Home Blog Page 529

Community Calendar

David Mark Greaves
-
0
Community Calendar

Friday, February 21st
Her Life’s A Dance: A Toni Morrison Tribute Dance Party BAM Café, Peter Jay Sharp Building, 30 Lafayette Ave., 9pm, FREE. Join in a special edition of BAMcafé Live with a dance party hosted by the trailblazing DJ and sound collage artist DJ Reborn. The dance party directly follows Lilac Dust: Traces of Toni, an evening of remembrance and reflection through performance, dance, poetry and speeches, presented by actor and playwright Eisa Davis.

Saturday, February 22nd
B Scene’s Black TV Matters: Reclaiming the Narrative Weeksville Heritage Center, 2-4pm, FREE. This annual Black History Month edition of B Scene features content from community producers on social truths overshadowed by prejudice, rhetoric and institutions. Hosted by Matthew Allen and Jessica Mason, it features Artistic Reflections, produced by Melvin Isaac, James Woods’ Objective Opinion and Why Kaep Kneels, produced by Hadasah Cornell. B Scene is a thematic screening series featuring programming from Brooklyn Free Speech TV and Podcast Network. [RSVP at Eventbrite

High School Diploma Measures Boys & Girls High School Cafeteria, 1700 Fulton St.


Thursday, February 27th
A Community Discussion on Current High School Diploma Measures Boys & Girls High School Cafeteria, 1700 Fulton St., 5:30-8:30pm, FREE. The Board of Regents and Education Department announce the first regional information meetings to discuss a review of graduation measures in New York State. Up for discussion: What do we want students to know and to be able to do before they graduate? How do we want students to demonstrate such knowledge and skills? How do you measure learning and achievement to ensure they are indicators of high school completion? How can measures of achievement accurately reflect the skills and knowledge of our special populations, such as students with disabilities and English language learners? What course requirements or examinations will ensure that students are prepared for college and careers or civic engagement?

Two Can Play: Castillo Theatre, 543 W. 42nd St., Manhattan, 7:30pm, $40, Students & Seniors $30. It’s opening night for this play, which tells the story of Gloria and Jim, a lower-middle-class couple in Jamaica, who try their wildest schemes to escape gun crime and establish residence in the United States. They survive because they learn to communicate and rediscover each other. Written by Trevor Rhone and directed by Clinton Turner Davis, starring Michael Rogers and Joyce Sylvester. Presented by Woodie King, Jr.’s New Federal Theater, in association with Castillo Theatre. [Through April 5th]

Friday, February 28th
Charities Symposium: A Program for Nonprofit Organizations St. Francis College, Founders Hall, 180 Remsen St., 10am-1:30pm, FREE. New York State Attorney General Letitia James, in conjunction with Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, presents this forum. Topics include Workplace Sexual Harassment Prevention Policy Overview, Nonprofit Property Tax Exemption and Nonprofit Real Estate Transactions – Opportunities and Challenges. Register at bit.ly/st-francis-college. For further info contact Monica Abend at 212-416-6405.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS

Monday, March 2nd – Sunday, March 8th Teen Arts Week Various locations and times across the 5 boroughs, FREE. For seven days in March, dozens of arts organizations in New York City will offer free classes, performances, music jams, poetry slams, artmaking and career workshops, and more to youth. This year’s participating organizations include the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, BRIC, the Metropolitan Museum, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center Education, the Studio Museum in Harlem and the International Center for Photography, among others. Launched in 2019, Teen Arts Week is led by 10 high school students in the 92nd Y’s Teen Producers Program, a two-year career mentorship program for New York City public high school students. All events are free to students ages 14 and up with a valid school ID. Educators are invited to bring student groups. For info visit www.92y.org/teen-arts-week.

Monday, March 9th
Race for Profit Discussion and Q&A Diana Center at Barnard College, 3009 Broadway, Manhattan 6:30-8:30pm, FREE. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor’s new book, Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership (long-listed for the 2019 National Book Award), uncovers how exploitative real estate practices continued well after housing discrimination was banned. Meanwhile, new policies meant to encourage low-income homeownership created new methods to exploit Black homeowners. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is assistant professor of African American studies at Princeton University and author of From BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation. 

