President Launches Initiative - No Charges For Milton Hall's Killers

The President greets a Cub Scout-(Photo-Uptown Magazine)

It's welcome news that President Obama is actively reaching out to use the power and influence of the White House to encourage leaders of foundations, business, education, the judicial system, volunteers and others to help kick-start a long-term national campaign called My Brother's Keeper to try and bring greater focus to some of the socioeconomic factors that keep such a large percentage of young African-American and Hispanic men marginalized from opportunity here in the US.

Disparities in graduation, income, employment, access to health care and incarceration rates based on race are just some of the topics this ambitious program will seek to address.

 The bold initiative was outlined in a White House memorandum released earlier today, one that's keeping with his promise made at the recent 2014 State of the Union address to forge ahead with a progressive agenda to improve the lives of those Americans who don't count themselves in the 1%; with or without the cooperation of the current Republican Congress - which seems content to sit on the sidelines and obstruct and oppose rather than legislate and lead.

The growing gap between rich and poor, educated and uneducated combined with the devastating lingering effects of the Great Recession on savings, home ownership and unemployment for the poor and middle class in this nation make this an ideal time to launch such an initiative.

But none of this is going to work unless the President uses some of his remaining 2nd term to do something about the gun violence that is wreaking havoc in the same communities where many of the young men of color he wants to help actually live their lives.

No one needs me to repeat statistics in the wake of incidents like George Zimmerman's stalk-and murder of Trayvon Martin who was walking home with a bag of Skittles and a drink, or Michael Dunn's shooting of Jordan Davis for playing loud music; to say nothing of the ongoing horrific plague of black-on-black killings around the nation.

But consider this one stat: According to The Gun Crisis Reporting Project a staggering fourteen women and girls have been shot in the city of Philadelphia in the first seven weeks of 2014 - so it's not just young men that need our attention.

The prevalence of guns in this society and their use in senseless indiscriminate killings isn't just a black or a Hispanic thing; Virginia Tech, Columbine, Sandy Hook and countless other shootings makes that clear to all of us. The gun violence is an American-thing, period.

If the President wants an initiative like My Brother's Keeper to really work; the widespread manufacturing and availability of guns and the NRA's "guns at any cost" culture must be addressed.

The trigger-happy gun thing isn't limited to young knuckleheads on the street or ex-police chiefs in Florida movie theaters who really don't like people texting during the movie either - there's an awful lot of cops getting away with ending confrontations with suspects by emptying their clips into them then claiming they "felt threatened."

Did you hear about Milton Hall, the homeless man in Saginaw, Michigan? Yesterday it was announced six police officers who responded to a convenience store back on July 1st, 2012 after Hall stole a cup of coffee, will not face any Federal charges after they shot and killed the mentally ill homeless man 11 times - 47 total shots were fired by the officers who also menaced Hall with a police dog during the confrontation.

The 49 year-old homeless man with a history of mental illness was armed with a pocket knife and even called the police dispatcher during the incident to say he was surrounded by gun-wielding police and was afraid for his life - but he was shot and killed not long after and the state prosecutor declined to press charges against the officers.

A narrative that's become just a little too familiar in this country.

Anyway, let's hope Obama's initiative has more success than defense lawyers who try to hold police accountable for excessive use of force that results in loss of life. It's painfully obvious that judges and prosecutors in this nation have decided that James Bond isn't the only one who's licensed to kill; especially when the victim seems "threatening".   

The Unlikely Run Of Katrina Pierson

Earlier today when I read the headlines of Dave Swerdlick's article on The Root.com about candidate Katrina Peirson (pictured left) challenging incumbent Republican Pete Sessions to become the first African-American Republican woman elected to Congress as a member of the Tea Party, for a second I thought my browser had taken me to the Onion.com by mistake.

How, I wondered, could a black woman from Texas run for Congress as a Tea Party candidate?

Didn't she read Janet Reitman's national affairs piece in the January 30th issue of Rolling Stone entitled: "The Stealth War On Abortion" that chronicles the Republican, Tea Party and Christian Right's efforts to pass hundreds of restrictive anti-abortion laws? As the RS article noted, "...the Texas legislature cut the funding to family-planning clinics by two-thirds, eliminating access to low-price contraception and other health services like breast exams and cancer screenings for more than 155,000 women."

Did Pierson miss Wendy Davis' 11-hour filibuster on the floor of the Texas statehouse last June opposing a 20-page piece of anti-abortion legislation tucked into a massive omnibus bill?

Given such a misogynist legislative track record in Texas the words "African-American Republican woman from Texas" stuck me as an oxymoron. 

