THE INNER-CITY NEWS January INNER-CITY NEWS July18, 27,2017 2016- -January August 24, 02, 2017 2016
Why We Must Defend Obama’s Student Act Financial Justice a Key FocusEvery at 2016 NAACPSucceeds Convention New Haven, Bridgeport
INNER-CITYNEWS 2215 2213 Volume 21 No. 2194
Christian Lewis
“DMC”
Malloy Malloy To To Dems: Dems: CANDELARIA FIRST
LATINO DEPUTY SPEAKER
Ignore Ignore“Tough “ToughOn OnCrime” Crime”
Snow in July? Sierra
Color Struck?
Has A FOLLOW Baker Motley Moment US ON 1
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Homeless Advocate Homeless Himself
THE INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2017 - January 24, 2017
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Love Marches On THE INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2017 - January 24, 2017
by THOMAS BREEN NEW HAVEN INDEPENDENT
Rodney Mitchell hoisted the American flag at the front of Sunday’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Love March, just as he has for the past decade and a half. His possible successor was right beside him. Standing alongside him was his son Jayden, who held a simple yellow poster emblazoned with a white peace sign. The pair joined 200 people in the 47th anniversary of the Love March, a New Haven tradition strengthened by the handing down of roles through the generations, beginning with the pulpit. “I grew up in the Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church,” Mitchell said, referring to the congregation on Lawrence Street where the march was founded and has remained rooted. “My grandfather was the
pastor, and my uncle’s the pastor now. This is my family. They’ve always given me this responsibility of marching at the front of the parade, and maybe next year my son will carry this flag.” Pride, tradition, peace, and resilience were the hallmark’s of this year’s parade, which saw around 200 people participate in the one-anda-half mile march along Lawrence Street, Whitney Avenue, Humphrey Street, and State Street. The Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church acted as the starting and finishing points for the march. In between, the church’s primarily black congregants walked alongside a diverse group of East Rock neighbors and civil rights allies, including Mayor Toni Harp, Connecticut U.S. Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut State Sen. Gary Winfield, State Rep. Robyn
THOMAS BREEN PHOTO Wanda
Faison and Deacon Vincent Smith on the march.
CANDELARIA FIRST LATINO DEPUTY SPEAKER
And Work Continues on Appropriations (D-New Haven) is proud to announce an historic achievement. Rep. Candelaria has been named Deputy Speaker of the House, becoming the first Latino to reach this leadership position. “I am not only humbled by the Speaker’s appointment, but proud for the Latin community in my district and across Connecticut,” said. Rep. Candelaria. “I believe this new responsibility recognizes my body of work in the Legislature and for the people I represent in State Representative Juan R. Candelaria New Haven.” House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz matters relating to the funding made the announcement following of state agencies, as well as Opening Day of the 2017 General jurisdiction on state employee Assembly on January 4th. salaries, benefits and retirement, “Juan Candelaria has proven and collective bargaining himself to be an effective leader agreements and arbitration awards and legislator,” said Aresimowicz. for all state employees. “Juan brings strong beliefs and In addition, Rep. Candelaria high standards to his work, and has is a member of the Education earned the respect and admiration Committee as it relates to the of his colleagues on both sides state Department of Education, of the aisle. I am proud to have local and regional boards of Rep. Candelaria as part of my education and the substantive law leadership team.” of collective bargaining covering Rep. Candelaria is also on the teachers and professional all-important Appropriations employees of such boards. Committee which oversees all
Mitchell withs son Jayden Thompson march at the front of the march.
Porter, New Haven Public schools Superintendent Reggie Mayo, and new New Haven Fire Department Chief John Alston. Black Lives Matter signs mixed with pictures of Barack Obama and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Brightly colored peace signs underscored the constant choruses of “We Shall Overcome” and “We Are Marching on Dr. King’s Birthday.” Connecticut’s longest-standing
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celebration of the iconic civil rights leader, the Love March was founded by the Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church’s Rev. George W. Hampton Sr. in 1971, over a decade before President Ronald Reagan officially named Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a national holiday in 1983. For the past four and a half decades, the parade’s participants have proudly marched every year, rain or shine, on Jan. 15th, the actual day of Dr.
King’s birth. Despite the cold but clear weather and the lingering patches of snow and ice on the pavement, the marchers maintained that tradition this year by walking through the streets of East Rock for nearly an hour on Sunday, their flags and voices projecting their affirmation of the importance of marching on every Jan. 15. “I remember when Rev. Hampton once drove over to Lincoln Basset [School] to pick up a whole busload of students to bring them over to the parade,” Wanda Faison recalled. Faison, a lifelong Shiloh Missionary Baptist congregant who grew up in Newhallville in the early 1970s, marched towards the front of the pack on Sunday, helping Deacon Vincent Smith carry the banner that announced the name of the parade. After the march had ended, the founder’s son and the current pastor of Shiloh Baptist Missionary Church, Rev. Kennedy Hampton Sr., led a nearly two-hour service that honored the tradition of the march while also pointing towards the persistent social, economic, and political challenges faced by New Haven’s African-American community in 2017. Following a succession of speakers that included Mayor Harp, Black Lives Matter New Haven co-founder Lia Miller-Granger, Sen. Winfield, and New Haven Legal Assistance Association Executive Director Alexis Smith, Rev. Hampton closed with an impassioned and wideranging speech on the historical hypocricies of the Declaration of Independence to the continued threat that a weakened Voting Rights Act poses to African Americans’ basic civil rights. Again and again, he reflected on both his father’s achievements in establishing the march as well as on the continued relevance of the march well over a decade into the 21st century. “Whenever my father was asked, ‘When will the Love March end:’” Hampton said, “he would respond, ‘It will end when the St. Patrick’s Day Parade ends.’ The march lived past him, and, I know, it will live long past me too.’”
THE INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2017 - January 24, 2017
Homeless Advocate Homeless Himself by ALLAN APPEL
NEW HAVEN INDEPENDENT
A grassroots homeless activist who has orchestrated innovative flea markets, free haircuts, and “love-a-fairs” on behalf of the homeless is himself homeless. At least for now. The activist, Jesse Hardy, three years ago founded J-Hop, a cutting-edge homeless advocacy group, reported that he recently lost his job at a convenience store. On Friday he was evicted from his apartment for nonpayment of rent. Hardy shared that information with a reporter as he waited for a press conference to begin late Friday afternoon on the closing of the city’s needle exchange program, which Yale’s medical school plans to take over. Hardy for years has been one of the most active and visible grassroots organizers and activists on behalf of homeless people in New Haven. He serves on the city’s homeless advisory commission. Now Hardy, who slept on the streets for a time in the mid-1980s, faces the crisis again in his own life. He said he lost his job to a family member of his boss. And he gave away some of the last money
Jesse Hardy
that he had left for his rent. “I got evicted because I was helping others. I had to choose between paying my rent and helping these people,” said Hardy, who is 53 years old. He reported he bought Christmas toys and spent what income he had during the holiday season on assisting others in expectation of his job continuing. Hardy posted the news on his busy Facebook page. The sudden loss of a job or
a sudden medical problem are two frequent triggers for homelessness. In Hardy’s case, however, there seems also to have been an element of making an ethical choice. “Sometimes you have to think of other people. It’s going against the first law of self-preservation [perhaps],” he explained. “I have got to help people.” After his eviction Friday, a friend spotted the money for Hardy to spend some nights in a hotel,
where he was staying Sunday night, he said. Come Wednesday, when he must leave the hotel, he said he might end up at the city’s warming center at Bethel A.M.E. Church on Goffe Street. He may sleep on the street, he said. He said he’s looking for short-term work so he can afford a new place. (People can reach him at 203-821-1957.) “I’m not ashamed,” Hardy said. “These things happen every day” to people in New Haven. Longer term, Hardy said, he and his brother have been planning on launching a barbecue food-truck business. However, the city’s new proposed $2,500 licensing fee may be prohibitive, he added. In 2013 Hardy, who grew up in the old Elm Haven projects (now Monterey Place), was one of the organizers of the “Ashmun Street/ High Rise/Low Rise Reunion,” which brought hundreds of former “brick babies” back for recollections and barbecues in Scantlebury Park, off Dixwell Avenue. At that time he announced the launching of J-Hop, which went on to organize events from free haircuts for the homeless to sneaker drives —because, he
observed, the right shoes are basic to a homeless person on his feet from morning till night. They caught the attention not only of the public but of city officials as New Haven has joined with its shelters and other homeless organizations to end chronic homelessness in the city and throughout the state. Most recently Hardy was an advisor to Wooster Square activist and philanthropist Wendy Hamilton as she bought $15,000 worth of cold weather sleeping bags and other equipment, which were distributed last month at Liberty Community Services Sunrise Cafe at the Church of St. Paul and St. James. In mid-December Hardy was also one of the behind-the-scenes players when the city disbanded the long-time homeless encampment in the woods off I-91. He helped several of last remaining couples obtain bus passes and directed them to city warming centers. Despite his situation, Hardy said he will continue his work with homeless people. Even without personal resources at the moment, he said he can help others. “I can talk,” he noted.
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THE INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2017 - January 24, 2017
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Outreach Workers Blast Needle Exchange Transfer by ALLAN APPEL
NEW HAVEN INDEPENDENT
There won’t be the same one-on-one attention. Or the same compassionate touch. And the benefits to the city at large — like picking up needles from parks — will be far less. And it’s a shortsighted thing to be doing in the midst of an opiate crisis. Those were some of the arguments offered by Ambritt Myers and George Bucheli, two of the three recently laid off city workers of the now closed Syringe Exchange Services program, and by their AFSCME Local 3144 union supporters. The remarks were made at a press conference held Friday afternoon in the union offices at 129 Church St. Bucheli and Myers are members of the union. New Haven launched the needle exchange program 26 years ago in a pioneering effort during the height of the AIDS crisis, and was emulated nationwide. However, over the years all of the programs in the state that copied New Haven’s model have closed down, moving the service to more comprehensive non-government providers. As of Dec. 31 the New Haven program was for all practical purposes shut down when the city declined to accept the state funds which had been supporting it. Instead the funds are to be transferred to the Yale School of Medicine, which is negotiating continue the program folded into other services it already provides in a 40-foot mobile clinic. (Yale’s Dr. Frederick Altice said as of mid-week last week the contract hadn’t yet been finalized. But he said Yale has begun providing services to drug users who had
ALLAN APPEL PHOTO
Dismissed needle exchange veterans Myers and Bucheli.
depended on the city service; see more at the bottom of this article.) Local 3144 President Cherlyn Poindexter urged the city’s health commission not “to retreat from its historical obligation to run the Syringe Exchange Services, especially in light of the opioid crisis currently experienced in this city and the state.” Poindexter characterized the Yale plan as “outsourcing” and deemed it “unconscionable” to proceed with no real plan in place for the continuation of services, posing, as a result, a serious public health danger to the New Haven community. “A lot of these people are going back to their rooms. Yale doesn’t have the compassion we have,” she added. Union Vice President Harold Brooks said, “These [Myers and Bucheli] are individuals who dedicated their lives to this [work]. You bring something different to the table. They built a trust, a bond.” “Yale is Yale. Yale doesn’t have the
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compassion we have. This is my purpose. I’m scared a lot of people [we have helped get back on their feet] are going to fail,” said Myers. “City officials in making this decision to change the syringe program remain confident its clients will remain better served by a provider using a community health model, because it can be more responsive to their needs; and because it provides comprehensive services including mental health and substance abuse counseling,” responded mayoral spokesman Laurence Grotheer. This is New Haven’s effort to provide for that segment of the population in line with the state Department of Public Health and its vision.” Grotheer said the three eliminated city positions two general fund and one special fund jobs won’t result in any savings to the city’s exchequer because state money paid the salaries. Meanwhile, Yale’s Altice emailed this update on services Yale has begun providing before the final contract is
signed: “Even though we do not yet have a signed contract, we are already doing the necessary work. For example, people who want NSP services and go to the Health Department are referred immediately to the CHCV [community health care van] or our storefront drop in center. The CHCV schedule and the storefront address are posted at the NH Health Dept. “The NH Health Department has transferred all of their NSP supplies to us and everyone is receiving services. Our staff are all trained and experienced in the distribution and use of Narcan and all drug injectors who receive services are provided a Narcan kit and trained in how to use it for themselves or friends. Our hours of operations are also more expanded than at the Health Department with more sites to receive services. In addition, anyone who wants treatment for opioid addiction can be enrolled on treatment IMMEDIATELY (on demand) using buprenorphine or extended release naltrexone that we prescribe on the CHCV. “For those who want drug treatment elsewhere, we have multiple opportunities for treatment referral with same day treatment provided at our referral sites. We also voluntarily screen the patients for STIs, HIV, HCV and provide vaccination for Hepatitis A and B. Additionally, we can provide onsite treatment for HIV and HCV, thereby improving access to treatment without patients having to go elsewhere for treatment. For clients who are HIV negative, we can also provide onsite preexposure (PrEP and post-exposure (PEP) services to prevent HIV transmission. Hence, there are new opportunities that are present in the transfer to the CHCV. ”
Crime Drop Heralded THE INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2017 - January 24, 2017
by PAUL BASS
NEW HAVEN INDEPENDENT
Half as many New Haveners get shot each year as they did a decade ago, and community policing deserves much of the credit, officials declared Thursday with the release of 2016 year-end crime statistics. They released the statistics at a press conference held on the third floor of police headquarters. at 1 Union Ave. Homicides dropped from 15 to 13 from the year before. Robberies with firearms dropped 27 percent, overall robberies 17 percent, aggravated assaults 2.8 percent.
