The Southern Digest April 26, 2012

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VOlume 58, issue 17

Baseball ups win streak to 11 games

Obama seeks Iowa youth vote

see Sports, page 9

see State & Nation, page 5

Are children and adults the same? see Commentary, page 11

2 Chainz, Miguel to headline SpringFest Concert Digest News Service

B.R. HIV rate nation’s highest marCus green

The Southern Digest

Baton Rouge’s HIV/AIDS diagnoses rate is the highest among cities in the United States.

Poor health, poverty and prison prevalence could be factors in Baton Rouge’s shift from number two to number one and Louisiana’s place at the top of the list.

According to the Baton Rouge AIDS Society (BRASS), Baton Rouge is currently number one in the country with the highest rate of AIDS cases.

Baton Rouge AIDS Society founder and CEO, Rev. A.J. Johnson said,” BRASS offers volunteer opportunities to help mobilize the community around the fight against HIV/AIDS and other STDs.”

Louisiana is currently number four among states with the highest rate of new AIDS cases in the country.

In the U.S. every nine and a half minutes, someone gets infected with HIV and every 35 minutes a woman is tested positive in the United States,” said Johnson.

Johnson said some of the reasons Baton Rouge is number one is because of poverty, prisons, people, and poor health are major factors.

“Baton Rouge moved from number two to number one. That is not an alarming change, especially when Louisiana is the number two worst health state in the country,” said Johnson.

According to www.avert.org, today over 230,000 African Americans have died of AIDS See hiV in B.r. page 3

Study shows information, actions do not correlate JessiCa sarpy

The Southern Digest

According to a recent sexual health study among HBCUs, student knowledge of HIV, STD and pregnancy prevention options does not effect a change in behavior.

The survey was conducted among students at Southern University, Mississippi Valley State, Benedict College and Alabama A&M. “We don’t have high incidents of HIV on our campus but it’s just the high-risk behavior that our students engage in without condoms,” said Shirley Wade, Director and Nurse Practitioner of SU Student Health Services.

There are ways to prevent high-risk sexual behavior, A student can be abstinent and abstain from any and all sexual activity, be faithful and commit to only one partner, or use a condom every sexual encounter.

Wade said, that according to the study, Southern and other HBCU students have sexual health knowledge but don’t always apply it.

“College students know how to prevent getting infected with an STD or HIV but are not using the knowledge,” said Wade.

HIV is the virus that causes AIDS. If a person infected with HIV does not take effective antiretroviral treatment, over time HIV will weaken their immune system, which will make

them much more vulnerable to opportunistic infections.

“I think we should push prevention so that students will be more knowledgeable and responsible about their sexual choices,” said Wade.

HPV is also an STD and it could affect a student.

It can put them at risk for cervical cancer and genital warts.

“It’s indicated for young men and young women if you come to the infirmary before their 19th birthdays we can give you the Gardasil for free,” said Wade GARDASIL is the only human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine that helps protect against 4 types of HPV. In girls and young women ages 9 to 26, GARDASIL helps protect against 2 types of HPV that cause about 75% of cervical cancer cases, and 2 more types that cause 90% of genital warts cases.

In boys and young men ages 9 to 26, GARDASIL helps protect against 90% of genital warts cases.

When a person contracts an STD it can increase their chances of getting HIV. “When you get an STD that increases your chances of getting HIV and also puts you as risk of becoming sterile. A lot of people treat chlamydia or gonorrhea too casually and it could be a determining factor if an individual will be able to have children,” said Wade.

People living with HIV may feel and look completely well but their immune systems are not.

The Student Government Association’s annual SpringFest Week is under way, with headline events coming up this weekend.

SpringFest Week ends with three major student events — tonight’s Student Choice Awards, Friday’s Greek Show and Saturday’s SpringFest Concert.

The Student Choice Awards begin at 7 p.m. at the F.G. Clark Activity Center, with an afterparty following the event from 9 p.m.-midnight.

SpringFest shirts will be given out during the event, which is free for SUBR students and $5 for college students showing valid ID from their respective schools.

The action continues at the

F.G. Clark Activity Center for the Greek Show, which is scheduled to start at 7 p.m.

Friday. Admission is $10 for advance tickets and at the door.

SpringFest culminates with the annual concert Saturday, which is scheduled for noon5 p.m. on the Mayberry Lawn.

Rapper 2 Chainz and R&B singer Miguel are on tap to headline the concert, and R&B singer Cherlise and New Orleans rapper Coppertop.

Bounce rapper Sissy Nobby and other artists are scheduled to appear at the concert, which is only open to SUBR students.

Re-entry to the concert will not be allowed, and SUBR students are not permitted to bring relatives, non-SUBR friends or children to the SpringFest Concert.

Bray wins SGA chief justice runoff eVan taylor

The Southern Digest

Simone Bray won the office of Chief Justice for the 20122013 academic year against Joseph Sam Wednesday in the Spring Student Government Association runoff election.

Bray will succeed Maurlence Martin as Chief Justice earning approximately 55 percent of the vote (235 votes) against Sam (196).

“I want to say thank you. It was a long week for my campaign team. They worked really hard.

My family supported me and I want to thank the Jaguar Nation who showed their support for me twice,” Bray said.

Bray looks to the fall to maintain an active judiciary.

“I am going to get some of the students’ problems solved. I am going to be really focused on making sure we have an active judiciary,” Bray said.

Six justice positions are left vacant to be filled in the Fall. An active judiciary would require eight justices (two from each class) and the Chief Justice.

THE OFFICIAL STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY AND A&M COLLEGE, BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA

“I have already started contacting class presidents to find some students who are going to be dedicated to the positions as justices for each class,” Bray said.

Bray will not be officially sworn into her position until the summer but, already has plans for her position.

“I plan on having an active judiciary, establish a more thorough grievance form that gets straight to the problem of the students and students can expect mock trials. I’m ready to work for our students,” Bray said.

Bray filled the last vacancy up for election but, there are fourteen open positions to be elected in the fall not including freshman positions to be elected in fall elections.

Fall 2012, AWS will be seeking a vice president, the senior class will need three senators and two justices, the junior class will need two senators and two justices and the sophomore class will need four senators and two justices.

