Florida Courier - March 8, 2013

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Part 5: The life and death of Jimmy Jackson

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VOLUME 21 NO. 10

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MARCH 8 - MARCH 14, 2013

ROLLING THE DICE COMPILED FROM WIRE REPORTS

SANFORD – On Tuesday, lawyers for George Zimmerman canceled an expected hearing to try to have his murder charge dismissed under Florida’s “stand your ground” law – all but ensuring that Zimmerman will go to trial in June for the shooting death of Miami Gardens teen Trayvon Martin.

The disclosure was one of two major developments Tuesday at what had been expected to be a dull hearJOE BURBANK/ORLANDO SENTINEL/MCT ing about the exchange of case evidence. It also was George Zimmerman – who has gained more than revealed that Martin’s girl100 pounds since his arrest last year – is making a friend, the state’s most imrisky strategic decision, according to some defense portant witness in the murder case, was caught lying attorneys.

George Zimmerman’s defense team delays their attempt to have his murder charge dismissed. Instead, they’ll prepare for a June trial amid reports that Trayvon Martin’s girlfriend, who said she heard the shooting while speaking to Trayvon, lied under oath. under oath.

Zimmerman, 29, is charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of Martin on Feb. 26, 2012.

Zimmerman said he was watching over a Sanford neighborhood as a crime

watch volunteer when he became suspicious of Martin, who was walking to his father’s apartment in the rain. Zimmerman called police, where a dispatcher advised him not to follow the suspicious teen. But prose-

WINTER 2013

Here’s why we live in Florida

cutors believe Zimmerman did follow Martin, triggering a confrontation that left Zimmerman with a broken nose and Martin, who was unarmed, dead.

Who started it?

Zimmerman told police that Martin attacked him and said he fired his gun in self-defense. The trial is likely to turn on whether the jury believes Zimmerman started the fight or whether Martin did – and whether Zimmerman was justified in firing his gun.

Martin’s Miami girlfriend told police that she was on the phone with Martin moments before the scuffle See ZIMMERMAN, Page A2

Manslaughter, not just hazing Charges upgraded in Champion killing

BY DENISE-MARIE ORDWAY AND STEPHEN HUDAK ORLANDO SENTINEL / MCT

ZBIGNIEW BZDAK/CHICAGO TRIBUNE/MCT

A person walks on Museum Campus during a snowstorm in Chicago on Tuesday. As Floridians experienced a short cold snap this week, a late-season snowstorm swept across the northern U.S.

ORLANDO – Prosecutors have upgraded the charges facing 10 former FAMU band members to manslaughter in the hazing death of drum major Robert Champion.

Champion, 26, one of six drum majors who led FAMU’s “Marching 100” band in 2011, died after he was beaten on a charter bus parked at the Rosen Plaza Hotel in Orlando, where the band stayed during the Florida Classic weekend.

Prosecutors also charged two more former band members, Henry Nesbitt, 26, and Darryl Cearnel, 25, in the hazing homicide.

Cearnel performed CPR on Champion when paramedics arrived. Nesbitt called 911, according to the sheriff’s investigative summary.

Neither cooperated with the Orange County sheriff’s investigation into Champion’s death, according to a summary released last year by the state attorney’s office.

Manslaughter, a second-degree felony in Florida, is punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Last spring, the 10 were charged with felony hazing, a third-degree felony. The maximum for felony hazing is five years.

‘Courage’ applauded

SNAPSHOTS FLORIDA | A3

Numbers of militia groups at all-time high

BY MICHAEL MUSKAL LOS ANGELES TIMES / MCT

Brother’s upset about response to sinkhole

NATION | a6

Factory work returns to US

FINEST | B5

Meet Tanari

ALSO INSIDE

Efforts to limit gun violence and to bring about immigration reform have led to a growing backlash from the extreme right, including the so-called patriot and militia groups, a civil rights group said Tuesday.

In its latest report, the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extreme right-wing and hate groups, said that it had counted 1,360 patriot groups in 2012, up about 7 percent from the 1,274 active in 2011. But that is also a rise of 813 percent since 2008, the year Barack Obama was elected the nation’s first African-American president.

The groups include 321 militias, far more than the movement’s previous peak in the 1990s, when militias were inflamed by the 1993 Brady Bill to control guns and the 1994 assault rifle ban, the center said.

MCT FILE PHOTO

Deadly conflicts with federal officials at Ruby Ridge, Idaho in 1992 and Waco, Texas in 1993 are a constant focus of militia groups.

murder of 26 children and adults at a Connecticut school and the Obama-led gun control efforts that followed, it seems likely that that growth will pick up speed once again,” the center noted.

The report also cites the election of Obama, efforts to grant Picking up speed more than 11 million undocu“Now, in the wake of the mass mented immigrants a path to cit-

izenship, and a troubled economy as contributing factors in the growth of the far-right groups.

“We are seeing a real and rising threat of domestic terrorism as the number of far-right antigovernment groups continues to grow at an astounding pace,” said Mark Potok, Southern Poverty

On Monday, the Champion family applauded State Attorney Jeff Ashton’s “courage in amending theses charges to be more [commensurate] with the heinous crime committed,” said the family’s attorney, Christopher Chestnut. Ashton notified the family of the changes late last week, Chestnut said.

Champion’s parents had been disappointed and upset last May when Lawson Lamar, who then was state attorney, decided to charge those involved with Champion’s death only with felony hazing.

“This is what we’ve been saying all along, and finally someone has the courage to hold these folks accountable,” Chestnut said, adding that a felony hazing charge alone essentially “was a slap on the wrist and basically an endorsement to continue the practice.”

Circuit Judge Marc Lubet, who is presiding over the FAMU criminal case, scheduled a pretrial conference for Aug. 2, meaning that any trial would occur later. Defense lawyers told the judge that preparing for a trial has been difficult because the case could involve as many as 100 witnesses.

FAMU at fault?

Chestnut also criticized FAMU,

See GROUPS, Page A2

COMMENTARY: CHARLES W. CHERRY II: RANDOM THOUGHTS OF A FREE BLACK MIND | A4 COMMENTARY: REV. JESSE L. JACKSON: VOTING RIGHTS ACT AS NEEDED AS EVER | A5

See CHAMPION, Page A2

FOCUS

A2

MARCH 8 – MARCH 14, 2013

Senate business stops as Obama ‘shreds Constitution’

BY MICHAEL A. MEMOLI TRIBUNE WASHINGTON BUREAU / MCT

WASHINGTON, D.C. – What began as U.S. Sen. Rand Paul’s one-man crusade to press the Obama administration for clarity regarding its prosecution of U.S. citizens suspected of terrorist ties became a bipartisan spectacle in the Senate chamber Wednesday – one that delayed a vote on the president’s choice for CIA director.

Senate leaders had said they could hold a vote on John Brennan’s nomination as soon as Wednesday evening, barely 24 hours after a lopsided vote in favor of the choice in the Intelligence Committee.

But shortly before noon Paul, R-Ky., began a rare “talking filibuster” and vowed to continue speaking until the White House answered whether it would rule out targeted killings of American citizens within the United States.

Under Rule XIX of the

vides a very important opportunity for the United States Senate to consider the government’s rules and policies on the targeting killings of Americans,” Wyden said. “What it comes down to is, every American has the right to know when their government believes that it is allowed to kill them.”

Senate, senators who have been recognized to speak may do so for as long as they wish and cannot be forced to cede the floor or even be interrupted without their consent, according to the Congressional Research Service.

‘Can’t sit by’ “I have allowed the president to pick his appointees, but I will not sit quietly and let him shred the Constitution,” he said, noting he voted for President Barack Obama’s nominees to lead the State and Defense departments. “I cannot sit at my desk quietly and let the president say he will kill Americans on American soil who are not actively attacking the country.”

Help from others Paul had spoken for three hours uninterrupted before other Republicans came to the floor to give him a brief respite by asking him to yield for questions. It allowed Paul to re-

Not about Brennan

DON BARTLETTI/LOS ANGELES TIMES/MCT

Senate Republicans and Democrats are concerned about whether the Obama administration will use drones like this one to target and kill – without arrest or trial – American “terrorists” inside the continental United States. main in control of the debate, though he remained standing.

Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Ted

Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida joined the discussion. A Democrat, Ron Wyden of Oregon, also came to the floor to say he

supported Paul’s effort for greater oversight of the administration’s efforts. “...Sen. Paul and I agree that this nomination... pro-

GROUPS from A1 Law Center senior fellow and author of the report. “It is critically important that the country take this threat seriously. The potential for deadly violence is real, and clearly rising.”

Constant vigil

er the damaging report as the judge weighs the university’s request to throw out the family’s wrongful-death lawsuit.

Komanski has not yet ruled.

with findings and recommendations in the preliminary report,” FAMU’s interim president Larry Robinson told The Orlando Sentinel.

Founded in 1971, the center has been the leading watchdog of the extreme right ever since, monitoring a diverse collection of groups that includes neo-Nazis, White nationalists, Black separatists, Holocaust deniers and the patriot and militia movement.

In general, the patriot and militia enthusiasts believe that the U.S. government is seeking to disarm them as a first step to destroying personal liberty and then turning the country over to foreigners seeking world domination.

From 149 organizations in 2008, the number of patriot groups shot up to 512 in 2009, jumped again to 824 in 2010, and then skyrocketed to 1,274 in 2011 before hitting an alltime high last year, the center said.

‘Exceeds’ best practices

Against reinstatement

First inkling

After a Tuesday press conference in Atlanta, Champion’s mother said she was against reinstating the “100,” who did not perform at any FAMU football games for the 2012-2013 season. The university had attempted to hire a new band director.

“If you have not cleaned up anything...then what good is bringing in a new band director going to do?” Pamela Champion said. “[It’s] just taking a new band director and throwing him into dirty water.”

Chestnut added that FAMU needs to show that it has complied with a list of changes recommended by the Inspector General.

For many Americans, the first inkling of the militia movement came in the August 1992 standoff at Ruby Ridge in Idaho, where three were killed, including a U.S. marshal, in a dispute that involved an illegalweapons charge.

By February 1993, the U.S. government found itself in another battle over illegal weapons, this time in Waco, Texas, against a group known as the Branch Davidians. In an initial confrontation, four agents and six members of the group were killed in a shootout. On April 19, the government attacked the compound, which caught fire, killing 76 more members of the group.

Citing Ruby Ridge and Waco, Timothy McVeigh, a militia movement member, launched a homemade truck bomb attack on the Alfred P.

RED HUBER/ORLANDO SENTINEL/MCT

Pam, left, and Robert Champion, Sr. say they will fight any effort to reinstate FAMU’s ‘Marching 100’ band until hazing is eradicated at the university.

CHAMPION from A1 saying Champion would not be dead and no one would be facing jail time if the university had done a better job preventing and controlling hazing within its famed ensemble.

The university also is a defendant in a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by Chestnut.

Champion’s death prompted the Board of Governors of the State University System to investigate FAMU’s handling of hazing on campus. In December 2012, BOG Inspector General Derry Harper released a stinging report concluding that FAMU lacked the internal controls needed to identify and fight hazing before Champion was killed.

Chestnut asked OrangeOsceola County Circuit Judge Walter Komanski to consid-

In their response to the report, FAMU administrators stressed that their current anti-hazing program “embraces and exceeds” the 16 best practices for anti-hazing programs that were established by a council of university-system leaders.

They point out that they have created a number of new positions, including a recently hired anti-hazing official.

They have created a website to make it easier for students to report hazing, and have reorganized the music department to better control and monitor the “Marching 100” band.

“Our response identifies instances in which we concur

ZIMMERMAN from A1 with Zimmerman and said Martin told her he was being followed by a man who frightened him.

Her lies about her later whereabouts and about her age could hurt her credibility. She is the only person – other than Zimmerman, who is not required to testify – who could describe what happened moments before Martin was killed.

ground issue in April, as originally anticipated.

Shawn Vincent, a spokesman for Zimmerman’s defense team, emphasized that the lawyers have not waived Zimmerman’s right to seek immunity; however, Zimmerman’s lawyers may seek to invoke the stand your ground law as part of his trial, scheduled to begin June 10.

Could be dismissed

‘No downside’

Zimmerman was expected to rely on the stand your ground law in an effort to have the murder case tossed out by a judge without a jury trial. Under the controversial law, a person is immune from prosecution for using deadly force if the person reasonably believes he or she is in danger.

But on Tuesday, defense attorney Mark O’Mara told Seminole County Circuit Court Judge Debra Nelson that he would not be seeking a two-week pre-trial hearing on the stand your

The approach is unusual. Typically, defendants relying on the stand your ground law try to have the case dismissed before going to trial. If a judge finds that the defendant’s use of force was justified, the charges must be dismissed.

Even if a judge denies the motion for immunity and allows the case to go forward, the pre-trial hearings can provide strategic benefits to defense lawyers, allowing them to cross-examine prosecution witnesses and get a

preview of the state’s case, experts say.

“There are enormous benefits to having the hearing pre-trial,” said Miami attorney Jeffrey Weiner, who has handled several stand your ground cases. “I don’t see a downside.”

A hearing could be risky to Zimmerman if he were to testify – allowing the prosecution to cross-examine him and look for inconsistencies in his description of his encounter with Martin. But a defendant is not required to testify at a stand your ground hearing, said Miami attorney Andrew Rier, who also has handled stand your ground cases.

“There’s no harm” to the hearing, Rier said. “The worst that can happen is that you lose your stand your ground (motion) and you go to trial.”