The arrival of the Tea Party on the American political scene in 2009 represented a significant shift in the traditional Republican brand; one that has in some ways demonized the word 'conservative' in the eyes of many in this nation.

The Tea Party was ostensibly founded as a grass roots movement comprised of a cross section of Republicans, Libertarians, frustrated Democrats and centrist progressives opposed to an intrusive Federal government choked by unnecessary red tape and burdensome laws that taxes too much of American's money and "stifles freedom".  

But there's no question that many branches of the Tea Party quickly became clearing houses for people who were motivated by their opposition to the election of a black president.

Stoked by the undisguised outspoken bigotry and intolerance of controversial members of the right wing media like Rush Limbaugh, Dinesh D'Sousza, Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck and Michelle Malkin, what was once a platform for Americans frustrated by a shifting demographic landscape has now morphed into a bloc of enraged voters more vocal about the things they oppose than any real coherent platform they stand for.

Now they stand behind the irrational racist-fueled hysteria of people like NRA board member Ted Nugent who used the word "mongrel" to describe the President's mixed race background and despises the leader of the free world with a vicious seething hatred that is toxic and has nothing to do with policy.

What does it say about Republicans who profess an admiration for Nugent? An admitted pedophile with a lust for young girls who called Texas governor Rick Perry (a corrupt politician so intellectually inept he famously forgot the three agencies of the Federal government he was determined to close during a live presidential debate) "the best governor in America".

Have you seen Perry strutting around with his new thick-framed glasses on trying to look serious in the run-up to the 2016 Republican primary for president? If he thinks Chris Christie's Bridge-Gate and some new glasses make him more palatable as a potential president he's even dumber than he looked during the 2012 race.

Doesn't Perry realize he's never going to be elected president after bringing friends and allies to his family's reclusive West Texas hunting club known as "Niggerhead" for the words painted on the big rock that stood by the entrance to the property for years? Seriously dude, I love history and I don't even want to know the degrading horrific story behind where that name came from. But I digress.

Today's Tea Party pushes the buttons and the GOP reluctantly moves out onto the floor of the American political spectrum and dances. Take a popular national Republican figure like Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal.

Not too long ago he seemed appealing to a cross-section of American voters with his background as a first generation child of immigrant parents from Asia; and he even had the courage to call out the GOP for it's ignorance.

Then he did a 180 and willingly retreated into the intellectual abyss by symbolically rallying around manufactured media figures the Duck Dynasty clan; savvy southern businessmen with immense wealth who grew out their facial hair, donned hunting fatigues and bandannas to pose as authentic backwoods country boys.

Why the about face by Bobby? To gain street cred with extremist Tea Baggers and their embrace of intolerance under the guise of defending the Duck Dynasty patriarch's archaic misinterpretation of the Gospels.

So while I respect her right to challenge Republican incumbent Pete Sessions for the seat, I just can't take someone like Katrina Pierson, or her candidacy for the Congressional seat in the 32nd district of Texas very seriously. Not when she's aligned herself with this Tea Party.

The Tea Party that sees stripping away the Constitutionally-mandated voting rights of the poor, legal immigrants, students, the elderly and people of color as a viable strategy to win a political election. The same Tea Party that embraces Ted Nugent's anger and hatred.

As a person with a conscience and respect for the rights of all people, I see Katrina Pierson's run for Congress as a Tea Party member as an exercise in empty rhetoric lacking a moral underpinning.

She props herself up in front of the cameras on Fox News and repeats the same vague criticisms of President Obama that Fox News has been repeating over and over for six years and has the gall to call him "completely lawless"? What does that even mean?

Pierson prattles on about her abstract desire to "audit" the Federal government or how providing health care for millions of uninsured Americans is "intruding" into their personal lives - I just can't take that crap seriously. Like most Tea Baggers she can't say anything concrete about what she actually stands for.

It's sounds too much like she's been "chosen" as an easy-to-look at prop candidate to run for the seat by the same moneyed wing of the Republican party that wants to "repair" its perception in the eyes of African-Americans and people of color - the same demographic that overwhelmingly voted for President Obama in 2012.

To have a prayer of winning the White House in 2016 the GOP needs a credible black person to get up in front of the cameras and repeat the mantras of it's tent pole issues; which are non-specific ideological beliefs rather than policy statements; and worse they're totally unrelated to the everyday concerns of most Americans trying to recover from the Great Recession. Don't see much of Condoleeza Rice around these days do you?

So call me a cynic but I believe Katrina Pierson is merely the latest roll-out of the disastrous Republican strategy to expand it's voter base among minorities and women. Do Republicans or Tea Partiers really expect her to beat Pete Sessions in the 32nd district? An incumbent GOP Congressmen who chairs the Rules Committee?

