Urban News Features

Two Men Arrested for the Murder of a Black Jogger By Frederick Lowe

May 7, 2020

Two Men Arrested for the Murder of a Black Jogger
By Frederick Lowe

ahmaudarbery
Ahmaud Arbery
mcmichael travis and gregory
Gregory and Travis McMichael

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from NorthStarNewsToday.com

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The Georgia Bureau of investigation, on May 7, arrested a father and son, charging them with the murder of a black jogger more than three months after the deadly shooting, but only two days after a cellphone video surfaced that sparked national outrage and demands for justice.

Gregory McMichael, 64, and Travis McMichael, 34, were charged with murder and aggravated assault for the February 23 deadly shooting of Ahmaud Arbery, 25, as he jogged through the Satilla Shores neighborhood of Brunswick, Georgia, according to the GBI. The McMichaels were booked into the Glynn County Jail.

Arbery, who would have celebrated his 26th birthday Friday, was out for a run when Gregory McMichael,64, a retired Glynn County cop, and now an investigator for the Brunswick Judicial Circuit district attorney, and his son, Travis McMichael, 34, and another man only identified as “Roddy” chased down Arbery in their pickup truck before confronting and killing him.

The elder McMichael claims Arbery had been burglarizing houses in the neighborhood and that’s why they chased him down. Gregory McMichael was armed with a .357 Magnum revolver and Travis was armed with a shot gun. It is not known what type of weapon, if any, Roddy carried.

When the men caught up with Arbery, the video, which appears to have been shot from inside a vehicle, shows he jogged around the truck. Travis, however, got out of the vehicle, struggled with Arbery over the rifle before Travis shot him twice, killing him.

Police refused to charge the McMichael’s for Arberry’s murder, arguing that Travis Michael shot him self defense. The police did not say anything about Arberry having the right to defend himself from two men with guns accosting him.

Police arrested the McMichaels following the release of a video on Tuesday.

Alan Tucker, an attorney and friend of the two men, said he released the video to clear up any misconceptions about what had happened.

The video, however, alarmed elected officials, including Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, U.S. Senator Kamala Harris, and Georgia Governor Brian Kemp. Othesr said Arbery had been lynched.

The politicians demanded that police arrest of the McMichaels

The case is being investigated through a partnership between District Attorney Tom Durden, the district attorney in Hinesville, Liberty County, Georgia, and the GBI. The GBI is also investigating the public release of the video that shows Arbery’s murder.

COVID-19 and America - The Fire This Time By Dr. Wilmer J. Leon, III

May 6, 2020

COVID-19 and America - The Fire This Time
By Dr. Wilmer J. Leon, III

NEWS ANALYSIS

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Time catches up with kingdoms and crushes them, gets its teeth into doctrines and rends them; time reveals the foundations on which any kingdom rests, and eats at those foundations, and it destroys doctrines by proving them to be untrue. - James Baldwin “Down At The Cross”, 1963

The foundation of “America” and its “greatness” was built upon some interesting principles or precepts; “manifest destiny”, “American exceptionalism”, “White man’s burden” and “American internationalism” to name a few. They have become the foundation and rationalization for a belief system. The basic tenet of that belief system is that the development and expansion of American empire was inevitable if not divine. Former President Reagan called America, "the shining city upon a hill". Undergirding this is the cooptation of Christianity and the sickness known as “white supremacy”.

As children, Americans are indoctrinated into the mythology of America. We pledge allegiance to “…one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” Baldwin dispelled that myth “…the country is celebrating one hundred years of freedom one hundred years too soon.” Jack “Jackie” Roosevelt Robinson told us long before “Kap” took a knee, “I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world."

Former Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) told us that “The United States is safer and more prosperous in a more democratic world and should take the lead in advancing this cause.” The problem with his logic is that you can neither foster nor promote democracy by causing innocent people to suffer through sanctioning their countries or through the barrel of a gun.

America can’t bring democracy to Venezuela by supporting coups to overthrow democratically elected presidents, Chavez’ and Maduro. America cannot bring democracy to Boliva, Brazil and Honduras by supporting undemocratic right-wing governments that repress, threaten and jail their socialist opponents. This is not democracy, this is hypocrisy.

