Mandela Prizewinner from Namibia Still Practices Bringing Sight to the Blind

August 9, 2015

Mandela Prizewinner from Namibia Still Practices Bringing Sight to the Blind

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Dr. Helena Ndume

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from Global Information Network

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – There was pure emotion in the face of Dr. Helena Ndume, more used to bringing sight to the blind than wiping away tears of her own.

According to friends, she was caught off guard by the rousing welcome awaiting her this past week at the Hosea Kutako International Airport after picking up the first U.N. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela Prize in New York.

This is not a Helena Ndume award. It belongs to Namibia,” she said as more tears welled up in her eyes. “We should not leave our people and leave them to be blind. It is not their fault that they are blind. I cannot lock myself in my practice when the nation needs me.”

According to the nonprofit SEE International based in Santa Barbara, California, Ndume has performed 30,000 pro bono surgeries for sufferers of eye-related illnesses in Namibia. The blind patients are filled with intra-ocular lens implants free of charge.

She was also vice chairperson of the Namibia Red Cross Society.

This summer she will collaborate with SEE in three programs in Namibia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The organization expects 700 patients to regain their eyesight during the three-week course of the tour.

Ndume left Namibia for exile at age 15. She lived in Zambia, and Gambia where she completed secondary school, and Angola, before going to Germany to study medicine.

Growing up, she wanted to be a fashion designer. On her not-pursued fashion dream, she said.

“Yes, I wanted to be a fashion designer but the Swapo secretary of education in our refugee camp (former Prime Minister Nahas Angula) said 'No way! We do not need fashion designers in an independent Namibia. To come make clothes for who? We need doctors and I want you to be a doctor',” she said.

She is currently the head of the Ophthalmology department at Windhoek Central Hospital, Namibia’s largest hospital, and is one of only six Namibian ophthalmologists.

During an interview she had with The Namibian last month, Ndume encouraged young girls to learn how to be independent.

“You need to be independent as a woman. Instead of depending on a man and then he uses you and you end up being treated like toilet paper, you need to work for yourself.” w/pix of H. Ndume

Louisiana Sentences More Juveniles to ‘Life in Prison’ Than Any Other State in U.S. By Mason Harrison

Aug. 9, 2015

Louisiana Sentences More Juveniles to ‘Life in Prison’ Than Any Other State in U.S. - Hearing Aug. 26
By Mason Harrison

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Louisiana Weekly

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Louisiana incarcerates more of its natives than any state in the country—that fact is known. But what many on the outskirts of the criminal justice system may not know is how the state handles juvenile offenders. “No state is a worse offender than Louisiana,” said Josh Perry, executive director of the Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights, referring to the number of juveniles sentenced to life in prison in the state. Louisiana sends more juveniles to spend the rest of their lives jailed than any state in America.

Criminal justice reform advocates met July 27 at the Zeitgeist Arts Center in Central City to screen “15 to Life: Kenneth’s Story,” a documentary on the life of Kenneth Young, a now 26-year-old man sentenced to four consecutive life sentences in Florida for armed robbery at the age of 14 more than a decade ago. In the film, Young said at the time of his crimes he couldn’t grasp the magnitude of the situation he was facing. “It hadn’t resonated with me. I kept saying, ‘This can’t be true. I ain’t dying in prison.’”

Young’s lack of understanding about the consequences of major crimes is echoed in national research, said District A councilmember, Susan Guidry. Guidry chairs the City Council’s criminal justice committee and described herself at the event as “someone who gets to beat my head against the wall on a daily basis” over how to reform the city’s system of incarceration. Guidry and Perry participated in a panel discussion after the film, both urging audience members to press elected officials and criminal justice leaders to do away with the practice of incarcerating youth in one of the country’s most violent prisons.

Perry said juveniles held in OPP as they await trial are at greater risk for rape and other forms of victimization. Young alluded to the harsh conditions of prison life for young inmates in the documentary. “In all the years I have been incarcerated, I have been in some of the worse prisons in the state of Florida.” Florida holds the bulk of juveniles sentenced to life even after the U.S. Supreme Court barred states from locking away minors for the rest of their lives for offenses short of murder. “Of the 128 juveniles eligible for release,” Perry said, “77 are in the state of Florida. They just haven’t moved on their cases.”

But in Louisiana, the state has no plans to explore juvenile release, according to Perry, because officials do not believe the 2010 high court ruling should be applied retroactively. “The Supreme Court has decided that kids are different,” Perry said. “We are working to change what’s happening in Louisiana through the courts.” Perry said condemning juveniles to life sentences ignores the ability of their young minds to mature. “If someone steals something, it doesn’t make that person a thief. If someone lies, it doesn’t make them a liar. If someone murders, it doesn’t make them a murderer.” One expert featured in the documentary rhetorically asked, “Are we punishing crimes or are we punishing people?”

Young was convicted in the early 2000s after a string of armed robberies he and an adult accomplice committed at small hotels in Tampa. Seventy percent of children serving life sentences committed their crimes with an adult, according to crime statistics presented in the documentary. But a Florida judge in 2011 was not convinced that Young was influenced by his older accomplice to the extent that his sentence should be reduced, but, given the high court ruling, the judge sentenced Young to serve four concurrent 30-year prison terms, ending his life sentence and making him eligible for release in 2030.