Unless Sessions comes out as a pedophile heroin-addict who kills puppies, I think not. Hey I'm all for equal opportunity and if a black woman wants to run for a Republican Texas seat in Congress then by all means go for it; thanks to real trailblazers like Shirely Chisolm she has that opportunity.

But Congress is already dysfunctional enough as it is with a Republican majority who opposes everything and really doesn't use the legislative power they've been given to do anything except pass anti-abortion legislation and useless symbolic opposition to the Affordable Health Care Act; which is already law.

Why? To appease a tiny fraction of the 435 members of the House of Representatives who are Tea Party candidates who use their office to block initiatives intended to help Americans and espouse the same kind of ideological clap trap that Katrina Pierson delivers.

Unfortunately she's a dollar short and a day late as one of my old football coaches used to say. Katrina might have ridden that Tea Party wave into Congressional office back in 2010, but America has had enough of that obstructionist extremist nonsense. 

The fact that she actually touts a political endorsement by Sarah Palin doesn't really speak volumes about her political savvy either; even mainstream Republicans shunned Palin at the 2012 Republican National Convention when they desperately needed anything (Clint Eastwood talking to a chair?) to boost Romney's appeal as a candidate. 

That in itself should tell you something about Pierson's chances of being elected. Her political beliefs, such as they are, are simply out of step with where the country is going to be by the mid-term Congressional elections that are going to be significantly more substantive with the Presidential elections so close.

For all practical (political) purposes, she's a candidate who's time has come and gone before the election has even taken place; and her candidacy doesn't make the GOP any less misogynistic than it already is.  

Disturbing Lynching Imagery or Youthful Indiscretion? Eight Phillipsburg HS Wrestlers Apologize For Controversial Photo

Does this look like a staged suicide or a staged lynching?

While the recent news that three members of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity at the University of Mississippi have been identified as the culprits responsible for hanging a noose and an old Georgia state flag emblazoned with the Confederate "stars & bars" around the neck of the statue of civil rights icon James Meredith is a positive sign, is a growing tolerance for intolerance seeping into the minds of young people in America?

If you haven't heard about the controversy surrounding the eight members of the Phillipsburg (NJ) High School wrestling team's controversial photo that's gone viral, just take a look at this picture (above left) taken by the eighth member of the group. What does it look like to you?

According to an article by Jim Deegan of the Express Times posted on LehighValleyLive.com, this photo was taken not long after the Phillipsburg wrestling team defeated rival schools Paulsboro and Kittatinny to go undefeated for the first time in 44 years and earn a state sectional title.

The dummy being hung in effigy is wearing the red t-shirt of Paulsboro High School and the blue singlet of Kittantinny Regional High School; in a statement the eight Phillipsburg wrestlers claim they staged the photo in celebration as sort of an "in your face" to the two rival schools they defeated and that the photo is not meant to represent the lynching of a black person.

 What bothers me is the opening of the article by Jim Deegan paraphrases the wrestler's attorney Scott Wilhelm as saying the photo was "recreating an executioner's scene, not a white supremacist one." If it was an executioner's scene, why did their attorney present the fake suicide note (see above) written in orange marker?

Look at the photo closely: do you see that "suicide note" anywhere in the picture?     

As an article in the New York Times Lede section points out, Paulsboro HS is located in Gloucester County, one of New Jersey's most racially diverse communities.

Now I'm not Columbo but it seems to me as if the Phillipsburg wrestlers staged their lynching photo, released it on social media, then got caught by surprise when it blew up on the Web for being racist.

In response their families quickly hired a lawyer, who shrewdly tried to present the photo as a "suicide scene", got one of the kids to write the fake suicide note, then held a press conference where all the eight of the wrestlers (looking appropriately humbled and apologetic) appeared lined up at a table and released a joint statement apologizing for any offense the image may have caused and offered up their shaky suicide story.     

I do believe they're genuinely sorry and while I do have the capacity to forgive teenagers for making stupid mistakes, they had to know the racist context of a dark-skinned dummy being hung; and look at the two kids in the photo standing to the right of the dummy with their hoodies pulled up made to look like KKK hoods - to me that exposes the suicide angle as bogus. Plus the note looks like it was written in haste or in a panic.

The kids are certainly being held responsible, they served three-day suspensions and must take a sensitivity training class. They did appear together at the press conference to face the media and the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association announced their actions violated the Sportsmanship Rule.

Their names have been publicly released and they were also denied the chance to take part in the NJ state wrestling tournament, so for the seniors, it's the last time they'll ever wrestle in high school.

So I'd say they've paid quite a price for their "youthful indiscretion" and perhaps it will teach them and other students about the consequences of using racially offensive imagery.
  
