Florida Courier - July 31, 2015

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JULY 31 – AUGUST 6, 2015

VOLUME 23 NO. 31

THE NRA’S BLACK FACE A Texas lawyer who calls himself ‘an urban gun enthusiast’ defends the Second Amendment and gun ownership. He’s neither old, fat, nor White.

Obama’s Africa trip a delicate dance of diplomacy

BY CHRISTI PARSONS TRIBUNE WASHINGTON BUREAU/TNS

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia – President Barack Obama’s five-day trip to Africa that ended Tuesday with a rousing speech to the continent’s heads of government featured a delicate dance of diplomacy with leaders who have rocky records on human rights and corruption, among the continent’s most pressing problems.

The presidents of Kenya and Uganda traveled to meetings here this week with Obama, as did the Ethiopian prime minister. The president of Sudan, under warrant of the International Criminal Court, had the good grace to stay home but did send his foreign minister.

For Obama, careful choreography with them was a daily exercise throughout the trip – no grinning handshakes with this sketchy character, precisely worded defenses of that one – in the service of tackling complex problems that can’t be fixed without them.

A presidential first

MOLLY HENNESSEY-FISKE/LOS ANGELES TIMES/MCT

In this file photo, NRA commentator Colion Noir, 32, sits in his Texas loft with a few firearms close at hand. Noir has built a following with online firearm videos.

‘NEGROES WITH GUNS’ PART 4 Editor’s note: The title of this series is taken from the 1962 book titled, “Negroes with Guns” by Robert F. Williams, a North Carolina native and Marine Corps veteran who advocated armed self-defense by African-Americans.

BY MOLLY HENNESSY-FISKE LOS ANGELES TIMES /MCT

diversity among gun owners that defies stereotypes.

H

‘A few of us’

OUSTON ‒ “Colion Noir” belongs to the National Rifle Association (NRA) and owns several guns, including a sleek Glock 17 handgun and a customized AR-15 rifle. But as Noir frequently points out, he does not fit the stereotype of NRA members, or what he calls OFWG: “Old, fat White guys.”

At 29, he’s not old. Nor is he fat ‒ he’s slender and stylishly dressed with sneakers made

by Prada. He’s also not White.

In the world of gun owners, Noir, an African-American, has become an Internet sensation and his popularity is growing.

Gun culture popularity Noir has attracted followers with pro-gun videos ‒ titles include “Gun Control & Bathrooms” and “You Know You’re a Gun Control Hypocrite if … ” He has emerged as a dynamic and unexpected NRA persona.

Gun control advocates dismiss him as an NRA pawn, and some Blacks accuse him of being an Uncle Tom. But to many at NRA conventions, Noir demonstrated a historic

After Noir left the talk-show stage at a recent NRA convention, fans approached to shake hands and pose for photographs. Most were White. A handful of them, like Quentin Smith, were Black.

“Congratulations,” said Smith, 44, a gun owner from Cypress, Texas. “There’s a few of us out there.”

The NRA does not release membership demographics, but according to a Pew Research Center survey, many gun owners in America are White ‒ 31 percent of Whites polled in 2013 said they owned guns, compared with 15 percent of Blacks and 11 percent of Latinos.

“This is one tie that binds all of us together,” said NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam, describing the group as “the oldest civil rights organization in America.”

Arulanandam noted that the NRA also recently signed on a woman and a young veteran as commentators who speak to other growing demographics within the ranks of

At the end of the historic tour of his father’s homeland of Kenya and the visit to Ethiopia, White House officials were confident that Obama has made important strides.

On Tuesday, he became the first sitting U.S. president to address the African Union and called on its leaders to end public corruption, liberate women and girls from gender-based tyranny and end the violence against gays and lesbians that is seen as socially acceptable in many countries.

“Africa’s progress will depend on democracy because Africans, like people everywhere, deserve the dignity of being in control of their own lives,” Obama said. “I’m convinced that nations cannot realize the full promise of independence until they fully protect the rights of their people.”

Terrorism talks Much of Obama’s trip was focused on fighting terrorism and stabilizing East Africa. Obama advisers say he agreed with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn about greater cooperation in fighting the al-Shabab terrorist group and strengthening governance in Somalia, where the militants operate.

Those leaders also joined in See OBAMA, Page A2

See GUNS, Page A2

SNAPSHOTS

Courier wins best front-page honor from Florida Press Association FROM STAFF REPORTS

The Florida Courier placed third for best front pages in the Florida Press Association’s annual Better Weekly Newspaper Contest.

The Courier staff was the third-place winner in the Front Page Makeup category in Division A, which is for newspapers with circulations of 15,000 or more. The first-place winner was the Sarasota Observer; the East County Observer, also based in Sarasota, was second.

The contest awards, which were for the best work of 2014, were presented on July 24 at The Westin Lake Mary during the Florida Press Association/Florida Society of News Editors annual convention.

The recognition is the latest in a number of state and national awards and recognition that

ALSO INSIDE

the Florida Courier, Florida’s largest Black-owned newspaper, has won every year from either the Florida Press Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Poynter Institute, the National Newspaper Publishers Association, or the National Association of Angela Black Journalists for its work van Emmerik since its statewide launch in 2006.

Angela van Emmerik, a veteran presentation and design editor, is the Courier’s creative director.

“As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, ‘Praise is like Vitamin A to the ego, even when you don’t deserve it and even if you don’t believe

it,’” Cherry exclaimed. “Angela’s award is welldeserved, and we’re very happy that the Florida Press Association recognized her talent. We can depend on her to showcase the hard work of our staff every week. Her graphic design makes readers immediately want to plunge into reading both the Florida Courier and the Daytona Times.

“Winning anything always feels good, and publishing two weekly newspapers is a successful collaborative effort involving writers, editors, photographers, designers, printers, distributors, sales staff, the back office and ownership. Everyone on our team shares this award.”

The Florida Press Association includes all of the Florida’s daily newspapers and many of the state’s weekly newspapers in its membership.

FLORIDA | A3

Colleges under fire for recruiting practices WORLD | A6

Obama strikes chord with Kenyan women SHOPPING | A6

Simplify back-toschool shopping

COMMENTARY: CHARLES W. CHERRY II: RANDOM THOUGHTS OF A FREE BLACK MIND | A4 COMMENTARY: REV. DR. BARBARA REYNOLDS: CHURCH LEADERS SHOULD COME OUT OF CLOSET | A4

FOCUS

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JULY 31 – AUGUST 6, 2015

Senate admits election districts are unconstitutional

BY BRANDON LARRABEE THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

TALLAHASSEE − In what one critic of the Legislature called an “unprecedented admission,” the Florida Senate conceded Tuesday that the chamber’s districts are unconstitutional and should be redrawn in a special session beginning in October.

An agreement between the Legislature and a coalition of voting-rights groups and citizens that challenged the Senate map raised the possibility of concluding a three-year legal sa-

OBAMA from A1

a meeting with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Sudanese Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour in which they discussed imposing sanctions on the warring factions in South Sudan if their bloody fight drags on beyond Aug. 17.

The question back in the U.S. will be whether the achievements are worth the company Obama had to keep to get them.

Rating the regimes Uganda’s Museveni and his ruling party curtail freedom of expression and assembly, while police and security forces target opposition groups with impunity, according to human rights advocates. Kenyatta eluded ICC charges of involvement in post-election violence of 2008 under complaint from prosecutors that the government impeded the work of investigators.

Meanwhile, Desalegn claims that his election was free and fair despite the fact that he garnered 100 percent of the vote.

“One cannot ignore the fact that Prime Minister Desalegn’s support is needed in this effort against groups such as al-Shabab, ISIL and al-Qaida,” said Steven Taylor, a professor of government and Africa expert at American University, referring to the Islamic State militant group by an alternate acronym.

No ‘family photo’ Taylor said the U.S. government may view some of today’s authoritarian leaders in the same way that Franklin D. Roosevelt viewed Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, about whom FDR said, in a less sanitized way, “He may be a bad actor, but he’s our bad actor.”

“Perhaps the same can be said about some of today’s despotic regimes,” he said.

There was no “fami-

GUNS from A1

gun owners. He said the NRA did not choose Noir because of his race.

“When he speaks, he’s able to relate to a variety of people. That’s why he has a broad following,” Arulanandam said.

HBCU grad Noir was born Collins ‒ “Mr. Colion Noir” is a stage name ‒ son of an executive chef and a registered nurse. He graduated from high school in Houston, went to the University of Houston, where he majored in political science, and earned a law degree from Texas Southern University’s Thurgood Marshall School of Law. Noir is a practicing attorney. He reads fashion blogs, loves gadgets and drives a sports car and a truck ‒ neither with a gun rack, although he keeps a metal candy dish full of bullets in his living room.

Not discussed Noir said he grew up hesitant to admit he liked

ga over the once-a-decade redistricting process. The court battle exposed how the state’s political boundaries were drawn and set new precedents under the antigerrymandering “Fair Districts” constitutional amendments approved by voters in 2010.

The deal also comes less than three weeks after the Florida Supreme Court struck down eight of the state’s 27 congressional districts for violating one of the amendments − a case that was ominous for lawmakers because opponents of the map felt they had an even stronger case

against the Senate plan.

Under the agreement submitted Tuesday, critics of the map won a near-total victory. The Senate districts will be redrawn in a special session that will start Oct. 19, and the Legislature will have to prove to the court that its map follows the Constitution.

The agreement means, even if all goes as planned, the Legislature will have held three special sessions in 2015 − one to resolve a health-care budget crisis, another to redraw the congressional lines and the October session to approve new Senate districts. The

Senate session will also mark the fourth time lawmakers have held a special or extended meeting to correct flawed redistricting plans.

Between changes to the congressional map and the Senate districts, the state’s political landscape could be dramatically altered over the next four months.

The special session to redraw the Senate map will start about two months after a special session to craft new congressional districts, scheduled for Aug. 10 to Aug. 21. Any challenge to the congressional rewrite will be heard by Leon County Cir-

cuit Judge Terry Lewis beginning Sept. 24. The Supreme Court will ultimately consider that map again.

After the October special session, the Senate redo will go before Leon County Circuit Judge George S. Reynolds III, likely sometime in November.

Lawmakers have spent more than $6.7 million since July 2009 on the redistricting process. And the tab could grow if those fighting the maps win a court order for the Legislature to pay their legal bills, a figure that will end up exceeding $1 million.

ly photo” of leaders at the African Union, a fixture of most summits that the president attends.

Still, the administration officials have repeatedly pointed out that Obama believes the U.S. must reach out even to potential partners with offensive practices.

“We want to engage with governments on areas of mutual concern and interest – the same way, by the way, that we deal with China and deal with a range of other countries where the democratic practices or issues around freedom of the press and assembly are not ones that align with how we are thinking about it,” Obama said in Addis Ababa this week. “But we continually bring it up and we indicate that this is part of our core interest and concern in our foreign policy.

That’s true here as well.”

Money and power Conservatives are among those applauding the president’s effort to find common ground on trade and business in Africa. Sen. Jeff Flake, RAriz., a former Mormon missionary to the continent, traveled with him to Africa, and business leaders including entrepreneur Steve Case met the president’s party there.

Obama brought small increases in aid, announcing plans to invest at least a half-billion dollars to fight Ebola and other infectiousdisease outbreaks.

Mainly, though, he promised to sustain the U.S. support for food security, climate change adaptation and the Power Africa project designed to deliver electricity that helps drive investment.

