Our Time PressThe Local Paper with the Global View

The newly-formed Unity Party is claiming victory after receiving close to 11,000 votes in the November 3, 1998 elections. Although 50,000 votes were needed for the Unity Party to receive ballot status and recognition by New York State, the Party is exercising self-determination by affirming that we are indeed a party because we gathered 20,500 signatures to get on the ballot and received 11,000 votes from the people.
You have a party when you have people, a progressive platform, and a program. Obtaining state-recognized ballot status is only one objective of a political party. We can still raise money, run candidates, write policies and organize around issues. As a liberated people we cannot wait for our oppressors to validate us. We must validate ourselves for ourselves. Thus, as of November 4, 1998, we assert our right to self-determination and officially proclaim that the Unity Party is now a peoples=-validated party in New York State.

Making History in New York The Unity Party can proudly say that it has the distinct honor of making New York State election history by being the only Black-led Party in the history of New York State to be on the ballot for a gubernatorial election. Quite an achievement! When compared to other party efforts, the Unity Party can say that we ran one of the most cost-effective campaigns, $10,000 for 11,000 votes, which translates to less than a buck a vote. If Betsy McCaughey Ross, the Liberal Party candidate, had gotten a buck a vote she would be governor today. The Unity Party emerged out of efforts that began in November, 1997 to bring together all of the progressive party groups in New York State-Campaign for a New Tomorrow, Green Party, New Party and individual Labor Party activists (since the Labor Party organization couldn=t be involved)-into one unified alliance for the purposes of obtaining ballot status.  However, this objective proved to be impossible at this moment in time. The dominant leadership of both the Greens and the New Party were determined to run their own campaigns. It is important to note that their decisions were made prior to African Americans involved in these efforts strongly suggesting that 51% of the leadership of this new formation be people of African ancestry.
At that point, in May of 1998, activists from the Black Political Free Agents, Campaign for a New Tomorrow, Committees of Correspondence, National Black United Front, the N.Y. Independent Politics Network and Operation P.O.W.E.R. decided several things: that we were not going to support the New Party/Working Families Party=s candidate, Democratic Party machine boss Peter Vallone; that, based upon differences around the issues of racism and white male leadership and the practical difficulties we had encountered in attempting to build an alliance with the Greens, we could not support their effort; and, finally, that we would run African American educator and activist Mary Alice France as our Gubernatorial candidate.
We also decided, on the initiative of the Black Political Free Agents, an African American organization which came together in connection with the earlier coalition-building efforts, that the leadership of the Unity Party, once formed, would be 51% people of African ancestry. Leading BPFA members, including Ron Daniels, Charles Barron, Mary France, Jitu Weusi and Sandra Rivers, took this position based upon not just the recent difficulties encountered in trying to build principled multi-racial unity, but also upon literally decades of experience with white-dominated progressive organizations. This includes all of the existing progressive party groups. The feeling was, let=s try something new. Let=s try a different approach, one grounded upon principle and experience, one which would ensure that the issues of people of color would not be submerged or overlooked but, instead, would be at the center of the new party=s agenda.
From then on, over a five month period, we formed an organization, raised money, circulated petitions successfully to get our candidate on the ballot and ran an election campaign. 150 activists throughout the state circulated petitions to get the Unity Party on the ballot, primarily within New York City but also in Long Island, Westchester County, the Albany area, Syracuse, Binghamton and Buffalo. Our candidate did us proud by the clarity, passion and power of her message, a message heard by hundreds of thousands of people, at least. And we have now emerged with an African American-led, multi-racial party!