I can't help but wonder if they were influenced by the current media environment in which the major mainstream press outlets seem willing to report on NRA board member and right wing extremist Tea Bagger Ted Nugent's calling President Obama a "subhuman mongrel" but don't seem to go deeper and call him out for being an ignorant racist.

After all, if it's okay for an outspoken public celebrity like Ted Nugent to vilify the President simply because of the color of his skin, why would a group of high school kids think it's wrong to mock a wrestling opponent because of their race then put it out on social media?

Arizona Gov Jan Brewer Weighs a Law Sanctioning Discrimination

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer -(Photo - AddictingInfo.org)

The state of Arizona is back in the headlines again and its reputation as a bastion of intolerance is once more making waves.

It was just over a month ago that Arizona State University faced media scrutiny after photos of the school's TKE fraternity chapter were posted online showing members mocking African-American culture at a "Martin Luther King Black Party" over the MLK holiday weekend.   

Last week, under the guise of protecting the religious sensibilities of Arizona business owners who might otherwise have to treat same sex customers equally, the extremist Republican lawmakers who represent the majority in the state capital passed House Bill 2153.

The bill, known as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, (also called a "Christian Shield" law) would permit Christian business owners to refuse service to same sex couples or homosexuals if doing so violated the owner's religious beliefs.

It would set an extremely disturbing precedent, and if Governor Jan Brewer (pictured above) decides to pass it she may as well go ahead and just change the state motto to "The Discrimination State".

As a recent article in the Christian Science Monitor pointed out, that means a baker or a wedding photographer could legally refuse to serve a same-sex couple if they felt it violated their religious principles.

But what's next? Allowing business owners to refuse to serve someone who's Asian or African-American or Pakistani because doing so violated someone's religious beliefs? It's completely subjective and proactively permits someone to discriminate against another person to protect the abstract and amorphous Republican notion of "Religious Freedom".

The text of the law comes straight out of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) playbook which has developed a strange slew of arguments that use protecting an individual's "Religious Freedom" as an umbrella to oppose virtually any law that conservative ideology opposes.

So for example as we all know, Republican members of Congress oppose the Affordable Care Act (in part) because it mandates that certain reproductive health services for women must be covered by insurance providers - thereby violating the "Religious Freedom" of tax-paying Americans who oppose birth control or abortion procedures.  

In this age when unemployment is still at historic highs, the economic recovery is still fragile, wages for working Americans have been stagnant for decades, the Federal Government is rife with waste, the tax system needs to be overhauled, the nation's infrastructure needs massive investment and the US incarcerates people at the highest rate in the world - we can all thank God Republicans are putting their legislative efforts into protecting American's "Religious Freedoms".

The positive thing is most people in Arizona do not support the Religious Freedom bill. Coalitions of business owners who cater to homosexuals and same-sex couples have come out in opposition to the Arizona Republican efforts to introduce state-sanctioned discrimination observing that it will harm the state's economy by making Arizona hostile to homosexual tourists, employees, employers and visitors.

I think the former Arizona Tourism Advisory Council member Edwin Leslie summed it up best. He resigned back in 2012 to protest Governor Brewer revoking benefits for same-sex couples. In a letter to the governor he wrote, "Your efforts discriminate against one part of the state's residents to appease a small fraction of the state's population."

I think that quote equally applies to Arizona's 2014 efforts to allow business owners to discriminate.

It also describes the current insanity of the Tea Party and the extremists who now control the GOP.

As we saw with national calls for reasonable gun control legislation in the wake of Sandy Hook, or the government shutdown over the sequester last year, Republicans will act in violation of the best interests of the nation and the will of the majority of Americans in order to appease the extremist ideology of a numerical minority.

That's the real violation of freedom. 

Defiling of James Meredith Statue On Old Miss Campus Generates Outrage

Statue of James Meredith (Photo-ClarionLedger)

Earlier today about 150 students and employees of different races, backgrounds and ages from the University of Mississippi (known as 'Ole Miss) held a vigil around the statue of James Meridith that was first erected on the campus in Oxford, Mississippi in 2006.

Such a vigil might be expected being that it's Black History Month and Meredith was the first African-American student to integrate Ole Miss back in October of 1962 during the height of the civil rights struggle. 

Sadly the on-campus vigil was held in response to an incident early Sunday morning when two unidentified white men wearing camouflage pants placed a noose around the neck of the statue of the civil rights icon and draped a Georgia state flag (the older one dominated by a Confederate flag prominently displayed on the right side) around it before yelling racial slurs and running off.

According to a ClarionLedger.com article, a contractor named Mark McMillan about to work on the air-conditioning system of a nearby campus library witnessed the incident just after 6:30am Sunday then alerted an Ole Miss employee who notified university police.

