Union, Ransby reveals, reluctantly, that she made a “chilling” defense of Joseph Stalin’s purges of intellectuals in the 1930s.

Expressing regret, Eslanda declared, “I like dogs, but I certainly wouldn’t hesitate on moment to liquidate a mad dog.’

Fortunately, according to Ransby, Eslanda was on the right side of most issues. She urged American Blacks to “stop thinking of ourselves in terms of inferiority – asking, pleading, begging for a crust or two of the bread of citizenship…and demand the whole loaf.”

She chided them for their ignorance about the colored people in Asia, Africa, and the West Indies who were “fighting their way up and out of Colonial domination.”

And, Ransby emphasizes, Eslanda insisted on inserting a gender perspective into her internationalist critique. “It isn’t a man’s world any longer,” she told her audiences. “It never was – men just said it was, and took over.”

‘Worth knowing about’ In the end, Ransby makes a compelling case that Eslanda “is worth knowing about.”

After all, as Ransby concludes, the story of her life, devoted as it was to “our struggle,” provides a window into the world of Black radicals in the middle-third of the 20th century, when it took an abundance of courage to speak out, “to entertain a different set of truths and sensibilities” about power and patriotism, capitalism and communism, race and gender, individual and collective identity.

Dr. Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies at Cornell University. He wrote this review for the Florida Courier. when their beloved Jimmy invited them backstage during a concert to meet R&B star Chris Brown.

A final conversation Jimmy’s parents remain proud of the impact their son had on the world in the short 26 years of his life, from his first baby step to his final breath. They each long for one more chance to communicate their love.

“During his last days on this earth, I saw my son more than ever because he was often traveling to Tampa and Miami promoting artists,” offered Rozier-Jackson.

“If I were given an opportunity to have a final conversation with my son, I would hold his hand, let him know that I love him, I’m proud of him, that I would lay down my life for him, and reassure him that God loves him,” she added.

A heavy load James Jackson’s grief weighs heavily on him. His love for his son was often difficult for him to fully express. Even in retrospect, he remains direct and brief.

“I would tell him how much I wish he could have been with me every day, like during the middle school years,” mused the elder Jackson.

“I am committed to achieving justice for Jimmy, but not nearly as committed as I would like to be. It is absolutely a daily process to keep things moving.”

The death of Jimmy Jackson remains unsolved. Homicide detectives suspect the motive was armed robbery, but few leads have surfaced. To date, the case is cold.

Part 3: Jimmy’s family endures an 11-day bedside vigil at Shands Hospital and a subsequent funeral and burial without financial support.

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FEBRUARY 1 – FEBRUARY 7, 2013

FINEST & ENTERTAINMENT

Meet some of

FLORIDA'S

finest

submitted for your approval

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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.

mike

jasmine Jasmine Akakpo is a former child model and actor who has recently made her way back in the entertainment industry. She has done work on TV shows such as “The Game” and “Drop Dead Diva” along with independent films through young filmmakers like herself. Jasmine takes pride in her fun, down-to-earth personality and loves working with others. “I appreciate the team effort that it takes to create any project so much. It’s amazing.” Contact Jasmine at:www.jasmineakakpo.com, www.facebook. com/jasmineakakpo.com or on Twitter:@jasmineakakpo.

CREDIT: BlackIce Bell

Mike Garvey is a South Florida resident of Jamaican decent. He’s also a Marine Corps veteran who has bloodlines to historical leader Marcus Garvey. The aspiring actor and 1st Million Management talent has worked numerous projects, including appearances on Starz Network’s “Magic City,” “The Glades” (A&E Network), and “Burn Notice” (USA Network). He plays a security guard in the upcoming film “Pain and Gain.’’

Cissy Houston writes about Brown, drugs, ‘Sparkle’ in ‘Remembering Whitney’ NEW YORK (AP) — Cissy Houston has a few words, and a few more, for Bobby Brown.