Campus Life southerndigest.com

Page 2 - Thursday, April 26, 2012

Campus Briefs

management. Contact CSS for more information on any of these programs and for tutoring questions at 225.771.4312 or stop by 107 in Stewart Hall.

today Campus Access

Harding Boulevard will be the sole entrance/exit between the hours of 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.

Vehicles entering the campus during those hours must stop at the Checkpoint prior to entering the campus. On weekends the Mills Avenue entrance will remain closed from 10 p.m.

Friday until 5 a.m. the following Monday morning.

Please contact Lt. Floyd Williams at 771-2770 for more details.

Bookstore new hours

The SU Bookstore has new hours. The bookstore will be open from 8a.m. until 5p.m.

Monday-Thursday and from 9a.m. until 2p.m. on Fridays.

April 27 Annual Honors Program

The Southern University Wesley Foundation is accepting donations of non-perishable and canned foods for their food drive. They will be accepting donations until April. Worship services are on Wednesdays at noon. The foundation will also be hosting Throwdown Thursdays at 7p.m. with competitions on Wii Sports, Karaoke, Dance. Spoken word and open mic. Compeition winners will receive $20 gift cards. Refreshments will be sold to support the foundation’s efforts. Call 225.778.0076 for more information.

Southern University will hold its Annual Academic Honors Day Awards Program on Friday, April 27, 2012, 10:15 a.m. in the Clifford T. Seymour Gymnasium. This student awards program will honor outstanding scholarship and academic attainment by SUBR students. Students with cumulative GPAs of 3.0 and above will be acknowledged.

Specific awards will be bestowed by colleges and departments.

The entire Southern University family is invited to the Academic Awards Program—students, parents, faculty and staff. The parents of honor students are particularly encouraged to share in this event.

Café Lacumba

april 30

SU Wesley Foundation

Come join your colleagues and faculty for a delicious and healthy lunch! All items are made fresh and can be enjoyed as you dine in or on the go. Café Lacumba will be serving sandwiches, wraps, salads, snacks and beverages every Wednesday from 11 am- 1:30 pm. Café Lacumba is located in 161 Pinkie Thrift Hall. For more information call 225.771.4660.

Slave Narrative Exhibit

The National Society of Leadership and Success in collaboration with the John B. Cade library presents the works of Dean Cade’s 1930’s Negro History Class who interviewed freed slaves. Dena Cade’s memorabilia, a power point presentation “The Struggle Continues”, audio CD of spirituals and “The Rhythm of Africa.” The exhibit is available for viewing now through April 30 in the first floor lobby of the library. Faculty, students and organizations are encouraged to attend.

SU Graduate Association

The Southern University Graduate Association will hold a general meeting today at 5 p.m. in Mayberry’s Magnolia Room. Chancellor James Llorens will be a special guest and refreshments will be provided.

may 1 Res Life applications available

Center for Student Success

The department of Residence Life and Housing announces Summer and Fall 2012 housing applications are available. Go to www.housing.subr.edu; type it, print it, and bring it in by May 1.

The SU CSS offers a free paper service. You can have your paper reviewed for clarity, grammatical errors, sentence structure, etc. CSS will also be offering English workshops every Friday at 10 am. CSS will be offering seminars to assist students with topics such as discovering their learning styles, study skills, to stress

The Sentinel Of An Enlightened Student Body since 1926

Who’s Speaking Out?

may 2

Southern Artists

The Frank Hayden Hall Visual Arts Gallery will exhibit the works of Nathaniel Landry, Antoine “Ghost” Mitchell and Heather Holliday until May 2. Gallery hours will be MonThurs. 10a.m.-4p.m. For more information contact Robert Cox at 225.771.4103.

The National Society of Leadership and Success

Membership is open to all majors and classifications.

Executive board and leadership positions are available. Member benefits include scholarships and awards, graduation honor cords, leadership certificate, personalized letter of recommendation, resume enhancement, online job bank with access to employers seeking to hire society members and more. Contact Cosette Richard, President of the Southern chapter Sigma Alpha Pi at subr_nsls@yahoo.com.

Ronald McNair Scholars

The Ronald E. McNair scholars program invites students with an interest in a Ph. D, 3.0 or higher GPA, first generation college students and students who will have at least 60 hours at the completion of Spring 2012; to apply for the scholar program. Contact Janeal Banks, coordinator in Higgins Hall room 208D.

What are your expectations of SpringFest?

Morgan Gorman

Brandon L. Wilson

New Orleans Freshman Biology

Monroe, La. Junior Therapeutic recreation

“I expect to have fun.”

Gorman

“I expect SpringFest to be very exciting this year, and I can’t wait to see the artists perform.”

Hannah Dunford

Orlante Rogers

New Orleans Freshman Nursing

detroit sophomore business management

“I expect to hear good music and to have alot of fun.”

Dunford

“I expect the SpringFest to be enjoyable, so enjoying that I forget about finals.”

Wilson

Rogers

Ag Stars

Ag STARS (Shaping Tomorrow’s Agricultural Research Scientists) participants Delane Ross, Adria Smith, Lillian Profit, Patience Muse, Karl Harnsberry, William Lavergne, and Andrea Bridgewater won first and second place in the oral research competitions at the 27th annual MANRRS conference in Atlanta.

Calling all Freshmen, Sophomores, and Juniors with a 2.5 GPA and no declared major.

Want to pursue an exciting degree in agricultural sciences?

Want to be an Ag Star mentor?

Ag Star participants can earn $1,000 stipend per semester.

Apply in Fisher Room 113.

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Thursday, April 26, 2012 - Page 3

The Sentinel Of An Enlightened Student Body since 1926

Awareness more common than practice Charles Hawkins II The Southern Digest

Students and faculty on Southern University believe AIDS Awareness is high yet students still participate in risky behavior. Faculty, students, and administrative figures around the campus discussed differing opinions of the lack of information on AIDS as well as the steady risky behavior that still occurs even with proper knowledge.

Faculty like Leah S. Cullins Assistant Professor in the Nursing department spoke on the lack of effort in making people in general aware of the true effects of AIDS. “There is not enough being done to make it aware in the community,” said Cullins.

She later spoke on how people know that AIDS is out there, but don’t think it applies to them.

Angeline Hudson, Baton Rouge senior English major, agrees with Cullins on how people do not have enough knowledge about AIDS. “I do not believe people know about AIDS, and they are mostly miss informed about its origins as well as how this epidemic effects society,” said Hudson.