If anything positive can come of such a deplorable expression of hate and ignorance it's the overwhelming sense of outrage expressed across social media, news media and in person by the vast majority of the campus community including teachers, students and administrators.

The story has justifiably gone national and reaction has been swift. Today the New York Times reported that the FBI has stepped in to assist the investigation at the invitation of the university.

The university's alumni association offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and capture of the two men seen on Sunday and the incident triggers memories of a tumultuous and violent chapter of American history. 

Meredith, an Air Force veteran of African and Choctaw descent, was inspired to apply to the University of Mississippi after hearing John F. Kennedy's inauguration speech. After being denied admission to the then-all white school, he filed suit against the university in 1961 with the help of the NAACP in a case that eventually went to the US Supreme Court; which ruled in his favor.

President Kennedy deployed hundreds of Federal Marshals as well as soldiers from the US Army and National Guard to quell the violent riots that erupted across the Ole Miss campus as staunch segregationists (many bussed in from out of state) protested the integration of the school. French journalist Paul Guihard was shot and killed during the riots; one of two people killed and hundreds injured - the riots inspired Bob Dylan to write the protest song "Oxford Town".

The statue incident on Sunday morning shows that the flames of such hatred are not so easily extinguished in the minds of some; however few they may be.

Such an offensive act certainly cannot diminish Meredith's contributions to desegregation and support of voter, education and civil rights for all Americans.

But it's a slight to Mississippi's efforts to evolve beyond the perception of the state as a bastion of racism and it's legacy of violence against, and suppression of African-Americans during the 19th and 20th century. According to History.com during the first half of the 19th century Mississippi was the nation's top cotton producer and thus one of the world's biggest suppliers; a distinction that depended on the enforced labor of thousands of African-Americans.

That legacy continued from the Post-Reconstruction era and Jim Crow right up through the violent reaction to James Meredith's enrollment at Ole Miss in 1962.

Civil rights leader Medgar Evers (a WWII veteran who served in Europe) was shot in the back and killed in June of 1963 in the carport of his Jackson, Mississippi home after a meeting with NAACP attorneys; and the disappearance and murder of civil rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner took place near Philadelphia, Mississippi in June of 1964.   

It's not my point to vilify Mississippi, it's important to remember these horrific events to put the defiling of the statue into context; and help explain why it has provoked such deep outrage.

Current Ole Miss student Willie Toles, Jr. a black biology major was quoted in today's NY Times article asking the question: "What motive do you have for doing these types of things?"

Indeed, that is the troubling question. Even if the two suspects are found, will we ever really know the answer?

Mississippi might not be burning anymore, but after all these years, even today in the 21st century; something is clearly still smoldering.
 

Jamaican Bobsled Team's Watermelon Helmets

Jamaican bobsled team helmet -(Photo - NBC Universal/Reddit)

It's not my intention to rain on the Jamaican bobsled team's Olympic parade, but what is going on with that watermelon motif painted on their helmets?

It's obvious to viewers that people of color are few and far between at the Winter Olympics, the costume designer for the Jamaican team tops off the two-man bobsled team of Winston Watts and Marvin Dixon with watermelons on their heads? Really?

According to the Encyclopedia of Nations, Jamaica's major agricultural exports are sugar, bananas, coffee and rum - so why not put one of those on the helmet? Pineapples, watermelons and papayas are grown in Jamaica, but they're not major exports being promoted, so why put it on the helmet? 

I'm not going there.

One of the nicer stories from the Sochi Olympics is the uplifting impact the Jamaican bobsled team has had on the Winter Games and the people that make up the Olympic community; who treat them like celebrities.

They were a legit global phenomenon during the Calgary Olympics back in 1988 when they defied expectations, lack of experience and a meager budget to make the Winter Olympics for the first time.

The film "Cool Runnings", a genuinely funny inspirational movie with a heart, was a sleeper hit for Disney in 1993 and in my opinion, comedian/character actor John Candy's best on-screen acting performance since 1987's "Planes, Trains & Automobiles".

Even though this year's Jamaican bobsled team aren't a threat to win a medal, their presence at the games is still inspirational considering the small tropical island nation they come from and they're a huge hit with Russian locals and other Olympic teams.

It would have been nice if someone had just taken the time to be a little more imaginative about the helmet design.

What time should schools serve lunch to kids?

A school lunch that meets new Federal guidelines -(Photo PENNINK/AP)

The other week it was an elementary school in Utah taking away lunches from students who's parents had failed to replenish their kid's lunch card spending accounts making headlines.

This morning's edition of the Brian Lehrer Show devoted a segment to exploring why some New York City school kids eat lunch early in the morning rather than the afternoon.

