Florida Courier - December 12, 2014

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VOLUME 22 NO. 50

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DECEMBER 12 – DECEMBER 18, 2014

IS JAIL IN THEIR FUTURES? After a Senate panel graphic report on CIA interrogations and torture was released Tuesday by a Senate panel, UN officials urged that politicians and policymakers be criminally prosecuted in an international court.

agement of the program was “inadequate and deeply flawed,” and that the methods were “far WASHINGTON – After the at- more brutal” than the CIA has actacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the CIA’s knowledged. brutal interrogation program lost track of captives, led to false con- Rectal feeding fessions and fabricated informaThe details are startling at tion, and produced no useful in- times. One detainee in CIA custelligence about imminent ter- tody was “chained to a wall in the rorist attacks, according to a long- standing position for 17 days” and delayed Senate study. looked like “a dog who had been The 499-page executive sum- kenneled,” according to a CIA demary released Tuesday by the scription cited in the report.

Senate Intelligence Committee Some detainees were kept contains previously unknown de- awake for nearly 180 hours, tails so disturbing and so graph- “usually standing or in painic that the State Department has ful stress positions, at times with warned U.S. embassies overseas their hands shackled above their to prepare for possible protests heads.” Some were placed in ice around the globe. water baths.

The document, the result of a At least five captives were subsix-year investigation by Dem- jected to painful rectal rehydraocrats on the committee, con- tion or rectal feeding, without cludes that the CIA provided “ex- documented medical necessity. tensive inaccurate information” In one case, the CIA put a capto Congress about its interroga- tive’s lunch – hummus, raisins, tion techniques, that CIA man- pasta and nuts – into a blender

BY BRIAN BENNETT TRIBUNE WASHINGTON BUREAU /TNS

and inserted the food into his colon through a tube.

The CIA applied its methods “in near nonstop fashion for days or weeks at a time,” the document states.

Some of the agency officers responsible had “documented personal and professional problems of a serious nature – including histories of violence and abusive treatment of others – that should have called into question their employment,” let alone their suitability to run a sensitive CIA program, the report states.

Historical low point The conclusions instantly revived a partisan debate over whether the Bush White House permitted techniques so harsh they amounted to torture — as well as the dispute over whether they produced clues that ultimately led to the CIA-led raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011.

Holiday gun sales surge

CHUCK KENNEDY/TNS

President George W. Bush, flanked by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, left, and Vice President Dick Cheney, right, spoke to reporters at the White House on Dec. 14, 2007.

“Under any common meaning of the term, CIA detainees were tortured,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who has pushed the investigation. She described the era as “one of the lowest points in our nation’s history.”

Did Bush know?

The report raises questions about how much President George W. Bush knew of the detention and interrogation program at the time.

It says the CIA prepared a See REPORT, Page A2

COLLEGE BASKETBALL 2014-15

Ferguson, FSU shooting, may be causes

BY JIM TURNER AND TOM URBAN THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

Florida gun dealers saw a sharp increase in sales as shoppers flooded stores the day after Thanksgiving.

With 8,300 background checks conducted Nov. 28, the traditional start of the holiday shopping period, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement recorded the third-busiest day ever for gun sales in the state, FDLE Commissioner Gerald Bailey said.

The Nov. 28 purchases trailed only the sales for two days in December 2012, which came after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., Bailey said.

“We did roughly 23,000 sales Thanksgiving week,” Bailey said Tuesday after addressing the Florida Cabinet. “On a normal week, we do about 14,000 background investigations on those sales.”

The boost in sales followed the Nov. 24 announcement that a grand jury would not indict Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of teenager Michael Brown, a decision that touched off widespread protests. Also the increase

In full swing

See GUNS, Page A2

SNAPSHOTS FLORIDA | A3

Minimum wage going to $8.05

KIM GIBSON / FLORIDA COURIER

As big-time college football enters its first playoff season, the college basketball season has begun. The University of Miami Hurricanes routed Savannah State 70-39 in Coral Gables on Monday night.

Registered sex offender wins millions from lottery NATION | A6

Sharpton invites protesters to Washington rally CULTURE | B4

Young Black men and the struggle to see age 21

ALSO INSIDE

BY ELYSSA CHERNEY ORLANDO SENTINEL / TNS

ORLANDO – At the Florida Lottery headquarters, Timothy Poole, 43, posed for a photo with an oversized check after claiming his $3 million Scratch-Off prize. But when the image hit the Internet, others recognized the 450-pound man as a registered sexual predator.

This week, Poole claimed his winnings from the Florida Lottery in a one-time lump-sum payment of $2,219,807.90. He played the Super Millions scratch-off game that costs $20 a ticket.

Happened before In 2007, a Jensen Beach man arrested for lewd and lascivious or indecent assault upon a child snagged a $14 mil-

lion lottery jackpot prize. This year, Massachusetts legislators are considering a bill to prevent registered sex offenders from collecting lottery earnings.

In Florida, there are no laws that prohibit registered sexual predators from playing the numbers and collecting winnings. The Florida Lottery cannot withhold earnings based on someone’s criminal record.

Timothy Poole

COMMENTARY: CHARLES W. CHERRY II: RANDOM THOUGHTS OF A FREE BLACK MIND | A4 COMMENTARY: HEATHER GRAY: MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT MLK’S METHODS ARE LIFE AND DEATH | A5

A2

FOCUS

DECEMBER 12 – DECEMBER 18, 2014

11 things Black youth must do to stay alive President Obama, who is biracial and raised by his White family in Hawaii, often gets blasted by many Blacks for what they deem is tantamount to talking down to Black men. I, on the other hand, am fully “Black” and grew up experiencing, like most Blacks, the same subtle racial slights, and prominent racial fears.

On one memorable occasion, I served as co-counsel in former FSU quarterback Adrian McPherson’s much publicized gambling case back in 2003. Following a court hearing, a White man called me a “nigger” to my face. He subsequently got punched squarely in the jaw and fell to the ground, where I kicked him once in the ribs before three lawyer friends stopped me from doing serious damage.

I feel completely qualified to advise my young Black brothers and sisters as to how to survive and flourish in America.

Much of what I write is plain old common sense, the kind that my own parents who grew up under the painful yoke of Jim Crow passed on to me. But with tensions and tempers still high following the Ferguson and Staten Island grand juries’ decisions to exonerate Officers Darren Wilson and Danny Pantaleo for the killings of Mike Brown and Eric Garner respectively, I am moved to write the following points: 1. Seek God. If you are a bud-

CHUCK HOBBS, ESQ. GUEST COMMENTARY

ding atheist who is suspect on the existence of a deity, seek to center yourself spiritually in a way to understand that you are but one small part of a humongous whole.

2. Love yourself. It does not matter if your teachers, peers or society at large find little value in you. We all are endowed with some special talent or gift that should be used to make our lives rich and rewarding.

3. Respect yourself and others. You are not a worthless nigger or nigga. And women are not scandalous ‘b’s.’ You are young men and women – period.

4. Sex with multiple women does not make you a man, and sex with multiple men does not make you a liberated woman.

Value yourself enough to understand how sex can easily be abused.

5. For young men, if you make a child, own up to it. Child support at a minimum helps tremendously. Time spent with said child helps to improve his or her prospects of success. A boy can make a baby. A grown man takes

care of them.

6. Pay attention in school and “get your lesson.” Most of you will never go to “the League” or win a Grammy as a rap artist, but many of you can earn highly paid livings in any number of white and blue-collar fields. Still, to get there, you must apply yourself in traditional and trade schools.

7. Learn to control your emotions. There is a time under the heavens for everything, including anger and to make war, but the key is in knowing when to engage and when to refrain from engaging. Having a religious or spiritual center will help you discern the difference.

8. Stop killing each other.

There are few if any times in life that most of us will be confronted with a threat so serious to warrant shooting or stabbing another individual. That we kill each other at rates of 20 and 30 per month in some cities is because many of you do not know how to control your emotions and have no religious or spiritual center.

Life without parole means life.

The death penalty means death.

Having handled many murder cases in my career, most of you do not want to experience that reality.

9. Learn to respect authority.

Yes, police officers can be difficult to deal with at times, but as my police officer father told me years ago, officers have a license

to kill and will kill your Black ass and think nothing of it. Knowing that, if you find yourself being barked at by an officer who is telling you to do something, do it. If you feel disrespected or abused, get the name and badge number and sue. Do not buck, though, because again, bucking is hazardous to your health.

If you find yourself under arrest, repeat step one and allow yourself to be arrested. As we see with Mike Brown and Eric Garner, slight to major resistance can lead to your being shot or choked to death. Stay cool, comply, get the badge number and find a lawyer to sue.

10. If pulled for a traffic offense, please do the following: Keep your hands where the officer can see them. Do not rummage through your glove compartment first, because an officer may think that you are reaching for a weapon because you are Black. Whether they admit it or not, many officers have stereotyped thoughts about you. Wait for the officer to command you to produce license and registration and then ask permission to reach into your pocket or glove box to get it. If you have a concealed weapons permit and a concealed weapon, calmly slide the permit to the officer and follow his commands about producing the weapon should the officer ask. If you can, voice record the interac-

GUNS came after Florida State University graduate Myron May opened fire Nov. 20 in the lobby of the school’s Strozier Library, wounding three people before being fatally shot by police.

Too early to say

Not unusual Mark Folmar, owner of Folmar’s Gun and Pawn in Tallahassee, said Wednesday that he hasn’t heard any of his customers say they were buying guns due to Ferguson or the Florida State University shooting.

REPORT from A1

briefing for him in August 2002, but was told by White House aides that Bush would not receive the report, according to CIA internal messages reviewed

by Senate staff.

The CIA’s inspector general recommended that the CIA brief the president in 2004. But no record indicates Bush was briefed until 2006. In a CIA report of that meeting, Bush was described as “uncomfortable” with the description of a detainee chained to the ceiling and left to defecate on himself.

The CIA briefed Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Attorney General John Ashcroft and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales on July 24, 2003, about its treatment of detainees, according to notes by the CIA’s acting general counsel at the time, John A. Rizzo.

Criminal indictments?

One day after the release of the report, the United Nation’s top human rights official said a key treaty the United States has signed requires that officials be held accountable for torture.

“The Convention Against Torture is crystal clear,” says Zeid Raad al Hussein, the U.N.’s high commissioner for human rights.

“It says – and I quote – ‘No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency,

Chuck Hobbs is former prosecutor who is now a Tallahassee-based defense attorney in his own firm, the Law Office of Charles Hobbs II. Contact him at chuck_hobbs@yahoo.com.

Click on this story at www.flcourier.com to write your own response. gun Violence Prevention Act. “Brady background checks save lives. Brady estimates that they have blocked some 358 purchases every day to dangerous people,” Brian Malte, Senior national policy director of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said in a release.

“Unfortunately, in the majority of states, criminals and other people not allowed to own or buy guns legally are still able to avoid background checks by making purchases online or at gun shows.”

from A1

Bailey called the spurt in sales a product of the traditionally busy shopping day.

“I can tell you Newtown had a dramatic increase,” Bailey said.

“It’s too early for me to say if Ferguson has had an increase or not.”

National Rifle Association lobbyist Marion Hammer deferred comment when asked about the reasons for the boost in sales.

“The American people strongly believe in their God given right to self defense and know that they are responsible for their own safety and security,” Hammer said in an email.

tion on your smart phone or call someone and let him or her listen in while the stop ensues.

11. Recognize that “post-racial” is a myth, a fiction along the same lines as Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.

Things are better than they were 50 years ago, but stereotypes and racial prejudices still exist. Some of those stereotypes stem from racism. Others stem from Whites who are not virulent racists, but who see the murder rates, watch the young Black men or women arrested for murder who are wearing hoodies, sport gold teeth and have their pants sagging.

