New York Amsterdam News Issue #44 Nov.3 - 9, 2022

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(GIN)—The era of European museums claiming ownership of the bones and skulls of African war heroes stolen years ago may finally be coming to an end. A negotiat ed settlement to return African remains in

volved London’s Natural History Museum and Cambridge Uni versity. The two institutions now say they are ready to cooperate and return what was taken in the colonial era.

Human remains ended up in European collections as a con sequence of unlawful grave rob bing, racist medical research, taken for resale or as price less mementos. The two mu seums were among six British institutions visited by a delega tion from Zimbabwe. Talks have been going on since December 2014 over the potential repatri ation of Zimbabwean human remains. It has long been suspected that body parts of some of the leaders of the First ‘Chimurenga’—an uprising against British rule in the 1890s— were taken to the UK as trophies.

The most prominent of the remains were those of Mbuya Nehanda Charwe Nyakasi

kana (Grandmother Nehanda in Shona), an icon of resistance against British imperial ism. Accused of murdering a British official, she was executed in Harare. Today she is re vered as a national hero. Her image in the form of a 10-foot-tall statue was erected at the intersection of Samora Machel Avenue and Julius Nyerere Way in Harare’s central business district.

In 2015, former president Robert Mugabe commented: “The First Chimurenga leaders, whose heads were decapitated by the colonial occupying force, were then dispatched to Eng land to signify British victory over and subju gation of the local population. Surely, keeping decapitated heads as war trophies, in this day and age, in a national history museum, must rank among the highest forms of racist moral decadence, sadism and human insensitivity.”

With 25,000 human remains, the Natural History Museum, alongside the Duckworth Laboratory with 18,000 remains, has some of the largest such archives in the world.

Lula’s win is a relief for Brazilians

By KAREN JUANITA CARRILLO AmNews Staff Reporter

The second round of Brazil’s presidential elections saw an im pressive win for former Presi dent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Sunday, Oct. 30.

Lula’s defeat of the far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro was close, with Lula receiving 50.8% of the vote to 49.2% for Bolso naro. And when Lula’s victory was announced, cheers could be heard in the streets, reports Rio de Janeiro-based lawyer Hum berto Adami. “We are very grate

ful. The day was beautiful, and the emotion was like something you’d find during a World Cup final!”

Adami, the former president of the National Truth Commission on Black Slavery/Comissão da Ver dade da Escravidão Negra, told the AmNews: “As President Lula’s victo ry unfolded, people in several build ings screamed as if it were a goal.

The important thing is that the end of the Bolsonaro government is near. Regrettably, the fight against racism and the struggle for repara tions for Black slavery was left out of the presidential campaign. In the final TV debate, it wasn’t even a topic

Hunger, cholera spread in Haiti

By KAREN JUANITA CARRILLO Amsterdam News Staff

Haiti’s worsening security situation has led spokespeople of several foreign nations to sug gest the need for an intervention. Prime Minister Ariel Henry approved a call for foreign military intervention on the island nation because he claims armed gangs have taken over and that the 12,800 officers who are part of Haiti's Na tional Police are unable to restore security.

Gangs have taken over public streets and blocked the islands’ main fuel terminal in the capital, Port-au-Prince. With the govern ment not being able to function, Haitians are unable to access food or public services, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the United Nations World Food Program state.

Haiti has a population of more than 11 mil lion people, but half—some 4.7 million—now have scarce access to food. And residents are also facing a new outbreak of cholera. Doctors With out Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières state that their “teams in Port-au-Prince have received ap proximately 100 patients every day at its cholera treatment centers throughout the capital.” Facing hunger and having cholera at the same time could be fatal, Bruno Maes, UNICEF’s represen tative in Haiti, told UN News: “For children who are already weak from a lack of nutritious food, catching cholera, and suffering the effects, in cluding diarrhea and vomiting, is close to a death sentence. They must be identified and treated ur gently, and concrete measures must be taken to prevent new cholera cases in the communities.”

The newspaper Haiti Libre reports that “ep

that either candidate chose for ques tions. So, the struggle continues.”

During Lula’s prior two terms as Brazil’s president, from 2003 to 2010, his Partido dos Trabalha dores/Workers Party (PT) imple mented social justice policies that benefited the nation’s Black com munity. Some 29 million Brazil ians were able to escape extreme poverty and enter the middle class during Lula’s previous presiden cy. In the governing plan submit ted when he was a candidate for the presidency, Lula wrote: “Brazil ian society needs to believe again

isodes of blockage in the country and the un predictable security situation are slowing down ongoing investments, particularly those of the private sector as well as small businesses, which are the main source of income for a good part of the population. Gang violence has reached unprecedented levels in the metropolitan area limiting the movement of goods and people. This violence has pushed more than 20,000 people to flee their homes. Barricades have been erected across the streets of major cities across the country and travel is difficult, lim iting access to food and water as well as fuel.”

The Biden administration and the United Na tions Security Council are said to be putting to gether a military deployment that could include troops from Mexico and other Caribbean

LONDON MUSEUMS TO RETURN HUMAN REMAINS STOLEN FROM ZIMBABWE IN COLONIAL TIMES

(GIN photo)

Brazilians celebrated in the subway when

Lula won (Photo courtesy of Eduardo Adami)

Climate goals, climate justice: Who gets left behind?

By ARIAMA C. LONG Amsterdam News Staff, Report for America Corps Member

It’s been 10 years since Super storm Sandy hit in 2012. New York City and State were forced to con sider the climate crisis and its impact on communities left woe fully unprepared in coastal neigh borhoods. In Queens, many say that Black homeowners were left out ‘on the bayside’ near Far Rockaway and the city will not reach climate goals with such slow progress.

The historic hurricane claimed 44 lives, flooded 51 miles of city land, left about 2.5 million residents with out power or gas, and caused an es timated $19 billion in damages.

Department of Education Pay roll Administrator Shaquan na Watson, 37, was one of the 35,000 residents temporarily or permanently displaced after the storm. She had moved into her new apartment on 54th Street in Arverne in Jamaica Bay, Queens in

2011 with her husband and chil dren. Arverne is a small commu nity of working class Black, brown, and Asian homeowners who are often city employees. The area is 9 feet above sea level and therefore was not included in the flood zone maps back in 2012.

“We’re standing on the terrace, looking at the storm as the ocean starts to rise, the Bay starts to rise, and the water just started to elevate in the streets and you heard people screaming,” said Watson who de cided to wait out the storm from her family’s 9th floor apartment instead of her ground floor home.

Southeast Queens Assembly member Khaleel Anderson said based on the glacial recovery progress made since Sandy and the lack of funding for the Climate Leadership and Community Pro tection Act (Climate Act), there’s just not enough being done.

In 2019, the Climate Act re quired reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030, and

85% by 2050 in the state. The city has promised 100% emissions free electricity by 2040 to aid in reach ing this goal.

Climate activist groups as well as impacted community members of color categorically believe the city and state will not meet those goals, despite Mayor Eric Adams’ recent announcement of $8.5 bil lion for critical resiliency projects and a $4 billion plan to construct all-electric city schools by 2030.

“We are behind and we just have to be honest about it. We are past planning and the studies, we know what’s coming and what’s happening. These storms and the climate crisis are getting stronger and more frequent,” said Lonnie Portis, environmental policy and advocacy coordinator at WE ACT for Environmental Justice.

The focus of Sandy recovery has primarily been on the Rockaway boardwalk or on the Lower East Side in Manhattan, said Anderson,

$36 million settlement for two exonerated in the execution of Malcolm X

By HERB BOYD and MAL’AKIY 17 ALLAH Special to the AmNews

A settlement of $36 million to two men exonerated in the Feb. 21, 1965 assassination of Malcolm X will bring a measure of justice in their wrongful convictions and prison sentences. One of the men, Muhammad Abdul Aziz, 84, is alive to accept the payment—$26 million from the city and $10 mil lion from the state—and it will be divided with the estate of Khalil Islam, who died in 2009 at 74.

On Sunday evening, a spokes

person for the New York City Law Department told ABC News that the settlement had been reached in the wrongful conviction that incarcerated Aziz and Islam for decades who “bore the stigma of being falsely accused of murder ing an iconic figure.”

Moreover, the law department said, “Based on our review, this office stands by the opinion of former Manhattan District Attor ney Cy Vance that “there is one ul timate conclusion—Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam were wrongfully con victed of this crime.” One of the main reasons they were exonerat

ed rested on the discovery of new evidence and the failure to dis close evidence that might have proved their innocence.

Aziz was paroled in 1985, Islam two years later, after serving 22 years. Each appealed their convic tions and maintained their inno cence. The terms of the settlement were confirmed by attorney David Shanies, who represented them but told the Amsterdam News he had no statement on the timing of the payment process.

The settlement comes as a result of a $40 million suit for

Buy The Block: ‘Greenlining’ in communities of color

By ARIAMA C. LONG Amsterdam News Staff, Report for America Corps Member

Many of New York City’s neigh borhoods have experienced a long history of disinvestment, especially in Black, brown, im migrant, and low-income com munities. Targeted housing legislation aims to support homeowners through the con cept of ‘greenlining.’

The East New York Communi ty Land Trust (ENYCLT) has been working with electeds on three housing bills that will counter

act the effects of gentrification and ‘redlining,’ or a discrimina tory loan practice to keep racial and ethnic minorities in low-in come neighborhoods.

“The high-end developers, they get the land and the prop erty and they just build for profit, not with any consideration of the community and the communi ty’s needs,” said ENYCLT spokes person Debra Ack. Ack considers ‘greenlining’ an avenue to give the community say-so and input on how housing is built in their backyards.

The first bill is the Communi

ty Opportunity to Purchase Act that gives CLTs and other qual ified nonprofits a first right to purchase buildings when land lords sell.

Courtland Hankins, 52, tenant board member at an apartment building on 134th Street in the Bronx, recently purchased his building along with other ten ants from their landlord. At the now co-op building the ten ants are converting from oil to electric heat and hot water. “As we are on the path to become homeowners, one of the first

Metro Briefs

Wells Fargo Foundation awards $7.5 Million to LISC NY to expand homeownership for Black families

A new effort to help more African Americans in New York City become homeowners was launched last week with the support of a $7.5 million grant from the Wells Fargo Foundation. The grant was awarded to a new collaborative led by Local Initiatives Sup port Corporation (LISC) NY, in partnership with Center for NYC Neighborhoods and Neighborhood Housing Services of New York City (NHSNYC).

The donation comes from Wells Fargo’s Wealth Opportuni ty Restored Through Homeownership (WORTH) initiative, a $60 million national effort to address systemic barriers to homeown ership for African Americans. New York City is one of eight mar kets across the U.S. to receive a WORTH grant, which aims to help create 5,000 new homeowners of color across the city by the end of 2025.

The announcement took place during NHSNYC’s Homeown ership Expo at the TWU Counseling Center, where participants learned about the homeownership process, how to find and secure mortgages, and how to navigate down payments and closing costs.

HBCU marching band to participate in Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

Benedict College Marching Tiger Band of Distinction, is per forming in the 2022 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, representing the state of South Carolina. This will mark the first parade appear ance by the band.

Each year, the Macy’s Parade Band Committee looks for bands that have the stage presence and musical expertise to captivate the streets of New York City and millions of viewers across the country.

Benedict College Marching Tiger Band of Distinction was select ed from more than 100 applicants as one of nine selected bands to march in the 96th edition of the annual parade.

Benedict College Marching Tiger Band of Distinction spent the last 18 months planning for their parade appearance. Students and the local community held creative fundraising events for the trip to New York. To help kick-start the band’s fundraising goal, Macy’s made a $10,000 donation in support of their participation.

Brooklyn BP and Met Council partner to pilot ‘Born in Brooklyn’

Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso and Met Coun cil today announced their pilot of “Born in Brooklyn” baby boxes, which contain free baby supplies and post-partum resources for new parents.

Made possible by a $100,000 grant from the Office of the Brook lyn Borough President to Met Council, a total of 500 postpartum families receiving care at select Brooklyn hospitals and clinics will receive “Born in Brooklyn” baby boxes. The baby boxes will come as diaper bags containing baby-friendly supplies carefully select ed by the Borough President’s Maternal Health Taskforce, such as diapers, perineal spray, baby wipes, nursing pads, nipple cream, diaper changing mats, postpartum pads, burping cloths, swad dles, and City’s First Readers books. A resource one-pager will accompany the boxes, with links to helpful guides for first-time parents and city-wide services.

New parents receiving care at NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health, NYC Health + Hospitals/Woodhull, Caribbean Women’s Health Association, Brooklyn Perinatal Network, and Brownsville Neighborhood Health Action Center will begin to re ceive the baby boxes this month. This pilot builds on Borough President Reynoso’s commitment to reduce crisis-level maternal morbidity rates found among Black and brown birthing people.

See

Money Isn’t Everything? An analysis of the role cash plays in New York state politics

AG announces election safeguards and initiatives to protect the right to vote

By CYRIL JOSH BARKER Amsterdam News Staff

New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin announced several key mea sures the Department of Law and Public Safety will be taking during the 2022 Gen eral Election to help ensure a fair, free, and smooth-running election, to protect the right to vote, and to assist voters, elec tion officials, and law enforcement in re solving any emergent voting-related legal matters.

Early voting in New Jersey will begin on Saturday, Oct. 29 and will end on Sunday, Nov. 6. During that time and on Election Day on Tuesday, Nov. 8, many divisions of the Department of Law and Public Safety will have a role in ensuring free and fair elections in the State of New Jersey.

To safeguard the right to vote, the attor ney general announced that the Office of the Attorney General and the Division on Civil Rights are establishing a Voter Protection Initiative for the 2022 general election. The Initiative will focus on iden tifying and addressing any voting rights or civil rights violations, including under the New Jersey Civil Rights Act and the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, that may arise during early voting and on Elec tion Day.

ficials and the secretary of state.

“The right to vote is sacred, and we will do everything in our power to safeguard that right,” said Platkin. “Now more than ever, it is critical that we ensure that New Jerseyans do not face intimidation, dis crimination, or harassment when exer cising their constitutional right to vote. Our Department’s initiatives to pro tect the right to vote during this elec tion will ensure that every eligible voter will be able to cast a ballot, and that anyone who attempts to interfere with the voting process will be held account able to the full extent of the law.”

Last year, the New Jersey Election Pro tection Coalition released a report about issues voters encountered during the 2020 General Election. Issues included non-re ceipt of mail-in ballots or the receipt of in complete mail-in ballots, late openings and long lines at polling places, lack of voting privacy at polling places, and voter intimidation.

New Jersey Assembly members Verlina Reynolds-Jackson, Benjie Wimberly and Linda Carter previously sponsored leg islation aimed at protecting voters from intimidation through the use of “poll watchers” and law enforcement officers stationed at state polling sites.

By ARIAMA C. LONG Amsterdam News Staff, Report for America Corps Member

It’s often assumed that money fuels elections, painting a picture of money-grubbing politi cians who are after constituent dollars. But is that true? With the general election on Nov. 8, the Amsterdam News decided to dig into this year’s state legislature races by comparing cam paign finance data and asking Black and brown candidates about their fundraising to find out what the true impact of money is on New York political races.

To really examine the root of fundraising and campaign finance rules at the heart of New York’s democracy to see who benefits from the current system, we focused on the State Senate and State Assembly primary and general races from 2022 and 2020. State elections operate dif ferently than city level campaigns.

New York City implemented a rare public matching financing system that encourages small donors and helps more diverse candi dates fundraise that started in the 1980s under The Federal Election Campaign Act. The FEC Act was in response to rampant corruption scandals, and the program has inspired local versions over time. The voluntary program matches small contributions from city resi dents, and candidates who participate get up to $2,000 in public funds per contributor. The New York state legislature isn’t slated to have a public financing program until 2024 and state

“Our democracy works best when everyone has a voice; when candidates who don’t have access to large sums of money can be compet itive; and when people who can’t afford to con tribute large sums to campaigns are still worthy of candidates’ attention,” said Alexis AndersonReed, chief executive officer of State Voices, a non profit voting advocacy organization. “Part of creating an inclusive, multiracial democracy at the local, state, and federal level means re forming our campaign finance system to better work for our communities rather than for major corporations and mega-donors.”

Among elections experts and candidates the Amsterdam News reached out to, the gen eral consensus was that large sums of money, though necessary in many cases, will not always guarantee a given candidate a win.

The average total of contributions made to Black primary and general candidates in 2022 was approximately $122,417 and $92,162 in 2020. For Latinx/Hispanic candidates, there was an average of $144,808 in 2022 and $89,895 in 2020, based on numbers from the New York State Board of Elections. There’s also a notable increase of an average of $104,182 in contribu tions to Asian candidates from 2020 to 2022.

There’s also the fact that New York State is a blue-leaning Democratic state despite there being a number of Republican candidates and districts. Manhattan Institute fellow John Ket cham pointed out that in general elections in

The Attorney General’s Voter Protec tion Initiative will work with community stakeholders and partners to identify and address voting access issues. The Voter Protection Initiative will operate inde pendently of the attorneys in the division of law who represent county elections of

Gov. Phil Murphy also rolled out a series of initiatives to expand access to voting rights last year, signing legislation estab lishing in-person early voting in New Jersey. The legislation allowed registered voters to vote using machines at polling places before the day of certain primary and general elections.

State officials announce technical assistance program for cannabis entrepreneurs

By CYRIL JOSH BARKER Amsterdam News Staff

The New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission (NJ-CRC) has made a rec ommendation to the Department of the Treasury to fund a Cannabis Training Academy. The program is to be run by the Department of State’s Business Action Center (NJBAC) to provide technical assis tance to entrepreneurs establishing can nabis businesses in New Jersey.

The NJ-CRC’s Audit Committee recom mended that funds from the Cannabis Regulatory, Enforcement Assistance, and Marketplace Modernization (CREAMM) Fund be allocated to the Business Action Center to establish a new program to pro vide free educational courses, technical assistance in building business plans and completing other aspects of license ap plications, and mentorship to cannabis business owners.

“We have emphasized equity and ac cessibility in the application process

and this program will help ensure as piring entrepreneurs have the optimal business know-how to give them the best chance for success in the canna bis space,” said Commission Vice Chair Sam Delgado. “The Cannabis Training Academy will begin the needed training and guidance that will help individuals, and assist the budding market’s stabili ty and success.”

The NJBAC’s proposed curriculum in cludes modules designed to help partic ipants decide if a cannabis business is right for them and will include business plan development as well as a Legacy to Legal course. Some program resources will be targeted to “Specially Designated Categories,” which include social equity businesses, diversely owned business es, microbusinesses, and Impact Zone businesses. There will be a 10-week accelerator track to take conditional license applicants through the initial ap plication process, and a separate track to convert them to annual licenses.

wide elections until 2026.

(Illustration by Megan Hylton)

Sunshine Sachs Morgan & Lylis’ Gabrielle Lee

Gabrielle Lee is a senior VP of Di versity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility and Multicultural Communications at the powerhouse public relations firm Sunshine Sachs Morgan & Lylis Lee’s work focuses on the intersec tion between social justice causes and entertainment.

“I appreciate that a lot of compa nies are recognizing this moment and creating teams and divisions that are focusing on connecting brands, organizations with communities of color,” said Lee. “When you do that in an authentic way, you’re really leveling the playing field and bring ing opportunity to folks traditionally not seen.”

and influencers with legacy groups, such as NAACP and BET. She also co ordinates with nonprofits and city government for major events and issues around civil rights, reproduc tive rights, voter suppression, em ployment, and inflation.

me and my family, and I don’t have to read about it in a history book,” said Lee.

By ARIAMA C. LONG Amsterdam News Staff, Report for America Corps Member

The racial reckoning that was the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 inspired companies like Sunshine Sachs to reach out more to clients who are making an impact on cul ture and society. Lee aims to bridge the gap between generations of ac tivists, musicians, artists, athletes,

Lee, 40, is originally from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She is a third generation African American from Louisiana and Mississippi. Her 93-year-old grandfather witnessed the Baton Rouge bus boycott in 1953, which would later inspire Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famed Montgomery bus boycotts in Alabama and even tually the Civil Rights Movement. Her mother, who is currently in her 60s, was a part of the first desegregat ed elementary classes in her school.

Lee credits her deep Southern roots with shaping the person she is today and the work that she does to service Black and brown communities.

“I stand on the shoulders of so many people that risked their lives for

She said she initially wanted to be a doctor in high school and even made it into a top notch pre-med school. She decided against it though and made the switch to journalism, pur suing a Communications degree at Southern University. She advanced to editor-in-chief of the Southern Digest while there.

Lee participated in prestigious in ternships while in college, including the very first cohort of the coveted New York Times Student Journal ism Institute in 2003. “To this day if I start naming names of the people in my class of the people that were in my class you’d be like wait whoa,” said Lee fondly of the program. “I really credit everything to HBCUs. They gave me a solid foundation in journalism.”

During her time as a staff writer for The Times-Picayune in New Orleans,

Lee opted to make a career switch into the world of public relations and found a home. She hadn’t quite landed in New York City yet but her then-boyfriend, famed MSNBC cor respondent Trymaine Lee, took a job at The New York Times. When he pro posed, she made the move from The Big Easy to The Big Apple. For the past 15 years, she’s worked her way up to her current senior position at Sun shine Sachs doing what she loves and mobilizing communities.

Lee continues to live in the city with her husband and 10-year-old daugh ter, Nola.

Ariama C. Long is a Report for Amer ica corps member and writes about culture and politics in New York City for The Amsterdam News. Your do nation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deduct ible gift of any amount today by visit ing: https://bit.ly/amnews1

Gabrielle

photo)

Voter suppression, intimidation in NYS’ Black communities ‘alive and well,’ says AG James

By ARIAMA C. LONG Amsterdam News Staff, Report for America Corps Member

Leading into the general election on Nov. 8, New York State Attorney Gener al Letitia James is hyper aware of illegal voter intimidation targeting Black voters. Her office is committed to educating local Boards of Election (BOEs) and law enforcement agencies on how to ensure voters’ rights are protected this year.

“Even though this is a blue state, the re ality is voter suppression happens here as well,” said James at a media roundtable on Nov. 1. “That’s why we have individu als out there monitoring the election as of the first day of early voting.”

Last year’s and 2020’s elections saw a swift increase of voter suppression tac tics from primarily ‘rightwing’ groups.

James’ office filed against white con spiracy theorists Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman for threatening Black voters through the Message Communications, Inc. platform. The pair set up a fake civil rights organization called Project 1599, and then harassed and threatened people

via illegal robocalls to prevent Black New Yorkers from voting by mail ahead of the 2020 elections. James’ office launched an investigation after the discriminatory calls reached nearly 5,500 people in area codes in predominantly Black neighbor hoods in Buffalo and Michigan.

The calls would erroneously claim that voting by mail would subject the voter to having their personal information used by the police to track old warrants, credit card companies to collect debts, and the Centers for Disease Control and Preven tion to track individuals for mandatory vaccines, said James’ office.