Early. We're talking 10am, 10:45am and in some cases as early as 9am; not breakfast, lunch.

Not surprisingly it seems to boil down to budgeting and management oversight of the school systems massive planning calendar which spans the entire school year and does not turn easily on a dime in response to unanticipated needs.

Now maybe I'm wrong but I'm guessing students in the nation's top private schools are not eating lunch between 9am and 10:45am in the morning.

If I had to eat lunch at 10:45am I'd be an absolute mess by the afternoon, and I'm an adult. How does eating lunch that early impact a developing child's capacity to pay attention, focus and learn in the classroom environment during the latter half of the day?

As a caller who claimed she teaches in the NYC public school system observed when she called in, students are much more likely to act up, get distracted by behavioral issues and their attention spans are shorter in the afternoon period; what she considered a notoriously difficult time to effectively  teach children.

NY mayor Bill DeBlasio ran on a campaign of addressing inequality within the Five Boroughs.

His staff looking into innovative ways to work with local principles and administrators on how to shift lunch schedules so kids don't eat lunch at 9am might be a good place to start.   



 

Jacqueline Jones Explores The Myth of Race

The thought of former New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin being found guilty of corruption was way too depressing to contemplate blogging about so soon after the two year-plus Federal investigation into Tony Mack came crashing to a halt last Friday.

New Orleans and Trenton. Two very different old American cities with large populations of under-served residents being represented by self-serving politicians who's personal enrichment at the dysfunctional trough of the public spigot comes at the expense of the constituents they're supposedly elected to serve.    
 
The trend is troubling in an increasingly polarized America and author Jacqueline Jones' latest book offers some deep insight into the root causes.

"A Dreadful Deceit: The Myth of Race From the Colonial Era to Obama's America" is a searing 384-page examination of how the perpetuation of myths about the concept of race as a classification helped to subdivide humans into categories in the minds of many.

A fictional classification that was used as moral, ethical and practical justification to keep African-Americans in a permanent state of social stagnation defined by a system of indentured labor.

Jones, a history teacher at the University of Texas at Austin, delivered a presentation back on December 9th that's available on the C-SPAN Website outlining her extensive research.

She examines the stories of six incredibly fascinating American lives that stretch over a 300-year period to illustrate her intriguing premise. Like Elleanor Eldridge, an African-American woman born in 1794 who achieved great personal wealth running her own domestic services company, and as a real estate investor in Providence, Rhode Island who eventually wrote of her experiences in "The Memoirs of Elleanor Eldridge".

If you find yourself stuck at home because of the snow, take some time to click the C-SPAN link above and listen to Jones' presentation; it's an insightful and illuminating historical look at an oft-ignored aspect of American history. Worth a watch. 

Pitts Scolds the Children of MLK

Martin Luther III (L), Dexter (C) & Bernice King (R) (Photo-BET)

In his book 'Forward From This Moment', a collection of columns that appeared in the Miami Herald between 1994 - 2009, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Leonard Pitts demonstrates a fearlessness and an ability to challenge the perspective using humor and unflinching truth to convey a sense of moral authority in his writing. 

In case you missed it, he brought all of that to bear on the three surviving children of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  in a blistering column posted on  NationalMemo.com on Monday.

His scathing column came in response to the latest very public legal feud between the three King siblings over control of their late father's estate and the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change.   

MLK had four children, Yolanda (who died at age 51 in 2007) Dexter, Martin Luther, III and Bernice and the latest legal dust-up is related to both brothers having sued Bernice in court back in September, 2013 over the care and use of the intellectual property belonging to their father.

Pitts really skewers them in his column, and perhaps rightly so. Obviously we can't put ourselves in the shoes of the King children, but you'd think they would have somehow figured out how to resolve their differences without having to resort to using the courts.

The famous photo of a heart-broken Bernice being comforted in her mother's lap during Dr. King's funeral is iconic, but of the three survivng children Dexter is one of the most interesting.

A dedicated vegetarian and animal rights activist for 34 years, Dexter is the one who publicly met with the alleged assassin of his father, James Earl Ray, in 2007 and famously forgave him.

Dexter publicly revealed that the members of the King family believed without a doubt that Ray was not the killer of his father and that Lieutenant Earl Clark, a former officer in the Memphis Police Department was the actual contract killer hired to kill MLK.

The King family began their own investigation of the assassination in 1977, accumulating evidence that was presented in front of a jury in Memphis in 1999. After reviewing 4,000 pages of evidence and hearing from 70 witnesses, it took the jury 59 minutes to conclude that Loyd Jowers, owner of a small restaurant called Jim's Grill that was directly across from a grassy area near the Lorraine Motel where King was shot, had been a member of a conspiracy to assassinate King.