When they see your law-abiding self walking and sagging, they assume that we are all the same.

This sucks, I know, but it is reality. While we can work to do our best to change these realities, it is crucial to remember to be mindful of self-respect, love for each other and respect for authority. Failure to do so could lead to your premature death.

Quicker checks

FLORIDA COURIER FILES

‘Black Friday’ shoppers bought thousands of new guns last month.

Folmar added that his customers typically buy guns at the holiday season and at the start of hunting season.

“The majority of our gun sales are to people who already own guns,” Folmar said. “They are the biggest market because they like them. The person who owns three is just as likely to buy a

fourth as the person who is going to buy a first one.”

About three percent of people applying for gun purchases in Florida are initially denied while at the retailer, Bailey said. However, many of those individuals are eventually able to purchase weapons after providing additional information, he said.

Saving lives

may be invoked as a justification of torture.’”

The convention, he said, “lets no one off the hook – neither the torturers themselves, nor the policymakers, nor the public officials who define the policy or give the orders.”

The rights chief made his remarks on the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the 1984 convention, which the United States and 155 other countries have signed.

“To have it so clearly confirmed that it was recently practiced – as a matter of policy – by a country such as the United States is a very stark reminder that we need to do far, far more to stamp it out everywhere,” Hussein said.

starting in November 2002.

In the facility, referred to as “COBALT” in the Senate report but code-named Salt Pit by the CIA, conditions were so dungeon-like that interrogators wore headlamps to navigate pitch-dark passageways.

“At times, detainees there were walked around naked and shackled with their hands above their head,” the report states. “At other times, naked detainees were hooded and dragged up and down corridors while being slapped and punched.”

An Afghan militant named Gul Rahman died in the Salt Pit of suspected hypothermia in November 2002 after he was beaten, stripped naked from the waist down and left chained to a concrete floor in near-freezing temperatures.

intention to leave the CIA because the interrogation program was a “train (wreck)” and he was “getting off.”

CIA responds The CIA, which has prepared a 120-page response, argues that some detainees provided valuable intelligence after undergoing waterboarding and other painful techniques, even if they led to unauthorized abuses reminiscent of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq.

“The Bush administration took us down a path to torture (and) we shouldn’t have done that,” said a senior intelligence official who was authorized to discuss the report before it was released but who spoke on condition of anonymity. “But to say (the interrogations) produced not a shred of intelligence, that distorts the record.”

Afghan dungeon The most gruesome conditions described occurred at a site in a former brick factory north of Kabul, Afghanistan, that was used by the CIA for interrogations

Admitted ‘waterboarding’ The CIA has long admitted to using waterboarding, which simulates drowning by pouring water into a person’s nose and mouth, on three high-ranking al-Qaida detainees in 2002 and 2003.

But Senate staffers found a photograph in CIA files of a waterboard, a wet floor and buckets of water at the Salt Pit, where the CIA claimed it never used the technique. The CIA was later unable to explain the presence of what investigators called “the well-worn waterboard” at the site.

A career CIA officer who had been internally admonished in the 1980s for misconduct initially was chosen to run the interrogation program. But in 2003, he wrote a message describing his

Bailey’s comments came as the Washington, D.C.-based Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence released a report that said background checks on gun purchases have blocked 2.4 million sales to dangerous people since the inception of the Brady Hand-

Torture didn’t help The Senate committee reviewed 20 cases where the CIA said its interrogations had led to intelligence successes. “Each of those examples was found to be wrong in fundamental respects,” the report concludes.

In some cases, investigators found no relationship between the claimed success and any information provided by the detainee. In other cases, the CIA “inaccurately misrepresented that unique information was acquired from a CIA detainee” as a result of the interrogations, when the intelligence was either acquired earlier or was available from other sources.

The methods “regularly resulted in fabricated information,” the report concludes. The CIA “was often unaware” the information was false, however, leading the agency astray as it scrambled to track terrorists and prevent further attacks.

Started after 9/11 The detention program began after Bush signed a classified covert action memorandum six days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

The spy service subsequently built and ran “black sites,” or secret prisons, in Thailand, Poland, Romania, Afghanistan and elsewhere. The names of the countries are blacked out in the unclassified report.

On Feb. 7, 2002, Bush signed a separate memo stating that the

Bailey said the Florida Department of Law Enforcement has been able to cut the time to conduct background checks.

The on-hold time was about 10 minutes in the days after Sandy Hook. For the Nov. 28 sales, the background check time was down to about 1 minute due to legislatively approved staffing increases and the introduction of an online system for retailers to file applications, Bailey said.

As of Nov. 30, there were 1.337 million concealed-weapon or firearm licenses issued in Florida, according to the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. The state went over the 1 million mark in December 2012, becoming the first state in the nation to surpass that figure.

Geneva Conventions requiring humane treatment of prisoners in a conflict did not apply to al-Qaida or Taliban detainees.

Legal authorization to use harsh interrogation methods came on Aug. 1, 2002, when the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Council issued two memos concluding that the CIA’s proposed “enhanced interrogation techniques” did not violate federal anti-torture laws.

Major project The Senate report is based on 6.3 million pages of CIA internal cables, emails, chat logs and other communications, as well as interviews conducted by the CIA’s inspector general and the agency’s internal history of the interrogation program.

The executive summary was declassified, with some sections blacked out to protect the identity of CIA officers and some countries that hosted “black sites.”

Investigators were not permitted to speak to the CIA interrogators because of concerns about disrupting a Justice Department inquiry. Republicans on the committee also withdrew from participating in the study in 2009 because of the ongoing criminal investigation.

The Republicans did not rejoin the investigation when President Obama announced in April 2009 that prosecutors would not press criminal charges against CIA officials who participated in interrogations consistent with the legal memoranda issued under the Bush administration.

The full classified report is more than 6,700 pages long and will not be released.

DECEMBER 12 – DECEMBER 18, 2014

FLORIDA

A3 platform included raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour.

In an Oct. 21 gubernatorial debate in Jacksonville, Scott supported the idea of a minimum wage, but wouldn’t say what the number should be.

“How would I know? I mean, the private sector decides wages,” Scott said during the debate.

CBO projection cited During an Oct. 15 debate, Scott argued against raising the rate to $10.10 an hour, citing a nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projection for the entire nation.

“The CBO says that if we raise the minimum wage the way Charlie wants to do it, it would lose 500,000 jobs,” Scott said. “I don’t want to lose those jobs.”

The CBO estimate also projected that 16.5 million workers nationwide would get raises, resulting in $31 billion in additional wages.

No money to spend

C.W. GRIFFIN/MIAMI HERALD/TNS

Striking fast food workers in Miami hold picket signs as they walk the line in front of restaurants where they picketed during a nationwide protest on Sept. 4 in favor of a $15 per hour minimum wage. Seven of them were arrested after obstructing traffic.

Minimum wage inching up to $8.05, but debate continues New wage remains far below one pitched by Obama and others

BY JIM TURNER THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

TALLAHASSEE – Florida’s lowest-paid workers will get a raise Jan. 1, but a higher minimum wage sought by state and national Democrats doesn’t appear on the immediate leg-

islative horizon.

The automatic increase of 12 cents an hour, recalculated by law each year based on the federal Consumer Price Index, will increase the state minimum wage to $8.05 in January, up from $7.93. Voters in 2004 approved a constitutional amendment aimed at annual minimum-wage hikes.

The upcoming increase will also boost the minimum wage for tipped employees from $4.91 an hour to $5.03.

Beats federal average The $8.05 rate – after the increases amounting to $4.80 per 40-hour work

week and $249.60 a year – keeps Florida ahead of the federal minimum wage of $7.25, which has been in place since July 2009.

However, the rate remains below the $10.10-anhour mark being pitched by President Barack Obama, state Sen. Dwight Bullard, D-Miami, and state Rep. Cynthia Stafford, D-Miami.

Bullard hopeful

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Bullard acknowledged Monday his proposal faces a tough future in the Republican-dominated Legislature. But with polls showing support in Florida and voters in other states approving similar measures, he believes pressure is growing so that Florida lawmakers will have to consider steps toward a higher minimum wage.

“Something will be done in the next few years,” Bullard said. “Every year that we wait there are more states that are moving to a higher increase and we’ll find ourselves as a state on the low end of the minimum wage scale. You have to do something that is going to entice your best and

brightest. Even in low-wage fields, individuals will ultimately want to move to a state that is doing better business.”

Pushback by chambers Business groups like the Florida Chamber of Commerce have argued against such proposals, saying the $10.10 proposal will be a problem for small employers forced to absorb added labor costs.

“The voters have spoken and the automatic increase is in the Constitution,” Florida Chamber spokeswoman Edie Ousley said in an email. “However, attempts to raise wages beyond that can have adverse consequences where businesses raise prices or cut back on workforce.”

Popular elsewhere Still, the move to higher minimum wages has shown to be popular across the country.

In November, voters in Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska and South Dakota backed proposals to raise the minimum wages in their respective states. Illinois voters also supported a similar, but non-binding ballot item.

But Florida isn’t rushing to drastically alter its rate – already higher than all of its Southern neighbors.

Voters narrowly opted to keep Gov. Rick Scott in office over former Gov. Charlie Crist, whose campaign

State’s decision to allow silencers draws challenge THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

Pointing to safety concerns, three Central Florida residents have filed a legal challenge against a state decision allowing hunters to use silencers when shooting at deer, gray squirrels, rabbits, wild turkeys, quail and crows.

Seminole County residents Charles W. O’Neal, Peri Sedigh and Timothy Orrange Jr. filed the challenge last week in the state Division of Administrative Hearings against the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Last month, the commission approved removing a prohibition on the use of noise

Rich Templin, legislative director of the AFL-CIO of Florida, said the state’s political and business leaders need to look at the longterm potential of the $10.10 per-hour proposal.

“We’re overly reliant on tourist dollars because people living here don’t have money to spend themselves. That’s a failed policy,” Templin said. “Job creators are not Wal-Mart. It’s the people that shop at WalMart that create jobs.”

Templin argued that a rate hike would increase spending, reduce the need for public services and boost sales taxes, which produce more revenue for the state.

“We need money in the pockets of consumers, that is what drives the economy of Florida, and right now they don’t have money to spend,” Templin said. Lawmakers “can talk about all the things they do for the business community, but when is the last time they did something for workers?”

Bill’s chances The proposal by Bullard and Stafford, (SB 114 and HB 47) will be considered during the legislative session that starts in March.

Asked about the chances for the proposal to advance, Katie Betta, spokeswoman for Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, simply replied Monday that the bill is being reviewed so it could be referred to the appropriate committees.

Bullard proposed a similar measure in the 2014 session, but the idea failed to get taken up in committees. The same fate was met by its 2014 House version, which was also filed by Stafford.

suppressors, or silencers, with rifles and pistols. Supporters argue the move would have benefits such as protecting hunters’ hearing and helping while introducing people to the sport. But the Seminole County residents, in an eight-page challenge, said they own property abutting woodlands, hike or paddleboard and are concerned about safety if they are unable to hear shots.

The challenge also pointed to statistics about gunshot wounds in Florida.

“Clearly, the ban removal will only add to these figures as the once-thundering crack of a firearm, sending warning to hikers, nature lovers and wildlife alike that hunters are nearby, will be reduced, muffled or altogether silenced,’’ the document said. “Even if the sound of the report from a hunting rifle or pistol is reduced by … (30) decibels or less, silencers create a zone in which a person in the woods or in their backyards can be within range of a bullet without knowing that hunters are nearby.”

Legislators want to repeal nuclear cost law THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

Wading back into a major political issue in the Tampa Bay area, two House members said Monday they will seek to repeal a 2006 law that has allowed utilities to collect hundreds of millions of dollars for nuclearpower projects.

