Oct. 18, 2016

Emotional Reunion for 21 Rescued 'Chibok' Girls, Home at Last

(TriceEdneyWire.com/GIN) – In a sight that could make a witness choke up with tears, a roomful of rescued Nigerian schoolgirls from Chibok ran into the arms of their overjoyed parents and smothered them with hugs. The gathering, organized by Nigerian authorities, signaled an end to their two year captivity by Boko Haram rebels and the start of a new life.

Their nightmare of imprisonment in the Sambisa forest of Nigeria since April 2014 is over.

One of the girls told of surviving for 40 days without food and how they narrowly escaped death at least once.

"We had no food for one month and 10 days but we did not die. We thank God," said one of the girls, speaking in the local Hausa language.

Still, of the more than 200 kidnapped students, 197 are still missing.

Many of the kidnapped students were Christian but had been forcibly converted to Islam during captivity. The shapeless gray chadors imposed by their captors were now replaced on their thin frames by colorful dresses and hair ties.

The girls, freed last Thursday, met their excited relatives, some of whom had trekked for days to reach the capital, Abuja. Nigeria’s vice president, Yemi Osinbajo, witnessed the handover.

The release followed negotiations between Nigeria's government and Boko Haram brokered by Red Cross and Swiss officials, a spokesman for the country's president said.

"We thank God,” said one parent. “I never thought I was going to see my daughter again but here she is... Those who are still out there - may God reunite them with their parents."

Nigerian authorities denied that captured Boko Haram fighters were swapped for the girls although one security official told the BBC that four commanders had been freed.  A "handsome ransom", in the millions of dollars, was reportedly paid by the Swiss government on behalf of the Nigerian government.

After two years in captivity and being married off to Boko Haram fighters, several girls carried children, even though they were hardly more than children themselves.

The plight of the girls never left the radar for an active diasporan community and their friends and colleagues around the world. Twitter hashtags such as #BringBackOurGirls and #chibok and #HopeEndures were updated, demonstrations were held, politicians lobbied and letters penned.

VP Osinbajo told the group: “We are also going to see to it that everything you require going forward, perhaps your education, those who need to go back to school, those who need to find employment, we are going to make that we make all the provisions for you.

“So we are all very excited that you are here. We are all happy that God has preserved your lives and brought you back.” The reunion video can be seen on www.oak.tv

GLOBAL INFORMATION NETWORK creates and distributes news and feature articles on current affairs in Africa to media outlets, scholars, students and activists in the U.S. and Canada. Our goal is to introduce important new voices on topics relevant to Americans, to increase the perspectives available to readers in North America and to bring into their view information about global issues that are overlooked or under-reported by mainstream media.

Oct. 11, 2016

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton is now leading her Republican opponent Donald Trump by 11 points, according to a national Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll this week.

On Monday, she was leading Trump 46 percent to 35 percent with the remaining portion divided between Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson with 9 percent and Green Party candidate Jill Stein with 2 percent.

Clinton doubled her lead from the previous week after the release of video and audio tapes of Trump having a vulgar conversation in which he implied that sexual assault of women is okay when you’re a celebrity. The conversation was between Trump and then Access Hollywood host Billy Bush as they arrived on a bus for a Trump appearance on the soap opera, Days of Our Lives.

Trump was on a hot mic, which has come back to haunt him. The 11-year-old recording from 2005 dominated the airwaves over the weekend and continued into this week.

During the town hall-styled debate at Washington University in St. Louis on Sunday, Trump apologized for the language he used but tried to down play the conversation as “locker room talk.” Trump has become known for outlandish statements, insults and bullying. But, this one reached a tipping point.

Despite his stated apology for the vulgarity and sexism, the language was so extreme that Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan and senior Arizona Sen. John McCain, have withdrawn their support of Trump. RNC Chairman Reince Priebus says the Party still supports its nominee. But dozens of other Republican representatives have also withdrawn their endorsements and condemned the lewd statements.

Some political scientists predict that the sudden slide in the polls is Trump’s undoing in the Nov. 8^th election. However Clinton has had issues of her own. A month ago, she apologized for having said half of Trump’s supporters are a “basket of deplorables”. She explained that she meant that many of them are racist, sexist and xenophobic. But, she apologized for having painted with a broad brush.

Trump has also tried to fight back by pointing to indescretions by former President Bill Clinton. He invited three women to the debate who have accused Clinton of sexual indecency with them. One accused Bill Clinton of rape. The women said the First Lady Hillary Clinton bullied them. But these accusations were played out in the mid to late 1990s while Clinton was president. Therefore, Trump's attempt appeared to fall flat.

Political scientist and talk show host Dr. Wilmer Leon says despite Trump’s spiral, nothing can be taken for granted.

“Under normal circumstances, I would say it’s over and it’s been over, but these aren’t normal circumstances,” said Leon. First, he said, because Clinton “keeps finding ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. And also I believe there are still so many people – especially in mainstream media – who are trying to salvage Donald Trump saying, ‘If he just does one thing right he could hit the reset button.’”