Shootings actually inched up from 63 to 67, and shots fired leaped from 105 to 160. But, the police said, the latter statistics may reflect a tripling in the capacity of the computerized ShotSpotter system that tracks shots fired (including those fired by cops at the range). And the number of shootings has steadily declined in town over the past 13 years: The city saw an average of 126 shootings a year from 2003-2012; for the last four years the number has remained in the 60s. Over the past five years (a high point used as a benchmark), the number of annual homicides dropped 61 percent, robberies
Campbell: Community policing “alive and well.”
Greater New Haven Scholarship Information Session New Haven, CT (January 2017) - Making sure that high school seniors and parents are aware of the various local scholarships available to help assist with the cost of their postsecondary education, Higher Heights Youth Empowerment Programs, Inc. along-side New Haven Promise, The New Haven Scholarship Fund, Wells Fargo and many local sororities and fraternities are set to discuss their scholarship programs and deadlines that are currently available for high school seniors in the Greater New Haven area. WHO: New Haven Promise The New Haven Scholarship Fund NAACP Greater New Haven Wells Fargo Bank National Sorority of Phi Delta Kappa Omega Psi Phi Fraternity- Chi Omicron Chapter Delta Sigma Theta Sorority- New Haven Alumnae Chapter Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority- Theta Epsilon Omega Alumnae Chapter Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity- Delta Iota Sigma Alumnae Chapter Zeta Phi Beta Sorority- Pi Lambda Zeta Alumnae Chapter Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority- Iota Chi Sigma Alumnae Chapter WHERE: Albertus Magnus College Hubert Campus Center 871 Winchester Avenue New Haven, CT 06511 WHEN: Thursday, January 26, 2017 6:00PM We believe that all students should have access to college. Our mission is to change the lives of under-represented college-bound students to Empower, Encourage, and Equip them to obtain a post-secondary education.
Generoso: Other cities come to learn from us.
48.4 percent, burglaries 40.8 percent, and aggravated assaults 29.1 percent. “Community policing is alive and well in the city of New Haven, and it’s here to stay,” said Interim Police Chief Anthony Campbell. He and Mayor Toni Harp said New Haven has become “a healthier, safer city” thanks to “partnerships” with citizens, clergy, business owners, and other law enforcement agencies. U.S. Attorney Deirdre Daly credited New Haven’s execution of Project Longevity for helping New Haven cut shootings more dramatically than Hartford and Bridgeport did in 2016, even though those cities have the program, too. City, state and
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federal law enforcement work together in Project Longevity to identify the small number of people responsible for much of the violence in town, and “calls in” gangs or “groups” of them, and offers them a choice between help straightening out their lives, or federal prosecution on charges with stiff prison sentences. Hartford and Bridgeport each had almost twice as many shootings as New Haven last year, she said. Assistant Chief Achilles Generoso, who oversees the detective bureau, credited an almost-daily meeting that takes place on the police department’s fourth floor for keeping New Haven ahead of the curve. Four mornings a week, city cops meet in the Compstat
room with colleagues from the U.S. attorney’s office, the state’s attorney’s office, other federal agencies like the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration, and West Haven and Hamden police to share intelligence and plot strategy. Over the past year, cops from Gary, Ind.; Birmingham, Ala.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; Baltimore, and New York have visited that room to see how New Haven does it, Generoso said. Delegations from Houston and from Portsmouth, Virginia are scheduled to visit in 2017. “Nowhere in the country is there a collaboration” like New Haven’s, Generoso proclaimed. New Haven police have in turn learned from the visitors, he said. For instance, they replicated a booklet that Chattanooga presents to individuals who receive oneon-on “call-in”-style visits at home. The booklet includes information on their police record, examples from their intelligence files, a letter from the chief, and surveillance photos, to drive home the choices the individuals face. “Sixty-seven people being shot in our city is far too many,” Campbell remarked. “One person being shot in our city is far too many.” So police will continue seeking ways to further cut crime, he said. Generoso said those plans include establishing a “real-time crime center” in a conference room on the third-floor. The department will centralize the intelligence and crime analysis units there, along with equipment that shows camera footage from around town, ShotSpotter reports, and facialrecognition results. In response to questions from the press, Campbell reaffirmed the department’s “sanctuary city” approach to the immigrant community despite threats by the incoming Trump administration to withhold federal money; and said he hopes to have cops equipped with body cameras by the end of June so the city can qualify for outside government dollars to pay for them. Click on the above video to watch those remarks.
THE INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2017 - January 24, 2017
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THE INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2017 - January 24, 2017
Reimbursement Switch Could Cost City by THOMAS BREEN NEW HAVEN INDEPENDENT
Alder Al Paolillo Jr. ran both of his hands through his hair as he tried to process what city Budget Director Joe Clerkin had just said: $1.6 million from the state might not make it into city coffers because of uncompleted paperwork. That’s not money designated for future capital and infrastructure investments; that’s money the city has already spent and counted on getting back. “So we’re not getting the [money] from the state?” Paolillo asked. “And the state just told us this?” That revelation emerged during a hearing at City Hall Tuesday night held by the Board of Alders Finance Committee. It was one of several points of concern about executive transparency, dwindling state aid, and the city’s potential budget deficit that preoccupied Paolillo and his colleagues at the committee’s monthly meeting. This worried conversation around state aid and the city budget began about an hour and a half into the session, when Clerkin came to the front of the room to testify on two motions from the mayor’s office under consideration by the committee. The first proposed the reading and filing of updated financial reports for the month of November. The second requested a transfer of funds from various budget line items to cover projected shortfalls in several departments, including police, public safety communications, and FICA/Social Security. After leading a push to demand fiscal restraint and departmental
THOMAS BREEN PHOTO
SAlders Dolores Colon, Adam Marchand, Evette Hamilton at hearing.
transparency during negotiations over the city’s budget early last summer, Paolillo seemed primed to take the mayor’s office to task on Monday night for failing to come up with a sustainable plan to curb spending in the first six months of the current fiscal year. Of particular concern was the $1 million year-over-year increase in police overtime since July, most of which derived from the training and staffing required by the city’s forced takeover from the state of the pre-trial detention center at 1 Union Avenue. Both motions passed. Then Clerkin brought up the sunsetting of the state’s Local Capital Improvement Program (LoCIP). Suddenly there was a new, and very urgent, budget problem to discuss. Clerkin reported that on Dec. 29 his department received a letter from Connecticut’s Office of Policy Management Secretary Benjamin Barnes, announcing that the state would be discontinuing LoCIP, as it had exceeded its bonding limit
of $825 million and had therefore “reached an inevitable breaking point.” LoCIP is a state program that reimburses municipalities for capital improvement projects like road or bridge construction. According to Clerkin, LoCIP had been matching city funds on such projects for a number of years. In the budget for the current fiscal year of 2016-2017, the city had already allotted $1.6 million of its own money towards eligible projects, expecting a matching reimbursement of $1.6 million from the state. This reimbursement, however, is contingent on the city’s satisfactory demonstration of money used, projects fulfilled, and LoCIP paperwork completed. The schedule for that paperwork suddenly changed with the state’d decision to end the program. Clerkin said he was not sure of, and indeed is not responsible for, the specifics of the bureaucratic requirements for LoCIP
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reimbursement. (Clerkin pointed to the city’s public works department and the state comptroller’s office as in charge of those procedures.) He said he is confident on one budgetary fact that the alders, and Paolillo in particular, found greatly disturbing: the city of New Haven has been reimbursed for LoCIP eligble projects only through 2014. That means New Haven has not yet gotten back the expected money for projects included in fiscal years 2014-2015, 20152016, and the current one of 20162017. Depending on each year’s relevant allocations, that missing reimbursement could be as large as almost $5 million ($1.6 million each year over three years). Paolillo expressed frustration and concern, not just at the large amount of money on the line, but at the delay in communication to the Board of Alders. “My issue with this is that, if we don’t have a meeting tonight, we don’t know about LoCIP, which could be a $5 million hit to our
capital budget, which in debt service per year could be give or take $600,000,” he said to Clerkin at the end of the latter’s testimony before the committee. “That’s a half a million dollars out of the debt service line, on an annual basis, all because we’re not sure why we’re not getting compensated for prior years. That’s a significant chunk. I’d like to see what the reporting requirements are, what we have reported, and why we haven’t reported for the previous two years.” At the end of the session, as the alders prepared to approve the all of the motions under consideration that evening, Paolillo raised his hand to speak. “I’d like to add an amendment that says that the city has to turn over all documentation related to the general fund budget coming from the state of Connecticut,” he proposed. “That they have to turn over all documentation coming from any entity from the state that has to deal with the handing off state functions to city government, reductions in capital projects, rescissions, whatever they may be. We should be notified upon receipt. When the administration receives these notifications, we need to receive them too. That should be the communication.” “When you have an administration that doesn’t want to provide you with information,” he concluded, “you have to cover all your bases.” The day after the hearing, mayoral spokesman Laurence Grotheer stated that the city is not late on submitting the paperwork, but that the state sprung the notice of canceled funding as a surprise.