If the judge does conclude that Zimmerman’s use of force was justified, he may also be protected from any civil lawsuits stemming from the shooting. Zimmerman could face a wrongful death suit from Martin’s parents, who have hired the law firm of Parks and Crump.

“The issue’s not Brennan.

The issue is whether members of the Senate have the right to ask relevant, significant and important public policy questions and get a direct answer from this administration,” said Rubio, a potential rival of Paul’s in a 2016 Republican presidential nomination fight.

The last time a talking filibuster occurred was in December 2010, when Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., spoke for all but 80 minutes in a nearly nine-hour period to oppose a compromise to extend the George W. Bush-era tax rates.

Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995. At least 168 people died and 680 were injured in the attack. McVeigh was convicted and executed.

In a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, the center warned of the potential for current domestic terrorism and urged the creation of a new interagency task force to assess the adequacy of federal resources devoted to the threat.

‘Ominous threats’ “As in the period before the Oklahoma City bombing, we now are seeing ominous threats from those who believe that the government is poised to take their guns,” wrote Richard Cohen, the center’s president and a member of the Department of Homeland Security’s Countering Violent Extremism Working Group.

In October 1994, the center wrote to then-Attorney General Janet Reno about the growing threat of domestic extremism; the Oklahoma City federal building was bombed six months later in the country’s deadliest act of domestic terrorism, the center said.

In the wake of a series of gun attacks in recent years, the government has moved to toughen its gun laws on both the state and federal levels. Some states, such as New York, have already passed tougher laws and the issue is being debated in Congress. Some are seeking a new assault weapons ban and there is support for universal background checks.

The effort was renewed in the wake of the attack by a lone gunman on a Connecticut elementary school last year where 20 children and six adults were killed before the gunman committed suicide.

Potok said the December school shooting and subsequent gun control debate created a “white-hot rage” among extremist groups and a political climate “very reminiscent” of the period leading up to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

Found a witness

merman push Martin.

Sanford police found no witnesses to the initial confrontation. But Martin’s family attorney, Benjamin Crump, found something close: Martin’s girlfriend, identified in court records as “witness 8.” She told Crump she had been on the phone with Martin just before the shooting.

According to an interview Crump recorded after the shooting, the young woman said Martin told her a stranger was following him, and he was scared.

Martin got away from him once, but the man reappeared, she said, and she heard Martin ask, “What are you following me for?”

The man answered, “What are you doing here?” she said, and then she said the man must have pushed Martin because the phone went dead.

The woman gave prosecutors a very similar account during a sworn statement last April. The probable-cause affidavit charging Zimmerman with second-degree murder rehashed her account, but did not include her allegation that she heard Zim-

Key facts are consistent Despite’s Tuesday’s revelation, there is no indication the woman lied about what she heard on the phone the evening Martin was shot. But she appears to have given Crump another piece of bad information: her age.

He told reporters in March, when he played excerpts from the recorded interview, that she was 16 years old. In fact, she was 18 at the time. Crump has said he did not knowingly misrepresent her age. Prosecutors also conceded that the woman lied when she told investigators she was hospitalized at the time of Martin’s funeral.

Dismissal at trial?

It’s unclear whether Zimmerman’s defense team will be allowed to ask the judge to dismiss the case based on stand your ground once the trial has started. The strategy has been attempted before, unsuccessfully, in MiamiDade.

The defendant in that

case, Andrew James Rolle, is accused of murdering a Miami police detective in January 2008. He claims he was defending himself when he shot and killed James Walker in a confrontation in North Miami Beach.

Earlier this year, Rolle’s lawyer asked for a stand your ground immunity hearing to be held at the same time as the trial, allowing Rolle to testify only once. But Miami-Dade prosecutors objected; they worried that they would be unable to appeal the judge’s decision on the stand your ground issue once a jury was selected, because that would raise the issue of double jeopardy, which prevents defendants from being tried twice for the same crime.

Rolle withdrew his request this week.

Rene Stutzman and Jeff Weiner of the Orlando Sentinel and Scott Hiaasen and David Ovalle of the Miami Herald (MCT) all contributed to this report.

MARCH 8 – MARCH 14, 2013

FLORIDA not causing any injuries or structural damage, but raising fears among residents about the ground they live on.

There are a variety of factors that cause the development of sinkholes like the one that formed in Seffner.

Hillsborough County, where Seffner is situated, is part of an area in Florida prone to sinkholes, with insurance claims associated with them more than doubling between 2006 and 2009, according to a Florida Senate report.

“The area between Tampa and Orlando was a big agricultural area,” Randall Orndorff, geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, told ABC News. ‘There’s been a lot of development there and rainwater that used to percolate through the soil into the subsurface is now running off into either culverts or ditches, to storm drains.”

DIRK SHADD/TAMPA BAY TIMES/MCT

Above is an aerial view seen on March 4 of a sinkhole at 240 Faithway Drive in Seffner that opened up, killing Jeffrey Bush. The sinkhole is exposed as demolition of the house continues.

Brother: The rescuers could have tried harder to save sinkhole victim FROM WIRE REPORTS

The brother of a Florida man presumed swallowed by a sinkhole last week said he believes rescuers could have “tried harder’’ to save the Seffner man.

Demolition crews in Seffner on Monday knocked down walls of the house where Jeff Bush, 37, was living before a sinkhole swallowed his bedroom the night of Feb. 28.

The hole was not visible

outside the home before an 80-foot excavation arm knocked down the walls and revealed the chasm, which experts thought extended dozens of feet into the earth, where Bush’s body is thought to remain.

His brother, Jeremy Bush, has been vocal about his family’s desire to recover his brother’s body.

“That’s the hole I was in trying to get my brother out of,” according to Bay News 9 TV channel based in Tam-

pa. “I tried the hardest I could. I wanted to let him know I love him.

‘I tried my hardest to get you out, bro. I think Jeff Bush I’m the only one that really tried to get you out.’”

Jeremy Bush jumped into the deepening sinkhole but became trapped until a

sheriff’s deputy pulled him out.

Another sinkhole Local media reported that the family put mementos in the excavation bucket to be placed in the hole before officials began filling it with gravel in an effort to stabilize the immediate area.

Another sinkhole opened up a couple miles away in a backyard in Seffner,

Sinkhole factors Other states prone to sinkholes are Alabama, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee and Texas, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Here are some of the factors that can cause sinkholes: 1. Water. Sinkholes are typically caused when a deposit of earth comprised of a soluble rock, such as limestone, salt or gypsum, is exposed to water and dissolves. Areas that have large deposits of soluble rocks are particularly vulnerable. Once the water leaches away, it leaves a void underground that can cause the ground on the surface to collapse under its own weight. Sometimes, sub-surface water can help keep surface soil in place.

2. Disturbance of subsurface soil. When subsurface rocks develop a void because of erosion, surface soil gradually seeps down to fill the cavity. As this occurs, the cavernous

A3 hole moves upwards until it is very near to the surface, resulting in a collapse and subsequent sinkhole.

3. Humans. Human activity can also be a factor in the development of sinkholes. Whenever groundwater levels change – sometimes as a result of construction, development practices or groundwater pumping – sinkholes can form. The weight of a manmade construction, like a house, can expedite the formation of a sinkhole, adding extra weight that causes the surface soil to collapse. Additionally, a water main or sewage system bursting in an area where the base rock is soluble can also cause sinkholes.

“The human-induced aspect speeds up the process,” said Orndorff. “We see water mains or sewers in large cities. As the infrastructure deteriorates, collapses can occur.”

Some signs Your home and the area you live in can offer clues about the possibility of sinkholes.

Telltale signs are pavement or floors that have become uneven, or a stair step pattern of cracks appearing on the wall of a building. Sagging or slumping trees or fence posts can be another indicator, as well as pools of water forming where they have not previously.

“If you already live in an area with a history of sinkholes, we don’t yet have a good geo-physical method, sort of like an MRI, that can find voids in the earth,” said Orndorff. “At the same time, we have entire cities, like Nashville or St. Louis, who are sitting on these areas, so sometimes it’s a matter of engineering.”

Reports from the Associated Press, ABC News and Los Angeles Times were used in this report.

Casey Anthony questioned about bankruptcy filing

BY JEFF WEINER ORLANDO SENTINEL/MCT

TAMPA – Does Casey Anthony have a book deal?

“No, sir,” the infamous former murder defendant said in Tampa on Monday.

Was she offered a movie deal?

“No, sir.”

A deal for a TV show?

“No, sir.”

On Monday, Anthony came out of hiding for the first time since she was acquitted in the death of her daughter in 2011. She appeared at the Sam M. Gibbons United States Courthouse in Tampa, to answer questions in her recently filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

First, she faced the media: Anthony exited an SUV into a throng of cameras and reporters. She was ushered to the courthouse under the arm of defense attorney Cheney Mason, a coat and hat covering her face as reporters shouted questions, including, “Did you get away with murder?”

Next, she faced trustee Stephen Meininger, who asked several questions trial-watchers have wanted to know ever since the not-

guilty verdict almost two years ago.

“Who has been arranging where you live?” Meininger asked.

“Friends and counsel,” Anthony replied.

Followed Meininger: “Do you or someone on your behalf pay for you staying there?”

“I don’t pay rent, I don’t pay utilities so I’m, I guess you could say that I’m living for free, or off the kindness of the people that I’m staying with,” Anthony said.

Where does she get food?

“I try to contribute when I can but usually, it’s also friends buying food,” Anthony said.

Questioned about photos During the hearing, Anthony was surrounded by lawyers. Her bankruptcy lawyer, David Schrader, sat to her right. To her left was Charles Greene, her lead civil attorney, who repeatedly interrupted her answers, whispering in her ear. Behind her was Mason, a criminal defense lawyer from her trial.

Jose Baez, Anthony’s former lead defense attorney

Bill would require warrants for cell phone searches

BY DAVID ROYSE THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

TALLAHASSEE – Police would need court approval to seize pictures, text messages or other material on cell phones or other personal electronic devices under a bill approved Monday by a Senate committee over the objection of police

and prosecutors.

“It’s very important that we secure information that I believe is private,” said the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Jeff Brandes, citing the proliferation of personal information that now is stored on people’s cells and tablets.

The Senate Criminal Justice Committee approved the bill (SB 846) on a 5-2

and her largest creditor, did not attend. But he was often a topic of conversation.

Anthony said he gave her $3,400.

Twice, she said, Anthony relinquished rights to photos of herself to her former lead lawyer. The first time, in 2008, she said Baez sold the photos to ABC for $200,000, money that was used to fund her defense.

The content and purpose of the second set of photos, given to Baez in September 2011, was less clear.

Anthony said those “were pictures I was asked to participate in. … I was asked to pose for a couple photographs, but that was the extent of my involvement.”

She said she believed Baez sold the photos, but didn’t know what he got for them.

Only one of Anthony’s creditors was represented at Monday’s creditors’ meeting: R. Scott Shuker, who represents a woman suing Anthony for defamation, attended and asked pointed questions.

Shuker was especially skeptical of Anthony’s claim that she’s received no offers to sell her story. He quoted Greene, in an interview, saying that there had vote, sending it next to the Judiciary Committee. It also needs approval from the Appropriations Committee before it can go to the floor. A House companion bill (HB 797) by Rep. Carlos Trujillo, R-Miami, is awaiting its first committee hearing.

2 cases pending Currently, police can search the possessions – including the contents of a personal electronic device - of someone who is arrested. The bill would require a warrant except under certain circumstances, including scenarios related to national security and missing children.

RED HUBER/ORLANDO SENTINEL/MCT

Attorney Cheney Mason, center left, covers the face of Casey Anthony on Monday as she enters Federal Courthouse in Tampa to meet with creditors to discuss her bankruptcy case. been offers.

Greene objected, and Anthony stumbled, ultimately saying, “I don’t know if he said that, no.”

If Meininger determines Anthony’s story is an asset, she could lose her rights to it as part of her bankruptcy.

Facing several lawsuits Shuker represents Zenaida Gonzalez, a woman with The bill also would require police to get a court to sign off on informational tracking of an electronic device for investigative purposes.

Law enforcement officials noted that the question of search and seizure rules related to personal electronic devices are the subject of two cases pending before the Florida Supreme Court.

In Smallwood v. State, a cell phone search was upheld by the 1st District Court of Appeal, though it asked the state Supreme Court to weigh in.

In Tracey v. State, the 4th District Court of Appeal ruled on real-time track-

a similar name to the fictional nanny Anthony told authorities had kidnapped her daughter in 2008. The girl was later found dead, but not before Gonzalez was questioned by investigators and linked to the case in the media.

It’s one of several lawsuits Anthony currently faces that could go away along with much of the rest of her debt if Anthony is granted

her request for a Chapter 7 discharge.

On Monday, Anthony referenced the Gonzalez suit when asked about the timing of her bankruptcy filing.

Why did she file for bankruptcy protection now?

“Because there was a delay for the trial in the Zenaida Gonzalez hearing,” she said. “And I needed closure.”

ing of such devices, finding that people have no real expectation of privacy while driving around on the open road – but also acknowledged that the changing nature of technology for cell phone tracking begged for a higher court ruling on the issue.

But Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, brushed off the idea of waiting for a court ruling. Courts, interpret the laws legislators write, he said.

“We are elected to make them,” said Brandes. “We’d be sending a strong message to all Floridians that this Legislature will stand up for the Fourth Amendment to the (U.S.) Constitution.”