In “Remembering Whitney,” the mother of the late Whitney Houston writes that from the start she had doubted whether Brown was right for her daughter. And she thinks that Whitney might not have ended up so “deep” into drugs had they not stayed together.

“I do believe her life would have turned out differently,” Houston writes. “It would have been easier for her to get sober and stay sober. Instead she was with someone who, like her, wanted to party. To me, he never seemed to be a help to her in the way she needed.”

“Remembering Whitney” came out Tuesday, two weeks short of the first anniversary of Houston’s death. She drowned in a hotel bathtub in Beverly Hills, Calif., at age 48.

Authorities said her death was complicated by cocaine use and heart disease.

During a recent telephone interview, Houston said she has no contact with Brown and didn’t see any reason to, not even concerning her granddaughter, Bobbi Kristina.

UNIVERSAL PICTURES PRESENTS IN ASSOCIATION WITH RELATIVITY MEDIA A BLUEGRASS FILMS/AGGREGATE FILMS PRODUCTION A SETH GORDON FILM “IDENTITY THIEF” JASON BATEMAN MELISSA MCCARTHY JON FAVREAU AMANDA PEET TIP EXECUTIVE ‘T.I.’ HARRIS GENESIS RODRIGUEZ MUSIC MORRIS CHESTNUT JOHN CHO ROBERT PATRICK ERIC STONESTREET

BY CHRISTOPHER LENNERTZ PRODUCERS PETER MORGAN DAN KOLSRUD DIRECTED PRODUCED STORY SCREENPLAY

BY SCOTT STUBER JASON BATEMAN PAMELA ABDY BY JERRY EETEN AND CRAI G MAZIN

BY CRAI G MAZIN BY SETH GORDON A UNIVERSAL PICTURE SOUNDTRACK ON BACK LOT MUSIC AND LALA RECORDS

© 2012 UNIVERSAL STUDIOS

STARTS FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8 CHECK LOCAL LISTINGS FOR THEATERS AND SHOWTIMES

Cissy Houston sings during BET Awards 2012 tribute to daughter, Whitney.

‘Beyond disturbing’ incident For years, Whitney’s drug problems had been only a rumor to her mother, who writes that concerns expressed by record executive Clive Davis were kept from her by her daughter and others. But by 2005 she had seen the worst.

Houston remembers a horrifying visit to the Atlanta home of Brown and Houston, where the walls and doors were spraypainted with “big glaring eyes and strange faces.” Whitney’s face had been cut out from a framed family picture, an image Cissy Houston found “beyond disturbing.” The next time Houston came to the house, she was joined by two sheriff’s deputies who helped her take Whitney to the hospital.

“She was so angry at me, cursing me and up and down,” she writes. “Eventually, after a good long while, Nippy did stop being angry at me. She realized that I did what I did to protect her, and she later told people that I had saved her life.”

Accomplished singer herself

Impressed by ‘Sparkle’

Houston said she wanted the book published so the world would not believe the worst about her daughter.

Cissy Houston, herself an accomplished soul and gospel singer who has performed with Elvis Presley and Aretha Franklin, describes Whitney as a transcendent talent and vivacious and generous person known affectionately by her childhood nickname, “Nippy.” But she acknowledges in the book that her daughter could be “mean” and “difficult” and questions at times how well she knew her.

“In my darkest moments, I wonder whether Nippy loved me,” she writes. “She always told me she did. But you know, she didn’t call me much. She didn’t come see me as much as I hoped she would.” But, “almost always,” Whitney Houston was “the sweetest, most loving person in the room.”

Brown is portrayed as childish and impulsive, hot tempered and jealous of his wife’s success.

Houston has no doubt that if Whitney were alive she would still be singing and making records. Houston said during her interview that she has seen “Sparkle,” a remake of the 1970s movie that came out last summer and featured Whitney as the mother of a singing group struggling with addiction.

“I thought she was great in it and all the kids were great,” says Houston, who adds that the “whole movie was hard to get through.”