The next and final Clinton-Trump debate takes place Wednesday, Oct. 19 at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas. The Moderator will be Fox News Sunday Anchor Chris Wallace. The format will be the same as the first debate.

The outcome of the election is also contingent upon which candidate can get their supporters to the polls on Nov. 8. Voter registration, education, and African-American get-out-to-vote campaigns are at full blast around the nation. Despite Trump’s direct appeal to the Black community, Clinton still maintains at least 90 percent of the Black vote in the polls.

Leon concludes, “I don’t think it’s over until the 9^th of November” - the day after the election.

Oct. 17, 2016

18 Examples of Racism in Criminal Legal System
By Bill Quigley

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Louisiana Weekly

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Racism may well be the biggest crime in the criminal legal system. If present trends continue, one of every four African-American males born this decade can expect to go to prison in his lifetime despite the fact that the Census Bureau reports that the U.S. is 13 percent Black, 61 percent white and 17 percent Latino.

When Brown v Board of Education was decided in 1954 about 100,000 African Americans were in prison. Now there are about 800,000 African Americans in jails and prisons: 538,000 in prisons and over 263,000 in local jails. Black men are nearly six times as likely to be incarcerated as white men and Hispanic men are 2.3 times as likely, according to the Sentencing Project.

Why? Because our country has dramatically expanded our jails and prisons and there is deep racism built into every step of the criminal legal system. Some think the criminal legal system has big problems that need to be reformed. Others think the racism in the criminal legal system is helping it operate exactly as it has been designed to incarcerate as many Black and brown people as possible.

Here are 18 examples of racism in parts of different stages of the system. Taken together, the racism in each of these steps accelerates the process of incarceration of African- American and Latino males. Together, they demonstrate that racism may well be the biggest crime in the criminal legal system.

1. Racism in Police Stops
Who is stopped by the police, either in cars or on foot, continues to be highly racialized as proof of racial profiling continues to accumulate. University of Kansas professors found the police conducted investigatory stops of African-American males at twice the rate of Whites. A Black man in Kansas City 25 or younger has a 28 percent chance of being stopped, while a similar white male has only a 12 percent chance. In New York City, police continue to stop Black and Hispanics at rates far higher than whites even though they are stopping many less people due to a successful civil rights federal court challenge by the Center for Constitutional Rights. One of the most illuminating studies is in Connecticut which showed racial disparities in traffic stops during the daytime, when the race of the driver can be seen, but not at night.

2. Racism in Police Searches
Once stopped, during traffic stops, three times as many Black and Hispanic drivers were searched as White drivers, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. According to the same U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, White drivers were also given tickets at a slightly lower rate than Black and Hispanic drivers.

3. Racism in Police Use of Force during Arrest
A recent report by Center for Policing Equity found that police are more likely to use force like tasers, dogs, pepper spray and physical force against Black people than White people in making arrests.

4. Racism in Juvenile Arrests
Black youth are twice as likely to be arrested for crimes in school as White kids, over 2.5 times as likely to be arrested for curfew violations as white kids, twice as likely as white kids to be arrested for all crimes, and much more likely to be held in detention than white kids, according to the Sentencing Project.

5. Racism in Transgender Arrests
Hundreds of thousands of gay and transgender youth are arrested or detained every year and more than 60 percent are Black or Latino according to the Center for American Progress.

6. Racism in Arrests for Drugs
Start with the fact that Whites and Blacks use and abuse drugs at about the same rates. This is proven by the 2013 National Survey on Drug Use and Health of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. This study found drug and alcohol abuse among Whites and Blacks nearly the same with Blacks reporting one percent higher on drug use than Whites while Whites have three percent higher rates of binge alcohol and one percent higher rates of substance abuse or dependence.

But when it comes to drug arrests, Blacks are arrested at a rate more than twice their percentage in the population. Twenty-nine percent of drug arrests, according to FBI statistics, are of African-American people.

7. Racism in Police Arrests for Marijuana
While marijuana use is similar in Black and White communities, Blacks are 3.73 times as likely to be arrested for possession of marijuana as Whites.

8. Racism in Pre-trial Release
The National Academy of Sciences found that Blacks are more likely than Whites to be incarcerated while awaiting trial.

9. Racism in Prosecution Charges
Federal prosecutors are almost twice as likely to file charges carrying mandatory minimum sentences for African Americans than Whites accused of the same crimes according to a study published by the University of Michigan Law School.

10. Racism in Prison versus Community Service
The National Academy of Sciences stated that Blacks are more likely than whites to received prison terms rather than community service. Black people are imprisoned at twice the rate of white people in the U.S. according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

11. Racism in Length of Incarceration
The National Academy of Sciences stated that, after conviction, Blacks are more likely than Whites to receive longer sentences.

12. Racism in State Drug Incarceration
The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports 208,000 people are in state prisons for drug offenses. Of this number, 32 percent are White and 68 percent are African-American or Hispanic.