Other Independent Efforts

Let=s examine some of the other independent party efforts. The Independence Party ran a rich, economically conservative white male for Governor, Tom Golisano. His Party endorsed Democrats Carl McCall for Comptroller and Charles Schumer for Senate. Hardly independent. Dr. Lenora Fulani, who always accuses Rev. Jesse Jackson of delivering the Black vote to the Democrats, has to explain why she always supports rich white males like Ross Perot, Abe Hirschfeld and Tom Golisano. And now she supports a so-called independent party that delivers Black votes to a rich white male and some Democrats as well. The Green Party, who ran Al Lewis for Governor, has major problems with insisting on having a white male dominated leadership. Black people, people of color and women are not given fair representation in the Green Party leadership. White males in the Green Party have issues of racism that they are in denial of. I know this is an oxymoron, but some Green Party white males are Aprogressive racists@ and they need to get in touch with that reality. The Working Families Party is a mere extension of the Democratic Party.  Any party that chooses Peter Vallone as its candidate is truly a Party we cannot trust. Union leadership and some Democratic party members concocted this scheme in order to have more leverage within the Democratic Party, calling it political pragmatism. This effort violates every principle of progressive politics. The Unity Party is an idea whose time has come. We are planning to support candidates for NYC School Board and organize a founding convention in the Spring of 1999, run candidates for State Assembly in 2000 and run several candidates in the 2001 city council elections. We can no longer settle for the lesser of two evils (Democrat or Republican) analysis. We must challenge the idea of a two party system that is fast becoming a one party system (Republicrats). The Unity Party provides an alternative to those who are ready to see progressive candidates seize political power. Become a part of history, join the Unity Party. The Unity Party represents the embryonic stages of a powerful political movement, a movement that will be built on principles of democracy, fairness, inclusion, diversity, progressive politics and systemic change. Our time has truly come. Forward ever, backwards never. Charles Barron is President of Dynamics of Leadership and Chairperson of the Unity Party.

The cardboard shrine filled with teddy bears, candy and personal messages that is resting against the traffic post on Clinton and Green Avenues is a community=s way of rendering homage to a little boy who wasn=t supposed to die.  Quinntaun Burns, seven years old, was hit on November 3, Election day, by an 18-wheeler truck, as he was riding his bicycle with his brother and his cousin toward the playground a block away from the intersection.
The driver, William Vega, 57, received a summons for taking a route forbidden to trucks and was not charged with the boy=s death.  But on Friday the police said that the Accident Investigation Squad had started to look into the matter.  Mr. Vega, an employer of V and M Trucking, had entered the residential neighborhood because he had gotten lost on his way to the Brooklyn Navy Yard.  The police said he did not see the child as he was turning left on Clinton Avenue.
Quinntaun spent all his life in the neighborhood: he had gone to school a block away from his aunt=s house on Clinton and Green Avenues and he was, like the other kids in the block, a child of the community.  AHe knew how to cross the street@ his aunt Tracy Burns-Watson, 37, said.   AQuinntaun  used to go to Atlantic by himself, so it wasn=t that he didn=t know how to cross the streetCthis is a residential neighborhoodCthat truck was not supposed to be here!@    
Neighborhood residents who witnessed the incident say that the eighteen-wheeler had made a turn on the East side of Clinton Avenue to let a fire truck go by.  Mr.  Atwell  who lives on Clinton Avenue also noticed that the traffic lights on the intersection were taking an unusual amount of time to change from green to red.
Although on Wednesday the police said that there was nothing wrong with the traffic lights at the Clinton and Greene intersection where the accident occurred, Shenna Pierce, one of the people building the little shrine on Tuesday night, saw a man in a white truck come to check the lights at around 10:00 p.m.  AI asked the man, >What are you doing?=@ and the man said >I=m fixing the light.=@  Mrs. Piece said. 
The New York City Department of Transportation Bureau Traffic Signals received a civilian complaint call about the traffic light that Tuesday night at 7:55 p.m., a supervisor of electrical inspections for Brooklyn commented.  AWe sent somebody within two hours of the call.. The controller wasn=t working and we had to repair it.@  The supervisor asked that his name not be mentioned. 
Peggy  Pascally , a claims handler at  Welsback Electric, the private contracting company that the city called to fix the light that Tuesday night says that the last time the company had checked the light was late in September and everything was in order.  Mrs. Pascally  asserts that the two traffic lights were not in synch with the rest of the lights in the neighborhood, but that they were working. 
Although the police have stated that the area is a residential neighborhood, V and M trucking, the company for which Mr. Vega works, is looking to prove that there are no signs that indicate that the neighborhood is not a commercial route for trucks.  The president of the company who offered only his first name, Gabriel, said that this was a very sorrowful tragedy and that the driver, Mr. Vega had been a driver all his life and his record was clean. 
Quinntaun did not die of head injuries.  But his mother thinks that Quinntaun was riding his bicycle without his helmet on.  In most cases a helmet makes all the difference. AStatistically, the majority of children involved in motor vehicle accidents die as a result of head trauma and its complications,@ said Noah Kondamudi, the chief pediatric in the emergency services at the Brooklyn Hospital Center.  AWearing a helmet significantly reduces the chances of death and injuries.@  
Ms. Burns-Watson, says that she would like to conduct an investigation with the people who witnessed or heard the incident from their windows or the street to find out exactly what happened.  Ms. Burns= family has lived in the area since the 50=s.  She is astonished at how supportive the community has been with the tragedy.
The candy and teddy bears that decorate  Quinntaun=s shrine disappear during the night and children bring new stocks in the morning. They ask people in the neighborhood to sign the cardboard walls of the shrine or the color pages taped against the traffic post. They still talk about  Quinntaun  as if he was among them.
AWho ever heard of a seven year old having store credit?@  Joked  Lorrain  Warren, 16, the child=s cousin as he struggled to light a long green candle against the wind on Wednesday afternoon.
When  Quinntaun=s mother, aunt, and three brothers visited the shrine one night they were greeted with flowers.  A girl came up to Ms. Burns and said that her mother had some potato salad to give to her. Ms. Burns, 30, a substance abuse social worker animatedly replied, AIf I get anymore food my house is going to explode!@