Obama’s emphasis on building business ties and empowering entrepreneurs may also accelerate the shift in American perceptions of the continent in a way that spurs development, said Joshua Meservey, Africa policy analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

“Investment is a mutually beneficial arrangement, as well as a far more dignity-enhancing, effecfirearms because it wasn’t something people talked about in his middle-class neighborhood. He fired his first gun, a small Taurus .40, about ten years ago at the urging of a friend who took him to a shooting range.

“I remember how exhilarating it was,” Noir said, comparing the experience to sky diving.

Soon afterward, he was going to the range weekly and researching guns. He later joined the NRA and bought about half a dozen guns.

Noir, who once worked at A/X Armani Exchange and favors tailored suits, worries that a concealed handgun might “print,” or show through the fabric.

“Secret Service have the worst cut suits ‒ big and bulky,” so their guns won’t show, Noir said.

Started online A few years ago, he began posting YouTube videos of himself critiquing guns and accessories.

Then he started tackling politics and pop culture, addressing mass shootings, assault weapon bans and gun control campaigns by New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and

JOHN OKOYO/XINHUA/SIPA USA/TNS

Some of the 1998 bomb blast victims and relatives protest outside the memorial park demanding compensations from the U.S. government in Nairobi, Kenya, on July 24. President Barack Obama visited the park on July 25. tive, and sustainable way of helping the continent develop than aid,” he said.

“If the president is able to raise the continent’s profile with investors and even average Americans, it would be a laudable long-term benefit of the trip.”

‘Unqualified’ success Still, for Meservey, the gains don’t counterbalance the concerns about appearing and doing business with leaders with troubling human rights records. Authoritarian regimes like the governing party in Ethiopia see democracy, civil society and a free press “as an existential threat” and are willing to act harshly to ensure regime survival.

“Its leaders are not going to blossom into human rights defenders simply because they received a stern talking-to,” said Meservey. the rapper formerly known as Snoop Dogg.

Noir said he tried preparing a video about “Stand Your Ground” laws after a jury acquitted George Zimmerman in the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin in Florida.

“I decided to table it because there’s too much complexity,” Noir said.

Noir sprinkles his videos with gun slang and offbeat humor, sometimes delivered with a smirk, sometimes deadpan. Some videos have been viewed more than 1 million times.

In one, Noir sits on a plush couch in his loft next to his assault rifle, wearing a black Yankees cap and a modern plaid shirt, tossing off references to Justin Bieber and “Entourage,” while mocking the owners of .45 handguns as “the Scientologists of the gun world” because they’ve attributed mythical powers to the .45 bullet ‒ think “Zeus’ thunderbolt or Thor’s hammer.”

The camera cuts again and again to Noir wearing different baseball caps as he plays other characters.

Why carry a .45?

The characters explain.

“Because a 9 millime-

“A strong and stable democracy, which is the best system for ensuring a government respects its people’s human rights, will only be built in an authoritarian context through grassroots, ground-up effort anyway. The most effective contribution the U.S. can make is to robustly encourage that.”

But one former U.S. ambassador to Kenya under President George W. Bush called Obama’s trip “an unqualified, perhaps even a great, success,” pointing to the way he publicly acknowledged differences with Kenyatta “in a way that did not offend his hosts.”

Ethiopia and Kenya are pivotal states, said the former ambassador, William Bellamy, as deserving of a presidential visit as other emerging economies and strategic partners.

“We don’t maximize our influence on governments ter only kills your body, but the .45 ‒ that kills your soul,” one says, staring dully at the camera.

“Maybe because I’m too lazy to shoot twice,” another says.

“The only ones I know can survive a .45 is Wolverine and Superman,” says yet another.

Noir reasons there’s not much difference between a .45 and other powerful firearms, like the 9 mm handgun: “Are you going to be any more dead when, in one of her drunken stupors, Lindsay Lohan runs over you with her Range Rover Sport versus Kim Kardashian in her full-size Range Rover?”

NRA support Noir was launching his online brand last three years ago when the NRA approached him. Officially, he’s a paid commentator, not a spokesman, though the videos are branded “NRA.” He and the group declined to say how much he’s paid.

Once a deal had been struck, the NRA released an ad promoting his first video praising the gun rights group for championing the right of Blacks to bear arms during Jim Crow

President Obama’s Africa trip Kenya Saturday, July 25 • Global Entrepreneurship Summit • Tribute to victims of 1998 embassy bombings • Meeting with government, state dinner Sunday, July 26 • Speech to Kenyan people • Civil society event • Travel to Ethiopia

EGYPT

SAUDI ARABIA

SUDAN

Addis Ababa

Nairobi

Ethiopia Monday, July 27 • Meeting with government, state dinner • Meeting with regional leaders Tuesday, July 28 • Civil society roundtable • Speech to the African Union • Meeting with AU Commission Chairwoman

250 km 250 miles Source: White House Graphic: TNS

with which we have differences by staying home and berating or lecturing from

afar,” said Bellamy. “Those days are pretty much over, even in Africa.”

and the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

“The same government who at one point hosed us down with water, attacked us with dogs and wouldn’t allow us to eat at their restaurants told us we couldn’t own guns when bumbling fools with sheets on their heads were riding around burning crosses on our lawns and murdering us,” Noir says in the video as “Washington elitism” flashes across the screen.

It was not a misreading of history, according to UCLA law professor Adam Winkler, author of “Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America.”

Winkler said that the armed Black Panthers of the 1960s, despite criticism by then-Republican California Gov. Ronald Reagan and many conservatives, paved the way for the NRA’s current interpretation of the Second Amendment: that citizens should be able to carry guns in public, not just for hunting, but for protection, including protection against government tyranny.

nounced Noir for what they say is selling out to the White pro-gun establishment, with critiques posted on theroot.com and the Black Entertainment Television website.

“He’s taking more heat from Black people than anybody. The racism that exists now is mostly on our side,” said the Rev. Kenn Blanchard, 50, a gun rights activist who is Black. He said he advised Noir to accept the NRA deal.

Noir said he expected attacks, but he gets frustrated when critics highlight his race.

“Calling me an Uncle Tom simply because I’m into firearms, it doesn’t even make sense. My entire identity as a Black guy is based on my ownership of guns? Really?” he said. “Some of the most influential Black individuals have advocated for the use of firearms, so how come when I do it, I’m vilified? Take a look at the Black Panthers, MLK, Malcolm X.” The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. supported gun rights? Noir noted that after King’s home in Montgomery, Ala., was firebombed, King applied for a handgun permit.

Under attack Now some in the Black community have de-

JULY 31 – AUGUST 6, 2015

FLORIDA

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For-profit colleges under fire for recruiting practices Students allowed to enroll with no proof they finished high school

BY MICHAEL VASQUEZ MIAMI HERALD/TNS

It’s a term that sounds like a street crime: “Snatch and grab.”

At Miami’s FastTrain College, that’s how some employees described the recruiting of students.

Prosecutors say FastTrain’s recruiters would drive around poor neighborhoods trying to cajole the men on street corners or at bus stops into jumping into a car for a trip to the school.

“It’s called snatch and grab, man, snatch and grab, baby,” Anthony Mincey, a former admissions director, said in a phone conversation secretly recorded by federal investigators.

Mincey and three other employees at the for-profit college, including former chief executive Alejandro Amor, are charged with conspiracy and theft of government money. Regardless of the outcome, the federal trial — scheduled to begin in two months — promises to be a primer on how to fraudulently obtain federal education grants and loans.

The alleged fraud at the heart of the FastTrain case — improperly enrolling students who lack a high school diploma or its equivalent — has been an issue at other Florida for-profit colleges. Billions of dollars in governmentfunded financial aid are at stake.

No proof needed At some for-profit col-

FastTrain’s seven campuses were closed after a 2012 FBI raid, but not before they raked in more than $35 million in government Pell grants and loans. leges, students are allowed to enroll simply by stating they completed high school, without providing any sort of proof. The student just signs an “attestation” form that they have a diploma.

“Anyone can walk in there and say, ‘I graduated from Orlando High School in 1987 or whatever,’ and that’s good enough,” said Pat Elston, a former recruiter for Southern Technical College.

For-profit colleges say their goal is noble: To provide college access for working adults and minorities. Southern Technical said it “does not knowingly enroll students who lack a high school diploma or GED equivalent, nor is such a process authorized or encouraged.”

Community colleges say they, too, aim to provide open access, but Miami Dade College requires an official high school transcript.

“There has to be some structure to the process,” said Juan Mendieta, a spokesman for Miami Dade College.

Haunted by loans Former FastTrain student Peter Cardenas said he told the admissions representative at the Miami campus that he never finished high school — and the college told him not to worry about it. Cardenas later dropped out because he was unhappy with the quality of teaching. Seven years later, he’s still haunted by more than $30,000 in student loans, which are in

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– Book review, School Library Journal • How low expectations of Black students’ achievements can get them higher grades; • Want a great grade? Prepare to cheat!

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www.excellencewithoutexcuse.com Download immediately as an eBook or a pdf Order softcover online, from Amazon, or your local bookstore ISBN#978-1-56385-500-9 Published by International Scholastic Press, LLC Contact Charles at ccherry2@gmail.com

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default.

“I wish I could make it go away,” he said.

FastTrain’s seven campuses were closed after a 2012 FBI raid, but not before they raked in more than $35 million in government Pell grants and loans.

At another school, Florida Career College, undercover agents found employees producing fake high school diplomas and telling prospective students to lie about their high school diploma status.

The school — which has eight campuses in South Florida — is still operating.

Federal prosecutors closed the case in 2012 without filing criminal charges.

‘Couldn’t read or write’ Florida Career College’s former chief executive, David Knobel, said the improper recruiting was done by rogue employees.

At Southern Technical, which has nine Florida campuses, a former instructor said the “high school attestation” loophole is routinely abused.

Students are told, with a wink and a nod, that they need either a high school of GED diploma to attend, she said.

“You tell them if they want to go to school here, they need to check one of these two boxes,” said Cheryl Kelley, who said students clearly understand that the school will look the other way.

“I’ve actually had students that couldn’t read or write,” said Kelley, a licensed nurse who taught medical assistant classes.

“What we were told is we needed to read the questions to them, and read the answers.”

Allegations denied Kelley said she resigned in November. Southern Technical denied the allegations and called Kelley a “disgruntled” former employee with a “biased agenda.”

“STC does not knowingly enroll students who do not have the mental capacity to attend college,” wrote school president and chief executive Pedro De Guzman.

A senior vice president at Southern Technical, Ilia Matos, is a board member for Florida’s Commission for Independent Education — the state watchdog agency supervising forprofit colleges. During an October 2013 inspection of Southern Technical’s Tampa campus, the CIE noted “the college is accepting attestations in lieu of high school diploma or general equivalency diploma.”

Because of this, the CIE wrote, “verification of education (high school or GED) was not available in most of the student files reviewed.”

book signings, panel

‘Career colleges’

discussions.

The same was true for Southern Technical’s Fort Myers and Port Charlotte

campuses. Florida Department of Education spokeswoman Cheryl Etters said “this is not a violation” because attestations are allowed by Southern Technical’s accreditor.

Accrediting agencies are funded by fees paid by their member schools.

Southern Technical’s accreditor is the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools.

ACICS specializes in “career colleges,” which are mostly for-profit institutions.

ACICS also accredits Florida Career College and previously accredited FastTrain.

An ACICS spokesman, Tony Bieda, said less than 1 percent of students are admitted through high school attestations, which he said have been allowed by the accreditor for at least a decade. Bieda said ACICS contacts some students during its campus visits to ask if they really graduated from the high school that the college has on file. In some cases, they didn’t.

“That does happen, but very infrequently,” Bieda said. “The school will be cited for that … and we’ll have an in-depth discussion of how they need to change their procedure.”