“We issued a civil case against the in dividual. We were able to seek injunctive relief and prevent them from sending out those robocalls in the future. And in Michigan, they were able to indict and convict them, and another state agreed to bring civil charges against them as well,” said James.

Ahead of the June 2021 primary elec tion, James’ office filed a lawsuit against the Rensselaer County Board of Elections

Adams appoints Kavanagh as FDNY commish

By ARIAMA C. LONG Amsterdam News Staff, Report for America Corps Member

Mayor Eric Adams had initially made ‘promises’ to appoint a Black New York City Fire Department (FDNY) commissioner. This week Adams officially appointed Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh, the first woman to hold the position.

Kavanagh replaces former FDNY Com missioner Daniel A. Nigro. Kavanagh was acting fire commissioner for 10 months since Nigro retired in January. The FDNY is made up of more than 17,000 firefight ers, EMTs, paramedics, fire marshals, fire inspectors, and civilian personnel. Women have served in the FDNY since 1982 but are rarely seen in leadership positions.

“To say it is the honor of a lifetime is an understatement,” said Kavanagh at her swearing-in. “This story, my story, is a quintessentially New York City story. New York City’s story is fundamentally one of making the impossible possible. Where a shy, introverted, only child could get a one-way ticket to New York City seeking to serve a higher purpose in the best city on earth, and two decades later, find yourself here, leading the greatest fire department in the world through unprecedented times is something that could only happen here.”

Kavanagh has been at the FDNY for sev eral years. Before serving at the FDNY, Ka vanagh worked at City Hall as a special assistant to former Mayor Bill de Blasio. She said she will be the type of commissioner that “sees my place at the table as also their

own,” speaking to diversity and change in the department.

Adams was delighted with how many “firsts” there were in terms of diverse races and gender appointments in his adminis tration. Louis A. Molina is the first Latino to lead the Department of Correction, Keechant L. Sewell is the first Black woman NYPD Commissioner, the first Filipina deputy mayor in Maria Torres-Stringer, and the first Indian deputy mayor in Meera Joshi, he said.

“We sat there, and we were intentional,” said Adams. “We said we’re going to look for the best, but we are going to open our eyes because the best is among us. The best has just been ignored.”

Adams admitted that while he under stood policing and staffing, he was less fa miliar with the FDNY agency as a whole. He said his appointment of Kavanagh is based on conversations with the chief, the

unions, and the men and women at fire houses.

FDNY Lieutenant Dellon Morgan is presi dent of the Black Vulcan Firefighter Society. The Vulcan society filed a federal lawsuit in 2007 against discriminatory firefighter en trance exams crafted to be more difficult for Black and Hispanic applicants.

Morgan confirmed that Adams had met with the Vulcan society about potentially appointing a Black FDNY commissioner after Nigro’s retirement. However, Morgan was accepting of Kavanagh as an alterna tive choice. He said that while Kavanagh was acting commissioner they had “devel oped a working relationship” where she made herself more available than previ ous commissioners.

“People have issues for the same reasons the Vulcans have issues with the depart ment,” said Morgan. “Race, gender. Some people may have issues with her for those

and its commissioners in Troy, N.Y. for purposely not providing early voting poll sites in the county’s Black, Hispanic, and lower-income communities despite con stant calls to equitably expand in these areas.

In addition to lawsuits against racist perpetrators, James’ office launched the Election Protection Hotline that opened during early voting this past weekend and runs through Sunday, Nov. 6. The hotline will be available to trouble shoot and resolve ballot box issues en countered by voters. Call 866-390-2992, submit complaints online to the Office of Attorney General, or email election.hot line@ag.ny.gov.

Ariama C. Long is a Report for Ameri ca corps member and writes about cul ture and politics in New York City for The Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing sto ries like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting: https://bit.ly/amnews1

reasons but it’s nice that it’s finalized.”

For the most part, women firefighters, including the United Women Firefighters and electeds, rejoiced at having a woman at the helm of the FDNY.

Former Firefighter Anita Daniel, 31, just retired last week from the FDNY techni cally because of a sustained injury and an “emotionally distressing” work environ ment. Daniel had an open sexual harass ment/assault case against a captain who “slapped her behind” in the FDNY audi torium in July. She had to file numerous complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission but finally re sorted to filing a police report to get trac tion on her case.

Daniel alleges that Kavanagh had seen the video of this incident but still hadn’t reprimanded him yet.

“Do I feel confident that things will get expedited? No, I don’t. Especially, with my own case nothing has really been done to the individual,” said Daniel about Kava nagh’s appointment. “To have a woman in a position of power, yes I love that, I feel great, but with that power, you need to ac tually do something and not just take on the title.”

Ariama C. Long is a Report for Ameri ca corps member and writes about culture and politics in New York City for The Am sterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-de ductible gift of any amount today by visit ing: https://bit.ly/amnews1

Mayor Eric Adams announces the appointment of, and swears in, Laura Kavanagh as commissioner of the New York City Fire Department (FDNY). FDNY Engine 33/Ladder 9, Manhattan. Thursday, October 27, 2022. (Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography office)

Media roundtable with New York Attorney General Letitia James (Bill Moore photo)

Go With The Flo

FLO ANTHONY

Migos rapper Takeoff has died after being fa tally shot at a bowling alley in Houston, Texas, multiple outlets confirmed on Nov. 1. He was 28 years old. The artist (real name Kirshnik Khari Ball) was killed during a private party at 810 Billiards and Bowling in downtown Hous ton, TMZ reported. His Uncle Quavo, who is also a member of Migos, was also in atten dance during the tragedy where they were said to be playing dice, and was not injured. Offset, who is married to Cardi B, and is Take off’s cousin, was not with them. He released a solo album in 2019, while Takeoff and Quavo released a joint album, “Only Built for Infini ty Links” in October. Migos’ first breakthrough hit “Versace” was released in 2013.

Black and LGBT+ joy was on full display at the Lyceum Theatre on Broadway on Oct. 27 as Bob the Drag Queen hosted Big, Black & Queer night at the Best Musical Tonyaward-winning musical “A Strange Loop.” The actor, comic and season eight winner of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” who can be seen on “We’re Here” on HBO Max, helped celebrate the historic strides the musical has ushered in for Black and queer representation in the ater and American culture. Following the mu sical’s performance, Bob the Drag Queen led a talkback with “A Strange Loop” cast mem bers and creatives before a diverse audience which included celebrity guests Peppermint, Mila Jam, DJ 2Face, Kizah Carr, Basit and more out to celebrate the event, during LGBT His tory Month.

Tongues are wagging that Mel B of the Spice Girls, who shares a daughter, Angel, 15, with Eddie Murphy, confirmed she is engaged to her boyfriend of three years, Rory McPhee, and recapped the romantic proposal during a recent appearance on the U.K. series “Ce lebrity Gogglebox.” According to multiple re ports, Mel B told comedian Ruby Wax, “He said, ‘I love you, you’re my best friend and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” Also known as Scary Spice, Mel B said there were rose petals everywhere, a log fire, a hotel. “It was very romantic. I love flowers.” The couple most recently worked together on the fourth season of the Australian version of “The Masked Singer.” Congratulations!

BET announced Kandi Burruss-Tucker, Tameka “Tiny” Harris, Tamika Scott and LaTo cha Scott of legendary, multiplatinum-selling R&B supergroup Xscape, will collectively re ceive the Lady of Soul honor at the Soul train Awards 2022. Xscape emerged on the scene in the ’90s with a sound of their own. Hosted by actor, comedian, and writer Deon Cole, the Soul Train Awards 2022 premieres Sunday, Nov. 27 on BET and BET Her.

GO WITH THE FLO

Bronxites teeing off in Tema, Ghana

000). Here with my friends (left) J.R. Dorsainvi, visiting from Bronx, N.Y. and Ghana PGA Pro John Mawuli,” says

Debert Cook, the U.S.-based, Ghana living and working publisher of the Af rican American Golfer’s Digest.

“Hello from Ghana at the Center of the World Golf Course, Tema, Ghana, (Greenwich Meridian Line longitude

(Contributed photos)

Harlem recognizes Domestic Violence Awareness Month

In recognition of National Domestic Vio lence Awareness Month, Abundant Living Shelter’s founders Ramona S. Fraser and Teena Beckles distributed essential items at the Harlem Mear on Oct. 27 to the often mar ginalized members of our community. Abun

dant Living Shelter is a startup non-profit organization dedicated to helping women and children impacted by domestic violence. They are located in Harlem. To learn more and make a donation, visit abundantliving shelter.com.

Nightlife

Time for the essence of TEMS, Black Panther, and Wakanda

When your star power is on the as cending trajectory, there will be a time or two when your name will be ring ing bells simultaneously. Thus was the case on Saturday, Oct. 29 for the ultra-hot recording artist TEMS. In Los Angeles, at Milk Studios in Hol lywood, to be exact, EBONY Media Group, the leading and most influ ential Black-owned media compa ny in the world, held their signature annual gala, the 2022 EBONY Power 100 Gala. The star-studded event, hosted by Emmy-nominated comedi an and actress Amber Ruffin, honored the remarkable achievements of Afri can Americans spanning across vari ous disciplines from business, sports, media, activism, music and entertain ment.

Community celebrates Breast Cancer Awareness Month

State Sen. Cordell Cleare, chair of wom en’s issues, participated in the Breast Cancer Awareness Day in Harlem. Businesses and restaurants were encouraged to enjoy the day by donating dollar-for-dollar matches on all orders made that day, such as Melba

Wilson of Melba’s Restaurant, and Nikoa Ev ans-Hendricks of Park to Park. Women were able to participate in “Paint the Cure” at the Painting Lounge. Rosemary Perez-Bell of the American Cancer Society gave information to folks at the lounge.

The 2022 EBONY Power 100 includes the aforementioned TEMS, as well as Grammy Award-winning R&B singer Usher, recent Emmy Award-winning actress and writer Quinta Brunson, future NFL-Hall Of Famer and spouse, singer Russell and Ciara Wilson (EB ONY’s Sept./Oct. cover star), Acad emy Award-winning actress Ariana DeBose, power couple and actor Idris and Sabrina Elba, R&B singer H.E.R., comedian Martin Lawrence, daytime television host, actress and comedi an Sherri Shepherd and tv personality Kandi Burruss are a few of the select ed for this year’s list.

Special awards were also present ed to add to the star-laden festivities. Roger Guenveur Smith presented leg endary film director Spike Lee with the Icon Award; Nia Long presented Em my-nominated actress and produc er Issa Rae with the People’s Choice Award; Jonathan Majors presented the cast of “Black Panther: Wakan da Forever” with the For the Culture Award; Kendrick Sampson present ed the mothers of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, Tamika Palmer and Wanda Cooper-Jones with the Social Justice Award; Jay Ellis and Garcelle Beauvais presented Target’s Senior Vice President of Marketing Mau rice Cooper with the Corporate Citi zen Award; and Kandi Burruss (2022 EBONY Power 100 honoree) present ed President and CEO Cheryl McKis sack with the Black Business Award. One of the laurels TEMS managed this calendar year is participation on the soundtrack for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” Her cover of Bob Marley’s “No Woman No Cry” helped fuel the excitement for the film in the initial trailer as well working on the

musical comeback of sorts for su perstar Rihanna as they collaborat ed on the recently released single “Lift Me Up.” As it was released on Friday (Oct. 28), TEMS took to social media to comment about the new song, “Blessed to have written this song in honor of Chadwick Boseman and even more blessed to hear the baddest @badgalriri voice it to perfection.” Ri hanna responded, “It’s the pen for me love to you sistren.” As big an event as that was, TEMS had a live engage ment with her fans at the Prudential Center as part of the lineup for Power 105.1’s Powerhouse 2022. Nicki Minaj, Moneybagg Yo, Kodak Black, Lil Tjay, Badmanrill and DJ Spinking. Rowdy Rebel, Juelz Santana, J.I. The Prince and B. Lovee were also part of the ca pacity filled festivities.

During her performance, TEMS also received a major honor. “Break fast Club” host Angela Yee joined TEMS’ label as they presented her with a plaque for her song “Free Mind” which became her first No. 1 song and reached Gold status.

Crazy how life turns. It was almost a year ago that one of the headliners of this same show had gone through some cosmetic changes. The super star group that was a trio had rum blings of a solo departure; further fueled by a duet album with two of the three members. The specter of the group ever coming back together as a unit was MAJOR news to the masses. Unfortunately we got our answer. The Migos are no more. At press time we got word that Kirsnik Khari Ball known to millions by the moniker Takeoff was gunned down in Houston Texas. De tails are trickling in. DAMN!!!!

Over and out. Holla next week. Til then, enjoy the nightlife.

Written by David Goodson

Domestic Violence Awareness Month (Bill Moore photo)

(Bill Moore photo)

(David Goodson photo)

Union Matters

Salary transparency laws aim to combat pay disparities

By CORA LEWIS Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP)—Starting this week, jobseekers in New York City will have access to a key piece of information: how much money they can expect to earn for an ad vertised opening.

New York will require employers as of Nov. 1 to disclose “a good faith salary range for every job, promotion, and transfer oppor tunity advertised,” according to the city’s Commission on Human Rights.

Similar salary transparency laws are being adopted by a small but growing number of cities and states across the country in an effort to address pay disparities for women and people of color.

Seher Khawaja, senior attorney for eco nomic empowerment at Legal Momen tum whose organization helped draft the New York City law, said salary transparen cy “gives existing employees and workers information to better gauge how positions within their workplace are valued and whether they’re being paid fairly.”

It also gives employers a way to avoid li ability.

“It puts their feet to the fire to think about how they’re setting pay and to avoid dis criminatory practices that were working their way in previously,” Khawaja said.

Haris Silic, vice president at Artisan Talent, a staffing agency that places hun dreds of creative professionals in New York City and across the country, said the law’s implementation may initially be tough on the employer’s side, but he thinks “everyone sees the value.”

“Every employer was an employee once,” he said.

Business groups, including New York’s five borough chambers of commerce, have argued that the law could create “dissatis faction in the workforce and demands to adjust existing pay scales that the employ er may be unable to afford.”

“During a labor shortage, or in the con text of achieving diversity goals, the posted maximum may be significantly higher than the historical salary ranges,” the groups wrote in a letter to the New York City Coun cil.

Colorado was the first to adopt a salary transparency law in 2019, followed by Cal ifornia, Maryland, Nevada, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Washington, as well as cities like Cincinnati and Toledo, Ohio.

Rules for salary disclosures vary. In some cases, they require employers to share the information upon request or after an inter view, with exemptions for small businesses. In other cases, employers must post salary ranges.

In Colorado, for example, a recent job posting on hiring site Indeed for an execu tive assistant in Denver advertised a salary range of $57,131 to $88,516 a year. A human resources data analyst role listed a range of $67,488 to $111,355 a year. A retail posi tion at Target advertised an hourly salary of $23.75 to $40.40.

New York City’s law is similar to Colorado’s, but it applies only to employers with four or more workers rather than all business es. That accounts for one-third of employ ers in the city but roughly 90% of workers, according to state Labor Department sta

tistics. The new wave of legis lation marks a shift in who bears the onus for making sal aries trans parent, with more em ployers now being held responsible for creating an open work environ ment instead of leaving it to employ ees to figure out how their pay com pares to their coworkers and whether to ask for fair compensation, according to Andrea John son, director of state policy at the National Women’s Law Center.

Mary Ramsay, 55, a health educator based in Syracuse, New York who is looking for a job with higher pay, said she hopes New York City’s salary transparency law will soon apply to the entire state, something that legislators are currently considering.

“Hiring people should be seen as a twoway contract,” she said. “You’re looking for a good partnership.”

In September, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law requiring any em ployer with at least 15 employees to pub lish pay scales with its job listings. The law also went further than Colorado and New York by requiring large employers to submit an annual report to California’s Civil Rights Department breaking down salaries by race, ethnicity, and sex.

In 2021, the median pay for full-time women workers was about 83% of men’s pay, according to federal data, and women make less than their male counterparts in nearly all fields. For women of color, the numbers are even worse. A report by the National Partnership for Women and Fam ilies found that Black women make 64 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men. For Latina women, it’s 54 cents and for Native American women, it’s just 51 cents.

Khawaja said the disclosure of demo graphic information is a heartening addi tion to the California law, noting that one of the most significant reasons for persistent wage inequities is occupational segregation by gender and race. So long as women and people of color disproportionately work in

lower wage industries, pay gaps will exist, she added.

“A disproportionate number of women are working lower wage jobs,” Khawaja said. “So legislation to increase the mini mum wage and eliminate exceptions, such as the tipped wage for certain categories of workers like restaurant workers, are really essential to closing that gap.”

Here are some other things to know about salary transparency:

Discussing pay with co-workers is legal Johnson emphasizes that it’s perfect ly legal to talk about pay on the job even if employers discourage it.

“The National Labor Relations Protection Act protects employees who discuss pay be cause it protects employees who discuss workplace conditions, and pay is a work condition,” she said.

A lack of transparency around pay typi cally disadvantages women and people of color—the very same groups that are al ready statistically less likely to fare well in negotiations, Johnson added.

It’s ok to withhold your salary history

Don’t feel compelled to disclose your salary history with a potential employer. In fact, some cities and states have passed laws forbidding employers from even asking, a practice that can depress wages and lock in inequities.

“There’s a fundamental information asymmetry in salary negotiation,” said Kate Bahn, chief economist at the Wash ington Center for Equitable Growth. “Em ployers inherently have better information about wages, meaning they have an upper hand. The party that has more information is going to fare better.”

Same goes for salary expectations

Some employers get around the salary history legal constraint by asking appli cants to share their salary expectations, but Bahn said that can have the same effect of lowering offers.

That’s why Laura Adler, assistant profes sor of organizational behavior at the Yale School of Management, said it’s better to have salary transparency laws that require employers to disclose salary ranges, like in New York, Colorado, and California. Such laws are more difficult for employers to cir cumvent.

“The more policymakers can ground their interventions in the way companies actu ally run their businesses, the more effec tive those interventions are likely to be,” she said.

When negotiating for a new job, know you have the right to decline to share salary ex pectations so that the employer opens the offer, advocates advise.

(Gerd Altmann from Pixabay photo)

NY doesn’t need it sugarcoated.

Knowing the facts about your blood sugar levels can help you prevent type 2 diabetes. That’s why we go beyond coverage to connect you to local screenings, free diabetes education, and in-person support at our Neighborhood Care centers. Get connected at emblemhealth.com/diabeteshealth.

Art by KITKAT

PECSON

Opinion

We stand with Stacey, Raphael, and Tish

AMNEWS ENDORSEMENT

EDITORIAL

President Biden is prone to gaffes, none more embarrassing than the recent mistaking the war in Ukraine for the one in Iraq and the nature of his son’s death, but one thing that he is consistently right about is the im minent destruction of our democratic rights. The insurrection at the Capitol Building on Jan. 6 is perhaps the most dramatic and deadliest aspect of this devolution, however we have had earlier man ifestations—the evisceration of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, Charlottesville in 2017, the murder of George Floyd in 2020. Each of these terrible moments were harbingers that most of us took for granted as customary ex periences of American “exceptionalism,” to give that term a more menacing flip. Many of you have already voted but a majority of you have not, and no matter where you are in the republic, the midterm election should not be pooh-poohed. As Biden has said on many occasions we are at an inflection point in our history, and this election is a critical part of it as the Democrats are in danger of losing control of Congress. The senatorial race in Georgia where the Republican candi date Herschel Walker is trying to unseat the incumbent Raphael Warnock is once more of paramount importance. And there is no need to tell you where we stand on this contest, particularly after hearing Walker’s denuncia tions of Stacey Abrams. Abrams’ gubernato rial challenge in Georgia is just as significant in U.S. politics as the senatorial race there, and her win would make her the first African American woman governor in the nation’s history. That is not an impossibility, given that we have historic breakthroughs most re cently on the Supreme Court with the arrival of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. And closer to home, we need to keep Attorney General Tish James in her post, a position from which she has demonstrated remarkable visionary leadership. Yes. Black women can take the lead, and we gladly follow them as we march into a very dark and grim stage of Ameri can history. An inflection point could be a destructive end.

AmNews endorses HOCHUL, DINAPOLI, JAMES AND SCHUMER

Next Tuesday, Nov. 8 is the midterm election. While New York is a Blue state, it doesn’t always fall that way. The cities across the state vote overwhelmingly for the Democrats. But in the rural areas of the state the Republicans have the upper hand. That is why this year’s election is so critical. Here in New York, it will come down to turnout.

Which New Yorkers will turn out to vote? What is going to move them from their homes and their offices to the ballot box? Will it be access to reproduc tive choice, the economy and the cost of living? Or will it be crime and public safety, and gun control? Or could it be education, climate, transportation, or government? Or will it be a combina tion of a few or all of the aforementioned issues? The truth is the issues are so nu merous that we have no choice but to vote. Failing to use our hard fought right is a travesty in itself and when we go to fill in the ballot we need to vote our con science and our future.

Earlier this election season we en dorsed Kathy Hochul for governor. Her commitment to the people of this state is genuine and her passion for the job real. She has ascended to the role of governor with great dignity. And she has brought accountability and honor back to the

position. She is working hard for all New Yorkers and New Yorkers need her to keep on fighting for us. New York needs Kathy Hochul.

Thomas DiNapoli has served this state as its comptroller for over 15 years. As state comptroller he has made this state fiscally more responsive and responsible. He has created avenues to ensure that there is equity within the pension fund world and that communities of color are not the victims but rather victors when it comes to who wins the comptroller’s office. He has also held corporate Amer ica accountable for diversity in insist ing that the funds New York State invests in have diversity in their organizations. But most of all he is making the pension funds work in a very volatile market and safeguarding the future of the New York State pension fund. For this and many other reasons we endorse Tom DiNapoli once again for NYS comptroller.

Continuing down the ballot we have New York State Attorney General Tish James. What can we say about AG James? She is a no-nonsense prosecutor who has been at the fore when it comes to taking Trump to task. She has been working hard to keep New Yorkers safe, helping to take over 3,500 guns off of the streets during her four-year tenure as

AG through the state’s gun buyback pro gram. Her work to protect women and children has been unwavering and her dedication to the law and her principles unmatched. That is why we again en dorse Letitia James for attorney general. Also on the ballot is Senator Charles Schumer. Schumer has represented New York for over two decades, and he has been as tireless as he has been vi sionary in his proposals. He now holds the key to the senate as the senate ma jority leader. In this position he controls what bills hit the floor of the senate. Sen. Schumer is New York through and through. A Brooklyn native, Schum er has been in public office for over 40 years, and to say he has served with dis tinction would be a gross understate ment. He delivers for New York, and his legislative accomplishments are peer less in congress. To this end, he delivers for this country and that’s why we need Chuck Schumer. That is why we once again endorse him for United States senator.

