April 1, 2012

White House Releases Obama's Black Agenda
By Hazel Trice Edney

Michael Strautmanis tells audience of Black women: 'We have come too far to turn back now.' PHOTO: Roy Lewis/Trice Edney News Wire

More than 300 women and their proteges applauded message from White House aid Michael Strautmanis who also distributed "President's Agenda and the African American Community." PHOTO: Roy Lewis

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – Sending the message that President Obama is in a struggle to keep Black and women’s equality gains from slipping, White House Aids have given hundreds of Black women a document outlining his Black agenda.

“The President is committed to working with anybody of either party to create an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, does their fair share and plays by the same rules,” Michael Strautmanis, aid to presidential advisor Valerie Jarrett, told hundreds of women at a Women’s History Month luncheon sponsored by the Black Women’s Roundtable of the National Coalition for Black Civic Participation last month.

The Roundtable, headed by NCBCP President/CEO, Melanie Campbell, is viewed as being among the most powerful coalition of African-American women in the country, mainly because of the clout held by its membership. Campbell is a leading expert on African-American voter participation and community mobilization. Former Essence Editor-in-Chief Susan Taylor was keynote speaker at the event.

Strautmanis continued, “But, I want to make sure you understand we’ve made one thing clear. We have come too far to turn back now. He will oppose any attempt to take us back to the policies that got us into this mess in the first place. So that’s where we are. That’s the crossroads that we’re at.”

The backdrop for the approximately 10-minute speech was the distribution of a 44-page document titled “The President’s Agenda and the African American Community”.

The move clearly acknowledges criticism from Obama supporters and detractors who say he has done a poor job communicating to his dominate Black base what he has done for Black people.

“What’s at stake in this debate right now. This is not about a political party…It’s about the ordinary men and women who want to see their hard work and their responsibility pay off,” Strautmanis said. “It’s about the kids who deserve a country where everyone gets a shot. And it’s about the folks in this town who want to turn back the clock on the progress that we’ve made from the voting rights act to our social safety net to Pell grants to public education. That is not who we are as a country. We are not going backwards so I ask you to join me to together go write this next chapter in American history with Black women at the forefront.”

The November 2011 document, which can be viewed in its entirety at http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/af_am_report_final.pdf, covers everything policy issue from economics, to education to civil rights as they pertain to African-Americans.

Among the key bullet points:

• According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, due to measures President Obama fought for in the Recovery Act, 6.9 million Americans were kept above the poverty line, including 1.3 million African-Americans, and poverty was lessened for 32 million more in 2010 alone.
• Additionally, through this year’s budget battles the President pushed hard to preserve the programs of greatest importance to African American families – for example, by securing $17 billion for Pell Grants without undermining other critical investments like Head Start, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
• The President continued that fight with the December 2010 tax deal that maintained expansions of the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit, benefiting an estimated 2.2 million African- American families and almost half of all African American children, while extending unemployment insurance to benefit over a million Africa-Americans.
• With unemployment among African-Americans at an unacceptably high rate of 15.1 percent – and 1.25 million African-Americans out of work for more than six months – the President believes that inaction is not an option. That is why he proposed the American Jobs Act, and has traveled across the country to call on Congress to pass it.
• The Administration’s youth employment and job training programs are critical for the 708,000 unemployed African-Americans aged 16-24—involving them in their communities and maintaining their connection with the labor force. The Recovery Act funding provided over 367,000 youth with job opportunities in the summers of 2009 and 2010. These programs trained youth in key industry skills, and provided a much-needed paycheck.
• The Obama Administration is also strongly committed to helping people find work and acquire skills for jobs in 21st century high-growth industries. Investments in the Recovery Act enabled states to help millions of out of work Americans—including millions of African-Americans—seeking jobs or job training opportunities.
• Protect Civil Rights and Promote Criminal Justice. The President has signed major legislation like the Fair Sentencing Act and the Claims Resolution Act, and worked to expand and enforce hate crimes prosecutions, reduce unfairness in sentencing, and counter employment discrimination.

These are among the actions that have been taken by the Obama Administration expanding his three- year tenure thus far. What’s unusual is the compilation of them all in one document.

CBC Chairman Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) has consistently said that when the question is asked, the Obama Administration must be able to specify policy successes that directly impact Black communities, on which President Obama is dependent for his re-election bid.

“Because I am so committed to his re-election, when people raise that question – and it gets raised almost every day – I say, ‘Look the President’s doing his thing, we’re doing ours.’ I try not to get into the issue too deeply,” Cleaver said early last year. “I’m a supporter of the President. I told him to his face that I was going to do everything I could for his re-election but yeah, I would love to see it a little differently.”

