Our Time PressThe Local Paper with the Global View

Love and support, and renewed interest in Tawana Brawley and the men who are her champions are building in the Black community and beyond. 
So when her United African Movement family welcomed Tawana at an event in her and her mother’s honor Friday, August 14, at the Masonic Temple on Lafayette Avenue in Brooklyn, she was overwhelmed by their warm, strong embrace.  And later, they were overwhelmed by hers.
This was a special reunion at the Temple draped in the flags of African nations and other third world countries.  It was a reunion centering on a victor returning from a battlefield, a battlefield where the enemies have the power to become invisible, though you know who they are.  Where the foot soldiers are the media-militia, trained in techno-garble. 
In 1987, this infantry blasted onto a crime scene in Dutchess County with two dum-dum bullets: “Lie” and “Hoax.”   They almost destroyed a family; they succeeded in  putting them on the run.  You need only secure the tapes of journalist-educator  Utrice Leid’s masterful multi-part series over Pacifica Radio- NY (WBAI-99.5 in New York) to discover the word-weapon of choice used by Miss Brawley’s adviser-defenders: “Truth” – the David to her enemy’s Goliath.
So when she smiled, the audience, including the young people – some of the children had not been born when Miss Brawley, was attacked in Dutchess County and apparently left to die – returned the light.
And by the way, has anyone ever told you about Tawana Brawley’s eyes? Have they said anything to you about her spirit? Her intelligence?  So much work has been done to paint her as a tart, shrew, bad girl, so that if you believe all of that, you’d hardly know her if you met her in person.  We did.  The first time we saw her she was surrounded by an army of  handsome Black men in dark, elegant suits.  Outfitted in a long cream-colored summer evening slip-dress and walking in the midst of her protectors, tall, poised, proud, she was Victory.  The heirs of the ancestors do not remain victim too long.  We will say this: close-up, Tawana is smart, witty, and up on with what’s going on.  She is cool, “an alright sister.”  Though the off moments are not spent obsessing over her attackers, we know the scars are deep.  She wears no cosmetics to conceal them.  You see it in the eyes that absorb everything.  She is careful and she is wise.  Which brings us to the question that may still haunt you: why doesn’t she speak out?  The answer is simple:  Tawana has spoken and she continues to speak.  As far as the real question – when will she fill us in on all the details?  Perhaps you can find the answers in statements she and her father made at the UAM banquet.  You can certainly find them in Mr. Maddox’s remarks; they are the same ten years ago as they are today.   BG

First, we always have to give thanks and all honor to God.  I wanted to thank everyone, every member, every beautiful black face for coming out today.   I would like to give all thanks to God because He is the real reason why I am standing here today.  All praise is due.  Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.  Angels come in all shapes, sizes and colors (with a nod to Ed Garcia’s family and Justin Darrow and family members) and I thank you, every single person, from the bottom of my heart – every beautiful black face who is out here today.  And everyone you represent. 
My family, my mother, my Aunt Juanita thank you, also.  I did want to say a few things if you would let me. As I said in the past, this is not about me. This has happened to hundreds and thousands of black women. Everyday, they are being raped.  I have met a few women here tonight  who have confided in me.  They said they have been raped.  They didn’t have the courage to come forward.   I didn’t have the courage (at first) to come forward.  It just came to me.  My mother brought it up.  My mother is that strong beautiful black woman who puts herself and her family out there.  As my attorney Alton Maddox has said, we were offered a lot of money.  I was personally offered a lot of money but I didn’t see the point in talking to the media and putting things out there if nothing was going to be done about it.  I don’t see the point of putting this horrible act out in front of the world just for them to point, pick and prod.
A crime was committed against me.  A crime was committed against the people. The press has lied to you.  They have lied on me.  You should be very upset.  I am very upset. And I’m tired of it.
Just because it didn’t go exactly in our favor, it’s not over. This is just the beginning.  Alton’s got a long way to go. We’ve got a long way to go because we’re not going to stop fighting for justice ’til we get it.

Pagones has been on the news, going around and saying much about nothing like he won and we’re going to sit around and just take it.  And he …  (Tawana pauses, trying to hold the tears back)   …  I’m sorry.  Excuse me.  Sometimes you just get so upset (Recovering)  This is a joyous occasion. As I was saying, this isn’t over and we’re not going to stop fighting until we get justice.  I want to thank every member of the UAM for this presentation.  For this ceremony.  For us.
It means so much when you’ve gone 10 years and a lot of the mass public are all up in your face saying , “You lied, You lied.”  I say how can you say I lied when I never said anything to you.