Early Voting is open until November 6 and election day is Tuesday, Novem ber 8.

For more information on where to vote go to https://findmypollsite.vote.nyc/

Black Solidarity Day 2022 - Letter to the Editor

By AMADI AJAMU

Alliance for Audited

Elinor R. Tatum: Publisher and Editor in Chief

Kristin Fayne-Mulroy: Managing Editor

Nayaba Arinde: Editor

Cyril Josh Barker: Digital Editor

Damaso Reyes: Investigative Editor

Siobhan "Sam" Bennett: Chief Revenue Officer and Head of Advertising

Wilbert A. Tatum (1984-2009): Chairman of the Board, CEO and Publisher Emeritus

On November 3, 1969, Dr. Carlos Rus sell was inspired by a play written and produced by Douglas Turner Ward en titled “A Day of Absence” which depict ed a small southern town experiencing the ramifications of the unexpected absence of all the Black people. Dr. Russell ini tiated the call for a na tional Black Solidarity Day on the day before election day. A day of absence from school, work, and shopping; a day for Black people to remove themselves from business as usual in re sistance.

This year, as we ap proach the 53rd anniver sary of Black Solidarity

Day, we must recapture the heart of its principles. We must come togeth er on Monday, November 7, 2022 for a Day of Resistance and Reparations— an assessment of which way forward, a collective action that will impact the political and economic system focus ing on health care and reparations.

We must demand President Biden issue an executive order to solidi fy a state-of-the-art healthcare deliv ery system to our communities which have been exploited for centuries. And, in doing so, address the principal issue of concrete reparations.

Black Solidarity Day has historically been held each year on the day before election day in order to heighten the duplicity of the U.S. political process and to exert the economic power of the masses of our people. No work, no school, and no shopping allows us to fundamentally impact the political-

economy. The absence of transit work ers, nurses, teachers, social services, utility workers, and government staff ers would cripple the city. Restaurants, retail stores, entertainment, and sports would shut down.

As the right wing in this country be comes more and more virulent, hos tile, and violent toward people of color, we must stand in solid unity. The relentless suppression of our votes demands a conscious analysis of the political-economic system itself.

I will be on the ground with the De cember 12th Movement and many other organizations in NYC at the Black Solidarity Day ‘Black Unity Rally’ on Monday, November 7 at 7 p.m. at the historic New Canaan Bap tist Church, 228 Putnam Avenue, the People’s Republic of Brook lyn. For more information, call 718-398-1766.

Party loyalty will be our end

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not represent those of the New York Amsterdam News. We continue to publish a variety of viewpoints so that we may know the opin ions of others that may differ from our own.

Welcome to November

CHRISTINA GREER PH.D.

ARMSTRONG WILLIAMS

Once a tiny segment of our ex istence—a mere association with a group whose ideas align with ours on average—political parties have evolved from simple associ ations into our primary identities. They have absorbed our perspec tives, entered our daily conversa tion, and permeated all forms of media. As more and more individu als become radicalized within their own parties, one must consider if party loyalty has gone too far.

It seems logical to me that there would be only a small number of individuals whose ideas perfectly match those of their party and its leaders. As we listen to the media and observe a rising number of re al-life individuals who fit this cri terion, it becomes evident that party loyalty has supplanted rea soning and individualism in the masses; it has become the main stream, not the fringe.

It is difficult to fault anybody for embracing radical beliefs. Given the substantial sums poured into pushing political propaganda through mainstream and other wise reputable outlets, it is easy to assume that the beliefs being pro moted are the most reasonable, especially given that those advo cating these views have access to more information than the aver age person.

Consequently, when the unusu al ostensibly becomes the main stream, an increasing number of people prefer to follow without much thought. Fortunately, al though their numbers are growing fast, there are considerably fewer ardent loyalists than sensible indi viduals. Despite this, the most ir rational individuals are frequently the loudest, and our political lead ers listen to the loudest individu als because they are the only ones who they can hear.

As a result of loyalists preach ing as if they represent the major ity, terrible policy decisions are made—a sad reality. So frequent

ly, we observe that party loyalists develop and advocate for policies that are both damaging and non sensical.

This is absolutely true for both the Republican and Democrat ic parties. If a Democrat, for in stance, believes that transgenders should be supported, this does not necessarily imply that they favor the radical measures, such as sex changes for transgender people and drag performers teaching el ementary-school-aged children, that mainstream Democrats sup port. Likewise, the same applies to Republicans. If a majority of Re publicans support curbing illegal immigration, it does not necessar ily follow that they support erect ing a wall or transporting illegal immigrants to sanctuary states. For both parties, even if they do support certain positions, it is not necessarily the case that their support would be active, but only passive.

Despite the fact that the minor ity of every political party is typ ically the loudest, we rarely hold party loyalists accountable when they cause division and destruc tion for the rational.

To expose the underbelly of politics and deter people from succumbing to the compelling arguments of political leaders, accountability is absolutely essen tial if we desire a better nation and a better future. Without an unwav ering commitment to embracing our own principles and believing in ourselves rather than our polit ical leaders, we will be victimized by the propaganda-pushing ser pents of their respective parties, who wish to victimize us and keep us in despair in order to maintain their stranglehold on our lives. We cannot become pawns for them to manipulate and maneuver as they see fit, nor can we become that small group of party loyalists who victimize the innocent.

Once people learn that they

should be loyal to their own prin ciples and not those of others, it becomes simple to teach them not to become victims. They can avoid falling prey to groupthink and beginning a cycle of doubt ing their own ideas and discarding them in favor of those of others. And they can prevent themselves from being used to harm others in complex ways that they could not fathom.

When we were young children, before we were introduced to pol itics, our values were formed at home. Illegal immigration and transgenderism are not subjects that the older generation was taught in the classroom.

A person may or may not be re ligious, they may believe it is ac ceptable to lie, cheat, and steal more often than others believe, and they may have differing views on what is good, bad, and fair. All of these qualities and more un derpin virtually every political stance, yet so many individuals have become so rigid in their po litical views that they frequently lose sight of why they hold these beliefs. Tragically, these underly ing principles are frequently used ex post facto to defend a person’s viewpoint on a particular topic, rather than being the source of the belief itself.

Our nation stands at a cross roads. Will we choose to be loyal to our respective political parties or to ourselves? I do hope that we choose the latter; that we realize that the only ones looking out for our best interests are our family, friends, and, of course, ourselves, not our parties.

Armstrong Williams (@ARight Side) is manager / sole owner of Howard Stirk Holdings I & II Broadcast Television Stations and the 2016 Multicultural Media Broadcast Owner of the year. www. armstrongwilliams.co | www.how ardstirkholdings.com

Can you believe the year is almost over? I was strolling down Broad way last week listening to music watching the leaves literally fall out of the trees and thinking to myself just how much I love autumn in New York.

I then realized that day light savings time is just around the bend and we will be welcoming winter into our lives very soon.

I don’t know about you, but the older I get it seems the faster time flies. It feels like just yesterday I was on a March vacation with my mother and best friend in Mexico, a trip I will remember fondly for my lifetime. Or just yes terday I was imploring you readers to vote in the June and then the August primaries. Hopefully you have already participat ed in early voting and if not, you plan to vote on November 8th, no matter what city you live in. There are important races in literally every city and at almost every level of power. Please, please, please make a plan to vote and encour age others to do so.

November always has a peculiar feel to it. On the one hand, I am excited about the holidays. I am preparing for Thanksgiv ing with family members and I am beginning to get ready for the Christ mas season. On the other hand, November re minds me that the year is almost behind us and any unfinished projects or goals need to be han dled in just a short period of time. November has an odd anticipatory feel as well as a sense of finality

to it as well. Possibly the autumn transitions ex emplify what the month is truly about.

This is also a month when we need to check in with friends and family who are missing those they’ve lost, those who struggle with food addic tions since so much of the holiday season revolved around food, and those who have complicated or abusive relationships with family members they may be forced to interact with over the holidays. We must keep these people in our minds as we navigate the next two months.

Lastly, don’t forget to “fall back” and change your clocks in the next few days. Clocks change back one hour at 2 a.m. on Nov. 6 as we prepare for the winter months. Each day after we set our clocks back, daylight will short en until the winter sol stice on Wednesday, Dec. 21. I guess that means we need to rise a bit earlier if we want to take advan tage of the little bit of sun we’ll have for the remain ing winter months.

Whatever you choose to do in November, make a plan to see friends and loved ones, remember COVID is still very much real, and get some rest for the holiday season.

Christina Greer, Ph.D., is an associate profes sor at Fordham Univer sity, the author of “Black Ethnics: Race, Immigra tion, and the Pursuit of the American Dream,” and the co-host of the podcast FAQ-NYC and host of The Blackest Questions pod cast at TheGrio.

Caribbean Update

Columbus banished from The Bahamas

By BERT WILKINSON

Special to the AmNews

A recent move by The Bahamas government to banish the statue of Chris topher Columbus from gov ernment house to the back of the works ministry’s com pound might well add much needed impetus to calls across the Caribbean for the retirement of symbols which represent racial dis crimination against Black and brown people, imperi alism and a genocidal colo nial past.

Late last year, a local man of questionable sanity, damaged the statue with a sledgeham mer rendering it unsightly to onlookers, hastening efforts to remove it as a symbol of something to celebrate rather than one of hate.

“As a matter of confirma tion, the Christopher Co lumbus statue has been removed from government house. It was an organized effort by the government house, the ministry of works, and the Bahamas Antiquities Monuments and Museums Corporation (AMMC),” said government spokesman Latrae Rah ming in a weekend social media posting.

Local publication ENews. com said the statue will remain in the compound until a final decision is made by cabinet about what exactly to do with it or where it should be placed. Calling himself “Michael the Archangel,” the gentle man damaged the right leg of the statue yelling, “You destroyed this land. I’ve come to take this [exple tive] back.”

The announcement is cer tain to galvanize efforts in a number of Caribbean coun tries including Trinidad, Ja maica and Antigua among others where debates have been raging about what to

do with these symbols of white imperialism and op pression. The latest rounds of debates had coincid ed and appeared to have been sparked by global pro tests linked to the murder of Black American George Floyd after a white police officer had kneeled on his neck for nearly 10 minutes in the U.S.

Two years ago this month, Barbados removed the im posing bronze statue of British admiral Lord Nelson from the main square in the capital, Bridgetown as it was preparing to ditch Britain’s now late Queen Elizabeth as its head of state, appoint

its own local president and become a republic like re gional neighbors Guyana, Trinidad and Dominica.

Nelson, famed for his suc cesses in high seas bat tles with fellow European powers like Spain and France, was an ardent de fender of the slave trade, a trait that has angered Black activists who have for de cades called for its removal alongside other local heroes as it was a vestige and relic of a horrid colonial past. The monument was erect ed back in 1813.

In Trinidad, the African Emancipation commit tee has been leading calls

for similar action in the twin-island federation with Tobago. Successive admin istrations have pledged to take action but no firm de cision has been made as yet even as Columbus’s statue in downtown Port of Spain, the capital, has been de faced several times.

Activists across the region have also called for the re naming of streets, state buildings, schools and other facilities which are stark re minders of the colonial era.

In Barbados which will this month celebrate its first year as a republic, there is a spirited debate in the legal fraternity as to

whether most senior attor neys should now switch to being referred from queen’s to king’s counsel now that King Charles has replaced his late mother as the Brit ish monarch. In other neighboring republics, these are simply referred to as senior counsel.

The issue came up in Bar bados’ court of appeal re cently with several senior attorneys like Garth Patter son indicating that switch ing to king’s counsel rather than senior counsel would be a national and region al embarrassment as the island nation has severed such ties with Britain and the United Kingdom.

“Having a new monarch who does not represent the head of state of Barbados for us to adopt the postnominal of king’s counsel—I think it puts us in an embarrass ing position. I think it sends the wrong message that de spite our proclamation that we have cut our ties with the monarchy, we are still clinging to the vestiges of that monarchy. I personal ly have a serious difficulty in adopting that postnomi nal,” the Today online pub lication quoted Patterson as saying.

A vote for Republicans is a vote for violence and xenophobia

FELICIA PERSAUD

IMMIGRATION KORNER

A survey of 1,005 U.S. His panic/Latino adults con ducted from Sept. 30 to Oct. 8, 2022, for the Axios-Ipsos Latino Poll in partnership with Noticias Telemun do has found that a signifi cant portion of U.S. Latinos say neither the Democrat ic Party nor the Republi can Party represent or care about them.

Some 33% said Demo crats care about Latinos,

compared to 11% who said the same about Republi cans. This comes amid the fact that the GOP is spend ing most of their campaign ads preaching xenopho bia—the great replacement theory coupled with false claims that immigrants are to be blamed for crimes nationally. The truth is that the national homicide rate in 2021 wasn’t as high as it was in the early 1990s, but 2021’s figure is the high est in nearly a whopping 25 years.

While political pundits claim Latinos are the swing voters in the all-important

elections of Nov. 8, Latino voters, though not mono lithic, must face a reality that many are not—that a vote for the GOP is a vote for violence and xenophobia. Republican candidates and their conservative-par ty base have not actual ly given up their extremist views on cultural or “values” issues, as a new survey from Pew Research Center makes clear. Some 64% say that “if America is too open to people from around the world, we risk losing our identity as a nation.” That’s classic xenophobia.

Regardless of how an

noyed many immigrants are that the Biden admin istration has not moved the ball forward on immi gration reform, the reality is that the administration and Democrats are still a far better choice than the Republican MAGA party of Donald Trump.

That is the choice come Nov. 8. As an independent immigrant voter, I, like many Latinos who respond ed to this poll, share feelings of frustration, given the fact that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris made major vows to push immigration reform and actually only won the

White House on the back of native born Black and Ca ribbean immigrant voters. Yet little has been done on immigration reform.

Over the past two years, I have wrestled with the option of not voting again, since I felt my vote as a Ca ribbean immigrant is un appreciated, unnoticed and dismissed, or taken for granted.

However, as Trumpe to and his maggots have staged a strong unapolo getic comeback, despite the obvious insurrection of Jan. 6, I have determined that I must vote in this election to

keep the left agenda moving forward.

There is no other option as a no vote is a vote for xenophobia, bigotry and the violence we have seen meted out to immigrants and now Paul Pelosi. Latino voters will do well to re member this for at the end of the day, they too are part of the “replacement” that is being preached by MAGA maggots nationally, regard less of how “white” some may believe they are.

The writer is publisher of NewsAmericasNow.com – The

“The announcement is certain to galvanize efforts in a number of Caribbean countries—including Trinidad, Jamaica and Antigua, among others—where debates have been raging about what to do with these symbols of white imperialism and oppression.”

Community shares words of condolences for Rev. Calvin Butts

When news broke of the passing of the Rev. Doctor Calvin O. Butts III, on Oct. 28, 2022, there was an immediate outpouring from New Yorkers and those beyond.

New York Attorney General Letitia James said, “Rev. Dr. Calvin Butts was an icon, spir itual leader, and pow erful voice for progress. An educator and trust ed advisor, Rev. Dr. Butts helped shape young minds at SUNY Old Westbury and pro vided guidance to anyone who asked for his ministry and his wisdom. Through his leadership of the Abys sinian Baptist Church, he helped promote social change through out his communi ty and far beyond. His leadership transcend ed religious differences and was instrumen tal in building eco nomically vibrant and spiritually strong insti tutions in Harlem and across New York City. My heart is with Rev. Dr. Calvin Butts’ wife, children, grandchildren, and all those who benefited from the love, wisdom, and passion he brought into their lives. May he rest in peace and may his memory be a source of strength and inspiration for generations to come.”

On a national level Minister Louis Farrakhan sent words of comfort: “To the family and friends of Reverend Dr. Calvin O. Butts III, and the congre gation of Abyssinian Baptist Church, the Nation of Islam and I extend our deepest condolences on the passing of our great brother. New Yorkers have lost a great brother and friend, and I have lost a friend and a broth er. May Allah Guide, Bless and Protect Abyssinian Baptist Church and its congregation and all those who have been touched by Reverend Butts, whether in a church service or in an administrative position in a college or university.

“I have known him since he graduated from Morehouse College, and we became friends. My last talk with him was a few weeks ago and spiri tually we always met on common ground. I shall miss him as my broth er and friend and I pray that Allah’s (God’s) Peace will be with his family, his congregation and his friends. His was a job well done and a life of ser vice well lived. I shall keep him in my heart until Allah (God) calls me in. Peace Be Unto You All. As Salaam Alaikum.”

The Rev. Al Sharpton, the founder and president of the National Action Network, declared, “Rev. Butts was a major pillar in the Harlem commu nity and is irreplaceable. He was a dominant faith and academic leader for decades. We knew each other for more than 40 years, and while we did

not always agree we always came back together. Over the last three years, he and I worked closely as co-chairs of the Choose Healthy Life national campaign to help the Black community fight COVID. We spoke as late as a couple of weeks ago about this work, as he was still fighting cancer. He will be tremendously missed.”

Harlem’s former Assemblyman Keith L.T. Wright stated, “The pass ing of Rev. Dr. Calvin Butts is a great loss for Harlem, for the Abyssin ian Baptist Church and for me, as he was a great friend for more than 40 years. He and I worked together, and marched together, on so many of the issues that mattered to the people of Harlem, from health care to police brutality to affordable housing.

“Rev. Dr. Butts carried the badge of Morehouse College with him forever, and I will never forget his wry sense of humor and his giving spirit. When my church, the St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, suffered a roof collapse, he was the first one to call and offer his support. And his political endorse ment carried its weight in gold. Rev. Dr. Butts was an important figure for all of us in politics and when you had his support, it meant something.

“Rev. Dr. Butts was a good man who worked hard for his church, his family and his communi ty, and he left this world a better place than he found it. He will be greatly missed by all who knew him and all whose lives he touched.”

City worker and businessman Antho ny Williams told the Amsterdam News, “My son Anthony was ini tially denied accep tance to Old Westbury where Rev. Calvin Butts was the presi dent. He sent multiple emails to Rev. Butts and his office. Im pressed with my son’s resolve, he eventual ly told him to come in for a sit down. At that meeting Mr. Butts told him he’d accept him and was sure that my son wouldn’t let him down.

“Everytime that my son would start to get a little suspect, I’d remind him that Mr. Butts had vouched for him; that he owed that man and him self a degree. Butts absolutely helped me get my young Black male to the finish line!”

Anthony J. Williams added, “Thanks Rev. Butts for believing in me; I’m grateful and I’m definitely gonna pay it forward.

Services for Rev. Butts will take place at the Abyssinian Baptist Church, 132 W. 138th Street in New York on Friday, Nov. 4 at 2 p.m. Viewings: Thursday, Nov. 3; 9 a.m.-7 p.m. and Friday, Nov. 4 9 a.m.-11 a.m.

(Abyssinian Baptist Church photo)

(Bill Moore photo)

Health

Dr. Anthony Fauci reflects on the current state of the COVID-19 pandemic and the bivalent booster shot

By HEATHER M. BUTTS, JD, MPH, MA Special to the AmNews

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the Nation al Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and President Biden’s chief medical advisor, spoke with the Amsterdam News for a Q&A about the status of the COVID-19 pandemic and the bivalent booster shot. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

AmNews: Where are we with respect to COVID-19 and the bivalent COVID boost er right now?

It’s a really complicated issue because in general the number of cases that we’re experi encing is considerably lower than what it was when we were having the massive number of cases several months to a year ago where we were having 800,000 to 900,000 cases a day and 3,000 to 4,000 deaths per day we’re down now to between 45,000 and 50,000 cases a

day and about 350 to 400 deaths, however what is concerning is that in certain regions of the country we’re starting to see a bit of an uptick in cases even though in general when you look at the map of the United States on the CDC website it’s mostly green and yellow; about 97% of the country is mostly green and some yellow which means that the level of in fection is low but there are areas of the coun try where it’s starting to uptick.

So as we get deeper into the colder weath er of the late fall and early winter, we’re having the conflation of other infections including flu which is coming early and RSV which is much earlier than it usually occurs. RSV usually is a January, February, December kind of infection. We’re seeing the emergency rooms and the pe diatric beds and ICUs are being challenged by the number of children with RSV and RSV also can attack adults, particularly elderly adults and hospitalize them so we’re in for a reason ably tough winter unless we start doing things like getting a lot more people vaccinated and boosted with COVID vaccines but also we’ve got to get more people vaccinated with flu vac cines because the number of flu vaccines at this time of the year is less than it was in previous

years which we’ve got to catch up on that.

AmNews: The number of people taking advantage of the bivalent COVID booster is less than anticipated by public health ex perts. Does that cause you concern?

It’s of great concern to me because as I men tioned we’re entering into a cold season where you have the likelihood of a higher level and greater degree of respiratory infections. We have a booster that’s matched to the circu lating strain which is the Ba5. Even though the sublineages are catching up like BQ1 and BQ1.1 and BA 4.6. Nonetheless, those are sub lineages of BA5 which means that if you get a bivalent booster, you likely will be protected against the others and it just seems unfortu nate at best that we’re not utilizing it.

AmNews: Please discuss your thoughts about the effectiveness of COVID mandates?

Well it’s unfortunate that sometimes you have to turn to mandates. I fundamental ly don’t like mandates, I like to convince people right that it is common sense and

good public health practice to do things like wear a mask under certain circumstanc es, to avoid indoor congregate settings and things like that so I try to appeal more to people in common sense and concern for their own safety and that of their family and those around us as opposed to mandates.

AmNews: Is there anything else you’d like to tell the Amsterdam News readers?

Just another pitch to tell them please the differences in hospitalizations and deaths for those who are vaccinated and boosted versus those who are either unvaccinated or vaccinated and not boosted is very signifi cant difference in that the hospitalizations and deaths very heavily weighted towards either unvaccinated or people who are vac cinated but failed to get their boosters.

For more information regarding vaccines and boosters in New York City, please go to www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-vac cines.page. These and other resources can also be accessed on the AmNews COVID-19 page: https://amsterdamnews.com/covid/

Arts & Entertainment

‘A Raisin in the Sun’ shines BRIGHT at The Public!

They bring levels of conver sation and passion to such heights you feel your emo tions stirring within!

By LINDA ARMSTRONG Special to the AmNews

“A Raisin in the Sun” is a stellar example of what ex cellent theater is! Between Lorraine Hansberry’s time less script, ingenious, bril liant direction by Robert O’Hara and a stunning cast that is lead by Tonya Pinkins, there is no stop ping this play from being relevant to a modern audi ence and speaking the same truths it did when it was first done 65 years ago. The story of the Younger family in Chicago is a story of Black America! Of course, what is the most poignant aspect to this play is that the racism spotlighted in the ’50s is the same and in some cases there is worse racism going on today.