‘Not the FBI’ Strict high school requirements might work in traditional higher education, Bieda said, but he said the working adults enrolling at career colleges might have graduated 10 years ago, and may no longer live in the same state as their parents.

“It’s more important for us, as the accreditor, that the student have access to the opportunity,” he said.

Students giving false “attestations” is one area of potential fraud; high school diploma mills are another.

A former director of admissions at FastTrain, Luis Arroyo, told federal investigators that employees were admonished in a conference call not to question the validity of any high school diploma.

“I forbid you to ask questions,” Amor said, according to Arroyo. “If a student said they graduated, that’s it, we are not the FBI.” Amor could not be reached for comment and his attorney did not return calls.

Ex-strippers as recruiters A former regional campus director for FastTrain, Jose Gonzalez, wore a wire as part of his cooperation with investigators. He then walked into FastTrain’s Jacksonville campus at around lunchtime on Jan. 19, 2012.

“Let’s just say my estimation is that FastTrain has about 700 students,” Gonzalez said to Mincey, the admissions director. “I would say 400 don’t even have a diploma, bro.”

Responded Mincey: “Mm-hmm, that’s a fact.”

In statements to investigators, ex-employees said Amor built FastTrain’s enrollments by hiring exstrippers as recruiters, some of whom wore “short skirts and stiletto heels” to work.

Gonzalez said Amor told him: “Hire some hot mommas” and “hire the sluttiest girls he could find.”

“Gonzalez remarked that he was a Christian man and did not know how to hire those kinds of women,” federal investigators wrote in their summary report.

Not ‘flirty’ enough Thayris Bonilla said she worked at Miami’s King of Diamonds strip club just before joining FastTrain as an admissions rep, though she told the Herald in an interview that she was a waitress, not a dancer.

Bonilla said her FastTrain bosses told her “I needed to be more flirty with people.”

Bonilla lasted only a few months at the job, and she said she hated it because the school targeted “vulnerable” people.

Bonilla said she’d drive through the poorest neighborhoods in Fort Lauderdale, looking for men or women who could be convinced to enroll. Bonilla said the first step was to ask the person “are you looking for a job?”

Once they said yes, the recruiter would switch the conversation to FastTrain’s programs, Bonilla said, and how they could lead to a job in only six or seven months. The next step: Convincing the person to get in the car and travel 20 minutes to the FastTrain campus.

‘Honor Roll Institution’ Bonilla usually worked with another admissions rep, but she said she still felt unease about her safety when inviting men off the street into her car. One day, her admissions partner was a very aggressive saleswoman who convinced four men to hop in the car.

The recruiter was hugging the men, while being “extra, like, super-friendly” to them, Bonilla said.

“It was very uncomfortable,” Bonilla said of her FastTrain experience. “I always had pepper spray and I had a Taser in my car.”

A year before FastTrain College was raided by the FBI for alleged fraud, it was recognized by its accreditor, ACICS, as an “Honor Roll Institution,” which meant the school had two or fewer “findings of deficiency” during accreditors’ last visit.

Before that, Florida’s oversight agency, the CIE, praised FastTrain, writing in an inspection from 2007 that “the school is very well organized and run.”

That same inspection reviewed six student files for proof of GED or high school diploma. None of them had it.

EDITORIAL

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JULY 31 – AUGUST 6, 2015

Church leaders, come out of the closets Homosexuals have come out of the closet, while many churches have run into the closets and shut the doors.

An overstatement? Maybe.

But there is much dissatisfaction within Black church circles that many of their leaders are remaining silent and accepting the U.S. Supreme Court’s scandalous redefinition of marriage.

There is also silence as more politicians legalize marijuana, as the slaughter of Christians in Africa and the Middle East increases, and as Blacks die by the thousands at the hands of other Blacks.

Inside the churches, souls are being saved; praise and worship is inspirational; and the preached Word generally ensures the congregants that better and more prosperous days are ahead.

Is that it?

Shouldn’t the church be more prophetic in speaking truth to power? Shouldn’t the preachers be the headlights instead of the taillights on moral and social issues in our community? In these crisis-infected times, is there nothing to be done or said differently than what is going on within the four walls of our churches?

How dare the Supreme Court ignore thousands of years of marriage as a sacred sacrament and covenant between male and female? For those who believe that the Bible is the Word of God, the definition of marriage was clearly established in the Garden of Eden.

When God created Adam, He declared, “It is not good for man to be alone.” He then created Eve from Adam and brought her to

REV. DR. BARBARA REYNOLDS TRICE EDNEY NEWSWIRE

him with the words, “a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Genesis 2:24-25. Those words were also repeated in the New Testament.

The first wedding was sacred and repeated in ceremonies between male and females down through the ages. In addition, the Bible repeatedly condemns homosexuality (as well as adultery) as sins that, without repentance, could deny entrance into heaven.

The Court cannot change those laws any more than it can turn a donkey into a frog.

Serious impact The same-sex issue is a landmark decision that can change the character of our nation. Textbooks are being rewritten with children having two men as “husbands” and two women as “wives.” Teachers are already being told they have to teach samesex parents as “normal” or lose their jobs.

Homosexuality, transgendered, and unisexed are being touted in the media as the “cool” thing to be. It is not too much of a leap that a male with a husband will become president of the United States in our lifetime.

Far too few preachers preach sermons on what the Bible says

about homosexuality as well as adultery and “shacking.” That presents a problem, because the American Bible Society says more than 77 percent of those studied think the nation’s morality is headed downhill – but only one in five read the Bible regularity. So if the preachers don’t preach nor defend the Word, people look to the amoral crowd – Hollywood, the media and the biblical illiterate – for guidance.

There are other issues where the silence among church leaders is deafening. In Washington, D.C., one of the first major actions of new Mayor Muriel Bowser was to help legalize marijuana. Scientific studies show pot as a “gateway” drug that opens the door to the more serious addictions to crack and heroin use. And now the approval of pot has morphed into an upswing in the sale of synthetic drugs which is resulting in dangerous violent incidences. Unfortunately once again the push back on drugs from clergy – Blacks and White alike – is minuscule.

No response As Christians in Syria, Iraq, and Nigeria are being beheaded, there is no massive outcry from clergy for President Obama and the United Nations to use their power to find solutions. Must we wait until ISIS and Boko Haram train their sights on Christians in the U.S. to take action?

With the steady stream of children and other civilians being murdered in our major cities, churches should be calling for revival, more prayer and spiritual power to chase the demonic onslaught of homicide out of our

VISUAL VIEWPOINT: BOY SCOUTS ALLOW GAY LEADERS

BILL DAY / CAGLE CARTOONS

communities. Maybe churches should declare neighborhoods the new mission fields and dispatch evangelists, prayer warriors and worship leaders to street corner tent services to change hearts and souls.

Why are so many pressing issues in our Black communities going unaddressed and unexamined by many who preach Jesus Christ? Is the social justice ministry of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. dead?

Marvin McMickle, in his book “Where Have All the Prophets Gone?”, blames an overzealous preoccupation with praise and worship, and a narrow view of patriotism and personal enrichment themes. I also add the fear of losing federal funds and tithes; not wanting to be involved in politics; not seeing social justice issues as their calling and being afraid to go against popular culture.

There are many reasons for the silence from the pulpits – some honorable, other questionable.

Yet when you look how drugs

and murder entered schools after the Court chased prayer out of schools, you wonder what will be the result of the Court once again crossing the line between the separation of church and state with so little pushback from people of faith.

Subject to change The Court does not have to have the final word on same-sex marriage. Legal segregation under Plessey v. Ferguson was the law of the land for more than 50 years until the hard work of Thurgood Marshall and his team worked to overturn it through Brown vs. the Board of Education.

My hope is that the best answer from our churches to the crises of our time will not be to look the other way and stay hidden in the closet.

Dr. Barbara Reynolds is an ordained elder, professional journalist, and author of seven books.

Obama takes prison reform ‘con’ on the road President Obama last week took his criminal justice con game into the U.S. prison system, home to one out of eight incarcerated persons in the world.

On any given day, about 80,000 inmates are held in solitary confinement, some of them for decades. Obama proclaimed that’s not a “smart” thing to do, and ordered his Justice Department to conduct a study of how to cut down on solitary confinement.

If that means Obama’s going to pursue a “smart” criminal justice policy, in the same way that he wages “smart” wars, then not much will change in U.S. prisons.

The president waited until the second half of his second term in office – and the rise of an incipient mass protest movement – before experiencing his epiphany on mass incarceration. So-called

GLEN FORD BLACK AGENDA REPORT

prison reform is now a thoroughly bipartisan affair.

GOP support Republicans have harbored a strain of prison reformism ever since many of Richard Nixon’s men found themselves behind bars in the aftermath of Watergate, and even the rabidly reactionary Koch Brothers are funding prison reform. The legislatures of at least 15 states have either passed, or are debating, ways to limit solitary confinement.

Random thoughts of a free Black mind, v. 263 Sandra Bland’s “death by cop” − I reviewed the autopsy report, the booking documents, and available court documents.

• Time is only of the essence with regard to gathering evidence that can be destroyed, manipulated, despoiled, or that disappears over time. Time is NOT of the essence when it comes to making a conclusion about the manner of her death. As a journalist, I understand that the bottomless 'news' maw must be endlessly fed with 'fresh content,' even when it's just speculation. I won't play that game.

• I am willing to consider suicide as the manner of death, despite the fact that there's a history of using 'suicide' to mask murders (especially of Black people) that happen in police custody.

But whether it was murder or suicide, the jail is on the hook. Her

QUICK TAKES FROM #2: STRAIGHT, NO CHASER

CHARLES W. CHERRY II, ESQ. PUBLISHER

death was preventable, and she never should have been in custody.

• The jail used a risk assessment checklist to determine whether Sandra should have been in close custody. The facts that (1) she screamed, "I have epilepsy" during her arrest (something the arresting officer should have told the booking desk); (2) allegedly told the jailers she was being medicated for it; (3) that suicidal thoughts were a known

And Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, a crucial swing vote on the high court, has all but invited prison reform groups to challenge solitary confinement on Constitutional grounds.

So, although Obama is the first serving president to actually set foot in a prison, he is moving in politically safe territory. However, don’t expect anything other than cynical theatricality and double-dealing from this president. When it comes to the criminal justice system, Obama is a consummate trickster.

This month, with great fanfare, he commuted the sentences of 46 nonviolent drug offenders. Eight of them had been convicted for crack cocaine.

But two years ago, Obama’s Justice Department successfully argued against retroactive re-

lease of prisoners convicted under the infamous 100-to-1 crack cocaine penalties. Because of Obama, 5,000 people, most of them Black, were left to languish in prison – yet he is praised for letting just eight of them out, under presidential commutation, two years later.

Now, that is a champion con man.

side effect of her disclosed medication called Keppra; (4) she allegedly had attempted suicide before − were not considered. She could and should have been upgraded to a closer custody classification − which would have placed more burden on the jail staff to monitor her.

• This was all typical assemblyline justice. The arresting officer's affidavit was a typical "cut & paste" job that makes out the prima facie criminal case without a lot of detail. I saw hundreds of these as a prosecutor, even when cops were using typewriters. Any judge looking at it would legally justify the arrest 100 percent of the time. The first appearance/ bail hearing was a mere formality.

• Sandra had NO money in her possession when she was arrested (unless somebody at the booking desk stole her cash). Sounds like she took off from Chicago with no cash and maybe a debit/ credit card, or spent all her cash on the way. Thus, a $5,000 bond must have seemed impossible to attain. She and her people may

not have known that $500 could get her out − or they may just not have had it. Three days in jail under total control of a system you are fighting against must have seemed like an eternity.

