Feb. 6, 2018

Super Bowl Viewers Infuriated By Truck Ad Featuring Voice of Dr. King
Rev. Bernice King Among the Outraged 

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the St. Louis American

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - A Ram Truck Super Bowl LI commercial sparked outrage by using a recording of a Martin Luther King Jr. speech to push car sales.In the 30-second ad, a recording of Dr. King’s 1968 a speech serves as the soundtrack for snapshots of everyday Americans engaged in community service.“In the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ram truck owners also believe in a life of serving others,” the ad’s description said.

The reaction was swift and harsh. An overwhelming consensus concluded that the ad was a tactless attempt to capitalize on Dr. King’s legacy.Among those offering backlash was the King Center.A tweet from the King Center read: "Neither @TheKingCenter nor @BerniceKing is the entity that approves the use of #MLK's words or imagery for use in merchandise, entertainment (movies, music, artwork, etc) or advertisement, including tonight's @Dodge #SuperBowl commercial."

Although the center carries on King's teachings, a separate entity controls King's speeches and image — Intellectual Properties Management Inc. Eric D. Tidwell, managing director of the organization, which is run by King's son Dexter, said in a statement early Monday: "We found that the overall message of the ad embodied Dr. King's philosophy that true greatness is achieved by serving others. Thus we decided to be a part of Ram's 'Built To Serve' Super Bowl program."Tidwell’s response came after an endless evening of criticism. When writer Michael Arceneaux wrote on Twitter, "So that means the King children allowed Dr. King's voice to be used to sell me a Dodge truck," Bernice King replied with a single word: "No."

Feb. 5, 2017

Tax Cut Will Widen the Racial Wage Gap
By Jesse Jackson 

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - President Donald Trump keeps boasting about the low black unemployment rate, although African Americans still suffer nearly twice the unemployment rate as whites do. What Trump never mentions is the growing racial wealth gap: the economic disparity between whites and people of color that plagues this country. The statistics from the Federal Reserve are clear. Median black household net worth — what assets the black households in the middle have after subtracting debts — is $17,600.

That of the typical white household is nearly 10 times greater at $171,000. The reason for this shocking disparity is clear. As an economic letter from authors of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco notes, “For the past several decades, black workers have fared worse than white workers in the U.S. labor market. Despite government policies designed to reduce or eliminate racial disparities, black workers continue to experience lower wages and higher unemployment rates than whites. Black workers still earn less than their white counterparts in a worsening trend that holds true even after accounting for differences in age, education, job type, and geography.”

Trump is trumpeting rising wages but in the first year of the Trump administration, the median weekly earnings of African-Americans went down, not up, when adjusted for inflation. Forty-five percent of black families own homes, compared with 73 percent of white families. African Americans were the hardest hit by the financial collapse, in part because banks targeted the worst liar’s loans to African-American and Latino families, assuring them that they could refinance when the value of their homes rose. When the bottom fell out, the families found themselves underwater, and bankers, like current Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, then made big bucks foreclosing on the victims.

The measure of this, as the report Foreclosed details, can be seen in the fact that the wealth of African-American families had recovered to its pre-crash level by 2016 — not counting the value of their homes. But the average home equity for African Americans was still $16,700 less. The very working and middle class families that reached to buy a home were still struggling to get back to where they were in 2007. Over the same period — from 2007 to 2016, the average wealth of the top 1 percent increased by a mere $4.9 million.

The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is far from a perfect health care plan, but it did allow African Americans to lower the number of uninsured among the non-elderly by 1.8 million. Trump and Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare and to throw millions off Medicaid will disproportionately hurt African Americans and Latinos. Inequality is still getting worse. As the Pew Research Center reports, the typical wealth of upper-income families was seven times that of middle income families in 2016, a gap that has doubled since 1983. Similarly, upper-income families have 75 times the wealth of lower-income families in 2016, compared with 28 times the wealth in 1983. And African-American and Latino families are disproportionately more likely to be among the low-income families.

Trump is not to blame for this disparity, just as he is not the reason for current low unemployment rates. The question is what will the administration do going forward? This week, I will travel to New York where the Rainbow Push Wall Street project will convene bankers, religious and civil rights leaders, economists and union leaders to discuss the growing racial wealth gap. We will explore how the workers’ pension funds — from universities, from unions, from public employees, from churches — could be used safely to green line the neighborhoods that are too often red-lined.