The book, too, was painful and her grief continues. Some nights, Cissy Houston wakes up crying, not sure at first where she is.

“But then I get up out of bed, wipe my eyes, wash my face, and lie back down to my sleep. Because that is all I can do,” she writes. “I am so grateful to God for giving me the gift of 48 years with my daughter.

And I accept that He knew when it was time to take her.”

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FOLIO LINE

Winning hardware The rings, with Super Bowl number, final score, MVP and maker (J: Jostens; B: Balfour; T: Tiffany & Co.; D: Diamond Cutters Int.; H: Herff Jones). Black circle indicates first ring made by company:

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Green Bay 35 Kansas City 10 MVP Bart Starr

J

FOLIO LINE

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I

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Green Bay 33 Oakland 14 MVP Bart Starr

M c C l a t c h y - Tr i b u n e

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III

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N.Y. Jets 16 Baltimore 7 MVP Joe Namath

J

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FEBRUARY 1 – FEBRUARY 7, 2013

Kansas City 23 Minnesota 7 MVP Len Dawson

B

J

V

Baltimore 16 Dallas 13 MVP Chuck Howley

J

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Miami 14 Washington 7 MVP Jake Scott

Miami 24 Minnesota 7 MVP Larry Csonka

Pittsburgh 16 Minnesota 6 MVP Franco Harris

Pittsburgh 21 Dallas 17 MVP Lynn Swann

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Pittsburgh 31 L.A. Rams 19 MVP Terry Bradshaw

Oakland 27 Philadelphia 10 MVP Jim Plunkett

San Francisco 26 Cincinnati 21 MVP Joe Montana

VII

J

VIII

J

XIV

J

IX

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X

J

Oakland 32 Minnesota 14 MVP Fred Biletnikoff

J

VI

Dallas 24 Miami 3 MVP Roger Staubach

B

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XI

B

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XII

Dallas 27 Denver 10 MVPs Harvey Martin and Randy White

J

XV

XIII

Pittsburgh 35 Dallas 31 MVP Terry Bradshaw

J

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XVI

J

B

XVII

Washington 27 Miami 17 MVP John Riggins

J

The ring is truly the thing in the NFL SUPER BOWL

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L.A. Raiders 38 Washington 9 MVP Marcus Allen

J

BY SCOT MCCOY, FORT WORTH STAR TELEGRAM

SUPER BOWL

They have become the gold standard of championship glory. Whether showcasing one diamond or dozens, Super Bowl rings are forever. They serve as constant reminders for individuals in those winning organizations of that ultimate team achievement. We look back at all 46 NFL championship rings.

XIX

San Francisco 38 Miami 16 MVP Joe Montana

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Ring bearers

Washington 42 Denver 10 MVP Doug Williams

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Washington 37 Buffalo 24 MVP Mark Rypien

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Denver 34 Atlanta 19 MVP John Elway

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Pittsburgh 21 Seattle 10 MVP Hines Ward

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Dallas Cowboys

San Francisco 49ers

Green Bay Packers

XXVII

Dallas 52 Buffalo 17 MVP Troy Aikman

B

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Dallas 30 Buffalo 13 MVP Emmitt Smith

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St. Louis 23 Tennessee 16 MVP Kurt Warner

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Baltimore 34 N.Y. Giants 7 MVP Ray Lewis

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San Francisco 49 San Diego 26 MVP Steve Young

B

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New England 20 St. Louis 17 MVP Tom Brady

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Dallas 27 Pittsburgh 17 MVP Larry Brown

D

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Green Bay 35 New England 21 MVP Desmond Howard

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Denver 31 Green Bay 24 MVP Terrell Davis

D

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New England 32 Carolina 29 MVP Tom Brady

New England 24 Philadelphia 21 MVP Deion Branch

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Indianapolis 29 Chicago 17 MVP Peyton Manning