A criminal justice committee budget hearing on youth incarceration is scheduled for August 26.

Sol-U-tions by James Clingman

August 9, 2015

Blackonomics
Sol-U-tions
By James Clingman

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(TriceEdneyWire.com) - With as much meaningless and non-redeeming information being discussed on radio and TV among Black folks, I often wonder if we even want to hear solutions to our problems, much less do anything to help solve them. It seems we want to spend most of our time posing silly questions and discussing issues that lead to yet another problem. It is apparent, and obvious in some circles, that many Black folks simply want mindless, no-reason-to-think, and no-reason-to work topics of discussion in their public and personal discourse. These brothers and sisters should take a new look at the word, “Solutions.”

The most important letter in that word is the “U.” It is amazing how many of our people love to talk about our problems and, not as often, the solutions to those problems and never raise a hand or spend a dollar to solve the problems about which they speak. All the rhetoric in the world will not solve our problems. We must be willing to work on the solutions.

There is a role for each one who wants to work on solutions, however, too many of us sit back and say what needs to be done without coming to the realization that the “U” in solutions means “You.” The word, “solutions” is speaking directly to you; it is asking what are “U” willing to do to effect appropriate change for Black people?

We often hear brothers and sisters say what “we need” to do, but many of them aren’t doing one thing to help achieve what they say “we need” to do. If we would simply charge ourselves, as well as to others, to get to work, the “U” in solutions would take on a more personal aura. Standing on the sidelines and pointing out what Black folks need to do, without bringing your resources to the table, increases the load on those doing the work.

The 20/80 Rule says 20% of the people in a group do 80% of the work. We do not have the luxury to comply with that rule within our movements and organizations. Our issues require an “all hands on deck” approach. There is something each of us can do, but the first step is to look at the “U” in the solutions we propose.

I used to teach in my business planning class that ideas are a dime a dozen; everyone’s idea is the best thing to come along but, unfortunately, those ideas go to the graveyard with the person because he or she never moves to the action required to bring the idea to fruition. Economic freedom takes work and it takes sacrifice, as Bev Smith said on her show one evening as she interviewed a young rising star named Marcus Jackson, from Philadelphia.

Jackson heads the State of Pennsylvania contingent of the One Million Conscious Black Voters and Contributors (OMCBV&C), and he spoke eloquently, coherently, and practically about the need for Black folks to consider their individual contribution to our quest for political and economic empowerment. Bev Smith was obviously taken by the young man as she offered her response by first agreeing with Jackson’s contentions and then by telling her audience that his is the example they should emulate. She said, yes, it’s hard work, it does require sacrifice even to the extent of not getting paid for your time, but if we are ever going to end up where we say we need to be in this nation, those sacrifices must be made—on an individual basis on behalf of the collective. Right on, Bev Smith!

Marcus Jackson, 31 years of age, and others in his age group within the OMCBV&C, are leading the way to true empowerment, uncompromising in their political and economic positions, and willing to go that extra mile and spend that extra dollar toward that end. They proudly declare “I am one of the million!” and they understand the work they must do and the sacrifices they must make for our people, just as 32 year-old David Walker, 36 year-old Malcolm X, 33 year-old MLK, and 30 year-old Marcus Garvey did, as he set out for the U.S. to meet with Booker T. Washington and take up the economic empowerment mantle.

The “U” in the solutions most of us speak about is the key to our advancement, to achieving our goals, and empowering ourselves. It all begins with “U.” The OMCBV&C, with members in 31 states, is the key organizational movement that is doing the work necessary to move us beyond the problems and closer to impactful life-changing solutions. It’s not yet at the one million mark, so there is still room for “U.”

Go to www.iamoneofthemillion.com and read the information; if “U” find something “U” like, sign up and add your “U” to the solutions to our problems.

Amend Constitution to Add a Right to Vote By Jesse Jackson Sr.

August 4, 2015

Amend Constitution to Add a Right to Vote
By Jesse Jackson Sr.

(TriceEdneyWire.com - On August 6, the Voting Rights Act, keystone of the civil rights movement, will mark its 50th anniversary. This was an act, passed in the wake of the “Bloody Sunday” demonstrations in Selma, designed to correct, as President Lyndon Johnson stated at the time, “a clear and simple wrong.”

“Millions of Americans are denied the right to vote because of their color,” he said. “This law will ensure them the right to vote.”

But now, 50 years later, it is not time to celebrate that achievement; it is time to demonstrate against the concerted campaign to undermine it.

In 2006, after extensive hearings, the Senate reauthorized the temporary parts of Voting Rights Act unanimously. It passed the House with only 33 votes against it. President George W. Bush reaffirmed his commitment to enforce it. But the campaign to reverse or undermine the voting rights of people of color never ends.

After the Civil War, the 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870, guaranteed former slaves the right to vote and gave Congress the power to enforce that right on the states. Blacks voted in large numbers. Black candidates were elected to state legislatures and even to Congress. The white response was brutal. The Ku Klux Klan terrorized blacks trying to vote. Southern Democrats took back statehouses and city councils and passed a range of measures to lock blacks out of voting: poll taxes, literacy tests, double primaries and at-large districts.