Sen. Rob Bradley, RFleming Island, who was a prosecutor in the 1990s, and Sen. Charlie Dean, RInverness, a former sheriff, voted against the bill.

Wait or not?

The top lawyer at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said lawmakers should wait to avoid a situation where the new law might be at odds with a Supreme Court decision.

“We’ll be in a mess trying to figure out … what is the law,” said Michael Ramage, FDLE’s general counsel.

EDITORIAL

A4

MARCH 8 – MARCH 14, 2013

FAU should take private prison company name off stadium GEO Group “is a terrible company with a well-publicized track record of abuse and neglect and FAU should be ashamed to be associated with them.” Carl Takei, staff attorney for the ACLU’s National Prison Project I was shocked by a disturbing headline on the front page of the New York Times sports section last week: “A company That Runs Prisons Will Have Its Name on a Stadium.”

The article revealed that the stadium in question was not the home of a professional football team, but of the Florida Atlantic University (FAU) Owls who play in the University’s new $70 million dollar, 29,000-seat stadium located on its Boca Raton campus.

The GEO Group Stadium naming rights were secured

MARC H. MORIAL TRICE EDNEY WIRE

with a $6 million donation to FAU paid through the charitable arm of the nation’s second largest operator of for-profit prisons.

Prison industrial complex

newspaper article describes how two young adult illegal immigrants surreptitiously exposed conditions inside the GEO Group-run Broward Transitional Center (BTC), where hundreds of illegal immigrants who have committed no crimes or only minor non-violent ones, are held sometimes for months in terrible conditions.

Substandard care

The power of America’s prison industrial complex has now formed an unholy alliance with the big money game of college sports. And if that weren’t bad enough, the GEO Group has a welldocumented and extensive record of abuse and neglect in the facilities it runs.

A recent Sun-Sentinel

According to the article, “Once inside, they said they found people unjustly arrested and subjected to lengthy and unnecessary confinement, and reported incidents of substandard or callous medical care, including a woman taken for ovarian surgery and returned the same day, still bleeding, to her cell, and a

VISUAL VIEWPOINT: THE BLAME GAME

CHRISTOPHER WEYANT, THE HILL

Random thoughts of a free Black mind, v. 171 ‘Shredding the Constitution’ – Jeeeeezus. Between U. S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia calling enforcement of the 1965 Voting Rights Act “a racial entitlement” and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder refusing to rule out killing American citizens via drone strikes on American soil, does the Constitution even matter anymore? Regular readers know that “assassination by drone” has stuck in my craw for a while. I’d be happy to join the bipartisan filibuster on the U.S. Senate floor (see Page A2) if I could.

But still not a mumblin’ word from “the world’s oldest and greatest civil rights organization,” the NAACP. It refuses to criticize a Black president – a Constitutional scholar at that – who allows his Black U.S. attorney general to opine that targeting American ‘terrorists’ for governmental execution anywhere on the planet is legal, due process be damned. Instead, the NAACP is sending email blasts about an allegedly racist Bloomberg Businessweek magazine cover. Thurgood Marshall, W.E.B. Dubois, MLK, and other principled Black leadership now dead and gone are shaking their heads from the Great Beyond at what passes for Black organiza-

quick takes from #2: straight, no chaser

Charles W. Cherry II, Esq. PUBLISHER

tional ‘leadership’ these days...

Stock market ‘sugar high’ – It’s part of the long-term plan to suck what’s left of the American middle class into a permanent financial relationship with Wall Street. How? By making risk-free bank savings rates close to zero, and making Wall Street the only savings option. The government also provides corporate welfare to big corporations, favorable tax benefits to your retirement fund ONLY when you invest in Wall Street stocks and bonds, and gives tax breaks to Wall Street hedge fund managers and corporate CEOs. Most Black folks believed the stock market was a casino. We were happy saving our money in savings accounts and certificates of deposit. What now?

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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man who urinated blood for days but wasn’t taken to see a doctor.”

In response to this investigation, 26 members of Congress, including South Florida Democrats, Ted Deutch, Frederica Wilson and Alcee Hastings, wrote a letter to the director of the U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement demanding a full review of conditions at BTC. Last year, a federal judge, in response to a joint ACLU/Southern Poverty Law Center lawsuit, called the GEO Group’s Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility in Mississippi, “a cesspool of unconstitutional and inhumane acts and conditions… a picture of such horror as should be unrealized anywhere in the civilized world.”

The judge ordered mass transfers out of the prison and prohibited further solitary confinement of youth.

Soon after the judge’s ruling, the State of Mississippi ended its contract with GEO.

‘Owlcatraz’ I am not the only one outraged by the attempt of a clearly tainted private prison company to clean up its name by associating with a college football team. Both the National Immigration Youth Alliance and the ACLU have called on FAU to reconsider its decision to associate itself with GEO group and FAU students have started derisively calling the new stadium “Owlcatraz.”

In its statement, ACLU added, “Prison profiteers

like GEO depend for their profits on the continued large-scale incarceration of young men and women – many of whom are people of color. Nationwide, 58 percent of the people in prison are African-American or Latino. So the FAU Owls football team (most of whom are African-American themselves) will be sponsored by a company whose core business depends on the continued over-incarceration of young people who look much like themselves.”

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.

Voting Rights Act as needed as ever The Supreme Court has heard yet another challenge to the Voting Rights Act in the case of Shelby v. Holder.

On the same day, across the street in the congressional rotunda, a statue honoring Rosa Parks was unveiled.

And this week, the nation will celebrate the 48th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the march from Selma to Montgomery that helped spur President Johnson to champion the act.

The Voting Rights Act has helped fulfill the nation’s commitment to inclusion — to a big tent democracy that guarantees to all citizens the right to vote.

Yet many fear that the rightwing “Gang of Five” on the Supreme Court will once more display their scorn for judicial restraint and strike down Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires pre-clearance of any voting rules that might impinge on minority participation in states and counties with histories of racial discrimination.

President Obama and his Justice Department have defended the act unequivocally. In 2006, a Republican Congress reauthorized the act for 25 more years, after holding 21 hearings and amassing more than 15,000 pages of evidence on continuing voting discrimination in the covered districts.

Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. TRICEEDNEYWIRE.COM

come more, not less, racially polarized. Obama’s “rising American electorate” is grounded on the rising participation of minorities (along with single women and the young). After 2008, a more-conservative, moreSouthern and more-white Republican Party set out to constrict voting in ways that would discriminate against minorities.

For example, of the nine states covered in their entirety by Section 5, lawmakers in six have passed restrictive new voting laws since 2010. Texas had its harsh voter identification law overturned under Section 5. Florida’s effort to reduce voting hours in a way that would discriminate against minorities was blocked. South Carolina had to make changes in its new restrictive laws. Anyone paying attention knows that the Voting Rights Act is more, not less, vital as political parties and leaders struggle to adjust to the inclusion of growing Hispanic and Asian-American populations and the rising participation of African-Americans.

abama, Shelby County’s home state) and 390-33 in the House. The Justice Department reported that between 1982 and 2006, it had used Section 5 a total of 2,400 times to block discriminatory changes in voting rules. Republican President George W. Bush signed reauthorization into law. In the current case, Republican-appointed justices at the District Court and the Circuit Court levels voted to uphold the law. If the Gang of Five acts to overturn it, it will be an act of disgraceful judicial usurpation in a matter of extreme importance to our politics and our democracy.

The Voting Rights Act has been central to the transformation that is making America’s diversity a strength, rather than a liability.

Ironically, it is this very progress that is used to attack the act. Shelby County claims that the areas covered by Section 5 should not be under special scrutiny because things have changed. The election of The Rev. Jesse L. JackBarack Obama is used as son, Sr. is president and evidence.

CEO of the Rainbow/ PUSH Coalition. Click on Constricting voting Disgraceful justice The sad reality, of course, this story at www.flcouriThe margin was 980 in the Senate (includ- is that since Obama’s elec- er.com to write your own ing the senators from Al- tion, our politics have be- response.

It’s time for all of us to be Americans For the first time in U.S. history, the Senate confirmation of a Presidential nominee for Secretary of Defense was filibustered — and at a time we most needed a Secretary in place!

When asked to explain the rationale for the Republican filibuster of the confirmation of Senator Chuck Hagel, Senator John McCain justified the delay by saying, “When he (Chuck Hagel) was a Republican”, he criticized President George W. Bush; he criticized the “surge” of U.S. military forces in Iraq, and he offended many of his fellow Republicans with his opposition to party-line policies.

Other Republicans suggested their opposition to the Hagel nomination was based upon his questionable support of Israel and his less than hard line position against Iran. Hagel’s critics have, by their own weak critiques, demonstrated the true lack of substance to their objections.

Filibuster misused Remarkably, I’ve heard several reporters suggest it understandable that John McCain responded the way he did. After all, in 2008 Hagel endorsed then Senator Barack Obama for President.

As for Senator Lindsey Graham, can we believe that his only concern with

lenge for not being conserenough, the misguidDr. E. Faye vative ed efforts of a Texas SenaWilliams, tor who views his role as the Esq. destruction of established government, the sublimatTRICE EDNEY WIRE ed arrogance of perceived superiority or the manifescreating a delay in the con- tation of actual racism all firmation process was the seem focused on defeating possibility that addition- the President’s goals. al information would surface to disqualify Hagel?

Will of the people Was Graham’s real interest The will of the American in discovery of the facts of Benghazi or in how much people put the President in his accusations of malfea- office. Our majority vote afsance might muddy the wa- firmed our trust in his judgment and our belief that he ters of public opinion? should be able to select his Character judgment own cabinet.

We cannot be misled by How should we judge the the media or the excuses role of Ted Cruz, Texas Tea Party Senator, in painting a given by any of those more picture of Hagel as an Ira- intent on obstructionism nian collaborator in the de- than on national interest. lay? What level of credence Through the application of can we place in the charac- our political will – whethter and judgment of an indi- er vote, visit, call, letter or vidual who would impugn, email – those who’d obwith accusations based struct in opposition to the merely upon innuendo, the common good must learn integrity of a public servant that a price will be paid.

Wouldn’t you prefer our with the preeminent backofficials acting like Ameriground of a Chuck Hagel?

The larger question is cans rather than Republihow we will frame this cans or Democrats? spectacle of a confirmation Dr. E. Faye Williams process.

The warped resentment is chair of the National of the first White presiden- Congress of Black Womwww.nationalcontial candidate soundly de- en, 202/678feated by an African-Ameri- gressbw.org. can, the insecurity of a Sen- 6788). Click on this story ator who faces the potential at www.flcourier.com to of a primary election chal- write your own response.

MARCH 8 – MARCH 14, 2013

EDITORIAL

Sequestration undermines fight against HIV in Black America The federal budget sequestration is scheduled to go into effect.

This will result in across-the-board cuts of 5.3 percent in most non-defense discretionary programs, including Ryan White, HIV prevention, HIV research, AIDS housing support, and prevention and treatment programs for people with substance abuse problems.

By withholding vital funding from essential HIV programs that have seen minimal increases in recent years, these looming cuts will undermine efforts to achieve the targets set forth in the National HIV/AIDS Strategy.

The most severe effects will be felt in Black America, which has been more heavily affected by the HIV epidemic than any other racial or ethnic group.

Deciding moment We are at a deciding moment in the trajectory of the AIDS epidemic. We are either going to decide to do what’s necessary to end the epidemic in this country or we’re going to decide to continue to see American citizens get infected, get sick and die from AIDS. The decision to let sequestration go into effect is a decision to let people get sick and die. Sequestration will

PHILL WILSON NNPA COLUMNIST

have a devastating impact upon the fight to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Black communities.

Discretionary health spending of any kind accounts for only 1.5 percent of the nearly $4 trillion in federal spending, and domestic HIV-related spending ($22.25 billion in FY2013, as proposed in the President’s executive budget) represents a mere 2.4 percent of total federal outlays on health ($920 billion in FY2013).

Cuts devastating Although Black Americans represent approximately 13 percent of the U.S. population, Blacks account for 44 percent of all new HIV infections. Effects of these cuts are likely to be most pronounced in the South, where Black people account for only about a quarter of the total population but for the large majority living with HIV. With Black people accounting for 32 percent of all ADAP clients

in 2011 - and with the epidemic’s disproportionate toll in Black communities increasing over time - under the sequester we can assume at least 3,241 Black Americans living with HIV will lose access to essential antiretroviral treatments and other HIV drugs in Fiscal Year 2013 alone.

Black Americans are more likely to seek HIV testing than other Americans - the percentage of Black adults who have ever been tested is more than twice as high as for Whites - so Black America will account for a disproportionate share of the 424,000 Americans who fail to access HIV testing as a result of across-the-board budget cuts.

Delayed care This will mean delayed entry to care for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Black Americans, and will also contribute to unknowing HIV transmission among individuals who would have learned their HIV-positive status had these cuts not gone into effect.

Assuming recent epidemiological patterns continue, at least 350 Black Americans would needlessly acquire HIV as a result of diminished access to critical HIV pre-

A5

VISUAL VIEWPOINT: HIV CURE

NATE BEELER, THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

enough. Ending the AIDS epidemic is going to require a greater level commitment on our part-all of us.

Including our national leadership.

To learn more about the impact of sequestration on Black AmeriEnding AIDS epidemic ca, visit www.blackaids.org/docs/ We have the tools to end the fs-sequestration.pdf AIDS epidemic. We have better surveillance, better diagnosPhill Wilson is the president tics, better treatment and better and CEO of the Black AIDS Inprevention tools. Our president is stitute. Neil Lowe, Ph.D. is board committed to better health for all chair of the Black AIDS Institute.