Amidst what will likely be a close election with a Republican rival, the President’s Black agenda is now being placed front and center. Strautmanis concluded to thunderous applause from the audience of women and young protégés from across the country:

“No matter who you are or where you come from, you can make it if you try. … But for Black Americans and as women, our country has often failed to live up to that promise.”

He named Congresswomen Barbara Jordon Shirley Chisholm and “the legendary Dr. Dorothy Irene Height as those who have also led the way for equality for women and African-Americans – “ordinary women who have done extraordinary things Black women have always made that promise real.”

Reminding that the Lilly Ledbetter fair pay act for women was the first piece of legislation Obama signed into law, Strautmanis concluded, “We’ve been encouraged to see almost four million new jobs created over the past 24 months, manufacturing is back, the auto industry is back. We’re beginning to see what change looks like. But we’ve got a long way to go.”

March 27, 2012

George Zimmerman, Definitions Affect Analysis
By Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III

(TriceEdneyWire.com)- When explaining a situation or trying to understand an issue, how the circumstance is defined can play a major role in the approach that is taken. In the case of the tragic shooting of Trayvon Martin, most of the discussion has centered on George Zimmerman’s right to “stand his ground”. What about Travon’s right to move freely about the neighborhood and stand his ground when a threat is initiated by another person?

According to the Orlando Sentinel, Zimmerman told police, “With a single punch, Trayvon decked the Neighborhood Watch volunteer …, then Trayvon climbed on top of George Zimmerman and slammed his head into the sidewalk several times, leaving him bloody and battered, …” Zimmerman then shot the unarmed 17-year-old. This account has supposedly been corroborated by an unnamed witness who stated, “he saw Zimmerman on the ground with Trayvon on top, pounding him and was unequivocal that it was Zimmerman who was crying for help.” These accounts are supposed to support Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense and validate his shooting the unarmed teenager.

These facts are clear George Zimmerman, a failed "wanna' be police officer" initiated the entire encounter. Zimmerman pursued Trayvon Martin against the direction of police officials and against the stated policy in the neighborhood watch handbook. That's offensive not defensive behavior.

To accept Zimmerman’s version of events and relieve him of any culpability is to ignore Trayvon Martin’s right to walk from the 7-11 back to his place of residence unthreatened. To accept Zimmerman’s version ignores Trayvon Martin’s right to “stand his ground” and defend himself against the perceived threat of an older and larger man following him and questioning his right to be where he is.

What we don’t know is why after being followed by Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin, a 17 year old with no history of aggression would turn on and attack a larger adult when he was 70 feet away from the safety of his own back door. But, if we accept the premise that Zimmerman never should have approached Trayvon in the first place how we analyze the circumstances takes a different turn. If we accept the fact that despite directions from the police to not engage Trayvon, Zimmerman took it upon himself to attempt to exercise police authority and in doing so had his nose broken and head slammed into the sidewalk one can say Zimmerman “rolled up on” the wrong young man. It was Trayvon who was defending himself, standing his ground, and Zimmerman got the “beat-down” that was coming to him.

There’s a saying in the African-American vernacular, “don’t start nothin’; won’t be nothin’.” Basing his perceptions on stereotypes Zimmerman stopped the wrong young man and killed the wrong young man. He should not be allowed to get away with murder.

^{Dr. Wilmer Leon is a political scientist at Howard University and host of the nationally broadcast call in talk radio program “Inside the Issues with Wilmer Leon” on Sirius/XM channel 128.Go to www.wilmerleon.com or Dr. Leon’s Prescription @ Facebook.com or www.twitter.com/drwleon}

April 1, 2012

‘I Am Trayvon’

Slogan Reflects Worry for Kids in Community

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Richmond Free Press

Eight-year-old Tyvrell Cribb symbolizes solidarity with Trayvon Martin as he takes part in a Richmond, Va. rally on the campus of Virginia Commonwealth University. The rally was held to show sympathy for the family of the slain Florida teen and demonstrate outrage at the failure of police to arrest his killer. PHOTO: Sandra Sellars/Richmond Free Press

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Nationally, signs carry the slogan “I am Trayvon Martin” at rallies, including those in the Richmond area. It’s a slogan that also resounds in church pulpits and untold conversations.

And across the country, children and grown men, including state legislators and congressmen, also are donning hooded sweatshirts — a “hoodie” — as a show

of solidarity with the unarmed Florida teen who was gunned down after being deemed “suspicious” for wearing a hoodie by his killer, a self-appointed Neighborhood Watch captain.