• Every time I read an autopsy report − and I've read hundreds− I'm reminded of how physically and psychologically invasive the whole process is. Your body is literally cut open and microscopically examined. The entire world literally sees all your 'flaws' − some of which you may have spent an entire life trying to hide or cover. (Accompanying toxicology reports will take 4-6 weeks.

That will be another batch of evidence to evaluate.)

• Many of the autopsy observations were "unremarkable," meaning Sandra was "normal" and disease-free. As a 28-yearold, she probably had decades of life to live but for her tragic death that came, in my mind, as a consequence of an illegal arrest and an abuse of police discretion.

• The cause of death is listed as “hanging.” But it doesn't indicate what the "hanging" death

About to close If Obama had launched his reviews of solitary confinement and other U.S. criminal justice atrocities during his first term in office, then theoretically, tens of thousands of inmates might have been spared millions of collective days and nights of isolation and psychological torture. But Obama will have less than a year left in office when his new study

Charles W. Cherry II, Esq., Publisher

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

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is completed.

Five percent of all federal prison inmates are currently in solitary confinement. Federal prisons are 35 to 40 percent overcrowded. High-security federal prisons, where solitary confinement is most widely practiced, are 55 percent overcrowded.

Obama last week told the NAACP that solitary confinement has “no place in any civilized country.” But he has overseen such practices for six and a half years.

The NAACP roared its approval, anyway – willing participants in Obama’s criminal justice con game.

Contact BAR executive editor Glen Ford at Glen.Ford@ BlackAgendaReport.com.

resulted from. Her neck wasn't broken. Her throat wasn't completely cut, so she didn't bleed to death. There were no cartilage fractures. There was no indication she choked to death or that her airway was injured. Unless I'm missing something, “hanging” is a conclusion without a clear cause. I'm also troubled by the grooves found in her neck.

A knotted garbage bag did that?

More like a rope. There's no indication that her neck area was swabbed to determine whether fibers existed in the wound.

• The alleged "murder weapon" − the plastic bag − was provided to the medical examiner.

There's no indication of its width, or that its width was compared to the 1/inch-3 inch wound in Sandra's neck. Hopefully it will be independently tested.

Still lots of questions to be answered over time. Condolences to her family and friends as they grieve and fight...

Contact me at ccherry2@ gmail.com or on Facebook.

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JULY 31 – AUGUST 6, 2015

The reality of Obama’s Iran deal The nuclear energy agreement between Iran and the P5+1 nations has finally concluded and the moment is bittersweet. Iran’s sovereignty should have been respected, and it should not be forced to make concessions for doing what it always had a right to do.

Iran has as much right as Israel or any other country to produce nuclear material or even nuclear weapons. But it was impossible to withstand the onslaught of crippling sanctions and the loss of $100 billion in funds that were frozen under pressure from the United States.

Israel is the logical suspect in the murder of Iranian scientists, and – along with the United States – hacked nuclear production computer systems with a malicious worm. Iran was unable to import food and medicine because the United States and other Western nations not only imposed sanctions, but pressured other countries to follow suit.

Using Iran This “war by other means” should not be forgotten, because Barack Obama now wants to use Iran in his effort to weaken Russia. The deal was ultimately done because times change and Obama had to choose who to fight and who to make up with. The need to counter Russia and China made continued enmity with Iran foolish. So did the desire to replace

MARGARET KIMBERLEY BLACK AGENDA REPORT

If Obama thinks that Iran will now be compliant, he must think again.

Europe’s dependence on Russian natural gas with energy from Iran.

Ever the imperialist, Obama realized that a deal was in America’s interests.

Iranians are overjoyed that sanctions will be eased, although over a period of many years. However, it is necessary to take a hard look at their government’s concessions.

Iran will be subject to inspections for up to 25 years and will be restricted in how much nuclear material it can enrich. If the United States or any of the five other signatory nations ever accuses the Iranians of violating the agreement, sanctions can be imposed again.

In making the case for his deal, President Obama relies on repeating American lies that Iran is a

Blown cover Well, 50 Cent just blew the cover off of that never-ending hiphop fantasy. Whether he is lying under oath and hiding his money in offshore accounts to avoid paying the mother of rapper Rick Ross’ daughter $5 million for re-

JINEEA BUTLER NNPA COLUMNIST

leasing a sex tape without permission; or to dodge Sleek Audio Hip Hop, that won a $17.2 million dollar judgment alleging 50 stole some of their designs –the news exposes the art of what hip-hop has become: an illusion.

According to multiple media outlets, 50 Cent testified he doesn’t own the expensive cars and jewelry we consistently see him sporting. He claims he rents, borrows and leases instead.

The ‘Dilemma’ Besides making him look like a fraud, the bankruptcy filing and court hearing qualify this as a “Hip-hop Dilemma:” the distasteful physical, emotional and/ or mental trauma people expe-

VISUAL VIEWPOINT: GUN VIOLENCE IN AMERICA

Caused by U.S. Every bomb, refugee crisis, civilian death toll and jihadist success can be laid at America’s doorstep, but Iran is made out to be the villain. America’s insistence on imperialism and control of other countries is the cause of every catastrophe.

Those disasters won’t disappear now, and the sick co-dependence between the United States and Israel continues. In exchange for being able to “punk” Obama, Israel will get even more American aid above the $3 billion it gets every year. Heads, Israel wins; tails, the U.S. loses.

All parties get some of what they want. But Iran gets the short end of the stick and the United States is still the main threat to world peace. The corporate media and some easily fooled “liberals” hail the agreement as ending a threat of war when in fact any threat ex-

rience when coming in contact with hip-hop culture.

It puts a bad taste in your mouth and emotionally traumatizes and confuses the culture yet again. The May 2015 issue of Forbes magazine writes that Mr. Jackson was No. 4 on “The Forbes Five: Hip Hop’s Wealthiest Artists 2015” at $155 million. They also referenced that he was deservedly “still enjoying the fruits” of his epic $100 million Vitamin water deal that he banked in 2007.

He deserves an Oscar for keeping up the $155 million dollar front, or for fronting like he doesn’t have as much money as we perceived. Nevertheless, how are people supposed to take us seriously if everything we live by is fake? If the most visible around us are fronting, what does that say about the rest of us?

We are already plagued with fake butts, fake hair, fake boobs, and fake jewelry. How can we advance our cause if the majority of the culture is misrepresent-

BOB ENGLEHART, THE HARTFORD COURANT

isted only because of America and Israel.

If Obama thinks that Iran will now be compliant, he must think again. It isn’t only the American Congress than insists on approving the agreement. Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made clear that Iran would not change its foreign policy positions and the Iranian parliament will vote to approve the agreement – just as some members of American’s Congress insist on doing.

None of America’s objectives have changed because this agreement was reached. The United States and NATO will not remove heavy weaponry from Russia’s borders. The United States decided it

New solutions For four power-packed days, we will discuss and debate the state of our cities. We will become the architects of new solutions to old, entrenched problems and well thought-out strategies to save our embattled cities.

This year’s National Urban League Conference theme, “Save Our Cities: Education, Jobs + Justice,” is a unique opportunity for mission-oriented conversation and action on policies and issues affecting African Americans and urban communities. As in years past, our nation’s most influential community leaders, top policy makers, political and business leaders, and so many more, will join in our continuing efforts to make a real difference for our cities.

Following a long-standing tradition of major-party presidential candidates addressing the conference, the National Urban League counts several 2016 presidential

MARC H. MORIAL NNPA COLUMNIST

hopefuls – Republicans and Democrats alike – as invited guests. The candidates will share their respective visions for a more equitable and inclusive America in the candidates’ session, “Off to the Races: The 2016 Presidential Candidates’ Plenary.”

It is vital that those contending for the highest office in the land not only listen to our concerns, but be a part of its discussion and offer up their unique strategies and solutions for consideration to the very people who may one day move them into the coveted White House.

Unique opportunities

was more advantageous to have a deal than not, but its imperatives are the same. Now Americans must watch as cynical and stupid presidential candidates out-do one another bragging about how quickly they would attack Iran.

The United States once respected boundaries and wouldn’t violate other spheres of influence.

Now this government is emboldened as it recreates “Manifest Destiny” – the belief that America has the right to control any place in the world at any time. Iran is just the latest of many victims.

Margaret Kimberley’s column appears weekly in BlackAgendaReport.com.

ing itself and making terrible de- cept anything that is presented cisions on behalf of Hip Hop? to us.

We can’t afford to live above Unattractive lifestyle our means anymore. We have to From Baby being implicated in stop competing against one ana murder plot to kill Lil’ Wayne; other and start competing with to Rick Ross assaulting his gar- the real world around us. We dener; to Puffy hitting his son’s have to go back to the basics and football coach with a kettle bell; prepare ourselves for the near futhe hip-hop lifestyle doesn’t ture. seem so attractive.

We have lost ourselves trying This, however, maybe a break- to live in the moment and act like through for the community at we have money to spend when large. The imaginary image that we don’t. A lot is lost in the illuis portrayed and glorified in hipsion because a lot of time and efhop has been tarnished. We have an opportunity to usher in the fort is spent on perfecting it – so next school of hip-hop that in- much so we start to believe our cludes intellectuals, doctors, own hype.

While we are busy buying $500 lawyers, activists, responsible artists, entrepreneurs and busi- bottles, $1,000 belts, and $3,000 Jordans, the rest of the world is ness executives. ironically laughing ‘Straight to the Bank.’ Mr. Jackson, to thy own Time for change The chorus to the hit song self be true.

“Legends Never Die” from Kloke, Jineea Butler, founder of the featuring Sadat X and Rash, says Hip Hop Union, investigates it all: “Let’s Get Back to What We Call Hip Hop.” It’s time to roll trends and behaviors of the up our sleeves and change our community and delivers prothought patterns. It was creative gramming that solves the Hip mindsets that pioneered the hip- Hop Dilemma. Contact her at hop phenomenon; now, we ac- jineea@gmail.com.

National Urban League conference comes to Florida America faces tremendous challenges. As a nation, we are experiencing what may be the most intense focus in decades on economic inequality, educational equity, racial justice – and injustice.

Thousands of people from all walks of life and manner of professions will convene in Fort Lauderdale to do more than recite our country’s familiar litany of challenges; more than march and raise our voices in rightful and outraged unison; and more than debate within the narrow confines of our individual communities.

A5

state sponsor of terror and threatens other nations in the region, but is now pacified. Of course, the United States inflicts most of the terror in the Middle East, having destroyed Iraq and Libya and given strength to jihadists it claims to dislike. Syria hangs on after four years of devastation wrought by the United States and their Gulf monarch allies, but Obama’s rationale for a deal with Iran always includes condemnations useful for internal propaganda purposes.

How fakeness tarnishes hip-hop Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson recently filed for bankruptcy and testified in court that despite his flashy public persona, he is only worth $4.4 million.

Not that there is anything wrong with that. The dilemma is the art of the illusion.

So often, we see hip-hop personalities fabricate their status to appear bigger than life. Rocafella Records’ co-founder Dame Dash even admitted in an interview with Boyce Watkins that, “We would always pretend that we had more than we had, so we would always make something look bigger.” And of course many of us have used the saying, “Fake it until you make it.”

EDITORIAL

ings for the entire family; an Empowerment Stage with celebrityfilled sessions and local entertainment; a college fair with colleges, universities, and scholarship organizations; and a marketplace of local small businesses.

Digital solutions In a nod to these modern times and this generation’s methods of mobilizing around issues of social justice in the digital era, the National Urban League, in partnership with Digital Grass, is hosting “TechConnect: Hack-A-Thon for Social Justice,” presented by Comcast NBCUniversal.