AMy son must have really done his thing in his little seven years because people I don=t even remember have come to show their support.@   Mrs. Burns told the small crowd who surrounded the shrine beaming with candles.  ALittle kids call me on the phone crying  Ms. Kelly..  AI think about this corner, my son, and the whole thing is ugly.@  She said softly.
On their way home from  Quinntaun=s shrine,   Karif , 12, and Darrel, 9, cried for their brother. AThe best dancer in the family,@ Karif  boasted. Their aunt Tracey said, AQuinntaun  could not fathom something that big@,  she said speaking of the eighteen-wheeler coming down Clinton Avenue,  Ait was not the norm.@
Angelica  Medaglia

with Words as Special Effects
What makes the movie Slam, starring Saul Williams and Sonya Sohn, so far superior to Hollywood extravaganzas, is that it is an analog production of all the meanings between the ones and zeros of the digital world of Hollywood filmmaking.   Rather than the special effects of Gucci-clad deal-makers, it relies on human expression of the African experience in America for the spine chilling thrills.  When you have realities laid bare as they are here, there is no need for a bludgeoning or an explosion to keep the audience=s interest.
Documentary filmmaker Director Mark Levin, knew to keep the camera in close enough on his players to feel authentic emotions of anger and pain.   Mixing cinema-verite= with Hollywood production values, director Levin understands the love the camera has with reality and chose the right Director of Photography, Mark Benjamin, to capture it.   The past work of both men says they understand that reality is inherently more dangerous and therefore more interesting than a script. 
When the documentary camera is in the hands of a craftsperson, it can see the miles traveled in the skin, in the scars and in the eyes.   In that journey, the African American has developed a style for survival that is admired around the world.  From AWe Shall Overcome@ to Michael Jackson, or Muhammad Ali, how African Americans survive, express themselves and even prosper in a relentlessly oppressive society, is fascinating to people across many continents.
In the early days of film, some directors would take their crew and casts to the sites of real events and start shooting as the fire burned and the firemen battled.   For some of the most dramatic footage in Slam, Mr. Levin was able to take his camera into the real world of the District of Columbia Department of Correction and use real prisoners as part of his cast.  There he found men who have been coming up a rougher side of the mountain and yet who manage to have a dignity and a sincerity of being that resonates when they make even the smallest comment.  We are able to witness this because the cameraman and the director trust enough to let the life around them guide their process.  These players exuded their own Aback story@ with the menace and danger below the surface but visible to the camera and felt by the audience.
Spoken word master Saul Williams is brilliant as a sane man in an insane world with no options left, except to experience life in as much a state of enlightenment as can be mustered under difficult circumstances.   He is able to express his realities in mind trips as he strings metaphors and concepts, one next to the other and puts them on display with a mesmerizing delivery.  Hollywood bean counters must look at the six and seven figures they pay teams of writers and the lengthy roll of their special effects credits and wonder how this young black man can bring a movie audience to applause and rocking appreciation simply by standing in front of the camera juxtaposing images and meaning. 
In a recent concert at Pratt Institute, Mr. Williams explained the relationship between poetry and music this way.  AThe poet=s tongue is the reed through which the universe blows.@   In ASlam@, Mr. Williams allows the universe to have its say out loud and on screen.  I think ASlam@ is going to be huge in the home video market.
Co-star poet Sonja Sohn, is magical.   Around those real-life hard rocks at the prison, she is as a flower that appears through concrete cracks.   Carrying her own sunshine, she displayed her appreciation for the value and power of the human spirit of the men she met there.  While both visually and intellectually stunning, Ms. Sohn was aided by the authenticity of the material and her courage to add personal spaces and allow the camera to capture her mind at work
Slam is an extraordinarily satisfying piece of entertainment.   The key is the reliance on the human spirit to provide the focus for attention.  It is found throughout the film.  The poetry duet between an inmate and Saul Williams is an example of a mind game that allows prisoners, on both sides of the walls, to survive what is meant to destroy them.   The spirit, instead of breaking, finds a new way to express will to survive. 
By showing the humanity behind the bars, the film makes the argument that an overhaul of the criminal justice system should be a political priority of African Americans.   Those lives cannot be thrown away.   Training, education and social rehabilitation must be an integral part of the prison experience. Aside from the humanity of the programs, they should be implemented for the un-prisoned citizens= self-interests.  When these men have completed their time and are back among us, it is better that their lives have been shaped by caring and loving programs, rather than sharpened into social shivs on prison walls.   DG