THE INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2017 - January 24, 2017
The Inner-City News Catches Up With Celebrated South African Filmmaker Tebogo Malope
By Christian Lewis, ICN Correspondent As some of you may know, a few months ago Babz had the chance to meet Jinna Mutune, an independent African filmmaker from South Africa, and recently Jinna and I started communicating through email and she asked if I would mind writing an article on Tebogo Malope, another independent filmmaker from South Africa. I prepared some questions for him since I couldn’t take off to go to South Africa to meet him (LOL). To say that I haven’t yet met him in person but have only communicated with him via email, to see his answers to some of the questions really inspired me, something I will never forget. I hope you all enjoy this interview as much as I enjoyed having the opportunity to interview him. Q: When did you realize that filmmaking was your calling in life? A: I realized in my early teens that storytelling was my calling, at that stage i was focused on theatre as a medium. Filmmaking as a medium chose me later in my late teens. Q: What was your involvement in the Chep movie? A: I wasn’t directly involved in the film but as a fellow African filmmaker I always feel a great connection with other African filmmakers and thus my involvement could be regarded as spiritual, an intrinsic affinity to a vision for a united African film making front. Q: How did you meet and come to work with Jinna Mutune? A: I met Jinna in Nairobi when I had embarked on shooting a documentary about a Somalian pirate. The experience turned out sour and a bit traumatic but Jinna became a pillar of comfort and wisdom during that troubled time. I’m eternally grateful. Q: Did you have mentors when you first started in the business? A: Yes I have and I still do, I have a handful of specific ones that held my hand when i needed it the most and
Tebogo Malope, another independent filmmaker
are still in my life, and then i have life, i try let life teach me. Q: How does it feel to be making an impact on South Africa as an independent filmmaker? A: It’s a bit tricky to answer this question as I’d have to first accept that I’m making an impact, I hesitate to do that. But if i had to answer it i’d say it feels awesome. Hahahaha Q: Do you attribute your love for filmmaking to anyone specific? A: I attribute my love for storytelling to my family that used to tell me stories over dinners and bourne fires. I attribute my love for filmmaking to Spike Lee who in my late teens I met and got to see him in action. Q: Do you work with any other filmmakers from South Africa? A: I work with numerous filmmakers from South Africa but i especially love my creative circle of directors such Thabang Moleya, Ernest Nkosi, Lebohang Rasethaba, Mpho Thwala, Mzi Kumalo and Zweli Radebe Q: What is your ultimate goal you want to accomplish as a filmmaker? A:I’d like to see us as African filmmakers reach a point of one vision, a continental collaborative effort and ease of distribution of African films in the African continent. “No borders for African Films” Q: Has your family been supportive of your career? A: In the early years not quite, filmmaking as a career was a new concept to them but my relative success in it has converted them, so they are a bit more supportive now. They have to be, i guess. Hahahaha
Q: Are there any other filmmakers that you wish to work with in the future? A: Would love to shoot with Matthew Libatique. Q: Where do you see yourself in your career in the next 5-10 years? A: 1 Oscar, 2 Palm D Ors, My foundation that funds students struggling to fund their film schooling is running, On a private island writing my next Oscar winning script. I’m visualizing that sunset as I write this. Q: Are there any specific challenges you face with being an independent filmmaker? A: Funding Funding Funding. Q: Are you mostly focused on working with actors and actresses from South Africa or are you open to working with actors and actresses from all around? A: I would love to work with international actors, i have a list already. I won’t post it here. I don’t want them to get too cocky. Hahahahaha. Q: What advice would you give to readers who may be considering a career as an independent filmmaker? A: It becomes a career in hindsight, in it’s initial stages its a passion. So assess your level of passion. You need bucket loads of it to sustain you, you might never achieve career level. I would like to sincerely thank Jinna Mutune for introducing me to Tebogo and I would like to thank Tebogo for taking the time to sit and do the interview, I greatly appreciate the both of you. Photo: MCU:Tebgo Malope “For Love and broken bones”. Jenna Mtune, Twitter.
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203-599-3091
THE INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2017 - January 24, 2017
A New Era: School Might Not Get Built by MARKESHIA RICKS NEW HAVEN INDEPENDENT
Creed High School nee “Hyde,” New Haven’s smallest traditional high schoo got some tough news this week: its promised new school building is last on the district’s construction priority list. It’s so last that it might not get built. That was the takeaway for members of the Board of Education from a committee update to the master plan for school construction that prioritized the building of Quinnipiac Real World Math STEM School, West Rock Authors Academy ahead of Creed. While the prioritization process doesn’t call for scrapping a new building for Creed all together, its placement at the bottom of the list means that the school, which is currently camping out in North Haven, could be without a permanent home for years to come. If the rebuilding plan dies, it would mark a turn amid changing budget realities for New Haven’s district-wide school construction plan, which has been remaking campuses across town without obstacles for decades with state government picking up most of the tab. Creed, which has 225 students, has long lived with uncertainties. It moved from Hamden to temporary quarters in North Haven in 2013. It was supposed to move into a new wing to be attached to Hillhouse High School. That plan was killed amid opposition in the community. The next idea was to make it one of the final new schools to emerge from New Haven’s citywide school construction plan. Or to move it into St. Stanislaus Church’s former school building on State Street (since taken over by Booker T. Washington Academy), or consolidating into the city’s four other traditional high schools. In addition to not knowing whether Creed was going to remain a separate school, students started this school year without a principal, though they now have one, Laura Roblee. School system operations chief Will Clark spoke at Monday night’s board meeting about what’s left
NHPSA “Celebration of Learning” event at Creed.
on the list of the school district’s nearly now $1.67 billion, 21-year school construction program. The remaining schools to build include a new school for Quinnipiac Real World Math STEM School and West Rock Author’s Academy and Creed. The $45 million Strong 21st Century Communications Magnet and Lab School on the Southern Connecticut State University campus got the go ahead last year to be built after the Board of Alders reversed course and approved the construction of the school. The state is providing a $34.3 million grant to allow the city Board of Ed to build the 440-student lab school in partnership with Southern. The city’s share is $10.7 million in bonding. But Clark said there likely won’t be any such generosity from the city or the state in future budget years, and noted that those struggles could seriously impact whether Creed gets a new school, but also the building of the other two. He suggested that the district think hard about priorities. “Frankly, the Hyde project has been to the Board of Aldermen before, both as its own project and as a project within Hillhouse, and both times it did not make it through,” he said. “So, I think we also have to be realistic about the need to truly focus where the priority is and what we want to do.”
Board member Darnell Goldson interpreted Clark’s words more plainly. “The fact is that Hyde is not a priority,” he said. “And I think we have to be honest with that community about that. I don’t see with the finances that we have now, with the finances that are predicted on the state level in the next couple of years, that there is any way that Hyde is ever going to be a priority.” Goldson said it was time to be honest with the Creed/Hyde school community so that good decisions can be made going forward. “As opposed to keep saying to them ‘Sure, it’s on a list somewhere and one day we’re going to get to it,’” he said. “They’re never going to get to it. The state is never going to fund it; the Board of Aldermen is never going to approve it. We want to be honest about that.” Clark said the citywide school construction sustainability committee, which is responsible for updating the master school construction list, is still committed to finding a solution for Creed. The school officially remains on the construction list. But he said realistically, even for the school that is highest on the priority list, it could still be at least four years before that school is built because it is a multiyear project in a good budget year. If it takes at least four years per school, it could be nearly
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a decade before a school could be built for Creed, and that would be assuming that there is land or even pre-existing building available. “The committee clearly wants to keep looking at this,” he said. “We still have Creed as an active school. We want to support it. It’s continuing to do good things. There are some very encouraging programs going on there, and we want to support that.” “I, along with many people from the Creed community, felt discouraged upon hearing that Creed will not be getting a new school any time soon,” he said Thursday. “Students at Creed feel marginalized and isolated at the current North Haven location.” Spell said the sports science theme at Creed (its official title is Dr. Cortlandt V.R. Creed Health and Sports Sciences High School, after a recent renaming) drew him to attend the school. He plays basketball and wants to pursue a career in sports medicine. “We are a health and sports science school, yet we don’t even have a gym,” he said. “Long bus rides definitely have a negative impact on student morale, so I believe having a building in New Haven would definitely boost school spirit and classroom productivity.” He said transportation problems to the North Haven campus often cut into class time. And he gave a big thumbs down to the notion of moving Creed students into existing bigger schools rather than continue pursuing a new building. “Breaking up the school is not the answer,” Spell said. “Here at Creed we have a strong sense of community and students are doing great things. All we are missing is a building that fits our needs.” Student board member Coral Ortiz Thursday, echoed Spell’s disappointment at learning that Creed might not get its new school after years of hearing promises to the contrary. She argued that not building the school could unintentionally send the message to Creed students that their school is not as important as others. “Not giving what was promised shows a lack of integrity,” said Ortiz, a Hillhouse senior. “It kind of feels like as a student, and
this might not be the intention, but that they don’t care about Hyde and Hyde students have told me this—as much as New Haven Academy or ESUMS [Engineering and Science Magnet School]. It sends the message to Hyde students that we value these students at XYZ school more. Every education should be equal. It’s disappointing.” At Monday night’s meeting, board member Che Dawson stressed the need to plan for what happens to Hyde students. “I don’t think that means that we can’t plan for that with that in mind,” he said of not building a new school. “What is our next best option? I think it’s worth whoever’s in charge to bring those folks in to ask that question. I know where they are is kind of far out ... but I think at the very least, and I think you agree, or I think I hear you saying, at least have a conversation with these people and have a plan.” Board member Ed Joyner brought up a word that has riled the Creed/Hyde community in the past: consolidation. “If you look at some of the reports from the fiscal organizations the state is in real deep trouble and I think we ought to accept certain fiscal realities as they emerge,” he said. “We should be as truthful to the public as possible. We certainly have enough space in this district to accommodate students at the secondary level if you look at the high schools. These are not the best times for public education and we have to accept that and we can’t have pie in the sky approach as we move forward.” The idea of consolidating or moving Creed/Hyde came up last spring when then Chief Financial Officer Victor De La Paz made the suggestion as part of cuts the district could make to balance its budget. Then Superintendent Garth Harries said at the time that consolidation had the potential to save the district about $727,000 by eliminating operational and transportation costs to the building in North Haven.
THE INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2017 - January 24, 2017
Martin Luther King Day 2017 Yale University mlk.yale.edu "The Kings at Yale" Exhibit January 11-March 3 Sterling Memorial Library Nave, 120 High St. Gather Out of Star-Dust: The Harlem Renaissance Exhibit January 13-April 17 Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, 121 Wall St. Hidden Figures Book Discussion with the Yale African-American Affinity Group January 13 | 12:00-1:00pm 221 Whitney Ave., LL5 & 6 Exhibition: "Let Us March On: Lee Friedlander and the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom" January 13 – July 9 Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St. 21st Annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Celebration & Food Drive at the Yale Peabody Museum January 15 - 12:00-4:00pm | January 16 - 10:00am4:00pm | Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, 170 Whitney Ave.
STEPPING STONES OF MEDITATION: A Path through a World of Uncertainty, Lecture by Paul R. Fleischman January 16 | 3:30-5:00pm Yale School of Medicine, Mary S. Harkness Auditorium, 333 Cedar St. Pierson Tea with Blain Snipstal January 16 | 4:30-6:00pm Leitner House, Pierson College Rev. Dr. MLK Jr. Dinner January 17 | 5:00-7:00pm Residential Colleges & HGS Conversation: “The Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom: Racial Justice Activism in 1957 and Beyond” with William P. Jones, La Tanya S. Autry, and others January 19 | 5:30-7:30pm Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St. The Cultural Centers at Yale present: “Voices of Hope & Resistance” Poetry Slam & Open Mic January 19 | 7:00-9:00pm Afro-American Cultural Center E-Room, 211 Park St.
“In Celebration of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.” Exhibit January 16 | 12:00-5:00pm Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, 121 Wall St.
Women's March on Washington January 21 | 10:00am-4:00pm Independence Ave. and Third St. SW Hidden Figures: Lecture by Author Margot Lee Shetterly & Film Screening January 21 | 4:00-8:30pm (Lecture at 4:30p, Film screening at 5:45p) Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall St. Intervening in Bias Incidents: Strategies for Action in the Moment Multiple sessions on each of the following days: January 22, 1:00-2:30pm, 3:00-4:30pm January 24, 6:00-7:30pm January 26, 6:00-7:30pm January 31, 8:00-9:30pm MLK KEYNOTE ADDRESS: Diane Nash on “Courage, Conflict and Creative Maladjustment: Speaking Truth to Power across Generations” January 25 | 5:30-7:30pm Battell Chapel, 400 College St. Black Church at Yale & University Church in Yale Joint Worship Service January 29 | 10:30am-12:00pm Battell Chapel, 400 College St.
