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Black Bankers President Warns Churches: Change the Way You Do Business by Hazel Trice Edney

Black Bankers President Warns Churches: Change the Way You Do Business
By Hazel Trice Edney

michael grant

Michael Grant, President, National Bankers Association

WASHINGTON - (TriceEdneyWire.com) - The head of a national Black bankers organization is warning that growing foreclosures upon churches across America indicate that houses of worship must quickly change the way they do business or possibly face a national crisis.

“A trend in church foreclosures is causing national leaders representing African-American communities all over America to focus their attention on potential solutions to avert an impending crisis,” writes Michael Grant, president of the National Bankers Association in a three-page report, released exclusively to the Trice Edney News Wire. “With the advent of the mega-church as a phenomenon, church leaders are being forced to rethink their growth strategies.”

At least 138 church properties were sold by banks last year and about 270 around the nation since 2010, according to CoStar, a Washington, D.C.-based real estate information company. Ninety percent of the sales reportedly result from foreclosure.

On March 6, Reuters reported, “Banks are foreclosing on America's churches in record numbers as lenders increasingly lose patience with religious facilities that have defaulted on their mortgages, according to new data…The surge in church foreclosures represents a new wave of distressed property seizures triggered by the 2008 financial crash, analysts say, with many banks no longer willing to grant struggling religious organizations forbearance.”

According to Grant, whose organization has a membership of 37 banks, he sees no major disparity between the numbers of foreclosures upon Black and White congregations. However, he writes, “A preliminary analysis of many African-American churches that pursued aggressive expansion strategies has yielded a few interesting and common patterns.”

He ticks off the patterns as follows:

  • Expansion efforts were not usually directed by financial plans constructed by individuals who had the expertise to give church leaders sound financial advice.
  • Many financial decisions by those who oversee aggressive expansion strategies were not rooted in frugal planning or monitored by systems of accountability.
  • Record-keeping is often not dictated by accepted accounting practices.
  • Lending institutions are oftentimes not contacted early enough to avail the church of bank assistance in the forms of loan modifications or forbearance.
  • Many church leaders mistakenly believe that bank assistance is available after foreclosure procedures have begun. In reality, by the time the church is being foreclosed on, the bank has exhausted all of the remedies at its disposal.

Grant concludes that though many church decisions are made based on faith and visionary leadership, “The church must be thought of as a business.”

He states, “Just as the hospital exists to promote physical health and wellness, it is nonetheless a business. The church’s business is to promote spiritual health and well-being. It is also a business. If sound business principles are not adhered to, the church jeopardizes its ability to provide a valuable benefit to its congregants.”

Church leaders across the nation are being impacted by the economic crisis, not only causing a shortage in the collection plate, but the decreased ability to help parishioners in financial trouble and difficulty paying its own bills, including staff salaries and mortgages. Though small and middle-sized congregations are seeing more foreclosures, even mega-churches have not been exempt from drastic measures.

Bishop T.D. Jakes, pastor of the 30,000-member Potter’s House in Dallas, said he was forced to make major cuts three years ago in order to avoid doom.

“Membership has gone up. Income has gone down. We’ve laid off about 40 people from our staff. We’ve had to make some hard choices. We’ve had to curtail some of the services that we’ve normally had to provide to the community because our resources are hard hit. I’m getting calls from pastors all over the country who are downsizing, cutting back on services, cutting back on office hours because they are being adversely affected by this also,” he said in an interview with this reporter.

Currently, church organizational leaders are exploring new ways to operate financially as they await improvement in the economy. The Rev. Dr. Franklyn Richardson, chairman of the Conference of National Black Churches (CNBC), says understanding more about banking, how it works and specifically how Black banks can help abate financial crisis in churches is on his agenda. He concedes that the Black church, as an institution, does not fully understand how best to relate to banks.

“I don’t think we actually do. I also don’t think we take advantage of what our collective deposits could demand on Monday mornings after Sunday,” said Richardson after holding a session on economics and the Black community during a  CNBC meeting last week. “So, we’re looking at – especially given the electronics today, if we were able to bring our Sunday morning deposits together electronically and leverage them in the market, how that could change or have impact on how we can get banking services in our communities. That’s what we’re talking about now.”