State Rep. Amanda Murphy, D-New Port Richey, filed a bill (HB 67) that also has the backing of Rep. Chris Latvala, R-Clearwater. The nuclear-cost issue has long been controversial, particularly among Duke Energy Florida customers in the Tampa Bay area.

Duke collected money for a plan to build two nuclear reactors in Levy County but has scuttled the project.

“Floridians are tired of being taxed for projects that will never come to fruition,” Murphy said in a prepared statement. Under the bill, the law would be repealed and all unspent money collected by utilities as of July 1, 2015, would be returned to customers.

Florida Power & Light has used the law as it moves forward with a plan to eventually build two new reactors in Miami-Dade County. Also, FPL says the law has helped it upgrade existing reactors.

EDITORIAL

A4

DECEMBER 12 – DECEMBER 18, 2014

Still looking for change As the end of another tumultuous year approaches, Black people again find ourselves in the relative same economic and political position as we were the year before, and the years preceding. In 2007, leading up to 2008, when the ultimate level of political history had finally come to fruition, Black folks and others were citing the mantra, “Hope and Change!” Quite frankly, we got more hope than real positive change — for Blacks, that is.

Just as our emotional bubble was inflated to its maximum capacity, now the air is coming out and we are heading back down from our lofty height, about to burst in a very short while. Instead of saying, “We are the change we’ve been looking for,” in light of all the unrest and injustice, I and others say as we have said for decades, “The change you are looking for is in your pockets.”

JAMES CLINGMAN NNPA COLUMNIST

Economic empowerment is key Slowly but surely, albeit very late in the game, Black folks are learning that economic empowerment is the key to our progress and prosperity in this nation.

Decades of instructions from wise elders, scholars, and activists seem to be taking hold on the minds of young people, despite the tired messages coming from some of our current leaders.

Although we still get our “marching” orders from political icons and media talking

heads, many are determined to blaze a new trail that leads us to economic empowerment. The sad part is that all we have to do is look back at the past 60 years and we can see how wrong and misguided we have been in our quest for parity and fairness.

Now, there is an enlightened, determined, and unwavering group of young people who are neither intimidated by the powerful nor swayed by the misleadership of the old guard and political gatekeepers. From the looks of it, they are in it for the long haul.

‘Sore feet’ While Ferguson has brought about an awakening of sorts, the solution-based messages we still hear are, “March” and “Vote.” The NAACP, as big and bad as it purports to be, has just

VISUAL VIEWPOINT: POLICE GET OUT OF JAIL FREE

DARYL CAGLE, CAGLE CARTOONS

Random thoughts of a free Black mind, v. 236 Where we at? WHERE ARE BLACK PEOPLE when it comes to biblical dramas?

The most recent biblical ‘Whitewashing’ example – Ridley Scott’s “Exodus: God and Kings” now in movie theaters – features White Moses. NBC’s new 12-episode miniseries, “A.D.”, is coming to TV in the spring featuring White Jesus.

When are Black church people gonna stop making folks like Mel Gibson (“The Passion of the Christ”) rich, even when they consider you to be “niggers?”

The biggest biblical liar of them all? The TBN Holy Land Experience in Orlando.

Busloads of Black churches pay $40 a head to allow fundamentalist White Christianity to brainwash entire congregations with the worst White supremacist propaganda imaginable. White Jesus will also baptize you or give you communion there!

Where are the Black Christians who should be protesting this trash? Is “the devil a liar” only when it comes to gay marriage, but not when it comes to White Jesus and biblical figures?

When are Black Christians gonna stand up to their White brethren and sisteren and make them tell the truth: that AFRICA was the place that most important biblical events happened, and God came to Earth (if you believe that) in the body

quick takes from #2: straight, no chaser

Charles W. Cherry II, Esq. PUBLISHER

of a Black man named Jesus whose family hid him in Egypt, an African nation?

Some conscious Orlando-based Black preachers should use the “Kingian model” on Page A5 and try to get TBN to fire White Jesus, his apostles, and others. If TBN refuses, do you think the Holy Land Experience could survive if Black church folks boycotted until they fired White Jesus and all the other ‘holy’ White historical impersonators walking around Orlando’s ‘holy land’ which is, symbolically speaking, African soil?

Once ‘Black Twitter’ and social media weighed in, you’ll have a crew of Black Jesuses with dreadlocks in 10 days or less.

But do Black Christians have the biblical ‘salt’ to stand up for truth and shame the devil?

Contact me at ccherry2@gmail.com.

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

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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concluded a 120-mile walk from Ferguson to the Missouri governor’s office, the same guy who insulted them with his decisions in the aftermath of Michael Brown’s death. Walk 120 miles?

The only thing we will get out of that is sore feet and worn shoe leather. Oh yes, the businesses along the route will benefit economically; I can hear them now saying, “Y’all come.” We will be counting the miles, and they will be counting the dollars. It’s no wonder the younger generation is marching to its own drummer.

They look back and see all the marching we did and ask, “Why are we still being subjected to the same things they marched against back in the day?” Can you blame them?

While many in my generation and older are still hoping for change, young folks have come to the conclusion that the change they can and should control is in their pockets. They are committed to implementing economic solutions to address

the problems they face, not only in Ferguson, but across the nation. They know that politics alone will not solve their problems; they know that the hue and cry from folks like Congressman John Lewis, who is now saying, “Republican voter suppression efforts played a crucial role in driving voter turnout to historic lows in 2014,” is ridiculous.

The old political agenda is not the primary agenda of our young people. We fell head over heels for politics to solve our problems; they are using economics.

I believe young folks, the “new guard,” are saying: “No more symbolism; we want substance; no more speeches, we want specifics; no more rhetoric, we want results; no more dallying, we’ll use our dollars; and no more hope, we’ll use our change.”

Jim Clingman is the founder of the Greater Cincinnati African American Chamber of Commerce. Write your own response at www.flcourier.com.

Hey Ferguson, is anyone listening?

Charles Barkley has come under fire in the liberal mainstream media (MSM) for calling the Ferguson rioters “scumbags.” These are the rioters who looted and burned approximately 20 buildings in Ferguson, crippling small businesses and causing yet-unknown financial damages.

I don’t want to diminish Mr. Barkley’s characterization of the rioters because I’ve made similar characterizations. But the Berkeley interview, in its entirety, was thoughtful and reasoned approach on the Ferguson verdict as well as his strong feelings about Black culture and issues within the Black community.

Anyone who didn’t take the time to watch didn’t hear Barkley’s thoughtful perspectives. His comments fly directly in the face of the narrative of victimization, oppression and racial tension so critical in keeping the racist meme alive.

‘Siding with law enforcement’ In Huffington Post’s live coverage of the interview, for example, Mr. Barkley was characterized as “siding with law enforcement” in the Ferguson matter.

This type of polarizing theme is critically important to the MSM. They have made victims of, glorified

WAYNE DUPREE PROJECT 21

and coddled these “scumbags” because it fits the far left storyline. Looters, arsonists and scumbags were easily manipulated into a rage on a stage for the whole world to see. The MSM perpetuated things by minimizing or overlooking facts in their coverage that did not fit into the networks’ political narrative.

There was, for example, the abrupt and awkward transition made by Andrea Mitchell on “Meet the Press” to seemingly keep from discussing relevant physical evidence to show how important this continued narrative of racial strife and division appears to be to the media.

Meanwhile, conservative activists on social media are raising funds to help business owners rebuild. I wonder how much MSNBC and Salon have donated to the same.

As a community, we need to talk about the number of young Black men dying violently at the hands of other young Black men. We need to talk about the destruction of the Black nuclear family and the problems fatherless families have created in

our communities. We need to talk about the Black culture in our poorest cities that discourages academic achievement and good choices.

More than a snippet As long as a significant number of Black Americans embrace the misguided notion that openly discussing our shortcomings is somehow taboo, we will continue living under the unnecessary status of victimhood. Promotion of this groupthink mentality, coupled with the left’s ability to control the media narrative, closes the door on real and productive conversation. This mindset also keeps Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and like-minded folk in positions of prominence while they do nothing for our community as a whole. In fact, all this prevents us from ever truly embracing our potential.

So, are you listening?

I agree with the over six minutes of Charles Barkley’s interview.

Are you brave enough to hear what he and I have to say?

Wayne Dupree is a member of the Project 21 Black leadership network and founder of the We Are America Radio (WAAR) network. Write your own response at www.flcourier.com.

Breaking the spiritual stronghold within the African-American community The killing of an African-American by someone other than an AfricanAmerican sparks outrage within the African-American community. Children who are murdered receive national attention. However, the act of Black-onBlack crime doesn’t receive the same recognition. Why? Could it be the media doesn’t care about Black lives? Perhaps the regularity of Black-on-Black crime is so regular that too many people have become numb to it.

In a report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics released in 2007, they concluded the following: Black males were more vulnerable to violent victimization than Black females.

Younger Blacks were generally more likely than older Blacks to be victims of violence.

Blacks who had never married were more likely than all other Blacks to be victims of violence.

Blacks in households with lower annual incomes were at a greater risk of violence than those in households with higher annual incomes.

Blacks living in urban areas were more likely than those in suburban or rural areas to be victims of violence.

DR. SINCLAIR GREY III GUEST COLUMNIST

What hasn’t been addressed with Black-onBlack crime is the spiritual element that has been perpetrated throughout history by non-Blacks as well as the violence that is often bragged upon by political pundits with regard to terrorists.

Let’s simply look at the violence initiated toward Native Americans (indigenous people) by European colonists on the shores of the United States in history past. On Thursday, November 28, people celebrated Thanksgiving by going to parades, watching television, eating, and spending time with family and friends. However, not too many AfricanAmericans are aware that what we call Thanksgiving is called the National Day of Mourning for Native Americans. They remember how pilgrims came unto their land and violated their rights, killed their loved ones, and returned home celebrating their accomplishment(s) and giving thanks. Perhaps, just perhaps, that spirit has lingered here within

the United States.

That same spirit of violence has infiltrated into the killing of Blacks by other Blacks. Whether it’s over material things or respect, the failure of our leaders to address the spiritual problem of violence will prevent solutions from ever-becoming effective.

The individual When I speak of the spiritual, I’m not speaking of Christian, Muslim, or Jew, or any other religious faith. I’m addressing the spiritual makeup of an individual – who they are, what they stand for, and what their belief system is.

If we neglect spiritual work and breaking generational curses that have been passed down, we will continue to see the number of murders increased within the African-American community at the hands of our fellow brothers and sisters.

Dr. Sinclair Grey III is an activist, speaker, writer, author, life coach, and host of The Sinclair Grey Show heard on Monday’s at 2 p.m. on WAEC Love 860am (iHeart Radio and Tune In). Write your own response at www.flcourier.com.

DECEMBER 12 – DECEMBER 18, 2014

Misconceptions about MLK’s methods are life and death The spontaneous demonstrations now spreading across the country are encouraging. But there’s a question regarding demands for change that might be in the offing for America.

What concrete steps need to be taken? There are so many critical issues facing us with the racist mentality in the general U. S. population, much less what we witness in terms of brutality from police departments.

Nothing new What we are seeing now in demonstrations also has similarities to the tragic 1989 Tiananmen Square hunger strike by young Chinese activists/students in Beijing. Essentially it was a “leaderless” movement with no concrete demands.

Why no concrete demands?

None of us think that the police departments, grand juries, or city council members should come up with solutions! Would you trust them? Of course not! That’s why Black activists, students, the labor unions, the working poor, the immigrants, the progressive activists all over the country should come up with the solutions and make the demands. In fact, there can be dangerous consequences in organizing efforts when there is no clarity. It’s often a matter of life and death.