The MLK 2017 Planning Committee would like to thank the following partners for their tremendous efforts to commemorate the life and legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on campus and throughout New Haven: Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale University, Black Church at Yale, COMCAST, Communication and Consent Educators (CCEs) at Yale University, Connecticut Department of Energy & Environmental Protection, Department of African American Studies at Yale, Dwight Hall at Yale | Center for Public Service & Social Justice, Eli Whitney Museum and Workshop, Howard K. Hill Funeral Services, Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services, Intercultural Affairs Council at Yale, La Casa Cultural Julia de Burgos, Native American Cultural Center, New Haven Public Schools, Office of Gender and Campus Culture, Office of the Provost – Yale University, Office of the Secretary & Vice President for Student Life of Yale University, Pierson College, Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church of New Haven, Staples, Stop & Shop, Subway, Theta Epsilon Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., United Way of Greater New Haven, University Church in Yale University, Walmart, Women’s Center at Yale, WYBC 94.3, Xi Omicron Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., Yale African American Affinity Group, Yale College Dean's Office, Yale Dining, Yale Faculty of Arts & Sciences Dean's Office, Yale Office of Pubic Affairs & Communications, Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale Sterling Memorial Library, Yale Sustainable Food Project, Yale University Art Gallery, Yale University Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University Office of Diversity & Inclusion, Yale University Office of New Haven & State Affairs
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THE INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2017 - January 24, 2017
Schools Prepare For Immigration Raids by PAUL BASS & MARKESHIA RICKS NEW HAVEN INDEPENDENT
If the feds coming knocking on New Haven public school doors looking for undocumented immigrants, officials are prepared to ask to see credentials first then ask for a warrant. Even then, they don’t expect to usher agents into the classroom. They do expect to notify families enrolled in public schools about any threats to their children. That message is contained in a draft policy the Board of Education has prepared to respond to fears that the incoming Trump Administration will send agents back to the city to round up undocumented workers and their families. (Federal agents swept up 32 immigrants in new Haven in a 2007 surprise raid a day and a half after the city passed an
PAUL BASS PHOTO
Recent pro-“sanctuary city” rally in New Haven.
immigrant-friendly municipal ID card program.) School system operations chief Will Clark presented the draft policy at Monday night’s Board of Ed meeting at Beecher School. Clark heads a committee that has been working on the policy since concerns arose about New Haven’s “sanctuary city” standing with the federal government in the wake of Donald Trump’s election as president. Clark told board members the draft was “intended to push forth the conversation.” He reported that the district is updating emergency contact information for all students and training staff “to accept, investigate and respond to any and all claims of discrimination or bullying against any member of the New Haven Public Schools district community.” And school staffers are instructed to avoid inquiring into students’ immigration status. In his remarks and in his PowerPoint presentation of the draft, Clark emphasized that federal policy, backed up by state law, currently advises against immigration enforcement agents entering school buildings. “But that is guidance. It is not law. How that may change is something we have to monitor very closely,” Clark said.
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The draft recommends the following policy statements, among others: • “Any request by immigration or other federal agents submitted at the school level shall be denied and forwarded to the Office of the Superintendent for legal review and for adequate steps to provide for the emotional and physical safety of its students and staff.” •“The Office of the Superintendent shall require the production of official credentials of any Federal Agent or other representative seeking access to schools or students.” •“The Office of the Superintendent shall require the disclosure of a warrant signed by a federal or state Judge authorizing any legal activity on School grounds and shall review such information with Legal Counsel.” •“The Office of the Superintendent shall also, where appropriate, deploy School Security Emergency response Teams, Trauma teams and other resources at his/her disposal and/or through collaboration with local Police and City agencies in order to protect the Schools, students and staff from unlawful or inappropriate enforcement.” • “District Personnel shall refuse all voluntary information sharing with immigration agents across
all aspects of the District to the fullest extent possible under the law. All requests for information shall be forwarded to the Office of the Superintendent for appropriate legal review.” According to the draft, the school district also plans to update emergency contact information for students and to protect all student records as confidential under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). The draft identifies community groups like Junta for Progressive Action, Unidad Latina en Accion, IRIS, St. Rose of Lima, Connecticut Students for a Dream, and the ACLU as “partners” in the school system’s work on this issue. Clark told the board that his committee examined policies in place in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles. “A lot of folks are in the same position we are” in dealing with “unknowns” for how policies like those of nominees such as expected new U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions will “trickle down” to local federal appointees, Clark said. Board member Darnell Goldson called the report “well researched and informative.” He told Clark Monday night that he hopes to have a final policy ready for approval as soon as possible. “The [Trump] Administration has been clear what they want to do, what the goals are. I don’t think we have to wait for them to take office to do it,” Goldson said. “I would like for us to make a statement about where we stand on these issues. ... I don’t want to wait until something happens.” “We want a strong statement that we are protective of our kids; we will keep our kids in school,” agreed acting schools Superintendent Reggie Mayo. Clark’s working committee on the policy includes Gil Traverso, Madeline Negron, Carolyn Ross Lee, Carmen Rodriguez, Abie Benitez, Danny Diaz, Cameo Thorne, Dave Cicarella, and Michelle Bonanno.
THE INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2017 - January 24, 2017
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Girls Gather S.T.E.A.M. THE INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2017 - January 24, 2017
by LUCY GELLMAN NEW HAVEN INDEPENDENT
Tatyana Ramirez was struggling with the “tower of power” twominute challenge — how to build the highest, most stable structure in the room with only candied fruit and toothpicks — when she had an algebraic revelation: Use a triangular base. Ramirez spread the message to her team, and they methodically stacked candied chunks of orange and the thin wooden toothpicks they’d been given. At two minutes exactly, they lifted their hands off the project. Even before the room’s towers had been measured, it was clear they had won. An eighth grader at Ross Woodward School, Ramirez is one of 35 seventh and eighth-grade girls who have been selected for a six-month “S.T.E.A.M.” science, technology, engineering, arts, and math intensive-learning program hosted by the new local chapter of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women (NCBW) and Ross Woodward School. Tuesday evening the girls and their families gathered for an orientation in Ross Woodward’s cozy music room, where they heard from NCBW members and guests a little about the next few months. From now through June of this year, the group will convene once a month at Greater New Haven universities, libraries and research hubs for lessons on why
the S.T.E.A.M. subjects are so important for young women to pursue. Activities will include a visit to the Milford laboratories of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, hour of code challenge, lecture from a mathematics professor, and screening of the new film Hidden Figures. The series is part of a greater initiative, driven at the national level by both universities and President Barack Obama, to bring more women and particularly women of color into fields traditionally dominated by men.
“You ladies are going to be the future of our cities ... Think about where technology is going to take us in your lifetime,” said Mayor Toni Harp, noting how small and accessible computers have become since she had been in college. “Will you be ready to live in that world? Will you be ready to work in that world? Well, you will be if you think about the importance of S.T.E.A.M.” “Even when the world is against you and limits your progress, if you have strong skills, whatever those skills are, you can overcome,” she
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said, referencing N.A.S.A.‘s team of black female engineers featured in Hidden Figures. “If you work hard and you know more than everybody [on that subject], it doesn’t matter what your background is, it doesn’t matter whether or not you’re a woman or a man, people will use what you bring to the table. But you’ve got towork hard.” “You’ll go places with these skills,” added Patrice Antoine, a NWCB-NHV member. That message stuck with several of the 35 young women who have
come out for the event. Sitting with her mom and older sister at the end of one long table, seventhgrader Elizabeth Xicohtencatl clapped enthusiastically. An aspiring artist, detective and forensic scientist, she believes that the S.T.E.A.M. program will give her more confidence in her biology class, where tackling cellular development has thrown her for a loop. “I’ll be learning things that I don’t learn in school,” she said. “That I want to get better at.” That was also the case for India Osbia, who wants to become a dance choreographer but also wants a grounding in those core S.T.E.A.M. subjects to help her focus in school. “It’s just not true that girls aren’t as good at some subjects,” she said. “And I think they really can run the world some day.” Meanwhile, eighth-grader Dayanara Chacon said she’d been thrilled to be selected because all of the S.T.E.A.M. subjects particularly math will help her work toward her goal: becoming a civil rights lawyer in New Haven, where she can stand up for people “if I see their rights are being violated.” “I just don’t think it’s right when people say girls aren’t as good at math and science,” she said. “Because we are! It’s wrong. I’m not saying guys are useless, but girls can do anything guys can.”
Sierra Has A Baker Motley Moment THE INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2017 - January 24, 2017
by MARKESHIA RICKS NEW HAVEN INDEPENDENT
When petite 17-year-old Sierra Welch stepped up to a lectern that she barely stood head and shoulders above, those attending this week’s Board of Ed meeting didn’t know what she was going to say. By the time she was done talking about the work she’s doing to bring justice to the classroom, they were clapping. Sierra, a junior at the the Sound School, was invited by board member Darnell Goldson to talk about Project Youth Court and the peer-to-peer work that keeps young people out of the juvenile justice system. “Project Youth Court is like a regular court trial except that we are youth,” she told board members at the meeting Monday night. “We are youth interviewing youth. We are youth supporting youth. Youth court definitely strives for restorative justice — we have a restorative contract. And what we do at Youth Court is we basically help kids to move on to a better path from why they were sent to Youth Court.” Sierra is among the students who volunteers with Project Youth Court, which project Executive Director Jane Michaud, said is part of the school district’s restorative justice initiative. Students like Sierra serve as jurors, attorneys, bailiffs and clerks to adjudicate the infractions of their fellow students. They devise what is known as “restorative contracts” that the offending student has to follow. Project Youth Court, which is aided by local attorneys and judges like U.S. District Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer. comes under the umbrella of the city’s Youth Stat effort. Michaud said students are often required to volunteer with Project Youth Court as part of their restorative contract after they’ve gotten in trouble. They go on to stay with the program
MARKESHIA RICKS PHOTO Sierra
with her mom, Lizzie Johnson-White.
and contribute to offering a “second chance” to their fellow students. “It’s been very successful,” Michaud said “We are not here to put them in jail. We are not here to kill them,” Sierra explained. “However we are here to help them in order for them to be a better person. We, as youth are involved, we are hands on, because youth understands youth. So what we do is we want to help and encourage our youth the best way we can. And youth court is a good way. We volunteer our time and take out our time to be with youth.” Sierra said she has served as both a youth attorney delivering opening and closing statements and questioning the client. Board member Carlos Torre if the cases are hypothetical. She
informed him that they are very real, and the restorative contracts are binding. “I have asked questions for the client interview, helped on the restorative contract, and have given the student responsibility for what they are going to do next whether that is community service, jury duty, tutoring someone, or they need tutoring,” she said. “They’re definitely real cases.” Sierra has developed public speaking skills through the program, as she demonstrated at Monday’s meeting. To her Project Youth Court is more than just community service — it’s about social justice. “You’re not a youth playing an adult role,” she said. “You are a youth talking to a young person, and you have to remember
that. And you don’t know what somebody is going through with their friends or at home. You don’t know their background. So you have to treat them like a human, you can’t treat them like ‘I’m reading your case and I’m better than you.’ You absolutely cannot do that because it’s not fair. Who are you to judge somebody. You’re no one to judge anyone.” “It sounds like a good lesson that you’ve learned,” Mayor Toni Harp said. Board member Ed Joyner said listening to Sierra speak made him have “a Constance Baker Motley moment.” “Nothing makes a teacher or administrator feel better than to see students clearly take advantage of opportunities and represent the district in the way
you are doing now,” he said. “And I would hope you would read Constance Baker Motley’s biography ... so that you would know that at one point [she was] just like you. You are very impressive and we are very proud of you.” Superintendent Reggie Mayo asked Sierra about her career aspirations. It turns out she’s not looking to be an attorney. She wants to be a marine biologist, Butt she said she will be forever a proponent of social justice. “I will do the best that I can do to help the world that I’m in and make it a better place,” she said. “Well, we’re looking for a superintendent ...” Mayo remarked, drawing a hearty laugh from the crowd at the meeting.