Bishop Eugene Ward, Pastor of Greater Love Missionary Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio is also board member of CNBC, which comprises nine denominations and an estimated reach of over 10 million parishioners across the U. S. He says church officials are sometimes actually leery of Black banks.

“I really believe that in most cases we find ourselves being careful when it comes to Black institutions. And we migrate more to Caucasian institutions because of our ignorance and our lack of trust for those who are in Black banking,” Ward says. “The dry answer and a very good example for us is that many of us look to them to favor us and we abuse them rather than cooperate with them to do the same things that we would do with Caucasian institutions.”

Ward adds that church leaders have a skewed view of banks in general. 

“We really only want banks for money, but a lot of us right now can’t really afford to pay back,” he said. “And because of banking practices, now Caucasian agencies have turned to where they are really not operating to lend money to Black churches any more, now we’re finding ourselves in really dire straits because we don’t have anyone to turn to. Had we started to invest with the credit unions and the Black institutions, I feel that we would be in much better shape.”

Grant outlines 12 basic facts that church leaders need to know about banks. Among them are the following:

  • Churches that seek their bank’s help or assistance as soon as a problem with making payments arises stand a far greater chance of avoiding foreclosure.
  • Loans to churches are classified as commercial (or business) loans.
  • Proportionately and historically, African-American banks make and have made the largest percentage of all loans to Black churches.
  • Loans are the primary sources of revenue for banks.
  • Foreclosures could cause banks to diminish their loan loss reserves and negatively impact the community and real estate values.

Ultimately, Grant writes that churches must become more like businesses as they seek to survive in the current economic climate:

“Identifying qualified financial counselors and utilizing certified accountants is no longer a luxury. If the church is to survive to continue its work, it must have an organization structure that resembles the modern corporation.”

Foundations Help Reverse Plights, Perception of Black Men and Boys by Kimberly N. Alleyne

June 3, 2012

Foundations Help Reverse Plights, Perception of Black Men and Boys
By Kimberly N. Alleyne

 foundations 2

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from America’s Wire 

WASHINGTON—Concerned about the plight of African-American men and boys, several philanthropic organizations have launched initiatives to improve opportunities for them to succeed. Some programs address the structural bias that leaves these men more likely to be incarcerated, jobless and disproportionately affected by other social disadvantages.

One of every 15 African-American men is in a U.S. prison or jail compared with one of every 36 Hispanic men and one of every 106 white men. Moreover, scores of African-American men are affected by chronic unemployment, lack of education, poverty and poor health outcomes.

Organizations such as Open Society Foundations, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Mitchell Kapor Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and local and regional foundations are working to assist African-American males.

Shawn Dove, campaign manager for the Campaign for Black Male Achievement sponsored by Open Society Foundations, recalls that media stories about the plight of black men in 2006 spurred discussion on how the foundation could engage.

“I thought, ‘How can we, a foundation that supports open society values, and believes in a democratic society, as a foundation, not be at the forefront of these issues?’ ” he says. “When we launched, there was not an equivalent on a national level.”

The program began in June 2008 and was to be a three-year campaign. But 18 months in, Dove says, George Soros, chairman of Open Society Foundations, and its board were impressed by the work, expanded the budget and agreed to make it ongoing. Since 2008, it has spent $29.6 million funding 94 organizations working on educational equity, strengthening family structures and increasing work opportunities. Grantees are in Chicago, Milwaukee, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans and Jackson, Miss.

“We are responding to long-term systemic and structural barriers facing the African-American community, specifically black men and boys,” Dove says. “An adequate response is not a three-year or five-year commitment. An adequate response is generational commitment so that direct services and policy advocacy are bridged.”

Dove maintains that to adequately address challenges faced by African-American men, “we need an endowed social corporation that can focus on these issues for the long haul.”

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s work in this regard dates to the early 1990s when it launched a Men and Boys of Color initiative that included grants and creation of opportunities for black males. For more than 20 years, Kellogg has been in the forefront in supporting initiatives such as Community Voices, which started the nation’s first health clinic for men in Baltimore, addressed flaws in local juvenile justice systems and assisted ex-convicts in re-entering communities in numerous cities.

