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A Tale of Eviction by Nicole C. Lee

Oct. 9, 2011

A Tale of Eviction
By Nicole C. Lee

Special Commentary

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Families still living in thousands of tents since the earthquake in  Port-au-Prince now suffer the tyranny of abusive landlords. PHOTO: TransAfrica.org

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Camp Riviere Grise PHOTO: TransAfrica.org

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Despite the lack of attention in the media, the situation in Haiti remains dire. Despite money donated by international organizations and regular people, real relief has not reached the people who need it the most. The blue tarps that blanketed the city, reminiscent of the early reporting by Anderson Cooper, are still there – an obvious sign that things have not returned to normal.

Twenty months after the earthquake, most inhabitants of Port-au-Prince are living in an unbearable hell. Communities of people have formed, the refugees of destroyed neighborhoods, to offer each other support under the desperate circumstances that define daily life. Their possessions remain meager and unprotected from either weather or thieves. Without enough safe open land available, many Haitians have moved their communities to under-utilized open spaces. Almost two years later, although they still have no where else to go, impatient landlords have taken to violent means to kick the poor off their land. During these evictions, the families lose what’s left of their belongings and are forced to find another place to squat, not knowing when they might be evicted again.

Two months ago, Danny Glover and I traveled to Port-au-Prince, as we have many times before, to meet with community groups and see firsthand the progress in post-earthquake Haiti. We traveled with experts on economics and health, to investigate the pressing needs on the ground. For some time we have been supporting a Haitian organization that helps poor families deal with access to basic necessities and helping communities have a voice in the decisions that affect them and we wanted to see the work ourselves.

While traveling to meet with some VIPs, we got a call about an eviction taking place in Barbancourt 17. We made a quick turn and went to investigate. There we found an enraged rich landowner screaming at families, women and children loudly in Creole demanding that they leave “his property”. He had already beaten a small, but grown man and personally destroyed several tents. Bulldozers and construction equipment stood by and ready. And oddly, so did the UN peacekeepers.

A lot has been said about the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti.Haiti’s President has stated that the mission was absolutely necessary to ensure peace despite calls by many Haitians for the force to go. Members of the international community have suggested that the peacekeepers are there to keep order and help rebuild. Civil society organizations have demanded accountability for the alleged rape of an 18-year-old Haitian boy in Port Salut and the common occurrence of “fraternization” with under age Haitian girls by UN forces. It was telling that in all the chaos we personally witnessed, the UN did nothing to comfort the vulnerable. Their presence seemed only to validate the violence and the chaos that ensued.

I asked the UN soldiers who called them to this location what was their purpose. I noticed how the people watched the UN soldiers. Even the children, so clearly traumatized by the prospect of being uprooted, knew that the peacekeepers were not sent to Barbancourt 17 to protect them. They were there to ensure the landlord was protected.

Our presence did not deter the landlord. “If you like them so much, you take them back to Washington with you,” he callously and repeatedly remarked. What did deter him was a Haitian human rights lawyer who came with legal documentation stating the landlord could not evict the families without the proper paperwork. While that day was a victory for those people, we knew that it would only be a matter of time before the landlord got his ducks in a row.

A few days ago he did. The inhabitants of Barbancourt 17 were evicted from the only home they have had in the past two years. They were allegedly put on buses by the International Organization of Migration, perhaps to give the appearance they were going to a relocation site. But they were soon dropped off in front of a police station, without anywhere to go.

The international community continues to fail Haiti. Regardless of our humanitarian rhetoric, we continually and willfully make decisions that cause more misery in Haiti. We can be repulsed by the individual landlord, but it was an international force that supported him. This year, the UN peacekeeping mission costs almost one billion dollars. I have no idea where those children and their parents are sleeping tonight, but I do know that a billion dollars would go a long way in providing those families and many others with housing and basic necessities.

Nicole C. Lee is the president of TransAfrica.

Rick Perry Rebuked for Association With Racial Slur

Rick Perry Rebuked for Association With Racial Slur 

By Hazel Trice Edney

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Gov. Rick Perry 

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Texas Gov. Rick Perry is being rebuked by civil rights leaders and a fellow Republican presidential candidate as he defends himself against allegations that he invited people to a hunting camp that even recently was nicknamed the racial epithet, “Niggerhead.”

The Washington Post broke the story about a West Texas hunting camp that Perry once leased with his father in the early 1980s. Perry, who has often referred to himself as a Confederate since his entry into the Republican presidential race, now finds himself trying to shake the image.