Americans, including those of us The Black AIDS Institute, foundliving with or at risk of HIV infec- ed in May of 1999, is the only nation. tional HIV/AIDS think tank in Clearly having the tools is not the United States focused excluenough. Having a National HIV/ sively on Black people. Click on AIDS Strategy is not enough. Hav- this story at www.flcourier.com ing the Affordable Care Act is not to write your own response. vention services.

Almost 300 HIV-related research grants will be without funding, including 32 for vaccine-related research.

A difference a day makes involving Blacks, justice The State of Equality and Justice in America” is a 20-part series of columns written by an all-star list of contributors to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Let’s just take one day, Feb. 27, 2013, as a snapshot of the state of equality and justice in America.

For me, that day started off tense.

The Supreme Court was set to hear oral arguments in the case of Shelby County v. Holder — a constitutional challenge to one of the most effective provisions of any civil rights law in American history: Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Section 5 requires nine states and assorted jurisdictions in seven others to secure Justice Department approval before changing their voting laws.

Ominous sign The civil rights community collectively saw it as an ominous sign that the Supreme Court even agreed to revisit the constitutionality of Section 5. The Voting Rights Act of 1965, almost a century after passage of the 15th Amendment — finally brought full voting rights and a more representative government to the South.

I refuse to be pessimistic because the facts are on our side and the congressional hearing record justifying Section 5 was meticulous. It only takes 4 Justices to

LAURA W. MURPHY TRICEEDNEYWIRE.COM

agree to hear a case, but I believe that five justices will uphold the law.

During arguments, the lawyers ably defended Section 5, but they were confronted with clear hostility from conservative justices. Justice Scalia stunned everyone by openly showing contempt for the 2006 reauthorization of the VRA

by Congress.

“Who wouldn’t,” he asked caustically, “vote for something called the ‘Voting Rights Act’?” He then piled on even more, calling Section 5 a “racial entitlement.”

As someone tweeted: Wasn’t voting a White-only racial entitlement prior to the Voting Rights Act? Contrast these very real challenges with a joyous and historic event that started an hour after the Shelby oral argument right across the street.

Rosa Parks honored Inside the United States Capitol (an edifice built with slave labor), in a ceremony filled with all of the pomp and circumstance afforded to presidents and war he-

roes, Congress unveiled a life size statue of Rosa Parks. Parks ignited the Montgomery bus desegregation boycott by being arrested for refusing to give her seat to a White passenger.

Her statue sits among a cluster of White men encircling the round hall, and falls within the gaze of the statue of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy during the Civil War. At the ceremony were family members of Parks, a military Color Guard, and the United States Army Chorus, which gave a stirring rendition of the Negro National Anthem “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”

Republican and Democratic Congressional leaders all addressed the large crowd with unusual poignancy.

And three history-making Black men spoke as well: Rev. Barry Black, the first Black chaplain of the United States Senate; Rep. James Clyburn, the first AfricanAmerican elected to Congress from South Carolina since Reconstruction (as a result of the Voting Rights Act Extension of 1982); and the first Black president, Barack Hussein Obama.

My heart swelled and tears came to my eyes. I felt lifted by how far we have come as a people of African descent in the United States. I was elated that Ms. Parks would be afforded such an honor and granted such universal respect. And I noticed all the Black, Asian-Amer-

ican and Latino members of Congress, whose numbers had tripled, as a result of the VRA, in the three decades since I first stepped foot on Capitol Hill.

Wealth gap

was signed into law by President Obama in 2010 and championed

by Attorney General Eric Holder, the first African-American to hold that post.”

Though a superb development, it’s tempered by the fact that one out of every 13 African-Americans is disfranchised because of a criminal conviction and Black male incarceration rates are more than six times the national average for White men.

So, that was February 27th for me. Just one day shows that from hour-to-hour the pendulum can swing from joy to despair and despair to joy.

That’s the state of equality and justice in America today: conflicted, fickle, and a source of both hope and great concern in virtually equal measure.

As I left the ceremony, beaming, I had a message on my BlackBerry that immediately swung the pendulum back to tense. The Institute of Assets and Social Policy released a study titled “The Roots of the Racial Wealth Gap: Explaining the Black-White Economic Divide,” which tells a terrible story.

As detailed in the report, the wealth gap between White and African-American families has tripled in the last 25 years, driven by dramatic disparities in years of home ownership, unemployment, post-secondary education, generational wealth transfer and finanLaura Murphy is director, cial support among families and Washington Legislative Offriends. fice, American Civil Liberties Union. The Lawyers’ CommitImprisonment declines tee is a nonpartisan, nonprofBut, after returning home, I am it organization, formed in 1963 able to read the New York Times, at the request of President John and I get a dose of good news: an F. Kennedy to enlist the private article reporting sharply declining bar’s leadership and resources rates of imprisonment for African- in combating racial discriminaAmericans, a trend we hope to see tion and the resulting inequalcontinue in the years to come. ity of opportunity - work that One reason for optimism is the continues to be vital today. For Fair Sentencing Act, a bill that I more information, visit www. worked on with my colleagues in lawyerscommittee.org. Click on the criminal justice reform and this story at www.flcourier.com civil rights movements, which to write your own response.

Internet makes a difference when Blacks make a purchase Did you know that tens of thousands of new products are introduced to consumer markets around the world every year? It could be a new flavor of ice cream, a fancy new electronic gadget or the latest shade of red lipstick that not only moisturizes, but practically stays on for life.

Then poof! You turn around and your new favorite isn’t there anymore. That’s because more than half of all new products will disappear from the shelf within the first three years of their debut, according to Nielsen insights.

New product awareness Whether you live in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Latin America or here in the United States, we Internet-savvy consumers are a stubborn group. We like what we like. Our purchasing trends and habits worldwide are documented in the Nielsen Global Survey of New Product PurchaseSentiment, where the company surveyed more than 29,000 consumers with Internet access from 58 different countries about new product awareness.

Now, I am like a new product groupie. I see it and I head out to buy it. The report shows that consumers are optimistic about trying new products, but there is bit of anxiety at the thought of switching brands.

Half of the global respondents did report being willing to switch to a new brand, with 57 percent of respondents in the United States

• Willing to pay a premium price, 39 percent CHERYL Just as consumers across the PEARSONglobe have multiple choices in how we enjoy media content, we MCNEIL also have a multi-mix of media from which to choose when conNNPA COLUMNIST sidering purchasing a new prodbeing the most enthusiastic if all uct. the conditions are right.

In addition to relevance, need Internet advertising Nielsen’s global survey shows and distinctiveness, the data shows that marketers need to that the Internet is a major influconsider the emotional factors ence in that mix. According to that go into a consumer’s deci- Nielsen, consumers are increassion to make a new purchase ingly finding the Internet and mochoice. Around the world, those bile vehicles just as compelling as emotional factors are universal: more traditional advertising.

Traditional advertising platvalue, variety, proof-of-concept forms include TV, radio, newspaand familiarity.

Here’s a look at the percent of per, billboards and direct mail. consumers around the globe that Globally, 77 percent of responddefinitely/somewhat agree to the ers felt word-of-mouth referrals general purchase of new prod- by friends and family is the biggest persuasion factor for puructs: • Will purchase a store brand or chasing products, followed by seeing a new product in a store at value option, 64 percent • Like when manufacturers of- 72 percent, while 70 percent try fer new product options, 63 per- free samples and 67 percent use active Internet searches. cent U.S. respondents seem to be a • Wait until a new innovation bit more skeptical about Internet has proven itself, 60 percent • Prefer to buy new products of searching on new products, with 59 percent of us saying we were familiar brands, 60 percent • Like to tell others about new much more or somewhat more likely to purchase a new product products, 59 percent • Generally willing to switch to after Internet research.

Also in the U.S., 45 percent of a new brand, 50 percent • Economic conditions lessen the respondents used Internet possibility of trying new products, communications for new products to research a brand or man45 percent • Prefer local brands over glob- ufacturer’s website, 30 percent researched through an article on a al brands, 40 percent

frequently visited website and 30 percent used Internet forums.

Thirty percent of U.S. respondents, purchased a new product after learning about it via social media, and 29 percent turned to web ads while 27 percent used a video posted on a video-sharing website.

Seventy-three percent of U.S. consumers surveyed reported that the Internet is very/somewhat important when making a new product purchasing decision for electronics, 63 percent for appliances, 62 percent for cars/auto needs 59 percent and music.

Those percentages are a little less robust than the percentages for other global respondents who weighed in on Internet importance in purchasing: electronics (81 percent), appliances (77 percent), books (70 percent) and music (69 percent).

Blacks & e-commerce African-Americans are also savvy Internet users and Black women in particular indulge in a little retail therapy with just a click of a button. Black women are extensive users of e-commerce involving purchases of clothes, groceries, and health and beauty products online. Also, 18 percent of Black women have shown higher interest in downloading coupons, especially those in the 25-54 age range.

Overall, top purchases AfricanAmericans have made online include:

• Airline tickets/reservations • Hotel/motel reservations • Any clothes/shoes/accessories • Women’s clothes/shoes/accessories • Men’s clothes/shoes/accessories Among the global consumers surveyed, those in Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Middle East and Africa are most engaged in online decision-making. Globally, the Internet influence trend is impacting purchasing in consumer packaged categories, too: food and beverages (62 percent), personal hygiene (62 percent), personal health/over-the-counter medicines (61 percent), and hair care (60 percent).

As the Internet makes the world a much smaller place, a tighter consumer community, do you feel international? And, don’t you feel empowered to know that you can make or break a new product with your fingertips?

You and your choices matter.

So, I’ll say it again – use your power wisely.

Cheryl Pearson-McNeil is senior vice president of Public Affairs and Government Relations for Nielsen. For more information and studies go to www.nielsenwire.com. Click on this story at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.

NATION

TOj A6

MARCH 8 – MARCH 14, 2013 turing will still be the base for volume,” said Jonathan Simon, the CEO of 1888 Mills. “But for just-in-time service, U.S. manufacturing does make sense.”

Some 400 miles away, in North Carolina, computer giant Lenovo is doing the same thing. In October the company announced plans to open a manufacturing plant in North Carolina to make specialty personal computers for the U.S. market. The initiative will create 115 jobs, 15 of which are engineering positions.

But the company also is expanding research centers in Japan and China.

“It’s a relatively smallvolume facility. It’s not going to produce millions of units,” said Mark Stanton, Lenovo’s director of supply chain communications.

The United States lost 6.3 million manufacturing jobs between January 1990 and the industry’s low point in January 2010, a 36 percent decline, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Since that low point, the industry has added nearly 500,000 jobs, an impressive number, but one that barely begins to offset the millions of losses.

PHOTOS BY CAROLYN COLE/LOS ANGELES TIMES/MCT

Shirley Blackmon, pictured February 12 in Griffin, Ga., has worked at 1888 Mills since 1997, where she checks spools of yarn that will soon be woven into towels. The company is now manufacturing high-quality towels that will soon be sold in Wal-Mart.

US factory work returning to changed industry Growing logistics, labor costs overseas motivating companies to move back some manufacturing

BY ALANA SEMEULS LOS ANGELES TIMES/MCT

GRIFFIN, Ga. — Giant machines are tearing down the old bleachery, another reminder to Chuck Smith that this old mill town doesn’t make much anymore.

Just about everyone he knows was employed at one point making, folding or bleaching towels, until the mills started to close down in the 1990s and 2000s and family members lost their jobs. Like most of this town’s residents, Smith can name all the old mills in a slow Georgia drawl.

“There was the Thomaston mill that was here, and the Dundee mill, and the Highland mill, but they tore that one down just like they did this one,” he said,

watching a bulldozer push piles of metal around what used to be a factory for bleaching towels. “These mills used to employ all the people in this city.”

Recently, the town had a reason to be optimistic. Retail behemoth WalMart announced that it will spend an additional $50 billion buying U.S.made goods over the next 10 years. It cited 1888 Mills, which runs the last mill left in Griffin, as one company that would benefit from this pledge.

‘Nudge they need’ Wal-Mart will sell 1888’s Made Here towels, manufactured in Georgia, in 600 stores this spring and in another 600 later this year, which enables the company to add manufacturing

jobs.

The retailer’s effort will help businesses and “give them the nudge they need” to bring manufacturing back to the United States, Wal-Mart U.S. Chief Executive Bill Simon said in announcing the initiative.

It’s part of a much-heralded trend of “onshoring,” in which companies including Apple, Lenovo, Otis Elevator and General Electric have said that growing logistics and labor costs overseas have motivated them to move some manufacturing back to the United States.

But if Griffin is any example, Wal-Mart’s muchlauded pledge isn’t likely to do much to turn around a decades-long manufacturing decline here or in the rest of the country.

Members of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority participate in the 1913 Women’s Suffrage March on Sunday.

ROY LEWIS/ NNPA

Deltas trace footsteps of founders at D.C. march TRICE EDNEY NEWS WIRE

Thousands of members of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. took to the streets of Washington, D.C. on Sunday commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 1913 Women’s Suffrage March in which the Delta’s 22 founders participated. Delta Sigma Theta is now the single largest predominantly African-American women’s organization in the country.

Led by a banner with the theme, “Tracing the Footsteps of Our Founders,” the

women in red gathered on the west front of the Capitol and braved cold temperatures marching the 3.1 miles past the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue and concluding on the grounds of the Washington Monument.