Assemblymember Charles Barron Speaks: on the Need For Black Power Today

David Mark Greaves
-
0
Assemblymember Charles Barron Speaks: on the Need For Black Power Today

State Assemblymember Charles Barron, 60th AD, hosted a panel on Black Power at last weekend’s meeting of the New York State Black and Puerto Rican Association of Legislators. See below the Our Time Press exclusive conversation with Assemblymember Barron earlier this week.

OTP:
Black Power, are you stating it’s still relevant?

Assemblyman Charles Barron:
Absolutely. In the 1960s, we shouted Black Power. We did the Black everything, wearing dashikis and using African names, fighting for Black History to be taught in schools, but we didn’t do the power. What I’m saying is that Black Power is more relevant today, even more so, than it was back then. Because now our neighborhoods are being gentrified to the point where the white population is increasing, and the Black population is decreasing. This has political ramifications. We may lose our majority-Black communities, maybe coming down to 51%, 52%, so if three Blacks run and one white run, they could actually win in a majority-Black district. So, we’re being attacked.

The second thing that we have to look out for is reapportionment. Redistricting. When they start drawing these lines once again, they can draw lines that decrease the Black population in Black-majority areas and increase white populations. The third thing is the census count. We, historically, have an undercount in the census, that’s why we encourage everybody to list “Black.” Don’t say you’re Haitian-American or Jamaican or anything else. For this one, we need to be all united under Black, because if you don’t, then your numbers will decrease, therefore your political representation decreases and money coming to your districts will decrease.

Then the last attack on Black Power is voter suppression and gutting of the Voting Rights Act. There have been changes already in the Voting Rights Act. They’re saying we don’t need that anymore because we’re equal now. We have our right to vote. Not true. The voter suppression with voter ID and different strategies to suppress the Black vote is also increasing. So, now more than ever, we need Black Power. All other communities are uniting. The Asians are uniting to increase their numbers, the Latino brothers and sisters are uniting and some of them are Black like us, so they may unite with us. So, Black people need Black Power in the 21st century. We need to unite and once we get Black Power – David, this is the real challenge. Black faces in high places don’t always mean Black Power. Black visibility is not Black Power. Martin Luther King said that the white power structure selects these Black leaders they give positions to and resources to. Knowing they stay in control of them, he called them manufactured leaders, “manufactured leaders” by the white power structure.

So, even though we have a Black person heading up the Assembly, a Black person heading up the state Senate, a Black person as an Attorney General… We celebrate this. A Black head of the Kings County Democratic Party. The head of the Manhattan Democratic Party is a Black man, Keith Wright; head of the Queens Democratic Party is Greg Meeks. And a Latino, Marcos Crespo Executive Committee Chair in the Bronx. All of that Blackness and Latino-ness. The majority leader in the state Senate is a Black woman. The majority leader in the City Council, Laurie Cumbo, relegated, in my opinion, to count votes for the Speaker. All of that Black visibility in high places, but we don’t have any Black Power, because they’re controlled by a white man, Governor Cuomo.

OTP: Well, how would you recognize Black Power if you saw it in action? What would it be doing?
Barron: It would – if we had Black Power in action then it would look like this.
In our communities, there would be an independent Black – I would say radical movement, independent from the parties, independent from unions, independent from In our communities, there would be an independent Black, I would say radical movement, independent from the parties, independent from unions, independent from anyone, but have a Black political power that would do this: One, in our communities where we are the majority, we should own the land, we should own the businesses, that’s Black Power. We should control the police, that’s Black Power.
We should be in control of the economics of politics, the land, the means of production and all of the social and cultural institutions in our communities that govern our lives. Our communities are like domestic colonies under a racist, parasitic, capitalist system. We have a majority, but we don’t control the politics, the institutions, the hospitals, the school systems. They’re controlled by outsiders. The land is owned by outsiders. The businesses are controlled by outsiders. So, the dollar doesn’t flow in the Black community. It goes from one pocket, the Black pocket, to others. Whereas in other communities, like Chinatown, that’s Chinese power. They control all of the stuff, movie theaters, land, real estate, businesses, and the dollar circulates many times. Little Italy in New York. Same thing. Everything but the Black community. We are a domestic colony in a capitalist system.