America cannot advance democracy around the world when it weaponizes the cause of the current

global pandemic, COVID-19. How can a country that weaponizes a global pandemic be seen as a “shining city upon a hill”? It is immoral if not criminal for the U.S. to increase sanctions through its “maximum pressure campaigns” against Venezuela, Iran, Cuba and Palestine. America’s maximum pressure is negatively impacting the flow of food, PPE, medicine and other supplies into these countries, making it exponentially more difficult for their governments to fight the pandemic.

As U.S. allies in Latin America are struggling to fight the novel coronavirus with limited financial and human resources, the U.S. is pressuring them to expel Cuban doctors. At the “request” of Donald Trump, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has removed more than 8,000 Cuban doctors and other health professionals from Brazil. Ecuadoran President Lenín Moreno has sent 400 doctors back to Cuba. Bolivia has sent 700 doctors back to Cuba after the US forced the resignation of socialist President Evo Morales in November. The health agreement between Cuba and El Salvador has also been cancelled at Trump’s “request”. Even though the US did not introduce the COVID-19 contagion into these countries, weaponizing it for political purposes to bring about regime change is the same as germ warfare and should be considered a crime against humanity.

America claims to be sanctioning these countries and others in the name of freedom, democracy and the American way. The families being destroyed by COVID-19 because the U.S. is applying it’s “maximum pressure campaign” on their governments for their “liberty” must, as Dr. King said, “… see Americans as strange liberators.”

The science to date tells us that this pandemic was detected in China in late 2019. Chinese health authorities warned the WHO of the pandemic on January 7, 2020. It hit Europe before the CDC confirmed the first case in the US on January 20, 2020. The Trump administration ignored the warnings. Trump largely disbanded the Global Health Security and Biodefense unit in the NSC in May 2018. This made it more difficult for the US to mount a coherent response. Trump can’t get out of his own way to solve this problem and Republicans in Congress are afraid to challenge him. Party allegiance “trumps” loyalty to the American people. All Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) can focus on is approving the next wave of conservative judges. Meanwhile, COVID-19 is exposing that the political system is broken.

Americans have been told that its health care system is the best in the world. People come from all over the world to avail themselves of its wonders and cures. That’s only true, if one can afford them. COVID-19 has exposed the fact that most Americans, even with health insurance, will be saddled with serious medical bills. According to Business Insider, “the total average charge per COVID-19 patient requiring an inpatient stay (6 days) is $73,300 and the total average estimated allowed amount per commercially insured patient is $38,221.”

There are 27 million Americans without insurance. Yet, democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said he would veto a “Medicare For All” bill if it crossed his desk as president. COVID-19 is exposing that our political process is broken.

The CDC cannot produce a trustworthy COVID-19 testing kit, so the US government cannot test enough Americans to clearly understand the size of the problem. South Korea has identified 29 Korean manufacturers and exporters specializing in COVID-19 diagnostic devices and developed a robust testing regime. Cases in South Korea are dropping. The US cannot manufacture sufficient quantities of PPE since American companies have off-shored their manufacturing to China and Trump will not command the private sector to manufacture PPE through the Defense Production Act. The US government no longer keeps an ample supply of PPE on hand since Americans have bought into the bad idea of “less government” and the private sector does not want to compete with a well-stocked government in times like this. COVID-19 is exposing that this manufacturing system is broken.

Tyson Foods executives have said that the closure of food-processing plants due to COVID-19 is “breaking” the supply chain. American farmers are plowing under crops. Dairy farmers are dumping thousands of gallons of milk and millions of animals will be depopulated because of the closure of meat processing facilities while jobless claims increase by 4.4 million, 26 million Americans have lost their jobs to COVID-19 and food banks are going empty. And you call this exceptional?

The U.S. can launch the $13 Billion USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier with a $400K toilet problem but can’t get meat, milk and eggs to market in the midst of starving Americans, a crashing economy and a pandemic. COVID-19 has pulled the covers off of the entire charade called American exceptionalism.

Baldwin told us, time catches up with kingdoms and empires and crushes them. You better check your clocks and watches. God sent Noah the rainbow sign, no more water, COVID-19 this time.