Some honored the 22 founders by dressing in the fashions of 1913. The 1913 march sought to draw public attention and support for the suffragists’ cause seven years before the passage of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.

Monteshia Brown, left, 30, did mill work for 10 years and Eugene Colquitt, 47, worked at 1888 Mills in Griffin, Ga., for over a year before he had to stop working for health reasons. With few employment opportunities the two now have their own lawn business, because they couldn’t find permanent employment.

That’s because manufacturing has changed dramatically since it left American shores, replacing workers with machines and reducing the number of jobs that people could get right out of high school.

And as much as companies pledge they’re moving manufacturing back to the United States, they’re mostly moving just small parts of their larger global operations, to be closer to U.S. markets.

“People talk about manufacturing being a big source of job growth. It’s going to grow, but it’s not going to be a big source of

total employment,” said Tom Runiewicz, principal for the industry practices group at IHS Global Insight. “It’s just a drop in the bucket.”

Better than nothing 1888 Mills, for instance, will add just 35 jobs because of the initiative — better than nothing, but a pittance in a town of 23,000. The company will still make 90 percent of its goods in overseas factories.

“We don’t envision the entire industry going back to the United States — low-cost Asian manufac-

Family of slain Mississippi candidate wants murder treated as hate crime FROM WIRE REPORTS

Because of the brutalized condition of his body when he was found murdered last week, the family of Marco McMillian, the openly gay mayoral candidate in Clarksdale, Miss., is asking authorities to declare his death a hate crime.

McMillian was apparently beaten, dragged and set Marco on fire before his body was McMillian located last Wednesday near the Mississippi River, according to a statement issued on Sunday by his family.

But a spokesman for the Coahoma County Sheriff’s Department, Will Rooker, told USA Today that the department won’t be exploring that option. The Sheriff’s department is working in conjunction with the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation.

McMillian’s godfather, Carter Womack. said the 33-year-old was found naked, bruised and swollen. The information in the family’s statement was based on photographs the family saw, as well as two conversations it had with the coroner.

Minimal labor needed A walk through the spacious 1888 factory in Griffin shows why job gains have been slow, despite some onshoring. Machines spin threads of cotton into yarn, a process once done by hand; they weave the yarn into thick rolls of fabric, cut the fabric into towels and sew the hems.

Where a whole factory was once needed to bleach and color the towels, a Rube Goldberg-like machine does that work with minimal labor; another machine dries the towels.

“It’s all automated,” Douglas Tingle, founder of 1888 Mills, said on a tour of the factory. “Some of this is the latest technology advancements.”

That automation is part of the reason that although labor costs are higher in the United States than in other countries, it can make sense to make towels and other products here.

But there are other reasons as well. If 1888 needs to make changes to towels, it can get the finished product to Wal-Mart more quickly from Griffin than it could from China. The rising price of oil is increasing shipping costs, and again could provide some cost savings for locally manufactured products.

“One of the things you might see if production coming back here, but not with as many jobs as used to be the case,” said Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and former chief economist for Vice President Joe Biden.

Was Phi Beta Sigma member Lawrence Reed, 22, has been charged with murder in the case and is in the custody of officials, Will Rook, a spokesman for the Coahoma County sheriff’s office, told the Los Angeles Times on Monday.

Rook said he could not discuss the condition of McMillian’s body.

“This was a hate crime. I don’t care if the perpetrator was Black, White, or polka dotted,” said Larry Nelson Sr., president and CEO of Victims Group of Violent Crimes in Jackson, Miss., who said he had spoken to McMillian just days before his death.

McMillian, a Democrat, returned several months ago to his hometown of Clarksdale to run for mayor. He had served as international executive director of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, executive assistant and chief of staff to the president of Alabama A&M University, and assistant to the vice president for institutional advancement at Jackson State University. He also owned a consulting business in Memphis.

Reed, the suspect, was found Tuesday morning (Feb. 26) after allegedly crashing an SUV owned by McMillian into another vehicle near the Coahoma County line.

McMillian was not in the vehicle so authorities searched for the candidate, and found his body the next day.

Reed was treated at a Memphis hospital and handed over to Mississippi authorities.

The Atlanta Black Star and Los Angeles Times were used in compiling this report.

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

IFE/FAITH

China in denial about race problem See page B3

March 8 - March 14, 2013

SHARING BLACK LIFE, STATEWIDE

Eat your greens, but wash them first See page B4

SUN COAST / TAMPA BAY www.flcourier.com

‘He looked like he had money’ Editor’s Note: This is the fifth in a series of stories framing the life of James Roland Jackson, III, known as “Jimmy” to his family.

BY PENNY DICKERSON SPECIAL TO THE FLORIDA COURIER

Justice is a comfort surviving families rarely experience. And for most, true “closure” never comes.

The elapsed time between a violent crime ending in death and judicial resolution can be long and painful. The investigative process is slow and deliberate. Missteps police make along the way are often mourned as much as the death of the loved one.

This scenario is depicted in the case of Jimmy Jackson whose tragic death is a dual statistic: a violent gun crime in America followed by a cold case investigation.

History of violence Chestnut’s firm has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Silver Fox nightclub and its owners.

“It is our position that there is a history of violent activity in and around that property. And that because of that activity, it would have been reasonable to have sufficient security (and lighting) in the parking lot,” Chestnut told the Florida Courier this week.

“It is further reasonable for citizens to go into environments with an expectation of safety. As a father, had Jimmy known he would be robbed he wouldn’t have gone. As a young man, he deserved and had a right to attend and patronize a nightclub.”

JIMMY JACKSON

Above: A red cap is placed at the scene where a Black male was killed by gunshot in September 2012.

The murder While working part time for rap artist “Young Cash,” a prodigy of the rapper Flo Rida, two men robbed him at gunpoint at the Silver Fox nightclub. Four bullets were pumped into Jackson’s 6-foot, 1-inch athletic physique. His family endured a 10-day vigil at Shands Hospital Jacksonville before Jackson was pronounced dead there on June 21, 2012.

Police are calling the tragedy a random robbery. Jackson’s murder remains unsolved.

Organized groups Detective Bobbie Bowers is a 17-year veteran of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office (JSO). He has investigated hundreds of murders. Some result in cold cases; others are solved.

“Jackson’s injuries didn’t appear life-threatening,” offered Bowers.

“The robbery and shooting made the charge aggravated battery, and his

PENNY DICKERSON/ SPECIAL TO THE FLORIDA COURIER

Left: Attorney Christopher Chestnut has been retained to represent Jimmy Jackson’s family.

FILE PHOTO

Nobody has come forward

By August 2012, Bowers still had no leads in the then two-months-old case.

“Nobody has come forward,” Bowers lamented. “Radio stations put it on the air immediately following the shooting, but there is a very slim chance the case will ever be solved.”

Jackson’s wallet taken during the robbery has been retrieved and remains in police custody.

Fingerprints couldn’t be lifted.

“I’ve made calls and we have composite drawings. What we really need is for people to cooperate,”

Bowers pleaded.

The detective attests that Jackson was “looking out for Young Cash” when he was victimized.

“Witnesses report that Cash had too much to drink and was outside throwing up,” said Bowers.

“Jimmy went out looking for Cash and then went to get something from his white Camaro.”

The crime took place at 4 a.m. It was pitch-dark in the Silver Fox parking lot when two Black males wearing dark clothing pulled guns and robbed Jackson. Jackson complied, but was shot while walking away.

Investigation frustrates father James Roland Jackson, Jr. likens his son’s investigation to a second death.

The senior Jackson has returned to his slain son’s crime scene three times since the murder took place. Like many survivors, he thinks he can do a better job than investigators, but doesn’t want to supersede their professional efforts.

“I am still losing sleep,” confessed Jackson. “I don’t feel their efforts (JSO) are guided and they are not supportive of me getting involved.”

He has not spoken to Detective Bowers in close to a month.

“My frustration is that there is no flow of com-

B

CHARLES W. CHERRY II / FLORIDA COURIER

THE LIFE & DEATH OF

subsequent death made it a homicide.”

According to Bowers, Jackson was random prey for a sweep of growing street crimes.

“These people are organized. They watch church parking lots and places where women leave purses in cars then break-in or rob them,” Bowers explained.

“Jimmy drove a nice car and looked like he had money, so he was a target much like members of the Jacksonville Jaguars NFL team. They (pro football players) are known to travel to clubs with other players and are believed to have a ‘pocketful of money.’ ”

SECTION

James R. Jackson, Jr., Jimmy’s father, is deep in thought as family and friends mourn at Jimmy’s gravesite.

Jimmy’s life In previous installments, the 26-year-old entrepreneur’s ambitions were highlighted. The son of James R. Jackson, Jr. and Stephanie Jackson-Rozier, Jackson’s formative years were wrought with emotional discomfort as he adjusted to his parents’ divorce and physical separation from his siblings.

He honed his athleticism as a youth in Atlanta while living with his father and earned a high school diploma in Apopka – his mother’s hometown.

Jackson briefly attended Graceland University in Iowa on a sports scholarship then transferred to Florida A&M University, where he majored in business.

In addition to his artist management venture called “Exclusive J,” Jackson was employed by an AT&T call center in Jacksonville. Above all, he was a young father who doted over his five-year-old daughter Denia. She is his sole surviving dependent.

|

munication, and I am not satisfied with any of it at this point,” stated Jackson.

“This thing has become so commonplace that people are becoming desensitized towards the plight of homicide victims,” he added.

Community outreach “Crime doesn’t pay, but we do!”

This First Coast Crime Stoppers tag is intended to persuade witnesses to come forward. The non-profit organization and global movement offers monetary awards up to $1,000 for anonymous tips.

None have come forward for Jackson in the eight months since he was killed. Money was the crime’s motive, but cash – at least not $1,000 – isn’t an incentive to dig up leads for justice in Jimmy’s case to date.

While investigators have encouraged Jackson to “let them do their job,’’ the dad has reached out to former Jacksonville Sheriff Nat Glover, current president of HBCU Edward Waters College and his son’s congresswoman, Corrine Brown, for help.

Glover referred the elder Jackson to JSO’s chief of staff. Brown’s office has been nonresponsive.

Jackson has also solicited help from his Jacksonville-area Omega Psi Phi

Fraternity brothers to help raise public awareness.

Civil suit filed The Chestnut Firm has been retained by Jackson’s family. Lead attorney Christopher Chestnut most notably represents the family of the late Robert Champion, the Florida A&M University drum major who died tragically in 2011 after being hazed by fellow band members.

(Editor’s note: See Page A1 this week for an update of the criminal and civil cases related to the Champion killing.)

No stranger to justice, Chestnut’s firm recently won a $5 million judgment on behalf of client Trinard Sneed who was shot to death at a Miami gas station. Chestnut dedicated four years on the case and endured two mistrials.

He says justice for the Jackson family may not be swift, but he’ll do what’s legally necessary to achieve justice, no matter how long it takes.

“I believe in my clients and what I do,” he stated.

“My clients (who were) killed in these cases do not willingly place themselves in harm’s way.

“I am an attorney. My job is to ensure that there is sufficient security.

Awards are left to juries; shutting a club is a government decision.”

911 as security?

Chestnut’s firm specializes in wrongful death cases and fatal injuries. He believes businesses that generate revenue but choose to not have security leave 911 as the recourse. Security then becomes the role of JSO and taxpayers.

He further stated that a business must protect its premises, not just the money it makes. If cameras were present in the Silver Fox parking lot, they may have captured the assailant’s license plate tag.

Influencing change “People commit crimes where they think they can get away with it,” explained Chestnut. “Urban communities are pigeonholed stereotypes. A civil suit is a way of making those who can influence change make a necessary and reasonable choice.

“Everyone deserves to be safe, regardless of where your community is, or your economic status or circumstances. This is America,” he added.

Former manager responds The Courier has made repeated attempts to speak to the current management and ownership of the Silver Fox. As of the Courier’s Wednesday night deadline, efforts to get comments from someone there were unsuccessful.

A Silver Fox representative named “Tony’’ did state by telephone last week that the establishment “did not want to participate.’’

However, the Courier did speak Wednesday with Frank Coleone, who was former manager of the Silver Fox for about a year.

Coleone said he was not working the night of Jackson’s shooting and left the position shortly afterward. Coleone stated that he left the job because he “couldn’t take being there,’’ adding that Jackson’s death reminded him too much of his own brother’s tragic death.

In Part VI, the Courier takes a close look at recent statistics that make Florida the “Gun-shine State.”

T

CALENDAR /OBIT

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MARCH 8 – MARCH 14, 2013

TOJ

FLORIDA COMMUNITY CALENDAR Tampa: The Plant City Chapter of the Florida A&M University National Alumni Association expects more than 100 golfers at its 10th annual Orange & Green Golf Tournament on March 16 at Rogers Park Golf Course, 7910 N 30th St. Visit www. plantcityrattlers.com or call 813-903-9247 for more information.

NAUGHTY BY NATURE

The 1990s rap group Naughty By Nature is set to perform March 16 at Liv, Miami Beach for a 10 p.m. show.

TRACY MORGAN

Tallahassee: The Women of Color 2013 Legislative Days will be held April 3-5 at multiple locations at the state Capitol. Committee meetings, a Women of Color luncheon and banquet, the State of Black Florida workshops, updates from elected officials and the Florida Black Caucus Gala Celebration are among featured events. More information: www.woclc.com or call 407-953-5599.

Tampa: The Tampa Bay Association of Black Journalists will host a hands-on multimedia seminar on Saturday, March 23, at the University of South Florida’s Patel Center for Global Solutions. The free seminar is open to the public.