I’ve learned much about trust, love, commitment – What a real strong black man is.  I see that everyday in my father who stood by us everyday.  In Alton Maddox, Rev. AL  Sharpton, by all these strong brothers you see on either side of us – the members of the (100 Black Men in Law Enforcement). I see it here but I don’t see it where I am now.  I see it when I come too Brooklyn.  And I love Brooklyn.
I see it in all of you, and I am so glad that I came up because sometimes you go away, you stay and you lose faith and you don’t think anyone has faith in you, and then you come here and you see all your people, my people.  A sister came up to me and said, “I think we’re related – genealogy.”  Well, we are all related.
And just because some of us have lost our paths and lost our minds for a minute, everyone comes back around because the truth will always bring you back.  The lies keep you away, but the truth will bring you back.  And one day it will all come out.
So I’d like to just thank you and God Bless you.

You may know Maxine Page Casellas by her hands more than her voice.  She owns “Nails by Maxine,” the quaint nail parlor at 117 South Oxford Street, frequented by the fashionably correct of Brooklyn and surrounding areas. Now,  Maxine has brought her wonderful, strong, seasoned voice out of hiding, wed it to great “heart and soul” music she penned, and produced a  solid inspirational CD, “Here I Am Lord.”  We suspect many gospel groups will cull this recording for new songs.  Our favorites are “Don’t Give Up,” “Jehovah,” “For All You’ve Done” and  “Simple Prayer.”   “Don’t Give Up” is a gem  reminiscent of early Ashford & Simpson, pure and unadulturated soul.  Keyboardist Butch Stewart- floats a funky groove just beneath Maxine’s wonderfully smoky voice.The result is a stone praise-rocker.  “Jehovah” is a new inspirational rendering of the familiar, call-and-response.   “For All You’ve Done’s”  resurrects the work of the great Mahalia.  Close your eyes  and you’re transported through the Diaspora – from the Middle Passage to rice fields to the concrete sidewalk where a wildflower wills itself up through the cracks.  Filmmakers, take note!  Maxine says, “I ventured along many avenues in the music profession trying to find my place.  Soul music, rhythm & blues, rock & roll, all satisfied my desire, but did not satisfy my need to express what was in my soul.  When I started singing gospel music, I found the way of expressing what I felt, on the inside.  Now I know that singing is not only done with my voice, but with my heart and soul.”

“Here I Am Lord” was produced by Ms. Casellas and Butch Stewart, who arranged and recorded all the songs on this CD at Transitions Studio in Brooklyn, N.Y. For more information, call   718-852-8128
WITH NEW GOSPEL CD

At our November 15 [1995] meeting [a local candidate] told us of the positive experiences he had gathering signatures in East Palo Alto and of an insight one of his neighbors shared: “Did you ever realize how racist Social Security is? Blacks don’t live as long as whites, so Social Security overtaxes black workers to subsidize white retirees. It’s another government redistribution-of-wealth scam.”  Curious to know the actual numbers, I did a little research, consulting the Historical Statistics of the United States Colonial Times to 1970 (series B 116-125) and the Statistical Abstract of the United States 1992 (Table 104).

The data for 1929-1931 (presumably used as the actuarial basis of the Social Security Act of 1935) show that the life expectancy of a white male at age 20 was then 46.0 years: His peers, on average, would live one year past retirement age at age 65. Many would live longer, but a similar number would have been expected to die without receiving any benefits. Thus Social Security, at the outset, was primarily an insurance plan – covering the possibility that one might live longer than the then average 66 years. Because only a minority did, premiums were low – 3% of one’s salary. The system was actuarially sound.

In subsequent years, Congress ignored the actuaries (something that would be anathema in the world of private insurance) and failed to change the system to reflect increasing life expectancy. In 1989 the life expectancy of a white male at age 20 had risen to 54.0 years. Because practically all [white] participants now live past the age of 65, Social Security now functions primarily as a (badly run) savings plan and only secondarily as an insurance plan, hence the increase in the Social Security tax rate to 15%.  Broadly speaking, the first 3% still represents the “insurance premium” covering the contingency that a participant might live past the 74 year average life span for his group and the additional 12% attempts to cover payments between age 66 and age 74. (12% isn’t actually enough, but that’s another article…)

Now, here’s the interesting part: By 1989, the life expectancy of a black male at age 20 had only just risen to 47.1 years – roughly that of white males at the time the Social Security system was designed. Were black males permitted to form their own (privately owned) “Social Security systems”, their premiums today should be the same 3% figure that white workers paid in the 1930s. In other words, roughly $12 of every $15 paid by today’s black worker will be transferred through the magic of “Social Security” to white retirees and only $3 will come back to his peers in retirement benefits.

The “New Deal” is a bit more like the “Old Deal” than you might have thought!