OTP: Is there a national Black agenda that anyone pays attention to?
Barron: No. The reason why they don’t is because we don’t have Black Power. See the difference between power and influence – if we have to march, demonstrate, scream and holler and you know I believe in that, screaming and marching, to influence and persuade people in power to make decisions for you, that’s influence. We have some semblance of power in East New York. East New York is not gentrified. If you get in a power-position and don’t use it, like in many of our communities. Harlem’s been gentrified. Bed-Stuy is gentrified. Crown Heights is gentrified and there were Black politicians who allowed it to happen. East New York, at least in the 60th Assembly District and the 42nd Council District, we have the power to decide what’s going to be built on City-owned land. That’s the power of the City Council.

OTP: You’ve been anticipating my next question. How does your district reflect Black Power?
Barron: I would love for you to come out and I’ll give you a tour of our district. You will see that East New York, the 60th Assembly District, is not gentrified. As a matter of fact, when I came in, 69% of the community was Black and 19% was Latino. It is now 71% Black and 20% Latino. We have a decrease in the white population in East New York.
To be Continued:

What’s Going On

Victoria Horsford
-
0

WHAT’S GOING ON
By Victoria Horsford

AMERICANA 2020
Are the 2020 Democratic hopefuls running against President Trump or each other? As soon as one surges in national polls, he/she becomes the focus of malice by the other. Dem newcomer Michael Bloomberg, great billionaire disruptor, qualifies for the next Democratic Presidential debate in Nevada on February 19 where he joined Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, plus former Obama VP Biden and former Mayor Pete Buttigieg. National polls, Marist, PBS Newshour and NPR shows that Bloomberg had 19% support, second to Sanders. And the Dem Priexy potentials are livid! Cannot stomach anymore of Bloomberg’s inaccuracies about Black Americans. Mayor Stop-and-Frisk blamed Blacks for the 2008 housing market crash because we lived in redlined areas. No, Mr. B, Blacks were the major victims of that market crash. I have not written him off yet while waiting for primary and caucus results. There is still some appeal. Harry Siegel’s NY Daily News op-ed, “Bloomberg Similarities to Trump Are Too Glaring to Ignore,” which is subtitled, “Is Bloomberg Trump Lite!” Blogosphere says that Bloomberg is considering Hillary Clinton as a running mate. Where is the excitement factor?
To his credit, Mike Bloomberg has been on a NYC Black print media buying spree, buying full-page ads in local Black newspapers – save OUR TIME PRESS, Brooklyn’s premier award-winning local outlet. Mike, where is the OTP ad schedule? Brooklyn matters!
Democrats need to improve their debate talking points and stop fighting with each other. Why not broach Trump’s 2020 $4.8 billion budget, which identifies drastic cuts in domestic programs like education, Medicaid, Medicare, food, coupled with astronomical spending increases for the Pentagon and the southern border wall. The budget, considered “dead on arrival” in both chambers of Congress, speaks to Trump’s priorities and his base. Dems need to talk about who is best able to repair our broken Republic, now referenced by some as a “banana republic,” owing to the national government’s tilt towards authoritarianism. Another good read is the GQ magazine article, “Hakeem Jeffries: Whether the Democrats Should Re-impeach Out-of-Control Trump Again.” The Q&A with the Democratic rising star runs the gamut from the Democratic Party’s future to the beef between Hillary and Bernie and Jeffries ’own battles with Mike Bloomberg, re Stop-and-Frisk and to his thoughts about being primaried this year.
Mainstream tabloids and the NY Times publish articles and op-eds regularly about the 2019 NYS Bail Reform Law, which removed the racial and socioeconomic inequities embedded in the old bail system, for which there was no public hearings. It is unpopular in multiple precincts in the city and state power precincts. Governor Cuomo and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins are willing to revise and revisit the 2019 law to make it more consistent with the New Jersey model enacted in 2017. NYS Democrat Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and his cohorts are adamant about leaving the 2019 Bail Reform Law as is; in its infancy, downstate crime stats surged, notwithstanding! NY GOP sees law as a pathway to November election victories.