More information: www.tbabj. com or call 813-716-6288.

Winter Park: The Central Florida Association of Black Journalists will host its annual Anchors Away Clothing Sale at the Winter Park Community Center (721 W. New England Ave.) on March 16 from 8 a.m. – 1 p.m. The annual fundraiser, which helps fund programming and student scholarships, is supported by the donation of a variety of women’s and men’s designer clothing and accessories from news teams from Central Florida. More information:

Funnyman Tracy Morgan will be at the South Beach Comedy Festival at the Fillmore Miami Beach at Jackie Gleason Theater in Miami on April 19 for an 8 p.m. show.

DONNA WARD/ABACA PRESS/MCT

RIHANNA

Rihanna will make stops at the Tampa Bay Times Forum April 19 and the BB&T Center in Sunrise, April 20 on her Diamonds World Tour. Both shows start at 7:30 p.m.

KIRK MCKOY/LOS ANGELES TIMES/MCT 813-766-3444.

Atlantic Beach: Free Friday wine tastings are held at the Royal Palm Village Wine & Tapas, March 8, 5 p.m. - 8 p.m. 296 Royal Palms Drive.

More information: www. royalpalmwines.com.

Winter Park: As a tribute to the 125th anniversary of the City of Winter Park and incorporation of the City of Eatonville, Crealdé’s Hannibal Square Heritage Center will feature an original exhibition through April 13 among

the three African-American communities – Eatonville, Maitland and Winter Park.

Venue: 642 W. New England Ave. Free. More information: 407-539-2680 or www.hannibalsquareheritagecenter. org.

Tampa: The 76th Annual District Meeting of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity’s Seventh District will be held April 4-7 featuring a golf tournament, picnic, job fair, step show and worship service. More information: PiIota.org.

Tampa: A free men’s health forum featuring food, prizes and health screenings will be held March 9 from 9 a.m.

- 3:30 p.m. at the University of South Florida’s Marshall Center, 4202 E. Fowler Ave. More information: mhftampa. com.

Winter Garden: The Blues and BBQ Festival will be at the Farmers Market Pavilion, 230 S. Lakeview Ave. March 9, 4 p.m. - 10 p.m. Free entry, samples extra. More information: www.cwgdn.com.

Orlando: A Heart & Soul gal-

lery exhibit will be held at the Grand Bohemian Gallery, 325 S. Orange Ave. Free.

Orlando: Churches and schools will participate in the Seventh Annual Washington Shores 5K Walk & Health Fair March 9 from 8 a.m. to noon at Hankins Park, 1340 Lake Park Court. Register as a team or individual online at www.orchd.com under the events section.

Orlando: Bel Biv Devoe, Dru Hill, El Debarge and other artists will be at Funk Fest

Bobby Rogers, founding member of Miracles, succumbs to complications from diabetes

BY BRIAN MCCOLLUM DETROIT FREE PRESS/MCT

DETROIT — As a vocalist, songwriter and choreographer, the Miracles’ Bobby Rogers embodied the eclectic Motown spirit from the company’s earliest days Rogers died at about 6:30 a.m. Sunday, March 3, at his longtime suburban Detroit home after a lengthy illness, succumbing to complications from diabetes. He was 73.

Rogers, who had kept various incarnations of the Miracles going into the new century, was a welldecorated figure with the group: inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, honored with a Rhythm & Blues Foundation Pioneer Award, memorialized with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

He was preceded in death by founding Miracle Ronnie White, who died in 1995.

‘Sparkling personality’ The strapping singer was remembered by friends and family members as a warm, congenial figure who made instant connections with others.

“He had the sparkling personality that was loved by everyone,” said the Miracles’ Claudette Robinson, a first cousin of Rogers.

“People always commented on the tall one with the glasses. He was personable, approachable and he loved talking to the women, loved talking to the guys, loved to dance, loved to sing, loved to perform.

That was the joy of his life.”

That upbeat spirit is captured among the array of voices on Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” with Rogers heard early on uttering, “It’s just a groovy party, man, I can dig it.”

“If people want to remember him, they should put that record on and listen to Bobby,” said the Supremes’ Mary Wilson.

“That’s who he was.”

Wilson last saw him when she and the Miracles toured Australia in 2010.

“When he walked out on stage, he walked out with a zest, even though he had his walker,” she recalled.

“He walked out in time (to the music), and he was just great. He still loved what he did.”

Started as Five Chimes While he was best known as one of the Miracles’ five voices, Rogers was particularly proud of his songwriting contributions, including credits with Smokey Robinson on hits such as “The Way You Do the Things You Do” (the Temptations), “First I Look at the Purse” (the Contours) and the Miracles’ “Going to a Go-Go.” “He loved to write with Smokey,” said Claudette Robinson. “Bobby would often say how happy he was to be allowed to write with him. Smokey would say, ‘I’m not just allowing you — you’re a great writer.’”

Working and performing together was something of destiny for the two childhood friends: They were born just an hour apart on Feb. 19, 1940, in Detroit’s

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.

St. Petersburg: Youths ages 7 to 11 can enjoy a night of football, kickball, pingpong, foosball, video games and dance parties 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.

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.

Tampa: 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.

Orlando: Funny man Mike Epps will be at the Bob Carr Performing Arts Centre on May 24 for an 8 p.m. show.

Jacksonville: Rap artist Bubba Sparxx will be at Brewster’s Roc Bar in March 30 for a 7 p.m. show.

Fort Lauderdale: The Florida Minority Community Reinvestment along with a coalition of Florida minority non-profits and neighborhood associations are hosting the 2013 Let’s Do Business Florida & Summit June 28-June 29 at the Westin Beach Resort & Spa. No cost to women-minority-veteran businesses and nonprofits. More information: www.letsdobusinessflorida. com.

Smokey Robinson, Pete Moorie, Claudette Robinson and Bobby Rogers, all of ‘’The Miracles,” are honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Hollywood on March 20, 2009. Rogers, a founding member of the Motown group, died March 3.

CLINTON WALLACE/GLOBE PHOTOS/ZUMA PRESS/MCT

Herman Kiefer Hospital.

Rogers was among the handful of people privy to Motown’s rise from the ground up: The Miracles — then the Matadors — were discovered by Berry Gordy Jr. in 1959, and became the first artist on the Tamla imprint.

The group had started as the Five Chimes, rehearsing doo-wop tunes in the basement of Claudette Rogers’ home, learning material from old 78-r.p.m. records.

Kept Miracles alive With Rogers’ tenor joining Pete Moore, Ronnie White and Claudette Rogers in the harmonies around Robinson’s lead vocal, the Miracles’ “Shop Around” went on to become Motown’s first million-seller, and the first of 30 Miracles hits to make the Top 40.

Wilson knew Rogers from the Supremes’ formative years, when the teen group — then the Primettes — auditioned for the Miracles and began the path to Motown. They both attended Northeastern High School.

“He was like a celebrity there,” she recalled.

Rogers’ biggest starring role came with “You’ve Really Got a Hold On Me” in 1962, singing two-part harmony with Robinson.

“Bobby liked to call it his duet with Smokey,” recalled Paul Barker, a friend of the group. “He’d tell you, ‘Hey, I sang lead on that!’”

Rogers’ role became more pronounced after the departure of Robinson

in 1972, as he toured with Moore, White and a series of lead singers into the 1980s. Rogers and White revived the group in the early ’90s after a decade hiatus.

In more recent years, Rogers was the main engine for the Miracles, trademarking the name and nurturing the legacy as he toured North America and Europe under the group’s banner.

“He wanted that to be something he was remembered for: keeping the Miracles’ name alive,” said Barker.

Rogers is survived by his wife, Joan Rogers, and children Bobbae Rogers, Gina Hughes, Kimberly Hughes and Robert Rogers III, along with his granddaughter, Brandi Williams, of the R&B group Blaque.

Daughter Robin Yopp is deceased.

Stoj

MARCH 8 – MARCH 14, 2013

WORLD

B3

China in denial about race problem In both old and new China, whiteness – or proximity to it – is prized

BY GEORGE E. CURRY NNPA NEWS SERVICE

BEIJING – In absolute numbers, China probably has more beautiful women than any other country in the world. But one could never tell that by looking at the squeaky-clean glass display windows in upscale stores in this capital city or in Shanghai, whose architecture has been often compared to London, Paris and Rio. The classic image of beauty in those stores and elsewhere across China are modeled after the American and European standard of beauty – White, blueeyed and blond.

That’s remarkable in a country that has long considered itself the center of the universe.

“From the most ancient times, the Chinese chose to call themselves white, with a light complexion highly valued and likened to white jade,” Martin Jacques wrote in “When China Rules the World.’’

“By the beginning of the twelfth century, the elite attached a heightened meaning to being white, with colour consciousness amongst the elite sensitized by the maritime contacts established during the Southern Song dynasty (AD 1127-1279).

“During this period even the newly popular Buddha was converted from a ‘swart half-naked Indian to a more decently clad divinity with a properly light complexion,’ rather as Jesus was whitened in the Western Christian tradition.”

‘Five races’ Sun Yat-sen, who led the revolution to overthrow the Qing dynasty in 1911, had a clear-cut view on race.

“Mankind is divided into five races,” he said. “The yellow and white races are relatively strong and intelligent. Because the other races are feeble and stupid, they are being exterminated by the white race. Only the yellow race competes with the white race. This is so-called evolution among the contemporary races that could be called superior, there are only the yellow and white races. China belongs to the yellow race.”

In both old and new China, whiteness – or proximity to it – is prized.

“In the Chinas today there is a clear racial social hierarchy based on the assumption of racial superiority,” wrote M. Dujon Johnson, author of “Race & Racism in the Chinas: Chinese Racial Attitudes Toward Africans and AfricanAmericans.’’ “The comfort level and the acceptance of a foreigner in the Chinas are directly proportional to the skin pigmentation of that non-Chinese.”

View of blackness Interestingly, that hasn’t always been the case, according to Johnson.

“In traditional Chinese opera one who had a black face or darker skin features indicated either a rough, bold or noble character and a person of courage, righteousness and incorruptibility, or an impartial and selfless personality,” he wrote.

“The noted jurist during the Ming Dynasty, Bao Zheng (9991062), was known for his dark complexion and black face and is a symbol of justice, fair play, incorruptibility in Chinese history.

“In contrast a white face in Chinese opera meant a perfect villain. The color white is the trait that highlights all that is bad in human nature: cunning, craftiness, deceit and treachery.”

Now, that’s been flipped.

“At some point in modern Chinese history the view of black-

SPECIAL REPORT Editor’s note: This article is part of a series from a weeklong trip of the African American Media Leaders Mission to China sponsored by the ChinaUnited States Exchange Foundation, a non-profit organization whose goal is to foster a better understanding between the people of China and the United States. Neither the foundation nor government officials in China had any input in these stories or saw them prior to publication. The seven-member U.S. media delegation was led by Cloves Campbell, Jr., publisher of the Arizona Informant and chairman of the National Newspaper Publishers Association. The trip included visits to Beijing, Xi’an and Shanghai.

George E. Curry is NNPA’s Editor-in-Chief. ness, Africans and other dark skinned people changed from a positive or indifferent view to a negative and vociferous one,” Johnson wrote.

He argues that rather than having a genuine dislike of AfricanAmericans, Chinese, like people around the world, were heavily influenced by westerners “who have transferred their negative racial views and perceptions of people of color to the Chinese.”

Unlike the U.S., where racial views are openly discussed – though not always with civility – there is little discussion of race in China. Zhao Ziyang, then-general secretary of the Communist Party, provided a possible rationale in 1988 when he said at a national meeting on unity that racial discrimination was common “everywhere in the world except China.”

Still a problem Acknowledged or not, racial discrimination is indeed a problem in China that manifests itself in strange and sometimes unique ways.

“The general perception in the Chinas is that Africans and African-Americans are inferior persons and thus, are inferior teachers irrespective of their educational training, teaching ability or experience,” Johnson wrote.

“Many African-Americans and Africans have accepted teaching jobs (including this author) when hired via the phone, the Internet or having applied while still in their native country only to receive a phone call or email, and in a few cases, arrive in the Chinas and be told that their employment is revoked because the Chinese employer did not know that the applicant was black or had dark skin.”

White advantage Lynne Coleman, a former school administrator in China, has been a recipient of White preference.

“China is a place where my White skin-color gains me much broader entry to places than my Chinese counterparts, particularly those who do not speak Mandarin with the proper accent,” Coleman recalled.

She and her husband would be walking down a street in Beijing and suddenly find themselves surrounded by Chinese eager to take a photo with her.

Coleman said, “I’ve had my photo taken with un-numbered families who wanted my blond self to hold their babies for luck.”

And Chinese women make no secret of wanting to climb the social ladder by marrying Mr. White. They go to great lengths to alter their color as Julia Wilson, a chocolate-colored African-American, discovered first-hand.

ANN RANGLAND/NNPA

Julia Wilson discusses recent changes in China with Jiang Haishan, vice president of the China Executive Leadership Academy Pudong in Shanghai. mained the law of the land until the 1954 Brown school desegregation decision. It was not until 1967 that the Supreme Court, in Loving v. Virginia, invalidated state laws prohibiting interracial marriage.

Getting better

COURTESY OF CRAIG TRYGSTAD

Lynne Coleman (right) became accustomed to people in China, like this unidentified woman, asking to be photographed with her because of her “whiteness.’’