The Right Way and the Wrong Way

When will they learn?  After decades of neighborhood conflicts over the placement of social service facilities, there
are still nonprofit organizations that think they can ram a controversial project down the throats of people in our
communities, often in ways that lower the property values of longtime residents and make the neighborhood less
attractive overall.
Two recently announced special needs housing projects show the difference between the right way and the wrong
way to do neighborhood planning.
One site, on Gates Avenue between Classon and Franklin Avenues, is scheduled to be developed as a single-room
occupancy housing facility for people with AIDS.  Right now, the property is an unoccupied former hotel that looks like
a run-down haunted house.
The Pratt Area Community Council (PACC), which is developing the site, seems to have planned the project the
right way-that is, in collaboration with neighborhood institutions.  By quietly approaching nearby churches and block
associations, PACC has at least made a gesture toward including local leaders in its planning process.  A few people have
recently tried to block the project by making some ugly statements about AIDS victims, but the process still has a chance
of working.  It’s important that PACC not turn a good start into a bad finish by refusing to meet with concerned residents.
Another project has already gotten off to a bad start.  A six-story facility for 43 homeless men is being planned for
a vacant lot on the corner of Prospect Place and Bedford Avenue in Crown Heights-right next door to an active day care
center, and just four blocks away from the poorly run, overcrowded men’s shelter at Bedford and Atlantic Avenues.
Unlike the Bed-Stuy site, this one is just a fenced in, grassy lot: no crumbling buildings, no garbage or other problems.
But at a recent block association meeting, a representative from a group called Community Counseling and
Mediation refused to tell local homeowners (including yours truly) anything substantive about the planned project.  There
were no drawings given to residents, and no written materials on the history of the organization wanting to build the
homeless facility.  People had sensible and obvious questions: was the organization planning to put ex-offenders or
mentally ill people next to the day care center?  Would there be screening to prevent sex offenders from moving in?  Why
was the project being called “senior housing” if men as young as 50 could be moved in?  No answers were given.  In fact,
the representative said he hasn’t tried to gather any letters of support from local neighborhood groups because they “aren’t
required.”
Not surprisingly, the attitudes among my neighbors quickly changed from hopeful curiosity to anger and outrage.
It’s never too late to rebuild bridges, but the situation makes you wonder: what kind of “community group” refuses to
talk with parents before bringing potential problems to their block and their day care center?  What would be the harm
in treating community people with courtesy, openness and respect?  When will they finally learn?