The Washington Post story revealing that Texas Governor Rick Perry hunted and hosted lawmakers at a hunting camp called Niggerhead is alarming and displays a new height in racial insensitivity in national politics,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton in a statement. “Mr. Perry should immediately fully explain how he could have gone to a ranch and hunted [in a camp] that is named after such an obvious racist term or he should withdraw from the race. He is either blindly insensitive or hopelessly unaware of where he spends his time. Either way it makes one wonder if he is ready for prime time and certainly whether he is ready for the White House.”

The report said the offensive term was painted in block letters across a large rock at the gate of property. Perry has said he agrees that the term is “offensive” and said his father actually painted over the word shortly after leasing the land. But, the Post story cites at least seven sources who indicate the epithet remained visible in recent years – even as recent as this summer through a thin coat of paint. The Post has stood by its story.

Meanwhile, Black GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain made rounds on Sunday morning talk shows criticizing Perry and accusing him of tolerating the sign.

Cain said on Fox, “There isn’t a more vile, negative word than the n-word … And for him to leave it there as long as he did before he painted over it, it’s just plain insensitive to a lot of Black people in this country.”

The Post quoted Perry’s communications director Ray Sullivan as agreeing with Cain’s description of the rock, but denying that the rock went uncovered. “Mr. Cain is wrong about the Perry family’s quick action to eliminate the word on the rock, but is right the word written by others long ago is insensitive and offensive,” Sullivan said. “That is why the Perrys took quick action to cover and obscure it.”

Death Penalty Protests Won’t Die

Oct. 2, 2011

Death Penalty Protests Won’t Die

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Afro American Newspapers

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Courtesy photo

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Far from the dim Burger King parking lot that forever changed the course of his life, Troy Anthony Davis faced his fourth and final execution date with the State of Georgia on Sept. 21. Davis, a convicted murderer who spent over two decades on death row, maintained what he and millions around the world proclaimed in the days leading up to his execution: that he was an innocent man.

“This is a good example of a train running away. The state of Georgia couldn’t have convicted Troy Anthony Davis on the evidence they had when they executed him,” said Diann Rust-Tierney, executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP). At the time of Davis’ death, seven of nine witnesses from his original trial submitted affidavits admitting to giving untruthful and unreliable testimonies at the 1991 trial. Nevertheless, courts would not consider the recantations, new evidence, and testimony from new witnesses that corroborated Davis’ claim that Sylvester ‘Red’ Coles, the first to implicate Davis in the murder, was actually the perpetrator.

 

Complete with allegations of racism, witness coercion, and a faulty police investigation, the Troy Anthony Davis Case was shrouded in doubt from the beginning. With no gun, no fingerprints, and no physical evidence to link him to the crime, on 28 August 1991 Davis was sentenced to die for the murder of Officer Mark McPhail, a 27 year-old police officer.

 

“It is hard to fathom that with no evidence you could still take a person’s life. I was at a loss for words and it was an eye opener to have the feeling that racism is still here,” said Raiana Davis, a current member and former president of the Morgan State University chapter of the NAACP. College and university students around the country took to social media about the case during the week of the last minute appeal to save Davis’ life and his subsequent execution. Several Howard University students were arrested and fined after gathering outside of the White House and Supreme Court to speak out against the execution.

 

Protests outside the prison where Davis spent his last days had little effect on the Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole, which has to date executed 52 prisoners since 1976. As publicity surrounding the case dies down, Rust-Tierney encourages young people to keep the movement against capital punishment strong. “If they thought they were going to have to sustain this firestorm of criticism and opposition for a month, a year, two years -at the same level of intensity – they wouldn’t have done this. That’s what we have to change.”

 

Currently, 16 states have abolished the death penalty, with many more states working to set the same measures in place. Re-instated in 1977, the death penalty has long been a source of tension within the justice system. Georgia’s 52 executions stand in stark contrast to the five that have been put to death in Maryland and the 475 that have died in Texas. With the undeniable presence of human error, it is impossible to deny that innocent life has been ended legally time and time again.

 

“If one innocent person’s life is taken by the death penalty, then we need to end the death penalty,” said Robert Rooks, National Criminal Justice Director of the NAACP. “Over 150 people have been exonerated from death row since 1973,” continued Rooks, who believes that many Americans are on the fence about capital punishment because religion tends to sway voters. “People misuse the ‘eye for an eye’ biblical quote to justify the death penalty,” said Rooks, who calls on clergy members to shed new understanding on bible passages used in favor of the death penalty. Still, for others the argument over the death penalty has nothing to do with faith.