The two-day hack-a-thon is a call to action for tech-savvy innovators to design original applications to alleviate the most pressing social issues of our day, particularly in the areas of education, jobs and justice.

There are many reasons to register and become a part of this singular, unprecedented opportunity. Besides the unmatched professional and civic engagement, business development and networking opportunities, this conference is stronger, more inclusive and more reflective of the diversity of thought around the areas of economic and social justice as the number of voices and opinions added to the discussion grows.

I’ll meet you in South Florida.

The chance to engage in thoughtful dialogue and interact with national leaders and luminaries is one of many unique opportunities being offered at the conference. The National Urban League has also developed quality programs, events and forums to inform and inspire attendees and motivate them to continue empowering themselves, and by extension, their communities and the nation.

The Expo Hall will feature hundreds of exhibitors; a career and Marc Morial is president and networking fair; a Health Zone where attendees can enjoy work- CEO of the National Urban shops and get free health screen- League.

Pressure candidates on criminal justice reform The National Urban League’s annual conference begins this week here in Fort Lauderdale.

PERRY E. One would expect our presiTHURSTON, dential hopefuls to be in attenJR., ESQ. dance.

This is an opportunity for GUEST COLUMNIST them to show leadership on the broad issues affecting our nation, one of which is criminal justice reform, including Evil prevails when police tactics, body cams, arrest decisions, jail/incarcera- good men and tion procedures, mental health sensitivity and our monetary women do nothing. bail requirements that allow similarly situated citizens to We know that most of our remain incarcerated based law enforcement officers are simply on wealth. there to protect and serve, but Bland’s death tragic the few cast major aspersions The arrest and death of San- on them all. This case highdra Bland sent chills through lights the multiplicity of probmany communities. lems and cracks throughout Her actions on July 10 while our justice system. driving on the streets of TexPresidential leadership canas were completely innocent, not change the appalling outand her arrest was appalling.

Watching the video of her ar- comes that occur when good rest sent chills through my officers, minority and majority, body and brought tears to my simply stand and watch in sieyes as I realized her actions lence as their colleagues send could easily have been the ac- chills through our community. tions of my mother, daughter, Evil prevails when good men aunt or many of my colleagues.

Everyone that I’ve spoken and women do nothing. with has agreed that her arrest, Perry E. Thurston, Jr. is a detention and death were sadly avoidable and unnecessary. Fort Lauderdale attorney They are relieved that we have and a candidate for Florida Senate District 31. the video.

TOJ A6

WORLD

JULY 31 – AUGUST 6, 2015

President strikes a chord with women in Kenya

BY ROBYN DIXON LOS ANGELES TIMES/TNS

NAIROBI, Kenya – Esther Nduta dreamed of finishing school and starting a business, but her parents took her out of school when she was 14 because they couldn’t afford the fees.

Now she spends her days doing menial jobs such as washing clothes and dishes to pay her younger brother’s school fees.

Another of her brothers has already finished school.

She would love to go to night school and finish her education, but she cannot afford to pay.

She insists that it doesn’t anger or frustrate her: That’s just the way things work in Kenya for millions of girls and young women.

In Kenya, when a family is short of money to pay high school fees, they take their daughters out of school, but do their best to leave their sons in.

“There was nothing I could do. I didn’t have any way to support myself,” the 26-year-old said July 26 on a Nairobi street.

That sense of dull acceptance of her fate portrays as much as anything else how far Kenya has to go to achieve gender equality, particularly in rural areas.

‘Bad traditions’ President Barack Obama, who has delivered tough messages to Kenyans on corruption and anti-gay discrimination, warned on July 26 that countries that locked women out of schooling, opportunities and jobs would see their economies shrivel and lag behind other nations.

“Any nation that fails to educate these girls or maximize their potential is doomed to fall behind in the global economy,” he said. Obama said the tradition of treating women as second-class citizens, beating them and denying them the same opportunities as men was wrong.

“These are bad traditions. They need to change.

They’re holding you back,” he told a Kenyan audience in his final speech before leaving the country.

“Just because something is part of your past doesn’t make it right. It doesn’t mean it defines your future,” Obama said.

He added that it was not acceptable in the 21st century for young girls to be married off, or subjected to female genital mutilation, a practice which endures in many parts of Kenya, although it is illegal.

Difficult life Nduta said boys in her rural village of Nanyuki in central Kenya sometimes had to work odd jobs to pay their school fees. Girls couldn’t do that because they were given too much domestic work at home.

“In the remote areas, the community expects the girls to work in the kitchen and to do a lot of work in the home,” she said. “Life is difficult.”

Like most girls in the village, she was sent to work on her family’s small subsistence farm when she was taken out of school. She spent two years there before she left home and went to the capital, Nairobi, desperate for a new start.

“Unless you can find groups like (nongovernmental organizations) to get you out of that bondage, then life becomes difficult.

The only other way out is to come to the city and get a job doing domestic work,” she said.

She said she worked for a short time as a hotel cashier before losing her job. She said she survives “by the mercy of God.”

Many challenges Angela Kinyua, 25, from the same village, also left school at 14, and worked as a domestic and a shop sales clerk. But she had to return to her rural village for a month when her grandmother became ill.

When she returned, the job

was gone.

Girls taken from school in rural areas had no choice but to farm or sell vegetables in the market. “They lead miserable lives,” said Kinyua, who dreams of opening a beauty and cosmetics shop.

Her younger sister is still at school. “I want her to remain in school and get a good job,” she said.

Kakenya Ntaiya, a gender equality activist, said many Kenyan women faced domestic violence, while many girls were removed from school, married off early and subjected to genital

mutilation. She founded a nongovernmental organization, the Kakenya Center for Excellence, which campaigns against genital mutilation and empowers girls through education.

“Getting a job for a Kenyan woman is still difficult,” she said. “The women in Kenya still face a lot of challenges. I think that message needed to come out loud and that is what he (Obama) did.”

Mutilation continues Ntaiya said Obama’s con-

demnation of female genital mutilation would be supported by most Kenyan politicians, because the practice is illegal, but there was still resistance in remote rural communities.

“When you go to community level, it’s a different reality,” she said. “You are talking about traditions that have been around for many years. When you take it down to village level, it still takes time for people to understand and to realize that this should not be happening.”

Peninnah Tombo has been a lone voice for equal rights for women in her Maasai community.

She has lived the typical life of a Maasai woman.

By 4, she was herding her father's cows. At 11, she underwent genital mutilation. A year later, her father decided to marry her to an old man with three wives, in return for some cattle.

ROBYN DIXON/LOG ANGELES TIMES/ TNS

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SHARING BLACK LIFE, STATEWIDE

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1 SMILEY N. POOL/DALLAS MORNING NEWS/TNS

1. An aerial view of damage from Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans on Aug. 30, 2005.

THE GOOD THAT CAME OUT OF

KATRINA

2

BY KEN KAYE SUN SENTINEL/TNS

F

ORT LAUDERDALE — Hurricane Katrina, the most-destructive and third-deadliest storm in U.S. history, also was a force for change, spurring major advancements in forecasting and communication.

Since its rampage in late August 2005, scientists have developed several new hightech tools to better predict the strength and track of storms, in hopes of preventing a similar catastrophe.

“We know we still have work to do, but we’re in a much better place because of the investments made over the past decade,” said Kathyrn Sullivan, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, on Tuesday.

Among the major accomplishments since 2005: • Markedly improved tracking. The average error for the 24-hour period is now about 44 miles on either side of the track versus more than 55 miles a decade ago.

• Improved satellite images.

New satellites, including one launched in 2011 with high-tech sensors, better project where a storm might hit land and at what strength. NOAA and NASA plan to launch a series of new geostationary satellites over the next 20 years to replace older ones, said Steven Goodman, GOES-R Program chief scientist.

• Improved storm surge warnings. The hurricane center now offers storm surge watch and warning graphics and maps, color coded to show how high sea water could rise over specific areas in a worst-case scenario.

New graphics better forewarn of wind, tornado and inland flooding damage. “We have changed the game in terms of communicating the primary hazards,” said Rick Knabb, director of the National Hurricane Center.

• More sophisticated forecast models. They better analyze the structure of storms and some models help forecasters better predict where and when tropical disturbances will grow into storms.

• More powerful supercomputers. Earlier this year, two su-

Devastating hurricane has led to major improvements in the past 10 years

percomputers were upgraded to perform 1.5 quadrillion operations per second to improve all weather predictions. They are to be ramped up even further later this year to conduct 5 quadrillion operations per second.

• Drones. In addition to hurricane hunters, large and small drones provide a better top-tobottom view of a storm’s structure. Those include the Coyote, a 13-pound aircraft designed to penetrate the most-violent quadrant of a hurricane at low altitude, and NASA’s Global Hawk, a large jet-powered drone.

Major project Although 2005 was the busiest tropical year on record, with 28 systems, Katrina best defined the intensity of that season, growing at one point into a Category 5 hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico and then devastating New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

It prompted NOAA in 2008 to launch a major hurricane forecast improvement project, calling for both track and intensity forecasts to be improved by 50 percent within 10 years. While the hurricane center already has exceeded the track forecasts goal, it has fallen far short with intensity forecasts.

Still being worked on: • Intensity forecasts. So far they have improved only by about 10 percent in the past decade. “That still is one of the biggest forecast-improvement needs, especially for rapidly intensifying systems near the coast,” Knabb said.

• Long-range forecasts. The hurricane center continues to experiment with extending the tropical forecast period from five to seven days. The extended forecasts likely need a few more years of testing before they can be made public, Knabb said.

• Gerry Bell, NOAA’s lead hurricane forecaster, said seasonal outlooks since Katrina have become more accurate because they place more weight on large-scale global climate patterns, including El Nino, La Nina and climate change. And models that help develop seasonal forecasts also have seen significant improvement.

“There’s a tremendous

3

2. Then-President George Bush comforts Kim Bassier (left) and Bronwynne Bassier as he tours Howard Avenue in Biloxi, Miss., on Sept. 2, 2005. Bronwynne was telling the president that she didn’t have anything other than the clothes on her back. TIM ISBELL/ BILOXI SUN HERALD/TNS

4

amount of science that goes into these outlooks,” he said. “We don’t expect to get them correct 100 percent of the time because that’s just not the nature of forecasting.”

1,833 deaths Katrina formed near the Bahamas and struck as a Category 1 system north of the BrowardMiami-Dade county line at about 7 p.m. Eastern time on Aug. 25, 2005. It caused about $630 million in damages in 2015 dollars, wiping out crops, toppling a truck on Interstate 595, collapsing a highway flyover in Miami-Dade and leaving more than 1 million homes and businesses without power.

After departing South Florida, the system emerged in the Gulf

of Mexico and began rapidly intensifying toward Category 5 power. By Aug. 28, it had sustained winds of 175 mph.

Weakening to a Category 3, it struck near the Louisiana-Mississippi border at about 9 a.m. the next day, overwhelming the levees in New Orleans.

In all, Katrina directly or indirectly killed 1,833 people, the third-most-deadly hurricane in U.S. history, behind the 1900 hurricane that hit Galveston, Texas and the 1928 hurricane that struck South Florida and Lake Okeechobee.

“Katrina was a challenge to the Gulf Coast and nation unlike almost any other tropical system,” said Sullivan, the NOAA administrator. “It pointed out the ways that we needed to do better and do more.”

3. President Barack Obama receives the annual hurricane season outlook report at the National Hurricane Center in Miami on May 28, 2015.