With federal guarantees, real investment could rebuild neighborhoods, seed small businesses, build affordable housing and create jobs. With the tax cut projected to add more than $1 trillion to the deficit over a decade, the Republican-led Congress is looking to slash, not expand, federal support for working and poor people and impoverished rural and urban communities. With federal guarantees and more independent pension fund management, new capital for vital investments might be freed up. If Trump were serious about dealing with the wealth gap, he would be leading this discussion, not ignoring it.

Feb. 6, 2018

Omarosa Returns to Reality TV, But Can She Regain Her Standing in the Black Community?
By Hazel Trice Edney

Omarsosa's Celebrity Big Brother publicity shot. CREDIT: Facebook

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - As Omarosa Manigault Newman abruptly departed the Trump White House in early December, she told ABC News that she would have a profound story to tell about her tenure as it pertains to the Trump Administration’s treatment of Black people.

“I have seen things that have made me uncomfortable, that have upset me, that have affected me deeply and emotionally, that has affected my community, and my people,” she said. “When I can tell my story, it is a profound story that I know the world will want to hear.”

Now that it’s past Jan. 20, the date of her official resignation, the former cast member of Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice” who is better known for her first name, Omarosa, has so far remained silent about the wrongs to her people. Instead, she has now moved on to promote her participation in yet another reality show.

The announcement of her participation in the CBS reality show, “Celebrity Big Brother”, has left some wondering whether she will ever divulge her side of the White House ouster. Others predict she will be shunned by the nation’s civil rights community in which she was once welcome.

“This is an official photo for my beautiful wife for ‘Celebrity Big Brother’! Proud of her doing what she loves, Entertainment,” the Rev. John Allen Newman, her husband, posted on Facebook Jan. 28 along with a promo for the “Celebrity Big Brother” reality show in which she was to debut Feb. 7. She did not respond to an interview request for this story.

Reportedly, the show will hike Omarosa's salary from the nearly $180,000 she was paid as an assistant communications director and advisor at the White House to a base $200,000 with an opportunity for a half million dollars if she wins the stiff competition in the house, according to TMZ.

CBS describes the show as “a group of celebrities living together in a house outfitted with 87 HD cameras and more than 100 microphones, recording their every move 24 hours a day. Each week, someone will be voted out of the house, with the last remaining Houseguest receiving a grand prize.”

Her competitors on the show will reportedly include “class athletes” Chuck Liddell and Metta World Peace, singer Mark McGrath and 'Housewife' Brandi Glanville, according to TMZ. Other reports have listed Shannon Elizabeth of “American Pie,” Keshia Knight Pulliam of “The Cosby Show,” and Marissa Jaret Winokur of “Hairspray” among others.

As Trump’s director of African-American Outreach during his campaign, Omarosa - a former Hillary Clinton supporter - launched her tenure at the Trump White House with a mass meeting of hundreds of non-partisan representatives of Black organizations, including the NAACP, the National Urban League, and others that she had befriended and served as a celebrity emcee or panelist at their events. Several people who attended the meeting said in later interviews that they’d seen little or no follow up. A string of Black Republicans complained that she'd blocked them from White House jobs in order to maintain her own status as Trump's highest placed Black appointee not a member of the cabinet.

As President Trump’s racially divisive words and actions intensified during his first year, Manigault Newman’s silence appeared complicit until her highly publicised resignation amidst a dispute with Trump's new Chief of Staff John Kelly. Known for her villainous TV character and style that many fans love to hate, Omarosa may well rebuild a reality show following, but grassroots political observers say she will be hard pressed to regain a credible standing in the Black community after taking a job with the President that many perceive as bigoted.

“I don’t know why she took it in the first place. Sometimes people sell their souls to get to where they want to be sometimes or to improve their financial status,” said Clarence Wooten, 54, who says he paid attention to the controversy because he loves politics.

Engaged in a heated conversation over breakfast in a north west D.C. McDonald’s, Wooten and others came to the same conclusion: “I just think it was a bad move for her overall. I think she could have made it in other ways. I don’t think she needed to join that administration at this day and time. She already had it going on,” he said.

Shawn Ali, 50, said Manigault Newman appears to be among several celebrities who lost fans after associating with Trump. “She might have tried to use that platform to get where she wanted to go, but in the same instance, all of us know what’s going on with this [Trump] character. So, you’re up under that umbrella, you need to stay up under that umbrella. It’s like you can’t come back here,” he said. “It’s the old saying that when you leave Black folk, stay where you’re at. That’s really coming back around.”