 

With the economy still hovering on the edge of another recession, many Americans wonder whether the death penalty is even the most affordable way to punish those who have committed heinous crimes. According to reports released by the Urban Institute Justice Center, in Maryland, the average death penalty case that leads to a death sentence costs approximately $3 million, roughly 1.9 million less than a case where the death penalty is not sought.

 

Still others, such as Lee Wengraf, stress prevention over punishment when it comes to the current system of justice. “We are in favor of an investment in the addressing the social roots of crime,” said Wengraf, elected member of the board of directors for the Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP). “We believe a social justice solution is the correct approach. We need to focus on the problems that cause crime in the first place- unemployment and poverty.”

 

“We have a very imperfect system, yet, we want to have a punishment that is absolute. There is no reversal from death. There is no coming back,” said Lawrence Hayes, a founding member of the CEDP. “It is such a contradiction that a public official can in one stroke of the pen declare that killing is wrong, and in the next stroke authorize themselves to kill,“ continued Hayes, who spent two years of his own life sitting in a New York State death house.

 

Upon joining the Black Panther Party in 1968, Hayes began to actively fight heroin in his community by raiding Mafioso drug drop-off spots. Hayes recalls hearing shots fired and seeing “a European-American dressed in regular clothing with a gun in his hand,” on the night that would cost him 20 years behind bars. Similar to the Troy Davis case, Hayes was accused of killing a police officer.

 

“Our society is too rife with prejudice, classicism, bigotry…there are too many negative issues that motivate the misuse of the death penalty and we’ve seen it,” said Hayes, who was exonerated of the murder in 1991.

 

While Hayes escaped with his life, hundreds of others have not had the privilege to walk away from death sentences. “Am I to die to save face?” asked Davis in a 2007 personal statement to Amnesty International. With all his appeals exhausted, the State of Georgia answered Davis’ question with a lethal injection at 11:07pm on Sept. 21.

 

Regardless of whether Troy Davis was innocent or guilty, the death penalty is a passionate issue subject to create tension when an execution looms. However, with the Troy Anthony Davis Case moving farther and farther back in the records of time, the debate that has been begun cannot stop.

 

Presently, organizations across the country are mobilizing to start and continue discussions not only on the Troy Anthony Davis Case, but also on the morality and effectiveness of the death penalty. Supporters for the abolition of capital punishment are encouraged to reach out to Congress by letter, take part in protests against upcoming executions, and join organizations such as CEDP in putting pressure on the State of Georgia and all states that meter out capital punishment.

Obama Pushes College Graduation in Annual Back-to-School Speech by Alyssa McLendon

Obama Pushes College Graduation in Annual Back-to-School Speech

By Alyssa McLendon 

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Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Howard University News Service

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - President Barack Obama delivered his third annual back-to-school speech to high school students, but college students might also want to take notes from his message.

"Just getting into college isn't enough," Obama said earlier today at Benjamin Banneker Academic High School in Washington, D.C. "You need to graduate."

Obama said that the United States is ranked 16th in the world with the number of young people with college degrees. He urged students to continue their education after they graduate high school.

"The fact of the matter is that 60 percent of jobs in the next decade will require more than a high school diploma," he told the students. "That's the world you're walking into."

Education Secretary Arne Duncan joined the president on stage, and Washington Mayor Vincent Gray sat in the audience. Banneker's principal, Anita Berger, enjoyed Obama's speech and agrees that getting into college isn't enough. Her high school has a 100 percent college acceptance rate.

"It's not only about being accepted to college, but being able to finish college," Berger said. "And we need to make sure that happens."

Most college dropouts leave school because of financial burdens, according to a 2009 report by the Public Agenda. Having to work and make money while in school is the top reason young adults leave college, the non-profit research organization found. The second largest reason given is that they couldn't afford tuition and fees.

Obama mentioned his efforts at making college affordable only one time during his speech. Instead of talking about a student's financial obligations, Obama discussed the student's academic responsibilities.

His speech focused on encouraging students to work hard, ask questions, take risks and persevere. Obama also told students that they should strive to be the best and that they should not to be embarrassed if they aren't good at something right away.

The president admitted that he wasn't always the best student and that he wasn't too enamored by his ethics class.

Kendra Hazel, a senior at Banneker, can relate. "I kind of feel the same way about my math class," Hazel said.

Hazel is taking the SAT in November and plans to graduate high school next spring. She hopes to attend Temple University, Pennsylvania State University or St. John's University and go on to medical school to become a pediatrician.