N.Y. Giants 17 New England 14 MVP Eli Manning

Pittsburgh 27 Arizona 23 MVP Santonio Holmes

New Orleans 31 Indianapolis 17 MVP Drew Brees

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Tampa Bay 48 Oakland 21 MVP Dexter Jackson

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N.Y. Giants 20 Buffalo 19 MVP Ottis Anderson

B

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XXV

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San Francisco 55 Denver 10 MVP Joe Montana

B

N.Y. Giants 39 Denver 20 MVP Phil Simms

J

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Chicago 46 New England 10 MVP Richard Dent

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XXI

New York Giants

San Francisco 20 Cincinatti 16 MVP Jerry Rice

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= One Super Bowl victory

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Key

The NFL franchises with the most Super Bowl wins

Pittsburgh Steelers

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XLIV

T

XXXIX

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XLV

Green Bay 31 Pittsburgh 25 MVP Aaron Rodgers

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N.Y. Giants 21 New England 17 MVP Eli Manning

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P H OTO S C O U RT E S Y O F T H E N F L , DA L L A S M O R N I N G N E W S , F O RT W O RT H S TA R T E L E G R A M , T I F FA N Y & C O.

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FEBRUARY 1 – FEBRUARY 7, 2013

SUPER BOWL

B5

Test your NFL knowledge with our multiple choice trivia quiz

By Stan Olson Charlotte Observer

1.

Earl Lambeau was the first coach of the Green Bay Packers, and a charter member of the pro football Hall of Fame. He founded the pre-NFL Packers in 1919 and eventually won six league titles. Lambeau Field is named after him. His nickname was: A. Larry B. Curly C. Moe D. Field

7.

If your name was Elroy, you would likely opt for a nickname as soon as possible (“hey, call me Bubba”). Elroy Hirsch of the Los Angeles Rams was one of the great receivers of the 1950s and had an equally great nickname. It was: A. The Hirschy Bar B. Yo Mama C. Crazylegs D. Roy

8.

One coach, and only one, has led his team to four consecutive Super Bowls. He is: A. Vince Lombardi, Green Bay B. Don Shula, Miami C. Marv Levy, Buffalo D. Tom Landry, Dallas

9.

Harry E. Walker/MCT

Atlanta Falcons tight end Tony Gonzalez

2.

The active player with the most touchdowns has 157, fourth on the all-time list. He is: A. Tony Gonzalez, Atlanta B. Reggie Wayne, Indianapolis C. Wes Welker, New England D. Randy Moss, San Francisco

3.

Jim Brown led the NFL in rushing yards eight times in nine seasons, then retired in his prime. In college at Syracuse, though, he was also an all-Amer-

Kicking up a storm; back in 1970, less than 60 percent of field goal attempts were converted. Since then, that figure had improved considerably. The 2012 mark was: A. Over 80 percent B. Over 70 percent C. Over 85 percent D. Nobody missed

10.

The American Professional Football Association changed its name to the National Football League on June 24, 1921.

When the new NFL began play that fall, which of these teams was not a member: A. Muncie Flyers B. Dayton Triangles C. Rochester Jeffersons D. Harrisburg Steelmen

11.

In 1993, this quarterback led his team to the greatest comeback in NFL history, wiping out a 35-3 third-quarter deficit and pushing his team to a 4138 win in overtime. Hopefully, he still has the videotape: A. Danny White, Dallas B. Frank Reich, Buffalo C. Steve Young, San Francisco D. Warren Moon, Houston

12.

Carlos Gonzalez/ Minneapolis Star Tribune/MCT

Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson ican at another sport in addition to football. That sport was: A. Lacrosse B. Bowling C. Baseball D. Frisbee golf

4. How close was Minneso-

ta running back Adrian Peterson to beating Eric Dickerson’s NFL single-season rushing record of 2,105 yards this season?

A. 3 yards B. 9 yards C. 6 yards D. 12 yards

You can’t stop him; you can only hope to contain him.