“Both explicit and unconscious bias affects young men and boys of color in particular, denying them equal opportunities to succeed in their communities, says Dr. Gail C. Christopher, Kellogg’s vice president for program strategy. “At the Kellogg Foundation, a critical objective for our racial healing and racial equity strategy seeks to remove structural and implicit barriers that limit their success. Achieving and sustaining racial equity requires strong systems of accountability, and as importantly, success requires uprooting a belief system of racial hierarchy.”

Last September, Kellogg sponsored “Too Important to Fail,” Tavis Smiley’s PBS report on health and education disparities among African-American boys. The foundation also funded a University of North Carolina project, the Promoting Academic Success initiative, which worked with families, schools and communities to improve academic achievement of African-American and Latino children in Lansing, Mich., and Polk County, Fla.

Under its America Healing Initiative, the foundation funds many organizations, such as the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, that engage in efforts to address the challenges faced by black males. One grantee, the Opportunity Agenda, recently released a report on perceptions of black males in the media. The report seeks to educate media makers, educators and others on how negative images of black communities perpetuate negative stereotypes.

A significant part of the challenge is improving educational opportunities for African-American men. With its College Bound Brotherhood program established five years ago, the Mitchell Kapor Foundation helps black youths and men achieve success by equipping them to pursue a college education. Based in San Francisco, the program provides grants to community-based organizations offering college preparedness programs in the Bay Area.

Justin Davis, the foundation’s program coordinator, says it has awarded more than $1 million to organizations. “We also offer an online database, which is a free directory that lists college readiness programs in the San Francisco Bay area community,” he said. “It helps students, parents and teachers.”

The program hosts an annual graduation celebration at which college-bound high school graduates are lauded for their achievements. “This year, we are celebrating 150 young black men who are enrolling in college this fall,” Davis says. “This is the only event like it in the Bay Area. Last year, it was standing room only. One of the most powerful images was seeing a stage full of young black men who are going to college. It’s a great thing to see.”

The programs are making an impact.

Jordan Johnson, 17, is heading to Morehouse College next fall largely because of his participation in the Young Scholars Program, one 15 organizations that the Kapor Foundation supports through grants from College Bound Brotherhood. Johnson says the program changed his perspective about college.

The Young Scholars Program offers college preparatory and leadership development, plus tutoring, mentoring, cultural enrichment and scholarship assistance. Over the past 10 years, its students have attended colleges and universities such as Texas Southern, Fisk, Cornell and Yale.

“I got involved in the Young Scholars Program my junior year,” Johnson says. “Before I got involved, I thought I was going to a junior college or a two-year college. I didn’t have the professional, social or academic skills to go to a four-year college.”

But the program changed his aspirations. He plans to study business management. “I didn’t think I was going to Morehouse because my GPA is 2.67,” he says, “but the Young Scholars Program gave me hope. I have been accepted to 17 colleges. I have not received any rejections.”

Another organization, Foundation for the Mid South, works to address poverty in Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi, a region whose 30 percent poverty rate is the nation’s highest. Based in Jackson, Miss., the organization focuses on education, health and wellness, wealth building and community development. The Kellogg Foundation is among funders of its work.

Matthew Caston, a communications fellow at Foundation for the Mid South, asserts that to be successful, more African-American men require better education. For instance, the foundation’s data show that two of three boys of color cannot read at grade level by third grade and that 19.1 percent of black males are unemployed, compared with 8 percent of white males.

“We have found that education is the biggest determinant of success in the areas of incarceration, health and earning. People who are more educated are healthier and have better jobs,” Caston says, adding that reading scores are the biggest determinant for high school graduation and employment. “Males of color in our region are at the bottom in reading scores.”

The foundation is working to improve education and economic outcomes for youths of color by assisting parents and civic, community and government leaders in improving the educational system and launching a public awareness campaign about its shortfalls.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s Black Male Engagement (BME) Challenge takes a different approach.