AMY BETH BENNETT/SUN SENTINEL/TNS

4. Hundreds of desperate people try to board buses to leave New Orleans during the Hurricane Katrina disaster in 2005. Many of them were suffering from dehydration after hours of waiting in the heat. Helicopters flew evacuees from all parts of the city to leave on buses. CAROLYN

COLE/LOS ANGELES TIMES/TNS

CALENDAR

B2

JULY 31 – AUGUST 6, 2015

S

FLORIDA COMMUNITY CALENDAR Tampa: Dr. Bernard LaFayette Jr. will speak at Beulah Baptist Institutional Church’s150th anniversary banquet on Aug. 15 at the Hilton Tampa Airport Westshore. Dr. W. James Favorite is the church’s pastor. More information: www.bbictampa.com.

Miami Gardens: The City of Miami Gardens Community Yard Sale presented by Vice Mayor Felicia Robinson is Aug. 1, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 18500 Northwest 32nd Ave. Proceeds will help the Ladies of Virtue Mentoring group for girls 13-18.

Hollywood: The National Black Chamber of Commerce will host its 23rd annual conference Aug. 5-8 at the Hilton Diplomat Resort & Spa. It will feature a business competition for young entrepreneurs. Celebrity guests will include actor Lamman Rucker and Judge Glenda Hatchett. Complete details: www.NBCCNOW2015.org.

Clearwater: Legendary concert jazz pianist Lillette JenkinsWisner, known as “Queen of the Keys,’’ gives what’s being called a farewell performance Sept. 10-13 at Ruth Eckerd Hall. The concert will feature Jade Simmons.

Orlando: D.L. Hughley, George Lopez, Cedric the Entertainer, Eddie Griffin and Charlie Murphy are scheduled to be part of the Black and Brown Comedy Get Down on Aug. 7 at Amway Center.

Tampa: Catch the neon-soul duo Floetry on Aug. 5 at the Straz

Center and Aug. 6 at the Ritz Theatre & Museum in Jacksonville.

Orlando: The Opal Network Alliance’s South Florida Women’s Summit is Oct. 28-29 at the at the Bonaventure Resort & Spa in Weston. More information: www. onatoday.com.

Tampa: An Injustice & Inequality in Tampa’s African American Community in the Buckhorn Era, the first in a Community Conversations series, is 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Aug. 1 at the HOPE Center, 4902 N. 22nd St. Register by calling 813-420-1177 or email. Free admission.

Orlando: Catch reggae artists Beres Hammond and Tarrus Riley on Aug. 22 at Hard Rock Live Orlando.

Miami: Janet Jackson’s Unbreakable World Tour stops at AmericanAirlinesArena on Sept. 20, Orlando’s Amway Center on Sept.

23 and Tampa’s Amalie Arena on Sept. 24.

CHRIS BROWN

The singer’s “One Hell of a Nite Tour’’ stops at the AmericanAirlines Arena in Miami on Sept. 3 and the MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre in Tampa on Sept. 4.

MARTIN LAWRENCE

Catch the actor and comedian on Sept. 11 at the AmericanAirlines Arena’s Waterfront Theatre in Miami.

DR. REBA HALEY

The Tampa-based pastor and psychologist will host a one-day women’s conference on Aug. 15 at Covenant Family Church in Riverview. Haley recently released her second book for singles and couples titled “I Only Have Eyes for You.” More information: www.rebahaley.com.

Jacksonville: The comedian Sinbad performs Aug. 7 at the Florida Theatre Jacksonville.

St. Petersburg: Catch Jill Scott on Aug. 8 at Hard Rock Live Hollywood or Aug. 9 at the Mahaffey Theatre in St. Petersburg.

Tampa: Candy Lowe hosts Tea & Conversation every Saturday from 2 to 4 p.m. at 3911 N. 34th St., Suite B. More information: 813-394-6363.

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Singer Whitney Houston and her daughter, Bobbi Kristina, arrive at a Clive Davis Pre-Grammy Gala and Salute on Feb. 12, 2011 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Bobbi Kristina Brown died on Sunday, July 26. She was 22.

Mystery still surrounds death of Bobbi Kristina Brown COMPILED FROM WIRE REPORTS

Bobbi Kristina Brown, the 22-year-old daughter of singers Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown died July 26, nearly six months after she was found unresponsive in a bathtub of her home, according to widespread reports.

An aspiring singer, Brown had remained unresponsive in hospitals and in a hospice since Jan. 31, the day she was found submerged in a bathtub at her Roswell, Ga. home. Her family said she had suffered irreversible brain damage and was never revived.

Her mother, Whitney Houston’s death was ruled a drug overdose that led to an accidental drowning.

She was found sitting in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

‘Finally at peace’ In a statement, Bobbi Kristina’s family said, “She is finally at peace in the arms of God…We want to again thank everyone for their tremendous amount of love and support during these last few months.”

It is still not clear exactly what happened Jan. 31, just short of three years since the death of her mother in Feb. 2012.

Initial autopsy results Monday revealed no obvious cause of death, and no significant injuries were noted, the Fulton County, Ga., medical examiner’s office said. However, test results were pending.

“We do not plan to complete the death certificate or determine a cause and manner of death until all

test results are completed and all investigative, medical and other documentary records are received and thoroughly reviewed,” the office said.

‘Challenging’ investigation Previously, the medical examiner had said the long stretch of time between when Bobbi Kristina was found and when she died would “complicate reconstruction of the events surrounding her initial unresponsiveness” and make interpretation of the autopsy results and other information “challenging.”

The Fulton County D.A.’s office and police in Roswell told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the events leading to her death were under investigation.

TMZ heard from its law enforcement sources that this was now a homicide investigation, with some sort of foul play suspected and boyfriend Nick Gordon reportedly remaining a person of interest.

Gordon and a male friend were in the home Jan. 31 when Bobbi Kristina was found in the tub.

Gordon has since assembled a legal team with experience in high-profile, tabloid-bait trials.

A funeral reportedly will be held in Atlanta before she’s buried in New Jersey along with her mom, according an “Entertainment Tonight” source.

Lawsuit filed Mystery shrouds the final days of Bobbi Kristina.

Her court-appointed conservator, Bedelia C. Har-

grove, last month sued Gordon, known as her boyfriend or husband, reportedly accusing him of physically abusing Bobbi Kristina.

A $10 million lawsuit was filed on her behalf against Gordon the day after she was moved to hospice care, alleging he had physically abused his girlfriend — including knocking out teeth and dragging her up stairs — controlled her and had taken a significant amount of money from her without permission, $11,000 of it after she’d been hospitalized.

“I filed this lawsuit to pursue justice on behalf of Bobbi Kristina Brown. No human being, male or female, should endure what Bobbi Kristina endured,” Bedelia C. Hargrove reportedly told People Magazine in a statement.

Whitney Houston never formerly adopted Gordon, but allowed him to live in the home with her and Bobbi Kristina since he was 12. Houston and Brown had divorced.

Hargrove also accused Gordon of making fraudulent claims that he and Bobbi Kristina had married. Gordon was reportedly banned from Bobbi Kristina’s rooms at the hospital and hospice.

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JULY 31 – AUGUST 6, 2015

HEALTH

B3

Heart transplants not slowing teen down 18-year-old born with defect determined to finish school, become engineer

“The first transplant was more of a family thing, and I had (mom) there,” Brown said. “This time, you really were by yourself most of the time. You had to come down to get to know others who are going through the same thing, otherwise it was like sitting in a jail cell thinking about it all the time.”

They all talked about getting a heart by June, and for Brown and four of the men, that came true.

But the 67-year-old cheerleader of the group — a man named Tom — died not long after receiving his heart. Brown said it was hard to lose his friend, but Tom serves as a continual inspiration.

“I’m not going to die; I’m going to fight because of Tom.”

BY CHRISTIN NANCE LAZERUS CHICAGO TRIBUNE/TNS

Ryan Brown refuses to let his medical challenges limit the possibilities of his future.

“You have scientists and statistics that say it’s very rare to get a second transplant, and it is,” Brown said. “But it’s very rare to be not normal, and being not normal — whether you’re autistic, or you have ADHD, or any problem; yeah, its a crutch sometimes. I do push it to the limit — it should also motivate you, uplift you to say ‘I might as well show everybody else what I can do.’”

The 18-year-old Hammond, Ind., resident has undergone two heart transplants — most recently in May — but with the help of some dedicated teachers and staff at 21st Century Charter School, he was able to catch up with his schoolwork and is on track to graduate next year with college credits.

“I kind of feel like settling for GED is a failure, a cop out,” Brown said. “If I can do it, I can do it.

Medical restrictions shouldn’t be an excuse to drop out and get a GED.”

Working on degree Brown was always an excellent student, according to his teachers, but his journey has helped him mature and crystallize what he wants to do with his life.

“Kids like Ryan are what make the job so rewarding,” said Charlie Swanson, Brown’s anatomy and physics teacher, who has become a member of the family.

Brown hopes to take enough dual credit courses this year to attain an associate’s degree from Ivy Tech Community College alongside his diploma before heading to Purdue University in West Lafayette to study biomedical engineering. He wants to develop heart devices, like the Impella Pump that he received not long before his second transplant.

He credits much of his development over the past year to the support of fellow patients on the heart transplant list at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago.

“Being 18 and I was around men who were 67 years old, 54 years old and 40 years old, who said you know whether I make it or not I’ve lived my life,” Brown said. “Now I have 90 percent of my heart, and I feel like it took the extra 10 percent from my old heart.

“And what’s going to stop me from being what I want to be?”

Fighter from Day One

Facing homelessness

JIM KARCZEWSKI/POS-TRIBUNE/TNS

Tasha Jetson holds an autographed photo from Michigan State Coach Tom Izzo while Ryan Brown discusses talking with the coach via the phone and offering him player advice on July 15 in Hammond, Ind. For a kid that was “born blue,” it’s remarkable that he made it out of the hospital the first time.

Brown was born premature with a congenital heart defect and underdeveloped lungs, according to his mother, Tasha Jetson.

“They didn’t bring him to me in a timely manner, and they told me a technician is looking at his heart, which formed on the wrong side,” Jetson said.

He underwent a heart procedure when he was only 3 days old, but he was eventually released from the hospital and would have regular checkups every six months.

A bout with gastroenteritis at age 12 sent him to the emergency room, eventually triggering congestive heart failure and sending him to Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago on June 9, 2010.

“The doctor said, “Mom, where he’s at, it’s severe and your child will not leave this hospital without a heart,’” Jetson said.

“His heart was no longer squeezing enough; it was a stiff heart.”

Changed everything Brown was officially placed on the transplant list on June 21, 2010, and received his new heart six days later.

“I’ll never forget,” Jetson said.

“I was at Dollar General off Calumet with two of my boys when I get a phone call. I was at the reg-

ister, trying to grab some snacks, and my husband says ‘we’ve got a heart.’ I dropped everything and started screaming.”

Jetson said the new heart presented positive physical changes almost immediately.

“When he came out, I showed him in the mirror what had happened,” Jetson said. “See he had been born blue, but now his lips were red, when they had always been a funny purple color.”

But Brown wasn’t out of the woods yet. He was admitted to the emergency room one month after the transplant.

kids, including playing middle linebacker on the football team.

“God gave me a jacked-up heart to show people that you can have the worst medical symptoms, the worst medical life, the worst outlook, the worst experiences, but the thing that stops you from being great is yourself,” Brown said. “So what did I do with a jacked up heart?

I played football. Was I supposed to? Heck no.

“But at 13, you don’t really see the effects of what you’re doing.

My mom and dad and family see the effects of it.”

Bouts of rejection

Support group

After his transplant, Brown decided he wanted to attend school with his cousins at 21st Century Charter School.

