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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 .

By Debra Brunson, Betty Davis & Deborah Jacobs

Historically, the Department of Education (the DOE, formerly known as the Board of Education) has prevented people of color from being hired into its system until the onset of the Human Rights/Civil Rights Movement of the Sixties. The DOE has expanded its war (waged against our youth) most recently by attacking any educator of color who is
( Successful in educating our children
( Willing to expose economic or any other type of fraud or impropriety within the DOE (i.e., whistle blowers)
( Willing to inform the community about problems and policies that are within the system (e.g., removing academically effective programs) that negatively impact upon the education of our children
( Is well-qualified and willing to not only educate but advocate for the academic, professional and personal success of the children

The strategy to continually weaken and destroy communities of color used by the DOE has been to deny adequate education to those communities. Removal of dedicated educationed personnel of color has increasingly become a major tool by which the DOE has affected this negative policy. We call this policy Ethnic Cleansing, which is the systematic removal and replacement of individuals of an identifiable ethnicity. Essentially, any educator of color or like- mindedness who exhibits qualities of commitment, dedication and has success in educating and inspiring students is systematically targeted for all manner of harassment and at worst, U or Unsatisfactory ratings on their annual rating and terminated via the DOE 3020a hearings.
Although educators of color make up a small percentage of the teaching and administrative force, they are experiencing disproportionate numbers of disciplinary actions within the DOE. Case in point, in one high school on Staten Island, although black and Latinos were only 2% of the workforce, they received over 80% of the U or Unsatisfactory annual ratings. This is reminiscent of an analogous situation going on within the transit system. Once the color of the transit workers changed from white to black, the disciplinary rules became more severe and utilized with greater severity and frequency.
Educators of color (e.g., teachers, para-professionals, guidance counselors, assistant principals and principals) are increasingly being brought up on a myriad of false charges (e.g., corporal punishment, sexual harassment, verbal abuse, inappropriate behavior) and accused of incompetence. The tenure system has not worked in our favor as the DOE is using the 3020a hearing procedure to remove tenured personnel so charged from their positions and to strip them of their licensure. A negative outcome of the 3020a hearing procedure renders a DOE employee totally ineligible to serve as an educator from K-12 anywhere in New York State.
Concurrent to the DOE implementation of its policy of Ethnic Cleansing is a policy of replacing eliminated educators of color by persons who are not stake-holders to the communities of children that they serve. The DOE recruits teachers from countries in Europe, the Philippines, the Caribbean and other parts of the world to work in low- performance schools which are primarily in neighborhoods of color (i.e., the Teacher Fellows Program). When the bottom fell out of the technology industries, the DOE began  massive recruitment and training from other states and professions, individuals to man the helms of these same schools as principals. Rather than using the time honored practice of training and preparing principals from the teaching ranks, principals having virtually no pedagogical experience are now being recruited to take over failing schools. Experienced teachers are being excluded from job vacancies at job fairs conducted by the DOE which permit only those individuals who have no work history within the DOE whatsoever to interview and be hired to fill teaching vacancies.
The lack of cultural awareness of these pedagogues and administrators has had disastrous effects upon children of color. It was clearly stated by Paolo Freire that the primary tenet of literacy is that the teacher must be able to translate the world and culture of students in order to be able to help them to successfully connect with the lesson and the text. The resulting inability to relate and communicate with the students has only served to alienate these new pedagogues and administrators from their students thereby reducing their ability to educate. The more extreme results of these scenarios have been our children being hung in coat closets and having been accosted by adults who have more than abused their authority. Moreover, educators of color are targeted and even blamed for the failure of the public school system.
Teachers of color are all potentially targets of this policy of Ethnic Cleansing by the DOE even if no action has to date been brought against them. Until a systemwide effort has been made to effectively put the brakes on Ethnic Cleansing, educators of color must be mindful of their potential vulnerability and prepared to avoid certain situations or to effectively defend their positions if they are going to remain educators within the DOE.

In conclusion, we wish to state that this struggle should  not be viewed as only a battle to save the careers and livelihoods of our members   and others having similar experiences. The quest for solvency within the DOE can also be considered our right to carry out what should be called a sacred duty. This sacred duty is our responsibility to protect the rights of our children to receive a proper education. As conscious educators of color, ours is the quest to not only save our jobs, but to insure that we are able to be the role models, teachers and mentors that our children so desperately need. We must be free to share not only our academic expertise, but the spiritual, cultural and social knowledge we possess that will enable our children to overcome that which so often impedes their academic success. Teachers of color must have people in every level of the DOE in order that our children are effectively educated in a safe, nurturing and inspirational school system.

