In football, the Borough of Brooklyn opened some eyes throughout the city this year. In the sport of boys soccer, Brooklyn thrived this past season as well. When you talk about what leads to championship-caliber teams, every team has the one player who defines the odds and plays hard every night. Although there was no champion crowned this season in soccer, there were a few standouts this year that will lead to a positive future in the sport coming from our borough.
One school that stood out this season was the young men from Grand Street Campus. The squad’s performance played with a lot of intensity and consistency and it led them to the Class A Public Schools Athletic League Quarterfinals. The Wolves would eventually fall to Beacon in penalty kicks. The team lost to Beacon in the championship game last year. Another Brooklyn school that made the quarterfinals after clinching the Brooklyn A West Title during the regular season is Fort Hamilton. Canarsie posted an undefeated record during the regular season, only to come short to LaGuardia in the Class B quarters.
Players to watch: Grand Street’s Brial Wilson George was an offensive juggernaut for the Wolves this fall. He posted a stat line of 13 goals and 19 assists in 12 games during the regular season. His dominance made him one of the team’s most dangerous players on the front line. His teammate, Tajea Brown, was also a force to reckon with as he posted 17 goals in just 35 shot attempts to go along with 15 assists. Soccer in Brooklyn is on the rise and with these talented kids just scratching the surface with their talents, it’s only a matter of time where these players continue to develop and help their respective teams towards city titles.
Sports Notes: Other high school player standouts: Gregory Vaughn(Canarsie), 24 goals, 13 assists in 12 games. Khaled Abdella(Fort Hamilton), 23 goals on 55 shots in 13 games. 56 total points was tops in the entire league. (Next closest was 37) Aaron Kraus(Brooklyn Tech), the senior scored a team-best 10 goals in 13 games. Fort Ceci(Fort Hamilton), although he only scored 6 goals, the senior midfielder had a league-best 16 assists this year. (NFL Football) After a huge win over the division rival Dallas Cowboys, Odell Beckham, Jr. and the New York Giants welcome in another tough task as the late winning Detroit Lions come into town Sunday afternoon.
The New York Chapter of the National Association of Kawaida Organizations (NAKO) & The International African Arts Festival (IAA Festival) will host a 50th Anniversary of Kwanzaa Celebration with the Creator of Kwanzaa, Dr. Maulana Karenga, who will be giving his Annual Founder’s Message. 2016 Theme: Kwanzaa, The Nguzo Saba and Constant Striving: Repairing, Renewing & Remaking Our World.
DR. MAULANA KARENGA is Professor & Chair of the Department of Africana Studies, CSULB. He is also Chair of the Organization Us & the National Association of Kawaida Organizations (NAKO). He is more widely known as the creator of Kwanzaa, Kawaida & the Nguzo Saba. Dr. Karenga is the author of: Introduction to Black Studies; MAAT: The Moral Ideal in Ancient Egypt and Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture.
Cultural presentations will be offered by the Asase Yaa African Dance & Drum Company, one of Brooklyn and New York’s leading community-based African Diaspora folkloric arts institutions. And vocalist Patsy Grant, a singer’s singer, with Chuck Fowler and High Energy will give a spellbinding performance.
The program will take place on the Kwanzaa principle of Ujima (Collective Work & Responsibility) on Wednesday, December 28, 2016 between the hours of 4:30-8:30 PM at JHS 258,141 Macon Street between Marcy and Tompkins Avenues in Brooklyn, New York 11216. Doors will open at 4:30 – 5:30 for Kwanzaa shopping.
The program starts at 5:30; Dr. Karenga’s address will be given from 6:30-7:30. He will be signing his new Kwanzaa book from 6 – 6:30PM. Admission for this event is $12 Advance; $15 at the Door and $10 Senior & Youth under 12. To purchase advance tickets or for further information call 718-789-3264/638-6700 or nakoinfogroup@yahoo.com. Those interested in vending should call 718-479-3264.
HARLEM UPDATE: Grubstreet.com reports that the Harlem-based restaurant CECIL, on West 118th Street at St. Nicholas, bites the dust, as we know it, on December 31st. Esquire magazine named CECIL one of the best restaurants of the year. CECIL will undergo an overhaul and consolidate with its nearby sibling, Minton’s Harlem, a jazz club. Chef Joseph “JJ” Johnson says that its signature items like oxtail dumplings, collard green salad and gumbo will continue to satisfy customers as it has since its 2013 opening.
Richard Parsons
CECIL Restaurant’s new home will be at Minton’s Harlem, located at 210 West 118th Street, where great food and peerless jazz music will intersect. It sounds like a workable idea. It opens at Minton’s Harlem on January 6. The Minton’s Harlem/CECIL culture duo is the brainchild of local businessman Richard Parsons, whose Corporate America credits include Chairman of Time Warner, Citicorp and Dime Bank; and restauranteur Alexander Small. This new hybrid relationship is about the fifth iteration of the joint business venture. The original CECIL’s Restaurant, which seats 200-plus diners, will be re-configured and rented for weddings and a myriad of special events which is a great idea. Central Harlem does not have enough attractive event spaces.