“21st Century has always felt like a family,” Brown said. “Even though I had those who didn’t understand, who turned to childish games, childish mimics, at the same time, you knew some people had your back and would fight with you.”

Jetson said the school has always monitored Brown’s health closely, including calling an ambulance twice when he complained of shortness of breath.

“He always had bouts of rejection with first heart; his biopsies were never clean,” Jetson said.

But he tried to be like other

Last winter, Brown caught a stomach virus that triggered his second bout of heart failure.

Even though he was 17, doctors transitioned him to Northwestern’s transplant floor because he was physically an adult. But that meant doctors now directly communicated with Brown, rather than talking mainly with his mom, which took some getting used to.

The wait for a heart was longer this time — nearly three months after he was admitted — and there were some dark moments for him and his family.

Brown found his solace in a support group with six other men stuck in the same situation — waiting for a heart.

Food allergy sufferers live a life of countless close calls

BY DANIELLE BRAFF CHICAGO TRIBUNE/TNS

One of Matthew Mitchell’s earliest memories involves a fastfood hamburger in a drive-thru late at night.

It wasn’t a happy meal.

Mitchell, now 25, was just 3 at the time, but he was already hyper-alert about his food. So when his mother passed the patty to the back seat, Mitchell instantly knew something was wrong.

“I was never allowed to eat the bun because of my dairy allergy, and this time, the patty looked different, even though it was late and it was dark outside,” he said.

But his mother said it was the same that he always ate — a plain burger.

Seconds later, Mitchell’s toddler suspicions were confirmed.

There was cheese on the burger, triggering his dairy allergy.

He started vomiting and went into anaphylactic shock, a serious allergic reaction that can come on in seconds and can kill.

150 deaths a year This wasn’t the first time it had happened, and it would be far from the last.

Allergy to milk is the most common food allergy in infants and children, though it’s different from lactose intolerance, which is an overreaction to a specific food protein. About 2 1/2 percent of children younger than age 3 are allergic to milk, according to

CHIEF OFFENDERS Eight foods account for 90 percent of all food-allergic reactions in the United States, according to Food Allergy Research & Education. They are peanuts, tree nuts, milk, eggs, wheat, soy and fish.

Food Allergy Research & Education Inc. And recent studies show that some children are not outgrowing it early in life as previously thought, said Dr. James Baker Jr., CEO of Food Allergy Research & Education.

Mitchell is one of them. And for him, it’s a very big deal. Although food allergies result in only about 150 reported deaths in the United States each year, allergy sufferers live a life of countless close calls.

Allergic to formulas The first sign of problems for Mitchell started when he was an infant.

“He was having colicky symptoms, hay fever and sneezing,” said mom Lynda Mitchell, senior vice president of community services for the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, a nonprofit education and advocacy foundation based in Pennsylvania.

Lynda Mitchell had been breast-feeding her son, so she

COURTESY OF FOTOLIA/TNS

About 2 1/2 percent of children younger than age 3 are allergic to milk, and recent studies show that some children are not outgrowing it early in life as previously thought. switched to a milk-based formula.

Matthew’s symptoms got worse. She switched to a soy formula, and when he stopped tolerating that, she switched to a hypoallergenic formula.

“That made him go into anaphylactic shock,” she said. “His face was swollen, he was gasping for breath, he was broken out into hives. I knew he was having respiratory difficulties, and I knew he needed to get to an emergency room, but I wasn’t aware at the time that he could have died.”

That was Matthew’s first emergency room visit. He was 11 months old, and he was officially allergic to every formula on the market.

Another shock Lynda Mitchell switched him to water and started cooking everything from scratch, using plain foods like potatoes and meat.

Matthew was 7 when the next life-threatening scrape took place. He was in the hospital already for stomach surgery, and his mother put up a sign in his room regarding his allergy, she put a bracelet on her son and she told all the doctors, nurses and attendants.

It was the fortified whey in his hospital orange juice that got him.

Once again, Matthew went into anaphylactic shock.

Brown’s AP English literature and composition teacher Melissa Culbertson said he never asked teachers to take it easy on him.

“He was bar none, my top student in class,” Culbertson said.

“When he went into the hospital, we were reading ‘Invisible Man,’

by Ralph Ellison, but he was so passionate about the book that he continued to read it and work diligently.”

Brown received his heart on May 15 — Culbertson’s birthday — which she says was “the best birthday present ever.” During his recovery, his feet and legs swelled up during a bout of pancreatitis, but in late June, he was finally cleared to go home.

The family now faces another challenge as the house that they’ve rented for several years is being sold at a Lake County Sheriff’s auction on Aug. 7 for unpaid back taxes.

“We looked into seeing if we could negotiate a purchase price and see if we could keep the house, but because a broker is handling it, they usually don’t come down on price,” Jetson said.

“But whatever happens, life has to go on.”

‘What you make it’ Brown is now more cognizant of what he needs to do for his health going forward — taking medications, drawing blood to monitor his kidney levels, walking regularly, and resting when he feels tired — but his dedication to staying on track academically hasn’t waned.

He knows that the odds were stacked against him living this long and may continue in his life, but he’s confident that he will make his own road.

“They tell me I’m going to die; I assume that I’m going to live,” he said. “Statistics say that I won’t graduate because I’m Black; I’m going to graduate and not only graduate with a diploma but, oh yeah, a two-year associate’s degree. So the reality is life is what you make it.”

“He wasn’t able to throw up because he had just had stomach surgery, and he went from headto-toe hives, and he had breathing problems,” his mother said.

“By that time, I knew that anaphylactic shock could be fatal.”

Another time, his mother studiously read a label to discover that a candy bar was dairy-free before stuffing the chocolate into his Christmas stocking.

Matthew was in high school at the time, and by the end of Christmas morning, he’d started breaking out in hives like a bad sunburn.

“We went to the hospital, and the lab results came back saying that the chocolate had .001 percent dairy, so now, if you look at the label of the candy, it says that it may contain milk — because of me,” he said.

Having a dairy allergy has affected all aspects of Matthew’s life, and now that he’s in his 20s, it has affected his dating life. And not in a good way.

Today Matthew lives in Maryland and works as a junior human systems specialist for RED-INC, which is a Defense Department contractor. He said the key to living with a severe allergy is having good friends who understand it — and he does have these.

“My friends understand that we have to compromise on where to go and what the plans are,” he said. “I learned from my mom: having a lot of foresight and asking the questions — ‘Where am I going to get my food these days?’

It’s something I always have to think about. I don’t have the freedom of getting into the car and driving somewhere and hoping that it’ll work out.”

B4

SHOPPING

JULY 31 – AUGUST 6, 2015

STOJ

Back-to-school shopping W

PHOTO COURTESY OF GETTY IMAGES

FROM FAMILY FEATURES

hile kids and parents alike eagerly await the fresh start of a new school year, the back-to-school season is not without its share of stressors for busy families. The start of school means new schedules, teachers, shoes, backpacks and friends; as well as new academic challenges.

Adding some fun and excitement to the newness can help smooth the way. For example, allowing kids to help choose their outfits for the first day of school can help diffuse that nerv­ous anticipation. Similarly, the chance to put a fresh set of pens to use or show off a cool new notebook can provide a distraction from those first-day jitters.

If the shopping itself is adding stress to your household, ease the back-toschool burden on your family with these helpful tips to simplify shopping for the school year ahead.

• Make note of your inventory. School lists often carry over each school year, so make sure you aren’t buying multiples of things you already own. Some supplies are more exciting when refreshed every year, but buying the same old boring ruler year after year is simply a waste of money.

Make a list with your children. Put everything you need on that list, and be clear that once the list is done, it’s done. Having everyone on the same page with a complete list helps ensure nothing vital is forgotten, and the list can serve as a handy tool to keep your budget in check. Get uber organized using vibrant Sarasa gel pens by Zebra to create lists color-coded by kid or category to make your shopping more manageable.

Begin shopping as early as possible.

Hunt bar­gains before the traditional back-toschool season to get the best deals. Not only will you save some cash, shopping before the rush will give you a wider selection to choose from, so you’re sure to find the items you need in the styles you (and your kids) want.

Spreading the shopping over several weeks or months also allows you to distribute the expense across several pay periods, helping lessen the chance that you blow your monthly budget with one mega shopping excursion.

Be a savvy online shopper. Check out your favorite brands and retailers online, and sign up for their email alerts, so you’ll be in the know when the best deals hit. Many retailers now offer online-only specials, so watch ads closely to know when you’re better served making purchases in-store or online. Also keep an eye out for free or reduced shipping for extra savings that make it even cheaper than buying in person when you factor in the cost of gas. Remember that you can also rely on social media to follow back-toschool offers and hashtags.

Create a back-up bin at home. You may find that your kids consistently run out of certain items midyear. Devote a special area of your home to keep extras in stock, and take advantage of sales during back-to-school

season or buy in bulk to get a better price.

Put quality ahead of price. While it’s tempt­ing to go for cheap when your list is long, remem­ber that sometimes quality buys actually save more in the long run. You can buy a ton of cheap pens that skip, or simply stop working. Or you can look at alternatives, such as Zebra’s Z-Grip brand, which are affordable, quality pens that allow children to focus on writing, not on the pen. Known for delivering a smooth-flowing writing experience at a great value, a Z-Grip pen truly delivers for young learners.

Make your children shopping buddies.

Involve your kids in the back-to-school shopping process by giving them a budget. Help them allocate money for all the expenses, includ­ing clothing, school supplies, shoes and more. Use the opportunity to talk about how shopping smart for the necessities can leave room for some fun buys, too.

Reduce and reuse. Save plastic and money by encouraging kids to embrace reusable items, such as lunch bags in place of paper sacks and plastic containers instead of sandwich bags. If water bottles are allowed at school, look for a durable refillable option that can be used again and again.

Make the old new again. Turn barely used items into something new by decorating or adding stickers. Not only is this a fun activity that can help get the kids excited about and engaged in planning for the year ahead, it’s easy on the budget and eco-friendly.

Keep leftover supplies on hand to revive the enthusiasm with fresh designs at the end of the quarter or semester.

Swap with other moms. Make back-toschool time more fun by hosting a swap event with other moms for clothing, backpacks, shoes, etc. It seems that kids are forever trading with their friends, so embrace that mindset and see what exciting new treasures you can find for your kids to call their own.

Find your zen during back-to-school shopping at www.zebrapen.com/findzen.

MAKE IT A PEACEFUL SHOPPING EXPERIENCE

Though back-to-school shopping can be fun, it can also be overwhelming. These tricks may help you add some Zen to the experience, or at least cut some of the chaos.

Know yourself: Are you better at doing all of your shopping all at once, or would you rather make separate trips throughout a couple of weeks to ease the stress? There is no one “right” way to tackle back-toschool shopping; just go with what works best for you.

Create a democratic shopping experience: Instead of taking it upon yourself to get the supplies you think your kids need, turn it into a fun experience for every-one to enjoy. Ask what your kids want and what colors they like. Encourage them to stimulate creativity with whimsical supplies, such as the fun and funky patterns of Cadoozles mechanical pencils.

Want your high school or college bound academians to have a little extra swag for school? Look for a few simple purchases that reflect their confidence, such as Zebra Steel pens, with a sleek design perfect for the advancing student.

STOJ

JULY 31 – AUGUST 6, 2015

FINEST & ENTERTAINMENT

Meet some of

FLORIDA’S

finest

submitted for your approval

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.

dwayne

lilliana

Lilliana Harris is a legal assistant in Delray Beach. She is a graduate of Florida A&M University with a bachelor’s degree in political science. She is an aspiring actress and singer who wants to work with Tyler Perry. Lilliana can be contacted by email harrisblana24@gmail.com. Her instagram page is @_lanawashere_.

