January 10, 2016

Reality Check

Brother Malcolm and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the Absolute Necessity of Black Unity
By A. Peter Bailey

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Last year, in 2015, we, as Black folks, paid a heavy price for our resolute refusal to organize a national unity movement to promote and defend our economic, cultural, political and educational interest in what is basically a white supremacist/racist society.

The flagrant shooting and killing of unarmed Black folks—including children—throughout the country, the increasing of overt White supremacist/racist incidents on various White colleges and university campuses, the public questioning of the intelligence of Black students by Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia, the general lack of any discussion about race relations in the presidential debates, low income Black males killing each other at an alarming rate, and the mass incarceration and racial profiling of Black folks are just some of the consequences of our refusal to create a unity movement as advocated by Brother Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

In a 1963 letter to nine civil rights leaders, Brother Malcolm stated, “If Capitalistic Kennedy and Communistic Khrushev can find common ground on which to form a united front despite their tremendous ideological differences, it is a disgrace for Negro leaders not to be able to submerge our ‘minor’ differences in order to seek a common solution to a common problem posed by a common enemy.”

In another 1964 statement announcing the launching of his new organization, The Organization of Afro-American Unity, Brother Malcolm noted its purpose “to unite Afro-Americans and their organizations around a non-religious and non-sectarian constructive program for human rights.”

Dr. King, in his last, must-read book - Where do we go from here: Chaos or Community? - was equally clear about the absolute necessity for unity. Dr. King wrote:

“The Pharaohs had a favorite and effective strategy to keep their slaves in bondage: keep them fighting among themselves. The divide-and-conquer technique has been a potent weapon in the arsenal of oppression. But when slaves unite, the Red Seas of history open and the Egypts of slavery crumble.

“This plea for unity is not a call for uniformity. There must always be health debate. There will be inevitable differences of opinion. The dilemma that the Negro confronts is so complex and monumental that its solution will of necessity involve a diversified approach. But Negroes can differ and still unite around common goals.

“There are already structured forces in the Negro community that can serve as the basis for building a powerful united front—the Negro church, the Negro press, the Negro fraternities and sororities, and Negro professional associations. We must admit that these forces have never given their full resources to the cause of Negro liberation.

“There are still too many Negro churches that are so absorbed in a future good ‘over yonder’ that they condition their members to adjust to the present evils ‘over here.’ Too many Negro newspapers have veered away from their traditional role as protest organs agitating for social change, and have turned to the sensational and the conservative in place of the substantive and the militant.

“Too many Negro social and professional groups have degenerated into snobbishness and a preoccupation with frivolities and trivial activity. But the failures of the past must not be an excuse for the inaction of the present and the future. These groups must be mobilized and motivated. This form of group unity can do infinitely more to liberate the Negro than any action of individuals. We have been oppressed as a group and we must overcome that oppression as a group.

“Through this form of group unity, we can begin a constructive program which will vigorously seek to improve our personal standards. …”

If we refuse to develop the kind of unity advocated by these two warriors, 2016 will be as unproductive and deadly as 2015.

A. Peter Bailey, whose latest book is Witnessing Brother Malcolm X, the Master Teacher, can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Jan. 10, 2016

Who Deserves a Second Chance?
By Julianne Malveaux

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Florida senator and Presidential candidate Marco Rubio can’t get a break.  He is being slammed for missing Senate floor votes, scorned for poor poll showings (and weak campaign organizations) in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, and mocked for his tendency to flip-flop on issues.  In November, Mother Jones magazine reported that conservative activist Clyde Fabretti, is one of the Rubio campaign “representatives” in Orlando, Florida.  Fabretti happens to be a convicted white collar criminal with a history of financial chicanery and perhaps voter fraud.  And a December 30 article in the Washington Post revealed that Rubio helped his brother in law, Orlando Cicilia, get a real estate license although such licenses were not routinely granted to felons.

Rubio cut corners in urging state regulators to give Cicilia a break.  His recommendation for Cilicia, was unlikely to be turned down because he was majority whip of the Florida House of Representatives at the time. But his strong recommendation failed to note that he was supporting a family member who served more than a decade for trafficking cocaine.  Thus, Cicilia got a break that thousands of felons don’t have access to.

Rubio’s intervention for his brother-in-law, who has apparently done well with real estate since he got his license in 2002, is an intervention that other felons might benefit from.  This is especially relevant in a state like Florida where, in 2010, more than 12 percent of the adult population, and 35 percent of the African American population has been convicted of a felony.  These felons cannot vote, and are frequently excluded from participation in occupations that require licensures.