One of the sad legacies of the 1960s civil rights movement was that people seem to think that demonstrations almost magically led to changes or justice. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Direct action, as in demonstrations, was largely that last action in a campaign. And when people demonstrated in the 1960s, they were invariably clear about their demands. They largely knew precisely what they wanted.

People get killed The tragic consequence of not having clarity was demonstrated in 1989. I was in the Philippines then not long after some 4,000 activists had been killed and 20,000 wounded in what became known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre in Beijing, China. I talked with Filipino activists who had been in constant communication with the Chinese students who were demanding democracy in China. What concerned my Filipino friends was the lack of unity, organizational infrastructure, and clarity in the demands of the students and workers to the Chinese gov-

HEATHER GRAY GUEST COMMENTARY

King said that every nonviolent campaign should be anchored in a boycott and, importantly, voter education and voter registration. Rarely these days, however, do U.S. activists choose to challenge the bulwark and muscle of corporate America, even in spite of the unfettered capitalist abuse in which we live. ernment, which, they said, likely helped contribute to the violent response from the Chinese government. Perhaps nothing would have altered the violent Chinese government reaction, but Filipinos stressed the need for clarity and unity in any demands for social change when challenging a powerful state.

Many in the United States want us to think about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “dream.” But his primary mission, and those of civil rights activists everywhere, was about “action” coupled with concrete and definitive change. Nonviolent social change requires long, hard and sustained work, research, development of solutions, and, importantly, ongoing commitment.

It demands far more than bringing folks together to march and wave banners.

Mass mobilization or direct action, in fact, is only one part of the nonviolent methods for social change. Here’s a description of the steps King and others used in their social change work.

1. Once the problem is identified, it is essential to research the issue. Define the problem. Who are the key players? Who or what is being affected? The research and analysis should be above reproach, as disputed or incorrect facts and figures can completely undermine the efforts for the evolving campaign.

2. Based on the research, state clearly what needs to change to solve the problem and identify the strategy for solving the problem.

3. Recruit others to join the struggle, share your findings and strategies, and get their input if necessary. Seek a commitment from them. (This is the problem, this is what we intend to do, are you with us?)

4. Teach them nonviolent tactics.

5. Attempt to resolve the problem through negotiations.

6. If that doesn’t work, apply pressure through direct action techniques, such as boycotts and mass demonstrations that at times need to be sustained for a lengthy period.

7. Negotiate again. If necessary, engage in direct action again. Often more research is required or more clarity on the solutions needs to be developed.

8. If the problem is solved, seek reconciliation.

Reconciliation with adversaries and an improvement of life for everyone is the end goal. Reconciliation is also probably the most difficult aspect of the Kingian philosophy for activists to embrace.

In his book “Stride Toward Freedom” King said that the nonviolent methods are “not an end in themselves; they are merely means to awaken a sense of moral shame in the opponent. The end is redemption and reconciliation. The aftermath of nonviolence is the beloved community, while the aftermath of violence is tragic bitterness.”

There is almost always a misunderstanding of how to define the adversaries in nonviolent social change. Dr. King said it is not a “battle” against “individuals” who commit evil acts, but against the evil itself. Regarding the Montgomery struggles, he said, “The tension is between justice and injustice, and not White persons who may be unjust.”

King said further that “the non-

EDITORIAL

A5

VISUAL VIEWPOINT: CAN’T BREATHE

ERIC ALLIE, CAGLE CARTOONS

violent resister would contend that in the struggle for human dignity, the oppressed people of the world must not succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter or engaging in hate campaigns. To retaliate in kind would do nothing but intensify the existence of hate in the universe. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate.”

Make demands Another misconception is that complaints can be made without concrete demands for change.

King also called for a fair hearing from the adversaries and to listen to them, as there might be some wisdom to gain from that experience. Those who seek change should always develop the solutions, because you don’t want to leave that in the hands of your so-called “adversary” – otherwise you’ve wasted your time.

If you don’t like what politicians or others do, you certainly don’t want them to be the chief architects in resolving problems. Don’t just engage in a feel-good march in front of the White House, Congress, statehouse or Wall Street and assume that you have completed your mission by making your statement. If you haven’t developed your solutions to the problems you’re addressing, you’ve only done a quarter or less of what is necessary.

Nonviolence is a method for change. There’s an assumption that nonviolence is cowardly, a “turn the other cheek” method.

Not true.

As a method for change, nonviolence is confrontational. King said, “It must be emphasized that nonviolent resistance is not a method for cowards; it does resist. If one uses this method because he is afraid or merely because he lacks instruments of violence, he is not truly nonviolent. This is why Gan-

dhi often said that if cowardice is the only alternative to violence, it is better to fight.”

Challenge the corporations King said that every nonviolent campaign should be anchored in a boycott and, importantly, voter education and voter registration.

Rarely these days, however, do U.S. activists choose to challenge the bulwark and muscle of corporate America, even in spite of the unfettered capitalist abuse in which we live.

King wisely recognized that going against corporate America was one of the most vital ways to change behavior. Referring to the Birmingham movement, King said, “It was not the marching alone that brought about integration of public facilities in 1963. The downtown business establishments suffered for weeks under our unbelievably effective boycott.”

The National Bar Association (NBA) offers some concrete suggestions for addressing today’s issues, for example, to “…enact legislation making it a felony for a police officer to fail to report an officer engaged in police brutality.” There are many other excellent recommendations as well by the NBA. King often uttered a quote, “The arc of the moral universe is long and it bends toward justice.” The demonstrators today are definitely bending the arc, but as King would say “Where do we go from here?”

What do we want? If there was ever a time to shift that paradigm it is now!

Heather Gray produces “Just Peace” on WRFG-Atlanta 89.3 FM. In 1985-86, she directed the nonviolence program at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta. Contact her at hmcgray@ earthlink.net. Write your own response at www.flcourier.com.

Will video cameras reduce police brutality?

“I can’t believe that in the 21st century in the United States of America, we can’t get a simple indictment for a murder of a man that was caught on videotape,” said New York Congresswoman Yvette Clarke hours after the news of a Staten Island grand jury failing to indict officer Daniel Pantaleo.

Pantaleo, a New York City cop, has two lawsuits against him. One was settled by the city of New York. The other is still pending.

Pantaleo strangled 48-year-old Eric Garner to death on July 17, 2014, less than a month before a White Ferguson Police Officer shot teenager Michael Brown to death.

But in Garner’s case it was all on video.

Garner was begging for his life and said 11 times, “I can’t LAUREN breathe” when Pantaleo held him in a choke hold that even New VICTORIA York City Police Commissioner BURKE William Bratton called “disturbing” and a violation of police proNNPA COLUMNIST cedure. And even with all of it and training. The $75 million for caught on video, there was no in50,000 body cameras for police dictment. has been a primary focus of what many hope is a solution to police What’s the solution? brutality – or at least a tool that Several elected officials are fowill make it easier to prosecute cusing on the question of whether police involved in misconduct. cameras are the solution.

But with a partisan fight under “What good is a body camera? way over the president’s immigra- A body camera is supposed to be tion executive order, there’s a real utilized so you can see what facts question about whether Congress took place. So in effect we had a will take action on the his propos- body camera here; we see it all,” al. But the bigger question is: Will said Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.). video matter? If a cop can’t be in“It brings into question whethPresident steps in dicted for choking a man to death er body cameras will make any On Dec.1, President Obama on a city street, then under what difference. The whole incident asked Congress to approve $263 circumstances can a cop be in- was on camera, but if prosecumillion for police body cameras dicted? tors mishandled the presenta-

Blacks are seen as savages An African-American friend of mine keeps asking, in utter amazement, how it is not obvious that there was something wrong when Officer Wilson fired 13 shots at an unarmed Michael Brown. As she has said: “Brown was unarmed! How can you justify shooting him at all, let alone more than once?”

I thought about her point when I listened to the announcement that the grand jury was not going to indict. But the answer to her question is actually fairly straight forward. If you believe that African-Americans and Latinos are savages, then any sort of action

BILL FLETCHER, JR. NNPA COLUMNIST

becomes justifiable. And in listening to the words of Officer Wilson, you would almost think that instead of talking about Michael Brown, he was talking about “Mighty Joe Young.”

Misperception of Blacks The U.S. is such a residentially

segregated society that it is actually possible for many White people to never see an African-American or Latino in real life. They may only see us on television or in films. If they are addicted to Fox News, then their perception of us is even further misshaped.

Chris Rock, on the CBS series “Sunday Morning,” posed the question of why the police are not shooting more White youth.

While his comments were provocative (and he was not calling for the police to shoot White youth), he was asking a very relevant question. The African-American community is not the only

Stems from lawsuit

largest police department in the country. Starting over the weekend, 50 NYPD officers began wearing body cameras. The program is then expected to expand to 35,000 officers after a threemonth trial period.

Even though technology and the prevalence of mobile phones have opened a window on day-today police activity, another piece of the puzzle that leads to cops’ actually being held accountable for their actions is missing. Because of the often close relationships between prosecutors and police, indictments are hard to get, even with video evidence.

The timing of the grand jury non-indictment and the bodycamera issue could not be more relevant. Not only did President Obama focus on the issue on December 1, but body cameras will soon be in widespread use by the

Lauren Victoria Burke is freelance writer and creator of the blog Crewof42.com, which covers African American members of Congress. Write your own response at www.flcourier.com.

community where there is criminal activity. Italian Americans have the Mafia. Irish Americans have their own version of the Mafia, as well as Charlestown, Mass., the reputed capital of bank robberies. Of course, there is the notorious Russian mob. Yet, it is rare to hear about the police accidentally or on purpose killing Italian American, Russian or Irish American youth.

perception, which goes way beyond improving police/community relations and really involves a national discussion on race and class, this terror of lynchings will continue. Each outrage will be followed by a demonization of the victim, an explaining away of the incident, and the self-satisfaction of a part of the population, that the savages have been kept in their place.

tion of the charges to the grand jury, you come up with no indictment,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.). “Given what’s happened in Ferguson and the tenor of where I see a lot of people in this country, I’m not surprised” at the outcome.

“When you have an apparent felonious action on videotape, someone engaging in an illegal choke hold that causes someone’s death, it’s very difficult to understand how there’s not an indictment, and not at least probable cause,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.).

Savage threat No, none of this can be understood until you recognize that we are not viewed as people. Our experiences are considered relevant and we are thought of as hostile, ignorant, and a permanent threat.

Until we force a change in that

Bill Fletcher, Jr. is the host of The Global African on Telesur-English. He is a racial justice, labor and global justice activist and writer. Write your own response at www.flcourier.com.

TOJ A6

NATION

DECEMBER 12 – DECEMBER 18, 2014

LAURIE SKRIVAN/ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH/TNS

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon takes questions from the press after establishing the Ferguson Commission as commission co-chairmen Rev. Starsky Wilson, left, and Rich McClure are seen in the background on Nov. 18 at the Missouri History Museum in St. Louis.

Nixon created the independent commission to address the “social and economic conditions” highlighted by protests after the shooting death of Michael Brown.

St. Louis police chief faces hostile crowd at meeting Dotson yelled at during presentation before governor-appointed commission JASON ROSENBAUM ST. LOUIS PUBLIC RADIO

At the second meeting of the Ferguson Commission, St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson was supposed to make a multi-faceted presentation on policing – and what changes were being contemplated for his department.

But Dotson’s plans changed in a hurry. He faced intense public antagonism at Monday’s meeting, which focused on the relationship between citizens and police.

The meeting was held at Mullanphy-Botanical Garden Investigative Learning Center in St. Louis’ Shaw neighborhood.

It wasn’t too far from the spot in Shaw where an off-duty St. Louis police officer shot and killed Vonderrit Meyers, which has sparked weeks of protests throughout the city.