Tonya Pinkins takes the role of Lena Younger, the matriarch of this struggling Black family, to new heights. Pinkins inhabits this role with every fiber of her

being. For those two hours and 40 minutes she truly is Lena Younger, with all the emotions, anger, stress and hope that a mother can have for her children. She is there to guide them, though they don’t always want to hear what she has to say. She is the person to see what is happening and change the situation by doing something, anything to keep her family together. Pinkins takes on the physi cal dynamics of this role in a way that is captivating and powerful to see.

This play about a Black family lets each of us clear ly see all the dynamics that go into a family’s life, from struggling to make it, to arguing with each other, but when it comes down to it, also being there for each other. There are also times that as family we find ourselves not being un derstanding but instead thinking about how we are affected by what someone

else does and playing the blame game. Walter Lee Younger is so excited that his late father Walter Lee Younger Sr.’s $10,000 in surance check is coming in the mail that he has made plans for the entire check in his mind. This character epitomizes the Black man’s frustration with his lot in life and his dreams of doing something better for his family. Dreams that may not be supported by his loved ones and what that does to a man. Francois Battiste brings a strength, frustra tion and a certain tender ness, but also despair to this role. You feel everything that Walter is feeling. Mandi Masden hits the ground running as Ruth Younger and never lets up. She em bodies a loving mother, wife, daughter-in-law, and a Black woman trying to be there for a man that she doesn’t recognize anymore. The chemistry between Bat tiste and Masden is electric!

Paige Gilbert is spunky, outspoken and determined as Beneatha Younger. Her character believes in chal lenging everything and doing so with great spirit. Her wanting to be a doctor is something she is relent less about, though it was not a career that women held in those days. John Clay III is absolutely charm ing as Joseph Asagai, the Ni gerian college student who Beneatha hopes will show her the way to her identi ty. Mister Fitzgerald does a suitable job as George Mur chison, the rich college stu dent who finds Beneatha’s dream to be a doctor unimportant.

The Youngers hoped that the $10,000 would change their lives for the better. As we see what happens to this family, there is a charac ter in the play that I wasn’t familiar with, Mrs. John son. Apparently Hansber ry wrote her in as a noisy neighbor, but she is more than that. She represents the Black person who does not want their neighbor

to try and do better. She is the person who comes into your home, eats and drinks your food and offers their criticism of your lives. Perri Gaffney is outstand ing in this role, bringing all the sass it requires and then some. Another aspect to this production which was fas cinating is what happens when Lena recalls things that Walter Younger Sr. used to do, but I won’t say any more about that. The role of Travis Younger was played by Touissant Battiste, son of Francois. This is his son’s first professional role and their chemistry on stage is wonderful. Calvin Dutton is marvelous in his dual roles as Bobo and Ghost. Jesse Pennington is amaz ing as Karl Lindner, as he comes to the Youngers to let them know where they will stand if they come out to the Clybourne Park White neighborhood they have purchased a home in.

There are so many scenes with rich dialogues that one can’t name them all. But one thing that I can attest to is how often audience mem bers could be heard crying softly. The emotional ride that this family goes on is

something that we willing ly accompany them on. “A Raisin in the Sun” is worthy of your time, praise, ap preciation and admiration! All the technical aspects of it also fall in line as there is a detailed period set by Clint Ramos, costumes by Karen Perry, delicate and timely lighting choices by Alex Jainchill and sound design by Elisheba Ittoop. You must make plans to see this production. It will open your eyes and heart in so many ways!

Francois Battiste and Tonya Pinkins in "A Raisin in the Sun"

Francois Battiste and Toussaint Battiste in "A Raisin in the Sun" (Joan Marcus photos)

Tonya Pinkins as Lena Younger in "A Raisin in the Sun"

Dance Calendar November 2022

By CHARMAINE PATRICIA WARREN

Special to the AmNews

Headlining this month’s cal endar is Edisa Weeks’ world premiere of “Action Songs/ Protest Dances,” a live music and dance event at Kupferberg Center for the Arts, Nov. 12-13.

“Action Songs/Protest Dances” will feature five original songs commissioned by composers/ musicians Taina Asili, Spirit McIntyre, and Martha Redbone. Three of the songs are inspired by the life, speeches, and writ ings of civil rights activist James Forman (1928-2005), whose personal archives are housed at the Queens College Rosen thal Library; and two are about social justice issues in America today. Together, the songs and dances serve as a call to action, a protest against injustice, and a demand that America become a more just, equitable, inclusive and truly great nation. The piece is the first presented as a result of the innovative Kupferberg Arts Incubator. Weeks notes, “I started teaching at Queens Col lege in 2010, which is also when the QC Rosenthal Library Civil Rights Archives acquired James Forman’s personal papers. I was incredibly excited as Forman was the first person I heard crit icize capitalism as an exploit ative economic system. I was a kid at the time, and remember feeling shocked, as I grew up playing monopoly and believ ing that capitalism was good and the ‘American Way.’” For more information visit https:// kupferbergcenter.org/event/ac tion-songs-protest-dances/ Nov. 1-5 – In her BAM debut, the choreographer Stefanie Batten Bland and Company SBB will premiere “Embarqued: Sto ries of Soil,” a new dance-the ater work described as “…an excavation of self and country, created in textiles, skin tones, labor, land, humor, and moving bodies…that centers around a transformative ship mast that invites reflection of our shared history and interrogates our re lationships with memorializa tion, revealing post-colonial foundations and mythologies,” according to the release. For more information visit https:// www.bam.org/embarqued

Nov. 2-13 – Returning for

an in-person presentation of “Chasing Magic,” her 2019 dig ital Joyce debut, the tap dancer Ayodele Casel will again be joined by jazz musician and composer Arturo O’Farrill. Di rected by frequent collaborator Torya Beard—who also served as creative director for Casel’s Joyce debut—“…the piece is an ode to craft and communi ty, a celebratory display of ar tistic encounters that endure no matter when and where you leave them,” according to the release. “Chasing Magic” will also reunite singer/songwrit er Crystal Monee Hall, pianist Anibal Cesar Cruz, and per cussionist Keisel Jimenez, as well as fellow tap artists Naomi Funaki and Amanda Castro. For more information visit https:// www.joyce.org/performances/ ayodele-casel-chasing-magic Nov. 3-5 – In the premiere of “Mapping a Forest while Search ing for an Opposite Term of Ex orcist” for Danspace, Mina Nishimura continues to sketch out an alternate dimension of St. Mark’s Church, where “multiple energies, traits, memories, and identities are fluidly bubbling up and disappearing,” notes the re lease. For more information visit https://danspaceproject.org/ calendar/fall2022-nishimura/ Nov. 4-5 – Camille A. Brown & Dancers concludes the presenta tion of “The Trilogy” with “ink” at The Apollo. Made in 2017, “ink” “…elevates the day-to-day ex perience of Black people—Black love, brotherhood, communi ty—revealing the tender, loving,

vulnerable, and supportive side of Black culture and the resil iency that keeps Black people rising, like superheroes,” notes the release. This performance marks the last for Brown as she moves into choreographing and directing for her company, the ater, opera, and film full-time. “The Trilogy” included “Mr. TOL E. RAncE” (2012) and “BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play” (2015) presented at The Joyce in Octo ber. For more information visit https://www.apollotheater.org/ event/camille-a-brown-danc ers-ink/ Nov. 8 – Kayla Farris concludes a series of performances at The Trisk with a new work in pro cess entitled “Put Away the Fire, Dear,” “a group work dreaming of American cinema into live performance…that reimagines thriller, romance, film noir, and musical theater through story telling, movement, sound score, scene, and text,” notes the re lease. For more information visit https://www.triskelionarts.org/ kayla-farrish-2022

Nov. 9-12 – Emerging cho reographers Alexander An derson and Jie-Hung Connie Shiau (Gibney Company artis tic associates) and Chuck Wilt (UNA Productions artistic di rector) will present new works at Gibney. For more informa tion visit https://gibneydance. org/gibney-presents-newworks-by-alexander-andersonjie-hung-connie-shiau-andchuck-wilt/

Nov. 11-12 – The Burkina Faso choreographer, Serge Aimé

Coulibaly and his Faso Danse Théâtre will premiere “Wakatt,” with live music by Magic Malik Orchestra at NYU Skirball. “Wakatt,” which means “our times” in the Mooré language of Burkina Faso, features 10 danc ers and three musicians and “… examines daily reality and social changes through a dance lan guage that starts from internal violence, human instinct, ur gency and the need to express oneself,” according to the re lease. For more information visit https://nyuskirball.org/events/ faso-danse-theatre-serge-aimecoulibaly-wakatt/ Nov. 12 – NJPAC brings vocal ist Dee Dee Bridgewater and tap dancer Savion Glover together in “Interpretations” for an evening of jazz in solo sets of dance and improvisation. For more infor mation visit https://www.njpac. org/event/dee-dee-bridgewatersavion-glover/ Nov. 15-20 – Garth Fagan Dance is back at The Joyce for the company’s 52nd anniver sary season. Slated for this sea son’s program world premieres by Fagan and Norwood Pen newell and works from the reper tory. For more information visit https://www.joyce.org/perfor mances/garth-fagan-dance Nov. 17-19 – Christopher “Un pezverde” Núñez, a visual ly impaired choreographer and disability advocate, is expanding audio description as an art form in his latest work, “The Circle or Prophetic Dream” “…anthro pological research on how the body and sound inhabit social

space as new forms of nomadism, in the midst of the current international migra tion crisis caused by displacement, cli mate change and land appropriation,” according to the re lease. For more infor mation visit https:// danspaceproject.org/calendar/ fall2022-nunez/ Nov. 18-20 – Alpha-Omega will celebrate their 50th anniversary season at LaMaMa with the pre miere of “Once Upon El Barrio,” conceived and choreographed by artistic director, Enrique Cruz DeJesus. For more information visit https://alphaomegadance. org/at-the-ao/events/ Nov. 18-19 – Miro Maglorie’s New Chamber Ballet will present the world premiere of a yet-tobe-named ballet at Mark Morris Dance Center. For more informa tion visit https://www.newcham berballet.com/performances Nov. 19-22 – For in-person and virtual presentations, chore ographer Roderick George and cellist Seth Parker Woods come together at the 92nd Street Y in the multimedia work “Diffi cult Grace.” For more informa tion visit https://www.92ny.org/ event/seth-parker-woods Nov. 22 - Dec. 4 – COMPLEX IONS Contemporary Ballet comes to the Joyce in Chel sea and celebrates their 28th anniversary season with two programs under co-founding ar tistic directors, Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson. In cluded on the programs will be the world premiere of Rho den’s “Endgame,” and the com pany premiere of a pas de deux from William Forsythe’s “Sling erland,” plus from their reper tory, “Snatched Back from the Edges.” For more information visit https://www.joyce.org/per formances/complexions-con temporary-ballet

Britany Stewart (photo by JulenPhoto)

Martha Redbone (photo by Frances Trombert)

Devin Oshiro (photo by Allison Harp)

Spirit McIntyre (Photo by Taylor DeClue)

Edisa Weeks (photo by Mirembe)

Noni Byrd-Gibbs (photo ZiggyGibbs)

Johnnie Mercer (photo by Torian Ugworji)

Taina Asili (photo by Mike Morgan)

Steven Jeltsch (photo by JulenPhoto)

Questlove to executive produce new J Dilla doc

By JORDANNAH ELIZABETH Special to the AmNews

It has been reported that drum mer, composer and documen tarian, Questlove will executive produce a new documentary highlighting the life and times of seminal hip hop producer, J Dilla. The film, which shares the same title of the 2022 book, “Dilla Time” written by music journal ist Dan Charnas, will cover “‘the brief life and pervasive and large ly uncredited influence of music producer J Dilla.’ Dilla worked with some of hip hop’s biggest names throughout the ’90s and into the early ’00s, including Questlove, as well as Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest, Common and Erykah Badu,” according to the film’s official description.

Amir “Questlove” Thompson and the Root’s production com

pany, Two One Five will rejoin Summer of Soul pro ducer Joseph Patel, who is slated to produce and codirect the film with Darby Wheeler. The wild success “Summer of Soul” won nu merous awards, includ ing the Academy Award for Best Documentary earlier this year.

“Explaining musical genius is my mission. To be able to tell the world about the musician that had the most influence on me is a dream come true,” says a statement from Quest love. “Not just on me, but on an entire generation of musicians that everyone knows and loves. J Dilla was our teacher. And what he taught us was how to feel the rhythm in a way we had never

felt before. I’m so honored to be a part of bringing his story to the

world through this docu mentary.”

“Dilla Time” will be pro duced in cooperation with the estate of James Dewitt Yancey (aka J Dilla), which benefits his two chil dren, younger brother and mother, writes Hollywood Reporter.

J Dilla’s estate shared in a statement it is “proud to give its blessing to an amazing project created by discerning and talent ed filmmakers who knew J Dilla.” The statement con tinues, “We trust the judg ment of Ahmir, Joseph, Dan, and Scenario to ele vate Dilla’s life, music, and legacy to their rightful place in the canon of music’s great innovators; and their film is the only documentary project we

have endorsed.”

The profoundly talented Dilla, who died of a rare blood disease in 2006, sat at the foundation of the neo-soul musical revolution which launched the careers of D’Angela, Erykah Badu and more. Dilla’s deep sense of musical grace and jazzy tonal beats took the world by storm and helped solidify hip hop as a viable and inescapably impressive form of Black music.

Hollywood Reporter states, “Two One Five recently acted as executive producers on doc ‘De scendant’ about the discovery of the last known slave ship to arrive in America illegally transporting enslaved Africans. After a 2022 Sundance premiere, Netflix and President Barack Obama and Mi chelle Obama’s Higher Ground ac quired the film, which is now due for release on Oct. 21.”

New Black books: South Central noir, hip hop history & the ride-or-die complex

By JORDANNAH ELIZABETH Special to the AmNews

Fall 2022 brings an array of diverse and interesting books. The long lin eage of Black literature continues to expand with books that provoke thought and explore the contempo rary history of Black American stories. The history of South Central Los An geles, the beautiful world of hip hop and the stunning journeys of new worlds in Black science fiction books create a colorful and eye-opening ex ploration of the minds of Black writ ers who offer their imagination and personal information to create a new landscape of storytelling.

No one truly knows what will arise from the inner vision of the Black author until their visions, emotions and understanding of history bleed out onto the page. Every book should be absorbed individually and with deep mental and emotional con sideration. The celebration of Black thought continues and will move for ward as we unearth the truth of life and the powerful journeys of Univer sally moving Black books.

The Come Up: An Oral History of the Rise of Hip-Hop by Jonathan Abrams (Penguin Random House)

Author of the New York Times best seller, “All the Pieces Matter: The Inside Story of The Wire,” Jonathan Abrams returns with a compelling

history of hip hop. After conducting over 300 interviews, Abrams writes a nonfiction account of the history of hip hop spanning over several de cades beginning in 1973, when the genre was birthed in the South Bronx in New York City. “Just as jazz did in the first half of the twentieth century, hip-hop and its groundbreaking DJs and artists—nearly all of them people of color from some of America’s most overlooked communities—pushed the boundaries of music to new fron tiers, while transfixing the country’s youth and reshaping fashion, art, and even language,” writes Penguin Random House. Read this book if you’re interested in a deep dive into the historical path of hip hop culture and the key figures that made music the most popular form of musical ex pression in the world.

South Central Noir, anthology (Akashic Books)

“‘The Akashic Noir Series’ forensic study of Southern California sharp ens its focus on one of Los Angeles’ most recognized neighborhoods,” writes Akashic books. This intrigu ing collection features stories by Steph Cha, Nikolas Charles, Tanan arive Due, Larry Fondation, Gar An thony Haywood, Naomi Hirahara, Emory Holmes II, Roberto Lovato, Penny Mickelbury, Gary Phillips, Eric Stone, Jervey Tervalon, Jeri Wester son and Désirée Zamorano. An array

of powerful literary contributions are compiled to create a powerfully writ ten illustration of the predominate ly Black community of South Central Los Angeles. Gary Phillips writes in South Central Noir’s introduction: “Within these pages you’ll find sto ries of those walking the straight and narrow—until something untoward happens. Maybe it’s someone taking a step out of line, getting caught up in circumstances spiraling out of their control. Maybe they’re planning the grift, the grab…whatever it is to fi nally put them over. Other times the steps they take are to get them selves or people they care about out

from under. You’ll find the offerings in these pages are a rich mix of tone— tales told of hope, survival, revenge, and triumph. Excursions beyond the headlines and the hype.”

Ride or Die: A Feminist Manifesto for the Well-Being of Black Women by Shanita Hubbard (Legacy Lit)

Professor of journalism at the Uni versity of Toronto and chair of the Freelance Taskforce for the Nation al Association of Black Journalists, Shanita Hubbard writes an impor tant nonfiction book. In the mem oir-esque book, Hubbard expresses the unfolding of her life and exam

ines the construct of the ride-or-die woman and “argues that this way of life has left Black women exhausted, overworked, overlooked, and feeling depleted,” writes publisher Legacy Lit. “‘Ride or Die’ urges you to expel the myth that your self-worth is con nected to how much labor you pro vide others and guides you toward healing. Using hip hop as a backdrop to explore norms that are harmful to Black women, Hubbard shows the ways you may be unknowingly per petuating this harm within your rela tionships. This book is an urgent call for you to pull the plug on the ride-ordie chick,” Legacy Lit continues.

HOROSCOPES BY KNOWYOURNUMB3RS

By GODDESS KYA

November 3, 2022 — November 9, 2022

Rebirth of A New Nation: The unthinkable, as some say immaculate conception of what is occurring globally, abruptly and in your neck of the woods. The intensity of this full moon lunar eclipse in Taurus at 16 degrees is presence, and your mind is taking a break with Mars in Gemini retrograde calling on your mind to receive and respond to the 411. November is a month of applied pressure, and pressure breaks, pipes and forces things out. Be grounded, listen, and open your heart to love, forgiveness, healing, separation, ending while being connected to mother nature. A time to get out of your own way and uplift yourself with some grit, gumption, and feel-good energy. The moon is conjunct with Uranus in Taurus and Mars retrograde in Gemini indicates electronics not properly working, streetlights not working, possible power outage, contracts ending and a spiritual warfare on your mind/beliefs. The news has so much to say so watch the show at your leisure. Prioritize your needs, wants, plans, agenda, and go deep within to solve issues. Surrender and release old news. Kanye West states in his songs, “Father stretch my hands, you’re the only power that can, God will protect you, I just want to feel liberated, if I ever instigated I’m sorry, tell me who in here can relate.”

This weekly assignment is attached to an important time-sensitive task while tackling the small task upon completion. Time management is a great tool to insert in your daily plans upon organizing and planning to complete certain tasks. Cappy, you are great at being grounded, practical and concentrating on getting things accomplished. Schedule time out for self between tasks so you won’t overload or catch a brain fog. What may seem like a hefty load promises great deeds and rewards at a designated time. November 7-8, startling things are occurring at once. Smile and say cheese!

It’s time to roll up your sleeve, apply some elbow grease, put in the foot work, and use your hand to start building. A cycle to deliver a message and be a helping hand to someone that crosses your path be it a friend, elder, neighbor, or family member. Set the tone as you are building a founda tion and getting your act together. Limitations are gifts sent to remove any toxic, old, updated patterns to push you forward and clear your path. What occurs three days prior and after November 1 will give you hints of new concepts.

Internally there are questions that need answers. Seek within as you meditate or take a moment of silence to find your answer to your so lution. A great week to make room for self-improvement, build your confidence, competence, and have courage to get the things you need done. Ask the universe or someone when you need assistance. Don’t beat around the bush, get straight to the point in a short and sweet dialogue. November 2-3, you are embarking on a new journey.

You have powerful forces surrounding you and it’s time to reexamine your cur rent situation. Meditate and contemplate to nurture your spirit to gain insights from your ancestors sending you messages. You’ve been planning, building, and working on projects in secrecy that are almost complete. Until they’re ready, don’t break the silence. You are evolving into a new version of you and if you resist the pressure the universe will propel you. November 4-5, make a move.

Your name is rolling off people’s tongue, and word of mouth is key this week as people are tuning into your messages. You may feel like you astral travel to meet a particular being to have an imperative dialogue or deliver a message. Who said conversation occurs only in person, or over the phone. Letter, e-mail, the spiritual realm has a phone bank and mailbox and most importantly the universe will summon you for an occasion. Travel to a foreign land and short distance travel to other places including running errands. November 7-8 is the activation of the full moon at 16 degrees in Taurus; listen and be prepared for the assignment at hand.

Mars retrograde in Gemini at 25 degrees on October 30 has you on roll back like prices during special holiday. You are intuitively channeling messages straight from the source. The people who are close to or have a connection with can sense your energy. The way you communicate and respond has a different tone. Any contracts and newfound relation ships developing need a thorough review. Take your time as your drive and will power is in reboot mode sending mixed signals out. Incorporate an exercise program into your schedule to release any tense energy waiting to be released. A few days prior to November 9, schedule solitude time and a good book or magazine to read.

Out of mind out of sight and you are doing what makes you happy no matter what. You are taking a stand to be devoted to you. In the process shed ding comes with the rebuilding of a mature version of you. Incorporate a nice warm bath this week with a foot massage and rub your scalp. Drink plenty of water and hydrated fluids to keep you from having dry mouth. No vember 2-3, change and new directions are occurring.

A month of introspection, partnerships, sudden adventure, and departure is in your forecast. Some form of meeting of the mind is occurring be it telep athy, clairaudience, and intuitively of information or in sync with folk’s emo tions. A cycle of execution, achievement, and fulfillment from past projects you’ve been working on. If there are any issues, be it personal, family or busi ness, it needs to be nipped in the bud before it spreads into the three weeks of the month. Protect your energy this cycle month. November 4-6, in life there are things you just know—no need for explanations.

You are making your dreams real and applying the information and knowl edge to your creation. You have the support, be it your immediate family members, friends, your day one as folk say. Brainstorm the blueprint, then start adding a title for each part and before you realize it you finished out lining the blueprint. Next, gather the resources and inventory to make it happen. Once you have everything, add onto your foundation. The process works like magic and produces results. November 7-8, everything is working out as it should.

Did you receive the message and did you mail off the package? This is a give and receive cycle. Where your ancestors are directing you to do a certain thing or perform a certain task to serve by tithing be it your time, money, in formation, helping and giving to someone in need. What commitment are you making to better your life, plans to set things off on its trajectory to see results. Success, romance, finances, investments, duty, and obligation are dancing to a certain rhythm for you. November 1, play your part and everything will be al right two to three days prior and after the 10th of the month.

The feeling of regeneration is taking place within your body, mind, and spirit so you may feel a shift similar to what occurred November 4-19, 2021. This is a husky cycle that requires husky clothes, shoes, to carry the weight of what’s stored. You sense something magical is happening as you are receiv ing tingling, itching all throughout your body and noticing signs. Take heed of the information. A cycle of ending and outdated patterns and behaviors fading away ushering the new. November 2-3, acknowledge and own the work you put in and the foundation you built thus far. Harvest time is towards the end of the month.