Subuk Hasnain, writing for the Chicago Reporter a year ago, listed about 100 occupations that exclude felon participation.  These include movers, sign language interpreters, dieticians, architects, roofers, and barbers.  It is not clear why felon status would prevent someone who is properly trained, from participating in some of these occupations.  Instead it is a way to marginalize felons and block them from the second chance they are entitled to.  Having “done the time” for crimes they have committed, laws that prevent their full occupational participation suggests that they are required to pay more than time served.

Recent attention to the criminal justice system will, perhaps, motivate a review of the many ways felons are burdened, especially in the job markets.  The National Employment Law Project (NELP) is one of the organizations that advocate a fair chance for returning felons through “ban the box” legislation that prevents employers from asking questions about criminal record on employment applications.    (http://www.nelp.org/publication/the-fair-chance-ban-the-box-toolkit).  According to NELP, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has endorsed removing the conviction question on job applications, and the Obama Administration’s My Brother’s Keep Task Force has urged hiring practices that give applicants a fair chance at employment.  Nineteen states have outlawed questions about criminal records on job applications in the private sector.  Not surprisingly, Florida is not one of these states.

If Senator Marco Rubio bothered to attend Senate sessions, he might advocate for the reform that is needed to ensure than other felons have the same opportunity that his brother-in-law had when he urged Florida’s Division of Real Estate to give him a real estate license (felons in Florida are considered on a “case-by-case” basis for a license and must provide character references; a reference from a powerful politician couldn’t hurt an applicant).  If he believed in second chances, he might incorporate issues of criminal justice reform into his campaign rhetoric.  Instead of defensively dodging questions about favoritism for his relative, he might use the Washington Post “expose” to suggest that others deserve the same kind of break as Cicilia.  Rubio clearly believes in second chances when he chooses to use a convicted felon, Clyde Fabretti, as a campaign representative.  What about the tens of thousands in Florida who won’t offer them a similar opportunity?

If Senator Rubio won’t use the Washington Post article to illustrate his commitment to second chances, perhaps advocates like NELP can use the Cicilia  and Fabretti cases to advance their very important work.  And perhaps our civil rights organizations can continue to work to “ban the box” on job applications.  With employment, ex-offenders are far more likely to be productively engaged in their communities.  Without employment, their continued marginalization can have no positive consequences.

Julianne Malveaux is an author and economist based in Washington, DC. Her latest book “Are We Better Off? Race, Obama and Public Policy” will be released in 2016 and is available for preorder at www.juliannemalveaux.com

Jan. 10, 2016

To Be Equal 

Natalie Cole: Still Unforgettable
By Marc H. Morial

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - “Natalie fought a fierce, courageous battle, dying how she lived... with dignity, strength and honor. Our beloved Mother and sister will be greatly missed and remain UNFORGETTABLE in our hearts forever.” – Robert Yancy, Timolin Cole & Casey Cole, January 2016

Natalie Cole was an accomplished product of her deep-rooted musical heritage. A chart topping R&B crooner in the 70s, Cole went on to even greater popularity and accolade with her smooth transition to jazz and pop music standards—successfully reinterpreting American classics and singing the tunes that once made her father an international recording star.

Cole’s budding music career began at the tender age of six, singing on a Christmas album with her father Nat “King” Cole. Born in 1950, Cole grew up surrounded by music and music royalty. Her father was already a rising music star and renowned jazz pianist. Her mother, Maria Cole, was a one-time performer with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Cole once said that her father—who died of lung cancer in 1965 when Cole was 15-years-old—had been everything to her, and that was more than evident in the turn her ever-evolving career would take; reuniting her voice with her father’s through the miracle of technology.

Cole got her start in the music industry as an R&B singer. Her singing style was a marked departure from her father’s style. Where Nat was cool and refined, Natalie was warmer and soulful. The American music buying public went on to embrace Natalie Cole’s new sound and solo career. Ten years after the death of her famous father, and a brief detour from music that earned her a bachelor’s degree in child psychology, Cole went on to win two of her nine career Grammys. She earned one for Best New Artist of 1975 and the other for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for her up-beat, chart topper “This Will Be (An Everlasting Love).” Her career soared with four gold and two platinum records. Her first platinum album, “Unpredictable,” spawned another R&B hit and slow jam standard “I’ve Got Love on my Mind.” Her fourth album “Thankful,” which also went platinum, gave us the gift of another signature hit “Our Love.”

