The Westside Gazette

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THE WESTSIDE GAZETTE POST OFFICE 5304 FORT LAUDERDALE, FL 33310

PRSRT STD U.S. POSTAGE PAID FT. LAUDERDALE, FL 33310

PERMIT NO. 1179

Meeting President The Unending Paradox: Obama In The ‘Glades Why Are HIV Rates Reaffirms Faith In God Higher In Black MSM?

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Freddie Gray, Baltimore And More PAGE 8

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Broward County's Oldest and Largest African American Owned and Operated Newspaper VOL. 44 NO. 12 50¢ A Pr oud PPaper aper ffor or a Pr oud PPeople...Sinc eople...Sinc Proud Proud eople...Sincee 1971 THURSDA THURSDAYY, APRIL 30 - WEDNESDA WEDNESDAYY, MA MAYY 66,, 2015

Friends remember Freddie Carlos Gray, My God who never 25, as ‘the life of the neighborhood’ sleeps nor slumbers at the time of his death, not 27 as initially reported, according to friends), died on April 19, a week after an arrest by Baltimore Police near his home in West Baltimore left Gray with a broken neck and in critical condition. Gray is remembered by friends who grew up with him in the Gilmore Homes housing project as someone who was always laughing, brightening the day of those around him. “He was a good child, a loving child,” said Stewart, who says he has known Gray for over 20 years. “He was the type of person, say you were coming out of your house and you’d had a bad day. You’d see him, he would light your day up because he was always laughing, smiling, playing, trying to make everybody feel up.” “If you knew Freddie, there was never no downside,” said David Reid, who says he has known Gray for almost 26 years (according to Stewart, Gray would have been 26 in August). “He was a laugh, joke type of person. I mean if he’s not rapping a song, he’s dancing to it.

If he’s not telling a joke, he’s taking a joke. If he’s not throwing a play punch, he’s catching a play punch. It was all love.” Davon Johnson also grew up with Gray, and says the two played Pop Warner Football together as kids. “Every time you saw him, the man always had a smile on his face,” said Johnson. “He wouldn’t hurt a fly. And that just kills me to see how the police just did that man like that. He didn’t deserve that, because there’s some cruddy guys in the world, but Freddie wasn’t one of them. He was loved by everybody.” At a moment when #BlackLivesMatter has become something of a national refrain, Gray’s friends expressed pain at the callous fact that the media had not even managed to learn and report basic facts about Gray (like his age) accurately, ostensibly relying on official accounts from the same police force that reportedly presided over Gray’s death and apparently did not care enough to get his age right either.

Police violence coverage takes mental toll

Harris but allowed to vacation in the Bahamas after the court hearing, to Officer Dante Servin in Chicago, found not guilty for Rekia Boyd’s murder because the prosecutor deliberately filed lesser, inappropriate charges. “The repetitive nature of this, the fact that this is chronic…. Chronic experiences of racial discrimination, and I’d include vicarious discrimination, can influence mental and physical health outcomes,” says Amani Nuru-Jeter, associate professor of public health at University of California-Berkeley and researcher on racial health disparities. “I’m not saying it’s the same as post-traumatic stress disorder, but we do see some similarities in how people cognitively respond.”

From Left, Troy Kernes, Davon Johnson, William Stewart, Adrian Muldrow (vice president, Baltimore City NAACP), and David Reid. Johnson, Stewart, and Reid grew up with Freddie Gray in West Baltimore’s Gilmore Homes and remember Gray as “the life of the neighborhood.” (AFRO/photo by Roberto Alejandro) By Roberto Alejandro From the Afro-American Newspaper “He was the life of the neighborhood,” said William Stewart outside the Baltimore Police headquarters at a protest over

the in-custody death of his lifelong friend Freddie Carlos Gray that was drawing to a close on April 20. Freddie Carlos Gray, whose age has been misreported in media accounts (Gray was 25

By Jazelle Hunt, NNPA Washington Correspondent WASHINGTON, D.C. (NNPA) – Police have killed at least 369 people in the first four months of 2015, with 103 Black Americans – 28 percent – making up a disproportionate number of the victims, according to Ferguson protester project, Mapping the Police. But a growing number of medical experts say the damage inflicted extends far beyond the number of actual victims. Unarmed Black male victims are currently en vogue in the media, with images of the victims’ last moments on loop hour after hour. And each incident adds a fresh layer of offense – from Deputy Robert Bates in Tulsa, Okla., who was charged with the manslaughter of Eric

(Read full story on www.thewestsidegazette.com)