According to a troubling 2008 article by Maria Gilardin, attorney William F. Pepper, an associate of MLK who also defended James Earl Ray, the results of the 1999 trial pointing to Earl Clark as the killer were intentionally suppressed by the media.

In a 2003 book called 'An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King', Pepper gave a detailed account of the trial and recounts the enormous amount of evidence pointing to a conspiracy being responsible for the assassination of Dr. King in direct response to his calls for massive protests in the nation's capital for social equality.
 
According to a 1999 press conference, Coretta Scott King stated that she believed her husband was assassinated by an organized collective that included the Federal government, state and local officials and the mafia - how would any child who lost a father under the cloud of such looming truths process such knowledge?

Loosing one's father under any circumstances is tragic enough. But to have witnessed such a horrific public murder played out in the national media as a young child, then to discover that it was intentionally and highly planned by institutions we're taught to trust must take a terrible emotional toll on the psyche; so I'd hesitate to condemn the King children. 

But even though being the heirs to such a legacy can't be easy, as Leonard Pitts observed in his column, it none the less comes with some reasonable degree of expectation of behavior that reflects more positively on the legacy of one of the most iconic leaders in American history.  

A Conspiracy of One - The Final Act of The Sad Tenure of Tony Mack

Tony Mack (center) found guilty on all counts - (Photo - NJ.com)

In terms of media coverage, the recent trial of Trenton mayor Tony Mack took place largely in the shadow of the ongoing Bridge-Gate scandal currently engulfing Trenton's much more famous ethically-challenged politician-in-residence, governor Chris Christie.

But the outcome reached last Friday in Federal court arguably eclipsed the governor's woes when Mack and his brother Ralphiel were found guilty of fraud, extortion and bribery in connection with a Federal sting operation in which the two agreed to sell off a city-owned garage for half it's value in exchange for about $100,000 in cash.

The other cohort in this tragedy, the almost-comical 500-pound local business owner, wannabe Boss Tweed and convicted child molester Joseph "Jo-Jo" Giorgianni, plead guilty in December 2013 and agreed to testify against the Mack brothers to save himself from another lengthy prison stretch.

There's little to be gained by dancing on the political grave of Tony Mack as there's little reason to celebrate for the approximately 85,000 residents of Trenton who must still live in an 8.1 square-mile  urban area characterized by high unemployment and pockets of chronic poverty that's been neglected by the local, state and Federal government for decades.

The people of Trenton already had it hard enough by the time the Great Recession was near it's apex in July, 2010 when Mack was sworn in as mayor - within months of his taking office it was clear the city of Trenton deserved better.

A simple but clever sting operation conducted by the FBI and state law enforcement brought the curtain down on Mack's tenure, but the abuse of his position as mayor to enrich himself and his allies at the expense of the welfare of the residents of Trenton started long before FBI agents entered the Trenton City Hall in July, 2012 to seize documents and other evidence.

If you can stomach it, take a look at the painfully long list of instances of Mack's corruption compiled by Trenton Times reporter Jenna Pizzi; a time-line of Mack's downfall taken from her excellent ongoing coverage of the Mack administration.

It reads more like a script synopsis from an HBO drama than the track record of a mayor who attended high school in the city and was more than familiar with the challenges faced by it's mostly African-American residents.

Pizzi cites examples like the city announcing the four branches of the Trenton public library would be closed the same month Mack took office in July, 2010 - in a city with high school student proficiency test scores so low they aren't even published.

Or his firing experienced department administrators to try and appoint close friends to the key positions even though they were totally unqualified; like Carlton Badger as the city housing director despite his having been indicted for forgery and theft, or Municipal court director Nathaniel Jones serving even though he'd been convicted of felony assault.

Then there was Harold Hall as public works director who was later linked to the installation of the $17,000 sign in Cadwalader Park which I blogged about back in 2012. That infamous sign (which was later removed by the landmarks commission) was a rather tacky  replica of the Warren Street Bridge that connects Trenton with Morrisville, PA.

Each morning and evening I drive across that bridge on my way to and from work and I'm reminded of Trenton's struggle to fund even its most basic municipal services when I drive past the corner of Ferry Street and the 700 block of South Warren Street next to Parker Elementary School.

This tiny intersection serves as a conduit channeling New Jersey-bound vehicle traffic from Pennsylvania exiting off of north bound Route 1 who use the small stretch of South Warren Street to reach Route 29 to cut over to I-295.

The street surface is so pockmarked with potholes, divots and bumps it's a miracle no one has dropped a transmission or bent an axle.