niform Land Use Review Process (ULURP) in the proposed West Side Complex in Manhattan and the Nets Arena in Brooklyn, Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Pataki and financial-driven interests, are conspiring to deny not only New Yorkers in general (a voice in the future of the city), they are specifically targeting the black and brown majority by ensuring that white- male controlled entities will continue to receive black and brown tax dollars for generations to come according to the New York City Independent Budget Office. 
As the report states, ” HYIC approach leaves three-fourths of the debt service for the Phase I infrastructure investments to be paid after 2020, long after the subway extension and the platform are built and beyond the useful life of some of the assets being financed. Some payments will continue through 2054. By comparison,
43 percent of GO debt service would be paid by 2020. When using long-term debt to finance infrastructure, the public sector is responsible for safeguarding the welfare of future generations as well as the current generation. Under the HYIC plan, because much of the debt service costs from 2005 to 2019 will be borrowed and then refinanced in 2020, users of the new infrastructure in the first decades of the project will enjoy the benefits of the investment while leaving much of the cost to be borne by future taxpayers.”
We contacted Bonnie Brower, executive director of City Project, who said that future taxpayers are going to have a lot of paying to do. “There is an increasing proportion of every new revenue dollar that is going to pay off old debt.”  Municipal Assistance Corporation bonds, which would have been paid off in five years, have been extended for 30 years.  “This refinancing of old operating debt is especially appalling,” “This plan means it will have taken.three and a half  generations to pay off the 70’s fiscal crisis.”  
With the approval of the NBA to the sale of the New Jersey Nets to Bruce Ratner, Mr. Ratner has crossed one hurdle on his run for a 24-acre Nets arena and housing/commercial complex.   But local politicians and community groups came up with ten more at a press conference on the steps of City Hall last month.  Declaring that the NBA “blew the call” in approving the sale of the New Jersey Nets to Bruce Ratner, City Councilmember Letitia James and Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) called on the city government to scrutinize the developer’s $2.5 billion plan, which they characterized as a “secretive, taxpayer-subsidized, sweetheart arena deal.” 
Defining the nature of the conflict, Councilwoman James declared, “I didn’t get elected to serve the interests of big developers and corporations.  I was elected to serve the interests of the people and that’s why I’m here.”
James and DDDB were joined for the first time by City Council Members Larry B. Seabrook (Bronx) and Deputy Majority Leader Bill Perkins (Harlem), as well as by Christine Quinn (West Side), whose district faces the proposed Jets stadium, Francis Byrd (57th AD, Assembly District Democrat Committeeman) and Scott Turner, coordinator of Fans for Fair Play.
To ensure  public oversight and accountability, they demanded the following:
Step #1: Immediate implementation of the city’s standard Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) to allow community review of the Ratner Plan. The city council must demand that the mayor and governor ensure that this plan goes through ULURP.
Step #2: As part of the ULURP process, open public hearings to explore and establish (a) the best development plan for the MTA/LIRR’s Atlantic Yards and (b) the best and most appropriate location for a proposed Nets arena (possible alternative sites to be considered — Coney Island, East New York, Brooklyn Navy Yard, sites to be determined in Queens).
Step #3: Full public disclosure of all city and state subsidies being requested by the developer, including but not limited to:  True cost of the rail yards, based on intended use; moving and/or platforming over the rail yards; true cost of the city streets to be acquired and demapped; development and improvement of infrastructure, including (but not limited to) new and/or upgraded roadways and transit facilities, schools, police and fire services, sanitation, water, power, etc.; subsidies to incorporate tenants to induce them to occupy the office space; rent paid by city or state agencies to occupy the office space.
Step #4: Open bidding process to determine true value of the MTA/LIRR’s Atlantic Yards site – which Ratner is proposing to use for his development – including an independent, verifiable, published appraisal based on the intended future use of the site, not its current state.
Step #5: Formal analysis by NYC’s Independent Budget Office, the State and City Comptrollers, the City Council’s Economic Development Committee and the State Financial Control Board to establish the economic impact of the Ratner Plan on the taxpayers of New York City and State.
Step #6: Eminent domain and the threat of eminent domain must NOT be used for this project. Therefore, full public disclosure of the exact boundaries of the Ratner Plan footprint to determine which residences, businesses and community resources will be directly affected, must be forthcoming immediately.

Step #7: Public Scoping Hearing to determine which elements of the Ratner Plan requires an environmental impact study and how that study will proceed.
Step #8: Signed, legally binding guarantees from the developer (or developers) regarding pollution, noise and rat abatement if and when construction begins.
Step #9: Signed, legally binding contract with the City committing to publicly promised job creation and affordable housing targets based on Brooklyn’s median income with clear definitions and specific numbers for all categories.
Step #10: Approval by City Council, State Assembly and State Senate of any Memorandum of Understanding executed by unaccountable state corporations and/or authorities (MTA, ESDC) and a private developer that commits any city or state subsidies to the project.
“We are willing to go to court on any and all of these items,” Goldstein said.  “If Mr. Ratner thinks that Brooklyn is going to roll over and play dead the way the NBA did, he’s got another think coming.”
“They tell me this is all about money,” said Councilmember James.  “They tell me money will win the day.  But people will win the day.  Taxpayers will win the day.  They will not separate us by race, by class.  We all stand together.”