A cycle to fill in the gap by signs, symbols you are receiving, and in formation retrieved through conversations. What seems like a wait and see game this cycle week, ask for what you need. Also investigate as there is a deeper level to understand something you can’t just yet put your finger or mind on. It will be revealed in due time. Keep nurturing yourself, plans, projects, family while speaking love, light, and affirma tion into your life. November 4-6, hug yourself and others as you have the healing sen sation touch and through your presence.

Vinateria

3 tips to avoid travel scams

Travel

The internet brings vacations and getaways to travelers’ fin gertips, but instant access also means vulnerability to fraud sters looking to steal data. Scams such as fake phone numbers on popular search engine results can lead to stolen money or sen sitive personal information like credit card details.

Next time you search the web to book that long-awaited vaca tion, consider these tips from the experts at Expedia to spot, avoid and report scams.

Identify common scams

* Search engine and gift card scams: Fraudsters will buy fake ads with illegitimate contact in formation for well-known com

panies to pose as agents and ensnare people searching for online support numbers. These imposters often request gift cards in exchange for servic es such as a trip refund or flight change, wire transfers or sensi tive personal information. They may even use personal data ob tained from unaware customers to use an itinerary look-up tool and view real trip details in order to gain additional trust.

* Phone call scams: Scammers will sometimes use “spoofing” technology to make telephone numbers appear legitimate then claim a customer won a prize such as cash, a trip or credit for future travel from a trusted travel company. In exchange, these con

vincing scammers may ask for personal information including a name, address, payment informa tion and social security number.

* Email scams: Phishing is a scam criminals use to ask for per sonal information via email by tricking recipients into clicking a link, opening an attachment or di rectly providing the information. When they appear to come from established businesses or organi zations, the emails can be quite convincing, as they sometimes even link to legitimate-looking websites.

When in doubt, end the conver sation

If you think you’ve received a fraudulent phone call or are in

contact with an imposter, hang up or end the conversation immediately.

Do not click any suspicious links or engage further. Double check the sender’s address and delete any suspicious emails. Take note of how you came into contact, such as the phone number you dialed, the contact information displayed and any other identifying information provided by the scammer.

Contact representatives of the company the scammer claimed to represent along with the Feder al Trade Commission and state at torney general.

Trust the experts With a trusted travel group

like Expedia, your experience and safety are the top priorities, meaning representatives won’t request a gift card in exchange for services, call or send an email asking for account passwords, request personal information unrelated to a previous service issue or request wire transfers or payment information through text messages.

If you need help with your trip, visit Expedia.com or use the mobile app for self-service tools like a 24/7 virtual agent so you can easily change or cancel trips, redeem credits and check on the status of a refund, all without having to call in to speak with an agent.

(Image by Vkastro from Pixabay)

AmNews FOOD

Hispanic heritage creates tasty veganized traditions

By BRENIKA BANKS Special to the AmNews

Black bean burgers, plant-based beef empanadas, arepas with plantbased cheese and deep-fried tacos were just some of the Latin dishes featured at this year’s Vegandale Festival held in New York City this September. This year’s fest brought about 150 vendors to Randall’s Island for a full day of food, music and entertainment, including about eight Latin food vendors.

There’s a stereotype that vegan food is “not flavorful,” said Danny Carabano, co-owner of V Spot, a Latin restaurant in Brooklyn that specializes in Colombian and Mex ican comfort food, and a Vegandale vendor since the festival’s founding in 2017. “Latin food just happens to be flavorful,” said Carabano, who runs his restaurant with his brother and co-owner Alex Carabano. The brothers insist that Latin food de rives its flavor from the sauces, not the meat. They aim to prove that Latin vegan food can be as delicious as essential meat-based dishes in Colombian and Mexican cuisine.

The Vegandale festival coincid ed with Hispanic Heritage month, a decades-long celebration of United States Latino culture and history oc curring in the middle of September instead of the beginning to coordi nate with national independence days in several Latin American countries. Blenlly Mena, the owner of Next Stop Vegan, a Dominican restaurant, and another Vegandale vendor, sees a boost in her business during Hispanic Heritage Month. Mena, who is a Bronx native, be lieves a month celebrating Hispan ic Heritage brings Latin cultures and countries together through food. “I believe the importance of Latin food in general is a representation of fun and family,” Mena said.

Latin vegan food is experiencing a surge in popularity—the result of both a growing health conscious ness among Latinos and the growth of the Latino population, which has increased 19.2% in the U.S. to 62.5 million, over the past 11 years. Recent research showing that re placing red meat with other protein sources reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes has helped win vegan con verts among Latinos.

“I felt like I needed to change my diet and when I met Blenlly,

that was the trigger for me,” said Alexander Batista who is Puerto Rican and met Mena, of Next Stop Vegan, during college. He decid ed to try veganism after dealing with severe back problems. Ba tista’s new plant-based lifestyle helped him lose 20 pounds, and has alleviated his back problems, according to him.

High levels of red-meat consump tion also increase the risk of colorec tal, stomach, and pancreatic cancers, as well as diabetes, heart disease and obesity. Close to half of Hispanic men and women aged 20 and over are obese, according to the CDC.

However, only a reported 3% of Latinos stick to a vegan lifestyle.

“We thankfully now see more Latinos going plant-based,” said Alex Carabano, co-owner of the VSpot restaurant. He remembers when Hispanic pedestrians would come into V Spot “disappointed that we didn’t have meat.” Cara bano notices more people becom ing educated on food choices that promote health benefits. “We ac tually get a lot of people who are carnivore/omnivore, but they just want to skip it for a meal & they know they’ll be satisfied with our menu,” Carabano said.

Mena, who began making vegan meals at home and, then, started out selling meal kits to her Instagram fol lowers, now adheres to a strict vegan diet. She started her business in 2017 while she lived overseas.

After moving back home to the Bronx, she started putting a vegan twist on her family’s Domini can, traditionally meat-heavy reci pes such as sancocho (seven-Meat Stew), pollo guisado (braised chick en), as well as empanadas and mo fongo all made with meat. One of Mena’s goals is to satisfy meat-lov ing customers with vegan options that have the meaty textures they’re accustomed to eating. Next Stop Vegan uses vegan alternative beef. The restaurant also makes a unique quinoa mix for empanadas.

Angela Villarreal discovered Next Stop Vegan at Vegandale, this fall, when she was considering cutting back on meat for the sake of her own health. Villarreal called their carne (beef) empanada very deli cious and flavorful. “It was really good. I didn’t miss the meat at all.” Erica Ramos, who opened

Tostones made at Vayalo! Cocina

Arepa with nachos made at Vayalo! Cocina

Katherine Rengifo, owner of Vayalo! Cocina with customer

Vayalo! Cocina preparing food (Brenika Banks photos)

An empanada from V Spot

A burrito from V Spot

Vegandale

Pinche Vegana NYC, in July 2021, drew inspi ration from the loaded nachos, burritos, and tacos dishes her Mexican grandmother used to cook, and adapted them to plant-based recipes. “Everything is created from scratch,” she said. Jackfruit and soy crumbles serve as meat substitutions for her dishes.

Ramos’s menu includes vegan adaptations of burritos, deep fried tacos and enchiladas. “There’s so much flavor in each bite, said Ramos. “You will not walk away missing any flavor, guaranteed.”

Ramos, who visited Vegandale last year for the first time, returned this year with her own tent as an official vendor at the festival. Her white tent sported Mexican flags and a table cloth with her restaurant’s banner on a table. Many eager customers waited in front of her tent for their deep-fried tacos and jackfruit burritos. “I thought, ‘you know what? I have to do this next year.’ So, I’m here,” said Ramos. Food is embedded into Latin cultures during the entire year, not just during Hispanic Her itage Month. “We celebrate our roots every single day; we don’t need an exclusive month to share our food, thoughts and flavors,” said Katherine Rengifo, owner of Venezuelan busi ness, Vayalo! Cocina. She looks past the dif ferences in Spanish countries and focuses on how food provides people with a sense of home. “We try to show people that you can have a delicious meal made with tradition al ingredients and resemble home even if we are not from the same country,” said Rengifo.

Danny Carabano isn’t limiting his celebration of Latino Heritage to just one month in the fall. However, he appreciates the awareness that the Latino Heritage month brings to others who may not be familiar with Latin and Spanish cultures.

V Spot isn’t located in a predominant ly Latino neighborhood. It’s in a West Indian area with many customers who aren’t vegan. Their menu includes Colombian “Bandeja Paisa” plate with crispy chicharrones, Mexican ground seitan seasoned carne molida burri tos, crispy empanadas, and marinara Lasagna.

“You don’t have to be vegan to enjoy our tasty comfort food,” said Alex Carabano. Nor, ap parently, do you have to be Latino to enjoy the restaurant’s vegan-twist on Latin staples.

Continued from page 22

Vegandale 2022 sign on Randall’s Island (Brenika Banks photos)

Erica Ramos, owner of Pinche Vegana NYC.

Dominican restaurant Next Stop Vegan

Blenlly Mena, owner of Next Stop Vegan

Mini vegan sliders made from bean patties at Next Stop Vegan

Pinche Vegana NYC’s deepfried tacos

Mexican restaurant Pinche Vegana NYC with a customer

Rafee Kamaal, whose primary goal as an entrepreneur and television producer was to enrich the lives of African Americans and the Diaspora with such television shows as “In the Black: Keys to Success” one of the first finan cial empowerment and healthcare series of its kind, made his transition on October 3, in Mt. Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. He was 75.

His nephew Kyle Williams confirmed, Kamaal died after a long bout with NonHodgkin’s Lymphoma.

Kamaal was a man of integrity, a gentle man, who only had positive things to say and was willing to assist or give advice to those in the business, as well as friends or family who just needed a comforting ear. He had over 40 years in the entertainment field as the found er and CEO of RAKA Communications, Inc., a multimedia marketing, distribution and pro duction company. The company created a multi-platform, multicultural, multigenera tional, healthy aging, wealth accumulation, longevity enhancing, video streaming tele vision network, and e-commerce service. “A true Gentlemen, a true Friend and Great In spirator for over 51 years,” stated Carlos Mar tinez, associate and friend.

His name never became a household word but throughout his career he remained the quiet warrior opening doors in the industry for future generations while earning a repu tation as a dedicated creative force. He noted, “Back then I learned everything so I wouldn’t have to depend on anyone. I probably would have never been involved in the business if it wasn’t for Cliff Frazier and Third World Cinema and the Institute of New Cinema Art ists (INCA), where I learned everything from directing to producing and much more.”

Following his completion of Third World Cinema, he was successful in landing posi tions on two major films, first as a trainee on “Super Fly” (1972) that starred Ron O’Neal, directed by Gordon Parks and produced by Sig Shore. It was the highest-grossing blaxploitation film at the time. The film’s soundtrack by Curtis Mayfield was one of the most popular to this day. The Harlem community backed “Super Fly” finan cially, and a number of Black businesses helped with the production costs.

Following “Super Fly,” he was a trainee on “Across 110th Street,” also filmed in Harlem (1972), that starred Anthony Quinn with ex ecutive producers, Yaphet Koto and Anthony Franciosa. The film’s soundtrack featured the hit single by the same name sung by Bobby Womack. “I was basically a gopher on both films but I learned a lot being exposed to the many aspects of film making but I was making very little money,” stated Kamaal during one of our many conversations.

Following his film experience, he was

looking for new projects when he came across an article in the Amsterdam News about a husband and wife production team, Fred and Felicidad Dukes. “I really liked what they were doing and their Black perspective, so I followed up with a phone call and letter,” said Kamaal. “I hounded them for six months before they finally de cided to give me a chance.”

He worked with them as an associate pro ducer on the teen-dance series “Soul Alive” (WPIX-TV) featuring Black teens from vari ous NYC high schools. The show, hosted by popular radio DJ Gerry Bledsoe, was a big hit in the Black community; the teens loved the show. “Soul Alive” also featured live perfor mances by such artists as Al Green and was the first dance show to show videos which was at least eight years before the start of MTV or BET. From 1980-84, he worked with the Dukes as a consulting producer on “To day’s Black Woman” (ABC-TV). It was the first national talk show to be hosted by a Black woman, Freida Payne. Kamaal had noted, “Oprah Winfrey didn’t appear on the TV scene until seven years later.” He also worked on the Miss Black America and New York State Beauty Pageants with the Dukes.

Rafee Kamaal was born William “Bill” A. Easley on January 2, 1947, to William A. Easley Sr. and Sylvia Gwynneth Edmead, in Manhat tan where he was raised in Dyckman Houses and graduated from George Washington High School. He was attending Manhattan Com munity College majoring in business when

he was drafted into the U.S. Army. Not being a fan of the Vietnam War and the racist social structure, Kamaal managed to get an honor able discharge within six months. Returning to New York he studied at The Lawrence N. Field Center of Entrepreneurship at Baruch College, while working on Wall Street as an accountant. Some years later, after carefully studying and adopting the religion of Islam, Easley changed his name to Rafee Kamaal.

During the early 1970s through 1978 he promoted dances with his friends Stan Smith, Baron Moss and Jose Ibanez (the latter two were high school classmates) at downtown Manhattan clubs like Barney Goggles and Act I which was a penthouse at 10 West 42nd Street (the building noted for the New Year’s Eve Ball dropping). The weekly Sunday night event brought to gether a host of Black models and celebri ties like Walt Frazier of the New York Knicks and designers like Bert Middleton. “Ka maal’s energy will always be in the hearts of those who remember his smile,” said Tony Rogers, consultant and friend.

During 1976, when the world-famous Apollo Theater was under the ownership of Guy Fisher, Kamaal co-produced a series of music/variety specials from the Theater (Westinghouse Broadcasting/Group W), bringing in such acts as the Clarke Sisters, Stephanie Mills and Cab Calloway. He was offered a deal to purchase the theater but was unable to come up with the required fi nancial package to secure the deal. “Scott, I

don’t have a lot of regrets but not getting that deal is definitely one,” said Kamaal.

He was constantly working on a number of projects, noting the more irons in the fire, the better. During the years he remained close with his childhood friend from the Dyckman Houses Lew Alcindor, who eventually after studying the Muslim religion changed his name to Kareem Abdul Jabbar. Together the two traveled the world, the NBA all-star conducting sports clinics while Kamaal was the associate producer. He was the coproducer on Jabbar’s NAACP award win ning documentary “On the Shoulders of Giants” (Showtime, Netflix).

In 1984 Kamaal was the senior produc er/writer/ director/marketing executive on “In The Black: Keys to Success,” a finan cial empowerment and healthcare series on WWOR-TV. The 30-minute show was very successful and lasted for ten years until 1994. The program was ahead of its time and is relevant enough to still be on-air. Carolyn Jones, advertising consultant, was the host. Some of these shows are currently in the Smithsonian. The show was discon tinued due to a lack of sponsors.

He was the producer on a series of interna tional tourism profiles (Bahamas Television), “That Teen Show,” a teen issue-oriented series on NBC-TV, as well as assignments on a number of documentaries that included senior producer on a Queen Latifah doc, field producer on a Marilyn Monroe doc and su pervising producer on a Reba McEntire doc, all for Lifetime Network. He was the execu tive producer of “Jazz Visions” (TV series) in 2016. He was an avid jazz fan.

As an executive producer Kamaal created innovative video documentary DVDs that would do well in today’s market such as “How to Start Your Own Successful Business”; “How to Find Employment”; “How to Stay Healthy, Live Longer & Cut Your Medical Costs.”

Kamaal was busy working on multiple projects until his untimely passing which included a book entitled “Take the A Train” with Mal Woolfolk, Carlos Martinez and Ron Scott, that project will continue; and an inter national project JCAN.TV (Jazzy Cultural Arts Network). You can still visit the website to see the scope of Kamaal’s creative vision.

He was a board president at the Helping Others Alliance, Inc., co-chair of the Black Documentary Collective and on the Board of the International Communications Asso ciation/The Dwyer Cultural Center.

His mission was to engage, inspire, ed ucate, empower, entertain and enrich the lives of people globally.

Kamaal is survived by his son Rami Camp bell of Los Angeles; sister Trudy Myles of Tampa, Fla.; loving partner Laverne Wright of Westbury, N.Y.; nephews Kyle Williams of Hamden, Conn. and Jabari Donawa of Bronx, N.Y. He is also survived by a host of loving cousins and friends.

A celebration of Kamaal’s life will be held November 5 (4 p.m.-8 p.m.) at the Dwyer Cultural Center (309 West 123rd Street be tween 8th and St. Nicholas avenues).

ARTS

Rafee Kamaal (Photo courtesy by family member)

Bertha Gober, a civil rights activist with a golden voice and powerful pen

By HERB BOYD Special to the AmNews

The recent death of civil rights legend Charles Sherrod, who we profiled in last week’s column, summons a gallery of young people in the South who risked death in their defiance of Jim Crow laws. A precious few are still with us, including Bertha Gober, who like Sherrod was one of the Freedom Singers from Albany State College. Like her col leagues, Gober was drawn to the movement while still a student and joined them in direct action against segregation, subsequent ly becoming a member of the NAACP Youth Council and then with Student Nonviolent Coordi nating Committee in 1961.

She was among several students who heeded the call of Sherrod and Cordell Reagon when they visited the campus recruiting stu dents to work in the movement. Gober was further prompted to action after three high school stu dents were arrested for refusing to leave an all-white dining room at the Trailways bus station. Later, she and another student, Blan ton Hall, were arrested. She was 19 years old.

Gober and Hall refused bail and were expelled from college. This provoked student demon

strations outside the home of the school’s president, and this was followed by a mass rally at Mount Zion Baptist Church. Upon re lease from jail, Gober addressed a crowd and delivered power ful testimony on her experience while incarcerated. Her speech was so moving that it inspired a massive turnout of students as they marched from dormito ry to dormitory, expressing their grievances. Two weeks later she was part of a demonstration on Jackson Street, and soon many of them were arrested, including Gober who was found back in the same jail of her previous arrest. The cells were overcrowded, in fested with vermin, with water fountains over toilet seats, and soiled mattresses that were re moved, leaving them to sleep on metal bunks.

She joined Janie Culbreth in song as they put music to Cul breth’s lyrics: “Oh Pritchett, Oh Kelley/open them cells…I hear God’s children/praying in jail/ Freedom, Freedom, Freedom,” referencing the sheriff and the mayor. Immediately they were joined by a chorus of others in the jail as their voices resound ed from corridor to corridor, from cell to cell. In 1963, Gober penned her own song, “We’ll Never Turn back,” written after

Gober composed this and other songs while work ing as a secretary of SNCC and later as a member of the Freedom Sing ers. In this capacity, she traveled around the country, rais ing awareness and funds for the fight against injustice. Their songs were uplifting, and many activ ists felt renewed in their com mitment after hearing chorus after chorus from the singers. And this may have been an op portunity for Gober to rehearse her song, which we offer here and that was a version record ed by Mavis Staples. “We’ve been ’buked and we’ve been scorned, we’ve been talked about; sure as you’re born. But we’ll never turn back, but we’ll never turn back, until we have all been free. We have walked through the shadow of death; we had to walk it all by ourselves, but we’ll never turn back, until we have all been free. Until we have all been free, and we have equality. We have hung our heads and cried, cried for the ones who had to die/died for you and died for me, died for the cost of equality. But we’ll never turn back; until we have all been free/No, we’ll never turn back/ No, we’ll never turn back.”

ACTIVITIES

the murder of Her bert Lee in Missis sippi. One music journalist defined the song as “part lament, part prayer, part battle cry.” In many respects, it possessed an an them-like quality and was often sung at SNCC gatherings.

In effect, Gober’s incident sparked the Albany Movement that eventually grew to have an impact on the city’s white news papers which were boycotted to the extent they had to close down. The movement became so intense that soon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Rev. Ralph Abernathy came to town.

But their arrival and commit ment did little to diminish Sher iff Pritchett’s tactic of arresting protesters without the brutal ap proach that had occurred else where in the South. An overall assessment is that the Albany Movement did not remove some of the age-old Jim Crow barri ers but the inspiration provid ed by the singers and the songs of Albany would in the long run prove beneficial, and to this end Gober’s creativity was crucial. She was fondly recalled by An nette Jones White during her memories of Rev. Dr. Janie Cul breth-Rambeau at her funeral in 2017. “Janie and I,” White said, “were receptive to his ideas [Dr. King] and nonviolent philoso phy and the two of us walked to SNCC’s office every morning to hear more and to do office chores. We lived in West Albany and were close to the location of the office. Bernice [Reagon] lived in East Albany and did not always have transportation, so she could not come to the office as soon or as often as Janie and I could. The college administra tion forbade Sherrod to come back to campus, but he came. He told us he was organizing meetings for students who were interested in becoming nonvio lent canvassers. He came to our NAACP Youth Council meeting and told of SNCC’s philosophy of nonviolent protest marches and ‘jail without bail.’ Janie was very impressed. Later, she, Bernice, Bertha Gober, Blanton Hall, and I switched our allegiances from the Youth Council to SNCC, al though we remained members of the Youth Council…Janie, Bernice, and I attended the first meetings that Sherrod held at Bethel Church and became mem bers of a committee to recruit students to become canvassers. Bertha Gober and Blanton Hall also joined the committee. Sher rod and Reagon also taught us ‘Freedom Songs.’”

While Bertha is still with us, her husband, Dorvan, is not. He died on Dec. 28, 2021, at 86. He retired after being self-employed and was a cattle farmer.

FIND OUT MORE

Most books on the Civil Rights Movement, partic ularly those that give con siderable attention to the Albany Movement, will in variably mention Gober.

DISCUSSION

Since she’s still alive, we were able to locate the vital statistics about her and her early years.

PLACE IN CONTEXT

She began to get atten tion once she arrived in Albany and refused to abide by the Jim Crow laws, in fact openly de fying them.

CLASSROOMIN THE THIS WEEK IN BLACK HISTORY

Nov. 1, 1901: Gram bling State College was founded in 1901.

Nov. 1, 1945: The first edition of Ebony maga zine was published.

Nov. 1, 1954: The Alge rian rebellion began.

Bertha Gober in jail in the early ’60s (Photo courtesy of Anti-war songs)

Education

More than 104,000 NYC students were homeless this past school year—and that’s just the tip of iceberg

“The educational outcomes for youth in shelters are divisible,” said Jennifer Pringle, a project di rector at Advocates for Children of New York. “In 2020-21, students dropped out of high school more than three times the rate of their permanently housed peers. And only 60% graduated in four years compared to 82% of their perma nently housed peers.”

Then there’s the issue of atten dance. Roughly 64% of unhoused students are chronically absent— defined as missing 10% or more of classes. According to Pringle, that’s double the percentage of their permanently housed peers.

temporary housing. Additionally, the department is still finishing the hiring process for 100 shelterbased school staff.