The long-awaited Harlem Olive Garden Restaurant at 100 West 125th Street on Lenox opened on December 1st. The cavernous space accommodates 300 diners. Olive Garden created 175 jobs for this location.
Blvd. Bistro, that taste-like-some-more comfort food eatery on Lenox Avenue at 122nd Street, has been
Carlos Swepson
named the best soul food restaurant in America by the Food Channel. Owner/chef Carlos Swepson has a Food Channel banner to prove it. He is scouting locations for Blvd. Bistro 2.
Harlem is really becoming downtown’s uptown with the proliferation of new box stores along its West 125th Street corridor. Marshall’s, the lone department store for years, joins the community in welcoming the new kids on the block like Burlington’s, TJ Maxx, Bed Bath & Beyond, New York & Company, all within a two-block stretch. Most of the retailers are keeping holiday hours until 11 pm and midnight.
Hold The Date: January 11th for a Candidates’ Forum re: the 9th NYC Council District in Central Harlem, occupied by Inez Dickens until she is sworn in as NYS Assemblywoman in January. Forum will be held at 215 West 125th Street, 3rd Floor. The four candidates scheduled to speak are those who have formally announced their candidacy. They are Charles Cooper, Marvin Holland, Troy Outlaw and Senator Bill Perkins, which implies that his Senate seat would be vacant if he is a special election victor. This column has identified many contenders for the coveted City Council seat, people like Larry Scott Blackmon, Fresh Direct VP; Charles Cooper, Jr., Liberian-born entrepreneur; Brian Benjamin, real estate developer and CB10 Chair; Cordell Cleare, District Leader; Alyah Horsford Sidberry, entrepreneur; and Michael Adams, Harlem historian/preservationist. Yvonne Stafford, real estate broker/developer and author, says that she is tossing her hat into the ring. You guys need to make your interest official!
NYC: According to a 12/12 NY1/Baruch College poll, liberal-leaning Mayor Bill de Blasio enjoys a 51% approval rating, bolstered perhaps by his anti-Trump President-elect positions. This is good news as de Blasio positions himself for the 2017 reelection campaign. Next year will be important for the City Council when so many members will be term-limited, including Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito.
NYS: Governor Andrew Cuomo is talking about merging the State University of NY with the City University of NY Both are fine institutions of higher learning as solo entities. Gov. Cuomo needs to merge the interests of the NYS Senate Democrats which have 32 of 63 seats in their chamber. A rogue group of 5 Democratic Senators headed by Jeff Klein prefers caucusing with the GOP and making the Dem majority, in fact, a minority. Governor, please unite the warring Senate factions of the Democratic Party. The Senate majority/minority leader is Andrea Stewart-Cousins.
THE USA: Oprah Winfrey interviews Michelle Obama for a TV broadcast, FIRST LADY MICHELLE OBAMA SAYS FAREWELL TO THE WHITE HOUSE, which airs on CBS-TV on December 19th at 8 pm and on Oprah’s OWN Channel on December 21st. The FLOTUS/Oprah interview is an OWN/CBS co-production.
The American scene and President-elect Donald Trump’s world of cabinet nominees, in a word, is bewilderment. Who is in charge of general casting for nominees like Jeff Sessions for Attorney General, who is anti-civil rights, immigration and gay marriage; former Texas Governor Rick Perry for Energy, a department he advocated eliminating; Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary, a charter school advocate who would eliminate public education; Tom Price, MD, for Health and Human Services, who is eager to dismantle Obamacare. Dr. Ben Carson would have been more appropriate than Price.
CULTURE AND POLITICS
Kevin Young, newly appointed Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, reported to work on December 5th as originally planned. Young is a widely published American poet and a former Creative Writing Professor who will succeed Khalil Muhammad at the Schomburg.
Viola Davis
No more Hollywood “white-out” this holiday awards season. The Golden Globe Awards is an augury of the Academy Awards landscape. Black performance films did well with Golden Globe nominations: “Moonlight”, Best Picture, Drama; Best Director, Barry Jenkins, “Moonlight”; Best Actor, Denzel Washington, “Fences”; Best Actress, Ruth Negga, “Loving”; Best Supporting Actress, Viola Davis, “Fences”; Naomi Harris, “Moonlight” and Octavia Harris, “Hidden Figures”, which is based on a true story about Black women mathematicians at NASA who made contributions to the American space program. “Loving” is based on a true story about an embattled interracial married couple in the South in the ‘50s. “Moonlight” is a male coming-of-age story about being Black and gay, which made so many of the 2016 Best Movie of the Year critics’ lists.