Despite her musical legacy and birthright, despite her own undeniable, autonomous claim to success, Cole suffered setbacks and faced demons that threatened to dismantle everything her beautiful voice had built.

Cole’s star dimmed in the 80s, much of it due to alcohol abuse and cocaine addiction. At the height of her troubles, her mother filed a petition for conservatorship to handle Cole’s affairs when she no longer could. After spending time in rehab, her career came back to life in the late 80s with a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Pink Cadillac” and the soaring ballad “I Live for Your Love.” It was in 1991 that Cole would go on to achieve her greatest success with an album that was as much a nod to the past as it was an acknowledgement of the future of music and its capacity. Cole reunited with her father’s voice and paid tribute to him with new arrangements of songs once made famous by Nat “King” Cole on the album “Unforgettable…With Love.” The album, complete with a technologically assisted father-daughter duet of “Unforgettable” 25 years after his death, earned Cole six Grammys, including Song of the Year, Record of the Year and Album of the Year, and the album sold 14 million copies worldwide.

In 2008, Cole announced that she had been diagnosed with hepatitis C, a liver disease spread through blood, which she blamed on her past intravenous drug use. Her growing health concerns never stopped Cole from working and creating that beautiful music that attracted so many fans.

But Cole was more than her voice and her many accomplishments in music, film and entertainment. In an interview with People Magazine, Cole is said to have described herself as “a walking testimony [that] you can have scars…you can go through turbulent times and still have victory in your life.” Natalie Cole was a fighter, a model for redemption and legacy in her own right, whose influence and signature on America’s cultural landscape will remain unforgettable.

Jan. 10, 2016

Can't They Count Beyond 2?

By Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - In the last 10 years, we have had tragedies resulting in more than 100,000 Americans dying as a result of gun violence.  Some in Congress have such little regard for life that they have chosen not to act to stop this violence.  They sit back and criticize and act as though the NRA is God.  The murder of college and high school students didn’t move them. All the babies killed at Sandy Hook didn’t merit a thought about how to prevent such violence.  Many of us have pulled for President Obama to take executive action as a start for making a difference. 

Listening to Senator Ted Cruz and others argue about the process - which isn’t the real reason they oppose what President Obama is doing-- instead of working on laws that could make a difference, I thought about the insanity of doing nothing to fix a problem that so badly needs fixing, that you’d rather oppose anything President Obama does.

In the refusal of Congress to act on the issue, President Barack Obama did what a leader is expected to do. He issued a few sensible Executive Orders to clarify the terms under which Americans may exercise 2nd Amendment rights to own guns. He did nothing to stop the law abiding from owning guns. 

I am a survivor of gun violence, so I take allowing everybody –the stable and the unstable—the right to own guns.  Ask a woman whose spouse has used a gun to exercise control over her.  Ask a mother who has lost a child.  Ask a family member who has a disturbed family member in the home if they have a problem with the action the President just took.  I don’t think you will find any measure of disagreement that something must be done to stop the violence.

Have you ever noticed how these gun zealots can so aggressively define and fight for their Constitutional right to own guns--as many as they want and from whatever source they wish to come by them—without restrictions as simple as having a background check or registering a gun?  I don’t get it.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if these gun zealots could count past 2 (as in 2nd Amendment)!  They are selective in which Amendments and which laws they support. They never fight this furiously for the 13th, 14th, 15^th or 19th Amendments to the Constitution. One would think these gung-ho 2nd Amendment rights supporters would support all Amendments and laws of the land--such as Voting Rights, LGBT Rights, Women's Rights, etc.  Many draw the line when it comes to what improves the quality of life for millions of citizens who happen to be Black, Latino, Native American or people with disabilities, the poor and members of the LGBT communities. Perhaps I could be sympathetic to gun owners’ rights if they supported my rights as a Black person or as a woman, but with few exceptions, gun enthusiasts tend not to believe in the parts of the Constitution that most impact me.

It's a bit confusing when people like Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama wants everybody to have guns, but when asked if that includes visitors going into the US Capitol where he works, he draws a line.  "No, not in the Gallery," he says!  I guess his life is too precious to risk just anybody having a clear shot at him!

The only things President Obama said in his orders were: to require background checks for sellers and buyers, enforce laws, increase funding on mental health care, make background checks more effective and hire more ATF staff. No sensible person should disagree with that. What he said still allows any law abiding citizen to purchase guns.

(Dr. E. Faye Williams is National President of the National Congress of Black Women.  www.nationalcongressbw.org.  202/678-6788)