Dr. Wilmer Leon is the Producer/ Host of the nationally broadcast talk radio program “Inside the Issues” on SiriusXM Satellite radio channel 126. Go to www.wilmerleon.com or email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. www.twitter.com/drwleon and Dr. Leon’s Prescription at Facebook.com

Without More Help, Black-Owned Businesses Might Not Survive the Pandemic By Eugene Cornelius Jr.

Editors, Publishers: Please feel free to publish free of charge.

Without More Help, Black-Owned Businesses Might Not Survive the Pandemic

By Eugene Cornelius Jr.

NEWS ANALYSIS

Eugene Cornelius Jr.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Black communities in the United States not only represent a disproportionate share of casualties from coronavirus, but they have also been deeply affected by the economic impact of the disease. Longstanding racial discrimination in economic and housing policy has increased their risk for exposure to the virus, as well as the resulting financial crisis.

The economic effects of the pandemic on Black communities can be explained by several factors. Almost half of Black-owned businesses are in industries - such as administrative and support services, health care and social assistance and retail - that are bearing the brunt of this pandemic. These industries not only pose a health risk because of the interaction between workers and customers, but they are also especially vulnerable to lower consumer demand due to social distancing measures.

Over 90 percent of small businesses in majority Black communities hold cash reserves of fewer than 14 days, so they are more likely to run out of operating funds when customers stay at home. And the most recently available Federal Reserve data shows that Black business owners are denied loans at twice the rate of white owners, so they are more likely to have trouble finding capital to survive the pandemic.

In the face of large-scale shutdowns caused by the COVID-19 crisis, there is a clear need for policies to support small business. But the spending programs passed by Congress thus far have ignored the challenges of capital access facing Black-owned firms.

During the first round of funding provided for small businesses, borrowers seeking Paycheck Protection Program loans were required to work with banks already participating in the US Small Business Administration's (SBA) primary loan program, thereby excluding firms that worked with smaller community banks. Moreover, Congress allocated just $10 million to the Minority Business Development Agency. According to the Center for Responsible Lending, these conditions may have prevented 95 percent of Black-owned businesses from receiving loans.

The second round of small business funding assistance specifically set aside $60 billion for community banks and credit unions that are traditionally a key source of capital for minority-owned firms. However, the measure did not stipulate that minority-owned businesses would have priority access to those funds.

Addressing these short-term lending gaps is crucial to ensuring that Black-owned businesses will stay in business long enough to survive the pandemic. But we must also plan for a long-term recovery that emphasizes inclusion. This will require us to remove historic inequities through targeted support for Black-owned businesses and Black workers.

We can begin by taking three key steps:

First, federal and state governments should enact robust credit enhancement programs for minority borrowers. These programs provide incentives for banks to lend to businesses in low- and middle-income areas, allowing more firms to remain open and refrain from laying off workers. In states with existing loan programs that provide credit enhancement, treasury officials should make loans more flexible, easier to access and increase loan guarantees. In others, where credit enhancement programs do not yet exist, treasury officials should create loss reserve funds and collateral support mechanisms, as well as a marketplace to pair pre-qualified lenders with borrowers in need of working capital. State governments can also authorize one-to-one matches for philanthropic funding to expand the pool of available capital.

Second, credit enhancement programs should also be used to support place-based investment, with a priority on housing and infrastructure in low-income areas. For example, officials can increase loan guarantees to support construction of housing for individuals earning from 80 percent to 200 percent of the local average median income, or offer special collateral guarantees for minority-owned businesses with revenues under $5 million to invest in long-term assets.

Third, place-based investments should emphasize environmental quality in low-income and minority communities through special support for projects with higher air and water quality standards -including the remediation of outdated water infrastructure. Using federal and state loan guarantees to fund these investments will simultaneously support improvements to the health of minority populations and reduce their vulnerability to future health crises.

As we look beyond the pandemic, these steps are crucial for ensuring the American dream is within reach of minorities across the country. By addressing fundamental inequities in our economic system, we can begin to pave a new avenue toward a more prosperous future.