By TANDY LAU Amsterdam News Staff, Report for America Corps Member

There were enough unhoused youth in New York City’s public school system to fill out the seats of two Yankee Stadiums this past academic year, finds nonprof it Advocates for Children of New York via data from the New York State Education Department. But the rough count of 104,000 NYC students experiencing homeless ness is quite literally a ballpark figure.

“We know it’s a really dramat ic undercount,” said VOCAL-NY Housing Campaign Coordinator Joe Loonam. “It’s a school year count, not a calendar year count and the vast majority of migrants, a ton of whom are our schoolaged children, started coming [in] September and October and there’s been hundreds of thou sands of evictions pending in housing court, all of which are getting processed very slowly.”

Yet the state education depart ment’s numbers may paint the fullest picture of homelessness in New York City, says Loonam. Other counts typically fixate on populations housed by the De partment of Homeless Services.

But only around 27% of unhoused students in the report are living in city shelters. They’re more likely to be “doubled up” in shared, over crowded situations due to loss of

housing, economic hardship or other similar circumstances.

“There is a population that is not readily recognized, because they had a regular address not iden tified as a shelter,” said former Council Member and long-time educator Inez Barron. “But it’s an address of a family that is sharing their living accommodations…so we really don’t even know the full extent of children who don’t have their own permanent residence.”

Another roughly 5,500 young sters were completely unshel tered, living in cars, parks or abandoned buildings through out the “Big Apple.” But the tallies only account for a small sample size of the city’s homeless num bers.

“You’re not looking at their par ents and you’re not looking at in dividual adults or adult families who are all also doing all three of those things,” adds Loonam. “This is the most holistic census we do, but it’s for a very, very small por tion of the overall population and we really don’t have a sense of how many people are homeless in the city at all.”

This is the seventh straight year unhoused student counts reached six-figures. Enrollment is down this year, but the education de partment tallied a 3,000 increase in youngsters experiencing home lessness this year. It goes without saying housing insecurity feeds into classroom performance.

She adds 40% of families in shel ter are placed in a different bor ough from where their kids attend school. Before students can take algebra and geometry, their par ents are often faced with the cal culus of choosing between taking them to school or attending a housing appointment. Pringle, who oversees AFC’s Project LIT—a program assisting youngsters ex periencing homelessness in the classroom—says her work often involves shelter transfers closer to the appropriate school.

And speaking of Yankee Stadi um, school district 9—home to the world-famous ballpark—leads the city in student homelessness rates in the 2021-22 school year with 1-in-5 enrolled living in tem porary shelter. The rest of the Bronx faces similar challenges as the borough easily sees the high est-estimated rates of student homelessness throughout the city. But district 24—which encom passes Queens neighborhoods in Corona, Elmhurst, Maspeth and Ridgewood—faces the larg est hike, with an over 20% rise in unhoused students despite drop ping enrollment numbers.

A city education department spokesperson says it employs roughly 350 staff members to support unhoused students and their families. Of those employ ees, there are 100 social workers who provide mental health assis tance and referrals to other ser vices. The DOE spokesperson also mentions the city is looking to fill five regional manager va cancies in support for students in

But counts will rise even higher with the influx of Central and South American migrant students entering the city’s shelter system and other temporary housing sit uations due to southern border state officials busing them to New York City over the past few months. This past Monday, a rally held by the New York Immigra tion Coalition at Tweed Court house by City Hall demanded further school funding for chil dren seeking asylum. City Coun cil Committee on Education Chair Rita Joseph said the aforemen tioned shelter-based school staff are needed more than ever.

“More and more we need for them to provide the support,” she said. “Hire the shelter base coor dinators to help our students nav igate. We can’t wait to make sure we are supporting the new New York with open arms.”

The city also announced it’s sending $2,000 to schools with six or more newly-arrived students in temporary housing. At the rally, city Comptroller Brad Lander— who arrived in his Halloween cos tume dressed as a video game controller—felt more needed to be done.

“If we’re going by Fair Student Funding (FSF) today, then we would be sending about $7,000 to every one of these schools for each of those students,” said Lander. “That’s what Fair Student Funding dictates and you can’t really say it’s all about fair student funding when you’re cutting our schools budgets, and then not go with what Fair Student Funding would require.”

Given the budget ossified prior to the school year and the sub sequent bussing from southern border states of asylum seekers to New York City, new census data will need to be submitted to re flect the influx of newly arrived students.

Rita Rodriquez-Engberg, who directs the Immigrant Students Rights Project at Advocates for Children of New York also spoke at the rally, and told the NY Amster

dam News there was a more pro nounced importance for newly arrived unhoused students to appear in counts with funding on the line. Additionally, she high lighted specific needs by older students during the rally.

“Our newly-arrived older new comer youth—ages 16 to 21— have very specific needs and have very little time to graduate before they age out of our school system,” said Rodriquez-Engberg. “We know that there are schools in the city that are well equipped to handle this population of stu dents. They’re called the English language learner transfer schools. However, there are only five of these schools in the city. And they are [all] in Manhattan [except] one in the Bronx.

“So imagine if you’re a youth who’s new to the country, you live in Queens, good luck, you’re not going to get there. It’s going to take you two hours from Far Rockaway to get to the one in the Bronx. And we can’t ask a 16-yearold [or] an 18-year-old [to] make that commute two times a day to be able to get an education that’s appropriate for them, that’s cul turally adequate.”

Barron called the $2,000 inade quate and insulting, saying anoth er $7-8,000 per student is needed. And bilingual teachers are also necessary, not only for the in creased Spanish-speaking pop ulation but also for an influx of newly arrived Haitian students in Brooklyn. And most importantly, she says reducing the education budget was a massive mistake by Mayor Eric Adams and city coun cil proponents.

“To do that on behalf of chil dren [gives] them a great disser vice,” said Barron. “We’ll see how they tried to correct that now with the budget mod that’s coming this month of November.”

Tandy Lau is a Report for Ameri ca corps member and writes about public safety for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consid er making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting:

Concourse Village Elementary School during Mayor Eric Adams’ and Chancellor David Banks’ visit (Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

Climate Justice

but not on helping families of color repair bayside bulkheads and reinforcing infrastructure as planned with federal funding.

“I think it’s a racial justice issue,” said Anderson. “If the bay was as profitable as the boardwalk it would’ve been fixed 10 years ago. That’s the reality. But because it’s poor, working class, civil servants, Black, brown, and Asian, it is the way that it is today. We can course correct once all agencies begin

Exonerated

malicious prosecution filed by Aziz and the estate of Islam back in July. Part of the suit included denial of due process rights and government misconduct. They also filed two multimillion-dollar lawsuits in December 2021 tar geting the state.

It was widely discussed among those familiar with the assassination that the trial was inadequately deliberated and that key witnesses were not called, and that the case was in sufficiently investigated. Some of these miscarriages of justice

Buy

things we’re prioritizing is to become more energy efficient,” said Hankins.

The second bill is the TOPA Resolution, sponsored by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, which calls on the state to pass the Tenant Opportunity to Pur chase Act. The Purchase Act gives tenants a first right to col lectively buy their buildings when landlords sell. And lastly, the Public Land for Public Good requires the city to give public land for affordable housing through not-for-profit develop ers and CLTs.

“If you have someone who’s a legacy family who no longer wants to live in the community for whatever reason, go to the block association first and give them the ‘right of first refusal,’” said Assemblymember Stefani Zinerman on pooling com munity resources. “Somebody might not be able to meet your

to coordinate and respect these neighborhoods.”

When Watson returned home she found her apartment utterly destroyed except for a high cabi net that had her wedding photos in them. She was pregnant at the time, and had to spend the next nine months with her family strug gling to find housing going to work. She said that the non-profit Red Cross was able to give her emer gency assistance and housing.

“When they called me for the apartment I had just got out the hospital. In so much pain be cause I had a Cesarean but I had to go to this appointment,” said Watson. “With my stitches and my staples, I pulled it together and went to look at this apart ment they were giving me.”

Watson’s story about help coming months to years later un fortunately isn’t uncommon, nor is cold or dismissive treatment from government agencies.

Chakka Baptiste, 50, an Airforce vet and Department of Trans portation employee, owned his

“dream house” in Arverne. He said that during the storm he was trapped in the second floor hall way with his dogs for almost three hours, waiting for the waters to recede. Baptiste said that he ap plied for the Build It Back program in 2013 and didn’t get an inspec tion done for the construction until 2015, which landed on the day of his mother’s funeral.

“I told them, I said I’m bury ing my mother today and they told me that if I don’t take this appointment they were going to push me to the back of the list,” said Baptiste.

Ariama C. Long is a Report for America corps member and writes about culture and politics in New York City for The Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing sto ries like this one; please consid er making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting: https://bit.ly/amnews1

This article was written as part of the 2022 NY State Elections Re porting Fellowship of the Center for Community Media at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Jour nalism at CUNY.

were echoed by Vance during his statement that the NYPD and the FBI had made “serious, unacceptable violations of the law and the public trust.”

Even after Talmadge Hayer (now Mujahid Abdul Halim), who along with Aziz and Islam was convicted, confessed to the crime it had no bearing on the outcome. He was shot by Malcolm X’s bodyguard Ruben Francis as the assassination un folded. During trial he testified that his co-defendants weren’t involved. In 1978 he named four co-assassins in an affi davit, and the case still wasn’t reopened.

Despite broadcasts by Gil No

$2 million dollar price, but it’s a nice investment for ten families on the block to buy the house. They can get residual income and they also get to control their neighbors.”

Meanwhile in upstate New York, housing initiatives like Buy The Block in Rochester build new single-family homes for lowincome residents with afford able mortgages. The city-funded program aids current and new homeowners who spend only 30% of their income on housing. Some buyers from downstate are taking advantage of the pro gram, but the hope is that a sim ilar program can eventually be replicated in the city.

Ariama C. Long is a Report for America corps member and writes about culture and poli tics in New York City for The Am sterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a taxdeductible gift of any amount today by visiting: https://bit.ly/ amnews1

ble’s television show “Like It Is” and numerous documenta ries divulging this info decades ago, the case wasn’t reinvesti gated until 2020’s “Who Killed Malcolm X?” Netflix documen tary rekindled interest.

Vance vacated the convictions last November, citing “newly discovered evidence and the failure to disclose exculpatory evidence.” He also apologized on the NYPD’s and FBI’s behalf for what he called “serious, un acceptable violations of the law and the public trust.”

That same month, State Su preme Court judge Ellen N. Biben, who had granted the exoneration motions, said, “I

regret that this court cannot fully undo the serious miscar riages of justice in this case and give you back the many years that were lost.”

“Muhammad Aziz, Khalil Islam, and their families suf fered because of these unjust convictions for more than 50 years,” said Shanies, adding that the settlements send a message that “police and pros ecutorial misconduct cause tre mendous damage, and we must remain vigilant to identify and correct injustices.”

“Muhammad Aziz and Khalil Islam were wrongfully con victed and imprisoned for de cades—42 years between

them—as the result of outra geous government misconduct and violations of their consti tutional rights,” Shanies said in July. “Justice delayed for far too long is justice denied.”

Being cleared and compen sated of one of the most infa mous political assassinations of the Civil Rights era. “It’s tragic that he died never know ing that his name would be cleared,” Shanies said.

Khalil Islam II declined the AmNews ’ request to comment on the settlement. “If God is on your side,” Aziz said during an interview in February, “it doesn’t matter who’s against you. God’s on my side.”

Metro Briefs

CLSJ rallies young Black voters to the polls

The Center for Law and Social Jus tice (CLSJ) gathered to support and galvanize local voters ahead of Elec tion Day on Wednesday in Brooklyn.

CLSJ encouraged Black and brown New Yorkers, particularly young adults of voting age, to be civically engaged by heading to the ballot box. The rally promoted early voting and the need for the city’s youth of African descent to turn out while also high lighting the three NYC Ballot Initia tives introduced by the Racial Justice Commission as part of its ‘Our Future Our Vote’ young voters initiative.

Executive Director Lurie Daniel Favors, Esq., Voting Rights Coor dinator Isaiah Fenichel, and other community leaders and activists ad dressed the need for increased polit ical participation in all forms from young voters to continue building upon the legacy of Medgar Evers and all those dedicated to fighting for Black lives.

(Contributed photo from East New York Community Land Trust)

Religion & Spirituality

The Rev. Dr. Calvin O. Butts III, venerable pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church, passes at 73

Mayor Rudy Giuliani from turning Harlem “into a police state.” Rev. Butts incurred the wrath of many Harlemites again when he en dorsed Michael Bloomberg over Bill Thompson in 2008.

By HERB BOYD

Special to the AmNews

An announcement that the Rev. Dr. Calvin O. Butts III had died on Friday morning, Oct. 28, res onated with sorrow across social media and news networks. For more than a generation, the ven erable Rev. Butts was the pastor at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, and was totally involved in the community’s social, politi cal and economic welfare. He was 73 and had been battling cancer, according to close associates.

His passing has evoked a number of encomiums and among the first came from the Rev. Al Sharpton, founder and president of the Na tional Action Network. “Rev. Butts was a major pillar in the Harlem community and is irreplaceable. He was a dominant faith and ac ademic leader for decades. We knew each other for more than 40 years, and while we did not always agree we always came back to gether. Over the last three years, he and I worked closely as cochairs of the Choose Healthy Life national campaign to help the

Black community fight COVID. We spoke as late as a couple of weeks ago about this work, as he was still fighting cancer. He will be tremen dously missed.”

Gov. Kathy Hochul expressed her sentiments in a statement, sa luting Dr. Butts as a “tremendous leader who served our state, our city and our nation with grace, dig nity and passion,” and noting his leadership in other capacities. “Dr. Butts was a force for moral clari ty, a voice for his Harlem commu nity, a counselor to so many of us in public service and I was proud to call him a friend,” she contin ued. “Bill and I are praying for his wife, Patricia Butts, children, and grandchildren and for all New Yorkers who have felt the impact of Dr. Butts’ visionary leadership. We will miss him greatly.”

During his remarkable tenure as the church’s leader, Rev. Butts was a tireless advocate for affordable housing through the Abyssinian Development Corporation, a nonprofit organization he established in 1989. Under his guidance the corporation raised $2.8 million

to purchase and renovate proper ty to be used as a homeless shel ter. Also, he oversaw the building of a large apartment complex for senior citizens and apartments for moderate income households. Much of this was done with the Partnership of New York City pro gram.

Though he was born on July 19, 1949, in Bridgeport, Conn., Rev. Butts spent most of his lifetime in New York, beginning in early childhood and it is where he re ceived his primary education, including graduation from Flush ing High School in 1967. In high school he was a promising athlete and scholar as a member of the track team and president of his senior class.

In 2005, he was interviewed by “HistoryMakers,” and said that in 1972 he received his B.A. degree from Morehouse College. While a student there, he pledged to the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity and was active in civil rights. After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Rev. Butts and several other Morehouse students took to

the streets in anger. After gradua tion, Butts returned to New York where he earned his master of di vinity degree in church history in 1975 from Union Theological Seminary and later his doctorate of ministry in church and public policy from Drew University. He was still in graduate school when he was hired to work at Abyssini an Baptist Church, starting as an office assistant and worked his way up to assistant pastor, even tually being named head pastor in 1989.

Following in the enormous foot prints of the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and Rev. Samuel Proc tor was a formidable task, but one Rev. Butts soon accomplished with sterling results, however not without a few political hic cups. Most memorable for some community activists and mem bers of his congregation was his endorsement of the Republican Party’s George Pataki in his reelection campaign in 1998. Cur rent Councilman Charles Barron was among the protesters, charg ing that Pataki failed to stop

Despite the rancor from dis senters, Rev. Butts forged ahead with a sundry of community de velopments and put his leader ship stamp on such institutions as the State University of New York at Old Westbury, where he served as president from 1999 to 2020. Among his achievements at the college was its investment of approximately $150 million in capital projects, technological advances, residence halls, and a major academic building.

A good portion of his impres sive resume relates to academic and religious affairs, most nota bly as an adjunct professor in the African Studies Department at City College, New York, and Black Church History at Fordham Uni versity. He was widely sought after for appearances on the lecture cir cuit where his expertise on educa tion and ethical issues earned him a national reputation.

What he said about his friend and neighbor the eminent jour nalist Les Payne during his eulogy, applies aptly to him, “he was a truth teller…searching for the truth and God took him… and left you a legacy that you can be proud of.” Testaments of Rev. Butts’ legacy abound in Harlem and other parts of the world that received his passion and commit ment to the health and welfare of a community.

In subsequent stories we will update on funeral services and other information about his pass ing and his family that includes his wife, Patricia, three children and six grandchildren.

(Bill Moore photos)

Money

New York City, Democrats outnumber Re publicans 7-to-1. So a Republican running in a progressive assembly or senate district in the city will face an “almost insurmount able obstacle that money cannot fix.” Long story short, you have to have some good ideas that resonate with voters.

Assemblymember Mathylde Frontus rep resents the 46th Assembly District in Coney Island and Sea Gateparts of Bath Beach, Bay Ridge, Brighton Beach, Dyker Heights and Gravesend in Brooklyn. Frontus is one of the first Black women in the city to win a seat in a majority white district and tra ditionally Republican district. She was first elected in a special election back in 2018 and has had pretty narrow and heated races to hold onto her seat since.

“My campaigns have never been awash in money. They just never have. When I ran in 2018, we always felt like the little engine that could. It was a very scrappy and grass roots campaign,” said Frontus.“For my op ponent on the other hand, it was like night and day. Everything was taken care of. They had a fancy consulting firm, mailers, maxed out donations, and that didn’t bother me one way.”

Frontus ended up raising about $103,750 in reporting year 2018, while Working Fam ilies Party candidate Ethan Lustig-Elgrably had $130,523 in contributions and Repub lican Steven Saperstein had $80,772 in con tributions. She compared fundraising to operating a small business, paying salaries and managing cash flow. In the beginning as a newcomer, she remembers accepting checks from all sources, but now that she’s an incumbent she is more discerning and on occasion has sent money back to a par ticular donor.

In 2020’s reporting year, she raised about $19,959 and so far this year about $59,465 in contributions. She said she truly believes in the people’s choice and isn’t worried about going into the general election this November against Republican candidate Alec Brook-Krasny. She added that most of her donors are working class on one side of the district and more affluent on the other which is starkly represented in how much people can donate.

“Money is mother’s milk,” said Sen. Kevin Parker about fundraising. “Not a sole de terminant. You have to have enough for messaging. You can have a lot and still be spending it wrong.”

Parker is a 20-year veteran in politics, a lifelong Brooklynite, and has held his seat in the 21st Senatorial District through two cycles of redistricting. Due to this year’s court-ordered redistricted maps, the dis trict now covers the Flatbush, East Flat bush, Ditmas Park, Flatlands, Marine Park, and Bergen Beach neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Parker was challenged in the August primary by Kaegan Mays-Wil liams and Democratic Socialists of Amer

ica backed candidate David Alexis. As an incumbent he al ready had a clear advantage based on name recognition and legislative record.

In 2020’s Senate election Parker raised about $79,570 in total contributions. Going into the general election, he raised about $507,141 for this reporting year (starts in Jan uary) in contributions. His challenger Alexis raised about $565,744 this reporting year in contributions and still lost the Democratic primary to Parker. Mays-Williams raised about $80,548 in contributions.

Ketcham explained that money is neces sary “but not sufficient to win elections.” He said it can help build name recogni tion, momentum, and a talented campaign team, but it can’t overcome other disadvan tages.

“Money doesn’t guarantee a win in pri maries,” said Ketcham. “These low-turn out elections reward those who can best mobilize ideological supporters and inter est groups.”

Ketcham said that another good exam ple is August’s primary for Senate District 59 in Queens. Elizabeth Crowley, a former two-term Councilmember, was endorsed by Mayor Eric Adams and Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, yet she was still defeated by DSA-backed candidate Kristen Gonza lez, 27. Crowley had raised about $651,267 in contributions a month before the elec tion. Gonzalez had $249,290 in contribu tions this reporting year. Ketcham said because of low turnout to the polls, less than 20%, Gonzalez won with about 13,000 votes compared with the roughly 7,000 for Crowley.

A few candidates and experts highlighted the financing system itself as a barrier to di versity and they’re genuinely excited to see the public financing program take effect for state elections.

“It does level the playing field because there are people in office, incumbents and sometimes others, that come to this space with a lot of resources for petitioning, mes saging, and then challenging the peti tions submitted,“ said Assemblymember Al Taylor. “People I represent for the most part cannot afford to play in the financial arena in terms of giving.”

Taylor was elected in a special election in 2017 in the 71st Assembly District cover ing Hamilton Heights, Harlem, and Wash ington Heights in Manhattan. He believes there’s no amount of money that can guar antee a win, it’s about the will of the people who vote. He conceded that if you’re not an incumbent a candidate can face much greater challenges without money. In those cases, connections with the community and messaging are more important than how much is raised, especially in racial voting blocs in Black and brown commu nities that are hard to reach, he said. Taylor is running for re-election in Assembly but

he’s “kicking the tires” and considering run ning for Coucilmember Kristin Richardson Jordan’s seat in the future.

Tayler joked that in terms of fundraising he feels like he “just gets by” and actually doesn’t like the process at all. He usually relies on mailers for his campaign messag ing and aims for a decent amount in the $180,000 range. In 2022’s reporting year he raised $58,144 and about $61,784 in 2020. “I dread fundraising. I dread it,” said Taylor. “Some people are really gifted but I have to sit down, get on the phone and talk to people, asking and hoping you’ll get some thing.”

Common Cause Executive Director Susan Lerner shared a similar sentiment. She ad amantly believes that money is playing a “corrosive” role in politics and in New York State politics in particular because there’s almost limitless contribution limits, allow ing for more wealthy and special interest donors in statewide elections. Lerner said that the public matching financing system is “admirable” but also needs strong ethical rules that help to control corruption since it’s currently voluntary and it helps control the amount of money that is spent on cam paigns.

“We live in a capitalist society, no matter what anybody might think, and people who invest in a candidate feel a strong connec tion to a candidate,” said Lerner.

Lerner blames the current state of poli tics on the Citizens United v. Federal Elec tion Commission ruling on Jan. 21, 2010 by the Supreme Court. The decision basi

Election Notice

cally said that there are limits on direct donations but there are no limits to the amount candidates can spend or the amount contributed from Political Action Committee (PACs) and independent ex penditure only political com mittees (Super PACs). PACs and Super PACs are usual ly a conglomerate of corpo rate and wealthy contributors with specific interests or polit ical leanings.

Center for Responsive Pol itics (Open Secrets) Research Director Pete Quist has a more neutral stance on the role and impact of money in politics. He said it’s crucial for campaigns and candidates to have finan cial engagement and advertising regard less.

Typically, he sees incumbent candidates considered early for large donations by es tablished corporations or unions because they have long-term apolitical interests. Later in the election season, especially in Senate races, is when PACs, independent expenditures, or even ecological groups start donating to specific toss-up races to try to swing districts. He said incumbents are pretty hard to beat naturally.

