Sept. 7, 014

Sept. 7, 2014

“I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.” Fannie Lou Hamer, legendary civil rights activist and co-founder of the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

The funeral is over. The protests have died down. The lax and listless wheels of justice in Ferguson, Missouri are beginning to turn. Last week a St. Louis County grand jury convened to consider whether to bring charges against Officer Darren Wilson for the August 9 shooting death of 18-year-old, unarmed Michael Brown. As I have said before, I have never witnessed a situation more poorly handled than this one. While we are pleased that the grand jury has begun its work, questions of fairness in the St. Louis County criminal justice system and in the culture of policing in Ferguson continue to demand answers.

The latest slap in the face to the Ferguson community occurred last week when Missouri State Senator, Jamilah Nasheed, after initially being threatened with arrest, was finally able to deliver a petition with 70,000 signatures to the office of St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch. The petition calls for McCulloch to recuse himself from the Michael Brown case because of his close ties to the police and previous questions of impartiality. McCulloch’s father, brother, uncle and a cousin were all police officers. In addition, in 2000, McCulloch refused to prosecute two white police officers for the shooting deaths of two unarmed Black men who it was later determined were not advancing towards the officers. Some wonder if McCulloch’s decision to release the video of a convenience store altercation involving Michael Brown was a blatant attempt to taint a potential jury pool. As of this writing, the prosecutor has failed to arrest or charge Officer Wilson who remains on paid administrative leave. McCulloch has vowed to stay on the case unless Governor Nixon orders him to recuse himself. Established legal procedures and the concerns of the Ferguson community continue to be ignored.

The heavy-handed, militaristic tactics employed by Ferguson and St. Louis County police in response to citizen protests following the killing of Michael Brown are also a powerful wake-up call. While there were isolated aggressive acts by a few rogue protesters, the majority of protests and protesters were peaceful. Yet, the use of tear gas, stun grenades and armored vehicles was reminiscent of ugly police confrontations with citizens during peaceful voting rights demonstrations in the south during the 1960s. It is unthinkable that we find those tactics acceptable today. That is why last week the National Urban League joined a coalition of more than a dozen national civil rights organizations in issuing “A Unified Statement to Promote Reform and Stop Police Abuse.” Our statement proposes a number of police reforms in Ferguson and elsewhere that are designed to ensure a greater reliance on community policing and that police departments are more reflective of the racial, ethnic and gender diversity of the communities they serve. These reforms include:

• An independent and comprehensive federal investigation by the Department of Justice of the fatal shooting of Michael Brown
• A comprehensive federal review and reporting of excessive use of force generally against youth and people of color and the development of national use of force standards
• The universal use of dash cameras in police vehicles and police officer body-worn cameras
• Concrete steps to ensure that federal military weapons do not end up in the hands of local law enforcement

Make no mistake about it – in the wake of the killing of Michael Brown, the criminal justice system in America is on trial. Despite the tremendous civil rights progress we have made over the past 50 years, we will never truly “overcome” until we honestly acknowledge and address the insidious vestiges of racial segregation and dehumanization that remain in this country, and unfortunately, in law enforcement.

To view the entire list of proposed police reforms, visit http://nul.iamempowered.com/content/unified-statement-action-promote-ref...

Marc Morial is President/CEO of the National Urban League.

Sept. 7, 2014

Islamists Gain Ground in Nigeria's Embattled Northeast

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from Global Information Network

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – Following fierce fighting with government forces, the insurgent Boko Haram captured new ground in Borno state – sending thousands of civilians into exile, along with soldiers, residents said.

“Just when you imagine that it cannot get worse for the Nigerian military and its pride as a fighting force, it takes a further dive”, observed Mannir Dan Ali, editor of the Nigerian paper Daily Trust.

“If confirmed, the capture of Bama, second largest town in Borno, would be an extremely significant development and would raise concerns that Boko Haram's next target will be Maiduguri, the state capital and home of a military base about 45 miles away, said BBC Hausa service editor Mansur Liman from the capital, Abuja.

The soldiers and residents fled on foot, many of them walking all the way to Maiduguri, residents told the BBC. Several troops were also reportedly killed by friendly fire in an attack by a fighter jet targeting insurgents.

Writing just before the latest attack, an essay appeared asking provocatively if the government of Nigeria wasn’t a greater threat to its people than Boko Haram.

Insurgent groups “observe the political and social corruption that exists in Nigeria, the ineffectiveness of the Nigerian government, and they use these sentiments to their advantage,” wrote Udoka Okafor, a student at McCallister College in Canada..

“They appeal to people's anger, especially that of youths and people drenched in poverty to form a base for their group. Religion is the ideology that fuels their insurgency movement, but illiteracy, and their frustrations regarding political corruption in Nigeria are the root issues that unite their base.

Okafor insisted she was not justifying the actions of the insurgent group… “We can argue all day about how horridly horrific Boko Haram is, and few people would disagree …. But the Nigerian government, in my opinion, remains a worse ill and a far greater threat to the Nigerian people, than any insurgency group.”

“(Their) policies encourage illiteracy, do not address poverty, and completely ignore, if not create and propagate, the social ills of this country.”

The northern state of Borno, bordering Chad and Niger, was the state where the militants captured more than 200 girls from a boarding school in the town of Chibok, in April.

China, France, the UK and US sent military assistance to help find the girls but they have not yet been rescued.

Sept. 7, 2014

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I am haunted by the words spoken by Lesley McSpadden immediately following the shooting death of her son, Michael Brown, at the hands of Ferguson, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson almost three weeks ago. She said, “Do you know how hard it was for me to get him to stay in school and graduate? You know how many Black men graduate? Not many. Because you bring them down to this type of level, where they feel like they don’t got nothing to live for anyway.” Lesley McSpadden’s words reflect more than her own deep anguish. They have been echoed by many of Ferguson’s citizens and civic leaders who have rallied for justice since Brown’s killing. They also expose the pervasive problems of joblessness and hopelessness fueling so much of the anger and tension in communities of color across America.