Turned backs on chief Soon after he started his presentation, Dotson faced the ire of a hostile crowd. Some members of the audience shouted at him as he tried to speak, while others turned their backs on him in protest. And several audience mem-

bers went up to Dotson’s lectern and yelled at him repeatedly.

At one point Dotson – who didn’t answer questions from the press after his presentation – told the crowd: “It’s difficult to have a conversation when one side yells and doesn’t let the other side have a voice.”

Michael Allen – a Shaw resident and historic preservationist – said many in the crowd were likely still upset about Myers’ death. And he said Dotson didn’t help himself by presenting a “wooden” lecture and not being more extemporaneous with the crowd.

“For one thing, this is his first real public appearance before a crowd in Shaw after the Vonderrit Myers shooting – and he didn’t even address the shooting,” Allen said. “I think that’s somewhat audacious knowing the tenor of the room. … This is an emotional crowd. And they want their fears and mistrusts to validated and just sort of stuck to the script.”

“That’s not good enough and that engendered a very hostile audience,” he added.

Challenging issues But others – including Mis-

souri Department of Safety director Dan Isom – thought Dotson handled the crowd fairly well.

Isom, who served as St. Louis’ police chief before Dotson, said it was “important that the police department show up and talk about some of these very, very challenging issues.”

I think Chief Dotson withstood the fire and anger and emotions of what people had to say,” Isom said. “And I think it was important that he was here and that he heard that. I know that he feels that same way.”

Commission co-chair Rich McClure said he understood “emotions were high and folks wanted to make statements.”

Like last Monday’s meeting, McClure said it was best to let people speak their peace as opposed to throwing them out or shutting them down.

“This is the first meeting where we had specific topics to talk about,” McClure said. “They’ll understand. They’ll want to engage in those topics. And they want to engage in a way that listens to each other, that listens to law enforcement, that listens to community leaders and that has a chance for them creatively and constructively express themselves.”

“And I think over time, people will understand that and that is where we will move to,” he added.

New poll: More than half think race relations worse since Obama took office

In some ways, the sometimesfrayed relationship between African-American St. Louisans and law enforcement officials is at the heart of protests that gripped the region over the past few months.

In the aftermath of Michael Brown’s death, many Black residents from in and around Ferguson talked openly about how police had disrespected and harassed them.

Numerous local and national news outlets highlighted how some police departments in majority-Black towns had primarily White officers. And national publications like the Washington Post and New York Times showcased how some Black residents became mired in financial and legal trouble from tickets and fines.

Norma Rhodes told commissioners that she was heartened 40 years ago when she gave birth to a daughter.

But she added when her daughter became pregnant, “I forgot to pray.”

“I now have a 17-year-old grandson,” said Rhodes, adding that he lives in Florida. “He could be anywhere in this country. He would still be under the same halo of horror, really. … I have nothing against the police. Never had a negative encounter. But what I wonder is what efforts are made in the police department to weed out those few officers who have the attitude and psychological issues that are causing all these problems and chaos in our communities.”

Down to business Once tensions cooled after

Sharpton calling for mass march in D.C. Dec. 13 TRICE EDNEY NEWS WIRE

EURWEB.COM OLIVIER DOULIERY/ABACA PRESS/TNS

A new poll has revealed a large disparity in how people feel about race relations since President Barack Obama took office. It seems ironic that such a historic election, poised to improve race relations, may have done the exact opposite.

But according to a majority of Americans – 53 percent say the interactions between White and black communities have deteriorated since he took office.

President Obama’s victory put him in an office cluttered with George Bush’s mess; now Ferguson and Staten Island happens on his watch and the consequence – race relations – has people looking at him all cockeyed.

President Barack Obama meets with elected officials, community and faith leaders, along with law enforcement officials on Dec. 1 at the White House to discuss how communities and law enforcement can work together to build trust to strengthen neighborhoods across the country.

Bloomberg poll

The decision to exonerate Pantaleo came just 12 days after a grand jury had decided not to charge Officer Darren Wilson, who shot 18-year-old Michael Brown to death in August. This altercation was not captured on video, and the prosecutor blamed the officer’s actions on an alleged physical confrontation between him and the teen before the fatal shots were fired.

Dania Wilson, a 49-year-old White woman from Northern Virginia says the cases shouldn’t be lumped together.

“I think sometimes the media likes to put upon people a theme that’s political in nature,” she said in an interview.

The Bloomberg survey shows a gulf between how Whites and Blacks view the incidents. Ninety percent of African-Americans thought the grand jury should have indicted in the Staten Island death. Just over half of the White people polled felt that way.

On Ferguson, 89 percent of Blacks disagreed with the grand jury while just 25 percent of Whites did.

These stats come from a new Bloomberg Politics poll, which comes at the apex of two adverse grand jury decisions to not indict White police officers who killed unarmed Black men in Ferguson, Mo., and Staten Island, N.Y. Protesters were outraged both times and federal investigations were ordered by politicians. Yet Americans don’t think of the cases as a matched set of injustices, the poll found. A majority agreed with the Ferguson decision, while most objected to the conclusion in the Staten Island death, which was captured on video.

The divergent opinions — 52 percent agreed on Ferguson compared with 25 percent who approved of the Staten Island outcome — only add fuel to the fire of discussions that surround a video showing Officer Daniel Pantaleo putting Eric Garner in a chokehold because he thought the 43-year-old father of six was selling untaxed cigarettes.

Garner could be heard saying, “I can’t breathe’’ be-

Long road ahead?

fore he died of a heart attack in what a medical examiner ruled a homicide.

Response to decisions

As protests against police shootings continue to rage across the nation, the Rev. Al Sharpton has announced a mass march on Washington this Saturday, Dec. 13.

Protesters will gather at Freedom Plaza Downtown on Pennsylvania Ave. NW between 13th and 14th Street at 10:30 a.m. for the “National March Against Police Violence.’’ The march will begin at noon and end at Pennsylvania Avenue and Third Street.

According to a statement from Sharpton’s National Ac-

Dotson left the building, the remaining members of the audience broke into working groups.

They discussed ways to enhance community policing, lessen racial profiling and change when force is used by police officers.

“It’s safe to say that it’s very difficult work,” Isom said. “If it was easy, we already would have accomplished it already. But I think there are opportunities. There are things that happen in sort of the arc of history that give us an opportunity to make some change. And I have to say, we’re in that space right now.”

During the commission’s first meeting, Isom wondered aloud about how some parts of the city embrace police officers – while some neighborhoods are less welcoming. When asked if Monday’s meeting got him any closer to answer to that question, Isom replied: “I think it’s clear that in communities of color that there is a relationship that creates tension.”

“And so, some of the things that I heard from the community was that police departments seemed to have moved away from their goal of community policing,” Isom said. “That hot spot police has created a strain on some of those relationships. Stop and frisk had created a strain on those relationships.”

“We need to find better ways to introduce officers, connect officers to the networks of the community,” he added. “And there were some very real examples of how citizens believe we ought to go about doing that.”

Another Monday meeting For his part, Allen observed that commissioners were hearing from a wide range of sources and giving lots of time for the general public to sound off. But he said it’ll ultimately be up to the commission to come up with recommendations to bridge racial and economic divides within the St. Louis region.

“The commissioners are going to be the ones who are going to put their names and their insights into the report,” Allen said.

“I actually came hoping to hear a little more from each of the commissioners. And I’ve been hearing a little bit of their character through questioning. But in the end, they’re the ones who are going to tell St. Louis how to fix itself.”

Both McClure and fellow cochair Starsky Wilson announced that the commission’s next meeting would take place next Monday at St. Louis University’s Il Monastero. The meeting will focus on reconfiguring municipal courts, which have come under heavy scrutiny since Brown’s death. tion Network, the march will include the families of Eric Garner, the 43-year-old father of six who was killed by a police chokehold in Staten Island, N.Y. on July 17; unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown, killed in Ferguson, Mo., on Aug. 8; 12-yearold Tamir Rice, shot Nov. 22 by Cleveland, Ohio police as he held a toy gun; and 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, killed by Sanford neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman on Feb. 26, 2012. A jury found Zimmerman not guilty of all charges.

Civil rights, labor, church and youth leaders are expected to participate. The march comes as thousands have taken to the streets angered over grand jury decisions not to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the Michael Brown killing and New York Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the chokehold death of Eric Garner.

J.B. FORBES/ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH/TNS

The Rev. Al Sharpton preaches at Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church in St. Louis on Nov. 30.

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

IFE/FAITH

Vereen among artists coming to Florida See page B2

DECEMBER 12 – DECEMBER 18, 2014

SHARING BLACK LIFE, STATEWIDE

Some of the top albums of the year See page B5

SHARING BLACK LIFE, STATEWIDE

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WWW.FLCOURIER.COM

SECTION

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TOJ

FLORIDA COURIER CONTRIBUTOR PENNY DICKERSON SHARES STORY OF HOPE AND SURVIVAL TO AFRICAN-AMERICAN STUDENTS DURING TRIP TO IOWA CITY

SISTAS

COMING TOGETHER

1.

2.

BY PENNY DICKERSON SPECIAL TO THE FLORIDA COURIER

A

merica’s racial climate deserves a seasonal calm. A monumental movement of protest has swept the nation following a string of Black-male homicides that angered multitudes and simultaneously created a new platform for dialogue Editor’s note: amongst millennials – the next generaThis submission is tion of potential law enforcement, judicial Penny Dickerson’s and education leadfirst of four in ers. a series on the To nurture potential and advance soft literary journalism skills like communiapproach to cation and respect, covering race a warm and friendly conference called “Sisrelations in tas Coming Together” community news. convened in Sioux City, Iowa on Nov. 18 Hosted by the Sioux City Museum of Art, plaintive words of hope were breathed into at-risk youth.

Defying controversy Iowa Principal Jacque Wyant and I live a distant 1,400 miles apart.

Thirty years ago, we walked the same halls and marched in the same band at Jacksonville’s controversial, Nathan Bedford Forrest High School.

It took 50 years, petitions and national news for the school’s name to be changed to Westside High School, a reflection of the surrounding neighborhood demographic that has currently morphed to a predominate, African-American populous.

It took me and Wyant 10 minutes at a summer band reunion to agree to employ conciliatory efforts to address a critical racial and low socio-economic disparity affecting students at Wyant’s own West High School: The rural Sioux City school is comprised of 1,165 students; • 51.8 percent are non-White; • 82 are African-American students; • 47 are female and 29 participat-

ed in “Sistas Coming Together.”

“My girls never get to meet or see women like you Penny,” remarked Wyant at their June gathering.

Exposure to professional women of color who defy adversity, graduate from college, realize their life dreams, and further embody selfrespect and acceptance of cultural identity best strikes the target of Wyant’s commentary and intent.

From South to Sioux A 22-year education veteran of Philipino descent, Wyant is in her fourth year as head principal at West High School. Her leadership boasts graduation rate improvement from 78 percent to 88 percent and a dropout rate decrease from 7 percent to 1.5 percent.

“Every decision I make for my school is based on the outcome and needs of my students first,” said Wyant. “This posture hinders my popularity among school staff, but my decisions are always student-centered.”

She refers to the high school’s select jewels as, “Her girls.” Many are mixed-race or biracial with noncollege educated, single parents, resigned to work menial jobs in regional factories or other blue-collar facilities. The results create an intimate struggle beyond the average Black girl’s plight.

Every opportunity in the world should be accessible to the AfricanAmerican Sioux City girl. To reinforce the latter, Wyant used a grant awarded in 2010 from Iowa Safe and Supportive Schools (IS3) to fund my travel across the Midwest plains.

“Leaving Florida’s perpetual sun for 20 degree temperatures was more than a notion,” I shared. “But I gravitate towards motivating lives and igniting passion, so it was a reasonable fair trade.”

