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WHAT’S GOING ON: MAKE AMERICA KIND AGAIN

Victoria Horsford
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NY Attorney General Barbara Underwood joins 21 Attorneys General “calling on US Attorney General Jeff Sessions to end the Trump Administration’s cruel and illegal attacks on children and families lawfully seeking asylum in the US as they seek protection from domestic, sexual and gang violence.” Last week, Americans learned about detention centers for immigrant children, infants to teenagers, who are separated from their parents by US authorities once they cross the US border. In some instances, the parents have been deported and the children remain in detention centers.  Is the USA already that “dystopian America” that Trump previewed in his inauguration speech last year, a place where the rights of people of color are ignored?

Dr. Michael Curry

President Trump made a policy decision to apply these “draconian” measures, then blamed the Congressional Democrats for it. Trump’s surrogates have been justifying his recent “zero tolerance” stance towards immigrants from the Bible, (Romans 13), the same passages Dr. Michael Curry, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, observes which were used by misguided Christian groups to justify slavery and the rise of Nazism. It is hard to foresee any meaningful immigration reform law in the USA under POTUS 45.

BLACK ENTERPRISE

The Network Journal magazine story, “Venture Capitalist Arlan Hamilton Announces $36 million Fund for Black Women Founders,” is music to the ears of subject entrepreneurs. Hamilton owns Los Angeles-based Backstage Capital, the firm which funds start-up businesses. This project funds $1million per qualifying business. Rich in statistics, the essay reports that in 2017 female founders received only $1.9 billion of the $85 billion invested by venture capitalists. For Black women entrepreneurs, the funds received were considerably lower.  In 2015, Fortune magazine reported that the number of businesses owned by African- American women grew 322% since 1997. Today, women own 30% of American businesses, about 9.4 million firms. Black women control 14% of them, roughly 1.3 million businesses.

ART & HISTORY

LITTLE ROCK is the name of an Off-Broadway play about the personal lives of nine courageous African-American teenage students who made history in 1957 by integrating the formerly segregated Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas.   The play, by Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj, opened on June 8 at the Sheen Center for Thought and Culture, located at 18 Bleeker Street in Manhattan, and runs through September 8. I saw retired Wall Streeter Ernie Green, one of the Arkansas 9, attending the New York premiere.

Dr. Deborah Willis

Deborah Willis, Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography and Imaging at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts, was named Director of the Institute of African-American Affairs (IAAA), housed at NYU, effective September 1. A renowned fine arts photographer and historian of African-American culture, Dr. Willis teaches courses at Tisch and the NYU College of Arts and Science and is a MacArthur Fellow and a Guggenheim Fellow.     Founded in 1969, the IAAA continues to research, document and celebrate the cultural and intellectual production of Africa and its Diaspora in the Atlantic world and beyond with an emphasis on the study of Blacks in modernity through the concentrations in Pan-Africanism and Black Urban Studies. Dr. Deborah Willis succeeds Professor Manthia Diawara, IAAA director for 26 years.

NEWSMAKERS

Happy Birthday Cancerians: Dr. Betty Holmes-Anthony, Will Anthony, Joseph Bethune, Valerie Jo Bradley, Stewart Bosley, Goldie Watkins-Bryant, Dr. Bill Cosby, Stanley Gleaton, Kevin Hart, Desa Horsford, twins Lillian and Karen Horsford, Sandy Livingston, Harriet Michel, Malia Obama, Alyah Horsford- Sidberry, Kendall Sidberry, Carl Nelson, Deardra Shuler, twins Frances and Frank Savage, Barbara Sullivan, Akia Taylor, Bill Thompson, Mike Tyson, Jean Wells, Sabrina Williams, Wendy Williams and Eric Wingate. 

SUMMER PLEASURES

Don’t miss the largest gathering of New York City’s Community and Ethnic Media at the IPPIES JOURNALISM AWARDS 2018 on Thursday, June 21, 6-9 pm at the City College Center for Community and Ethnic Media at CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, 219 East 40th Street, Manhattan. Errol Louis, NY 1 TV politics anchor, is the IPPIES keynoter and Randall Pinkston is the Master of Ceremonies. [Call 646.758.7775]

JAZZMOBILE kicks off its Summerfest 2018 with the concert FROM HARLEM TO BROADWAY on June 21 at 7 pm at the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater in Marcus Garvey Park, Harlem, with performances by vocalists Alyson Williams and Lacy Phillips, saxophonist Patience Higgins and tap dancer AC Lincoln. Show celebrates music by Harlem-based music legends such as Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, Fats Waller, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein and Eubie Blake. For the full schedule, visit jazzmobile.org.