The 17-year-old already feels the pressure of working while in school. She works part time at the National Capital Coalition to Prevent Underage Drinking after school and on the weekends. She enjoys her job and says it is more for the experience than the money. However, she admits it's hard to stay focused sometimes. "But you gotta do what you gotta do," Hazel said.

Obama highlighted other students who, like Hazel, are trying to make  a difference in the world. He gave examples of students who are raising money for charity and even researching how to kill cancer cells.

"Nothing inspires me more than knowing young people are already making their marks," Obama said. "You don't have to wait to make a difference."

Obama closed his back-to-school speech pushing students to reach their potential and increase their skill sets while in school to help the country and its struggling economy.

"With all of the challenges that our country faces today, we don't just need you for the future," Obama said. "We actually need you now."

‘Whites Only’ Complex Has Bar Where Police Attacked Blacks by Jordan Flaherty

Oct. 2, 2011

‘Whites Only’ Complex Has Bar Where Police Attacked Blacks

By Jordan Flaherty
Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Louisiana Weekly


(TriceEdneyWire.com) - A recent settlement involving a “whites only” housing complex in Mid-City, New Orleans may have also provided background detail on a racist attack committed by New Orleans police officers a few years ago.

On Monday, August 29, the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division reached a settlement in a case brought by the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center against a Mid-city landlord who was caught on tape making racially discriminatory comments.

The landlord, Betty Bouchon, owns a 16-unit building at 4905 and 4919 Canal Street.

This is not the first time that 4905 Canal Street has been in the news. That address is also the site of the Beach Corner Bar and Grill, a bar that was a site of a notorious and violent racist attack during Mardi Gras in 2008.

According to witnesses, a group of Black transit workers entered the bar on February 5, 2008. The establishment was filled with white New Orleans Police De­part­ment officers, and they were apparently not happy about Black people being in the bar. The Black workers were subjected to racial slurs from officers, then taken outside and beaten. According to the NOPD’s own investigation, officers also illegally entered the car of one of the Black workers, planted a gun, and had him arrested.

The bar was apparently popular with the family of powerful individuals in the city’s criminal justice system. Among those at the bar that night were Laura Cannizzaro, an Assistant Orleans Parish District Attorney, and daughter of the current DA Leon Cannizzaro.

Officer Travis Ward was also there that night. At the time, Ward was the live-in boyfriend of Mandy Serpas, daughter of NOPD Superintendent Ronal Serpas.

In eight years in the NOPD, Ward had been investigated seven times for improper or un­ethical behavior, including a drunk driving incident where he crashed an NOPD vehicle. Ward, who later married Serpas, has also drawn attention this year for his role in profiting from a company set up to review tickets issued by the city’s traffic cameras.

One of the officers who was fired from the NOPD for his involvement in the fight, David Lapene, was later hired by District Attorney Leon Canniz­zaro.

Lapene resigned after local media reported his involvement in the racist attack.

The news that the apartment complex had a ‘whites only’ policy has many in the community convinced that the incident at the bar may not have been an isolated incident, or a case of misunderstanding, or a case of “bad apples.”

According to a report from Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center (who also recorded the conversations with the landlord):

“Ms. Bouchon refused to allow any Black mystery shoppers the opportunity to rent units, and made numerous racially discriminatory comments. At one point, Ms. Bouchon informed a white mystery shopper that she saw a Black girl who she thought was interested in seeing the apartment so she left the premises so that she would not have to show the unit to the Black girl. She later informed a white mystery shopper that the rental unit is located in “a safe neighborhood, one of the only safe ones left because we don’t have any Blacks here.” In the same meeting she advised the mystery shopper that a lot of Blacks were calling her about the apartment so she simply did not answer the phone.”

The Department of Justice released details of the settlement on the 29th, with the following statement:

“The Justice Department an­noun­ced today that New Orleans landlords Betty Bouc­hon, the Bouchon Limited Fami­ly Part­ner­ship and Sapphire Corp., have agreed to pay $70,000 in damages and civil penalties to settle a lawsuit alleging they unlawfully denied housing to African-Ameri­can pros­pective renters at a 16-unit apartment building located in New Orleans. The settlement must still be approved by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana…

“Under the terms of the settlement, the defendants will pay $50,000 to GNOFHAC and a total of $20,000 in civil penalties to the United States. The settlement also requires the defendants to adopt non-discriminatory policies and procedures, keep de­tailed records of inquiries from prospective tenants and of rental transactions, and submit periodic reports over the four year term of the settlement. GNOFHAC filed a separate lawsuit, which is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.”

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