Michael Brown’s death was the spark that ignited a long-smoldering fire in Ferguson; and while the immediate goal of the National Urban League and our affiliate network is the arrest and indictment of Officer Darren Wilson, this column represents the first in a three-part series that aims to examine some of the root causes and identify solutions that must be implemented to avoid more crises like Ferguson in the future.

Let’s begin with the lack of jobs and the epidemic of unemployment in Ferguson, a city that is 67% Black. The National Urban League’s 2014 State of Black America report found that the St. Louis metro area, which includes Ferguson, had a Black unemployment rate of 19.6% and a white unemployment rate of 6.9% – resulting in an unemployment Equality Index of 35.2% on a 100-point scale. This level of economic inequality reflects a glaring disparity of opportunity and has created a chasm of misunderstanding and distrust that is behind much of the violence that has erupted between police and citizens.

Four years out of the recession, America’s private sector is expanding, but too many people have been left behind. In fact, many communities like Ferguson are worse off. According to a recent Brookings study, “Between 2000 and 2010-2012, Ferguson’s poor population doubled.”

The National Urban League has long been leading the charge for targeted federal and state action to bring jobs and opportunity to hard-pressed communities across the nation. Our Jobs Rebuild America campaign is a $100 million, five-year effort to engage federal government, business, and nonprofit resources to create economic opportunity in 50 communities across the country through the Urban League affiliate network with a special emphasis on vulnerable youth.

In response to the crisis in Ferguson, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders last week sent a letter to his Senate colleagues calling for both a thorough federal investigation of the shooting death of Michael Brown and targeted legislation to bring jobs to Ferguson and similar struggling cities. Sanders points out, “There is an economic crisis facing our nation’s youth, particularly young African-Americans. Nationwide, the youth unemployment rate today is more than 20 percent and African-American youth unemployment is nearly 35 percent. The legislation would provide $5.5 billion in immediate funding to states and localities to employ 1 million young Americans between the ages of 16 and 24.”

At Michael Brown’s funeral service on Monday, Rev. Al Sharpton called the nation and our community to task: “We can’t have a fit, we’ve got to have a movement. We’ve got to be here for the long haul and turn our chants into change, our demonstration into legislation.”

One of the big lessons of Ferguson is the importance of investing in jobs, education and other tools to combat poverty in our communities instead of militaristic weapons for use against our communities. We hope that Washington and America are listening – and preparing to act.

Marc Morial is President/CEO of the National Urban League.

Sept. 7, 2014

Domestic Violence
By Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq.

“If I put my hands on you in a threatening way get up. Get out. Don’t stay. While there is a reason for my behavior, the reason is not in your favor. Indeed, the reason I threaten you really doesn’t matter. Someone who batters is someone who batters.”

(TriceEdneyWire.com) -Those words are the opening lines of the poem, “Hands-on Experience”, by CeLillianne Green, a law schoolmate. Her poem addresses domestic violence in the most direct and simple-to-understand terms. While many behavioral studies have been done and analyses made regarding factors that motivate this violence, it’s still a pervasive problem for our society.

A catalog of many specific events could be presented to illustrate why abusers become abusers, but one common element is the fact that most have been subjected to abuse or have been socialized in an environment where domestic abuse is the norm. Through some perverted logic, abusers begin to convince themselves that physical or psychological abuse is an expression of concern or love. Those who see clearly understand it to be the exercise of brutish control and exploitive maltreatment.

Too often, when presented with the evidence of domestic violence, observers engage in the age-old custom of "blaming the victim." Most commonly, they wonder what the victim did to cause the abuser to react. They question the sanity of someone who would remain in a relationship that causes both physical and emotional pain. They begin to construe the facts in a way that minimizes the actions of the abuser and places the onus of responsibility on the abused. The comment, "If they really wanted out, they could walk" or similar words are used to define the situation of the abused.

Although incidents of domestic violence in which men are the victims are on the rise, a thoughtful examination of the facts still shows that domestic violence is primarily one of male directed abuse towards females. Whether the foundation for this abusive has its origins in the thousands of years of the subordination of women or as a reaction to the endeavors of women to achieve their full potential and self-actualization, a permissive excusal of the actions of the abusers has been institutionalized.

It’s time to place the onus for abuse squarely at the feet of those responsible. A first step in this process is in re-framing the issue of domestic violence. It’s not just a problem between two people. It’s a problem that impacts a community and affects the lives of countless others - most commonly children. It’s a problem, if not resolved in its beginning, will become the foundation for a geometric increase in like events.

We must shift our thinking as to how we treat victims. It’s typical for the victim to be sequestered in a "safe house/shelter" where the victim can’t make contact. While too often necessary for the safety and welfare of the victim, this places the lives of victims in turmoil-- while the abuser remains a threat to the victim or is free to move on to the next victim.

As we re-frame how we treat victims, we must do the same for abusers. Domestic abuse should not be tolerated. When the NFL added a lifetime ban from the game for a second domestic abuse offense, we heard a chorus of "that punishment is too severe." On the contrary, the consequences of domestic abuse should be as serious as the act itself. We cannot remain a civilized society if we turn an eye of indifference to such heinous acts.

I will close with the final lines of CeLillianne's poem speaking for me: “I’ve said it before and I must say it again. If I put my hands on you in a threatening way. Your life is in danger. Get out. Don’t stay.”

(Dr. Williams is President/CEO of the National Congress of Black Women, Inc. www.nationalcongressbw.org)