And He got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Hush, be still.” And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm. Mark 4:39 (NASB) By Bobby R. Henry, Sr. What has been the most difficult time in your life? Was it the death of a loved one? Was it the possibility of losing your home? Was it being stranded on the side of the road in a blizzard or is it just facing everyday concerns that have decimated your will to want to live? Whatever it was or is, God did not leave and will not leave you unattended by His will... It’s amazing how God takes us through everything that we come to. God is a forgiving and loving God; He would never leave nor forsake us. No matter the different challenges that we are confronted with, no matter what situation, no matter the circumstances; it does not matter, God is still God. The bucket list that President Obama spoke about or the ones that we create-God does not have one; everything is His and His concern. What is it that has confronted and confounded you and no matter how hard you tried to figure it out you couldn’t come through it? What about the times you were faced with some serious decisions and there was no way that you yourself could’ve figured a way out? When you have a chance, watch the face of a child who gets a new toy and without instructions from their parents the child does all they can to understand how to operate the toy. (Cont'd on Page 3)

Supporting our own and circulating the Black dollar

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Teachers with subconscious bias punish Blacks more severely

Walter Umrani patronizing Ray Brown, Jr. Cleaners in New Orleans. (Courtesy of The Final Call)

By Jazelle Hunt, NNPA Washington Correspondent

By Rhodesia Muhammad From The Final Call

WASHINGTON, D.C. (NNPA) – When teachers harbor subconscious racial bias, they are far more likely to discipline white students less severely than African Americans, according to a new study As early as kindergarten, Black girls are being suspended at six times the rate of white girls, and more than all boys except fellow African Americans. Black boys are being suspended at three times the rate of white boys. According to 2010 figures from the Department’s Civil Rights Data Collection, 44 percent of those suspended more than once that year, and 36 percent of those expelled, were Black – despite being less than 20 percent of the student population. “Stereotypes serve as sort of a glue that sticks separate en-

counters together in our mind and lead us to then respond more negatively,” says Jason Okonofua, doctoral student at Stanford University and co-author of the study, “Two Strikes: Race and the Disciplining of Young Students.” “In the study we have…the stereotype that the student is a ‘troublemaker’ leads the teacher to see two separate instances of misbehavior as constituting a pattern. Therefore following the second misbehavior there’s a sharp escalation in how severely the teacher wants to discipline a Black child.” This is known as the “Black escalation effect.” As the number of behavioral issues increases, it is perceived as more of a threat to the classroom if the doer is Black. Black escalation leads teachers to discipline Black students faster and more harshly than their white

Pleading Our Own Cause

OKONOFUA counterparts, even when the students have the same number

and types of offenses. In the study, which appears in the April issue of Psychological Science, 53 teachers, all women, mostly white, were given a school record for a hypothetical student. Each record detailed two minor misbehaviors (classroom disruption and insubordination) – some for a hypothetical child named Darnell or Deshawn, others for a hypothetical child named Jake or Greg. On average, teachers responded the same way to Darnell, Deshawn, Greg, and Jake on their first misbehaviors. But on the second offense, they were more likely to punish the boys they perceived as Black, more likely to issue harsher punishments to them, and more likely to label them “troublemakers.” (Read full story on www.thewestsidegazette.com)

NEW ORLEANS, LA – On a recent Saturday, organizers and over a dozen participants met at the Black-owned Half Shell Restaurant at 9 a.m. for a bus tour to explore Black businesses in the city. The inspiration for the Black Business Bus Tour originated with Brother Asad El-Malik and Brother Reuben De Tiege. In an effort to continue the spirit of the Kwanzaa principle of Ujamaa (cooperative economics), those men in conjunction with the Man Up March committee and Brothers for Better Business wanted to figure out a way to increase circulation of the Black dollar. “The idea behind the tour came from the Montgomery Bus Boycott,” said Asad El-Malik. “I was thinking about how much

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effort it took for our people to pull off the boycott. Then I began to think how would a boycott look and work today? What we came up with was the opposite of a boycott. Instead of avoiding a business, we decided to support Black businesses. What we hoped to accomplish was to raise awareness of different Black-owned businesses, support those businesses, and show the importance of investing into self. I think the tour was great. We introduced a bunch of people to Blackowned businesses in this city; Black businesses made a few more dollars, and gained potential customers.” The bus traveled to several Black business corridors, stopping at each to allow riders to sample and purchase goods and services. (Read full story on www.thewestsidegazette.com) MEMBER: National Newspaper Publishers Association ( NNPA), and Southeastern African-American Publishers Association (SAAPA) Florida Association of Black Owned Media (FABOM)


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