Burying the ratchet hatchet “Can’t we all just get along?”

See SISTAS, Page B2

3.

1. West High School students Rakara Reed and Jamilah Jones glean smiles of mutual respect at the Sioux City, Iowa conference.

2. “Sistas Coming Together” gathered 29 of the 47 young women of color enrolled in Sioux City, Iowa’s racially disparate and socioeconomic challenged West High School.

Principal Jacque Wyant is in the front row, third from left.

3. A confident Briana Moore gives her take on “slanguage” during the communications workshop.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF PENNY DICKERSON

CALENDAR

B2

FLORIDA COMMUNITY CALENDAR Plantation: Judah Worship Word Ministries International will host a 5 p.m. Christmas concert on Dec. 21 at 4441 W. Sunrise Blvd. A New Year’s Eve service begins art 9 p.m. The speaker will be Dr. Ane Mercer of Jacksonville.

More info: 954-791-2999.

Fort Lauderdale: South Florida Jazz presents the Sublime Saxophone Summit on Dec. 13 at 8 p.m. at the Rose & Alfred Miniaci Performing Arts Center.

Miami: Nicole Henry will perform at the Colony Theatre in Miami Beach on Dec. 13.

Orlando: Gospel legend Andrae Crouch takes the stage on Dec. 15 at the CFE Arena for a 7 p.m. show.

Tampa: Daman Wayans and Daman Wayans Jr. are scheduled Dec. 13 at Hard Rock Café Tampa for shows at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m.

Orlando: A show with The Isley Brothers featuring Ron Isley and special guests is set for 8 p.m. Dec. 26 at the CFE Arena.

Fort Lauderdale: An Evening with Kenny G starts at 8 p.m. Dec. 11 at the Parker Playhouse.

Miami: Usher takes the stage on Dec. 13 at AmericanAirlines Arena. Performers include D.J. Cassidy and August Alsina. A Dec. 14 show is at the Amalie Arena in Tampa.

DECEMBER 12 – DECEMBER 18, 2014

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.

Jacksonville: Catch R&B singer Avant on Dec. 20 at the Ritz Theatre & Museum for an 8 p.m. show.

Coral Gables: The Ultimate Holiday Experience is scheduled Dec. 27 at Bank United Center featuring Angie Stone, El DeBarge, Ron Isley and the Isley Brothers.

TOJ

MAIN INGREDIENT

Tickets are on sale for the 70s Soul Jam featuring The Spinners, The Stylistics, Jimmy Walker, Cuba Gooding Sr. and Main Ingredient.

Shows are Jan. 8 at the Florida Theatre Jacksonville, Jan. 9 at the Kravis Center in West Palm and Jan. 10 at the USF Sun Dome in Tampa.

Tampa: The Florida Public Relations Association is co-hosting a holiday mixer with the Tampa Bay Association of Black Journalists on Dec. 15 at Malio’s Steakhouse from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Members will donate items to support the Alpha House of Tampa, a shelter for homeless pregnant women and mothers with young children.

More details: fpratampabay.org/events.

St. Petersburg: Princess Denise Wright of Matters of the Heart Radio Ministry will host the seventh annual Toys for Tots event on Dec. 13 at Glad Tidings Assembly of God, 4200 17th Avenue N. The time is 11:30 a.m. For information on toys and gifts to donate, call 727-488-8818 or send email to princessdenise.8818@ yahoo.com.

Tampa: The College Hill Church of God in Christ, in conjunction with the non-profit Sisters Empowering Women Inc., is sponsoring its annual Help for the Holidays. A free dinner and giveaway will take place on Christmas Eve, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the College Hill Church of God in Christ, 6414 N. 30th St. To register, call 813-3002208 or e-mail info@chcogic.org. Gifts are still needed, especially for teens.

BEN VEREEN

The legendary actor, dancer and singer returns to Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater on Dec. 18 along with his band performing an uptempo show of song and dance.

and graduate school in Philadelphia and Boston, and a stint as a flight attendant each contributed to my positive path.’’

To amplify the bigger picture, I executed my dual role as an adjunct professor of English at Florida Community College at Jacksonville.

I used slang cards that read popular catch phrases like “hot mess,’’ “aight,’’ “crew,’’ “posse, and “badonkadonk’’ followed by discourse on the fine line

CASE

A Dec. 20 show at the James L. Knight Center in Miami titled One Night Stand will feature Ginuwine, Lyfe Jennings, Jon B and Case.

between humor and derogatory name calling. Every student needs to utilize Standard American English as a communications asset that garners social, academic, and workplace respect.

Lesson on survival I strategically distributed chocolate play money in varied denominations to teach responsibility from philanthropy to value. The overarching lesson

was: “You navigate life with what you’re given, but education is a bridge to help you acquire more.”

Moreover, pride in appearance and exuding poise characteristic of young ladies was an evocative message.

Most resonant was a raw spiel regarding my own cancer survival — a symbolic example that life’s adversity may delay goals, but limits zero possibilities for remarkable women of promise.

YOUR BEST CHANCE FOR BEATING CANCER

®

Seated are Jaynaydia Dailey (11th grade) and Laila Mohmmad (ninth grade), Erykah Jones (10th grade) is in the front. Standing left to right are Tavianna Harris (11th grade), Tremia Madden (11th grade) and Aneisha Eason (10th grade).

Our patients have better health outcomes and quality of life.

Our teams of doctors are able to treat your type of cancer.

SISTAS

We help diagnose your cancer and provide treatment and support – all in one place.

from B1

It would seem a mute inquiry in a high school where only 47 of the students are young women of color. They are ordinary girls - typical in their love for fashion, music, and sharing robust laughs, yet also atypical.

The commonalities that bind them, subsequently divide.

“Over the past eight years, relationships between the African-American girls has always been one of support,” states Wyant. “Female students at West High cross ethnic, grade, socio-economic status and involvement barriers and my students, staff and parents will tell you that ‘cliques’ do not exist at West High. Just walk into the lunchroom. It is clear that students “mix it up.”

Problematic for Wyant’s enrollment and student social pulse has been transfers from other large urban areas outside of Iowa which resulted in an influx of African-American students. The “more the merrier” concept was met with unexpected territorial stress.

“At the beginning of the school year there was tension amongst our AfricanAmerican girls like yelling in the hallway and disorderly conduct,” Wyant explained. These behaviors soon bred fights.

Discord squashed Coming from “the wrong side of the railroad tracks” is an African-American as-

Penny Dickerson

Jacque Wyant

sociative dilemma. Spike Lee’s iconic film “School Daze” pitted the darkhued “Jiggaboo” against her light-skinned sorority sister, while Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple’’ portrayed main character Celie as abused with the double- indemnity of having “blue-black” skin.

But when real life mimics cinematic reference, serious intervention is necessary. Young women of color at West High School engaged battles that spanned hair texture and weaves to mulatto complexions of classmates.

Wyant sought to squander the discord without haste.

“The first steps taken were to contact parents followed by a mediation between the “ring leaders,” Wyant stated. “The second time the tension(s) appeared, school administration decided to have all girls meet with outside facilitators.”

‘Respect’ conference Namely, Flora Lee, who is past president of the local NAACP and serves as support staff for the Sioux City Community School District’s (SCCSD) Area Education Agency, and Lori Gentry, the Equity Li-

aison for SCCSD who additionally meets with African-American focus groups in the area.

Three separate meetings were held with conflicting students resulting in the elections to have a “respect” conference.

Five student leaders were identified to work with Wyant’s school administration along with Lee and Gentry.

“Sistas Coming Together” emerged as both the initiative and name.

TO SCHEDULE AN APPOINTMENT, CALL

1-888-MOFFITT

Dickerson’s inspiration Wyant and I were raised as military brats — a lifestyle that afforded world travel and diversity exposure.

“Beyond band, high school was an otherwise miserable existence for me, but I knew I wanted to be a writer or journalist,” I shared with the girls.

“Growing up on military bases, attending college

FICTITIOUS NAME NOTICE Notice is hereby given that Willard Powell, owner, desiring to engage in business under the fictitious name of “Jax Hair Designer Magazine’’ located in Duval County, Florida, intends to register the said name with the Division of Corporations, Florida Department of State, pursuant to section 865.09 of the Florida Statutes. (print date12/12/14)

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STOJ

DECEMBER 12 – DECEMBER 18, 2014

EDUCATION

B3

Five generators built

Working together

Valencia College professor Deb Hall, an electrical engineer, got the idea for the generators in 2009 at a renewable-energy workshop, where she met a couple who designed the “solar suitcases” and donated them to hospitals in developing countries. Their company, We Care Solar, promotes safer delivery of babies in places where medical professionals have been operating by candlelight after dark.

Hall was intrigued by the chance to marry hands-on teaching with a project that could improve the world.

“I just thought that was so powerful,” she said.

Hall obtained a $5,000 grant from the Valencia Foundation that paid for her students in Introduction to Alternative and Renewable Energy to build five generators, which were sent to Haiti, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Kenya. She kept one as a demonstrator.

On a recent Friday, the children divided into three groups in the library and worked under the supervision of the Valencia students while Hall gave instructions.

“Everybody gets a chance to tighten up the screws,” Hall said as the kids clustered around the generators.

“You don’t want to overtighten it,” Dillen, 44, cautioned.

The group, composed of students with a wide range of abilities and no particular interest in science, is learning not just about electricity and sustainable energy, but about the importance of working together, following directions, testing their work — and counting their blessings.

More than two-thirds of the children at the Winter Garden school are eligible for a free or reducedprice lunch, but they live in luxury compared with the Ugandan orphans.

Project ends this month PHOTOS BY STEPHEN M. DOWELL/ORLANDO SENTINEL/TNS

Valencia College student Andres Vera, right, demonstrates how to test the electronics of a “solar suitcase” to students at Tildenville Elementary School in Winter Garden on Nov. 7.

Central Florida students get lesson in engineering, compassion through solar generator project Fifth grader Nemiah Wallace, 11, tests the electronics of a “solar suitcase” at Tildenville Elementary School in Winter Garden. The solar suitcases, which use a solar panel to generate electricity, will be sent to orphanage schools in Uganda.

BY SUSAN JACOBSON ORLANDO SENTINEL (TNS)

WINTER GARDEN — Valencia College student Thomas Dillen held a solar panel as high as he could, trying to catch the waning sunlight.

Two dozen fourth- and fifth-grade students at Tildenville Elementary School clustered around him, hoping the panel would power the portable generators they’ve been building to send to an orphanage in Africa.

“Yay!” the students cheered when an LED light

bulb attached to one of the generators lit up.

The students are working on a project that’s one part science, one part exercise in cooperation, a dash of cultural awareness — and a big dose of compassion and charity. In a few months, they turned a box, some wires and a light socket into technology that will help poor children half a world away.

“I never knew that Uganda had no electricity,” said 11-year-old Darius Braunskill, part of the afterschool group building the generators.

About three years ago, Hall and a half-dozen of her students began visiting Tildenville Elementary to introduce science teacher Sharon Burnett’s fifthgraders to technology and engineering careers.

“These kids need to have their eyes opened to what might be available to them in the future,” Burnett said.

Hall brought along one of the solar suitcases, and Burnett thought they would be a good project for her after-school students.

We Care Solar agreed to let elementary school students participate for the first time if the Valencia students supervised and the Berkeley, Calif.,-based We Care Solar inspected the suitcases before they were sent to Uganda.

Burnett got a grant to build three of the suitcases, which now cost $1,500 apiece, and the project began in August. It ends this month. The generators can be used to power headlamps, rechargeable batteries and a lamp, all of which will be provided in each suitcase.