Womanhood, Or Something Like It THE INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2017 - January 24, 2017
by LUCY GELLMAN NEW HAVEN INDEPENDENT
From almost the very beginning of In The Red and Brown Water, which plays at the Yale Cabaret from Thursday through Saturday night, our protagonist Oya is running. Locomotive arms lift and lower themselves behind her. Feet become percussive instruments, hammering into the stage. From all sides of her body comes a deep, collective breath, actors throwing themselves into movement as if to will her forward. It’s the only consistency of which she is totally sure as her muscled legs fly, trying to transport her to another life. But in this world, a blend of myth and mortality from its beginning to its end, it’s never completely clear what she is running toward, and what she is running from. Instead, she (and by extension, the play) explores, in luminous and intricate detail, what it means to be on the edge of womanhood — and specifically, black womanhood falling in and out of faith with oneself until there is little self left to fall into. Written by Tarell Alvin McCraney in 2010 as part of his The Brother/Sister Plays trilogy, the play takes place somewhere on the Gulf Coast, against a backdrop of subsidized housing projects and the families, mostly singleparent households, trying to live undramatically in them. They are introduced in narrative chunks: playful Elegba, always in search of something to sate him; sweet Ogun and smoldering boyhood antagonist Shongo; formidable Mamma Moja, too much fire for the world to handle at once; Aunt Elegua, who always has her nose in somebody else’s business. And Oya, a promising young runner who is dealt a series of blows, one after the other after the other. This framework has magic in it yet. Like The Brothers Size, which left an indelible impact on the Yale Cabaret in 2014, In The Red and Brown Water embeds in its characters orishas — spiritual representations of the children of divine creator Olorun in Yoruba mythology. Orbiting each other
ELLI GREEN PHOTO Kevin
Hourigan, Courtney Jamison, Jakeem Powell, Moses Ingram, Erron Crawford, and Amandla Jahava.
gravity and affection, into heavy, mature things you cannot help but feel in your very core. Jonathan Higginbotham becomes Shango, orisha of masculinity, as he dons a military uniform and slowly grows up, and Antoinette CroweLegacy provides spot-on comic relief — and some sage advice — as Aunt Elegua. Then there’s Oya, in a category entirely of her own, ultimately
so sure of what she wants—and not always sure how to get it— that she’ll torture herself until she breaks. Actor Moses Ingram commits to a personality that can wrap around the deepest sadness and boomerang back in minutes, filling the role with spirit. But there’s also something specific to McCraney’s work, which yokes African mythology and contemporary AfricanAmerican life through notions of the divine. In a talkback after the performance, dramaturg Lisa Richardson suggested that this aspect—an exploration and celebration of black culture and black joy—was what stuck with her when the play had ended, Oya’s search for satisfaction finally resolved. “Black joy is pivotal to our survival to remain whole,” she said, referring to a series of program notes she had written. “Taking that joy, giving of ourselves, and uplifting those around us ensures that in the darkest hours, the ability to go high — to fly — will remain”
The Black-Jewish Relationship: What’s Next?
Moses Ingram and Leland Fowler
with a fluid, slightly self-conscious narrative style — stage directions are spoken aloud, casting a sort of spell on the show — characters evolve and evolve again, stepping into their orishas until they are fully integrated, and their divinity has come to define their everyday existence. Directed by Tori Sampson, the Cabaret’s performance the first of the 2017 season is particularly powerful. That’s owing in part, she said at a talkback Thursday night, to her great respect for McCraney, who will head the Yale School of Drama’s playwriting program this year. His work has helped her form a foundation for her own, and she read In The Red and Brown Water around 30 times before jumping on with Leland Fowler to direct it.
The intimacy with the text shows. Over relatively spare stage direction, Sampson has added layers of texture, from rhapsodic dance numbers and vocal interludes to a track from Janelle Monáe’s Electric Lady, just loud enough for audience members to realize what it is while listening to the dialogue that happens on top of it. With it comes a particularly strong cast. Cab debut Erron Crawford is an indefatigable, endlessly morphing Elegba, whose insatiable hunger becomes a characteristic that is as unexpectedly endearing as it is defining. As Ogun, veteran Leland Fowler (who also assistant directed the work) displays an extraordinary capacity for feeling, overcoming a childhood stutter that turns his words, dripping with
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PAUL BASS PHOTO Welch,
Ratner and Ross-Lee at WNHH.
They marched together or some did. And they argued. Along the way, African-Americans and Jewish-Americans forged a relationship during Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.‘s day that remains valued but contested through the lens of history. And continues to pose challenges at the dawn of a new era in America’s civil rights history. On Rev. King’s birthday, three New Haveners familiar with that history and with today’s new challenges joined me in the WNHH radio studio to try to separate fact from fiction and look at the most productive way to move forward. The panel included the Rev. Samuel T. Ross-Lee, minister of Immanuel Baptist Church, Inner-City News columnist, and host of of the weekly “Community Spotlight” program on Ugly Radio and WNHH; Stanley Welch, who participated in the 1963 March on Washington and spent decades as a New Haven staffer for U.S. Reps. Rosa DeLauro and Bruce Morrison; and Rabbi Joshua Ratner, who heads the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater New Haven and a newly-named American Jewish World Service (AJWS) global justice fellow.
THE INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2017 - January 24, 2017
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THE INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2017 - January 24, 2017
Why We Must Defend Obama’s Every Student Succeeds Act By Edward Gaston, Florida Star/NNPA Member
When President Barack Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015, policy makers and educators saw this as an opportunity to invest in new methods for student success— contrary to the No Child Left Behind Act. But, what about parents and community leaders? Starting with next school year (2017-18), all provisions of ESSA will go into effect. One critical aspect is that it requires local and state school leaders to create standards that will yield acceptable—and in some cases, exceptional—student academic outcomes, based on specific solutions for their schools. For the community as a whole, supporting everything education is just plain ole common sense. Without hesitation, educators are professionals who care for the minds, bodies, and spirits of our greatest treasure: our children. Public education remains a game changer for so many parents and students facing the challenges of everyday survival. ESSA requires all hands on deck for each community and with the Every Student Succeeds Act we can conquer problems within the education system. Participating in the process to encourage every student to succeed is an ongoing necessity and investment that must be made by each of us in order for there to be a harvest of success. So what do we do? We, community leaders, must stay engaged, provide insight, question, and oversee the local and state selection of the administrators for ESSA initiatives. We, parents, must listen to teacher recommendations on improving learning experiences and keep a special note on our phones or in a folder with feedback. Educators want to teach; they want to guide. We must use ESSA to leverage their desire to see students succeed by having a respectful line of communication, which can include texting, emailing, phone messages and in special situations, face to face. Use those responses to push for more resources to come into schools from ESSA
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and community investors. In fact, every school must be supported with every resource available. From making education a priority for taxpayer revenue to churches conditioning their congregations that every adult working in a school should be applauded, respected and invested in. Local businesses should contact the principal of the community school and request a calendar of the school year. The business should choose to sponsor a breakfast or lunch on teacher planning days and take a moment to explain services and products and offer the educators discounts. Every parent can go beyond the PTA and participate as a judge in the science fair or sign up to volunteer as a chaperone for field trips or reading to the students. Children can never have too many supplies, resources or praise, so the school staff will appreciate the support. The push against public education must stop. Public education is our national treasure, so are our children and teachers. In the past, too many standardized tests have proven to be ineffective in validating school success. ESSA changes this. Not having to constantly teach to the many tests, will allow educators to teach in a common sense straightforward method, ensuring students are ready to compete. ESSA presents a balanced approach to holding the local school district accountable by encouraging testing managed on the state level. Community leaders, parents, and educators must participate in the state’s process for fairly measuring progress in each school. In some cases, this will include selecting the superintendent, and in other
cases, it will involve creating or approving test questions, changing curriculum, or adding arts programs. Votes and voices can now take center stage as local and state officials take a more active role in determining the state of public education. Staying engaged is necessary and essential for choosing the best team of educators who will implement ESSA strategies necessary to propel our children forward. Supporters of public education must require that committed educational leaders offer clear plans that they will execute immediately in order to conquer education problems and position all schools to succeed. The plans should be constantly communicated to the community and measured with sensible, infrequent standardized tests. President Obama’s Every Student Succeeds Act brings public education back into the national forefront where it belongs. Many people see an eagle and apple pie as the symbol of America. It is time again, to see public education as the national treasure it is. It remains the primary weapon that must be sharpened and polished and used to battle poverty, crime, and inequality. Principals, teachers, custodians and administrators in schools, especially schools in underserved communities, educate children on the front lines and must be uplifted and applauded by a nation committed to protecting and growing the national treasure known as Public Education. The Florida Star is a member publication of the National Newspaper Publishers Association.
Where Do We Go From Here? THE INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2017 - January 24, 2017
by Reverend Steven A. Cousin Jr. In 1967, in the last book that he wrote before his death, the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. raised the question, “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?” The answer to this question was elusive then and still haunts us today. In 2017, we face unprecedented challenges as a nation. It is imperative that we address Dr. King’s looming query. Where do we go from here, America? It is important to note that Dr. King wrote this book after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Many considered the passage of these two bills as a triumphant success for the Civil Rights Movement, yet Dr. King continued to wonder, “Where do we go from here?” By 1967, his non-violent movement was declining and the more aggressive Black Power Movement was gaining traction. Increasingly, Dr. King was focusing on economic inequality and it was while organizing a Poor People’s Campaign in
Memphis, Tennessee that he fell victim to an assassin’s bullets. Forty years later, with the election of President Barack Hussein Obama, many Americans believed that Dr. King’s dream of a racially egalitarian society had been fulfilled. If Dr. King was the Moses of his generation, then President Obama was the Joshua of our generation. I was present at Grant Park in Chicago on Election Night. I remember how proud I was when my grandfather, the Right Reverend Philip R. Cousin Sr., delivered the opening prayer. I remember the tears flowing from the face of my grandmother, Dr. Margaret Joan Cousin, when it was announced that then Senator Barack Obama would become the 44th President of the United States. During the heady days that followed, we could not help but feel that we had reached a significant milestone in the racial history of our nation and that Dr. King was smiling down upon us. Many Americans were convinced that Obama’s victory had ushered them into a “post racial society.” Although there remained significant evidence to the contrary, Americans embraced the idea that the country had finally moved beyond the “race issue.” However, during the Obama
Administration, the Supreme Court of the United States struck down a key section of the Voting Rights Act, the provision that compelled states with a history of racial discrimination to attain federal approval before making any changes to their voting rules. The majority opinion contended that the nation’s progress in racial issues made this measure unnecessary. As a result, in a move that hearkened back to the era of poll taxes and literacy tests, states attempted to force voters to show photo identification at their polling places. This requirement disproportionately disadvantaged Democratic voters. Also, states with majority Republican legislatures used gerrymandering, or redistricting, to ensure voting advantages for the Republican Party. Politicians denied that these actions were racially motivated. After all, the United States was “post racial.” This past April, amidst the contentious 2016 presidential election campaign, Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina spoke to my church, Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in New Haven. He remarked that this would be the most consequential election of our lifetime. The American people had to make a choice between
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Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton or Mr. Donald J. Trump. The choice could not have been clearer. Or so we thought. On November 8, 2016, we elected a man who espoused homophobia, xenophobia, misogyny, racism, and sexism throughout his campaign. Although Secretary Clinton won the popular vote by close to 3 million votes, Mr. Donald Trump will be the 45th President of the United States. Now, I return to the question that Dr. King raised fifty years ago, “Where do we go from here?” Will the United States government force Muslims to register themselves? Will undocumented immigrants, regardless of their contributions to this country, face immediate deportation? Will “Stop and Frisk,” a policing policy that has wreaked havoc upon communities of color, be implemented on a national level? King’s query from 1967 clearly still has resonance in modern American society. Dr. King once said that “The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” I believe that although we are now questioning our nation’s morality, we must not lose heart. We are still making progress towards justice. The road to success is never a smooth one. It has it sharp turns, potholes, and bumps. It is how we adjust
to these obstacles that will determine our success. To honor Dr. King’s vision of economic equality, I posit that we should focus on group economics. African Americans have tremendous spending power, but our dollars flow out of our communities faster than any other ethnic group. We need to learn how to develop wealth in our communities. Imagine if African Americans did all of their banking at one bank. Imagine if local churches did the same. Imagine if we invested in black owned small businesses. These are not novel ideas, but they have yet to be accomplished. I believe that we will always move toward community, but sometimes chaos is necessary to push us forward. Chaos forces us to question who we are as a people and a nation. Chaos can also compel us to draw upon reservoirs of strength that we never knew we had. In order to achieve community, we need not run from the chaos, but embrace it. As we reflect on the life and legacy of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., let us work through the chaos to build a beloved community. Reverend Steven A. Cousin Jr., is the Senior Minister of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in New Haven, CT.