“I went to the grocery store to get some lotion,” said Wilson, CEO of Wilson Global Communications in Washington, D.C. “I said to this girl, ‘I want the best body lotion you have because my skin is really dry.’ She said, ‘Fine’ and took me by the hand to the lotion section and said, ‘Here you go.’ She handed me skin whitener. I looked at her and said, ‘No, no, no, Sweetie. I don’t want to lighten my skin.’ She said, ‘You don’t want to lighten your skin?’ I said, ‘No, honey, I love this.”

Don’t want tans That was not Wilson’s only memorable experience involving race.

“When I went to the beach and people had all of their clothes on,” recalled Wilson, who was in China last year to deliver a lecture. “I asked, ‘Why do you have all of your clothes on?’

They said, ‘We don’t want to get brown.’ I am looking at this and not believing my eyes. You can find pictures of women with a total mask on their face on the beach so that they don’t get a tan.”

Some visitors to China have told of accidently brushing up against a Chinese, only to witness them trying to brush imaginary blackness from their clothes.

Others recall walking into a subway car and suddenly having an entire area to themselves.

Beginning with the beating of a Zanzibar student in Beijing in 1962, there have been more than a dozen race-inspired riots or public demonstrations. Most of the incidents were ignited by a racial slur or tensions over African students, most of whom are male, dating Chinese women.

Boubacar Traore, a philosophy student from Ghana, told the New York Times in 1988, “When we walk on the street, people insult us. The call us black devils, and so on. Even if we’re alone, they insult us. And if we’re with a girl, they say she’s a hooker and is doing it for the money.”

Critical of Rice When Condoleezza Rice visited Beijing in 2005 as Secretary of State, Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo studied comments posted

on blogs, noting: “… Many stigmatized Rice as ‘really ugly’ ... ‘the ugliest in the world ... ‘I really can’t understand how mankind gave birth to a woman like Rice’ ...

Some lamented: Americans’ IQ is low – how can they make a “black bitch’’ Secretary of State ... Some, of course, did not forget to stigmatize Rice with animal names: chimpanzee’, birdlike, crocodile, “a piece of rotten meat… [something] dogs will find hard to eat.’”

Writing in the New York Times in 2009, Dongyan Blachford, an associate professor of Chinese Studies at University of Regina in Canada, said: “Growing up in Beijing, as a member of the Han majority, I did not see China as a country which exhibited racial discrimination; after all, the mission of the Chinese revolution was to build a class-free and egalitarian society.

“However, after having lived outside China for over 20 years, and having experienced and witnessed discrimination in various forms, I now realize that many Chinese are simply unaware of the racism and prejudice that exists.”

History lesson Nicholas D. Kristof, writing in the Dec. 30, 1988 New York Times, observed, “…It is common here to hear racial stereotypes that would make most Americans cringe.”

While Americans recoil at such treatment of African-Americans

by Chinese, critics say they are in no position to lecture anyone. In the Dred Scott decision in 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that the federal government had no power to regulate slavery.

Chief Judge Roger Taney, writing for the majority, said authors of the U.S. Constitution viewed all Blacks as “ beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”

The Supreme Court’s Plessy v.

Ferguson decision in 1896 upholding racial segregation in public accommodations re-

Several Chinese officials, urging more patience with China, pointed out that Blacks weren’t able to fully exercise their citizenship in America’s democratic system until passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. “Race is not as large a factor compared to the United States,” said Carl Humphrey, an AfricanAmerican who lives in Shanghai. “In China, you are a laowai or foreigner first then you are an American foreigner. Only after that are you a Black, White or Carl yellow foreigner.

Humphrey That’s very different from home.”

Humphrey said he has seen an improvement in how Chinese view Blacks.

“The locals over the years have been used to seeing the majority race represented abroad,” he stated.

“With the media spotlighting people such as our current president, entertainers and sports figures, we are looked upon in a very positive light outside of the United States. It’s very strange to me to witness the respect of President Obama here in China. He is loved everywhere in the world by individuals of all races.”

Superior attitude Johnson, author of the book on Chinese attitudes, believes the country would benefit from a more open discussion about race.

“Racism is … an issue that is not addressed among Chinese because most Chinese see themselves as superior to darkerskinned people,” he said. “Therefore, within the Chinese mindset it would be a waste of time to address an obvious fact of darkskinned people’s inferiority.”

But China does need to examine its racism as well as why it places a premium on White skin at the expense of its own rich culture.

“The images of beauty which stress American and European centric racial characteristics and notions of beauty are acceptable to an astonishingly degree by the Chinese even though it attacks at the very core of Asian values and the concepts of Chinese and Asian beauty,” Johnson said.

And the people best positioned to help Chinese get past that problem are those dark-skinned people that many look down on.

“Ironically, the cure for this social and cultural malady can be found where Chinese society dares not look: in the communities of peoples of color who have themselves fought this internal cultural battles years ago,” Johnson added.

“What the African-American community learned and could teach the Chinese community is that definitions of one’s cultural wealth and beauty are not defined externally but internally.”

HEALTH

TOj B4

STOJ

MARCH 8 – MARCH 14, 2013

Heroin taking oxycodone’s place for more addicts

BY NICOLE BROCHU SUN SENTINEL/MCT

FORT LAUDERDALE – Florida’s war on pill mills is making an impact on prescription drug abuse, but there’s a troubling byproduct: a surge in the number of people now hooked on heroin.

With crackdowns focusing on siphoning off supply rather than treating addiction, people are finding that heroin, which yields a high similar to the widely abused oxycodone, is a readily accessible substitute.

“We’ve got to address treatment, or we’re not going to end the problem, we’re just going to change the drug,” said Jim Hall, director of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Substance Abuse at Nova Southeastern University in Davie. “If you asked me in a word what’s new (in drug trends), I’d say heroin.”

Relatively cheap Based on projections from the first half of 2012, Broward County addiction treatment centers saw an 87 percent spike in admissions among addicts using heroin as their drug of choice — to 316 from 169 the year before, according to state Department of Children and Family statistics.

Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties also experienced heroin treatment increases, though at smaller levels. Palm Beach County, for example, saw its heroin treatment admissions climb from 170 in 2011 to 198 in 2012, a 16.5 percent increase, said DCF spokeswoman Paige PattersonHughes. Experts can’t explain the

discrepancy between counties.

“What’s happening is that heroin has become vogue again,” said Ben Brafman, founder and CEO of Destination Hope, a substance abuse treatment center in Fort Lauderdale. “It’s so available.

Any kid can get it off the street.”

And it’s relatively cheap, especially now that Mexican drug cartels reportedly are competing with Colombians in feeding the South Florida heroin market with what law enforcement officials say is a purer strain.

‘Supply and demand thing’ Brafman said heroin can be had for as little as $10 for a dime bag, which can yield a two- to four-hour high. A single 30-milligram pill of oxycodone is going for $30 to $80, Hall said. Just two years ago, oxy pills could be found for $8 each.

The trend is neither an anomaly nor specific to South Florida, but rather a widespread national reality that law enforcement officers and drug control experts saw coming as early as 2011, when Florida and other states began busting up pill mills in earnest.

“Once all the pill mills started shutting down, people like me just switched to something easier and cheaper to get, and that’s heroin,” said Sean, 32, who is in treatment at Destination Hope and spoke on condition he be identified only by first name. “It’s a supply and demand thing.”

Easy to find Like most opioid addicts, Sean

TAIMY ALVAREZ/SUN SENTINEL/MCT

Ben Brafman, CEO of the Fort Lauderdale substance abuse center Destination Hope and the Sylvia Brafman Mental Health Center, stands in one of the group and family therapy room. Destination Hope has doubled its beds, from 30 to 60, in the last 14 months, largely due to an influx of patients seeking treatment for heroin abuse. got hooked on oxycodone after being prescribed the drug for a knee injury he sustained on a construction job. He eventually turned to heroin, he said, when authorities near his Baltimore home started getting tough on over-prescribing doctors and oxycodone suddenly became scarce.

Sean moved to South Florida in August to enter a Wellington halfway house.

“I could score heroin in five minutes, while it would take me all day to find oxycodone,” Sean said, of Maryland’s heroin market.

The same is true of South Florida, Brafman said, where upscale suburban kids have been known to barter their clothes and sneakers to score heroin.

“Many of our clients are telling us that they’re going to the purest form of heroin, and they’re shooting it rather than snorting it,” Brafman said, adding that Destination Hope has doubled its treatment beds, from 30 to 60, in the past 14 months, much of it to treat new heroin addicts.

In 2011, 60 percent of Desti-

nation Hope’s clients were addicted to opioids such as oxycodone, hydrocodone and heroin. That number grew by 25 percent in 2012, largely because of increased heroin use, Brafman said.

The ‘Oxy Express’ There’s no question Florida’s pill mill crackdown — aimed at undoing the Sunshine State’s reputation as the “Oxy Express” for all the addicts crossing the border for easy-to-get painkillers — has done some good.

In October, a Florida Department of Law Enforcement report found that oxycodone-related deaths fell by 17.7 percent in 2011, while prescription drug overdoses overall declined by just over 6 percent. This was at a time when all drug-related deaths were on the rise, growing by 134 to 9,135 in 2011 over 2010 fatalities.

The effort was aided by the Food and Drug Administration, which has called on pharmaceutical companies to reformulate commonly abused painkillers such as Oxycontin to make

Eat your fruits and veggies, but wash them first

By LISA ABRAHAM AKRON BEACON JOURNAL/MCT

Nancy Cervone doesn’t worry too much about food contamination, and she certainly would never consider herself a “germaphobe.”

But when the Stow, Ohio, resident spotted a mound of cantaloupes on sale at the grocery store recently, she couldn’t help but think about the illnesses linked to the melons in the summer of 2011.

“Unfortunately, every time I now eat cantaloupe, I think about the food poisoning outbreaks,” she said.

Cervone’s concerns have real merit. A recent study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fingered produce as the leading cause of food poisoning in the U.S. The study revealed that more than meat, poultry or fish, fruits and vegetables were the number one source of food-borne illness over the 10-year period of the study (although more deaths were attributed to contaminated poultry).

Melons and bacteria Nearly half of all food poisonings were attributed to produce, the study showed.

Melons pose a particular hazard, according to Michael Doyle, director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia.

Cantaloupes, especially, can harbor bacteria due to their rough, webbed outer skin. Cantaloupes require a good scrubbing under cold running water before

they are sliced, otherwise the bacteria on the outside of the skin will be carried inside to the flesh with the first swipe of a knife.

Doyle said the more cracks and grooves on the skin of a fruit or vegetable, the more easily bacteria can hide. Melons also have a neutral pH, so they offer a perfect growing environment for bacteria.

The problem of contaminated melons is often made worse by grocery stores that sell cut pieces, but often don’t store them in a cold enough environment.

Doyle recalls walking into an upscale grocery store in South Carolina one summer, where a metal tank with ice in the bottom was filled with containers of cut melon. The bottom inch of the containers was inside the ice, leaving the majority of the melon in an environment warm enough for bacteria to multiply rapidly.

Ready to eat?

In the CDC’s new study, however, leafy greens like lettuce and spinach were revealed as the worst culprits for food poisoning in the study period, between 1998 and 2008.

Cervone said she has the mental debate over towash-or-not-to-wash every time she grabs a handful of bagged spinach for a salad.

Salad greens marked “washed and ready to eat” or “triple-washed” remain an area of debate among food safety experts.

Some experts contend that the triple-washing with chlorine that takes place during processing is enough to kill what bacte-

them more difficult to crush into a powder that can be snorted or injected.

Feeding the craving But none of those efforts help push the addicted to seek treatment and end the cycle of abuse.

Many, then, turn to other drugs, as much to feed their craving as to put off the sickening symptoms of withdrawal.

“What a scary position to be in when you’re out of opioids that you’d consider doing heroin,” said Kevin Bandy, director of outpatient services and men’s recovery at the Hanley Center in West Palm Beach. “It’s probably not as much as getting higher as not getting sick.”

To truly address the problem of addiction and prevent overdoses, experts say, authorities have to get as serious about treatment as they are about criminal enforcement.

“Any crackdown is a good crackdown,” Brafman said. “But right now, the government is using bows and arrows against tanks.”

10 TIPS FOR SAFER PRODUCE

PHOTOS BY KAREN SCHIELY/AKRON BEACON JOURNAL/MCT

Scrubbing a cantaloupe with a brush is the best way to rid the fruit of contaminates. ria can be killed, and advise against washing bagged greens because the risk of cross-contamination in the home kitchen is a greater concern.

A 2010 study by the Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports, concludes that consumers should wash all bagged or boxed lettuce and greens — even those marked prewashed or triple-washed — before consuming.

Skip bagged greens The agency tested bags of washed lettuces and found that while they may not be contaminated with E. coli, listeria or salmonella, 39 percent of all product samples had bacteria that are common indicators of poor sanitation and fecal contamination, and exceeded acceptable limits on total coliforms.

Doyle goes one step further — he says not to buy bagged greens at all. He advises buying whole heads of lettuce or greens, removing the outer surface layers where bacteria is most like-

ly to be present, and then washing the greens under cold running water.

Doyle has conducted studies that show the cutting and bagging of lettuce in processing plants can actually trap bacteria inside the lettuce leaves, meaning that no amount of scrubbing or washing will ever get rid of the germs. If greens are cut before they are washed — as they commonly are during processing — the bacteria become internalized by the leaves, trapping the germs inside the produce.

Then, it’s not a question of what’s on the leaves, but what’s in the leaves. At that point, only cooking can kill the germs, and few salad greens are cooked before eating.