He was the first running back in NFL history to rush for more than 1,000 yards and top 1,000 receiving yards in the same season: A. Marshall Faulk, Indianapolis,1998 B. Abner Haynes, Dallas Texans,1960 C. Roger Craig, San Francisco, 1985 D. Thurman Thomas, Buffalo, 1992

13.

At the Detroit Lions’ 1957 preseason banquet, their coach abruptly announced, “I can’t handle you guys, and I quit.” Not a wise move; those Lions went on to win it all. Who was the guy who bailed just in time to miss all the good stuff?

A. Tom Landry B. Weeb Eubank C. Buddy Parker D. Hank Stram

Rob Schneider /dallas Morning News/mct

14. Every NFL city wants

to host the Super Bowl, but until recently it was usually reserved for burgs in warm climes. Which of the cities listed below has had sport’s biggest glamour game a whopping 10 times?

A. New Orleans B. Los Angeles C. Tampa D. San Diego

15.

The last team to win its division without having a winning record — and this is almost as hard to do as going undefeated — was: A. Washington, NFC East, 2001 B. Cincinnati, AFL Central, 1970

5.

Almost every team has been to the Super Bowl, right?

Well, no; actually four current teams haven’t gotten their shot yet. Houston, Detroit and Jacksonville haven’t been to the “Big Game.” Name the other franchise that is still waiting: A. Cincinnati B. Kansas City C. Cleveland D. San Diego

C. Detroit, NFC Central, 1993 D. Seattle, NFC West, 2010

16.

Early in the league’s history, football teams often took the name of their city’s moreestablished baseball franchise.

Which of these teams did NOT play in the NFL? A. Brooklyn Dodgers B. New York Yankees C. Atlanta Braves D. Cincinnati Reds

17.

20.

When San Francisco’s Jim Harbaugh faces Baltimore’s John Harbaugh in Super Bowl XLVII, it will mark the first time a pair of brothers will coach against each other in the NFL championship game. Which team did Jim play quarterback for during his professional career?

A. Indianapolis Colts B. Denver Broncos C. Philadelphia Eagles D. Atlanta Falcons

Today everyone loves sacks. But for most of its history, the NFL didn’t even keep track of them, much to the frustration of defensive linemen. When did the sack become an official league stat?

A. 1982 B. 1976 C. 1985 D. 1979

18.

Which one of these active NFL quarterbacks is not in the all-time top 10 for career passing yardage?

A. Drew Brees B. Peyton Manning C. Tom Brady D. Eli Manning

19.

6.

Penalty flags, of course, are yellow. But prior to 1965, they were this color: A. Chartreuse B. Red C. Black D. White Rob Schneider /dallas Morning News/mct

This defensive back returned a remarkable 12 interceptions for touchdowns during his career, making him something of an offensive weapon on defense.

That’s a record, of course. Who is he?

A. Deion Sanders B. Rod Woodson C. Everson Walls D. Dick “Night Train” Lane

Jose Fajardo/ Contra Costa Times/MCT

Jim Harbaugh 1. A 2. D 3. A 4. B 5. C 6. D 7. C

ANSWERS 8. C 9. A 10. D 11. B 12. C 13. C 14. A

15. D 16. C 17. A 18. D 19. B 20. A

FOOD

TOj B6

TOJ

FEBRUARY 1 – FEBRUARY 7, 2013

Tips to make a game day party fun for everyone Family Features

Game day is no time to be sidelined in the kitchen. Do a little pre-game planning so you can spend less time cooking and more time cheering on the home team.

Keep it simple — Instead of taking up space with a lot of dishes to hold condiments, use muffin pans. Each well in the pans can hold a different topping for your burgers, hot dogs or chili. Put a spoon in each for easy dipping. It’s simple, fun, and you’ll have fewer postgame dishes to wash.