THE INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2017 - January 24, 2017
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THE INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2017 - January 24, 2017
President Obama Earns “Excellent” Rating from the National Urban League By Marc H. Morial, President/CEO, National Urban League
“That faith that I placed all those years ago, not far from here, in the power of ordinary Americans to bring about change, that faith has been rewarded in ways I could not have possibly imagined.” – President Barack Obama, Farewell Address, January 10, 2017 Throughout our history, the National Urban League has taken seriously our responsibility to hold the President of the United States accountable to the needs of urban America and communities of color. During the Great Depression, Executive Secretary Eugene Kinckle Jones served on President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “Black Cabinet.” Lester Granger, who headed the League during World War II, is among those credited with persuading President Harry Truman to desegregate the Armed Forces. Whitney M. Young advised presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson and was instrumental in the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act. Urban League Presidents Vernon Jordan, John Jacob and Hugh Price continued our engagement with the Presidents with whom they served to further the
work of civil rights and secure support for Urban League programs. The first African American Presidency quite naturally has held special significance for the National Urban League. In recognition of Barack Obama’s unique place in American history, we set out to create a comprehensive analysis of his two terms, which we released earlier this week to great national interest.
Any evaluation of the Obama administration must first recognize that he inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression, and was faced with Congressional opposition unprecedented in its intensity and sinister nature. Both his accomplishments and his failures must be evaluated against those conditions. In creating our scorecard, the National Urban League harkened
back to the famous question Ronald Reagan asked the nation during his sole debate against President Jimmy Carter: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” In this instance, the question is, “Is the nation better off than it was eight years ago?” And, “Is Black America better off than it was eight years ago?” The answer to both questions is, unequivocally, “Yes.” President Obama is leaving office with an approval rating even higher than Reagan’s, exceeded only by Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and Bill Clinton. During Obama’s presidency, the economy has added 15 million new jobs, and the jobless rate has dropped from 7.6 percent to 4.7 percent — and from 12.7 percent to 7.8 percent for African Americans. The high school graduation rate for African Americans has increased from 66.1 percent to 75 percent. There are 614,000 fewer long-term unemployed. Wages are up 3.4 percent. More than 16 million Americans who were uninsured now have health care coverage, with the uninsured rate for African Americans cut by more than half. Barack Obama’s passion and steady hand made a huge difference in charting a progressive course
and positively impacted the lives of ordinary Americans. Black Americans felt both the pride of his accomplishments and the pain when it was clear his opponents sought to diminish a great American. I am confident the long arc of history will judge him favorably. While we scored many of the administration’s achievements with our highest rating, “Superior,” President Obama’s tenure as a whole had shortcomings, due to some notable missed opportunities and outright failures, such as the economic development of urban centers, gun violence and the foreclosure rate and bank closure rate in communities of color and low-income neighborhoods. On these and other issues, we rated the Obama administration “Fair” or “Poor.” Our evaluation springs from a consideration of his accomplishments balanced against the conditions under which he served. The National Urban League has given the Obama Administration an overall rating of “Excellent,” our second-highest rating. Marc Morial is the President and CEO of the National Urban League. Follow Marc on Twitter at @marcmorial.
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THE INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2017 - January 24, 2017
3 Ways To Honor The Legacy Of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
3. Dream Bigger Beyond Your Own Imagination King’s dream is well documented. And even now, 50 years later, his dream belts out a powerful message: “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain,” he said Aug. 28, 1963, “and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”
By Dr. P. Gould, BlackDoctor.org
It’s more than just a day off. But unfortunately, MLK Jr. Day Monday in some communities has dwindled down to just that. Yet, we believe it’s not because of lack of motivation, all that’s needed is a little direction. Bottom line: The opportunity is here, the history is here and you’re here, so its time to do something. Here’s 3 things you can do to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy: 1. Learn Something New (Research, Research, Research!) “For lack of knowledge, my people perish.” Dr. King may not have been the one who said that but the quote is still true today. Many of us rely on what “he said”, “she said” or “they said” and just leave it at that. When we say, “Learn something”, its not just learning about history, learn about the future too! How, you
ask? Research industries that will be booming in the next five, 10, 15 years. Research what is being invested in. Research how your neighborhood may change. And remember, one of the best ways to learn something is to teach what you learned to someone else (hint, hint). 2. Make A Commitment (Yes, Any Commitment!)
King’s legacy includes his unwavering commitment to civil rights and non-violent social change. No matter what people said (both Black and white),… … no matter what people did or didn’t do, King stayed committed. What better way to honor such a movement than by applying such principles to your own community. Make a
commitment to live healthier so you can be around for your family longer. Make a commitment to give back to your church or community. And be specific about your commitment. For example (eat one healthier dinner each weekend, walk 5 more minutes every day, volunteer in 3 church/ community activities this year).
and embraced by everybody, you are really loved and embraced by nobody. Dean Martin may have gotten it right with his hit song: “You’re nobody till somebody loves you.” But what does it mean when everybody loves you. It probably means that somebody is lying. King was not a universally beloved figure while alive, not even within the Negro Community of his day. Some disagreed with his philosophy of Non-violence. Others disagreed with his tactic of Non-violent Direct Action. Some of his closest aids in the struggle disagreed with him for denouncing the War in Vietnam (and going against President Johnson) in his sermon at The Riverside Church in New York exactly one year before his murder. Donations to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) dropped precipitously following King’s public denouncement of the war. King was not even welcomed
with open arms in the city of his birth when he returned home to live in Atlanta the story goes. Whether apocryphal or not, the story is told (and is believable) that his neighbors were concerned about their houses being destroyed in any attempt to bomb King’s, as had been done in Birmingham, Alabama. Political opposition to King existed from racist and the politicians who represented them, of course. But, it also existed with conservative Negroes who thought that he, and practically everyone else who did not “work within the system to effect change”, were moving too fast or too aggressively. The leaders of his own religious denomination distanced themselves from him and stripped his followers of their leadership positions within their organization. There were bitter jealousies and rivalries within the Civil Rights Community. Historians record
that Thurgood Marshall was not particularly fond of King’s popularity which grew from King’s visibility on Television and in Print media. Marshall was doing the hard work of legal advocacy in backwoods courthouses and in federal courtrooms where cameras were not allowed and where crowds of people neither participated in nor witnessed the challenges Marshall faced, as they did with King. Now, in the end, Marshall was elevated to a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court for his work, and King received a bullet to the neck for his, but why let truths cloud our perspectives. Marshall did not like the man. King was more than a controversial figure. He was hated by many, resented by others in prominent positions, and looked upon as suspect by still others. But now, he is universally loved? I don’t think so. Some of the people who hated King “back in the day” still do.
During that time, King’s dream was so far off in the minds of some that they took action to try to make sure his dream didn’t come true. The point is, think beyond your block, beyond your current job, beyond what you already know and reach further. As the saying goes “Shoot for the moon. Even if you don’t make it, you’ll be among the stars”
Martin Luther King The Statue By Samuel T. Ross-Lee
It’s that time of year again. The recognition of Martin Luther King, Jr’s birthday. The first real holiday of the new year. According to the MLK devotees, King Day, as it is affectionately known, is not a “Day Off, but a Day On.” It’s a day for Democrats, Republicans and Independents, African-Americans and other races, Saints and Sinners, Clergy and Politicians, Street Activist and Suite Activist to come together and honor this assassinated leader of the Southern Civil Rights Movement. Everybody loves, honors, and respects Martin Luther King, Jr. Everybody! Well, Martin, we have a problem. When you are loved
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And many who claim to love him today have little idea of what that means. King was a legitimate prophet. He possessed all of the traits of the biblical prophets, too. He went to his task reluctantly, as they did. He was personally flawed and a sinner, as they were. He saw clearly the evils of his day, as they did. He stood before a nation that was unwilling to listen to his social critique, as the nation was already comfortable with the placid and pacifying pronouncements of their chosen “prophets,”. He spoke truth to power, though he was elected to no office and had no power to force the nation to heed his words, just like the prophets of old. Prophets are rarely, if ever, embraced or loved in their own land, even after they are dead. What we do tend to embrace and love is the image we have created of them, against which they cannot Con’t on page 23
THE INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2017 - January 24, 2017 Con’t from page 22
The Statue
protest. We cast the prophet’s image in stone and then make of them what we will. So, long before King’s statue was chiseled and place on the Mall of the national capital, surrounded by some of his famous (and acceptable) quotes, his image was frozen in the public’s imagination by the media and the dominant culture bent on using him to maintain the status quo, or at least not to upset it, too much. The use of prophetic sayings and images have long given the powerful a way to use voices from the margins to prop up their malevolent norms. Jesus is the most prominent among those. Doing so provides a buffer between those who might become restlessly volatile, were there no instructions from the margin to calm them down, and those who possess a virtually innate need to maintain business as usual, despite how bad that business may be. We have detached King from his critique of capitalism run amok, a religion that sides with the wealthy over the poor, the powerful over the marginalized, a race that is too comfortable with getting ahead rather than getting justice, and politics fixed in the “paralysis of analysis” where the uplift of “the least of these” are concerned. We have removed from him the specter of a critical thinker and made of him a wordsmith using flowery language and calming speech. We have made of him an icon of our conformity. Controlling his image and his words as we chiseled them in stones as well, there never to move or to challenge us in any real way again. We can all love or at least tolerate King the statue, set in place, never to live, move, or breath nuance into our lives or provide a critique that challenges our assumptions about him or anything else for that matter. When everyone loves you Martin, no one really does. Samuel T. Ross-Lee is the pastor at Immanuel Missionary Baptist Church in New Haven, CT.
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THE INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2017 - January 24, 2017
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Film Review: I Am Not Your Negro By Dwight Brown, NNPA Newswire Film Critic
James Baldwin, the intellectual, civil rights activist and renowned author, left behind some biting and enlightening words about racism and the status of the Black community that are just as relevant today in this age of the Black Lives Matter movement. Baldwin was born in Harlem in 1924. He moved to Paris around 1950, eventually taking up residence in the south of France. At some point in his self-imposed exile, he came to the conclusion that he had to turn his attention back to his home country. “I could no longer sit around Paris discussing America. I had to come and pay my dues,” said Baldwin. In 1979, Baldwin started working on his book, “Remember This House.” The manuscript focused on the lives, views and assassinations of his three friends and colleagues: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. Unfortunately, at the time of his death he had only completed 30 pages. Director Raoul Peck (“Lumumba”) took those few, initial pieces of Baldwin’s non-fiction tome and developed them into a searing documentary that examines the struggles of the 1950s and 1960s in a way that makes his thoughts on race incredibly poignant given today’s sociopolitical landscape in the United States. Peck assembles archival footage, photographs and contentious TV clips (particularly the fledgling “The Dick Cavett Show” where
discussions of the state of the “Negro” got heated). He adds in modern day camera feeds of demonstrators angry over police shootings. The results are a blistering indictment of race relations both old and new. Voiceovers by Samuel L. Jackson verbalize passages from Baldwin notes. You hear the author chide oppressors, confront Hollywood and challenge the American government. His words recount the intimate relationships and mutual respect he had with the iconic civil rights legends Medgar, Malcolm and Martin, effectively humanizing these political/social deities. He candidly explores their differences and similarities. He reveals the absolute despair he felt each time he heard that one of them had been killed. His ruminations glow with a truth that is timeless. Raoul Peck and editor Alexandra Strauss have masterfully fulfilled the arduous and artful task of pulling all the pieces of Baldwin’s contemplations together and forming a fiery narrative that
makes audiences recalibrate their feelings about race in America. The musical score by Aleksey Aygi adds a piqued sense of urgency and gravitas. Medgar Evers was killed on June 12, 1963. Malcolm X was assassinated on February 21, 1965. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered on April 4, 1968. James Baldwin died of stomach cancer on December 1, 1987. Together, collectively, they left behind a tremendous sociopolitical legacy that finds its due respect in this very powerful and enlightening documentary. In 93 thought-provoking minutes, I Am Not Your Negro poignantly connects the past to the present with no apologies. Dwight Brown is a film critic and travel writer. As a film critic, he regularly attends international film festivals including Cannes, Sundance, Toronto and the American Black Film Festival. Read more movie reviews by Dwight Brown here and at DwightBrownInk.com.
yale institute of sacred music joins the
inner city news in celebrating the accomplishments of African Americans to the cultural and spiritual life of New Haven and the world.