                     Don’t Believe the Hype
My neighborhood has recently been flooded with flyers for rent-to-own stores.  As fast as I toss them into the
recycling bin, a new one seems to get slipped under the door.  The way the scam works is that you pay a small amount
each week for a TV, stereo, jewelry or household appliance.  It seems cheap enough, but you typically end up paying
three or four times what the product is worth.  Shopping at a rent-to-own store is like lighting a match to your paycheck.
Here’s the math on a 19-inch television that would cost $300 to buy outright.  The ripoff rent-to-own store advertises
the TV as available for just $16 per week for 1 year.  Sounds easy enough, right?  The problem is that by the time you’ve
made 52 payments of $16, you’ve actually paid a whopping $832-more than twice what the TV is actually worth.  That’s
like paying 254% in annual interest!  (These figures are courtesy of the National Consumer Law Center in Boston).
There are a couple of ways to avoid getting ripped off.  One alternative is to borrow from a local credit union, which
typically has much better rates than banks, and definitely better than a rental center.  The other alternative is the best one:
save until you can afford to buy it.

                  Support Your Local Business
Just before the recent holiday, a message trickled out that a group calling itself the “Leadership Alliance” was asking
African-American consumers not to shop on the day after Thanksgiving, which is known as “Black Friday,” one of the
biggest shopping days of the year.  The stated goal behind the one-day boycott, called “Dollar Out Day,” was to show
the power of the African-American consumer by denying our dollars to the economy.
For the record, I thought it was a crummy idea.  The way the call was phrased, it was a request that African-
Americans spend no money with anyone-not even the local businesses that provide jobs, products and services within
our neighborhoods.  It’s a well-known fact that Black retail businesses, like virtually all retailers, earn 100% of their
annual profits during the holiday shopping season-they call it “Black Friday” because that’s the day retailers go from
losing money (being “in the red”) to making money (being “in the black”).  What good could possibly come from
harming neighborhood businesses with a boycott at a critical time in their year?
A whole host of community businesses are waiting for you with open arms and high quality products and services.
I urge you to use them–starting, of course, with the ones who advertise in Our Time Press.

of The Old Settler by John Henry Redwood and directed by Harold Scott
If there is a theater award for best evocation of a memory, it would have to go to John Henry Redwood’s “The Old
Settler” at the Primary Stages Theatre on West 45th Street.   And though popular demand has extended its stay until
January 2, I am missing Redwood’s play already and hoping another theater gives it a home.  The set, framed by the
stage, is like one of those stunning portraits you find while sorting through old family photo albums.  There’s a feeling
of belonging, of a connection to a family history that does not pass away too easily after the book is closed and put back
in the trunk.  It’s Redwood’s world but it’s our  family history, too.  This Brooklyn native’s portrait, lovingly captured
by set designer  Bob Phillips, resembles us and is a window on a time when Harlem was our mecca, and  we relied on
— and trusted — ourselves, our families and our friends to get us through.
Which is why I can’t wait to see Mr. Redwood’s play, described in the press kit as a bitter-sweet comedy set in
1940’s Harlem.  It tells one story in a long ago world when the language was just as show-stopping as the style.  A hot
dog was called a “pimp’s steak,” pot liquor was a kind of home-cooked health food tonic and in the black parlance of
the time, an Old Settler, was a woman in her forties with no prospects for romance in sight.
In the play (culled from the press kit notes)   two middle-aged sisters — unmarried, steadfast Elizabeth Borney (Leslie
Uggams) and the divorced, complaining younger Quilly (Lynda Gravatt)  — are living together in the older sister’s
(Elizabeth’s) Harlem apartment.  When Husband (Godfrey L. Simmons Jr.) a young man, newly migrated from the Deep
South, arrives and rents a room in the apartment,  the sisters’ lives are turned upside down. Husband is looking for his
darling Lou Bessie who came North eight month’s before.  He soon finds there’s not even a fading resemblance to the
young woman he fell in love with back in South Carolina.  On the rebound, an affection between him and Elizabeth
begins to develop and their relationship evolves into something unexpected.  ( See full Review of Redwood’s work in
the January issue of Our Time Press.)
Call  Primary Stages box office for scheduled of performances:  (212) 33-4052.  Also, don’t forget to trade in the
“Old Settler” advertisement on these pages for a special $5 discount on your tickets. Primary Stages is located 354 West
45th Street, between 8th and 9th Avenue. BG