George Faison
George Faison, veteran choreographer and theater producer best known for his credits on the TONY AWARD-winning THE WIZ, was commissioned by renown South African-born virtuoso Hugh Masekela to write, direct and choreograph a musical . Faison leaves for South Africa for two months in January.
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
ANTIGUA-BARBUDA. This Caribbean twin-island nation celebrated its 35th Anniversary of Independence from Great Britain on November 1st……… BARBADOS: the easternmost Caribbean nation, celebrated its 50th Independence Anniversary of Independence from Britain on November 30th. GHANA: On 12/5, Ghanaians elected a new president, Nana Akufo-Addo. Attorney Nana Akufo-Addo served as Ghana’s Attorney General and as foreign minister in earlier administrations. Africa watchers are still talking about a fake US Embassy in Ghana which existed for more than 10 years, allegedly unbeknownst to the CIA and all of our USA watchdogs.
DEC. 2016 CALENDAR
The Antigua and Barbuda Studies Association will host a party for the launch of the Margo Davis book, ANTIGUA: Photographs 1967-1973, at Antigua House, located at 12 West 122nd Street, Harlem, NY on December 17 at 4 pm. Introductory remarks will be made by Antiguan culture luminaries, fine arts photographer Mali Olatunji and Brown University scholar/author Paget Henry. [Visit margodavisphoto.com]
Trombonist/composer Craig Harris re-imagines the James Weldon Johnson 1927 classic, “God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons In Verse”, as a musical titled “God’s Trombones, Harlem 2016”. Performances will be held at Mt. Olivet Baptist Church, located at 201 Lenox Avenue, on December 22-23, 8-9:30 pm. Featured musicians joining Craig Harris include Alfred Patterson, Art Baron, Joe Daley, Bob Stewart, Adam Klipple and Tony Lewis. Vocalists include LaTanya Hall, Sam McKelton and Charlotte Small. [Call 212.662.7779 or Visit welcome toharlem.com]
According to President-elect Donald Trump, Black voters who stayed home on Election Day were “almost as good” as the ones who voted for him, who came through for him “big league.”
“The African American community was great to us. They came through, big league. Big league,” he said at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “And frankly if they had any doubt, they didn’t vote, and that was almost as good because a lot of people didn’t show up, because they felt good about me.”
The rally on Friday was part of the president-elect’s “Donald J. Trump USA Thank You Tour 2016,” in which he is traveling to each state he defeated his Democratic challenger, Hillary Clinton. Trump won Michigan by a very small margin, 47.6 percent to 47.3 percent, according to CNN’s exit poll.
Trump received about just 8 percent of the Black vote nationally, according to exit polls. He was widely considered unfavorable by Blacks throughout his campaign. But Clinton failed to garner as much African American support as President Barack Obama did in 2012, at which time 93 percent of Black voters voted for him. About 88 percent voted for Clinton this year. In 2012, Republican candidate Mitt Romney received 6 percent of the Black vote.
The fact that Trump garnered more of the Black vote nationally than Romney did in 2012 was unexpected given some of his campaign rhetoric. He repeatedly made false statements about all Black Americans living in poverty and inner cities. He repeatedly told Black voters at rallies, “What do you have to lose?”
At an Ohio rally in October, Trump said Blacks live in inner cities and “ghettos.” The word “ghetto” is widely considered an outdated term and is no longer used in mainstream media discussions.
New Voter ID Rules Pass in Michigan House
Trump’s rally came just two days after Michigan’s house, which is Republican-led, passed a very strict voter ID law. Michigan voters can cast a provisional ballot without showing photo ID, but they must present a photo ID to their local clerk’s office within 10 days of the election for their vote to be counted. The measure passed 57-50.
Originally, the law allowed voters to cast ballots without showing photo ID, but they had to sign an affidavit and faced perjury if they were lying about their identity. According to The Detroit News, 18,388 residents of Michigan voted this way, of whom about half were from Wayne County — where Clinton won 66.8 percent to 39.9 percent. Wayne County, according to Census data, is 39.1 percent Black. Overall, the state of Michigan is just 14.1 percent Black.
According to Rep. Lisa Lyons (R-Alto), who sponsored the legislation, the bill will “deter and detect fraud, however widespread it may or may not be.”
No cases of voter fraud were reported, according to the Michigan Secretary of State’s office. Despite repeated studies showing that voter fraud is virtually nonexistent, Trump and other Republicans have insisted it is a rampant problem across the country.
Rep. Jeff Irwin (D-Ann Arbor) pointed to the inevitable confusion the new requirements will create.