While Cullins doesn’t think enough

is being done, Shirely Wade director of student health center thinks student have learned, but haven’t changed their behavior.

“College students are very knowledgeable on HIV, but doesn’t affect behavior,” said Wade. She also stated how Southern University participated with four other HBCUs in a research project on student knowledge that proved students were not ignorant on AIDS. Wade also spoke on the campus efforts to make students aware of the threat of AIDS. “They have a lot of different departments with different iniatives on AIDS awareness,” said Wade.

Cullins believes the campus has shown growth in holding more events for students to gain information even though the black community as a whole is still lacking information.

“I think that as of last semester Darnel Pledger has put on two HIV activities,” said cullins. She also spoke on her appointment to Louisiana’s commission on HIV, AIDS and Hepatitis.

Students like Jessica Jackson, Baton Rouge junior business management major, agreed with Wade on Southern’s effort with AIDS awareness.

“With the AIDS Awareness week they provide good information,” said Jackson.

She continued on by saying people know much more information about AIDS than in the past.

Even though a large of information has been provided students, Jackson and Hudson believe students still make bad decisions.

“They are willing to take the risk, and don’t care about the consequences,” said Jackson.

“I believe graphic images along with knowledge will assist students in practicing safe sex,” said Hudson. She later mentioned how she believes that most people are visual learners and that images will have a greater affect than facts alone.

Cullins also agreed with Jackson and Hudson’s sentiments on students not taken the serious consequences of risky behavior serious.

“They feel like it can’t happen to them,” said Cullins. She also said how students attempt to judge who has the disease by physical looks, but that is solid choice.

For more information on AIDS students can contact the Student Health Center at 225-771-4770. The nursing department is currently administering free HIV/AIDS exams, and it only takes 20 minutes.

STD Awareness Month prompts concern Jessica Sarpy

The Southern Digest

Students gained insight about sexual health at the Wellness check-up Wednesday at Smith-Brown Memorial Union.

STD awareness month prompted sexual health concerns among Southern students.

Some of the most common STDs are chlamydia, herpes, syphilis, gonorrhea, and pubic lice also known as crabs. Around three million new cases of chlamydia are reported each year, with adolescent women being the most commonly affected.

“I know the dangers of unprotected sex.

Unprotected sex in this day and age is just

nasty,” said Tanika Wilson, a freshman general studies major from Shreveport.

Although chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis can be treated with the use of antibiotics, it can cause a person to become sterile or more susceptible to contracting HPV or HIV, which require continual treatment.

STDs are diseases that are mainly passed from one person to another during vaginal, anal or oral sex. There are at least 25 different sexually transmitted diseases with a range of different symptoms.

Jarome Johnson a sophomore mathematics major from New Orleans said, if a female asked him to have unprotected sex he would assume she wasn’t concerned

about her or his health.

According to the Center for Disease Control, 1.2 million are living with HIV and 1 in 5 Americans are unaware of their infection.

“I know the dangers of unprotected sex.

Unprotected sex in this day and age is just nasty,” said Tanika Wilson a freshman general studies major from Shreveport.

Students were able to get condoms, get their vitals (blood sugar, cholesterol, blood pressure), height and weight and other wellness items and give-a-ways.

The Southern University student health center offers HIV and STD testing regularly in their offices in the rear of campus next to the SU counseling center.

Actors, artists aim to turn around failing schools Brett Zongker

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Sarah Jessica Parker, Kerry Washington and Forest Whitaker are adopting some of the nation’s worstperforming schools and pledging Monday to help the Obama administration turn them around by integrating arts education.

The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities will announce a new Turnaround Arts initiative as a pilot project for eight schools with officials from the White House and U.S. Department of Education.

Organizers said they aim to demonstrate new research that shows the arts can help reduce behavioral problems and increase student attendance, engagement and academic success.

The two-year initiative will target eight high-poverty elementary and middle schools. The schools were among the lowestperforming schools in each of their states and had qualified for about $14 million in federal School Improvement Grants from the Obama administration. The arts initiative

will bring new training for educators at the Aspen Institute, art supplies and musical instruments totaling about $1 million per year, funded by private foundations and corporate sponsors.

The schools selected for the project are in both urban and rural areas. They are in New Orleans; Denver; Boston; Washington; Des Moines, Iowa; Portland, Ore.; Bridgeport, Conn.; and Lame Deer, Mont.

Washington, who is starring in the new ABC drama “Scandal,” will adopt a District of Columbia school over the next two years.

Often there are misconceptions about the role arts play in school, she said, as if they’re only the “sprinkles on the icing,” Washington told The Associated Press.

“It’s not that the arts are something to put on in the final period of the day once all the real work is done,” she said. “Arts are actually how we can help them get the real work done.”

For example, studies show more music training can help improve student math scores, Washington said.

Artists from the president’s committee, including Washington, will present programs

to students and teachers, celebrate their successes and help create community partnerships to support their work.

This is believed to be the first federal initiative to examine the role of arts in school reform and will also generate new research looking at how a robust arts program affects students, examining data in each of the eight schools, said Rachel Goslins, executive director of the presidential arts committee.

“It’s really hard to find anybody who says arts education is bad for kids,” Goslins said.

“But there is a huge amount of skepticism that the arts could be an important part of the solution in these schools.”

“Sex and the City” star Parker will adopt a school in Portland, and Whitaker will work with students in Des Moines.

Artist Chuck Close, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, dancer Damian Woetzel and actress Alfre Woodard also are adopting schools in the two-year program.

In Montana, Lame Deer Junior High School on a Cheyenne American Indian reservation was one of the neediest schools encountered during the selection process.

HIV in B.R. from page 1 with nearly 40 percent of total deaths.

It also stated that among the one million people living with HIV in the United States, almost half are black.

As a racial group, African Americans represent just 13 percent of the U.S. population.

The estimated lifetime risk of becoming infected with HIV is 1 in 16 for black males, and 1 in 30 for black females, which is a far higher risk than for white males (1 in 104) and white females (1 in 588).

According to the National HIV/AIDS Strategy, African Americans comprise the greatest proportion of HIV/AIDS cases, including among women, heterosexual men, injection drug users, and infants.”

Education on the issue is cited for some of the cases and higher rates.