Sadly it's almost within eyesight of the state offices and just across Route 29 is the extremely well-designed baseball park that sits next to the Delaware River where the AA affiliate of the New York Yankees, the Trenton Thunder, play; which is one of the few major positive attractions the city has going for it.

Even with the budget shortfalls you'd think the city would be sure to make sure roads with high traffic volume in around the ball park (which brings a lot of visitors to the city) would be well-paved, well lit and properly marked.

My point is that the appearance and condition of that small stretch of South Warren Street leaves a really poor impression of the city of Trenton. It's a street-level (no pun intended) reflection of poor overall city management of basic services like road maintenance - I won't even get into the condition of some of the abandoned row houses along Ferry street, eye-sore would be putting it nicely.

In my capacity as a residential leasing agent, I've met dozens of people of varying ethnicity, age group and socioeconomic background who've come to me with the saddest kinds of tales of what's happened to downtown Trenton in the areas around Chambersburg; a neighborhood in the south eastern section of the city that was once home to a vibrant working class community of well-kept homes and small businesses.

There are older homeowners who've lived there for decades who find themselves unable to live there anymore because of how the crime rate has impacted the quality of life in the city. Selling their homes isn't much easier because of the conditions and let's be honest, the situation wasn't helped when Tony Mack laid off a staggering third (100 officers) of the Trenton Police Department back in early 2012 because of budget shortfalls and shrinking revenue - right around the same time he unveiled a $4,000 portrait of himself and former mayors of Trenton in City Hall. 

Crime spiked an alarming 12% in the city seven months after Mack announced the layoff of 100 police officers in 2012; and the quality of life and resident safety have both suffered as a result.

For example, back in the fall I rented an apartment to an 89 year-old woman who'd lived in the same home in Trenton since the 40's. She uses a walker to get around and came into her kitchen one afternoon to find some guy who'd broken into the house rifling through her cabinets - fortunately he just took off, but the experience terrified her and she was too scared to live in her own home anymore.

I have more stories like that I've heard from longtime Trenton homeowners that would break your heart; I just don't have the time to write about them all. Besides, it's really the same story.

"The Burg" as it's also commonly known, was until quite recently also home to a number of nice little family-owned Italian restaurants; the types of places that have been there for years. Some were the kinds of places where they didn't even have a menu, the food was so good you just went in and ate what was being served that day.

Most of those are now closed after many long-time locals moved away. And other customers no longer felt safe going there for dinner because of increasing harassment from young local gang members who made getting back to the car after a meal a dangerous trek.

It's not fair to blame Tony Mack for everything that's happened in the city of Trenton; some of those deteriorating conditions were in place or well under way before he took office in the summer of 2010 - a time when cities and communities all over the country were struggling with diminished tax revenue and shrinking support from the Federal government during the Great Recession.

And as an article on Tony Mack's guilty verdict in last Friday's New York Times pointed out:
"Since 2000, mayors of the New Jersey communities of Asbury Park, Camden, Hamilton, Hoboken, Newark, Orange, Passaic, Paterson and Perth Amboy, among others, have been convicted or have pleaded guilty in corruption cases."

So while political corruption is a much broader problem for the state of New Jersey, it's both sad and revealing that the communities comprised of populations that most need real leadership, innovative approaches to complex economic problems and a clear sense of ethics seem to get the Tony Mack's of this world. 
 
But that said  the corruption that's been a hallmark of Tony Mack's tenure as mayor has been a clear impediment for Trenton as both state and Federal funding for the city suddenly came attached with strings requiring that Mack's office would have no say in how it was spent to ensure that the funds meant to help the city would not be siphoned away to line the pockets of Mack's cohorts and allies.

Incredibly, Mack was still raising money for a re-election campaign before being found guilty and there are those in the city of Trenton who still see Mack as being the victim of some kind of set up or conspiracy. That speaks volumes about the low expectations many residents in economically disadvantaged areas have for the political leaders who they elect to serve them; as if words and good intent are more important the truth of someone's actual record in office. 

The real truth is the city of Trenton just couldn't afford a mayor like Tony Mack anymore, but it was Mack's own decisions, choices, greed and lack of ethical boundaries that led to his own undoing.

Only Mack is not the only one who will pay the price for it. The victims of the spike in crime in Trenton will pay, or have paid. The older resident who can no longer safely live in a home they can't sell; they're paying the price. Or the child who doesn't have a library to go to in order to study or quench a thirst for knowledge - they'll still be paying the price for years, maybe decades to come.

In the end the paltry thousands of dollars Mack's insatiable greed siphoned off from the city will pale in comparison to the price the people paid for his lack of leadership. And if there was a conspiracy in this sad chapter in the history of Trenton, it was a conspiracy of one.