Concern about sprouts Despite his concerns, Doyle said the chances of getting ill from eating bagged lettuce, whether washed or not, remains fairly small.

Here are 10 tips, gathered from a variety of food safety sources, for handling produce safely: 1. Purchase produce as minimally processed as you can find it. Buy whole heads of lettuce and bunches of leaf lettuce and spinach rather than bags and boxes.

2. Don’t buy produce that has been cut at the store.

Grocery stores often don’t store cut fruit at the proper temperature, below 40 degrees, allowing bacteria to multiply on it rapidly.

3. Look for produce that is free from blemishes.

Broken skin provides a place for bacteria to enter and increases the chance of contamination.

4. Wash your hands before handling produce so as not to cross-contaminate it.

5. Wash the outsides of produce under cold running water, even if you won’t be eating the skin.

6. Scrub the outside of produce like melons, cucumbers and apples with a brush under cold running water, even if you plan on peeling them. The bacteria “The reality of it is, the odds are in your favor,” he said, noting that less than 1 percent of bagged salad greens are contaminated. “But even if it was onetenth of a percent, when you multiply that times billions of bags sold, it’s still a significant number,” Doyle added.

As risky as bagged greens can be, Doyle said an even greater concern should be the consumption of raw sprouts like bean and alfalfa.

He believes the only reason they weren’t first on the list of illness-causing produce in the CDC study is that folks just don’t eat nearly as many of them as they do items like lettuce, tomatoes or melon.

on the outside of a melon will be on the inside with the first swipe of a knife that cuts through the skin and into the flesh. Don’t forget to properly sanitize your scrub brush too.

7. Treat produce like you would raw chicken — clean all surfaces after cutting raw produce.

8. Watch out for crosscontamination. Make sure packages of raw meat aren’t packed in the same grocery bag as fresh fruits and vegetables. Store meats on the lowest shelves of the refrigerator to decrease the chance that they could drip onto other foods.

9. Wash reusable grocery bags frequently. Is the bag you used to carry raw chicken home today the same bag that you’ll carry your leaf lettuce home in tomorrow? If so, make sure it is washed in between.

10. For the elderly, the very young and those with weakened immune systems, cook greens like spinach and sprouts to a temperature of at least 165 degrees to kill any bacteria before eating. The greatest percentage of deaths from salmonella happen among the elderly.

He said sprouts, due to their high levels of contamination, should never be consumed raw.

E. coli, salmonella or listeria often are present in very low numbers on seeds for sprouts, but their growing conditions create the perfect petri dish, Doyle explained.

“When we put the seeds into a vat of water to grow the sprouts, at the right temperature, and add nutrients into the water with lots of moisture, it’s the best growing condition for bacteria,” he said.

Sprouts’ contamination can be so complete, it is nearly impossible to wash the germs away, making cooking the only safe option, he said.

tOJ

FINEST & ENTERTAINMENT

MARCH 8 – MARCH 14, 2013

Meet some of

FLORIDA'S

finest

submitted for your approval

B5

Think you’re one of Florida’s Finest?

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

Tanari Brown was born and raised in Detroit. The 22-year-old urban model says she loves working hard and partying harder, going shopping and going to the beach.

She describes herself as “sweet, down to earth and laid back.”

Contact Tanari on Twitter @naturalhazel and email tanarimoore@yahoo.com.

Born and raised in the Bronx in New York, 21-year-old model Malcolm Melvin aspires to one day become a chef and own his own restaurant featuring Jamaican food as well as other fare as well as own an R&B nightclub. He said his friends would describe him as a “wise person who gives good advice, especially on relationships.” Contact Malcolm at facebook.com/MalcolmMelvin or MalcolmLamarMelvin@facebook.com.

malcolm

tanari Hughley ready for some fancy footwork on ‘DWTS’

BY ALEXIS TAYLOR SPECIAL TO THE NNPA

Suggesting that he has what it takes to hold his own outside of the comedy film and stand-up arena, comedian D.L. Hughley has officially joined the cast for season 16 of “Dancing with the Stars” (DWTS).

News of this year’s lineup came on Feb. 26 as cast members made the announcement on ABC’s “Good Morning America” with DWTS hosts Tom Bergeron and Brooke Burke-Charvet.

The comedian follows in the footsteps of NFL star Emmitt Smith, the season three winner, and war hero J.R. Martinez, winner of season 13, who have both taken their twists and turns on the professional ballroom dance floor and closed out competitions with the Mirror Ball Trophy.

“I guess I’ll see if I can learn to dance with my foot in my mouth,” said the 49-year-old Hughley at the ABC cast reveal.

“I’m excited. “I never knew my hips were supposed to move like that.”

In the coming weeks, Hughley will attempt to dazzle audience members with renditions of dances such as the mambo, tango, samba, and rumba.

Each star is partnered with a professional dancer who will work with the celebrities to bring their ballroom skills up to par.

Hughley is partnered with professional dancer D.L. Hughley Cheryl Burke, who has won two seasons of DWTS. Other stars included in this season’s cast include Baltimore Ravens Super Bowl Champ Jacoby Jones, 28, and former welterweight champ Victor Ortiz.

The competition will kick off on March 18 at 8 p.m. on ABC.

Whitney Houston performs at the O2Arena in Berlin, Germany, on May 12, 2010.

She died Feb. 11, 2012, at age 48.

ABACA PRESS/MCT

FBI files show extortion plots against Houston EURWEB.COM

The FBI – which had an 11-year file on Whitney Houston, covering threats against the singer from 1988 to 1999 – has released 128 pages of the heavily redacted documents, revealing details of an apparently successful blackmail plot, as well as an investigation into an obsessed fan.

Released in response to a freedom of information request, the FBI’s documents show that in late 1992, an unidentified Chicago lawyer wrote to Houston’s New Jersey-based production company stating that unless the singer paid $100,000, his client planned to “reveal certain details of [Houston’s] private life … to several publications.” Later the

blackmail amount was boosted even higher, to $250,000.

The FBI saw this as extortion.

But when agents met with Houston and her father, the singer said she knew the woman who was making the threats, and that she was “a friend … [who] would never do anything to embarrass her.” Officers closed the case, even though Houston’s father had apparently sent the blackmailer a confidentiality agreement and an unknown sum of money.

Letter writer questioned In addition to the extortion case, officers investigated several cases of over-devoted fans. One Vermont letter-writer claimed: “I start to shake … when I think about you.”

“Over the past 17 months, I have sent … 66 letters to Miss Whitney,” he wrote. “I have tried to stop writing the letters and to give up twice but after a few weeks I had to start writing again … I have gotten mad at [Whitney] a few times [for not replying] … it scares me that I might come up with some crazy or stupid or really dumb idea … I might hurt someone with some crazy idea.”

FBI agents eventually questioned the letter-writer in 1988 and decided he was harmless.

The same was true for a Dutch or Belgian correspondent who insisted he had written some of Houston’s songs. The writer further claimed that he was the president of Europe and had purchased the country of Brazil for $66 billion.

This story is special to the NNA from the Afro-American Newspaper.

Tennessee dentist wants to be first Black ‘Bachelorette’ ABC’s “Bachelor” franchise, which has been criticized and even sued for its severe lack of minorities, is the target of a new social media campaign launched by a woman trying to be the first AfricanAmerican in franchise history to hand out roses.

Misee Harris, a 28-year-old pediatric dentist from Tennessee, has fired up a Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/MiseeHarris4TheBlackBachelorette) to help in her endeavor.

She is trying to be the first Black “The Bachelorette.’’

Harris – who does charity work and loves sports – was actually chosen to be a contestant on “The Bachelor” but bowed out for fear of being the “token” Black chick, reports Jezebel. There were four Black contestants vying for Sean Lowe’s hand this season on the show.

There has never been a Black contestant in the lead role of “The Bachelor’’ or “The Bachelorette.’’

Misee Harris has a degree from the University of Ken- Harris tucky College of Dentistry, she serves the community through her medical mission trips to provide children with dental care, mentoring young women and working with autismrelated charities, reports the Grio. Harris states that after dedicating the last 10 years to her education and career, she’s ready to focus on her social and romantic life.

FOOD

TOj B6

TOJ

MARCH 8 – MARCH 14, 2013

POWER UP with protein-rich recipes

With 7 grams per serving, peanuts have more energy-boosting protein than any nut. This, along with their more than 30 essential vitamins and nutrients, makes peanuts a superfood.

Peanut Teriyaki Turkey Burgers Serves 4 2 cups baby spinach 1 clove garlic, quartered 1/2 cup reduced-fat mayonnaise Zest of 1 lemon 1 tablespoon lemon juice 1/2 cup unsalted, dry roasted peanuts 1 8-ounce container mushrooms, such as button and cremini 1/2 pound ground turkey breast meat 2 tablespoons teriyaki sauce Cooking spray 4 large romaine lettuce leaves or 1 cup packed baby spinach leaves 1 ripe avocado, thinly sliced 4 5-inch whole wheat pitas Place spinach and garlic in a food processor. Process until spinach is finely chopped. Add mayonnaise, lemon zest and lemon juice; blend again to smooth. Transfer to container and clean food processor bowl.

Preheat oven to 400°F. Place peanuts in food processor and pulse until they are finely chopped. Add mushrooms and pulse again 10 to 15 times until finely chopped. Add turkey meat and teriyaki sauce, and pulse until just combined; mixture should be sticky and moist. Form into four equal patties, and place on plate or waxed paper.

Heat large skillet over medium high heat.

Pull skillet off heat and coat with cooking spray.

Add burgers and place back on heat.

Cook without moving for 4 minutes until a golden crust forms. Spray tops of burgers with a thin layer of cooking spray and flip.

Cook four minutes more then slide skillet with burgers into oven. Bake 20 to 25 minutes until burgers are cooked through and no longer moist in the center. Set aside.

Layer one romaine lettuce leaf or 1/2 cup baby spinach leaves into each pita along with a few slices of avocado. Spoon in two table­spoons mayonnaise mixture.

Slide burger in and serve immediately. Use toothpick to hold pita together, if needed.

Peanut and Cherry “Sundae” Smoothie Serves 2 1 cup frozen cherries 1 cup reduced-fat, plain Greek yogurt 1 cup fresh, prewashed baby spinach leaves, packed 1 cup skim milk 1/4 cup unsalted, dry roasted peanuts 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 4 ice cubes Place all ingredients in blender and process until smooth. Serve immediately.

FROM Family Features

It takes a lot of energy to keep up with today’s busy lifestyle. Between juggling work, family, friends and activities, people are often looking for something to help them keep going. Many are turning to nutritious, plant-based sources of protein, such as peanuts, to help

provide long-lasting energy throughout the day.

“By adding peanuts it is easy to make a protein-boosting smoothie, energyrich waffles, better-for-you burgers, and crunchy kale chips without a lot of salt,” says Jennifer Iserloh, chef and certified health coach. “This Peanut Teriyaki Turkey Burger has more ingredi-

ents than you would normally expect when building your burger, but the payoff is huge. This meal is a source of vitamins E and A, folate and plenty of heart-healthy compounds that you get from superfoods like peanuts.”

For more nutrition information and delicious ways to stay energized, visit www.nationalpeanutboard.org.

Peanut Berry Waffles Serves 4, makes 8 waffles 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour 1 cup peanut flour 3 tablespoons granulated sugar 1 tablespoon baking powder 4 egg whites 1/4 teaspoon salt 2 cups skim milk 1/2 cup unsalted, dry roasted peanuts, finely chopped Cooking spray 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries Preheat waffle iron according to manufacturer’s instructions.

Place flours in large bowl along with sugar and baking powder. Mix well and set aside.

Place egg whites in large bowl along with salt.

Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites on high about 1 minute until fluffy and cling to bowl.

Add milk and peanuts to bowl with flour mixture.

Using wire whisk, whisk flour mixture into milk until just combined; there will be small lumps. Fold in 1/2 cup egg whites, using rubber spatula, until well combined. Gently fold in remaining egg whites until just combined; batter should be light and fluffy.

Coat inside of waffle iron with cooking spray.

Place a heaping 1/2 cup mixture onto waffle iron, spreading it out slightly with rubber spatula. Top with 2 tablespoons blue­berries and close the lid.

Cook for 3 to 4 minutes, until waffle is cooked through but still soft to the touch. Transfer to plate.

Repeat with remaining batter.

Cool waffles completely before storing in an air-tight container on the countertop for 3 days. To freeze, transfer cool waffles to large zipper lock bag and freeze for up to 3 months.

Crispy Peanut Kale Chips Serves 4 1 10-ounce bunch curly kale, stems trimmed Cooking spray 1/2 cup unsalted, dry roasted peanuts, finely chopped 1/4 cup ground flax seed, golden or brown 1/2 teaspoon low sodium jalapeño or chipotle seasoning or 1/4 teaspoon salt 2 egg whites Preheat oven to 400°F. Rinse kale under cold water. Dry well with paper towels or dry dish towel.

Coat two baking sheets with cooking spray.

Place peanuts, ground flax and seasoning or salt on sheet of wax paper. Mix with your fingertips.

Place egg whites in large bowl and whisk until foamy with a wire whisk, about 10 seconds. Dip edges of kale leaves into egg then press into peanut mixture. Transfer kale leaves to baking sheets; spread out so leaves aren’t touching. Coat tops of leaves with a layer of cooking spray.

Bake 10 to 12 minutes, until leaves crisp and peanuts are golden. Cool 1 minute before serving.