Jason Tate, a junior mass communication major from Houston said, ”I always thought that you could only get HIV when you had sex.”

HIV is found and can be contracted from specific human body fluids like blood, semen, breast milk, vaginal and rectal fluids.

According to Shirley Wade, director/nurse practitioner of the SU Student Health Center, with AIDS being the final stage of HIV, it is most important that people get tested due to the fact that early detection can save more lives.

Johnson said that even before getting tested, many people have many misconceptions about HIV/AIDS and it’s ability to be contracted by anyone regardless of race, gender, class and sexual orientation.

“It won’t happen to me, I’m careful. If you don’t see your partner’s HIV status, you are placing yourself at risk,” said Johnson.

Wade said students have to realize that they are either going to be abstinent, be faithful or use a condom. Even if they’re in a monogomous relationship they should use a condom.”

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Page 4 - Thursday, April 26, 2012

The Sentinel Of An Enlightened Student Body since 1926

The ‘92 riot: Revisiting a dark day in LA history Amy Taxin & John Rogers

The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES — Henry Keith Watson remembers April 29, 1992, as if it happened just last week. History won’t allow him to forget it.

It was a day that marked the beginning of one of the deadliest, most destructive race riots in the nation’s history, and one in which Watson’s spur-of-the-moment decision to take part made him one of the enduring faces of the violence.

He was at home that day like thousands of others when he heard the news that was racing across Los Angeles: A jury with no black members had acquitted four police officers in the videotaped beating of Rodney King, a black man stopped for speeding nearly 14 months before.

“I got caught up in the emotions like everyone else,” Watson says 20 years after a riot that would leave 55 people dead, more than 2,300 injured and himself forever recognized as one of the attackers of white truck driver Reginald Denny, who himself became the enduring image of the innocents victimized during the chaos.

South Los Angeles, where the riot began, has changed considerably two decades later, as has Watson. But many things remain the same.

While racial tensions fanned by the verdict and the general feeling of disenfranchisement and distrust of police among LA’s black population have moderated, residents of the city’s largely black and Hispanic South Side complain that the area still is plagued by too few jobs, too few grocery stores and a lack of redevelopment that would bring more life to the area.

One place in particular that time seemingly forgot is the intersection of Florence and Normandie, where Denny was attacked on that dark day the riot began. It remains a gritty corner that’s home to gas stations where men rush up to incoming cars and pump fuel for spare change, as well as a liquor store with more foot traffic than any other business in sight.

“Have things changed? Not really.

People are just more mellow these days,” Frank Owens says with a smile. The unemployed landscaper sat on a bus stop bench near the intersection recently, visiting with friends before going across the street to buy lottery tickets at the liquor store and joke with its owner, James Oh. Much like Los Angeles as a whole, the neighborhood’s Latino population has grown while the black population has declined.

In this part of town, high school dropout rates are higher than for the city as a whole, and only 8 percent of the area’s residents have college degrees, compared with 30 percent for all residents of Los Angeles, according to American Community Survey estimates from 2006 to 2010.

More than three times as many households in the area reported yearly incomes of less than $20,000 during the same period than homes with yearly incomes of more than $100,000. That’s in stark contrast to the city as a whole, where there were more households with incomes above $100,000 than those with incomes of less than $20,000.

The economic disparity, coupled with racial animosity and distrust of the police created the powder keg that was the neighborhood on April 29, 1992, Watson says. Then word of the King verdict set it off.

“The riots were the last spark,” said Connie

photo by matt sayles/ap photo

Rodney King poses for a portrait in Los Angeles. The acquittal of four police officers in the videotaped beating of King sparked rioting that spread across the city and into neighboring suburbs. Cars were demolished and homes and businesses were burned.

Before order was restored, 55 people were dead, 2,300 injured and more than 1,500 buildings were damaged or destroyed.

Rice, a director of the civil rights group Advancement Project and an attorney who has brought numerous civil rights lawsuits against the Los Angeles Police Department.

“People had had enough.”

As the liquor store at the intersection of Florence and Normandie was being looted and white passersby were fleeing a barrage of rocks and bottles, Denny stopped his big rig to avoid running over someone.

He was quickly dragged from the cab and nearly beaten to death by Watson and a handful of others. As the attack unfolded on live TV, Watson stepped on Denny’s head after Damian Williams smashed the trucker’s skull in with a brick.

Rioting spread across the city and into neighboring suburbs. Cars were demolished and homes and businesses were burned. Before order was restored, more than 1,500 buildings were damaged or destroyed. Almost a quarter century had passed since the tumultuous urban riots of 1968, and even longer since LA’s Watts rioting in 1965. The magnitude of this new racial paroxysm shocked a nation that thought it had moved on.

Today, Watson still struggles to explain why he took part in the destruction.

Known as Keith to his family and “KeeKee” to friends, he was a 27-yearold ex-Marine with a wife and a job who came from a good family. His father had been his neighborhood’s block captain, no less, and he acknowledges his family didn’t raise him to be a troublemaker.

“I guess you could say, you know, looking at my background and whatever, how could I have gotten caught up in it?” he mused on a recent sun-splashed morning as he sat on the front porch of the home he grew up in, located just a few blocks from the intersection.

After a long pause and a sigh, he continues: “You know, honestly, it was something that just happened, man. I never even knew Reginald Denny. Just the anger and the rage just took hold to where I nor anyone who was out there that day was in their right frame of mind.”

Watson was convicted of misdemeanor assault and sentenced to time served for the 17 months he spent in jail before his

case was resolved.

But that day was a rage, he and others in the community say, fueled by years of high unemployment, abuse and neglect by police, and rising tension with recently arrived Korean store owners.

“We wanted jobs around here, we wanted respect and we didn’t get none of that. And then the police just harassed us all the time,” says Sharon McSwain, who for 22 of her 45 years has lived within walking distance of the intersection where Denny was attacked. He was saved by a black truck driver who rushed out to help after seeing the brutal beating on television.

Tensions in the community had been running high before the riot, fueled in part by the case of a Korean grocer who shot to death a black teenager she had accused of trying to steal a bottle of orange juice. The grocer, Soon Ja Du, was convicted of manslaughter for killing 15-year-old Latasha Harlins, but received a sentence of only probation and community service.

Like King’s beating, the shooting had been captured on videotape, by Du’s store surveillance camera. The images stoked the anger.