‘One little candle’ Ariana Gonzalez, 9, said she felt sad when she learned about the limited resources at the orphanage school.

“In Uganda in some orphanages, they don’t have an light at all,” fourthgrader Ariana said. “They have only one little candle, and it doesn’t light up the whole room.”

The class will get a chance to connect with the African children more personally, and practice their writing skills, when they compose letters to accompany the bright-blue, plastic suitcases.

“We’re glad to help them,” said Zuleany Alers, 9. “I hope they enjoy it.”

The Valencia students benefit, too. They get college credit for time they devote to the project and a chance to see the design and engineering process from start to finish.

“It’s rewarding,” said Dillen, a former truck driver. “I’m learning myself. It helps me remember. At the same time, we’re helping them learn.”

College gives scholarships to really good video-game players

BY MICHAEL SANSERINO PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE (TNS)

CHICAGO — It was a shoulder injury during his junior year of high school that ended Derek Micheau’s dreams of being a pitcher. Later that season, a knee injury ended his hopes of playing catcher.

Turns out he didn’t need healthy shoulders or knees for a college athletic scholarship.

Micheau earned a scholarship to play video games at Robert Morris University Illinois. The small school in Chicago became the first U.S. university to offer scholarships for video gaming when it launched its eSports program this fall. The school gave out 35 scholarships to gamers from around the country.

“My mom thought it was a scam,” said Michaeu, a 20-year-old freshman from Olympia, Wash.

Turns out, some parents might want to think twice before telling their kids to turn off the computer. Micheau’s scholarship pays for half of his tuition, room and board, which at full price runs more than $30,000.

The teams are a part of the athletics department at Robert Morris, which has about 2,500 students at its Chicago campus and about 6,000 across several campuses in Illinois.

The school spent $100,000 turning a computer lab into an eSports Arena with fast-processing computers, large monitors, high-end ergonomic gaming chairs and a strict no-food-ordrink policy.

eSport athletes The gamers play “League

of Legends,” a multiplayer online battle arena, or MOBA, that groups players into teams in head-tohead battles. The game requires each player to take on certain roles with certain skills. The goal is to knock down an opponent’s tower before the opponent knocks down theirs.

The two teams on Robert Morris’ varsity squad are undefeated this year, playing against college club teams in leagues.

The eSport athletes, as the school calls them, took part in the university’s homecoming rally. They are outfitted with teambranded hoodies and jackets, like most other scholarship athletes. The co-ed team has five coaches — one head coach and four assistants.

“We’re definitely taking it seriously. We want them to do well,” said Kurt Melcher, associate athletic director and program coordinator.

No revenue generator It was his idea to launch the program to attract a diverse assortment of students to the school. The national attention — the program has been featured

by ESPN, NPR, HBO’s “Real Sports” and a variety of other outlets — has been a “nice byproduct,” Melcher said.

The team is not a revenue generator for Robert Morris University Illinois, but most college sports teams aren’t, except for high-profile football and men’s basketball teams.

The school has partnered with a few companies who sponsor the team.

“I wanted to make sure we jumped on it as fast

ANDREW RUSH/PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE/TNS

Robert Morris University Illinois students play “League of Legends” during a practice of the school’s eSports program. as possible because I knew this would be a big deal. There was no way it couldn’t be,” said John Spiher, marketing director at DXRacer USA, which sells gaming chairs and sponsors the team. The company outfitted Robert Morris’ eSports arena with one of its chair models, which retails for $349.

Popular event The scholarship program is just the next step in a burgeoning industry. The best professional gamers earn six figures through sponsorship deals and competition winnings.

There was more than $25 million available in prize

money in 2013, a 350 percent increase since the start of the decade, according to Jim Yang, global chief strategy officer at Nurun, a global design and technology consultancy headquartered in Montreal.

The gaming industry as a whole generates $25 billion in annual revenue, according to the Entertainment Software Association, a Washington-based trade group.

The “League of Legends” finals in 2013 sold out the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The 2014 finals, held last month, drew more than 40,000 fans to a former World Cup soccer stadium in Seoul. Millions more watched online.

Because of the popularity, it might not be long before other schools try to join Robert Morris.

Spiher, who also is a student at Eastern Michigan University and president of LOL@EMU, the school’s “League of Legends” club, said gamers are the kind of students that are attractive to a university.

“They’re problem solvers,” Spiher said. “That’s what a game is. You have a certain goal, and you come across a lot of problems in the way of that goal. It’s the same way in college.”

‘Not a sport’ Whether it’s a sport remains up for debate.

ESPN President John Skipper said during a conference earlier this year that his network is mostly interested in “real sports” and that he didn’t believe video games fell into that category.

“It’s not a sport,” he said.

“It’s a competition, right?

I mean, chess is a competition, and checkers is a competition.”

The network does, however, televise poker tournaments, noted Nancy Donohoe, director of public relations at Robert Morris.

“It’s kind of cool to see kids who might’ve been in the shadows say ‘I got an athletic scholarship, too,’” she said.

B4

CULTURE

DECEMBER 12 – DECEMBER 18, 2014

STOJ

ROBERT GAUTHIER/LOS ANGELES TIMES/TNS

Relatives and neighbors gather for a prayer vigil for Dominique Austin, seen in the photo at left, who was killed on March 31 in Inglewood, Calif. Austin’s good friend, Tyrone Koger, had been killed four years earlier just 3 miles from where Austin was gunned down.

Close friends’ goal: Make it to age 21 How gunfire stole the lives of young men in South L.A.

Hopkins was shot to death in January 2010 as he left a liquor store in Vermont Vista. A month later, Tyrone was dead too — a single gunshot to the head, the coroner’s report said.

On his 25th birthday in February, Dominique posted a photo of himself on Instagram. “I’m just thankful to see another year,” he wrote.

Dominique worked as a security guard and limo driver. He liked to stay busy, said his mother, LaMicha Williams. Recently, he got into filming music videos with his brother. He told his family that he wanted to start a Little League football team.

BY NICOLE SANTA CRUZ LOS ANGELES TIMES (TNS)

On the day Tyrone Koger was born in 1989, his father’s casket was lowered into the ground at the Inglewood Park Cemetery.

He had been shot to death in a car in South Los Angeles, Calif.

Dominique Austin was born five days after Tyrone. They met at Gardena High School, and they both went on to Crimson Technical College, where they learned to fuel planes. The two were like brothers — they even got fired from a job at the airport together.

Isaiah Bell went to the same church as Dominique when they were kids. They lost touch in high school, but reconnected at a funeral for Dominique’s 17-yearold cousin. He had been shot to death outside his girlfriend’s apartment.

The three young men from South L.A. were always around each other. Sometimes they’d volunteer for an anti-violence organization that Isaiah’s father founded. They’d sit at long tables and piece together black and silver ribbons, a staple of the group’s message: “Behind every black cloud of crime, there is a silver lining of hope.”

In L.A. County in 2013, only about one person in 17,000 became a victim of homicide. That ratio continues to decline today.

But in some communities, homicide feels common.

Isaiah remembers that when he was a teenager, a Sunday school teacher asked the class a question: Who believes they won’t live past 21?

Most of the boys, he says, raised their hands.

Son cries out The Rev. E. Winford Bell was in the upstairs bedroom of his Inglewood home on a Saturday afternoon five years ago when he heard the crackle of gunfire.

“My God,” Bell thought.

“Somebody’s getting shot.”

He walked downstairs and out the front door. As he crossed the threshold, he heard a familiar voice screaming.

It was Isaiah, his son. The 21-year-old was on his way home from Dominique’s apartment with a friend, who was about to park the car when another vehicle pulled up. Someone fired shots. The boys ducked.

As a pastor, Bell had delivered many eulogies for children who died in a father’s arms. As he heard Isaiah crying out, he was afraid that day, March 7, 2009, would mark his induction into that world.

“I tasted it,” Bell recalls.

He rushed to the car and opened the passenger side door.

There was blood — a lot of it — and Bell needed to figure out

Another goodbye

ROBERT GAUTHIER/LOS ANGELES TIMES/TNS

LaMicha Williams is supported by friends during a prayer vigil for her son, Dominique Austin, who was killed on March 31.

Tyrone’s daughter was 8 months old. He asked Dominique to take care of her if anything happened.

The next morning, about 10:30 a.m., Tyrone was on his way to work at the airport when a car pulled beside him in Inglewood.

There was a brief exchange, and Tyrone was shot to death.

It was Feb. 25 — 21 days after his 21st birthday.

The Homicide Report

ROBERT GAUTHIER/LOS ANGELES TIMES/TNS

LaMicha Williams is supported by friends during a prayer vigil for her son, Dominique Austin, who was killed on March 31. where it was coming from. He felt Isaiah’s head, then his chest, to gauge the severity of the wounds.

‘Not much of a surprise’ Isaiah had been shot in the hand; he was going to survive.

Isaiah doesn’t know why he was targeted. He wonders if the shooter thought the car — a yellow Chevy Malibu — was a “gangbanger” vehicle.

Isaiah talks about an unspoken understanding among his peers.

“When I got shot, of course it’s going to be a surprise,” he says.

“But it’s not much of a surprise.”

In the family home, there’s an album with photos of Isaiah.

There he is, in a hospital gown at Centinela Hospital. There’s his hand, bandaged. There’s Dominique and Isaiah making ribbons.

On the front porch, Isaiah thumbs through his cell phone and pulls up pictures of some of his friends in caskets.

“I was really supposed to be the first one to go.”

Death was imminent When Tyrone was 14, a cousin was killed in a drive-by shooting. As he edged into adulthood, he lost classmates and friends to gunfire.

The day his daughter, Ianii, was born in 2009, Tyrone cried.

His father didn’t get the same chance.

When Tyrone turned 21 in February 2010, it was less a rite of passage than an accomplishment. That night, Dominique and Tyrone celebrated at a friend’s house. Because their birthdays were so close, “the fact that they made it together was just magic to him,” says Korisha Hamblet, Ianii’s mother. But the men wondered if they would see 25.

“His fear of death was kind of imminent,” Hamblet says.

A few weeks later, Dominique and Tyrone were hanging out when Tyrone got serious.

When it’s your time, it’s your time, he told Dominique.

Pastor Bell gave a eulogy at his funeral. Isaiah and Dominique were pallbearers.

Three months after the killing, Dominique commented on Tyrone’s entry on The Times’ Homicide Report. He wrote that he and Tyrone were together every day, and that his friend was someone he could count on when times were bad.

“I miss u like crazy man...,” he wrote.

Dominique kept his promise to Tyrone — he stayed in touch with Tyrone’s family and made sure to build a relationship with Ianii.

A recent post on Instagram showed Dominique with a wide smile in a car with Ianii in the back seat, bobbing her head as she giggled to a song. A hashtag read, “RIPtyrone.”

Close friends Friends say when Dominique’s teenage cousin was killed in 2007, he changed. He’d grown up with the cousin, and the shooting hardened him.

“He felt like everyone was out to get him,” says Danette Reed, a childhood friend. “Like you can’t really trust people.”

Dominique began to spend more time with Tyrone, Isaiah and a new friend from Crimson Technical College named Erik Hopkins. The four became close.

On March 31, Dominique had eaten breakfast at an Inglewood diner and returned home. He was saying goodbye to a friend in her car when another car pulled up. Dominique exchanged words with someone in the other car, then tried to run up the stairs to his apartment. He was shot several times.

Kevin Williams, his mother’s boyfriend, was inside the apartment at the time. He heard Dominique cry out, “Kevin! Kevin!”

He ran outside to find Dominique in the dirt. He had fallen down the stairs. His mother arrived minutes later, screaming.

Police kept her firmly behind the yellow tape.

“I never dreamed in a million years that I would have to bury my child,” she told a crowd days later in the grassy area where Dominique had collapsed — three miles from where Tyrone was killed.