Event listings at www.yale.edu/ism
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THE INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2017 - January 24, 2017
High School Artwork Pits Republicans Against CBC on Capitol Hill By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Contributor
“We may just have to kick somebody’s ass,” new Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Cedric Richmond (D-La.) told a reporter on January 10, over the repeated removal of a painting that won the annual High School Congressional Art Contest. The CBC Chair likely was exasperated with several Republican members of Congress, who spent part of the day removing a teen’s art from a long hallway with 200 art pieces in the U.S. Capitol complex, because it focused attention on an uncomfortable topic and dared to be critical of law enforcement — a profession that for some is above criticism. On January 10, against the backdrop of President Obama’s farewell address, a nomination hearing for Sen. Jeff Sessions to be Attorney General and a press conference by Donald Trump, members of Congress did battle over a painting by a teenager. The St. Louis high school student David Pulphus’ painting shows a street scene that includes as it’s main character an animal in a police uniform pointing a gun at a figure dressed in jeans and a red shirt that
would appear to be a wolf. But the painting also includes a cop depicted as human calmly leading a person away by the arm. Three Republicans including Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) and Brian Babin (R-Texas), removed the painting at some point last Tuesday on Capitol Hill. Republicans moved to make the painting an issue into a call to arms in support of police. They also argued that a picture involving “current controversy” hanging in the Capitol was a violation of the art competition rules. The artwork had been hanging for over six months, since June 2016,
and went unnoticed until a Fox News personality complained in late December. “Know that the Building Commission already approved all of this artwork on this wall. The African-American community has had a painful, tortured history with law enforcement in this country. So let’s not ignore that fact, that that’s not contemporary. That’s historic,” said Rep. Lacy Clay (DMo.) on whether the issue of police brutality should be considered a “contemporary” controversial issue. Rep. Clay told the NNPA Newswire after votes on the House floor on the
night January 10, “It’s really been reduced to a childish game now and they have lost all civility for this institution.” On the morning of January 10, Reps. Clay, Richmond (D-La.), and Reps. Alma Adams (D-N.C.) rehung the acrylic painting after Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) removed it and carried it to Clay’s office on January 7. The NNPA Newswire asked Hunter on January 10, if the art was protected by the First Amendment and he responded, “No.” Several CBC members have pointed out that the U.S. Capitol is
full of dubious characters depicted in sculpture and on canvas, who are known racists and segregationists. The individuals depicted and honored are on permanent display inside the U.S. Capitol and have been for years, unlike Pulphus’ artwork, which is not in the U.S. Capitol and is temporary. The late segregationist Senator James O. Eastland of Mississippi, whose portrait is permanently displayed on the third floor of the U.S. Capitol above the Senate Chamber, was well known as an opponent of civil rights. A statue of Confederate “president” Jefferson Davis stands in the Statuary Hall, along with several other dubious characters in U.S. history, including Alexander Hamilton Stephens and former President John Calhoun. The Black Caucus discussed the issues around the painting on Wednesday, January 11 at their weekly meeting. Lauren Victoria Burke is a political analyst who speaks on politics and African American leadership. She is also a frequent contributor to the NNPA Newswire and BlackPressUSA.com. Connect with Lauren by email at LBurke007@ gmail.com and on Twitter at @ LVBurke.
Moving Sale! Appliance Prices Slashed...
is moving to Exit 54 on I95 It’s 174 Cedar Street in Branford 25
THE INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2017 - January 24, 2017
Town of Bloomfield Assistant Assessor $37.01 hourly
For details and how to apply, go to www.bloomfieldct.org. Pre-employment drug testing. AA/EOE
New Haven Section 3, DAS certified MBE & WBE subcontractors wanted Encore Fire Protection is looking for Section 3, DAS certified MBE & WBE subcontractors to install a fire sprinkler/suppression system. All interested bidders, companies and employees are to be licensed in the State of Connecticut, Bonded and Insured. Work duties will include all tasks required for proper fire sprinkler system installation per approved plans. Construction experience is a must. All F2 licensed mechanics are responsible to arrive to the job site on time, have a minimum of OSHA 10 training and possess approved personal protection equipment. You will also participate in daily, weekly and monthly progress reports. If interested, please contact encorefire110@gmail.com. Construction oriented company seeking full-time Accounting/Administrative Assistant to answer phones, schedule sales appts, filing, typing & other general office duties. Will also have accounting responsibilities-data entry, sales order billing, and processing A/P transactions, supporting our over-the-counter sales person, the controller & CFO. Min 5 yrs. Related experience, excellent written & verbal skills, ability to multitask, knowledge of basic accounting principles, excellent computer skills (5+ yrs. Experience) with Excel & Word, accounting software knowledge a plus. $31,200 annual salary-negotiable based on experience & qualifications. AA/EOE Email resume to mmunzner@atlasoutdoor.com
ELECTRIC UTILITY ELECTRICIAN Electric utility is seeking a highly skilled maintenance electrician with extensive substation experience to maintain and repair transmission and distribution class switchgear, bus-work, lightning arrestors, protective relays, insulators, switches power transformers, data circuits, controls and other related components. Must be a high school/trade school graduate and have 4 years’ experience in the maintenance and operation of electric utility substations and/or utility grade protection and control systems. Completion of a recognized four (4) year maintenance electrician apprenticeship program may substitute for the experience requirement. Two (2) years of college-level education or advanced training in related field may substitute for two (2) years of the experience requirement. Must possess a valid motor vehicle operator’s license issued by the State of Connecticut and be able to obtain with 6 months of hire a valid Protective Switching and Tagging Procedure certification from CONVEX or other approved agency. Wage rate: $35.43 to $39.08 hourly plus an excellent fringe benefit package. Closing date will be February 17, 2017. Apply: Personnel Department, Town of Wallingford, 45 South Main Street, Wallingford, CT 06492. (203) 294-2080 / Fax: (203) 294-2084. EOE 26
THE INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2017 - January 24, 2017
Elm City Communities Request for Proposals Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8) ProjectBased Assistance Program to Support the Development of Affordable Housing Housing Authority City of New Haven d/b/a Elm city Communities is currently seeking Proposals for Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8) Project- Based Assistance Program to Support the Development of Affordable Housing. A complete copy of the requirement may be obtained from Elm City’s Vendor Collaboration Portal https://newhavenhousing. cobblestonesystems.com/gateway beginning on Tuesday, January 10, 2017 at 3:00PM.
INVITATION TO BID
Northeast Building Group is accepting bids from qualified Minority/Female Business Enterprises for an upcoming project “REVITALIZATION OF THE OAK TERRACE HOUSING COMPLEX” located at 53 Conrad Street, Naugatuck, CT. Bids will be accepted by mail, fax, or email until 5:00PM on January 31, 2017, after which the bids will be privately opened. The project entails renovation of 188 housing units in 39 buildings. Trades include: site work, paving, utilities, abatement, rough carpentry, architectural woodwork, doors, frames and hardware, drywall, tiling, resilient flooring and base, painting, toilet accessories, appliances, window treatments, residential casework, plumbing, HVAC and electrical. Interested Connecticut DAScertified MBEs, DBEs, and WBEs are encouraged to submit bids and may contact Tim Burke by phone at 203-678-4030 or email at tburke@truebluecos.com to obtain plans and specifications. Bids received after 5:00PM on January 31, 2017 will be disqualified. Northeast Building Group is an is an Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action Employer, 98 S. Turnpike Road, Suite F, Wallingford, CT 06492. Tel: 203-6784030 Fax: 203-678-4136.
The Housing Authority of the City of Bristol Request for Proposals Interior Painting Services The Housing Authority City of Bristol (BHA) is seeking proposals for Vacant / Occupied Apartment Painting Services from qualified vendors for work throughout the Agency. Bidder Information packets can be obtained by contacting Carl Johnson, Director of Capital Funds at 860-585-2028 or cjohnson@bristolhousing.org beginning Wednesday, December 28, 2016 through Friday, January 13, 2017. A nonmandatory pre-bid meeting will be held Friday, January 13, 2017, 2:00pm at 164 Jerome Avenue, Bristol Connecticut.
All proposals should be clearly marked “RFP- Interior Painting”, submitted to Mitzy Rowe, CEO, The Housing Authority City of Bristol, 164 Jerome Avenue, Bristol, CT 06010, no later than 4:00 p.m., Friday January 20, 2017 at the office of the Bristol Housing Authority in a sealed envelope with one original and 3 copies, each clearly identified as Proposal for Interior Painting Services. An Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Contractor
Construction oriented company seeking full-time Accounting/Administrative Assistant to answer phones, schedule sales appts, filing, typing & other general office duties. Will also have accounting responsibilities-data entry, sales order billing, and processing A/P transactions, supporting our over-the-counter sales person, the controller & CFO. Min 5 yrs. Related experience, excellent written & verbal skills, ability to multitask, knowledge of basic accounting principles, excellent computer skills (5+ yrs. Experience) with Excel & Word, accounting software knowledge a plus. $31,200 annual salary-negotiable based on experience & qualifications. AA/EOE Email resume to mmunzner@atlasoutdoor.com
Account Clerk-Payables: The Town of East Haven is currently accepting applications to participate in the examination for Account Clerk-Payables. The current vacancy is in the Finance Department of the Board of Education but this list may be used to fill other Account Clerk positions within the Town of East Haven. The starting hourly rate is $18.78/hour, 37.5 hours per week. Candidate must possess a High School Diploma or equivalent and an Associate’s Degree in Accounting or equivalent experience, and a minimum of 3 years’ experience in accounts payable and a thorough working knowledge of Microsoft Word and Excel. Applications are available from The Civil Service Office, 250 Main Street, East Haven, CT or at http://www. townofeasthavenct.org/civiltest.shtml and must be returned by January 24, 2017. The Town of East Haven is committed to building a workforce of diverse individuals. Minorities, Females, Handicapped and Veterans are encouraged to apply. 27
THE INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2017 - January 24, 2017
LEGAL NOTICE The Bristol Housing Authority is developing its 2017-2021 Agency Plans in compliance with the HUD Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998. It is available for review at the Authority’s office located at 164 Jerome Ave., Bristol, CT. The Authority’s hours of operation are Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Tuesday 8:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and Thursday 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. In addition, a Public Hearing will be held on February 16, 2017 at 3:00 p.m. at Gaylord Towers Community Hall located at 55 Gaylord Street, Bristol, CT. Public comments will be received no later than February 27, 2017 at 4:30 p.m. EOE
Grants Administration
Program Planning Administrator-Seeking a highly qualified professional to administer, manages, and oversees the Town’s Grants and Economic Development Programs. Serves as a representative on various intergovernmental and interagency organizations. The minimum qualifications: Bachelor’s degree from a recognized college or university in government or public administration plus three years (3) of progressively responsible public administration and at least two years (2) of grant writing experience or an equivalent combination of education and qualifying experience substituting on a year-for-year basis. $77,695-$99,410 plus an excellent fringe benefit package. Apply to: Personnel Department, Town of Wallingford, 45 South Main Street, Wallingford, CT 06492. Closing date will be December 15, 2016. EOE.
