Our Time PressThe Local Paper with the Global View

Yesterday, Tuesday, January 20th at 12 noon, over two million people standing in Washington, D.C., billions watching on televisions around the world, millions of viewers through the Internet and many millions more listening to the radio, all bearing witness to the formal Inauguration and Swearing-in Ceremony of Barack Hussein Obama on the steps of the United States Capitol as the 44^th President of the United States of America.

Yesterday we were witness to America finally becoming America for all the people and we can see changes all around us. Changes in simple things: A financial question from an Ebony magazine reporter at the president-elect’s press conference. Newscasts where the African-American anchor hands off to the African-American reporter on the mall. More African-American pundits on the talk shows. But change must go deeper than that, and now we are called upon to make changes in our own hearts and minds. That is where shackles remain and that is where they have to be cut away by a new consciousness and belief in a new beginning. As we celebrate, we must remember that we came this way, not by faith alone, but by hard work, sacrifice and personal decisions of courage and vision by the known and the unknown. To make the changes in the dismal statistics in the economic, education, criminal justice, and health care that are needed, it is not by faith that they will be made, but by a duplication of the hard work, persistence and demanding consciousness of those who have contributed to bring us to this place.

When Obama came on the national scene in 2004 with his groundbreaking speech before the Democratic National Convention, the world was still reeling from the aftermath of the 9/11 World Trade Center tragedy of 3 years before. By the time he announced his candidacy for President in 2007, coherent voices providing direction and hope for the nation were not to be found; the world was gasping for change. Obama, poised and prepared, was ready to take charge.

President Obama is the first to say he did not get where he is by himself. He followed others: from ancestral community organizers Tubman, Douglass, Brown, Bethune and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to presidential aspirants who dared to scale the walls of power, activist Eldridge Cleaver, comedian Dick Gregory, Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, activist Jesse Jackson, Sr. (Democratic presidential nominee in 1984 and 1988), activist Al Sharpton (2004), to warrior spirits behind the scenes, far too many to even begin to list. Then of course there are the everyday lives and organizations for which 2009 is a watershed year.

Around this time some 400 years ago, 11 enslaved Africans sought and secured their freedom and land, the first official organized act of self-Emancipation; 200 years ago in January 1809, The New York Society for Mutual Relief celebrated the first anniversary of the Slave Importation Ban passed by Congress; the NAACP celebrates its 100^th year and this week we celebrate the anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 80^th birthday.

What Obama has brought to the world is a milestone in itself. Sharing his limelight are the billions who agreed with him: “Yes we can.” This is not the Age of Obama that the mainstream media would narrow our horizons to, it is the Age of All of Us that is reflected in President Obama and his wife, Michelle.

Yet, while the essence of what they are is spectacular, it is unique only in how the Obamas put a myriad of positive qualities together. Not the least of them is intelligence, decency and commitment, qualities found throughout the ages and in the hearts of people who are builders of children, builders of community and builders of institutions. We offer a few of those people and a few pivotal moments that have contributed to this time in our special edition of Our Time Press on the Inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama as the 44^th President of the United States, “Reflections on Excellence.”

While my officers were securing the area they gave me a brief synopsis of what took place. One aspect of the story stayed on my mind because it was indicative of the cruelty that comes with street life. As the slain male lay in his car, his associates scrambled to reach over his dead body and took whatever evidence of his street trade that may have fallen from his pocket or were secreted in the crash vehicle. Their greed blinded them to the reality that the vehicle was surrounded by live high-voltage wire from the fallen electric pole that brought the speeding vehicle to a halt.
Even without the body in the car seat, it was obvious to me that no one could have survive such a barrage of bullets. The car had bullet holes from several angles and several met their target, the driver. He was removed to the hospital, however, the doctors were unable to save his life.
When I walked into the hospital room to examine the body the first thing that caught my eyes was a long scar that ran down the middle of his chest. I did not need to read a chart or see a toe tag to know who this unique, identifiable scar belong to. Out of respect for the family, I will not mention his name, but I will say that he is no stranger to the readers of this monthly paper.
If you will go back several issues around July of 2003, I wrote about him in my story “Crime Cancer.”   In that issue, I detailed visiting him after he was shot in the chest. His life was saved because he was wearing a bullet proofvest. In the vehicle he was driving at the time, was a small caliber gun. He appeared not to have had time to use it prior to being shot.
There was one additional passenger in the vehicle, a young 18-year-old female. She was out with him without her parent’s knowledge. It was her that drove him to the hospital after he was shot. I recall telling her that she had to change her direction or it was only a matter of time before even a bullet proofvest won’t be able to save her love interest.
She sarcastically responded, “Nothing will happen to him. He will be all right because he knows how to take care of himself in the streets”.
She joined the group of family members and friends that rushed to the precinct when word of his death hit the community’s informal communication network. This dark reunion of family members is a similar gathering that often occurs after the streets takes away a mother’s child in this manner. Unfortunately, that display of family unity is often absent when it is time to save the child before the streets swallow them up.
The young female stood in the corner of the precinct and remained quiet. When I walked over to her she may have been expecting me to remind her of her comments that “he would be all right because he knows how to take care of himself on the streets.” Instead, I embraced her and told her that I am sorry for their lost. It was not necessary for me to tell her that he was not all right. We both knew what she did not have to be reminded of, he is dead.