Eddie Henry, 68, chimed in, “She’s educated. But sometimes you’ll step out of bounds and say, ‘I see an opportunity.’ And it can be a bad opportunity,” he concluded. “And there’s a consequence behind it. All money ain’t good money.”

Feb. 5, 2018

Coalition of Black Organizations to Hold United Nations Protest Against Trump Insults February 15

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - #ProudAfricans, a coalition of African, Caribbean, and African-American human rights and professional organizations, will lead a protest rally outside the United Nations Headquarters at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza Park in New York City on Feb. 15 to denounce the recent racist and bigoted anti-Africa comments by U.S. President Donald Trump, according to the Institute of the Black World 21^st Century (IBW), a member of the coalition.

The "Repudiating and Educating Trump" Protest Rally will take place at 11 a.m. on 47 Street between First and Second Avenues.

Recent insults from Trump, reportedly referring to Haiti and African nations as S***hole countries during and Oval Office meeting, have apparently sparked an uprising in which numerous other issues are being brought to the surface. Those issues include the relationship between Africa and the U. S. and the widespread mistreatment of nations of color.

“The rally will also highlight the past and continuing contributions by people of African descent to the creation of wealth and prosperity in the United States and other Western countries. In addition, the coalition will denounce the brutal exploitation of African migrants whose plight was highlighted in a recent CNN expose showing auctions of African migrants who have been enslaved in Libya,” states a release from IBW.

It continues, “At the UN rally, the coalition will raise public awareness of the thousands of young Africans who continue to drown during desperate voyages across the Mediterranean to seek employment in Europe because the economies of their own countries have been ravaged by policies imposed by the World Bank and the IMF in collusion with corrupt regimes generally maintained in power by US and European governments.”

IBW says the coalition aims to issue “a set of demands to the White House, the United Nations, and other International organizations to address the socio-economic and political marginalization of Africans and African descendants all over the world.”

#ProudAfricans Coalition has been organized by the United African Congress (UAC), a New York-based organization representing African immigrants in the U.S. The UAC is led by Dr. Mohammed Nurhussein, chairman, and Sidique Wai, president and national spokesperson.

“We are Africans of diverse backgrounds from across the continent and the diaspora who are proud of our heritage, who have come together to denounce strongly, without stooping to his level of depravity, the vile and racist characterization of people of African descent by the current occupant of the House that enslaved Africans built,” states Dr. Nurhussein. a retired physician, in the release, which also quotes other leaders.

“As an Immigrant from Morocco and as a human rights activist and community organizer I also denounce the hateful words used to describe my beautiful motherland Africa,” said Ms. Souad Kirama founder and director of New Horizon Center for Advocacy and Development. “We are here in this wonderful newly founded coalition to say it loud and clear #ProudAfrican!”

IBW President/CEO Ron Daniels, a distinguished CUNY professor, is one of the chief organizers of the protest rally at the UN. “As president of the Institute of the Black World 21st Century and convener of the Pan African Unity Dialogue, I am proud to stand with our sisters and brothers in the diaspora in repudiating the foul-mouthed insults that spewed recently from the current occupant of the White House. We will not be disrespected,” Daniels stated.

Bourema Niambele, a leader of New York City-based African Diaspora Coalition for Justice, one of the protest organizers, says, “Donald Trump represents the kind of racism towards Africans and African immigrants that we see around the world today. As the world now knows from the recent CNN expose, Africans are even being auctioned into slavery in Libya. This is the 21st century and we will not stand for it.”

The rally is expected to draw large numbers of people from the continental African immigrant, African-American, Caribbean-American and Latino communities from the Tri-State area and across the nation.

The coalition’s priorities are anchored by the framework of “Protest, Policy, Power” and speakers will challenge the current socio-economic policies that negatively impact African communities at the local, national and international levels and will offer a number of solutions. In so doing, participating organizations will broaden and deepen their alliances for unified actions moving forward.

In addition to United African Congress (UAC) and IBW, the protest rally is endorsed by Give Them A Hand Foundation, African Diaspora Coalition for Justice, Nextmedia.tv, The Black Star News, African Women Solidarity Action for Development, African Hope Committee, African Commission of Newark, New Jersey, and the African Human Rights Commission.

For more information on the protest: 212-340-1975; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; or Facebook: proudafricansempowerment.