The store shooting occurred just two weeks after George Holliday stood on the terrace outside his San Fernando Valley home and videotaped four LAPD officers kicking King, using stun guns on him and delivering more than 50 blows from their police batons.

On April 29, 1992, it seemed Holliday’s videotape would be the key evidence leading to a guilty verdict against the officers. When they were instead acquitted, violence erupted immediately.

Police, seemingly caught off-guard, were quickly outnumbered by rioters and retreated. As the uprising spread to the city’s Koreatown area, shop owners armed themselves and engaged in running gun battles with looters.

“I think we did the right thing,” says attorney David Kim, who had gone on Korean-language radio to encourage people to take up arms because the police weren’t protecting them.

Not that violence had been totally

unexpected.

In the weeks before the verdict, nearly a dozen black community leaders had been meeting regularly with then-Mayor Tom Bradley, discussing what to do if there was an acquittal, the Rev. Cecil “Chip” Murray recounts.

When the verdict was announced, some 150 volunteers fanned out across the city, urging calm, says Murray, retired pastor of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church and now a religious studies professor at the University of Southern California. They were successful in some instances and likely would have been more so if police had backed them up, he says.

King himself, in his recently published memoir, “The Riot Within: My Journey From Rebellion to Redemption,” says FBI agents warned him a riot was expected if the officers walked. They advised him to keep a low profile so as not to inflame passions.

He did until the third day, when he went on television and made an emotional plea for calm, famously asking, “Can we all get along?”

In the aftermath, much of the blame was placed on Police Chief Daryl Gates, who resigned under pressure soon after.

Before the uprising, Gates had been hailed in national police circles as an innovator, widely credited with helping pioneer both the modern police special weapons and tactics team and the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program that partners police with schools.

Until his death in 2010, he angrily defended his actions, accusing his officers of failing to carry out a plan he said was in place to stop any trouble. He was particularly critical of his command staff for leading the retreat.

“The captain, lieutenant, deputy chiefs, commanders — they all screwed up in my judgment,” Gates, who had been chief for 14 years, told The Associated Press in 2002.

Whoever was to blame, Gates remains a polarizing figure in LA’s black community, where words like Gestapo, Nazi and racist are routinely used to describe the way he ran the LAPD. After the riot, a number of reforms were instituted, including limiting a police chief to a maximum of two fiveyear terms. Stricter guidelines in the way the LAPD investigates civilian complaints and disciplines its officers were also implemented after both federal officials and an independent review board concluded the department had for years been guilty of a pattern of civil rights abuses.

Anger toward the department as a whole is less intense now.

“Cops are still cops,” says Marqueece Harris-Dawson, president of the Community Coalition of South Los Angeles. “They do lots of things we don’t like but this idea you’re under threat of assassination or torture or beating, it’s just not as present anymore.”

“There is no figure on the scene in this region that has the vitriol, the racism and the open disregard for the citizens of this city that Darryl Gates had,” HarrisDawson adds.

Violent crime fell citywide by 76 percent between 1992 and 2010, according to Los Angeles police statistics.

Meanwhile, tensions between the black and Korean communities have lessened over the years, according to both sides.

Rioters targeted and caused $400 million worth of damage to Korean-American businesses, many of them liquor stores that residents said were blights on the community. Language barriers and cultural differences were also key.

State & Nation southerndigest.com

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Thursday, April 26, 2012 - Page 5

Obama seeks Iowa youth vote Ben Feller

The Associated Press

IOWA CITY, Iowa — In the state that began his march to the White House, President Barack Obama looked every bit the campaigner Wednesday as he told college students that “Iowa always feels like home to me.”

With a focus on student loans, he rallied young people during his third visit to a university campus in two days and said keeping college affordable “is at the heart of who we are.”

Obama’s election-season speech at the University of Iowa mirrored his addresses Tuesday in North Carolina and Colorado, and was part of the campaign appeal to young voters, an important constituency that the Democratic incumbent and Republican rival Mitt Romney are trying to win over.

The issue of student debt goes right to the heart of economic anxiety affecting many families and a new generation of voters as the campaign season takes hold.

Obama, who was born in

Hawaii and hails from Illinois, made his comment about the at-home feeling of Iowa to hundreds of people crammed into an overflow room before his speech. It was a reminder of the political overtones of his stop in this competitive state, where his early 2008 caucus victory catapulted a campaign that led to a decisive victory over Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in the general election.

Obama told college crowds that Congress needed to act on a bill to freeze the interest rate on student loans. In Washington, lawmakers had agreed on that goal and were debating how to pay for it. A measure from Senate Democrats would prevent today’s 3.4 percent interest rates on subsidized Stafford loans for low- and middleincome students from doubling automatically on July 1.

Obama said the Senate bill was “good news,” but he questioned whether House Republicans would go along with a yearlong freeze that would help 7.4 million people. He also

photo by Carolyn Kaster/AP PHOTO

President Barack Obama participates in a roundtable discussion with students at the University of Iowa, Wednesday in Iowa City, Iowa. From left are, Blake Anderson, the president, Myranda Burnett, Jordan Garrison-Nickerson and Martin Lopez.

addressed criticism from House Speaker John Boehner’s office that the White House was only raising the student loan debate to distract from the economy.

“This is the economy,” Obama said. “This is about your job security, about your future. If you do well, the economy does well.”

Republicans had balked at the

Teen excused in Md. neighborhood watch trial Sarah Brumfield The Associated Press

BALTIMORE — The teenager who authorities said was beaten in a neighborhood watch case in Baltimore that drew comparisons with the Trayvon Martin shooting refused to testify from the witness stand on Wednesday, prompting the judge ultimately to excuse him.

It’s not yet clear how the loss of the key witness will affect the prosecution’s case.

Brothers Eliyahu and Avi Werdesheim, who are Jewish and white, are accused of beating the black teen while patrolling for an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood watch group on Nov. 19, 2010. Their bench trial opened Wednesday on charges of seconddegree assault, false imprisonment and carrying a deadly weapon.

The victim, now 16, cried as he mumbled responses to some of Assistant State’s Attorney Kevin Wiggins’ questions. The teen testified he was walking to the bus stop from his grandmother’s home to go to a doctor’s appointment that day.