“For state and government elections broadly, AT&T is the largest donor in our database. They give almost perfectly evenly between Republicans and Democrats around the country but 95% of their money goes to incumbents because they’re trying to pave the way for lobbying,” said Quist.

Ariama C. Long is a Report for Ameri ca corps member and writes about culture and politics in New York City for The Am sterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-de ductible gift of any amount today by visit ing: bit.ly/amnews1

This article was written as part of the 2022 NY State Elections Reporting Fellowship of the Center for Community Media at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Jour nalism at CUNY.

New York Branch NAACP Officers and Executive Committee members

Election

(Illustration by Megan Hylton)

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• Classified Display (boarder or picture) advertisements take the regular earned rate of their classifi cation. Display (boarder or picture) advertisements one column wide must be 14 lines deep; two columns, 28 lines deep; 3 columns, 56 lines deep. Classified Display (boarder or picture) placed as close to classifi cations as rules and makeup permit.

CLASSIFICATIONS

All advertisement accepted for publication is classified according to the standard classifications. Mis classification is not permitted.

BASIS OF CHARGE

Charges are based on point size and characters per line. Upon reaching 15 lines the rate converts to column inch. Any deviation from solid composition such as indenta tion, use of white space, bold type, etc., will incur a premium.

In Case of error, notify the Amster dam News 212-932-7440

NOTICE OF DISPOSITION OF COLLATERAL: Reference is made to the Senior Secured Promissory Note issued by Gene sis Financial, Inc. (“Genesis”), Ballast Holdings Pty Ltd, Financial Link Group Pty Ltd, Interactive Mortgage and Finance Pty Ltd, and CCS Operations Pty Ltd. (collectively, “Borrowers”) to Leon ite Capital, LLC (“Secured Party”), and the Security and Pledge Agreement dated February 4, 2021, among Borrowers and Secured Party (“Security Agreement”), and other related documents (collectively, “Loan Documents”).

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN by Secure d Party that it will sell all the Collateral in which a security interest was granted pursuant to the Security Agreement and other Loan Docu ments, without prejudice with regard to other and/or further notices and sales of Collateral

The Disposition is pursuant to Section 9-610, and any other applicable section of the Uniform Commercial Code, other ap plicable law, and the provisions of th e Security Agreement and other Loan Documents. Secured Party will sell said Collateral publicly to the highest qualified bidder. The Disposition will be held virtually through the law office of Hinman, Howard & Kattell, LLP on Nove mber 21, 2022, at 11:00AM (EST) via Zoom If you wish to participate in the Disposition, you must provide your e-mail address to hmervis@hhk.com AND alewis@hhk.com. You will rece ive an e-mail invitation and link to the Disposition Zoom meeting. Any interested potential bidder may contact Harvey D. Mervis, Esq. at Hinman, Howard & Kattell, LLP, 80 Exchange St., P.O. Box 5250, Binghamton, New York 13902, Telephone: (607) 231-6739, e-mail: hmervis@hhk.com for information. The Secured Party reserves the right to bid for and purchase the assets being sold, and to credit the pur chase price against Borrowers' obligations under the Loan Documents.

NOTICE OF SALE SUPREME COURT NEW YORK COUNTY

U.S. BANK NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, AS TRUSTEE FOR VELOCITY COMMERCIAL CAPITAL LOAN TRUST 2017-2, Plaintiff against

200 LENOX AVENUE, LLC, et al Defendant(s)

Attorney for Plaintiff(s) Schiller, Knapp, Lefkowitz & Hertzel, LLP, 15 Cornell Road, Latham, NY 12110.

Pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale entered May 9, 2022 , I will sell at public auction to the highest bidder at the Portico of the New York County Courthouse, 60 Centre St, New York, NY 10007 on December 7, 2022 at 2:15 PM Premises known as 27 West 120th Street a/k/a 200 Lenox Av enue a/k/a 200 Malcolm X Boulevard, New York, New York 10027. Block 1720 Lot 1. All that certain plot, piece or parcel of land, with the buildings and improvements thereon erected, situate, lying and being in the Borough of Manhattan, County, City and State of New York. Approximate Amount of Judgment is $2,196,777.57 plus interest and costs. Premises will be sold subject to provisions of filed Judgment Index No 850002/2021.

The foreclosure sale will be conducted in accordance with 1st Judicial District's Covid-19 Policies and foreclosure auction rules. The Referee shall enforce any rules in place regarding facial coverings and social distancing. Referee will only accept a certified bank check made payable to the referee.

Roberta Ashkin, Esq., Referee 20-05155

17R LLC Arts of Org. filed with the SSNY on 10/14/22. Office: New York County. SSNY designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to the LLC, 1129 Northern Boulevard, Suite 400, Manhas set, NY 11030. Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

57 PARK OPS LLC Arts of Org. filed with the SSNY on 08/13/22. Office: New York County SSNY designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to the LLC, c/o Gary Spindler, 250 West 26th Street, New York, NY 10001.

Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

NOTICE OF SALE

SUPREME COURT COUNTY OF NEW YORK, HOME LOAN INVESTMENT BANK, F.S.B. F/K/A OCEAN BANK, F.S.B., Plaintiff, vs JOCELY PADILHA, ET AL., Defendant(s).

Pursuant to an Amended Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale and Decision and Order on Motion duly entered on July 21, 2022, I, the undersigned Referee will sell at public auction at the portico of the New York County Courthouse, 60 Centre Street, New York, NY on December 7, 2022 at 2:15 p.m., premises known as 210 East 47th Street, Unit No 2C, East Midtown, NY 10017. All that certain plot, piece or parcel of land, with the buildings and improvements thereon erected, situate, lying and being in the Borough of Manhattan, County, City and State of New York, Block 1320 and Lot 1408 together with an undivided 1.212 percent interest in the Common Elements. Approximate amount of judgment is $280,884.71 plus interest and costs. Premises will be sold subject to provisions of filed Judgment Index No 850158/2019. COVID-19 safety protocols will be followed at the foreclosure sale

Heavens Love Puzzle LLC Arts of Org. filed with SSNY on 08/15/2022 Office Location: NY County. SSNY des ignated as agent upon whom process may be served against it & shall mail a copy to: 1425 Amsterdam Ave, 5B, NY, NY 10027. Purpose: Re lationship podcast & coaching in any lawful activity www.heavenslovepuzzle.com

Notice of Formation of MARCUM PHILIPPINES LLC Arts of Org. filed with Secy of State of NY (SSNY) on 10/19/22. Office location: NY County Princ. office of LLC: 730 Third Ave., NY, NY 10017. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543 Purpose: Gener al corporate use.

Notice of Qualification of 428 & 432 WEST 19TH STREET LLC Appl for Auth filed with Secy of State of NY (SSNY) on 10/20/22. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 08/06/19. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Anbau Enterprises, 11 E. 26th St., NY, NY 10010. DE addr of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert of Form filed with Secy. of State, DE Div. of Corps., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity

Notice of Qualification of AEL FINANCIAL SERVICES, LLC Appl for Auth filed with Se cy of State of NY (SSNY) on 10/19/22. Office location: NY County LLC formed in North Carolina (NC) on 06/22/22. Princ. office of LLC: 1155 Ave. of the Americas, 35th Fl., NY, NY 10036. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. NC addr of LLC: 2101 Rexford Rd., Ste. 310, Charlotte, NC 28211. Cert of Form. filed with Secy of State, 2 S. Salisbury St., Raleigh, NC 27601-2903 Purpose: The business purpose is to act as a registered broker-dealer, and conduct certain approved securities transactions

CARALEX PROPERTIES

LLC filed Arts of Org. with the Sect'y of State of NY (SSNY) on 8/10/2022. Office: New York County. SSNY has been designated as agen t of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: The LLC, 440 E. 57th St., #4A, New York, NY, 10022 Purpose: any lawful act.

GRAPEVINE TECHNOLO

GIES LLC Articles of Orga nization filed with Sec. of State of NY(SOS) on 10/17/2022. Office Location: New York County SOS is designated as agent of LLC for service of process. SOS shall mail copy of process to 1107 Broadway, 8H, New York, NY 10010. Purpose: Any lawful act or activity

Notice of Qualification of MARITIME MANAGEMENT, L.L.C. Appl for Auth filed with Secy of State of NY (SSNY) on 10/20/22. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 02/23/16. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr of LLC: c/o CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form filed with Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity

N9363V LLC Arts of Org. filed with SSNY on 09/29/22. Office loc.: NY County. SSNY designated as agent upon whom process may be served against LLC to: 345 W. 30th St., NY, NY 10001. Purpose: any lawful act.

Notice is hereby given that a license, serial #13525 04 for beer, wine & liquor has been applied for by the under signed to sell beer, wine & liquor at retail in a restaurant under the ABC Law at 200 8th Ave., New York, NY 10011 for on-premises consumption; Ariyasap Inc.

Bruce Lederman, Esq., Referee - The Referee will not accept any payments in cash

Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C., One Battery Park Plaza, 18th Floor, New York, New York 10004, Attorneys for Plaintiff

SUPPLEMENTAL SUMMONS

SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK COUN TY OF NEW YORK

HILTON RESORTS CORPORATION, Plaintiff, -against- UN KNOWN HEIRS AND DISTRIBUTEES OF THE ESTATE OF RECA DANIELLE BARWIN, if living, and if they be dead, any and all persons unknown to Plaintiff, claiming, or who may claim to have an interest in, or gene rally or specific lien upon the real property described in this action; such unknown per sons being herein generally described and intended to be in cluded in the following designation, namely: the wife, widow, husband, widower, heirs-at-law, next of kin, descendants, ex ecutors, administrators, devisees, legatees, cred itors, trustees, committees, lienors and assignee s of such deceased, any and all persons deriving interest in or lien upon, or title to said real property by, through or under them, or ei ther of them, and their respective wives, widows, husbands, widowers, heirs-at-law, next of kin, descendants, executors, administrators, devisees, legatees, creditors, trustees, committees, lienors and assigns, all of whom and whose names, except as stated, are unknown to Plaintiff, JAN BARWIN AS THE HEIR OF THE ESTATE OF RECA DANIELLE BARWIN, Defendants. INDEX NO.: 850059/2022

FILED: September 30, 2022 TO THE ABOVE NAMED DEFENDANTS: YOU ARE HEREBY SUMMONED to answer the complaint in this action, and to serve a copy of your answer, or, if the complaint is not served with this summons, to serve a notice of appearance on the Plaintiff's attorney within 20 days after the service of this summons, exclusive of the day of service or within 30 days af ter completion of service where service is made in any other manner than by perso nal delivery within the State. In case of your failure to appear or answer, judgment will be taken against you by default for the relief demanded in the complaint TO THE ABOVE NAMED DEFENDANTS: The foregoing Summons is served upon you by publication pursuant an Order of the Hon. Francis A. Kahn III, a Justice of the Supreme Court, New York County, dated September 28, 2022 and entered September 29, 2022.

NOTICE OF NATURE OF ACTION AND RELIEF SOUGHT THE OBJECT of the above captioned action is to foreclose a Timeshare Mortgage in the amount of $29,354.08, recorded in New York County Clerk's Office on March 1, 2019 in CRFN: 20190 00068725 of Mort gages covering the (1) 0.8100% undivided tenant in common interest and (2) 0.8100% undivided tenant in common interest in the Timeshare Unit identified as HNY CLUB SUITES Phase II which comprises a portion of the NYH Condominium at the premises also referre d to as the New York Hilton, 1335 Av enue of the Americas, Unit HU4, New York, New York 100196012. The relief sought in the within action is a final Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale directing the sale of the (1) 0.8100 % undivided tenant in common interest and (2) 0.8100% undivided tenant in common interest in the Timeshare Unit identified as HNY CLUB SUITES Phase II which comprises a portion of the NYH Condominium at the premises also referr ed to as the New York Hilton, described above to satisfy the debt secured by the Mortgage. New York County is designated as the place of trial on the basis of the fact that the real property affected by this action is located wholly within said County Dated: August 4, 2022 Westbury, New York, Maria Sideris, Esq. DRUCKMAN LAW GROUP PLLC, Attorneys for Plaintiff, 242 Drexel Av enue, Westbury, New York 11590 (516) 876-0800 WE ARE ATTEMPTING TO COLLECT A DEBT AND ANY INFORMATION OBTAINED WILL BE USED FOR THAT PURPOSE.

Notice is hereby given that a license, serial #13530 58 for beer & wine has been applied for by the undersigned to sell beer & wine at retail in a tavern under the ABC Law at 39 E. 13th St., 6th Fl., NYC 10003 for on-premises consumption; One Tree Hill LLC

Notice of formation of A&P DECOR LLC Arts of Org filed with SSNY on 10/03/2022. Office location: NY County. SSNY designat ed as agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of process against LLC to: 2075 2nd Ave., Apt. 20E, New York, NY 10029. Purpose: any lawful act.

Notice of formation of ALOE VERA SUPREME LLC Arti cles of Organization filed with Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 7/5/2022. NY office location: New York County SSNY has been des ignated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served, The post of fice address to which the SSNY shall mail a copy of any process against the LLC served upon him is Lawrence Long, 229 E 85th Street #564 NYC NY 10028. Purpose: any lawful.activity

Notice of formation of CALL TO GATHER LLC Arts of Org filed with Secy of State New York (SSNY) on 09/21/2022. Office location: NY County. SSNY designat ed as agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy to: 226-230 E 12th St., 7E, New York, NY 10030.

Purpose: any lawful act.

Notice of formation of CLEARLINE RE LLC Arts of Org filed with SSNY on 08/22/2022. Office location: NY County. SSNY designat ed as agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of process against LLC to: 950 Third Avenue, 23rd Floor NY, NY 10022 Purpose: any lawful act.

Notice of formation of FIVE IRON GOLF INDIANAPOLIS LLC Arts of Org filed with Secy of State NY (SSNY) on 06/15/2022. Office location: NY County. SSNY designat ed as agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of process against LLC to c/o 883 Avenue of the Americas, Floor 3, New York, NY 10001. Purpose: any lawful act.

SUPREME COUR T OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK COUNTY OF NEW YORK

Index #: 154442/2022

Summons

The Plaintif f de signates New York County as the basi s of Venue due to Defendant's resi dence and where cause of action arose.

_______________________________________X

BIG YUK CHIU, Plaint iff, -against-

CLAUDE LOUZON , Defendant(s),

TO: THE ABOVE NAMED DEFENDANT(S)

YOU ARE HEREBY SU MMONED to answer the Complaint in this action and to serve a copy of your answer, or, if the complaint is not served with this summons, to serve a notice of appearance, on the Plaintiffs' attorney within twenty (20) days af ter the service of this summons, exclusive of the day of service (or within thirty (30) days after the service is complete if this summons is not personally delivered to you within the State of New York); and in case of your failure to appear or answer, judgment will be taken against you by default for the relief demanded herein.

Dated: May 23, 2022 New Rochelle, NY

Yours etc. Todd Rothenberg, Esq. Atto rney for Plaintiff 271 North Avenue, Suite 115 New Rochelle, N.Y. 10801 (914) 235-7234 todd@trothenbergesq.com

To: Claude Louzon 90 Prince Street, Apt. 8-S a/k/a 8 B-S New York, NY 10012

Claude Louzon 184 Thompson Street, Apt. 4-J New York, NY 10012

Claude Louzon 350 West 14th Street, Apt. 7-C New York, NY 10014

This action arises from a breach of a personal guarantee of a commercial lease. Plaintiff seeks a money judgment from De fendant in sum of $654,642.20.

Notice of Formation of NO MAND ADVISORY LLC Arts of Org. filed with Secy of State of NY (SSNY) on 09/26/22. Office location: NY County Princ. office of LLC: 15 E. 30th St., Unit 48D, NY, NY 10016. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Johnathon Gibson at the princ. office of the LLC Purpose: Any lawful activity

Notice of Formation of OR BITAL KITCHENS USQ LLC Arts of Org. filed with Secy of State of NY (SSNY) on 09/29/22. Office location: NY County Princ. office of LLC: 74 5th Ave., NY, NY 10011. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543 Purpose: Any lawful activity

Notice of Formation of RK ART LLC Arts of Org. filed with Secy of State of NY (SSNY) on 09/29/22. Office location: NY County SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. Purpose: Any lawful activity

Notice of formation of STRONG & FREE LLC Arts of Org filed with Secy of State New York (SSNY) on 09/13/2022. Office location: NY County. SSNY designat ed as agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy to: 244 West 136th St., Ground Floor, New York, NY 10030. Purpose: any lawful act.

Notice of Qualification of THALASSIC MANAGEMENT, L.L.C. Appl for Auth filed with Secy of State of NY (SSNY) on 10/20/22. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 03/14/19. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr of LLC: c/o CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form filed with Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity

PATTY O'BRIEN LLC Arts of Org. filed with SSNY on 5/2/2022. Office location: NY County SSNY is designated as agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 13 Longworth Ct., West Brook, NJ 08092. Purpose: Any lawful act.

Acct #: 691

NOTICE OF DISPOSITION OF COLLATERAL: Reference is made to the Senior Secured Convertible Promissory Note issued by Community Redevelopment, Inc. a/k/a Crosswind Renewable Energy Corp. (“CRDV”) to Leonite Capital, LLC (“Leonite” or “Secured Party”) dated April 8, 2021. Reference is also made to the Securities Purchase Agreement d ated April 8, 2021, between CRDV and Leonite. Finally, r eference is made to the accompanying Pledge and Security Agr eement dated April 8, 2021 (“Security Agreement”) between Leonite as Secured Party and CRDV as Debtor, in which CRDV granted Leonite a Security Interest in collateral including the Subject Collateral as defined below, without prejudice to other assets owned by CRDV (collectively, “Loan Documents”).

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN by Leonite that, acting in its capacity as a Secured Party under the above Security Agreement, it will sell the following collateral (the “Subject Collateral”), consisting of all of the assets of Community Redevelopment Inc. including but not limited to the following ownership interests in the membership interest in the following entities:

OWNERSHIP

ENTITY INTEREST

Fort Washington Livingston Pace, LLC 24.50%

Suitland Holdings Pace A and Pace B, LLC 24.50% Velocity Ventures, LLC 49.00% Marlow Heights Branch Pace, LLC 24.50%

Capheights Hill Pace, LLC 24.50% Capheights Central Dev, LLC 24.50%

Capheights Velocity Services, LLC 24.50% COZ Manager, LLC 12.25% Artistry, LLC 100%

The Disposition is pursuant to Section 9-610, and any other applicable section of the Uniform Commercial Code, other applicable law, and the provisions of the operative documents creating the Secured Party's interest in the Collateral, including but not limited to the Loan Documents. Secured Party will sell said Collateral publicly to the highest qualified bidder. The Disposition will be held virtually through the law office of Hinman, Howard & Kattell, LLP, Harvey D. Mervis of counsel, on November 21, 2022, at 11:00AM (EST) via Zoom. If you wish to participate in the Disposition, you must provide your e-mail address to hmervis@hhk.com with a copy to alewis@hhk.com. You will receive an e-mail invitation and link to the Disposition Zoom meeting. Any interested bidder may contact Harvey D. Mervis, Esq. at Hinman, Howard & Kattell, LLP, 80 Exchange St., P.O. Box 5250, Binghamton, New York 13902, Telephone: (607) 231-6739, e-mail: hmervis@hhk.com for further information. The Secured Party reserves the right to bid for and purchase the assets being sold, and to credit the purchase price against CRDV's obligations under the Loan Documents.

NY CITY PSYCHOTHERAPY

LCSW PLLC, a Prof LLC Arts of Org. filed with the SSNY on 09/29/2022 Office loc: NY County. SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against it may be served SSNY shall mail process to: The PLLC, 82 Nassau St., #60683, NY, NY 10038. Purpose: To Prac tice The Profession Of Li censed Clinical Social Work

RMR Solutions LLC Arts of Org. filed with Secy of State of NY (SSNY) on 8/3/2022. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail copy to: 496 W 133rd St, Apt. 2E, New York, NY 10027. Purpose: any lawful activity

Notice of Qualification of SIFI NETWORKS NEW YORK CITY LLC Appl for Auth. filed with Secy of State of NY (SSNY) on 09/30/22. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 09/20/22. Princ. office of LLC: 103 Foulk Rd., Ste. 500, Wilmington, DE 19803. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert of Form filed with Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., #4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Development and operation of fiber optic network

Notice of Qualification of STABILIS JV LENDING LLC Appl for Auth filed with Se cy of State of NY (SSNY) on 09/14/22. Office location: NY County LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 02/22/22. Princ. office of LLC: 140 E. 45th St., Ste. 22-C, NY, NY 10017. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Al bany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert of Form filed with DE Secy of State, Div. of Corps., John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity

Notice of Qualification of SU PER NICE GUYS, LLC Appl for Auth filed with Secy of State of NY (SSNY) on 09/21/22. Office location: NY County LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 04/28/22. Princ. office of LLC: 335 W. 38th St., Apt. 5, NY, NY 10018. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Al bany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert of Form filed with Secy. of State, PO Box 898, Dover, DE 19903. Purpose: Any lawful activity

Notice of Qualification of WOREC BOERUM FUND ING, LLC Appl for Auth filed with Secy of State of NY (SSNY) on 10/05/22. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 10/03/22. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr of LLC: c/o CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form filed with Secy of State of the State of DE, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity

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DONATIONS

U.N. CLIMATE CONFERENCE MUST MAKE FUNDS FOR POOR NATIONS A PRIORITY

(GIN)—Water stress, withering droughts, and devastating floods are hitting African communities, economies, and ecosystems hard. Rainfall patterns are disrupted, glaciers are disappearing, and key lakes are shrinking.

In South Africa, the extreme rainfall that triggered one of the country’s deadliest di sasters of this century was made more in tense and more likely because of climate change. More than 400 people died as a result of the floods, which also destroyed more than 12,000 houses and forced an estimated 40,000 people from their homes.

So, at a time when the impacts of climate change are breaking records around the world, Africans must fight for their surviv al, although they are hardly responsible for the pollution.

This year, finance for the urgent climate change needs of Africa and other devel oping areas will top the agenda of the U.N. Climate Change Conference—also known as COP27—to be held in the resort town of Sharm el Shaikh, Egypt, from Nov. 6 to 18.

Many frontline communities are already engaged in adapting to climate change and finding solutions—including Egyptians pre serving their traditional villages by the so larization of their electricity and farmers in Algeria learning new techniques to reduce

the encroachment of sand and deserti fication. They offer hope that, with help, people can successfully lessen the impact of climate disasters.

However, these heroic efforts are often undermined by a system that prioritizes profit over people and the planet, a system rooted in racism, patriarchy, extractivism, consumerism, exploitation, and disem powerment. Rich countries have squeezed huge profits out of the fossil fuel economy while setting the globe on a path of depen dence on fossil fuels. Rich countries must meet and expand climate pledges, and poor countries should be able to develop economically while receiving more funds to adapt to the impact of climate change.