That’s why the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta — the church that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once pastored — wore a hoodie last Sunday. “We’re standing as a church of nonviolence to say that a hoodie is not a weapon,” the pastor, the Rev. Raphael Warnock, preached.

The uproar over Trayvon’s slaying in Sanford, Fla., continues to explode in the public consciousness a month later.

His death has clearly touched a raw nerve — exposing the unspoken fears so many black parents have for the survival of their children who enter a world where they

face suspicion just for being young and black. President Obama summed up that underlying worry with his comment last Thursday: “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.”

Mothers and fathers see themselves and their children in the anguished faces of Trayvon’s parents who cannot believe their son was killed for simply walking back to his father’s home with iced tea and a bag of Skittles. No one wants to be like Trayvon’s parents in having to bury their child.

That’s why so many now are talking about the survival instructions that are commonplace in black households where parents talk to their children, particularly their sons, about how to act around police and others. And for good reason. A U.S. Justice Department study found that young Black males are three to four more times likely to have police threaten them or to use force against them compared to their White counterparts.

One example is the instruction to boys to keep their hands out of their pockets because people might perceive that as threatening or think they’ve stolen something. Or in a store, to always have their items bagged and to take

a receipt to avoid any issues.

And if police are involved, sons are told not to reach for anything and to be respectful to avoid trouble or being killed.

What Happened to Audacity? 
By Julianne Malveaux

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Forty years ago this month, 10,000 African Americans thronged to Gary, Indiana for the first National Black Political Convention. They gathered to develop a black agenda, and to influence 1972 presidential politics. One of the things on the agenda was the development of an independent black political party and to explore the notion of independent black politics. To commemorate this anniversary, Dr. Ron Daniels convened a group of people on Capitol Hill to see the movie, Nation Time, and to listen to a group of people, some of whom had been at Gary, talk about what Gary means today.

One of the things that was exciting about the film was the energy and audacity of the black folk who were gathered at Gary. There is a young Jesse Jackson leading the chant, "What time is it? It's nation time". There is a forceful Richard Hatcher, then mayor of Gary, explaining why the gathering was necessary. There is Imamu Baraka, calling for votes. There is Queen Mother Moore, speaking on the necessity for reparations. There is energy, audacity.

All weekend, there have been rallies in support for Trayvon Martin and his family, demands that George Zimmerman, the man who executed Trayvon, be arrested, and demands that Florida's vigilante laws be reviewed. Rev. Al Sharpton led some 30,000 people in a Florida rally, and the NAACP also plans a rally.   As people rally to support Trayvon Martin and condemn Zimmerman, it is important to remember that this tragedy is one of several. Zimmerman, apparently, felt threatened by Skittles, iced tea, and a hoodie. How many other young black men have been executed in similar circumstances?

This Trayvon Martin case may have a galvanizing effect on African American people. Still, we have to ask what has happened to the audacity that was so clearly present in Gary four decades ago. Since then, too many of us have become satisfied and complacent. Too many are into "me" not "we". Even as African Americans continue to be battered by our economy, too many are blaming themselves, not our economic structure, for the situation they find themselves in.   And we have been too tolerant of those who freely bandy about racial slurs.   George Zimmerman apparently thought he could get away with a public execution. And, truth be told, to date he has. There has been no investigation, no arrest. All he had to say was that he acted in self-defense, and he was off scott free. No matter that the 911 operator told him not to pursue Trayvon. No matter that there is no evidence of self-defense. Trayvon Martin is dead and George Zimmerman is free. Where is our audacity?

George Zimmerman seems to think there are no consequences to executing a young black man on the public streets. He seems to think so because African American audacity has just about disappeared. Facing an organized African American community, Zimmerman might have thought twice between raising his gun and using it. Fearing an organized black community, Zimmerman might have thought twice before uttering a racial slur. No doubt, he has learned from the best. Rush Limbaugh pops off at the mouth any chance he gets, using racial and gender slurs and only recently suffering any consequences. Newt Gingrich calls President Obama a "food stamp president" and he is only mildly called on it. No wonder Zimmerman thought his effort was acceptable. Until now, he has had no evidence to the contrary.

It is easy to say, "black people need to be more organized", but it is difficult to do. Still, the Trayvon Martin case reminds us of the need for an organized African American movement. And Gary reminds us that once there was audacity. We have to find that audacity again so that no racist on the loose ever again feels it acceptable to execute a child on the street.