He said he didn’t make the appointment because two men in a red car approached him, looked at him the wrong way and told him he was not supposed to be there. At times, the teen did not answer and would bend over to put his head in his lap.

WBFF-TV showed video of the teen being carried back into the courthouse after the lunch break. In the afternoon, his responses were even less audible and eventually he stood up while attorneys approached Judge Pamela White’s bench

for a conference.

“I don’t want to testify,” he said. “I want to drop charges.”

White explained that the state brought the charges and it was not his decision to drop them.

Wiggins asked the teen if the reason he didn’t want to testify was because he lied or that the incident didn’t happen. The teen said he just didn’t want to testify.

After talking the situation over with the teen, the judge excused him.

The defense objected to the playing of a recording of the teen’s 911 call after the teen was excused because the defendants would be unable to confront their accuser.

The judge denied that motion and listened to the call, in which the teen tells the operator he had been cracked on the head with a walkie-talkie and was bleeding.

The teen was taken to a hospital with a cut on the back of his head and a broken wrist, according to court documents.

A day earlier, the brothers withdrew a motion to move the trial because comparisons to the Martin case would make it hard for them to get a fair trial.

They opted for a bench trial, saying they believed a judge could conduct a fair trial.

In the Florida case, authorities charged neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman this month with seconddegree murder in Martin’s death Feb. 26. Zimmerman claims self-defense, but Martin’s family claims he targeted the unarmed teen mainly because the teen was black. Zimmerman’s father is white and his mother Hispanic.

way Democrats would cover the nearly $6 billion price tag on the student loan freeze.

Complicating the situation for GOP congressional lawmakers is that Mitt Romney, the party’s presidential candidate, has sided with Obama and asked Congress to temporarily extend the lower rates.

Obama’s appearance Wed-

nesday, his final stop on the two-day college tour, put him in a state whose college graduates have some of the highest student loan debt in the nation.

The president’s student loan pitch was but a platform for his larger goal: courting college voters, whose enthusiasm he will need in the November election.

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The Sentinel Of An Enlightened Student Body since 1926

Thursday, April 26, 2012 - Page 7

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Sports southerndigest.com

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Thursday, April 26, 2012 - Page 9

Jaguars win 11th straight SU’s 4-2 win over UNO gives Jags momentum heading into home-and-home against East leader Jackson State Aristide Phillips

The Southern Digest

The streak now stands at 11 games as the Jaguars defeated the University of New Orleans 4-2 Tuesday at Lee-Hines Field.

The Jaguars came into the mid-week match rolling on a 10-game winning streak and a successful motivating weekend series sweep over Prairie View A&M that allowed the Jaguars to move into first place in the Southwestern Athletic Conference’s Western Division.

SU (25-14, 14-7 SWAC) scored there first run thanks to the recent hot hitting of right fielder Stephan Wallace who homered to left center field, that homer was Wallace third home run in two games.

“We are very pleased by what he’s been able to do and he’s kept things really simple which is one of the reasons why he’s enjoying success,” said head coach Roger Cador.

UNO (14-17) took the lead in

the fourth inning thanks to a Brandon Simon double to left field scoring in short stop Beau Boudreaux making the score 2-1.

The tide of the game changed in the sixth inning when Jaguar’s had the bases loaded and Cameron McGriff reached first base of an error from left field allowing Vince Coleman to score, and Wallace sacrifice fly allowed Derrick Hopkins to score.

UNO had six different pitchers at the mound Tuesday night and the loss could be handed to Kyle Blancaneaux (0-3) who pitched only two innings and gave up a hit and two runs in the process.

On the other side SU pitcher Daniel Garcia (4-1) only gave up four hits and two runs in the six and a half innings pitched.

“He’s throwing the ball really good in the mid-week given us a chance to win and we won and the team has confidence when he’s pitching so we’re very pleased with the job he’s doing,”

said Cador addressing the play of Garcia.

The Jaguars seem to be hitting on all cylinders to some, but the when asked if he thinks his team is peaking Cador said, “We can play a lot better, we are peaking, but we still have areas that we would like to improve in.”

With the win over the Privateers Southern’s next test of the regular season will be against Jackson State (29-11, 18-3 SWAC) who is the division leaders in the SWAC’s Eastern Division.

“Its going to be a good series, Jackson State one of the better teams in the league,” said Cador, “I thought they had the best team last year, and they are very talented, so its going to be a good measuring stick for us to see how we play against the best team in the league.”

Southern will face JSU Saturday in Jackson, Miss., at 1 p.m. and will return home on Sunday to complete the homeand-home series at 1 p.m.

Photo courtesy of john oubre

Southern pitcher Daniel Garcia picked up his fourth win of the season as the Jaguars defeated UNO 4-2 Tuesday at Lee-Hines Field.

Southern faces mustwin situation this weekend vs. UAPB Digest News Service

While the SWAC East Division field is all but settled, the race in the West is going down to the wire as Grambling State, Southern and ArkansasPine Bluff battle for the final two spots in the postseason.

In the East, Mississippi Valley is only a win away from clinching the top spot, while barring disaster, Jackson State is a win away from finishing no worse than second. JSU can still finish first, but MVSU would have to drop their last four games. MVSU travels to Montgomery this weekend to take on Alabama State, while JSU is at home against Alabama A&M. Alabama State and Alabama A&M are a game apart, battling for third and fourth. Bama State can make things very interesting if they can sweep MVSU and JSU goes belly-up for three losses. With A&M only a game behind State, sweeps by the Hornets and Bulldogs would cause a massive traffic jam at the top of the East.

The only team in the East not in contention is Alcorn

State. The Braves have been eliminated from the postseason with only a make-up game from the round-up remaining on the conference schedule against Texas Southern.

TSU surged into first place in the West after sweeping Prairie View over the weekend. TSU is a full three games ahead of PVAM, needing a win to lock up the regular season title.

PVAM can still finish first, but must win their final conference game, which is a round-up make game against Jackson State. Otherwise, PVAM can finish no worse than second place.

Then comes the three-team pile up between Grambling, Southern and Arkansas-Pine Bluff. Like musical chairs, there are only two spots left at the dance and three teams seeking an invitation.

Going into the coming weekend, Grambling is slightly ahead after taking 2-of-3 from Southern. At 4-9, the Tigers are a game ahead of Southern and UAPB who are both 3-10.