The Omega Psi Phi Fraternity hosts its Annual Purple and Gold Tournament, 36 Hole Medal Play, on June 23-24 at the Fort Benning Golf Course in Georgia. [Call Robert Anderson @ 706.326.5668 or e-mail robloua62@gmail.com]

2018 NYC Weekend Walks in Hamilton Heights, Harlem USA. Join the Cultural Feast on June 24 from 12-5 pm, which includes restaurant-hopping and sampling, Jazz, Swing and Salsa music, Arts and Crafts, Walking Tour, all on Amsterdam Avenue between 139th-140th Streets. [Visit harlemonestop.com]

The Margaret Porter Troupe hosts the “Mississippi Meets Harlem” Benefit for the Gloster Arts Project, which brings free arts to summer school in African-American rural Mississippi and which will be held at the Dinosaur Barbeque, located at 700 West 125th Street, Harlem. Benefit Gala includes a Dance Contest with George Faison as the judge, live music, a BBQ Buffet and much more. The Mississippi Blues and Dance Party will be held on June 25th from 6:30 to 8:30 pm and will be attended by special guests and celebs like Danny Glover, Quincy Troupe and Cassandra Wilson.     For more info visit the gloster project.org.

Gertrude Hadley-Jeannette

The Voza Rivers, New Heritage Theatre Group, in association with the H.A.D.L.E.Y. Players, presents SOME TALES OF WOMEN, A Festival of One Act, plays in memory of centenarian actress/producer Ms. Gertrude Hadley-Jeannette, founder of the HADLEY Players who died last year. The festival will be held on June 25th at 7:30 pm, shortly after the Harlem Arts Alliance monthly meeting adjourns at the Harlem Hospital Cave Auditorium.  The following is a list of the one-act plays and playwrights, which are: “Blood Cord” by Lee Hunkins, “Fortune Teller’s Blues” by Roger Parris, “Gertrude” by Ward Nixon, “Esmeralda & Isis” by Roger Parris and Cinnamon & Nutmeg by Lee Hunkins.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thinker’s Notebook: A Bag of Chips in a Cage

Marlon Rice
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Thinker’s Notebook: A Bag of Chips in a Cage

Slavery was the main economy of the Antebellum South. Men, women and children were sold like chattel in auction houses filled with overseers and slave owners on a regular basis. In Savannah, the Race Course was the biggest auction block in town. On one occasion, they auctioned off almost 500 slaves in one day. In Memphis, the biggest auction house could be found at 87 Adams Street. They actually called the place the Negro Mart, which I thought had to be a joke before I saw the term in print on their posters. In New Orleans, the most well-known auction house was at the Banks Arcade. Joseph A. Beard was the owner and operator. He produced more posters announcing slave auctions than your favorite party promoter trying to promote an all-white party.

All of this is true. There is no need to dispute that humans were being sold as property because we have the documents and the eyewitness accounts to prove it. The entire family was sold. Mother, Father, Son, Daughter, and even the infants. More often than not, the family was broken up, the mother would be sold to one plantation and the children to an entirely different plantation. This occurred, not as happenstance but due to a strategic perspective. The breakup of the family weakened the entire race of people. Separating father from son, mother from daughter, removed any chance of the family becoming stronger through lineage. History couldn’t be passed down. The heartbreak kept the slave mired in depression, too distraught to give intelligent thought to his position. It was a tool to keep the Black slave subservient.

From the late 1800’s all the way until the early 1970’s, indigenous children were routinely stripped away from parents on reservations. These Native American children were forced out of their homes and into camps called “Indian Schools.” At these Indian Schools, young Native Americans were routinely stripped of their language and forced to speak English. They were forced to cut their hair, get rid of their tribal clothes and to take on “Christian” names. The kids hadn’t done anything wrong to be removed from their homes. The process was done to help weaken the Native American. By removing the child out of the home and stripping their language and customs away, you weaken the entire community and significantly cut away at the opportunity to have lineage. Again, this is all true. It happened.