Eugene Cornelius Jr. is senior director for the Milken Institute Center for Regional Economics. He previously served as a senior official in the U.S. Small Business Administration. This commentary first appeared on CNN.com.

Stop Excluding People of Color in Environmental Policies By Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr.

May 6, 2020

Stop Excluding People of Color in Environmental Policies

By Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr.

NEWS ANALYSIS

NNPA NEWSWIRE - Protecting the environment should be about protecting people, regardless of the color of their skin, their ethnicity or race, where they live or how much money they make. The fight to save our planet should be about ensuring a long and successful sustainable future - for everyone.

The deadly destruction wrought by the coronavirus pandemic has laid bare the harsh inequities in American society, disproportionately ravaging Black America and other communities of color, as well as individuals who were on the social margins long before the crisis.

The inequities have surfaced in obvious ways, including early data released by states showing that the virus is killing African Americans at disproportionately high rates, a disturbing trend that illustrates the substandard availability of health care in Black America.

The inequities have also surfaced in subtle ways, such as policy decisions that fail to reflect the needs and day-to-day realities of low-income communities and communities of color. The irony is that many of these policies are well-meaning. But in some cases, they also have had troubling unintended consequences.

Consider the area of environmental policy. Protecting the environment should be about protecting people, regardless of the color of their skin, ethnicity or race, or where they live or how much money they make. The fight to save our planet should be about ensuring a long and successful sustainable future - for everyone.

Yet, there are many in the mainstream environmental movement who continuously overlook the needs and realities faced by some of our most underserved and vulnerable communities. That includes the mainstream environmental advocacy community's push to enforce plastic bags bans in favor of reusables, despite the fact that cardboard paper and other reusables pose a clear public health risk - especially for workers on the front lines of the pandemic response.

Why, for example, is it smart public policy to insist that grocery workers be exposed to reusable bags, when research shows these bags can be repositories of the COVID-19 virus? The majority of these essential workers are low-income people of color who are disproportionately bearing the brunt of the COVID-19 crisis, dying from the deadly disease at twice the rate of white people.

Additionally, in New York, it is well-documented that a statewide plastic bag ban also disproportionately hurts Black and Latino-owned businesses and shoppers. Though there is an exemption in this ban for recipients of benefits like WIC and food stamps from paying the five-cent tax on paper bags, working-class people of color and low-income New Yorkers still must pay.

Some stores have been charging for both plastic and paper, and in some cases, more than five cents a bag. Five cents might not seem like much. But five cents (or more) per bag adds up, especially when one is living paycheck-to-paycheck, or, as is more likely at this moment, not working at all due to the financial toll of the COVID-19 crisis.

Some environmentalists have argued that opponents of the bag ban are trying to capitalize on the COVID-19 crisis by recommending a suspension of any bag regulations. Again, it appears that some mainstream environmentalists only use research data to support policies that reflect their privileged vantage point without respect to the impact of those policies on the underprivileged.

I coined the term environmental racism in 1982 while involved in the Warren County, NC protests against the digging of a PCB landfill in the heart of a poor Black agricultural community. At that time there were some who thought that environmental issues were should not be considered as civil rights or as racial justice issues. There was in the past, and it continues in the current public discourse, a kind of arrogance by the privileged who think they know what is best for the underprivileged.

Today as the environmental justice movement has grown into a global campaign for change led by grassroots activists and leaders from people of color communities throughout the world, we all now know much more about the intersection between the issues of racial justice and environmental justice.

I recall vividly back in the late 1980's when I co-authored and published the landmark study for the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice: Toxic Waste and Race in the United States, the established environmental movement was unnerved that people of color would dare to do empirical research and define our own reality with respect to exposures to environmental hazards. Our national study proved that there was a deliberate link between race and the placement of toxic waste facilities in America.

In adherence to a blind devotion to a privileged ideology, some who call themselves environmentalists often neglect to take into consideration the day-to-day concerns of millions of low-income and Americans of color living in urban centers that are also communities that house hazardous sanitation sites, incinerators, rail yards, power plants and other environmental threats.