Dwayne Mclendon is a correctional officer, personal trainer and author of a book titled “Dare I Express It,” a book of poetry of his life stories. The Orlando resident attended Bethune-Cookman University. He can be contacted at Dwayne.Mclendon@yahoo.com.

Reaction to Minaj’s video awards gripe proves her point

BY GERRICK D. KENNEDY LOS ANGELES TIMES/TNS

When MTV unveiled the nominations for this year’s Video Music Awards there were few, if any, surprises.

Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran and Beyoncé, three of the most successful pop stars in the business, led all the nominations.

Massive hits like Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk,” Big Sean’s “IDFWU,” Hozier’s “Take Me To Church,” Fetty Wap’s “Trap Queen” and Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda” were all recognized.

But Minaj, who scored three nods, has dominated the online conversation about the upcoming awards after she fired off a series of tweets airing her grievances about the nominations.

Although the provocative pop-rap star stressed she was grateful to be nominated, Minaj was miffed that her smash “Anaconda” – which is up for hip-hop video and best female video — was excluded from the big race, video of the year (Swift, Beyonce, Sheeran, Ronson, Mars and Lamar will compete there).

Minaj fired off a series of indictments via Twitter that set the social media site on fire.

Swift response “If I was a different ‘kind’ of artist, “Anaconda” would be nominated for best choreo and vid of the year as well,” she wrote in one tweet.

“If your video celebrates women with very slim bodies, you will be nominated for vid of the year,” Minaj wrote.

Swift, thinking the missive was about her “Bad Blood” video that stars a gang of her super-thin, fa-

The song was a firestarter from the beginning.

Built around a sample of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s career-defining hit “Baby Got Back,” Minaj’s ode to her famous bottom was both a throwback to the playful, dirty and brash gems being churned out by female emcees in the ’90s – back when there were more than just two enjoying mainstream success – and a celebration of curvy Black girls who have seen their bodies shut out of fashion spreads but their features inherited through plastic surgery (Google the Kylie Jenner lip challenge).

The cover art, featuring an image of Minaj in sneakers, itty-bitty pink bikini and a pose that emphasized her backside, became a meme before the song was even released.

COMMENTARY mous girlfriends, fired back on Twitter: “I’ve done nothing but love & support you.

It’s unlike you to pit women against each other. Maybe one of the men took your slot.”

The postmortem headlines have focused almost exclusively on Minaj’s reaction to Swift’s rather misguided assertion that the rapper’s missives were directed squarely at her – probably because she’s long been the perennial winner of fan-voted awards. She’s since apologized to Minaj, writing “I thought I was being called out. I missed the point, I misunderstood, then misspoke.”

But that completely misses the point here, which is that Minaj was snubbed in a category that’s intended to highlight the year’s biggest videos.

Impact of videos For the past three decades, the VMAs have feted the music video — a medium that regardless of the unpredictability of the music industry still matters to fans, even if the way they consume videos isn’t by tuning into MTV. This makes the nominees for video of the year, out of any of the categories, easy to pinpoint — and definitely easier to ballpark than, say, a Grammy for album of the year.

Video of the year nominees have historically followed a trend. These are the videos that have made a profound impact on pop culture or defined a genre the year they were released.

Last year’s winner, Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball,” is still having an impact.

Drake channeled Cyrus in his recent “Energy” video,

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19.6 million views DAVID CROTTY/PATRICK MCMULLAN CO./SIPA USA/TNS

Nicki Minaj attends the 2015 BET Awards at Microsoft Square at L.A. Live in Los Angeles on June 28. and actress Anne Hathaway swung from a wrecking ball and licked a sledgehammer when she tackled the song on “Lip Sync Battle.”

Never-ending discussion Cyrus’ win — she will host this year — is especially fascinating considering the brouhaha over her controversial showing the year prior, and the endless discussions about the intentions of her obvious cultural appropriation.

Minaj touched on that parallel without naming Cyrus or anyone specifically, because that wasn’t the point she was trying to make.

Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It).” Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance.” OutKast’s “Hey Ya.” Madonna’s “Ray of Light.” TLC’s “Waterfalls.” Jamiroquai’s “Virtual Insanity.” These are all songs remembered just as much, if not more, for their accompanying visuals as they are for the song itself

– and all video of the year winners at MTV. Minaj’s tweets also scratched the surface of the larger, never-ending discussion of the representation of Black artists at major awards shows.

She asked why “Feeling Myself,” her Internet-breaking video with Beyoncé, failed to score any nods — though to answer her question, the clip being released exclusively to streaming service Tidal made it ineligible, as MTV and the recent BET Awards determine its nominees based off videos submitted to their platforms.

‘Baby Got Back’ ode Another Tweet read, “When the ‘other’ girls drop a video that breaks records and impacts culture they get that nomination.”

When looking at the reaction to “Anaconda,” Minaj’s assertion that she deserved a slot in the big race isn’t just the latest case of popstar petulance.

Photoshopped versions of the image placed Minaj in the center of a Google doodle, perched atop the Statue of Liberty and launched into space.

Marge Simpson and Kermit the Frog were animated in the infamous pose, and cutouts of Drake’s face superimposed on Minaj’s body were all over Coachella ahead of his performance.

And to promote a recent performance at a Finland music festival, thousands of life-size cutouts of her pinkthonged rear showed up on the steps of a cathedral in Helsinki.

Minaj’s cheeky video was just as hot.

Featuring lots of dancing, endless innuendo and her pushing away a touchy-feely Drake, the video sparked think pieces on feminism, body image and cultural appropriation in a year when even Swift wanted to get in on twerking action.

In 24 hours the clip logged 19.6 million views, breaking a record for VEVO.

More millions on YouTube Ellen DeGeneres even did a spoof of the video for

her talk show — and more than 17.5 million people have since watched the clip on YouTube.

“U couldn’t go on social media w/o seeing ppl doing the cover art, choreo, outfits for Halloween,” one of Minaj’s tweets pointed out.

Strictly in terms of views, only Mars and Ronson’s “Uptown Funk” and Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” eclipsed “Anaconda” – but neither visual sparked much of a conversation (although the weddings that re-created Sheeran’s romantic video were cute).

Beyoncé’s “7/11” played on our obsessions with selfies, but let’s be honest, the pop diva is such a beloved phenomenon that she could probably put out a music video of herself eating cereal and it will score a VMA nod.

And while Lamar’s clip for “Alright” is stunning and urgent, it just barely made the cut-off date (eligibility was July 2014 to July 2015), making a video of the year nomination feel a bit premature as we continue to unpack his work.

Catty response Although Minaj asserted her missives had zero to do with Swift, the blogesphere jumped at the opportunity to label the exchange between the two female pop stars as a “feud” and a “catfight,” with Minaj being the aggressor and Swift the victim – all seen by the deliberate photo selections of Entertainment Weekly, Glamour and other publications.

Race, gender and genre were integral in the tone, as were perceived views of the two (Swift perpetually wronged and Minaj perpetually angry).

Minaj’s dialogue about Black women’s influence on pop culture and her views of how they are “rarely rewarded for it” was a valid one — look at how long it’s been a topic of discussion when it comes to these types of awards.

What a shame Swift’s ego and the blog reaction proved her right.

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FOOD

JULY 31 – AUGUST 6, 2015

STOJ

PERFECTLY PINK PUNCH 1 (15 ounce) can mandarin oranges in light syrup 1 cup fresh or frozen raspberries, thawed Juice from 1/2 lemon 1 ounce simple syrup 1 (750 milliliter) bottle Barefoot Refresh Perfectly Pink Club soda (optional) Place mandarin oranges and syrup into pitcher.

Add raspberries, juice from lemon and simple syrup.

Top with pink spritzer. Serve over ice. Top with club soda if preferred.

Photo courtesy of Getty Images

FROM FAMILY FEATURES

MELON MINT-JITO 6–7 whole mint sprigs (save 1 for garnish) Juice from 1/2 lime 4 (1-inch) chunks honeydew melon 2 (1-inch) slices Bosc pear (cut lengthwise) 1 ounce simple syrup 4 ounces Barefoot Refresh Crisp White 1 1/2–2 ounces club soda Place mint sprigs, lime juice, honeydew melon, pear and simple syrup in cocktail shaker. Muddle lightly. Add white wine and ice.

Shake vigorously. Strain into tall glass over fresh ice. Top with club soda. Garnish with additional mint sprig.

Pair Up In need of a tasty appetizer to serve when the guests arrive? Check out this list of flavorful bites and the spritzer that complements each.

Fruit Caprese Bring seasonal produce to the table by skewer­ ing mozzarella balls, watermelon, honeydew and other favorite summer melons. Sprinkle with balsamic vinegar, garnish with freshly cut basil and serve with a vibrant white wine spritzer, such as this recipe for Sangria Spritz.

Savory Meatballs Whip up your favorite meatball recipe for a predinner nosh that’s a classic crowd pleaser. The hearty flavors pair perfectly with this recipe for Refreshing Red Sangria.

Shrimp Cocktail Kick off your summer event with a simple appetizer of chilled fresh-cooked shrimp dunked in tangy cocktail sauce. Bring out the flavors of this classic starter by serving with this recipe for Summer Lovin’, a light and refreshing drink.

F

rom pool parties to baseball games to backyard barbecues, this time of year provides a number of occasions to enjoy time with family and friends.

This summer, take your gatherings to the next level with a fun and festive drink menu that reflects the fresh flavors of the season.

Today Americans are turning to wine more often than ever before, and the summer months are no exception.

Barefoot Refresh, a refreshingly vibrant, light-bodied spritzer, is the perfect alternative for those quintessential summertime occasions.

A perfect complement to seasonal dishes, Barefoot Refresh is ideal for wherever you cele­brate “Spritzer Season” — the time of year when the sun is shining, memories are made and cold, refreshing drinks are in demand. Celebrate Spritzer Season with these tasty favorites and you’re sure to have guests coming back to the beverage cart.

Available in five delicious blends that are perfect for sharing, these vibrant wines can be found at retailers nationwide. For more ways to enjoy summer’s casual moments, visit www.BarefootWine.com.

SANGRIA SPRITZ 1 green apple, diced 1 red pear, diced 1 lemon, cut in small pieces 1 rosemary sprig 2 ounces brandy 3 ounces simple syrup 1 (750 milliliter) bottle Barefoot Refresh Crisp White Spritzer Place fruit, rosemary sprig, brandy and simple syrup in pitcher. Cover and allow to marinate for 2 to 4 hours or overnight. When ready to serve, add chilled white spritzer to pitcher. Stir briefly. Serve over ice.

SUMMER LOVIN’ 1 cup fresh seedless watermelon 6–8 large fresh strawberries, hulled 1 ounce simple syrup 4 ounces Barefoot Refresh Perfectly Pink Watermelon wedge for garnish Place watermelon, strawberries and simple syrup in blender (no ice). Blend until smooth. Pour into tall glass over ice. Top with pink spritzer. Add watermelon wedge as garnish, if desired.

REFRESHING RED SANGRIA 2 cups frozen raspberries 1 1/2 ounces simple syrup Juice from 2 oranges Juice from 1 lemon 4 ounces brandy 1 (750 milliliter) bottle Barefoot Refresh Summer Red Place frozen fruit in large pitcher. Add simple syrup and fresh juice from oranges and lemon. Top with brandy and red wine.

Stir. Cover pitcher and refrigerate. Allow mixture to marinate 4 hours or overnight.

Add sliced fruit, if desired. Serve over ice.