A communique released after a three-day forum for finance, economy, and environ ment ministers said Africa benefited from less than 5.5% of global climate financing despite having a low carbon footprint and suffering disproportionately from climate change. It urged rich countries to meet and expand climate pledges and said poor countries should be able to develop eco nomically while receiving more funds to adapt to the impact of climate change.

Kevin Chika Urama, chief economist at the African Development Bank, said Africa faced a climate financing gap of about $108 billion each year. The “cli mate finance structure today is actually biased against climate-vulnerable coun tries,” he said. “The more vulnerable you are the less climate finance you receive.”

Lula's Win

in its capacity to change the course of history, to overcome a profound social, humanitarian, political and economic crisis, aggravated by a government, which neglected the effects of the pandemic, and was largely responsible for hun dreds of thousands of deaths. Brazil deserves and can change for the better, for our people have already shown what they are capable of. Government must be the great stimulator of the multi-sector agreements and partnerships nec essary for the reconstruction of our country.”

After his Sunday, Oct. 30 victory, Lula tweet ed: “Beginning January 1, 2023, I will govern for 215 million Brazilians, and not only for those

Haiti

Continued from page 2

nations, but many Haitians on the island, and abroad, don’t want this to happen.

Prime Minister Ariel Henry is an unelect ed leader, someone who many believe played a part in the July 2021 assassination of former President Jovenel Moïse. And another military incursion on the island brings with it memories of how U.N. peacekeeping troops spent 11 years in Haiti and saw many of its members convict ed of sexual abuse and of even having been ac cused of introducing the last cholera outbreak.

While the politics of Haiti are being sorted out, those wishing to support charities that

who voted for me. There are not two Brazils. We are one country, one people, one great nation.”

As Lula puts together a new cabinet for his third presidential term, many will pay atten tion to who he appoints to serve in key roles that could again transform Brazilian society.

Jair Bolsonaro is now the first president to ever lose re-election in Brazil. He pointed ly did not speak about his election loss for 48 hours. When he finally spoke about it on Nov. 1 he neither conceded defeat nor challenged the results of his lost bid for reelection. Bolso naro simply said he would “continue to fulfill all the commandments of our constitution.”

Commentators are suggesting that the real issue will be what happens when Brazil celebrates the transition of power that takes place on January 1.

can help locals can contact the following: Hope for Haiti - https://hopeforhaiti.com/ Save the Children - https://www.savethe children.org/us/where-we-work/haiti SOIL - https://www.oursoil.org/ UNICEF - https://www.unicefusa.org/ Partners in Health - www.pih.org/ Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières - https://www.doctorswithoutbor ders.org/what-we-do/where-we-work/haiti Mission of Hope International - https:// www.mohintl.org/ Haitian Health Foundation - https://www. haitianhealthfoundation.org/ Fonkoze - https://fonkoze.org/ Haiti Partners - https://haitipartners.org/

Veterans, when you’re struggling, soon becomes later becomes someday becomes ...when?

The timing of the firing of Nash creates more Nets dysfunction

By VINCENT DAVIS Special to the AmNews

The Brooklyn Nets have become one of the most confusing stories in sports, maybe the most mindboggling in a long time. It start ed with the firing of former head coach Kenny Atkinson in March of 2020. Atkinson was reportedly forced out by players. Then Steve Nash was hired without having any prior coaching experience.

His dismissal by the organization’s key decision makers on Tuesday is another head scratcher, specifical ly because of the timing. Why now?

Why would the Nets fire Nash on Tuesday after a 116-109 win over the Indiana Pacers, a win that ended the Nets’ four game losing streak, a night on which All Star forward Kevin Durant dropped 36 points, nine re bounds and seven assists, while Kyrie Irving chipped in 28 points, nine rebounds and seven assists?

Why didn’t the Nets fire Nash in early August, when Durant de manded of team owner Joe Tsai that he get rid of Nash then or that he, Durant, be traded? The two-time NBA Finals MVP also requested that general manag er Sean Marks be fired too. On

Tuesday Durant said he was “shocked” by Nash being given the boot. Really? Is Marks the next in line to have the standard press release written about him, thanking him for his great ser vice, as was written about Nash?

“We want to thank Steve for ev erything he brought to our fran chise over the past two-plus seasons,” said Marks.

He continued, “Since becoming head coach, Steve was faced with a number of unprecedented chal lenges, and we are sincerely grate ful for his leadership, patience and humility throughout his tenure,” then noted that “this was an im mensely difficult decision. How ever, after much deliberation and evaluation of how the season has begun, we agreed that a change is necessary at this time,” ending with wishing Nash and his family “all the best in the future.”

Firing Nash is the latest Nets controversy, including who the next head coach will be if interim head coach Jacque Vaughn, also chosen as the interim when At kinson stepped down, isn’t given the job. Maybe he was ousted now to take attention off of the contro versy surrounding Kyrie Irving who posted a link without com

menting on it to a documen tary that has been widely called anti-Semitic.

Joe Harris’ gradual im provement after playing just 14 games last season due to an ankle injury, Ben Simmons’ slow start reac climating himself to the game having not played since May of 2021, and Seth Curry’s slow recovery from ankle surgery have all been a reason for the Nets’ 2-6 start.

They are in Washington, D.C. tomorrow to play the Wizards with all of their baggage. They are in Char lotte to face the Hornets on Saturday, followed by a game versus the Mavericks in Dallas, with rumors that Ime Udoka, who was sus pended by the Boston Celt ics in September for the entirety of this season for multiple team policy vio lations allegedly involving inappropriate interactions with women, is a leading candidate to replace Nash.

The Nets are a mess and there seems to no end in sight to their madness.

Mitchell reminds the Knicks of the need to have a star

By JAIME C. HARRIS AmNews Sports Editor

Sunday night’s game in Cleveland was a reminder and message to the Knicks. It wasn’t so much that they were defeated by the Cavaliers 121-108, it’s how they lost. It was a statement by Donovan Mitchell to the team which he desired to join before being traded to the Cavaliers in early September.

The Knicks declined to meet the request of the Utah Jazz, Mitchell’s former team, who asked for a package of players and first round picks. Instead, the 26-year-old threetime All Star, who was born in Elmsford, New York, raised in Greenwich, Connecti cut, played AAU ball for the famed Manhat tan-based Riverside Church program, and grew up an avid Knick fan, was dealt to the Jazz for three players and three unprotect ed first-round picks.

In the Knicks’ and Cavaliers’ first meeting this season, Mitchell was spectacular, scor ing 38 points with 12 rebounds, reinforcing the NBA truism that teams need stars to be championship contenders. Role players are vital but stars are a necessity.

“Games like this reveal exactly where we

are and exactly what we have to do to win,”

Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said. “Cleve land is playing great basketball. That team is playing great basketball.”

Where the Knicks were heading into last night’s (Wednesday) game at Mad ison Square Garden versus the Atlan ta Hawks was 3-3 and 8th overall in the Eastern Conference while the Cavaliers, who faced the Boston Celtics at home, were 5-1, second in the East behind the 6-0 Milwaukee Bucks. They will be solid and by and large competitive this season. Not a contender to go deep into the post season based on the roster configuration.

In the past, Thibodeau has bluntly ex pressed why it is essential for the Knicks to have an indisputable star or multiple stars to ascend into the top tier of NBA teams. He listed drafting and developing, free-agen cy and trades as means to achieve that objective. This past summer, the Knicks signed a very good player in point guard Jalen Brunson and solid addition in center Isaiah Hartenstein, who has ably backed up center Mitchell Robinson, who has begun the season playing less minutes (144) than Hartenstein (160) due to his propensity to

place himself in foul trouble.

This past summer the Hawks executed a trade with the San Antonio Spurs for AllStar Dejounte Murray, one of the best twoway players in the world, and paired him with Knicks nemesis Trae Young. The duo has formed one of the most dynamic back courts in the league and were averaging a combined 50 points, 17.3 assists and 9.4 rebounds before entering the Garden for the Hawks who were 4-3.

Knicks president Leon Rose must ulti mately and somehow add a transcendent talent to his roster or risk being a perennial 7-10 seed, which is just good enough, or just marginal de pending on perspective, to be little more than a Play-In Tournament team. Draft picks as assets are often accumulated and used to secure more valuable and proven assets. Mitchell would be a Knick if Rose and those who were advising him felt he was worth parting with future first round picks that are unknown quantities.

His performance on Sunday and impact thus far on the Cavaliers emphatical ly shows why he was indeed a player the Knicks should have secured.

Early in his first season as a New York Knick, center Isaiah Hartenstein has proven to be a key free-agent signing for the team (Bill Moore photo)

In the midst of controversy surrounding a social media post by Nets guard Kyrie Irving, head coach Steve Nash was fired on Tuesday (Bill Moore photos)

Kyrie Irving

Steve Nash

The Jets’ reluctance to bench Zach Wilson may derail their season

By JAIME C. HARRIS AmNews Sports Editor

The Jets are a playoff caliber team. To qualify that statement, they can compete for a postsea son spot if current starting quar terback Zach Wilson is benched. He may ultimately evolve into a steady, productive QB. Right now Wilson is a demonstrable liability. To delve into a hypothetical, the Jets would have likely defeated the New England Patriots at MetLife Stadium this past Sunday if either Mike White, who was listed as the No. 2 quarterback, or Joe Flacco, who was inactive but started the Jets’ first three games of the regu lar season while Wilson recovered from mid-August knee surgery to repair a torn meniscus suffered in the preseason opener on Aug. 12, was directing the offense.

Wilson was careless and irrespon sible in the Jets’ 22-17 loss to the Patriots, a game in which Patriots head coach Bill Belichick earned his 325th win, passing the late Chicago Bears Hall of Fame coach George Halas for second all-time

in NFL career victories. Former Miami Dolphins head coach Don Shula tops the list with 347.

The No. 2 overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, Wilson threw three in terceptions, two to Patriots safety Devin McCourty, the 35-year-old veteran from St. Joseph’s Regional High School in Montvale, New Jersey and Rutgers University. It looked as if Wilson should have been quar terbacking a high school team on a Friday night instead of trying to lead grown men, irrespective of his 355 passing yards and two touchdowns.

The 23-year-old from BYU com pleted just 48.8% of passes in going 20-41. One of McCourty’s picks was the result of Wilson causally tossing the ball toward the sideline in an at tempt to throw it out of bounds as he was flushed out of the pocket. Sunday’s game was Wilson’s 18th start of his fledgling pro career. Some of his mistakes were those a player with much fewer should not commit. Wilson has signifi cant room for growth and for now the Jets are intent on affording him the latitude to try to master the mental aspects of the most

important position in the sport.

“We are 5-3 because he’s done a great job taking care of the football and getting us in position to win foot ball games along with good defense, a good run game and good special teams,” Saleh said on Monday.

“There’s been a really good for mula…and the guy’s 4-1 coming back as a starter…Yesterday was not a good game just from a deci sion-making standpoint,” Saleh pointed out, stating the obvious. “But those three critical mistakes were backbreaking, which he rec ognizes. And those are the areas where let’s hit the reset button.”

Saleh, who is 9-16 in his two years as the Jets head coach, may already be in a precarious situation having to maintain the trust of his locker room, many undoubtedly perceiv ing White and or Flacco as giving them a better chance to win.

“I had some boneheaded plays,” said Wilson. He cannot contin ue to make them and expect the playoffs to be an attainable goal.

The Jets host the AFC East leading 6-1 Buffalo Bills this Sunday at MetLife Stadium.

The 6-2 Giants reassess and revamp during their bye-week

By JAIME C. HARRIS AmNews Sports Editor

The Giants are keenly aware that in the fluid NFL standings, two weeks can shift the entire landscape of a division. The NFC East race is a prime example. The 6-2 Giants are tied for the fourth best record in the 32-team NFL but are technical ly only in third place in their division. It is a result of the 7-0 Philadelphia Eagles being the only undefeated squad in the league and the Giants losing 23-16 to the Dallas Cowboys in a hard-fought match up at home in Week 3.

So as the Giants aim to maximize the valuable bye-week hours after falling to the NFC West leading 5-3 Seattle Seahawks on the road last Sunday, they are deep in preparation, assessment and analysis for what lies ahead with nine regular season games remaining. They will not play this week and their schedule resumes on Nov. 13 hosting the Houston Texans at MetLife Stadium followed by a home game versus the Detroit Lions on Nov. 20.

The Giants are cognizant that they cannot overlook the Texans and Lions with the Cowboys looming in what will be a critical Week 12 rematch on Thanksgiving. Going into this weekend’s slate of games, the Texans (1-5) and Lions (1-6) have the two worst records in the league. Through

their first eight games, the Giants have proven to be a constructed, well coached, disciplined team that has limited mistakes on both sides of the ball under first-year general manager Joe Schoen and rookie head coach Brian Daboll.

The most significant development has been the ball protection by quarterback Daniel Jones, who coming into this season had historically high turnover numbers. Jones had 29 interceptions and 39 fum bles. This season Jones has only two inter ceptions—none since the Week 3 loss to the Cowboys—and just two lost fumbles. His passing stats aren’t gaudy, throwing for 1,399 yards, completing 143 of 220 at tempts with six touchdowns. But Jones has moved the offense effectively, particularly in fourth quarter drives that have decided the final outcome of several games.

His numbers would be much better if not for a receivers group that has struggled with injuries, a lack of production and far too many dropped passes. But Jones has over come the issues of his receivers and pru dently utilized noteworthy athleticism to rush for 363 yards, including 107 versus the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 7.

Defensively, the unit’s coordinator, Don “Wink” Martindale, who led the Baltimore Ravens defense from 2018-2021, has instilled an aggressive, attacking philosophy that has held opponents to 19.6 points per game.

The ongoing struggles of second-year quarterback Zach Wilson have been a glaring issue for a 5-3 New York Jets team that is tied for second place in the AFC East (Bill Moore photo)

Quarterback Daniel Jones has made significant strides under new head coach Brian Daboll, throwing just two interceptions in eight games this season for the 6-2 Giants (Bill Moore photo)

BMCC’s dominant play leads to CUNYAC CC title

By LOIS ELFMAN

Special to the AmNews

For the first time in 16 years Borough of Manhattan Com munity College (BMCC) wom en’s volleyball hoisted the CUNY Athletic Conference Community College champi onship trophy, ending the sixyear reign of Queensborough CC. The Panthers concluded CUNYAC play undefeated.

It was an intense few days for the players, as BMCC played in the NJCAA (National Junior College Athletic Association) Region 15 tournament, defeat ing Kingsborough CC in the opening match before falling to Dutchess CC in the semifinals. BMCC’s first-year head coach Nia Bell had to get her players to quickly refocus and bring home the CUNYAC title.

“It boils down to mental toughness,” said Bell. “It was deciding we really want to fight for it all together as a team. After losing regionals, they were very disappoint ed in themselves. We were in our heads a lot that game. We had a discussion about if you

really want something you have to work for it.”

Bell knew that winning the CUNYAC title would help her players have opportunities to play at four-year institutions

and even get athletic schol arships. That is precisely the mindset of sophomore Jo sanne Lewis, who was named CUNYAC CC Women’s Volley ball Championship Most Valu

able Player as well as NJCAA Region 15 and CUNYAC Player of the Year.

“I’ve played volleyball all my life. My dad is a volleyball coach. I grew up in the sport,”

said Lewis, who transferred to BMCC in January after attend ing college in Minnesota. Lewis loves NYC’s public transportation and she is not fazed by the busy pace. “I’m used to being an athlete,” she said. “I know how you have to balance the athlet ic and academic. I make a lot of schedules for myself. I’m committed to volleyball, but I’m also committed to aca demics. I make time during the day to get homework done between classes so that in the afternoons and evenings I can practice, and when I go home, I can prepare for the next day and go to sleep. It’s the dedi cation.”

A psychology major, Lewis, an outside hitter, wants to move on to a four-year insti tution after completing her associate degree and play col legiate volleyball. “I would play anywhere that I have a chance to play,” she said. “If I got an opportunity to play for a big college, I’m going to take that opportunity so I can study what I want to study while playing the sport I love.”

Sports Business Journal Game Changers panel discusses Title IX

By LOIS ELFMAN Special to the AmNews

While there is much to cele brate about the 50th anniver sary of Title IX, there is much more work to do as the major ity of colleges and universities are still not in Title IX compli ance. At last week’s Sports Busi ness Journal Game Changers conference, moderator Shira Springer spoke with Danette Leighton, CEO of the Wom en’s Sports Foundation; Ann Meyers Drysdale, vice presi dent of the Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury; and Carla Williams, athletic director at the University of Virginia.

In 1972, about 30,000 women played college sports. Today, that number is approximately 220,000, a 545% increase. At the high school level, the increase is 990%. As great as that sounds, Leighton noted that girls’ high school participation today is where boys were in 1972.

Williams is the first African American woman to lead an athletic department in a Power 5 conference. “It’s an incred ible honor and privilege to be at the University of Virgin ia and serve our student-ath letes, but…I was appointed in 2017, and five years later there are three of us. You would think, well that’s progress, but it’s in credibly slow,” she said.

At the collegiate level, presi dents and chancellors hire ath letic directors, said Williams. The decision makers must set aside gender and race and look at qualifications, which would lead to a lot more women being in these positions. “The change needs to happen at the deci sion-making level,” she said.

“We live in a white man’s world; it’s changing, but it hasn’t changed,” said Meyers Drysdale, the first woman to get a full ath letic scholarship at UCLA. “For me, Title IX is a law that you need to be concerned about. … You’re

still going to have to fight for it.”

With that in mind, Spring er asked Williams her great est areas of concern. “There are court cases in the system right now that threaten the gains we have made,” said Williams. “It’s so important to remain vigilant.”

Springer asked how to bring schools, which also includes K–12, into compliance. “You can’t legislate morality,” said Williams, who brought four stu dent-athletes with her to Game Changers. “Leaders have to care. If you don’t care about equity, then it won’t be a focal point and you won’t lead that way.

“To care, you have to see your female student-athletes, staff members, associate athlet ic directors, head coaches,” she added. “You have to see them in order to make decisions based on equity. … The next generation of leaders—men and women— are going to have to really be active to make sure that we don’t go backwards in those gains.”

Carla Williams said progress towards equity has been frustratingly slow (University of Virginia Athletics photo)

BMCC wins first CUNYAC CC title since 2006 (BMCC photo)

Sports

The TCS NYC Marathon readies for its 51st staging

By VINCENT DAVIS Special to the AmNews

The 2022 TCS New York City Marathon, organized by the New York Road Runners, will take place this Sunday, Nov. 6, starting at the southwestern ap proach to the Verrazano-Nar rows Bridge in Staten Island and ending 26.2 miles later at Tavern on the Green in Central Park in Manhattan.

In addition to Staten Island and Manhattan, the course winds through Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens, giving residents in all five boroughs an opportuni ty to come out and support the over 50,000 starters that will par ticipate in the event.

It will be the 51st time the Mar athon has been held, beginning in 1970. Back then, runners cir

cled Central Park, where the entire race was held. The Mar athon has been canceled twice, in 2012 due to Hurricane Sandy and in 2020 resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

New York is the last battle of the six-city Abbott World Mar athon Majors championship series, a points based compe tition that also includes the Tokyo, Boston, London, Berlin and Chicago marathons. There will be another stacked field in NYC going mile-for-mile in the professional men’s and women’s races, and the men’s and wom en’s wheelchair races.

On the men’s side, Kenya’s Albert Korir, last year’s New York winner, will be back to defend his title. The last man to take two straight in New York was Ke nya’s Geoffrey Mutai, in 2011 and

2013. He could be pressed by last year’s runner-up, Mohamed El Aaraby of Morocco.

Peres Jepchichir, the 2021 women’s champion, will not be able to try to make it back-toback victories as she withdrew from this year’s race due to an injury. Kenya’s amazing Mary Keitany was the last woman to win at least two in a row, cross ing the tape first in 2014, 2015 and 2016. She also won in 2018. Headlining the professional women will be Kenyan-Israeli runner Lonah Chemtai Salpeter, Hellen Obiri of Kenya and Ethio pia’s Gotytom Gebreslase.

The Professional Wheelchair Division begins at 8 a.m., the Professional Women’s Open Di vision at 8:40 a.m. and the Pro fessional Men’s Open Division at 9:05 a.m.

Brittney Griner still languishes in a Russian prison

By LOIS ELFMAN Special to the AmNews

Last week, basketball star Brittney Griner’s nine-year prison sentence on drug smuggling charges was upheld by a Moscow ap peals court. This means the WNBA champion and twotime Olympic gold medalist could be sent to a Russian penal colony to begin serv ing her sentence.

“We are aware of the news out of Russia that Brittney Griner will continue to be wrongfully detained under intolerable circumstanc es after having to under go another sham judicial proceeding,” read a state ment from National Securi ty Advisor Jake Sullivan. “In recent weeks, the BidenHarris administration has continued to engage with Russia through every avail able channel and make every effort to bring home Brittney

as well as to support and advocate for other Americans detained in Russia.”

Players and coaches take to social media daily to call for Griner’s release with the hashtag #WeAreBG. On the day of her appeal, USA Basketball posted, “On the 250th day since her detention, BG’s con tinued imprisonment is a grave injustice.”

Griner’s agent, Lindsay Kagawa Colas posted on Twitter: “Brittney Griner’s nine-plus year sentence is regarded as harsh and extreme by Russian legal stan dards. Today’s disappointing, yet unsur prising, appeal outcome further validates the fact that she is being held hostage and is being used as a political pawn.”

ESPN.com reported that U.S. officials believe there will eventually be a prison er swap, but Russia has not yet respond ed to a “significant” offer made by the U.S. several months ago. Fox News re ported that the Kremlin warned against public discussions about a prisoner swap, saying such discussions will lead to a swap not happening.

WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert was asked about Griner during her fire side chat interview with Sports Business Journal publisher and executive editor Abraham Madkour at the Game Changers

conference. She described it as “an obvi ously unimaginable situation.”

“Brittney is one of the greatest basketball players in the history of the game,” said Engel bert. “It’s clear that she’s being wrongfully de tained there. As President Joe Biden has said, they’re doing everything in their power to get Brittney home safely and as soon as possi ble. It’s an extremely geopolitically complex situation. We’re working with the Nation al Security Advisor. We’re working with the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs (SPEHA, U.S. Department of Justice).

“Brittney actually recently handwrote me a letter,” she added. “We’ve been writ ing her throughout the season—players, team management, owners and myself. She recently handwrote me a letter back, and it was incredibly inspiring. She said she’s staying strong, but it’s mentally taxing as you can imagine.”

Brittney Griner remains far away from basketball (Bill Moore photo)

Kenya’s Albert Korir, the 2021 TCS New York City Marathon Professional Men’s Open Division champion, will try to defend his title on Sunday in this year’s race (Bill Moore photo)