LAND USE

NYCHA (NYC Housing Authority) signs $1.5 billion deal to privatize management of 5,900 apartments with firms like L&M and Hudson Companies. Agreement covers oversight at seven NYCHA project complexes: Harlem’s Audubon Houses and Harlem River Houses; Washington Heights’ Bethune Gardens and Marshall Plaza; Brooklyn’s East NY Linden Houses and Boulevard Houses, and Williamsburg Houses. This initiative is made possible via HUD’s R.A.D. (Rental Assistance Demonstration), voluntary program, which attempts to provide public housing with access to more stable funding sources for improvements like private monies.

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

THE CARIBBEAN: On February 8, the island nation of Grenada, aka the “Isle of Spice,” celebrated its 46th Independence Anniversary. Grenada was the island invaded by US Marines in 1983 to oust the island’s Prime Minister Maurice Bishop.

The Greater NY Chamber of Commerce reports that the Government of Barbados will host an “Invest in Barbados” Lunchtime Business Symposium at the Grand Hyatt New York, located at 109 East 42nd Street, Manhattan, on February 26 at 10:30 am.

NEWSMAKERS

Congrats to Harlem doyenne Deneane Brown Blackmon, director of the Upper Manhattan Office of Rent Administration. Named last year to the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy Board of Advisors, Blackmon will be one of the “Phenomenal Women” honorees at the Bronx Triangle’s 2020 Awards Breakfast, themed “Standing on the Shoulders,” at Eastwood Manor on March 7 at 8:30 am. Her CV lists employment as a NYC Health + Hospitals Corporation Labor Relations Mediator, concurrent with time served on the Board of Directors at the National Action Network, the Harlem Justice Center and the Harlem YMCA. A veteran Community Board 10 member, she chairs its Personnel Committee.
The Sun enters Pisces on February 18, 2020. Birthday Greetings to Pisces natives: Professor Milton Allimadi, Blackstarnews.com; Florence Anthony; Harry Belafonte; Olympian gymnast Simone Biles; Dr. Loris Crawford; Stephen Curry; Dr. Hazel Dukes, NAACP; Dame Pearl Duncan; Dr. Irene Elmore; Ambassador Harold Doley, Jr.; Frank Hernandez, Tridez Real Estate; Anna Maria Horsford; Daniel Horsford; Vonetta Horsford Jacobs; Professor Myrtle Jones; Quincy Jones; Maxine Larmond, financial adviser; Sylvia Wong Lewis, Narrative Network News; Henrietta Lyle, Harlem Community doyenne; Roslyn McLymont, The Network Journal editor; Athena Moore, Manhattan Boro President’s Office Harlem lieutenant; Senator Kevin Parker; Sidney Poitier; Queen Latifah; Rihanna; Hank Willis Thomas, visual artist; Jocelyn Valentine, nutritionist; and Arva Rice, NY Urban League.

BLACK RENAISSANCE/HISTORY

The Program in Visual Arts at Princeton University convenes a symposium, “PSYCHODRAMA, INTERRUPTION AND CIRCULATION,” on the works of iconic documentary filmmaker Bill Greaves, including his 1972 film, “NATIONTIME….GARY,” on Friday, February 21 from 1-7:30 pm.

Brooklyn Boro President Eric Adams’ office presents, “BLACK HISTORY’S NEXT CHAPTER: IMPACTING OUR COMMUNITIES,” which features a keynote speech by Asha Boston, Founder/President of THE DINNER TABLE, a nonprofit which provides college and career readiness workshops and programming for women of color, ages 11 to 18. Event will be held on February 26 at 6 pm at Brooklyn Borough Hall, located at 209 Joralemon Street.

LENT/EASTER

The Christian calendar’s Lenten season, a 46-day period of abstinence and fasting which ends on Easter Sunday, begins on February 26, Ash Wednesday. For those who observe Lent restrictions, I submit three destinations for pre-Lent carnival and bacchanal. In the USA, there is Mardi Gras/ Fat Tuesday, where people “laissez les bons temps rouler” in New Orleans on 2/25. South of the border recommendations include the Trinidad Carnival on 2/25 and the Rio Brazil Carnival, the largest in the Americas, on 2/25. Festivities at above venues begin the previous weekend.