Pronounced “be me,” BME piloted programs in Detroit and Philadelphia last year, and its primary mission is to highlight actively engaged black men in those cities. BME is also funded in part by the Open Society Foundation’s Campaign for Black Male Achievement.

“There are many initiatives that show that black men are disengaged, absent or a threat to their communities, but our working assumption is there is nothing to fix about black males,” says Trabian Shorters, vice president/communities program at the Knight Foundation and BME’s spearhead. “BME is not about fixing black males. Black men are assets to their communities, and we are working to respond to the many of them who are engaged and how to get more black males engaged.”

Under the program, African-American men in Detroit and Philadelphia were asked to submit video testimony showing how they strengthen their communities. The 2,083 videos received told many stories about personal journeys that included men helping veterans returning to their community and introducing children to dance instead of street life. The storytellers were invited to apply for grants ranging from $5,000 to $50,000 to further their community work.

“So many regular guys go unsung,” Shorters says. “They don’t do this work for a pat on the back, but it is nice to affirm what they do.” BME has awarded $443,000 in grants “to 443 regular, everyday guys,” he adds.

Shorters says everyone knows “good guys” who are not part of the dreadful statistics. “I hope that BME creates a network of these kinds of guys, regular guys,” he says. “We want to make it so that if your cousin Joe is a good guy, doing something great for his community, that he can plug into the network and meet other guys like him and find resources to support his work.”

Though many foundations focus their attention on systemic and structural barriers affecting African-American males, the whole “village” carries the burden of success.

“This is our unfinished business,” Dove says. “This is not black America’s unfinished business. It is America’s unfinished business.”

America’s Wire is an independent, nonprofit news service run by the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education and funded by a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Our stories can be republished free of charge by newspapers, websites and other media sources. For more information, visit www.americaswire.org or contact Michael K. Frisby at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

U.S. Army Toughens Enlistment, Re-Enlistment Requirements by Alexis Taylor

U.S. Army Toughens Enlistment, Re-Enlistment Requirements

No Longer Gearing Up for Two Wars, Recruiters Get Picky

By Alexis Taylor
usarmyenlistment
Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Afro American Newspaper
(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The U. S. Army has become significantly more selective about who it wants to serve as soldiers.

Last week's announcement of tougher enlistment and re-enlistment requirements comes just weeks after an April announcement of tighter restrictions on tattoos, hair, and makeup came in April.

“During the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army accepted soldiers with misdemeanors, medical problems, low test scores, and even some with felonies in order to meet the personnel requirements of two simultaneous conflicts,” said a statement released by the Army. “Now, these two conflicts are mostly over and with budget cuts the Army must downsize quickly.”

While in 2009 there were 546 recruits granted entry into the military whose previous misconduct was waived, that number fell to just 189 last year. The rules for aspiring soldiers are now even tougher on those with convictions. In 2009, 220 recruits were allowed to serve with blemishes on their legal records, in 2011 there were none.

Aside from ruling out persons who have had issues with law enforcement in the past, monetary bonuses have also been taken almost completely off the table.

There are now only six positions in the Army that qualify for monetary bonuses.

Soldiers in the fields of interpretation and translation, as well as medical laboratory specialists and divers are among the handful that will continue to be eligible for bonuses. Soldiers specializing in ordnance disposal and those serving as cryptologic linguists also might qualify.

Though these soldiers will receive bonuses, they will be much smaller than those seen in the past. In 2008, bonus amounts peaked in the $16,000- $18,000 range with the Army alone paying nearly $860,000 in monetary incentives.

Now, bonus amounts range from $3,300 to $3,500 and in 2011, the Army awarded only $77,000 in bonus money. 

At its height, the Army boasted an enlistment of 570,000, that number fell to 558,000 in March of this year, and Army officials expect it to drop even further as 35 percent of its personnel are expected to be pushed out by the tighter criteria.

Potential soldiers are encouraged to score as high as possible on the ASVAB, the basic assessment for the military, be in the best shape possible, and be flexible about job assignment to boost chances of acceptance.