Several scenarios exist with a huge series looming between Southern and UAPB

Williams: football before lawsuit O.K. Davis

Ruston Daily Leader

PHOTO BY TREVOR JAMES/DIGEST

Southern outfielder Danielle Jackson heads to third base against Prairie View earlier in the season. The Jaguars take on Arkansas-Pine Bluff this weekend in a key SWAC Western Division series with SWAC Tournament implications.

this weekend. UAPB already has the tiebreaker over GSU after taking 2-of-3 in their series earlier this season, while GSU has the advantage over Southern.

If Grambling can get a pair of wins against TSU, they would clinch one of the remaining spots. They can still slip in with a win and a Southern loss.

One crazy twist could leave Grambling out in the cold.

Another scenario even has all three teams finishing tied which would really be a cluttered mess. The picture should be clearer after Saturday, but it could likely come down to May 6 when Southern is slated to meet MVSU and UAPB is on tap to tangle with Alabama State.

Grambling was scheduled to play Alabama A&M on the same day, but moved the game up to Sunday.

Forget about the lawsuit he’s brought against the school.

Doug Williams is totally committed to getting Grambling State University’s football team prepared for the 2012 season.

“It’s not a distraction, because my job is to be the head football coach and to get the most out of our players,” he said. “Sure, it is out there and everybody knows about it, but it isn’t keeping me from doing the things I’ve always tried to do and that’s to be the very best coach I can be.”

Williams recently sued the school, claiming that Grambling reneged on contract promises and is now trying to pressure him to sign a reduced deal on a “take it or leave it” basis.

The former Tigers’ AllAmerican quarterback returned as head coach of Grambling State for a second time in February of 2011.

Williams had been the general manager of the Virginia Destroyers of the United Football League for only a few months before the GSU post became vacant and he quickly became the leading candidate for the job.

Culture southerndigest.com

Page 10 - Thursday, April 26, 2012

The Sentinel Of An Enlightened Student Body since 1926

Walker filming N.O. drama

Obama’s Rolling Stone treatment: politics to pop Jim Kuhnhenn

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Offering riffs on Mick Jagger and reflections on race, President Barack Obama is capping a week devoted to courting young votes with a Rolling Stone magazine cover interview that segues from presidential musings on politics to foreign policy to pop culture.

Sounding an electionyear theme, Obama tells the magazine that Mitt Romney can’t disavow the conservative views he embraced as candidate during the Republican presidential primaries. At the same time, he acknowledges that he, too, is struggling against public skepticism because of the slow economic recovery.

The interview, conducted earlier this month by Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, will appear in the issue of the magazine that hits newsstands Friday. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the interview ahead of publication.

For Obama, the magazine interview and its cover portrait come as he reaches out to young voters with a two-day tour of three college campuses in key election swing states and an appearance Tuesday night on NBC’s “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.”

Obama in the interview avoided characterizing Romney as a flip-flopper, a common criticism Romney faced during the Republican primary contests, and instead tagged him as a candidate who willfully embraces the Republican Party’s most conservative views.

“I don’t think that their nominee is going to be able to suddenly say, ‘Everything I’ve said for the last six months, I didn’t mean,’” Obama said.

“I’m assuming that he meant

it. When you’re running for president, people are paying attention to what you’re saying.”

Obama’s answer underscores an approach his advisers have been emphasizing lately, casting the race as one of sharp contrasts between two distinct candidates, parties and ideologies.

He said his own political burden is describing to Americans the progress that has occurred during his administration and how, if sustained, it could lead to economic security. “There’s understandable skepticism,” he said, “because things are still tough out there.”

Discussing his relationship with the military, Obama said, in the clearest terms yet, that he had to rein in the Pentagon as he sought to close down the war in Iraq on schedule and re-focus the military effort in Afghanistan. He said that with the help of thenDefense Secretary Robert Gates, he made it clear to the military brass that “I very much believe in civilian control of our military, and that military decisions are in service of strategies and broader conceptions of diplomacy that are made here in this White House.”

“They know I care about them and I respect them, and I think they respect me and listen to what I say,” he said.

“They understand that I’m the commander in chief.”

He said the operation to kill Osama bin Laden illustrated the “constructive relationship” he has developed with the Pentagon.

On Iraq, he said he had fulfilled his promise to end the war responsibly.

“It wasn’t as fast as some people would have liked,” he said. “It was probably faster than some folks in the Pentagon would have liked.”

Reflecting on whether there had been a change in racial politics since he became

Stacey Plaisance

The Associated Press

Photo by rolling stone/ap photo

In this magazine cover image released by Rolling Stone, President Barack Obama is seen on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine that hits newsstands on Friday.

president, Obama said he has never accepted the idea that his election represented a “postracial period.”

Still, he said, he often hears people remark about the importance to black children of having an African-American president and African-American first lady.

“That’s hugely important,” he added, “but you shouldn’t also underestimate the fact that there are a whole bunch of little white girls and white boys all across the country who just take it for granted that there’s an African-American president.

That’s the president they’re growing up with, and that’s changing attitudes.”

No interview with Rolling Stone is complete without cultural touchstones.

Obama recalled watching singer Mick Jagger rehearse for his appearance during a February White House tribute to the blues and was impressed by the respect the Rolling Stones frontman

displayed toward lesser-known and younger musicians. He said Jagger recalled the generosity he had experienced upon meeting blues greats like Howlin’ Wolf and B.B. King, and displayed “the sense of him wanting to do that same thing, that it all comes full circle.”

As he often does, Obama said he is not a fan of television news, though he admitted to liking Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart, whom he called “brilliant.” ‘’It’s amazing to me the degree to which he’s able to cut through a bunch of the nonsense,” the president said.

As for his own pop talents, Obama was matter-of-fact about his two acclaimed though abbreviated moments of public singing — once at the Apollo Theater in New York and the other at a blues tribute at the White House.

“I can sing,” he said confidently.

“I wasn’t worried about being able to hit those notes.”

Prosecutors may play rapper’s lyrics at trial The Associated Press

A judge has ruled that prosecutors can play some of Baton Rouge rapper Torrence “Lil Boosie” Hatch’s violenceladen lyrics at his first-degree murder trial scheduled to begin Monday.