A host of family and friends gathered to celebrate the life of Robert Daniel Cave, Sr., September 14 at Evening Star Baptist Church.  Mr. Cave, a noted photographer in the community, passed away on Tuesday evening, September 8.  His legacy lives in the thousands of photographs he shot of  Brooklynites, known and unknown.  It also lives in  the brilliant creative work of his daughter,  Eurila Cave, 19, and his son, Robert D. Cave, Jr., 18.  Eurila,  an award-winning photographer, is equally adept at developing black & white and color photographs.  (She shot the pictures seen on the cover and page 11).  Robert, Jr.  is a gifted illustrator and artist.   Cave, Sr. gave his daughter a camera for her 17th birthday… after her math grades picked up.  He gave  Robert Jr. a computer on his 17th birthday to expand  his graphics skills.   The work of the Cave siblings will be presented in upcoming issues of Our Time Press.   Miss Cave’s dream is to major in Photography at NYU on full scholarship.  BG

Candidate for Governor

OTP:   In terms of this campaign, what is the importance of another party line, what power does it give you, and what are the issues that your campaign will address?

Mary France:  There are several lines right now, but in spite of that none of the current parties represent the masses of the people.   None of them.  Not the Democrats, the Republicans, the Conservatives, none of them.   They have a White male dominated mentality.   Unity is very, very different.   Even the Green Party, which is a progressive party, is white male led.   So there is no message being sent to people who are not white, that there is a party that is out there for them.  And the issues of people of color and other oppressed people and working class people and people who don’t have jobs, those issues are not being met by the existing parties.    So we don’t really have a People’s Party.  That’s what Unity is about.  And it’s not just a one shot deal, we’re here for the long term.  Once we get our 50,000 votes and a ballot line, we will be able to run local candidates throughout New York over the next four years.  We’ll be able to make a real difference by offering a real alternative, a People’s Party that is focused on addressing the needs of the average person and the people who have been overlooked.   This stands against the major parties that look to protect the interests of the upperclasses.   Unity is a People’s Party that has more emphasis on meeting the needs of the poor and the average worker versus looking at corporate America.   It’s the people who we serve that make it a different kind of party.   The issues that come out of that are their issues.  There are issues such as the Prison Industrial Complex being built versus having schools and education as a priority.   There are issues of people not having jobs and then finding jobs created in prisons and holding facilities.   Many people don’t have access to health care.   The Unity Party will shift the emphasis of the health debate toward Universal Health Care so that people don’t have to worry about HMO’s and not being able to be served.   There are a lot of issues, but the ones that stand out for me are the prisons, jobs and education because they are all so intertwined.  We don’t put a priority on education.   We don’t try to rehabilitate.   Others talk about being tough on crime and all they mean is putting people in jail longer.  We’re tough on crime by being strong on prevention and rehabilitation. There’s only lip-service  being given to the youth.  What we need are strong after-school programs.  We have to come up with progressive human based solutions rather than this punitive based mode we’re in. Those are the kinds of issues this party will speak to.

OTP:  You mentioned human type programs.  Give me an example of a human type program.
MF:   Look at community development.  We have to reinvest in the communities.  Right now, the emphasis is on trickle down.   Well, if you’re dying of thirst, a trickle of water is more frustrating than helpful and may be too little too late.    Giving millions to major corporations and having those corporations spread around some minimum wage jobs,  that does not help the communities or the lives of those people.   They don’t have develop any wealth, they don’t own anything.  The community doesn’t benefit.  So in terms of human type things, when we invest in the community, we’re building up the people in the community, we’re building up the infrastructure of the community the housing the schools the health care system.  We help that community be viable.   We are going to have programs that reinvest in the economic development of communities.   In the Unity Party, we call it a 21st Century Program for jobs.  We will be looking at banks and other financial institutions to show them their responsibility and determine how they can participate in the community building process.   We will be looking at their loan programs for home improvement, entrepreneurship and community investment.
OTP:  In the last two days the Federal Reserve Board of New York stepped in to save a failing fund called Long-Term Capital Management. John Merriweather ran the thing and he was supposed to be this massive genius with Nobel Prize winners on his team.  Now he’s screwed up big time and they took $3.5 billion out of some fund and saved his ass.  It seems that the elite have a system in place to take care of themselves and their kind.  What systems would you put in place to take care of small businesses that come upon hard times?
MF:  We don’t need a new system.  The same one that worked for those people that got that $3.5 billion?   That’s what we need.  The monies are there, the only question is who gets it.   The money is always there when certain people need it.  When the S & L’s got into trouble the money was found for them.  Now you’re telling me they came up with $3.5 billion dollars?  That’s a whole lot of money.
OTP:  I thought so.