Black Officer Reports Threats by White Cops Against Obama by Joey Matthews

June 3, 2012
Black Officer Reports Threats by White Cops Against Obama  
By Joey Matthews

official_portrait_of_barack_obama

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Richmond Free Press

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Two White Richmond policemen are under investigation for allegedly making threatening comments concerning President Obama during his recent re-election rally visit to Virginia Commonwealth University.

The gist of the alleged comments:

 • One policeman is reported to have said he wished he could blow up the stage while the president was speaking.

 • The other officer is alleged to have said he wished he had a gun, inferring he’d like to shoot the president.

 Richmond Police said an investigation of the two officers and their remarks is ongoing. Otherwise, department officials are tight-lipped about the matter.

 “The Department will not identify the officers nor discuss their current work status,” department spokesman Gene Lepley stated in a press release.

Lepley also stated that the department had conferred with the Secret Service.

Bill Frantzen, special agent in charge of the Richmond office of the Secret Service told the Free Press in a phone May 29 interview, “We don’t comment on issues on any type of statements. We consider this issue resolved. We’re not looking into it any farther.”

The head of the state NAACP called for “the greatest penalty” to be administered if the investigation reveals the officers made the comments.

“The life of the President and any other persons must receive the greatest protection and is the primary duty of the police and nothing less,” said King Salim Khalfani, executive director of the civil rights organization.

Mayor Dwight C. Jones called the alleged remarks by the two officers “appalling” and “certainly not reflective of how the Richmond Police Department generally conducts itself.”

He added, “There are no circumstances under which the alleged conduct will be tolerated.”

The comments allegedly were made during the President and first lady’s May 5 visit to VCU’s Siegel Center where they spoke. A Black officer overheard the remarks and reported them to his superiors.

The two officers “did not have an assignment related to the president’s detail,” according to the statement issued by the police.

The department deemed the comments as “inappropriate” in the release.

“These alleged comments, while not criminal in nature, are currently being investigated by the Department for appropriate administrative action,” Lepley stated. Threatening to kill, kidnap or inflict bodily harm on the president is a Class D felony; punishment ranges from five to 10 years in prison.

Media’s Portrayal of Black Youths Contributes to Racial Tension by Joshunda Sanders

Media’s Portrayal of Black Youths Contributes to Racial Tension

By Joshunda Sanders

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from America's Wire

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Mainstream media often portray African-American youths, especially black men and boys, as criminals, crime victims and predators. These stereotypes, according to social justice advocates, can create a racially charged atmosphere that results in violence such as the shooting death of teenager Trayvon Martin.

U.S. popular culture has become increasingly desensitized to one-dimensional portrayals of black youths. Perpetuation of them as dangerous has been embedded in American society not only by words and images projected by journalists but also by a wide variety of other media and entertainment sources, including the Internet, movies and video games.

Clearly, the perception of African-Americans and other people of color as inferior to whites is rooted in the nation’s legacy of racial hierarchy, a system of stratification based on belief that skin color makes whites superior. Also contributing to embedding these stereotypes is that even as U.S. Census data show a growing number of nonwhites in America, fewer people of color are in decision-making positions at daily newspapers, television and radio stations, and online news organizations.

Media coverage of the February shooting of Martin, 17, in Sanford, Fla., by neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman, exemplifies negative treatment of black youths in the media. After a controversial delay, Zimmerman was arrested and charged with second-degree murder in the unarmed teenager’s death.

At the center of the case are issues related to race, gun rights and whether Zimmerman was acting in self-defense.

In most media stories last week, autopsy results showing that Martin’s blood had traces of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, overshadowed other new evidence. An Associated Press report from Orlando, Fla., began: “Trayvon Martin had marijuana in his system. He was shot through the heart at close range.”

Many of these stories were published with photographs showing cuts and scratches on Zimmerman’s face and head. A police report said he “appeared to have a broken and a bloody nose and swelling of his face.”

In the same week, an all-white, six-person jury in Houston acquitted Andrew Blomberg, 29, a white police officer, in the alleged beating of 15-year-old Chad Holley after Holley was arrested for burglary in March 2010.

In video footage from a security camera, which jurors were shown in court, Holley was seen falling to the ground after trying to hurdle a police squad car, the AP reported, and was “surrounded by at least five officers, some who appear to kick and hit his head, abdomen and legs.”