In 1965, the Voting Rights Act changed this. Black voter registration surged across the South. Under Section 4, the states that had a history of voter discrimination were put under special Section 5 scrutiny, with the Justice Department requiring pre-clearance of any laws affecting voting.

Yet, as Jim Rutenberg summarizes in “Overcome: A Dream Undone” in the New York Times Magazine, the campaign to undermine the act began before the ink was dry on its signing. Republicans launched their Southern Strategy, making themselves the party of white sanctuary. Then, to win elections, they set out to find ways to weaken the Voting Rights Act and constrict the right to vote.

The five person right-wing majority on the Supreme Court led the way. In Shelby County, Ala v. Holder, Chief Justice John Roberts gutted the preclearance provisions of the Voting Rights Act, arguing — despite detailed congressional findings to the contrary — that discrimination in voting was no longer a problem.

That opened the floodgates. Republican-dominated state legislatures across the country immediately passed laws to constrict the right to vote. They demanded official ID that African-Americans lacked disproportionately, cut days for early voting, reduced voting on Sundays, ended same-day registration, invalidated students IDs for voting and more. They gerrymandered districts, revived at-large elections and other means to reduce the voting power of people of color. It is simply obscene that Republicans have devoted themselves to creating obstacles to voting to help them win elections.

The right to vote protects all other rights in a democracy. Yet the Constitution does not explicitly guarantee an individual right to vote to all Americans. The 15th, 19th and 26th Amendments only outlaw discrimination in voting on the basis of race, sex and age. All other aspects of voting are generally left to the states and localities. While the 1965 Voting Rights Act was rightfully hailed as the most important law of the 20th century, the fundamental right to vote for all Americans is still an unfinished task.

Selma moved us forward, but Shelby has pushed us back. We’ve gone from protecting the right to vote to suppressing it. It took a grassroots voting rights movement to gain a Voting Rights Act. It will again take a grassroots voting rights movement to add a right to vote amendment to the U.S. Constitution on the road to a more complete democracy.

The Killing of Black Women By Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq.

August 9, 2015

The Killing of Black Women
By Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq.

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(TriceEdneyWire.com) —The killing of Black men has occupied a lot of airtime—especially since the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Walter Scott, Tamir Rice, Kendrick Johnson, Samuel DuBose, Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis in—and the list goes on. Their cases deserved a lot of attention; however, little notice has been given to the dramatic increase in the killing of Black women. In some of the cases, it might be said that police nor guns killed them—but I submit that all have died from a system that does not value Black women’s lives.

At least five Black women have died in jail in the past few weeks. That’s serious because Black women as a rule do not kill themselves. Too many have died needlessly in a very short time. Some died from civilian attackers. Some died at the hands of police. Add to that those who have lost sons, nephews, spouses, etc. and you’ve got a heavier burden on Black women than any other women in this country have.

I don’t have to think hard about unwarranted recent deaths of Black women. If you are a Black woman, you can rattle off the names with no problem. Just in the past month, we’ve lost at least five Black women held behind bars.

Sandra Bland may be the best known one. She was found dead in a Texas, jail cell July 13, after being pulled over for an alleged minor traffic violation. The policeman who stopped her agitated Sandra by yelling at her, threatening her with a laser, pulling her out of the car, taking her outside the range of the camera, brutalizing her, then accused her of being the aggressor. Once in jail, she was left unattended for longer than jail policy allows. Once she was mysteriously dead, her captors began making up all kind of wild stories when there was no one around to give her side of the story of how she died and why.

Kendra Chapman was found dead in her Alabama holding cell July 14, hours after being arrested for allegedly stealing a cell phone.

Joyce Cornell was found dead in a South Carolina, detention center July 22, one day after being arrested over an outstanding bench warrant.

Ralkina Jones was found dead in an Ohio jail cell July 26 after being arrested for charges related to a domestic dispute with her ex-husband.

Ralkina Jones was found dead in an Ohio jail cell July 26, after being arrested for charges related to a domestic dispute with her ex-husband.

Raynetta Turner was found dead in a New York jail cell July 27 after being arrested.

There are more who were killed by police officers outside of jail. Aiyana Jones, a young 7 year old was killed by a Detroit police officer as she slept on her father’s couch. Rekia Boyd was killed in Chicago by a police officer. Yvette Smith was unarmed when she was killed by a police officer in Texas. Tarika Wilson, whose one-year-old son was also injured when she was killed by an Ohio police officer. Tyisha Miller was killed by a police officer in Los Angeles. Kathryn Johnson was killed by a police officer in Atlanta. Gabriella Nevarez was killed by a Sacramento police officer. Eleanor Bumpurs was killed by a police officer in the Bronx. Most of these names we’ve never heard on the evening news. We heard more about the shooting of Cecil, the lion.

Without judging the guilt or innocence of these women, they had a right to live and defend themselves. Not one of them should have died and the death of neither one should silence them. We have an obligation to speak and to seek justice for them.

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