13. Racism in Federal Drug Convictions
More than half of all federal prisoners are there for drug offenses. The U.S. Sentencing Commission reported 25 percent of all federal drug convictions in 2014 were of African-Americans and 47 percent were Hispanics versus 24 percent of Whites. In federal prisons, 22 percent are white and 76 percent are African-American or Hispanic.

14. Racism in Federal Court Sentencing
African-American men were sentenced to 19 percent longer time periods in federal courts across the U.S. than White men convicted of similar crimes in a four-year study conducted by the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

15. Racism in Incarceration of Women
Black women are incarcerated at a rate nearly three times higher than White women.

16. Racism in Sentencing to Life Without Parole
Over 65 percent of prisoners serving life without parole for nonviolent offenses are Black.

17. Racism in Hiring People with Criminal Record
Having a criminal record hurts a person’s ability to get a job. But it hurts Black men worse. In fact, White men with a criminal record have a better chance of getting a positive response in a job search than Black men without a criminal record. This has been confirmed by a study of 6,000 applications in Arizona and an earlier study in Milwaukee and New York City.

18. Racism in Eliminating the Right to Vote
The impact of this is devastating. For example, one of every 13 African-Americans has lost their right to vote due to felony disenfranchisement versus one in every 56 non-Black voters.

Taken together, these facts demonstrate the deep racism embedded in the criminal legal system. None dare call this justice.

Oct. 11, 2016

Media Outlets Label Trump a Serial Liar, Racist, Misogynist, Birther, and Bully
By Zenitha Prince 

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

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The New York Times’ Editorial Board, in a Nov. 24, 2015 editorial titled “Mr. Trump’s Applause Lies,” pointed out the candidate’s frequent racist assertions about African-Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, Muslims—anybody non-White—and the responsibility of the Fourth Estate to call him to task on those untruths.

“History teaches that failing to hold a demagogue to account is a dangerous act,” the editorial stated, concluding, “It’s no easy task for journalists to interrupt Mr. Trump with the facts, but it’s an important one.”

Throughout this presidential election season, a wide array of news outlets have been doing that—calling out the Republican candidate’s lies, and his racist and misogynistic statements and behavior even when the candidate and his surrogates attempt to rewrite history by denying those facts.

For example, in July 2015, major online news source The Huffington Post began ending each of its stories on Trump with an editor’s note that reads: “Donald Trump is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist, birther and bully who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims—1.6 billion members of an entire religion—from entering the U.S.”

The caveat was prompted by the Trump campaign’s metamorphosis from a “sideshow” to “an ugly and dangerous force in American politics,” Arianna Huffington explained in a July 12, 2015 post.

“We believe that the way we cover the campaign should reflect this shift. And part of that involves never failing to remind our audience who Trump is and what his campaign really represents,” she said. “So if Trump’s words and actions are racist, we’ll call them racist. If they’re sexist, we’ll call them sexist. We won’t shrink from the truth or be distracted by the showmanship.”

The editorial and commentary pages of major newspapers also have provided a steady counterbalance to Trump’s incendiary and mendacious remarks.

“Let’s not mince words: Donald Trump is a bigot and a racist,” the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank wrote in his opening of a December 2015 opinion piece.

The Times, which is located in Trump’s backyard, has also kept up a steady drum beat, pointing out the candidate’s outrageous ideologies and behavior on its opinion pages.

Even on the pages of The Wall Street Journal, a traditionally conservative publication, anti-Trump sentiments have resounded, with columnist Dorothy Rabinowitz calling Trump the candidate of “white supremacists and swastika devotees.”

Perhaps most impactful, however, have been the endorsements from major publications—especially from those with little to no histories of endorsing candidates and from conservative-leaning outlets.

The Atlantic magazine, for example, endorsed Hillary Clinton in its November 2016 issue—only the third time it has endorsed a presidential candidate since its founding in 1857. In the piece titled, “Against Trump,” the editors call the Republican candidate “spectacularly unfit for office.”

“His affect is that of an infomercial huckster; he traffics in conspiracy theories and racist invective; he is appallingly sexist; he is erratic, secretive, and xenophobic; he expresses admiration for authoritarian rulers, and evinces authoritarian tendencies himself. He is easily goaded, a poor quality for someone seeking control of America’s nuclear arsenal. He is an enemy of fact-based discourse; he is ignorant of, and indifferent to, the Constitution; he appears not to read,” the indictment read.

USA Today, which has never endorsed a candidate, made headlines last month when it broke tradition by advising its readers that Trump was “unfit for presidency.”

The Dallas Morning News, broke from a 75-year tradition of endorsing Republicans to back Hillary Clinton.

“There is only one serious candidate on the presidential ballot in November…. Resume vs. resume, judgment vs. judgment, this election is no contest,” the paper wrote. The editorial board further said of Trump: “Trump’s values are hostile to conservatism. He plays on fear — exploiting base instincts of xenophobia, racism and misogyny — to bring out the worst in all of us, rather than the best.”

Other conservative newspapers like the Cincinnati Enquirer, Arizona Republic and the San Diego Union-Tribune  put aside partisanship to denounce Trump, with the Enquirer declaring: “Trump is a clear and present danger to our country.”