George W. Bush represents a part of white American history that has been suppressed, repressed or lost.  We know who the descendants of the enslaved Africans are, ask any African-American and they can tell  you  their great-grand ancestor who was the last held as a slave. 
And yet, of the millions of people involved in the slave industry, the buyers and the sellers, the overseers, auctioneers, watchmen, hunters, seamen, drivers, drovers, stock brokers, bondsmen, insurance salesmen, shipbuilders, railroad and telegraph men;  the importers, exporters, lawyers, accountants, manufacturers and their wives, children and staff, we never hear about them. 
“We haven’t heard anyone say, “Oh yes, my great-grandfather, God love him, he bought and sold enough slaves to buy that land and build our company.’  Or, “deal with slaves?  Oh sure, the bank I use now goes back almost two hundred years.  They laid their foundation with deposits from slave holders.”
But just because you don’t see them, doesn’t mean they’re not there.  Many of them will be at Madison Square Garden the first week in September, cheering on and gathering around their leader, the only president to have signed over 150 death warrants before taking office.  The office he “won” by robbing black people of their votes in Florida. 
They love him because he cut the taxes of the wealthy and started a war for political and financial reasons,  taking over the “White Man’s Burden” of killing black and brown people and robbing their resources. 
They love him because he’s cutting back all those troublesome  “Constitutional rights” that foreigner-lovers are alway crying about.  And if reelected, he promises more of the same.  
Seeing them and the power they have, and to constantly be bombarded with images that say that white people fervently support him, is to begin to lose faith in the direction of the nation. 
That is why massive gatherings like the one that marched up Seventh Avenue with seething laughter are so important as are the demonstrations and street theater that are promised for the week. 
We know that everyone is not descended from abolitionists, those brave and humane souls who risked much, if not all, to assist escaped Africans.  But I bet many of their descendants and those of Civil War Yankees, were marching past the Garden in an echo of that war, envisioning a peaceful United States with a “state of mind” different from the thugs in the White House and their minion throughout government. 
David Mark Greaves

Nichole Anderson
Wedding That’s All About The Bride

A marriage is not a relationship with oneself.  It is a melding of two personalities, styles, families, groups of friends and lives.  In that same respect, the planning of a couple’s wedding should not be a task handled by one. 
Weddings have held the connotation of the ‘bride’s day’.  A bride often incorporates her dreams, excluding her husband-to-be, in the majority of the efforts.  Commonly, many men remain on the side-lines of wedding planning because they don’t expect their opinions to be taken seriously and they often don’t like the idea of handling so many of the “feminine” nuances of wedding plans.     Married since 1999, Anthony Robertiello shared his view, “As a guy it can be hard to speak up during the planning process.  You don’t believe anyone cares about what you think.  When Adrienne and I were planning our wedding, she included me and valued my opinion.  It made me feel good.”
The truth is that a wedding is an observance of the unity of the bride and groom.   Weddings celebrate couples.  Having a wedding that isn’t a joint venture is a big mistake and an unsound way to begin a marriage – a true partnership between equals.  But men and women inherently have different characteristics and interests.  Often, it is very difficult for an engaged couple to unite their individual methodologies and weave together their separate ideas and goals, likes and dislikes, customs and traditions.  But there is hope for the “his wedding, her wedding” divide – a wedding planner. 
   Upscale and celebrity couples reap countless rewards by hiring wedding planners to assist in blending their dreams, creating weddings full of glamour and elegant impressions.  But many other couples miss out, perceiving a wedding planner as an additional, enormous expense.  A competent wedding planner is an informed and experienced professional, trained in everything from wedding-style consultation to effective budget management.  And the costs incurred for a planner are often offset by the money saved from the expertise of professionals who have working knowledge of the best people to go to for value. 
There are so many things to coordinate before the wedding day – choosing photographers and videographers, coordinating the rehearsal banquet, arranging the honeymoon, renting big, tricky items like outdoor tents or exhibitions, selecting entertainment, setting up a carriage, trolley or limousine.  A wedding is one of life’s most momentous occasions, the success of which is hidden in myriad of minutiae.  And these time-consuming and intricate details should not be left to chance.   Having a qualified wedding planner to handle these types of tasks, most often, minimizes last-minute complications and provides more effective use of a couple’s funds and resources.
An experienced wedding planner is also skilled in handling such burdensome and difficult responsibilities as guest-list management; familial intricacies and obstacles; budgeting constraints and hospitality, entertainment and transportation negotiations.  Couples rely on these specialists to effectively bring together the many complexities of designing a truly collaborative wedding.  A competent firm will be able to blend the bride and groom’s ethnicity, heritage and traditions into the ceremony and reception.  They are able to incorporate a style and experience that characterizes the uniqueness of a bride and a groom – what makes them unique as individuals and what characterizes them as a couple.  And, not to forget, their ability of making the event romantic and memorable for the couple.
There is one more important and often unsaid value of having a wedding planner.  Prior to their marriage, it is crucial that a couple spend some time alone talking about things not related to their wedding and doing the things that they both enjoy. This is fundamental to paving the way for a more calm and smooth transition into marriage.  In the midst of all the emotional and physical preparations for their marriage and the many stresses of wedding arrangements, a couple needs to be inspired by those very things that brought about their decision to marry.  The time and energy saved on the wedding planning minutiae handled by a wedding planner, will inevitably help to enrich the couple’s relationship. 
Walter Payton once said, “We are stronger together than we are alone.”  Helen Keller avowed,  “Alone, we can do so little; together we can do so much.”  A marriage requires plenty of cooperation, understanding and compromise.  The preparation for a wedding is the perfect time to learn how.  Benefiting from the resources and skills of the wedding planner, a couple can genuinely join forces to create a truly collaborative and impressive wedding event.   For great ideas and tips on wedding planning or to find wedding planners nationwide, visit:  www.partypop.com .