MF:  You see, if you have the right emphasis, there is no reason why we cannot have community development.  No reason why we cannot have plans and initiatives to help community people instead of just giving handouts to these big corporations.   I’m not familiar with the specific situation you’ve mentioned here, but I would examine those kinds of actions, examine the language and the structures that allow that, and make them apply to communities in the same way.  This kind of behavior is obscene.   There is no reason why communities have to suffer while these other guys get taken care of.
It is important that communities have a positive sense of the future, that they have some hope they can have a thriving foundation.   Everything works together.  If you build up the community, if you create the housing, have the programs the development, get the school working, then you don’t have all of these other problems that people are locked up for.  You eliminate those problems with prevention.   Let me emphasize that I don’t just mean black communities here.  It is important that average working communities across the racial spectrum have the opportunity to grow and heal and save themselves.
OTP:  You spoke about the youth a moment ago.  You know there was a Million Youth March here in New York on September fifth.  Were you there?
MF:  Yes I was and when I arrived I was sickened at how people were herded like cattle through those metal barricade chutes.   To see that in 1998 people are so disrespected in the African community was disgusting.   This was a festive crowd of positive African people and other nationalities, simply hungering for ways to make their lives better, and they were treated like that.
OTP:  That was outrageous to have to wind through those mazes the police set up.  Looking at the behavior of some of the police units at the end of the march, what did you think of that, and as Governor what could you do about it?
MF:  When people ask me about the Million Youth March, the first thing that comes into my head is racism.  It’s ingrained in the fiber of this country.  People don’t like to talk about racism but it is a fact of life and New York is no exception.   It is conscious and unconscious.   At different levels and degrees people use rationales to cloak it and cover it up.  There is a tacit understanding of “Let’s keep certain people in their place.”
As a Governor, at this point it is uncertain if there is any legal redress in terms of the actions taken by the mayor and the officials of the police department.   But as Governor of the State of New York, while Pataki may not have been able to take a legal position, he could have taken a humane position.  He could have taken a stand.  He could have addressed the concerns of an oppressed community in his state.   He could have at least done that.  As a leader he could have spoken out against the way politicians try to pit upstate against downstate in a racial divide.   He could have set the tone and said, “In the State of New York, we will not have this kind of Bull Connor attitude.  We have a diverse state and we will respect the contributions of all of the people.”  A leader should set those kinds of tones.  He could do that as a leader but he failed there.
OTP:  What about the state budget and affirmative action spending.  I remember when Dinkins was mayor, he had a serious affirmative action component.  I was in a previous career at the time and I attended some of those proposal review sessions for contractors.   They had the contractors, and I was one of them working for a white company at the time, scrambling to find minority partners to fulfill their portion.  It was the first time I had seen that.   What kind of affirmative action component would you have in state spending budget?
MF:  When it comes to Affirmative Action, I would look at that history very closely.  Affirmative Action across the board has not necessarily benefited African people.    I don’t care what people call it, but there must be programs that bring equity and fairness and levels the playing field.  Any program I have as governor of the State of New York would be fair to all its citizens be they African American or women.   These are groups that have been disenfranchised, who have not had the equal footing and could not reach equal equity because they’re always behind.   The goal would be to put everyone on a level playing field.  Until that is done, we will work to have programs to insure that happens.  Historically, white men have had the power.   Women have not had it and African Americans have not had it.  If women and black people had not fought for the vote and other equalities they would never have come.  We have to make sure we do not stop that fight until we get there.  Affirmative Action has to exist, not just in regard to African people, but for all folks who are not where they could be because there has been a long history of inequality with certain groups benefiting over others.  We would change that.
OTP:  The prison population has been exploding and a lot of it has been based on the Rockefeller Drug Laws.  Could you comment on that?

MF:  We need to repeal these Rockefeller Drug Laws.  They’ve been in effect since 1973 and they are very discriminatory.  It doesn’t make sense that people would go to jail for a  small amount of crack and not go to jail for a large amount of powder cocaine.   But people have to be educated.  Many in our own community say, “Yeah, send them to jail.”  But it’s not fair that people should be in jail for years rather than be rehabilitated.  We have to look at bringing people out, helping them be productive citizens instead of just locking them up.   But again, the laws are designed to keep certain people in their place.  Most powder cocaine users are white, and they get to walk.  Most crack users are black and they get locked up for long sentences and a lot of the crimes are non violent.   It isn’t all shootouts.   A lot of it is someone found carrying vials and suddenly they’re locked up for long periods of time.  The worst part is the way people are being convinced that these are criminals.  I really resent that.  We have to look at that for what it is and change it.  These laws are set up so that African Americans don’t grow and be competitive as a people, and we need to be honest about that and deal with it.   If a person is a real leader they will address these things in a forthright manner.    If they don’t then it’s either because they feel African Americans should be dealt with in this way, or knowing the system is wrong, don’t deal with it because the people who vote for them wouldn’t like it and they don’t have the guts to stand up and say, “These things are wrong, let’s change them.”  We need to raise these issues and force politicians to deal with them, and where they don’t, we need to kick their behinds at the polls.