Some mainstream environmental groups consistently insist on pushing for policies that make life harder for people of color and poor communities, arguing that the hardship - if they recognize it at all - is a necessary price to pay in order to achieve their overall goals that those of privilege have exclusively envisioned as the standard for all others to obey.

As the pandemic continues, we need to let go of high-minded ideological arguments and do everything possible to protect workers on the front lines - including grocery clerks and those who make deliveries. Some states have temporarily lifted their bans or eradicated them altogether. A number of grocery stores are bringing back plastic bags and telling customers not to bring their own reusable bags.

Due to the crisis, New York has twice extended non-enforcement of its plastic bag ban in the face of a lawsuit that challenges its constitutionality. This is not enough. The state should give essential workers and shoppers alike a sense of protection during the pandemic and bag the plastic ban altogether.

More often than not, these life-changing decisions are being made without the consultation or input from the affected communities of color. Close to 40 years later we still remain on the outside of these conversations, continuously overlooked by many in the mainstream environmental movement as well as in local and state governments.

There is an obvious divide between the members of the mainstream environmentalism movement and the environmental justice community, primarily made up of urban Black and brown people. Until both parties can come together and pay the necessary attention to the pervasive environmental concerns that our communities endure on a daily basis the rift will only deepen, if not completely fracture. Exclusion of people of color will not solve the nation's or the world's environmental challenges.

Dr. Benjamin Chavis is president and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association.

Looking for Answers? By Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq.

May 4, 2020

Looking for Answers?
By Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – This coronavirus that has us sheltering in place has taken some through many different emotions. Some have experienced fear, concern, stress and many negative feelings. There’re some who’ve used this time to do positive things that carry with them hope and good feelings about what they’ve been able to do for themselves and for others.

I encourage you to try looking on the bright side of what’s going on in your life. I’ll tell you first what I do. Every day several times each day I say a prayer for someone or something and I immediately feel better. I take a walk outside and just observe the beauty of the flowers, the sky and environment in general. I find there’s always something out there that makes me smile. Even though I have on my mask and gloves, I bow my head each time I come near anyone just to let them know I see them and I acknowledge their humanity. I can’t always tell if they acknowledge my recognition of them, but I feel good knowing I have acknowledged them.

There’re so many things one can do so as not to sit around and bemoan the fact that this virus may have changed our lives forever. It’s so important to be physically and mentally active. In my case I walk between four and five miles per day. One day during the past week, I walked 5.2 miles. Imagine how excited I was about that extra .2 miles! That may not sound like such a big deal, but I knew how long it had taken me to get there! I put that in my success column. You don’t have to do all the big things immediately. Try a gradual approach to whatever it is you set as a goal. In my case, I’m ready to set a new walking goal. That helps to keep my mind off negative things I might be thinking if I just sat around saying “Poor me.”

Often when you are looking for answers, you can find them within yourself. Get the attention off yourself while thinking of something else. Read a good book—one that you can’t put down until you’re finished. Call a friend to share what you’ve just read. If you tell the story of what you’ve read in an exciting manner, it’s possible you can get your friend’s mind off the negative and proceed to do just what you’re doing.

Don’t tell yourself you can’t do certain things. Learn to do the thing you’ve been saying you can’t do. Gather facts instead of sitting around in fear. Get involved in an online seminar or learn a new language. There’re so many great things you can do. In my case, along with Bishop Joe Simon, I’m soliciting unregistered voters. Along with members of the National Congress of Black Women, we’re teaching people how to register online. It’s easy. Help by steering people who aren’t registered to https://www.usa.gov/register-to-vote. 2. Tell them to check Voting and Elections and follow the prompts. 3. If they have a problem call 877/805-8447. There’ll be someone to assist them.

There’s another easy project you can do to help while taking your mind off your fears. Adopt a nursing home. Call the director and find out what products would be helpful for you to donate. Ship the products without ever having to go to the nursing home. If you’re looking for answers, whatever you do, instead of sitting around in fear, think solutions by making a list of at least 10 things you’re capable of doing. Select from the list and do as many as you can. Don’t just sit around in fear.

(E. Faye Williams is President of the National Congress of Black Women. She’s also host of “Wake Up and Stay Woke” on WPFW-FM 89.3 radio.)