“This is going to cause confusion and chaos at the polls,” he said. “There’s going to be arguments, voters aren’t going to understand, and long lines are going to get even longer. Maybe that’s the point.”
In this final installment in the series I want to talk about putting everything previously shared together. As I shared in my book, Keeping Your Church Alive: Advice for Pastors, Leaders and Active Members, just as churches must manage the resources they have been provided, individuals must manage their limited resources well. Everyone must prioritize their spending. Goals need to be set annually; without doing this, it will be hard to achieve your financial goals.
For example, if you have debts, how much of the debt can you realistically pay down? By setting this amount, you will generate a timeline on when the debt is eliminated and then you will be able to shift from paying off debt to spending your funds in different ways. As I have previously stated, you also need to determine how much you are going to try to save in an emergency fund. Every family needs to build this fund so that unexpected events can be planned for; we often do not like to think that negative things may happen; however, it is best to prepare for the worst but hope for the best. In addition to setting targets on reducing debt and saving for emergencies, don’t forget about saving for your retirement. Most people hope to be able to retire at some point in their life. Putting off saving for retirement makes it more and more unlikely that you will be able to retire when you want to retire with the standard of living you want. Social Security cannot be relied upon to meet your needs; you need to take control of meeting your retirement savings’ needs or else you won’t have the retirement you would like.
Additionally, if you have large expenses to prepare for such as for college for a child or grandchild, you need to start setting aside funds early to reduce your reliance on loans to fund your child’s education. Otherwise, when (or if) the child graduates with a degree, either the child or you will have a large student loan bill to deal with. Student loan debt is something you definitely want to avoid since unlike many other debts they are very difficult to eliminate through bankruptcy protection. Some may disagree with what I am about to share; however, I think everyone needs to set aside some funds for a vacation each year, even if you have debts to deal with. You should balance this with a realistic plan to eliminate debt and save for emergencies. After working for an entire year without a vacation you will appreciate having a vacation and getting the refreshment that it can provide; don’t neglect protecting your physical and mental health or else you will not be able to enjoy the fruits of your labor.
As I have shared in an earlier installment, you need to track your expenses on a regular basis. I believe in doing this daily since it is very easy to do, takes a very short amount of time and allows you not only to track your expenses so that you know where your money is going, but will also allow you to budget properly in the various categories that are relevant to you. You can enter your expenses into a spreadsheet such as Microsoft Excel or some other software so that you are aware of exactly where your funds are going. I like to write my expenses on paper first and then transfer these figures to a spreadsheet at the end of each month. As you track your expenses it is likely that there are some categories that may need adjustment. For example, if you have unexpected expenses in some categories you may have to adjust your spending in other areas or else you could experience additional problems. The converse is also true, if there are categories where expenses are much lower than anticipated you can shift funds to other areas that will help you to achieve more of your financial goals.
In last week’s article, I talked about insurance management. This can be a topic that is confusing for many people. How deductibles apply, what is and what is not covered and the impact on your premium if you make changes to your policy are important to know. However, many people do not ask a lot of questions about their insurance coverage. If you have questions get them answered. Talk to insurance professionals. If your question is about life insurance talk to those knowledgeable about the type of insurance you have questions about. There are no dumb questions, if you don’t ask the questions it is unlikely you will get the answers you need. There are many resources out there to take advantage of to help you to learn. Some types of insurance are life, homeowners’, disability, long-term care, health, dental, vision, tenants and auto. Don’t stay in the dark about the protection you are entitled to or think you are entitled to. Get the questions that you have answered by knowledgeable professionals. Become well-informed so that you know what questions to ask; this does not only apply to insurance but to other investments that you may make.
If you have causes that you believe in you will need to set aside funds for those causes. For example, since I am a Christian, I set aside at least 10% of my income for the work of the church; it is a privilege and not an obligation to share how God has blessed me. However, just as you manage your funds properly, give only to charities, including churches and other types of houses of worship that manage their funds wisely. Don’t give your funds to organizations that don’t manage your gifts properly.
The last thing I want to share with you is that you need to avoid excess. Sometimes people have gotten into financial trouble due to things that were unavoidable, but others have gotten into financial challenges due to spending money on products or services that should never have been purchased. For example, if you need a new car, buy one that is affordable to you; just because you want a certain type of car it does not mean that is the car you should purchase. The same holds true for clothing; if you can only afford a suit that costs $150, don’t spend $400 on a suit just so you can impress other people; live within your means. Finally, I think most people like to eat out at their favorite restaurants. However, when we eat out too much we are wasting money that could be spent in wiser ways; you might want to consider cooking more at home and spending more time with your family doing so; you will probably be in a much better financial situation. I pray this series of articles has helped you on your journey toward financial success and that God will bless you on your journey.
Wayne J. Vaughan, author of Keeping Your Church Alive: Advice for Pastors, Leaders and Active Members