The Advocate reports attorneys for Hatch said they will ask the state 1st Circuit Court of Appeal in Baton Rouge to review state District Judge Mike Erwin’s ruling. The judge refused to delay

the start of the trial.

Hatch is accused of hiring Michael “Marlo Mike” Louding to kill Terry Boyd, who was shot to death through a window while inside his Vermillion Drive home Oct. 21, 2009. Louding also is charged with first-degree murder in the killing.

Prosecutor Dana Cummings told Erwin she considers some of Hatch’s rap lyrics “admissions” and will use them to demonstrate Hatch’s “intent, motive and plan.”

One of Hatch’s attorneys, Martin Regan, told the judge the

defense stipulates that the voice on the recordings is Hatch’s but added, “We’re not stipulating to the meaning of anything.”

In one of Hatch’s songs, titled “187,” he refers to himself as the John Gotti of the south side and says, “I’m the reason the murder rate sky high.” He also says, “Whoever try to play me, they dead now.”

Baton Rouge police Detective Elvin Howard testified during Tuesday’s pretrial hearing that “187” is California police code for murder. There were no less

than a dozen East Baton Rouge Parish sheriff’s deputies and state corrections officers in the courtroom.

Louding is mentioned in several of Hatch’s songs and is pictured in at least two of his videos on YouTube. In the song “Lime Light,” Hatch says, “Marlo Mike up in the back seat beggin’ for a body.”

Jason Williams, who also represents Hatch, said after the hearing that the lyrics prosecutors plan to play have “nothing to do with this case.”

NEW ORLEANS — Actor Paul Walker is shifting gears in New Orleans, where he is playing a father struggling to keep his newborn daughter alive in a New Orleans hospital ravaged

by Hurricane Katrina.

Makers of the suspense drama, “Hours,” say this is one of the most challenging film projects yet for “The Fast and the Furious” star.

Walker plays the lead character Nolan, a grief-stricken man struggling with his wife’s death while trying to keep his prematurely born daughter alive in an incubator through power outages and rising floodwater and chaos when the two are abandoned in a New Orleans hospital after Katrina strikes.

“Paul is literally in every scene,” said the film’s producer, Peter Safran, whose other films include the blockbuster parody “Scary Movie.” ‘’I love how this project challenges him.”

Production got under way this week.

Shooting on Wednesday involved a scene in which Walker was trying to flag down a helicopter from the roof of a parking garage that will appear in the movie to be the roof of the hospital in which Walker’s character and his daughter are trapped.

Filmmakers point out that the movie isn’t just a Katrina story.

“It’s about parenthood,” said screenwriter Eric Heisserer (“Final Destination 5” and “The Thing”), who is making his directing debut with “Hours.” ‘’As I was writing this screenplay, I could see every scene. There comes a point where you fall in love with a project so much you just can’t let go of it.”

Walker, who has a 13-year-old daughter, said the premise of a father fighting to keep his child alive is what drew him in.

“This father is doing everything he can to just keep things going, keep electricity going, to keep this little baby going,” Walker said. “My little girl means the whole world to me. I really want to believe that if I was placed in the same situation that I would rise above, that I would be able to see it through the end and do what it would take to make sure my baby came out on top.”

“Hours,” which also stars Genesis Rodriguez (“Man on a Ledge” and “Casa de mi Padre”), will be filming in New Orleans through next month.

It’s one of a cluster of productions filming in south Louisiana.

Commentary southerndigest.com

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Thursday, April 26, 2012 - Page 11

Are children and adults the same?

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Is justice the same for everyone?

Children are being seen as adults in the eyes of the criminal justice system. Laws that were created for adult rehabilitation aren’t even considered for children. But adult delinquency laws are applied to children. Children are labeled as adults in some crimes and being treated as adults in prisons and correctional facilities.

Most adult laws are applied to children without the consideration of their bran development, cognitive/ reasoning abilities and educational competency.

According to Webster’s New World College Dictionary, a delinquent is a person who fails or neglects to do what duty or law requires of them.

Adults can fail or neglect after they understand the law, but is a child competent enough to understand and fail/neglect what the law requires of them?

Are children criminals?

Is there justice for children?

Should a child be considered a delinquent after one offense?

Should a child’s development be considered when charging them with a crime?

Should adult laws be applied to children, as if they are the same?

Children are being prosecuted for petty thefts, first sexual experiences,

Evan Taylor and guilt by association and crimes of passion.

We set our children up to fail when we hold them to a higher standard than we were as children and force stronger consequences for terms of their lives.

Children who do not understand their times tables are being tried for murder, assault and battery and placed in adult prisons and correctional facilities. Without the ability to be educated or rehabilitated, children are going into prison first time offenders and coming out delinquents.

What has the justice system become?

What was the purpose of prisons originally?

Can you imagine sending your child to prison for stealing $500 dollars out

of your bank account?

According to the law that is a felony and this would ruin the rest of your child’s life.

Can you imagine two minors having sex in a public area and being charged with rape/statutory rape because the girl was not of age of consent?

That child now has to register as a sex offender for the next 25 years to life, only eligible to get off the list after 25 years, which for most is life.

If our prison system can’t effectively rehabilitate and educate adults do we trust it to do the same with our children?

We create a daunting and demoralizing life for our children.

Children don’t become delinquents over night just like adults don’t become repeat offenders for one offense.

It’s time to put these circumstances into perspective.

Not just when it’s your child because every child holds our future in its hands.

The biggest question is do we want to leave a generation of children labeled and socialized as delinquents, or a generation of tolerance and acceptance?

In a world that is made up of changing individuals, the laws and rules should be far behind in representing change.

Letter to the Editor

Louisiana’s state officials have dealt Southern University a devastating blow. Nevertheless, in spite of the funding cuts and other attempts to render the Southern University System null and void, the university perseveres and excels.

Our College of Education is excelling in teacher preparation.

The State uses an evaluation system

called “value added” for gauging the pedagogical proficiency of first year teachers. When the 2011-2012 first year teachers were evaluated, Southern University’s teachers scored “tops” in the state in the teaching of Reading and English Language Arts.

Overall, Southern’s first year teachers were second only to Louisiana State University’s first year teachers.

Indeed Southernites, we have much to be proud of. Though the darts whiz by, and though the winds cut, while the rains chill us to the bone, STILL WE RISE. Diana F. Kelly, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Southern University College of Education

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