Since May, the Trump Administration has adopted the policy of removing children from parents who are detained after illegally crossing the border into the United States. In the 6 weeks since the policy was adopted, Border Patrol has removed 2,342 children from their parents. These children are being kept at Border Patrol facilities, and in most cases the parents are unaware of where the children are being kept. This week, photos were released of children being held in chain-link cages, empty bags of chips strewn around the cage, each child equipped with a foil sheet to use as a blanket.

This is happening. The website for US Customs and Border Protection states clearly that families caught trying to cross the border will be detained and separated. The website goes on to explain that detained children are to be moved into shelters and then eventually sent to families or to sponsors. The move to separate children from their parents in instances of border detainment is a new one. Under the Obama Administration, family detention centers were established specifically to keep families together while the parents went through having their cases processed.

By and large, every immigrant that makes an attempt to enter America illegally does so for the same group of reasons. They are either in search of the opportunities that America offers, or they are fleeing political upheaval, drug violence or a scarcity of economics. Separating the children from their parents does not solve the issues that lead to illegal immigration. Donald Trump and his cronies know exactly what such a move does. It weakens the family structure and keeps Mexicans and other Latin Americans in a position of subservience. It is but one cog in his program to marginalize and slander poor people. We’ve seen this play out before. He calls Mexicans animals, says that their children are not innocent, and then he proves it to you by locking these children up in cages.

What a horrible man this guy is.

Rediscovering Lost Values: Booker T. Washington’s “Place” in History

Editor, Our Time Press
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Rediscovering Lost Values: Booker T. Washington’s “Place” in History

By- Kylen Ifield, 13

We know much about Booker T. Washington’s place in history, but history does not talk about the place where he lived. I got the chance to see and tour the famous educator’s home on the “Rediscovering Lost Values” tour last May. It was amazing.

Mr. Washington’s home is located on the grounds of Tuskegee University, the college Mr. Washington founded and built in Alabama.

What was interesting is how the Tuskegee students actually handmade the bricks that Mr. Washington’s house was built with.

In the living room area, the murals on the wall were painted by hand.

We learned that while Mr. Washington traveled on a six-month trip in Europe, he fell in love with various scenes and landscapes. He commissioned an artist named E.W. Booran to paint two amazing murals in his Alabama home.

Also in his home, the lights in some areas like the dining room, was powered by gas and electricity.  Mr. Washington’s third and last wife, Margret Murry, was the only wife to live in the actual house and was the principal of Tuskegee University.

Since Margret was 4’-11” in height, Mr. Washington had the furniture custom-made to suit her needs.

In 1901, Booker T. Washington was the first African-American to dine at the most famous house in the nation with President Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt of the United States.  Mr. Washington’s house in Tuskegee was open to many, but the White House in Washington, DC was not. Roosevelt was very hesitant to invite Washington to the White House because he was Black.

The photographs on the walls and the furnishings show that he was a well-educated and well-traveled and very proud African-American man.  It is an historic museum where people go to visit and to learn to this day.

The college also was home to the scientist George Washington Carver and to the Tuskegee Airmen of World War II.

 

 

The Mass Incarceration of Young People is a Major Problem in the United States, continuously

Editor, Our Time Press
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The Mass Incarceration of Young People is a Major Problem in the United States, continuously

-by Christopher Adams, 12 – Eagle Academy for Young Men II

 

Rediscovering Lost Values …at the Equal Justice Institute in Montgomery, Alabama

 Can you believe that children can get incarcerated at 7 years of age?

The Slave Patrol made sure that the slaves did not learn how to read or write. They also made sure that the slaves did not run away. Understanding the Slave Patrol and that being the real reason why we have the police helps us understand so many of the problems Black people have with the police like being stopped, arrested and even being killed.

In 1865, slavery was abolished. Soon after slavery “ended,” Jim Crow’s segregation laws took effect. These laws separated Black people and white people in many ways.

In my opinion, the Jim Crow laws which impacted the educational system and judicial system were most damaging.  The “desegregation” in the educational system was supposed to provide relief to Black students who were affected by the racism of that time, however, it was still hard for them to learn.