A Harlem-based branding/media consultant, Victoria is reachable at Victoria.horsford@gmail.com.

Orwellian Doublespeak

Marlon Rice
-
0
Orwellian Doublespeak

One of my favorite novels of all time is the book 1984, a profound story about a bleakly dystopian society governed by propaganda, surveillance and censorship. The purpose of the book was to show the reader the horrible possibilities of totalitarianism through the eyes of Winston Smith, a man who is problematic because of his ability to think and to reason. This book is one of the most influential books of the 20th century, cogent in its description of the manipulative power of government and the media, pessimistic in its view of what our future holds.

Every once in a while, something will happen as it pertains to the government and it will remind me of that book. This week’s reminder was the radio ads funded by the campaign for Mike Bloomberg for President.

In 2005, I became a victim of stop-and-frisk. It was in January, the Tuesday after MLK Day, I remember because it was my first day back to work after a three-day weekend in the Poconos. I had just gotten home from work and I decided that I was going to make tacos for dinner. I had everything in the house except for the taco shells so I put my coat back on to head to the supermarket. When I got to the corner of Lincoln and Albany, a friend of mine was coming out of the bodega. We stood there for a few minutes just talking. I looked up and a cop car was crossing the light. It stopped right in front of us.

They hopped out.

There’s this second right before they hop out when you know they are about to hop out, so I knew they were about to hop out on us. Still, when they did, it was unnerving. Even though it was only a little after 6pm, it was dark. I had this huge coat on. I’m with my friend and I know he can be a hothead. I just wanted to get taco shells for dinner and now I got two cops approaching me. Not a good feeling. They asked us what we were doing. My man said we weren’t doing anything, I told them I was headed to the store. The other cop said, “Up against the wall.” It was so cliche. I was about to say something like, What for? We haven’t done anything wrong. But my friend simply turned around and put his hands against the wall of the building we were in front of. So, I did the same. They searched both of us and then the cliched cop said, “Get off the block, now.” By the time I turned around, they were already back in their car, driving away. My guy must’ve read my expression because he shook his head and said, “Don’t worry about that. They do it all the time.” I gave him a pound and kept it moving towards the supermarket. I remember being frightened that they’d see me walking back home and stop me again.
Stop-and-Frisk was the NYPD policy of searching, questioning and even temporarily detaining civilians if there was a “suspicion of danger.” In the same year that my friend and I were stopped, 398,189 other people were also stopped and frisked. Bloomberg was the mayor during my stop-and-frisk experience, and during his tenure as mayor, 5,081,689 stop-and-frisk stops were recorded by the NYPD. Almost 90% of those stops were Black and Brown boys, guys like me and my friend. Those are actual numbers.

In 2015, at the Aspen Institute, Bloomberg defended the policy by alluding that stop-and-frisk was responsible for lower murder rates. He said, “Ninety-five percent of murders, murderers and murder victims fit one M.O. You can just take a description, Xerox it and pass it out to all the cops. They are male minorities, 16 to 25. That’s true in New York, that’s true in virtually every city.”
This week, I was driving my kids to get something to eat and a Bloomberg ad came on the radio. In the ad, Bloomberg says something to the effect of he knows that if he was Black, he would’ve had a harder time in life due to institutional racism. It was the biggest and most accurate example of doublespeak I’ve seen in real life. The man whose policies were responsible for the inhumane treatment of Black and Brown men and women over 5 million times, a policy that he defended just five years ago, this same man has paid millions of dollars for radio ads explaining that he fully understands the effect of institutional racism on the Black community.

I suggest that before Election Day 2020, everyone read the novel 1984. We haven’t seen this level of government and media manipulation since Orwell wrote about it.

Malcom X Murder Case May be Reopened 54 Years Later

Editor, Our Time Press
-
0
Malcom X Murder Case May be Reopened 54 Years Later

On the eve of the anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X, Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance has indicated that his office may reopen the murder investigation. His statement is prompted by new revelations in the new Netflix documentary “Who Killed Malcolm X,” researched by Abdur-Rahman Muhammad, a central figure in the documentary.

1...528529530...1,292Page 529 of 1,292