Dozens gathered around her while others stood on front porches and sidewalks, listening.

At the funeral, Pastor Bell spoke. Isaiah was an honorary pallbearer.

Unsolved murders The killings of Tyrone and Dominique remain unsolved.

Tyrone’s grandmother went to City Council meetings and spoke at events for Pastor Bell’s organization. Dominique’s mother is still hoping for answers.

Isaiah, now 27, sits on his Inglewood front porch and talks about how he tries to avoid trouble. He doesn’t go to many clubs, he’s not hanging out on Crenshaw Boulevard. He goes to work and comes home, takes care of his two children.

“Don’t stick out,” he says. “You can get touched.”

He remembers a trip he took with Dominique to visit family in Memphis about three years ago.

The two watched Dominique’s grandparents having a soft drink and laughing on the porch.

Dominique turned to Isaiah and said: “That’s going to be us.”

On a recent Thursday, Dominique’s girlfriend was in labor with his child, his mother said.

The baby’s name will be Dominique.

STOJ

DECEMBER 12 – DECEMBER 18, 2014

FINEST & ENTERTAINMENT

Meet some of

FLORIDA’S

finest

submitted for your approval

B5

Think you’re one of Florida’s Finest?

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

More than 4,000 cruisers joined nationally syndicated radio talk show host Tom Joyner on the 13th annual Tom Joyner Foundation Fantastic Voyage 2012 aboard Royal Caribbean’s “Navigator of the Seas,” one of the world’s largest cruise ships. The Florida Courier spotlights some of the best-looking people on board.

Kris Cain, a Houston resident, was on her first Tom Joyner cruise.

Chris Simmons, who lives in Kansas City, was on his first Tom Joyner cruise.

DELROY COLE / FLORIDA COURIER

kris chris Best albums of the year came from Pharell, Mali Music, Braxton and Babyface

BY KRYSTAL FRANKLIN BLACKAMERICAWEB.COM

Music in 2014 came in all different forms, as it usually does. But it was something about this year that was a bit different. Singles were quickly pegged as viral sensations and parodies were made even quicker, sweeping the internet by a storm.

But this was also the year of feminism thanks to Beyonce and Pharrell.

What was noticeably missing from the charts was notorious bad girl, Rihanna. Fans and critics were expecting an album from the Barbados beauty and were left with nothing.

Not even a single.

From the ballads that made us swoon to the songs that we couldn’t stop dancing too, take a look at our picks for the top albums in 2014.

Pharrell Williams, ‘G I R L’ This year can easily be described as the year of Pharrell. With arguably the most popular song to date, “Happy,’’ the hit maker’s first single off the album became a viral sensation and scored numerous honors and awards, the latest being a star on the iconic Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The album features collaborations from Justin Timberlake, Alicia Keys and Miley Cyrus.

Sam Smith, ‘In the Lonely Hour’ Although he’s fairly new to Americans, the mag-

netic vocals of Sam Smith have long since created a buzz in the U.K. His first domestic release garnered such attention and admiration that Vibe magazine named him Soul Singer of the year. His single ‘Stay with Me’ undoubtedly had everything to do with such an honor.

People around the world sang and danced to Pharrell Williams’ “Happy’’ song on the “G I R L’’ album.

Mali Music earned a Grammy nomination for his album, “Mali Is….”

Chris Brown, ‘X’ After spending four months in prison, Chris Brown was finally able to put out his long awaited sixth album. With his infectiously popular single, ‘Loyal’ burning up the airwaves and the project’s first single, “Fine China’’ still getting spins, music critics alike applauded this record’s diverse sound. Within the first week “X’’ sold 146,000 copies, debuting at number two on the Billboard 200. And here’s a little known cool fact, R. Kelly helped produce several tracks on the album.

Mali Music, ‘Mali Is…’ What do you get when you mix gospel, soul and hip-hop? A Grammy nominated singer by the name of Mali Music. His hit “Beautiful’’ earned him a performance spot on “American Idol’’ after Jennifer Lopez heard the song. Soon after, his popularity skyrocketed, earning him his first Grammy nomination for Best Urban Contemporary Album.

Michael Jackson, ‘Xscape’ In an extremely cool proj-

Two top soulful singers, Toni Braxton and Babyface, got together and gave us “Love, Marriage & Divorce.’’

ect, MJ released his second posthumous album, which included original music from 1983-2001. With the help of Timbaland, L.A. Reid and a team of other notable producers, they also reworked eight songs to give them a more modern, contemporary feel. The project’s first single, “Love Never Felt So Good’’ features Justin Timberlake and was first recorded by Michael in 1983. The album debuted has sold over 400,000 copies in the U.S. and over 1 million worldwide.

Trey Songz, ‘Trigga’ R&B’s bad boy released his sixth album in the summer of 2014. Soon after, it topped the Billboard 200 charts at number one with the support of its singles “Na Na,’’ “Touchin, Lovin’’ and the popular “Foreign,’’ which featured Jus-

tin Bieber on the remix. To date the album has sold over 260,000 copies.

Toni Braxton & Babyface, ‘Love, Marriage & Divorce’ One of music’s favorites finally got together and made an entire album. In a collaboration project, soul crooners Toni Braxton and Babyface gave us 11 songs that feed into our desire for relationships and the tragic turn of events when they end. Debuting at number 4 on the Billboard 200, it sold 67,000 copies its first week.

To date, it has sold over 200,000 copies in the U.S.

Iggy Azaela, ‘The New Classic’ No matter your personal thoughts of the white Australian rapper, Iggy has dominated the music

scene this past year. Quickly crossing over into the rap genre, Iggy debuted her first album under the helm of T.I.’s record label “Hustle Gang.’’ Since joining forces, she’s won every award known to man this year, including the very controversial Favorite Rap/Hip Hop Album at the American Music Awards.

Tank, ‘Stronger’ The R&B soul crooner has famously created albums that are reserved for some alone time with your boo, so imagine everyone’s surprise when he dropped a project that was anything but. “‘Stronger,’’ Tank’s sixth album was a vast departure from the music that made him a sex symbol.

The first single, “You’re My Star’’ is very reminiscent of The Jackson’s and features an old school retro R&B

vibe. The album debuted at number 13 on the Billboard 200.

Honorable mention: Beyonce, ‘Beyonce’ Although it was released just a few weeks shy of 2014, Beyonce’s fifth album is one of the most important things that happened to music – ever. Often cited as one of her most explicit albums to date, themes of sex, feminism and motherhood run rampant throughout the album.

In its first three days, it sold 878,773 copies word wide, making it the fastselling album in the history of the iTunes store. The album also came complete with a video for every song.

Soon after a tour, a calendar and clothing line inspired by the album was released.

FOOD

B6

DECEMBER 12 – DECEMBER 18, 2014

TOJ

Beef up your holidays FROM FAMILY FEATURES

For many families, gathering around the table is as treasured a holiday tradition as gathering around the tree to exchange gifts with loved ones.

With universal appeal, cuts of tender, juicy beef are ideal for a wide range of family-friendly dishes — from appe­tizers to special occasion holiday entrees.

If your seasonal celebrations and commitments have you pinched for time, opt for the convenience of home delivery. Starting with premium products, such as those available from Omaha Steaks, lets you create the perfect meal every time. Each cut of beef is perfectly aged and flash-frozen at its peak of

flavor and tenderness, and delivered right to your door with a 100 percent quality guarantee.

There are as many ways to prepare beef as there are cuts to choose from. The best approach depends on the type of flavor you want to achieve, and how you’ll ultimately serve the dish. One popular option that creates robust, hearty flavors perfect for holiday feasts is braising. This celebrated technique is featured in this Omaha Steaks family recipe for Braised Beef Brisket. Or, add some predinner bites to your holiday spread with Bacon Wrapped Tenderloin Tip Appetizers, a savory recipe that is sure to be a hit among guests.

Find these and more beef preparation tips and recipes at www.omahasteaks.com.

BRAISED BEEF BRISKET This recipe has graced the holiday table of the Simon family, the owners of Omaha Steaks, for generations.

Prep time: 30 minutes Cook time 8 hours Servings: 6–8 1 Omaha Steaks Brisket (3 pounds) 2 tablespoons canola oil 4 teaspoons Omaha Steaks All Natural Seasoning 2 cups diced yellow onion 2 tablespoons fresh chopped garlic 1 cup bottled chili sauce 1 package dry onion soup mix 1/2 cup beef broth 1/4 cup soy sauce 1/2 cup red wine

Thaw brisket overnight in refrigerator.

Heat canola oil in large pan.

Blot brisket dry with clean paper towel and generously season each side with 2 teaspoons seasoning.

Brown brisket in hot oil on both sides for about 2–4 minutes each side.

Remove brisket from pan and place in crock pot, raised side braising pan or Dutch oven.

Add onion and garlic to hot oil and cook until trans­parent. Add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Pour sauce into crock pot, raised side braising pan or Dutch oven.

If using crock pot, cook on low for 6–8 hours. If using braising pan or Dutch oven, cover tightly with foil or lid and place in oven at 250°F for 6–8 hours.

Serve the same day or cool overnight in refrigerator before slicing and reheating in sauce.

Braising tips

BACON WRAPPED TENDERLOIN TIP APPETIZER Prep time: 20 minutes (plus time for thawing) Cook time: 6 minutes Servings: Approximately 32 pieces 3 pounds Omaha Steaks Tenderloin Steak Tips (#670) 32 Omaha Steaks Precooked Bacon Slices (#177) 1 jar Omaha Steaks All Natural Seasoning (#1141) Round wood toothpicks

Thaw steak tips and bacon overnight in refrigerator.

Preheat oven to 450°F degrees.

Sprinkle each tenderloin tip with seasoning.

Wrap a slice of bacon around each tenderloin tip and push a toothpick through to secure bacon.

Place bacon-wrapped tips on baking sheet.

Bake for 3 minutes; flip and bake an additional 2–3 minutes.

Serve immediately.

• Braising (from the French word “braiser”) is a combination cooking method that uses both moist and dry heats. Typically, the food is first seared at a high temperature, then finished in a covered pot or pan at a lower temperature while sitting in some amount of liquid, which may also add flavor.

• The purpose of braising is to break down the connecting tissues, enhancing the meat’s tenderness.

• Some examples of cuts that are typically braised include: • Chuck (Chuck Eye Roast, Chuck Arm Roast, Chuck Shoulder Roast, Short Ribs) • Brisket (Whole Brisket, Brisket Flat Roast, Brisket Point Roast) • Shank (Cross Cut Shanks, Whole Beef Shanks) • Round (Top Round Roast, Bottom Round Roast, Eye Round Roast, Boneless Rump Roast) • First brown your roast using a large pan and some oil over high heat, seasoning the protein first.

• Once the roast is browned, “deglaze” the pan using wine or some of the liquid that will be used in the braising process, to capture drippings from the pan that are loaded with flavor.

• Once the roast is browned you will want to place it, along with all the liquid including the pan drippings, in a Dutch oven or deep roasting pan. It is very important to cover the top of the pan as tightly as possible so steam and pressure will build up during the oven cooking process.

• The liquid for the braising process can vary depending on the dish you’re trying to make.

For example, barbecue sauce would be used for a barbecue brisket, and beef broth would be used for a pot roast. Usually if using a thick liquid such as barbecue sauce you will want to thin it down with wine, broth or water. It will thicken as it cooks, and if it gets too thick it will burn.

• You can also experiment with putting root vegetables in the braising pan along with your roast to create a complete meal and enhance the flavor.

• The oven part of the process is usually done at 250°F and can vary in time from 3 to 8 hours, depending on what cut is being braised and how big it is. A general rule of thumb is that the protein will shred easily with a fork when it is properly braised.