ELECTRICIANS
Semac Electric is seeking Electricians (CT Licensed Journeymen & Foremen, E1 and E2) to join our team for medium & large commercial construction projects thru out the State of CT: Hartford, Fairfield & New Haven Counties. We have excellent wages and benefits. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. Applications available at our main office at 45 Peter Court, New Britain, CT or send resume to P.O. Box 638, New Britain, CT 06050 or via fax to 860-229-0406 or email: careers@ semacelectric.com
Mechanical Insulator
Insulation Company offering good pay and benefits. Please forward resume to P.O. Box 475, North Haven, CT 06473 This company is an APPRENTICE
Telecommunications Company looking for apprentice to learn indoor and outdoor low voltage cable installation, aerial bucket work, messenger and lashing; manhole and underground installation. Good salary with benefits. Fax resume to 860-6432124 or mail to Fibre Optic Plus, 302 Adams Street, Manchester, CT 06042. Attn: Greg Brown AA/EEO Employer AFFIRMATIVE ACTION / EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER
The Housing Authority of the City of Norwalk, CT
Electrical Apprentice Maintenance Electrician - The Town of Wallingford Public Utilities, Electric Division is seeking an individual to perform maintenance and installation of electrical equipment such as but not limited to maintaining and repairing high and low voltage equipment. Position requires completion of high school, technical high school or trade school plus two (2) years’ experience in electrical maintenance or construction OR an equivalent combination of education and qualifying experience substituting on a year-for-year basis. Must possess and maintain a valid State of Connecticut motor vehicle operator’s license. Wages: $24.63– $32.77 hourly and an excellent fringe benefit package. Apply to: Personnel Department, Town of Wallingford, 45 South Main Street, Wallingford, CT 06492. Fax #: (203) 294-2084. The closing date will be the date the 75th application or resume is received or January 30, 2017 whichever occurs first. EOE.
Common Ground High School Seeks Curriculum Development Consultant Common Ground High School is seeking an experienced, creative professional who can work with teachers, school leaders, students, families, and community partners to strengthen our curriculum and classroom teaching — ensuring it is driven by standards, rooted in our local community and unique site, culturally relevant and inclusive, contributing to social justice, and pushing students towards both environmental leadership and college success. For a complete job description and compensation information, please visit http:// commongroundct.org/2017/01/common-ground-seeks-curriculum-development-consultant
is seeking bids for Janitorial Services. Bidding documents can be viewed and printed at www. norwalkha.org under the business tab, RFPs/ RFQs. Norwalk Housing Authority is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Curtis O. Law, Executive Director
Dispatcher - Portland Candidate must have 2-5 years relevant experience in hazardous waste transportation. Must have completed 40 HAZWOPER Certification, Asbestos Awareness Certification a plus. Forward resumes to RED Technologies, LLC, 173 Pickering Street, Portland, CT 06480; Fax 860.342.1042; or Email to HR@ redtechllc.com RED Technologies, LLC is an EOE.
ELECTRICIANS
Class A CDL Driver with 3 years min. exp. HAZMAT Endorsed. (Tractor/Triaxle/Roll-off) Some overnights may be required. FAX resumes to RED Technologies, at 860.342-1042;
Semac Electric is seeking Electricians (CT Licensed Journeymen & Foremen, E1 and E2) to join our team for medium & large commercial construction projects thru out the State of CT: Hartford, Fairfield & New Haven Counties. We have excellent wages and benefits. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. Applications available at our main office at 45 Peter Court, New Britain, CT or send resume to
Class A Driver Email: HR@redtechllc.com Mail or in person: 173 Pickering Street, Portland, CT 06480.
RED Technologies, LLC is An EOE.
THE INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2017 - January 24, 2017
MLK’s Legacy for Black America in 2017
By Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. President/CEO, NNPA
As the United States of America and the global community salutes, recognizes and commemorates the 88th birthday of The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., it is a providential time to reassess the meaning and challenges of Dr. King’s legacy for Black America in this year of profound change, anxiety, and hope. As we witness the transfer of presidential power from President Barack H. Obama to President Donald J. Trump, it is quite appropriate to apply some the long-lasting and enduring tenets of Martin Luther King’s leadership, teachings, and perspectives. Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) prophetically stood strong for freedom, justice, and equality for Black Americans and for all people who cried out for a better quality of life throughout the world. Dr. King was more than one of the greatest orators and preachers of the 20th century. He was one of the most effective intellectual theologians whose moral genius and courage helped irreversibly to change the course of American history for civil and human rights. No man or woman is perfect. Yet
Dr. King’s leadership inspired and motivated millions of Black Americans and others to strive toward the perfection equal justice for all through nonviolent social change and transformation. As a young teenage staff worker for SCLC in North Carolina in the early 1960s, I witnessed firsthand how Martin Luther King, Jr. would stir the consciousness of the masses. We overcame the fear of standing up for righteousness in the presence of evil powers and unjust systems of oppression and suppression. Legacy is about establishing in one’s life and work, that which will endure and last for generations to come. Dr. King’s life and work
exemplified intellectual honesty, activism, and courage. At a time when the misguided phenomena of so-called “fake news” is gaining momentum in the body politic of the nation, we all should be reminded that Dr. King would always cautioned that only “The truth will set us free.” This is the reason we are determined to maintain and to sustain the viability of the Black Press of America as the truthful, accurate, and trusted voice of Black America. This year marks the 190th year of the Black Press in the United States. During the height of the Civil Rights Movement led by Dr. King and other leaders, the mainstream press
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would often attempt to undermine the legitimacy and purpose of the movement for change. But the Black Press always chronicled the news of freedom movement with strategic visibility and editorial support. In Dr. King’s last address in Memphis, Tennessee on the night before his assassination on April 4, 1968, he made statements that still apply and endure today in 2017. Dr. King emphasized that when society appears polarized and deeply divided, we must strive to overcome divisiveness and hopelessness. Dr. King in his final sermon stated, “Now that’s a strange statement to make, because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land; confusion all around. That’s a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century in a way that men, in some strange way, are responding.” Thus, what may appear to some to be a “dark” hour is in fact a God-given time to reassert that justice and freedom are still possible and very probable if we unify, organize, mobilize, and
speak truth to power. We cannot afford to engage in the cynicism that is now popular. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s living legacy beacons us to not give in to hopelessness and self-defeatism. We have had difficult times before and each generation is called to stand up with the principles, values, and commitments that we have inherited from so many of our sisters and brothers who sacrificed for us to be where we are today. King stated, “Now, what does all of this mean in this great period of history? It means that we’ve got to stay together. We’ve got to stay together and maintain unity.” While race is still a defining factor in American society, we must not allow racial discrimination or racism in any form to divide us or to prevent us from moving forward as families and communities steadfast in our unified actions to improve our quality of life. Black America will overcome. We have come too far to stand still or go backwards. Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. is President and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) and can be reached at dr.bchavis@nnpa.org. Follow Dr. Chavis on Twitter @drbenchavis.
THE INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2017 - January 24, 2017
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THE INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2017 - January 24, 2017
Obama, Spending Power Drives Consumer Confidence among Blacks By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Contributor
Despite a plethora of economic and social challenges, AfricanAmericans remain among the most optimistic consumer groups in the nation’s economy. A recent report by the market research firm, Packaged Facts, revealed that nearly half (47 percent) of African-Americans believe they will be better off financially 12 months from now. The report, titled, “AfricanAmericans: Demographic and Consumer Spending Trends, 10th Edition,” found that just 37 percent of ‘other Americans’ are as optimistic. Also, revealed in the report, affluent Black Americans hold especially strong convictions about how their financial future will unfold, although the abiding optimism of AfricanAmericans transcends income levels. “For African-Americans, optimism is not tied to their affluence or wealth, but to their faith,” said Princess Jenkins, an entrepreneur and founder of the nonprofit “Women in the Black,” an organization that assists female entrepreneurs. Jenkins also owns the Brownstone Lifestyle Boutique in New York. “We have survived yet another inescapable era and come out on the other side of it better, brighter, informed and with affordable health coverage for our families.” Jenkins continued: “I have benefited from the consumer optimism shared by those in the Packaged Facts report because, in the aftermath of the presidential election, Blacks feel that the economic growth engines put in place under the eight years of President Barack Obama have started to pay off.” Jenkins said that Black people have rode the economic downturn, the fall of Wall Street, the threatened closure of the auto industry and the mortgage crisis and have finally emerged on the other side and the cloud has lifted. The 2016 Nielsen Consumer Report showed that the spending power of African-Americans has exceeded $1 trillion. The spending power is just one reason for the optimism, Packaged Facts noted. The reasons for the steadfast confidence of African-American consumers are many and complex, the report’s authors said.
To begin, despite the growing chasm between the very rich and the rest of American society, there are strong empirical reasons for AfricanAmericans to believe that upward mobility remains achievable for them. Key social and economic indicators point to a significant increase in the number of middle- and higherincome African-Americans over the past decade. During this period, the number of African-American households with an income of $100,000 or more jumped 83 percent, while the number of African-Americans employed in management and professional occupations grew from 3.8 million to 4.8 million, an increase of 26 percent. There are now nearly two million Blacks who earn at least $75,000 annually. The confidence of Black consumers may also stem from the “Obama effect,” a phenomenon that among other things sparked renewed optimism among AfricanAmericans based on their pride in the election of the country’s first Black president. A Packaged Facts analysis of trends in the consumer confidence index of Simmons National Consumer Study data has found a factual basis for this hypothesis. In 2007, Blacks were less likely than other Americans to be ranked as “highly confident” consumers (20 percent vs. 25 percent). By 2009, the year after the election of President Obama, the positions of each segment had reversed, as 26 percent of Blacks and just 17 percent
of other Americans were classified as “highly confident” consumers. By 2013, following the re-election of President Obama, 42 percent of Black consumers were rated as “highly confident” compared to just 28 percent of other American consumers. More recent trends suggest that the Obama effect may in fact have been in play in recent years, at least when it came to boosting the optimism of Black consumers. The proportion of African-American consumers categorized as “highly confident” fell from 42 percent in 2014 to 38 percent in 2015 and 31 percent in 2016. Nevertheless, as the Obama administration nears its end, African-Americans remain more likely than other consumers to have a high degree of consumer confidence (31 percent vs. 27 percent). “I work with AfricanAmerican entrepreneurs each day who believe that they can create opportunity and generate profit. Words like hustle, ingenuity, faith, and luck almost always trump fear and pessimism,” said Lyneir Richardson, the director of the Center for Urban Entrepreneurship and Economic Development, a research and practitioner-oriented center at Rutgers Business School in Newark, New Jersey. Still, it’s vital that AfricanAmericans continue to keep their money flowing within the community, said Samson Adepoju, the founder and CEO of Salon Your Way in New York. “African-Americans should invest part of their money back into local Black businesses and, if there isn’t
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one in a particular area, start one up,” Adepoju said. “Financial education is crucial and a lot of our money can be invested in stocks and bonds. Rather than spending $350 on a pair of Air Jordan’s, why not buy Nike stock,
which is about $50 per share? That way, you can actually own a piece of Nike,” he said. Despite the optimism, some have expressed caution, because there’s still a large swath of the Black community that’s unemployed or underemployed. “It’s a little troubling to see such strong optimism from the AfricanAmerican community while our unemployment rate has grown to 14.1 percent,” said Steve Burton, who started his first E-Commerce business at 18, which allowed him to invest in music. Burton, who started a business to license music for television shows and movies for FX, Disney, Lifetime and BET, owns PerfectTux.com. “I believe that we are in a time where African-Americans are starting to realize the impact of their own buying power and the importance of spending wisely, building wealth, and starting businesses,” said Burton. “These factors would lead to optimism that transcends income levels, because when you know better, you do better.”
THE INNER-CITY NEWS January 18, 2017 - January 24, 2017
N E W H AV E N PU B LI C S C H O O L S
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