Set up a dipping station —

Have a selection of salsas and guac available so everyone can have their favorite. From Wholly Salsa’s classics to the new red pepper mango or roasted tomato varieties, fans can find a salsa to cheer about. And for guacamole lovers, try Wholly Guacamole’s all-natural, gluten free varieties. In addition to chips, set out some of these tasty dippers: • Bell pepper slices • Baked mozzarella sticks • Shrimp • Pita chips • Bagel chips • Jicama sticks • Mini rice cakes

Make sure you have enough — Don’t disappoint guests by run­ning out of munchies or drinks. Here’s how to figure out how much you need to prepare: • If you’re having 8 to 10 guests, figure on three different appetizers. For up to 16 guests, plan four or five appetizers.

• For non-alcoholic drinks, plan on two 16-ounce cups per person. Plan on about two glasses of wine or three beers per person.

• To have enough ice for drinks, as well as to keep drinks cold in a cooler, get about a pound and a half of ice per person.

These game day recipes will score big with the crowd at your house. You can find more delicious ways to homegate at www.eatwholly.com.

Homegating Snackers Yield: 10 to 12 1 tube pre-made pizza crust (thin) 1 7-ounce package Wholly Guacamole dip 1 red bell pepper cut into small strips Roll out uncooked pizza dough on counter.

Use football or other shaped cookie cutter to cut pizza dough and place on cookie sheet sprayed lightly with oil.

Cook dough according to packaging instruc­tions. Allow to thoroughly cool.

When cool, spread with guacamole and use cheese shreds and pepper to create football laces and markings.

Optional: Plate on a bed of shredded lettuce, and use sour cream to create field yard lines.

Avocado Cream Cheese Dip Serves: 6 1 8-ounce package cream cheese 1 7-ounce package Wholly Guacamole 3/4 teaspoon salt, divided 1 lime, juiced 1 tablespoon cilantro, minced 1/2 teaspoon chili powder 2 cups sour cream 3 tablespoons chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, pureed 1 cup 3-cheese blend shredded cheese 1/2 cup green onion, sliced 3/4 cup Roma tomatoes, cored, seeded and diced Allow cream cheese to soften and warm to room temperature, about 30 minutes.

Whip cream cheese at medium speed for 3 min­utes to fluff. Add guacamole and beat for another minute.

Season mix with 1/4 teaspoon salt, half of lime juice and cilantro.

Transfer mixture to a 9 x 9-inch pan, and dust with chili powder.

Mix together sour cream, chipotle, 1/2 teaspoon salt and the rest of the lime juice.

Add to pan as the second layer.

Top with cheese; garnish with green onion and tomatoes.

Guacamole Chicken Taquitos Yield: 28 taquitos 1 orange, juiced 1 lime, juiced 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon black pepper 2 teaspoons chili powder 1 teaspoon ground cumin 6 tablespoons canola oil, divided 8 boneless skinless chicken thighs 1/3 cup minced yellow onion 2 tablespoons cilantro, minced 1 7-ounce package Wholly Guacamole 28 corn tortillas Mix together orange juice, lime juice, salt, pepper, chili powder, cumin and 3 tablespoons canola.

Add to chicken and marinate for 20 to 30 minutes.

Heat remaining canola oil over medium high heat.

Remove chicken from marinade.

Reserve marinade for later.

Cook chicken for 3 minutes on one side. Flip over and cook for another 3 minutes.

Add reserved marinade, turn heat to low, and allow to simmer for 20 minutes.

Uncover, and continue cooking for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and cool for 15 minutes.

Shred chicken into a separate pan.

Coat with a little of the reduced sauce — don’t use all of it or the taquitos will be oily.

Mix chicken with guacamole, cilantro and onion.

Warm tortillas, between wet paper towels, in the microwave (about 5 at a time), or by dipping them into a hot pan with a few table­spoons of oil.

Add about 2 tablespoons filling to each tortilla. Roll up and skewer with a toothpick to hold it together.

For best results, prepare deep fryer according to manufacturer’s instructions, and fry in batches for 2 minutes. When all taquitos have been fried, warm them up in a 350°F oven for 10 minutes.