Blomberg testified that he didn’t kick or stomp Holley. Community activists decried the verdict and the racial makeup of the jury.

The presumption of guilt can also apply to young black women. When Rekia Boyd, 22, was fatally shot by an off-duty Chicago police detective in March, her death was overshadowed in mainstream media by the Martin case.

Boyd was with friends on a street near the detective’s home when words were apparently exchanged and he fired several shots, one of which struck Boyd in the head. No charges have been filed in the incident. Boyd’s family has filed a civil lawsuit against the detective and the city.

In its report on the shooting, one Chicago television station noted that Boyd was hanging out with a group “at 1 in the morning.”

Stories about black youths that don’t reinforce stereotypes, don’t involve celebrities and that tell narratives about everyday lives of black people haven’t been a priority in news coverage, says author Bakari Kitwana, executive director of Rap Sessions in Westlake, Ohio. Through Rap Sessions, Kitwana leads discussions on college and high school campuses nationwide to counter mainstream media narratives about the hip-hop generation.

In addition to being stereotyped in media, Kitwana says, black youths are also criminalized by three other circumstances.

“Job options are limited, especially if you’re working class, which is different from previous generations,” he says. “The military doesn’t have a draft so, ultimately, it’s composed of people who are so pushed out of other life options. The military becomes a way of not being totally impoverished. Add to that limited education because of the cost of a college degree.”

Publishers, editors and producers who decide which news stories are important often don’t choose ones that humanize or contextualize lives of black youths. In journalism, decision makers are largely white.

A 2011 study by the Radio Television Digital News Association and Hofstra University showed that while the percentage of people of color in the U.S. population had risen since 1990 from 25.9 percent to a projected 35.4 percent, the number in television rose 2.7 percent and fell in radio. TV news diversity, it noted, “remains far ahead of the newspaper.”

“The way that journalism is currently practiced and structured doesn’t allow for the telling of stories of underrepresented people,” says Malkia Cyril, founder and executive director of the Center for Media Justice in Oakland, Calif. Privatization of corporate media is one reason that continues to be true, she says.

In 1983, 50 corporations controlled U.S. media, according to “The Media Monopoly” by Ben Bagdikian, a longtime journalist and media critic. By 2004, in his revised and expanded “The New Media Monopoly,” Bagdikian wrote that the number was five — Time Warner, Disney, News Corp., Bertelsmann of Germany and Viacom, with NBC a close sixth.

“The way that journalism is on the open market means that stories are for sale, and what sells is stereotypes,” Cyril says. “Market-produced coverage will tend to misrepresent youth.”

The implications of “this charged environment can result in the dehumanization of black life and regressive political decisions that can lead to violence, as the Stand Your Ground Laws resulted in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin,” she added in a follow-up email. “Otherwise, the story gets framed as coverage leads to bad individual behavior, and the systemic piece gets lost.”

When media producers in journalism and popular culture media like movies, television series and video games are mostly white, chances that young people will be humanized and fully represented are slim, says Eleni Delimpaltadaki Janis, public opinion and media research coordinator for The Opportunity Agenda in New York.

“You see few images of black men and boys being good students or being good fathers,” she says. “They’re really fewer images of men in those roles compared to reality. It’s not just the news coverage. It’s also every type of media, but also in entertainment media, including video games. They all do a good job at using negative images of black boys and men for entertainment.”

Solutions include reporters intentionally incorporating black youths into everyday or evergreen stories like those about Christmas shopping, Janis says. Kitwana adds that it’s also important for journalists to remember that their profession carries the weight of social responsibility since democracy can’t function properly if journalism doesn’t function properly.

Eileen Espejo, director of media and health policy at Children Now in Oakland, says producers across the media spectrum should seek ways to avoid stereotypes. “We don’t want there to be a quota,” she says. “But we want you to think more creatively about the roles that people of color can play, and break out of the traditional mold.”

Joshunda Sanders writes media critiques for the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. Her stories and other media critiques are available at www.mije.org/mmcsi and can be republished free of charge. For more information, please contact Elisabeth Pinio at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 510-891-9202.

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