In fact, the school-to-prison pipeline is one of the present-day results of desegregation and it is the main pathway to the mass incarceration of juveniles.

Have you ever noticed when the Black children have their “off days” they get a severe punishment but when white children have their “off days” they get a warning?  They are told that things are not their fault and they are encouraged. Black students’ punishment can be as severe as suspensions or even expulsion. They miss so much school that they are not up-to-date with the work, which leaves them feeling bad about themselves.

The education system and the judicial system negatively label Black students which causes the school-to-prison pipeline.  So Black students are expected to fail.  They drop out of school, hang out in the streets and may get involved with the wrong crowd. It’s assumed that most Black youth are affiliated with a gang or doing something wrong, so they may be arrested for no real reason.

While I was at the LEGACY MUSEUM, I learned that Alabama sentences more Black children to life sentences than any other state in America.  Youngsters are treated like adults.

Black youth deserve the same opportunities as white youth have. I am thankful for a place like the Equal Justice Institute which supports young people and fights so hard for equal rights.

(Editor’s note: The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration is situated on a site in Montgomery, Alabama where enslaved people were once warehoused during the height of the Domestic Slave Trade. It is steps away from an Alabama dock and rail station where children and families were trafficked during the 19th century.   The 11,000-square-foot museum opened to the public on April 26, 2018 in Montgomery, Alabama. It was founded by Montgomery’s Equal Justice Initiative as a counterpart to the National Memorial to Peace and Justice, which is dedicated specifically to the memory of the victims of lynching. The development and construction of the museum and the nearby memorial cost an estimated $20 million raised from private donations and charitable foundations. For more information, visit: eji.org. – Bianca Robinson, co-founder, Rediscovering Lost Values)

New York Knicks Mock Draft

Eddie Castro
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New York Knicks Mock Draft

Tonight, the lives of many college/international basketball players will change forever as they will get to walk across the Barclays Center stage to hear their name called by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver. Tonight’s NBA Draft can very well determine who will change a team’s franchise for the next 10 years. This year’s draft class is stacked with a combination of sharpshooters and rim-protecting centers. A few weeks ago, I revealed my Brooklyn Nets Mock Draft to the Our Time Press universe. This week, we focus on the New York Knicks and who they can take with the No. 9 overall pick.

By now, it is hard to ignore all the jokes and cheap pops scene on sports television shows and the Knicks being the “center of attention” of those jokes with yet another losing season. By now, it is well-documented about the roller coaster of the 2 years it’s been for the franchise. From Carmelo Anthony’s time with the team over and done (traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder), and the team firing yet another head coach to Phil Jackson running away with owner James Dolan’s money for failure to improve the team during his stint as President of Basketball Operations. With a new VP and general manager in place, the team must rely on the draft to begin the reconstruction process in Madison Square Garden.

The team needs something or someone to be excited about and yes, even those few weeks that Jeremy Lin took over the city with his great play kind of excitement. With that said, if he is not selected by the first right teams ahead of the Knicks, the team should select Oklahoma’s Trey Young. Although the Knicks do not need a guard, if they decide to select Young, it is a message that the team is not yet all-in on the young Frenchman Frank Ntilikina. Young’s ability to lead a team and shoot from anywhere on the court has drawn comparisons to Warriors’ Steph Curry. If Young can even give the Knicks some flashes of Curry-like play, I think the Knicks will be very happy with that as he develops his game alongside Kristaps Porzingis, who is recovering from injury. Young was considered by many the best college basketball player last year and he himself considers himself the best player in the draft. The Knicks do hope he falls into their laps at No. 9 after swinging and missing on selecting Utah’s Donovan Mitchell and a few years ago they came one pick short of selecting Steph Curry. The Knicks fans hope they can get this pick right and hope Young can provide the excitement and winning pedigree this team desperately needs. Tonight could very well be that night!

Sports Notes:  I want to take this time and dedicate this story to my Uncle/Godfather Roberto Castro. As much as he loved a good meal as well as yours truly, he loved the Yankees and the Knicks. My uncle was a former boxer. In 1974, he captured the Golden Gloves with his sensational performance. He loved reading the weekly issue of Our Time Press. Sadly, due to his lengthy battle with diabetes, my uncle passed last Thursday. I want to take the time to acknowledge this incredible man.

 

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