May 7, 2023

Reality Check

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - For over 50 years millions of Black people in this country have held commemoration events on the days Brother Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. were assassinated and celebratory events on their birthdays. Doing so is very important. However, equally important is the need for us to learn from and act on the profound, productive, inspiring guidelines the Brothers left us on how to promote and protect our health, economic, political, educational, technological and communications interests in a country where overt white supremacy has once again become openly hostile.

One 1967 guideline from Brother Martin stated that “A second important step that the negro must take is to work passionately for group identity….group unity necessarily involves group trust and reconciliation. One of the most serious effects of the negro’s damage ego has been his frequent loss of respect for himself and other negroes. He ends up with ambivalence towards his own kind…. This plea for unity is not a call for uniformity. There must always be healthy debate. There will be inevitable differences of opinion. The dilemma that the negro confronts is so complex and monumental that its solution will of necessity involve a diversified approach. But negroes can differ and still unite around common goals. There are already structured forces in the negro community that can serve as the basis for building a powerful united front—the negro church, the negro press, the negro fraternities and sororities and negro professional associations. We must admit that these forces have never given their full resources to the call of negro liberation….But the failure of the past must not be an excuse for the inaction of the future. These groups must be mobilized and motivated….This form of group unity can do infinitely more to liberate the negro than any action of individuals. ~Please note Brother Martin italicized individuals. ~  We have been oppressed as a group and we must overcome that oppression as a group.”

Brother Malcolm was just as direct and solutions-oriented when he stated that “U.S. politics is ruled by special interest blocs and lobbyists. What group has more urgent special interests? What group needs a bloc, a lobby more than the Black man? Labor owns one of Washington’s largest non-government buildings—situated where they can literally watch the White House—and no political move is made that doesn’t include how Labor feels about it. A lobby gets Big Oil its depletion allowance….Twenty-million Black people should tomorrow give $1 apiece to build a skyscraper in Washington, DC. Every morning every legislator should receive communications about what every Black man and woman in America expects and wants and needs. The demanding voice of the Black lobby should be in the ear of every legislator who votes on any issues.”

We Black people in this country would not be such easy targets in 2023 if we had utilized the solutions-oriented guidelines provided by Brother Martin, Brother Malcolm and other serious leaders, including Brother Harold Cruse, Brother Lerone Bennett, Jr., sister Frances Cress Welsing, Sister C. Delores Tucker and Brother Hoyt Fuller. Fortunately for us it is better to be late than never. We still have time to follow the guidelines presented by some of our great master teachers.

 April 16, 2023   

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - More than 1,000 scientists, engineers, many of them leaders in the Big Tech industry, recently signed an open letter calling for a pause in the development of the newest artificial intelligence (AI) systems, suggesting some of their super intelligence machines could no longer be controlled by humans.  They called for a slow down in production of the more powerful ai tools,  so potential risks can be studied —and researched.

This letter set off tremendous alarm and scores of questions because it is AI that empowers much of our global defense , transportation, communications and medical systems? Would out-of-control systems push us into war?  Could self-driving cars and planes deliberately break down? Could doctors and hospitals suddenly receive purposefully harmful instructions for patients.  Are intelligent machines gaining control of humanity?  In other words in this revolution of both good and evil, which will prevail? And are there Frankenstein’s lurking among us?

Key lines from the letter are: Contemporary AI systems are now becoming human-competitive at general tasks and we must ask ourselves: Should we let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth? Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones? Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us? Should we risk loss of control of our civilization?

A  60 Minutes expose on April 17,  showed how some of the powerful new tools can summarize the New Testament of the Bible in five seconds, how Google has developed the world’s perfect search machine holding 100 percent of the world’s knowledge and that some systems can process information 100,000 times faster than the human brain and how some AI’s programming can write a million short stories before a  human writer can finish one. 

    .     Computer expert Stuart Russell pulled the curtain back in a CNN interview exposing the depth of what was troubling the scientists.  He said, “I asked a Microsoft official that since the new tools had recently shown sparks of artificial general intelligence, being more intelligent than humans, were there internal codes of their own they could be pursuing? The answer was ‘We don’t have the faintest idea.’ Russell also warned it was possible the new AI tools are not aligning with human values. That would mean it could perform what it wanted and not what we want.”

Initially,  the software, coding and algorithms that program computers and robots drew excitement as they imitated human behavior, beating the best chess and Jeopardy players. But AI has  grown leaps and bounds since the field was founded at a workshop on the campus of Dartmouth College, during the summer of 1956.   By mastering huge data and improvements in AI the tools became ubiquitous, able to writie and record songs,  provide health and financial analysis advice, command weapons of war, write and conduct symphonies.  

This year, however, the playing field changed. Programmers noted that their robotic creations had created a language of their own that left humans of the equation.   Enters  new powerful  generative AI tools—Open AI’s ChatGPT—Microsoft’s Bing search engine and Google’s Bard .  They simulated such human activities that shocked, astonished but also delighted the public with Big Tech engaging in a billion race to dominate the field.  The high- powered chatbots and search tools quickly earning criticism for emphasixing speed over safety.

The new tools could debug code,  pass law and medical exams quicker and better than most humans,  take a three - second recording of a person’s voice and convert the words into a speech that the person never spoke,  create Deepfakes, realistic but false images or videos being used to harass people and spread lies. One video showed a completely false image of president Joe Biden condemning transgender people; another showed former president Donald Trump running from police, handcuffed and dragged to the ground, days before he was officially indicted.

Other anecdotal evidence and mishaps created a framework that major changes must be made. For example, an AI chatbot suggested a man should commit suicide. And he did. A Belgian man reportedly killed himself after a series of increasingly worrying conversations with an AI chatbot, reported by the New York Post.  Several cases of deep depression have been recorded by anti-suicide networks after humans being rejected by chatbots they had relied upon. 

Kevin Roose, a  New York Times reporter, wrote a lengthy piece on how his artificial intelligence-powered chatbot called Sydney said he loved him,  tried to convince him that he was unhappy in his marriage and should leave his wife. There are other reports of robo-sex, where people have sex or marry their chatbots and personal assistants. In Japan there is a move to make such unions legal.

 Nevertheless, the overall question is will these new tools work for evil or good and can AI and humanity co-exist. or will super intelligent machines reduce humans to servitude or replace them altogether?  Elon Musk, who signed the letter, had previously predicted in a 2014 Washington Post interview that AI was summoning the demon.    

 Some of the scientists are pushing for new safeguards and government regulations to slow down the AI’s powerful tools,  but can Big Tech or rogue groups resist the push to dominate the billion dollar  lucrative field?  Also, in this race to the future, God does not seem to be in the planning.  History has proven when  humans dishonor or dismiss God, things don’t end well.    .

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April 3, 2023

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Lawmakers should follow the data and the science because they will eventually point them to Christ. Statistics in the United States don’t lie — the number of religious Americans and families with a father in the home is on a rapid decline. Without Christ, we will not see these trends reserved. As a former NFL player, I had to deal with statistics a lot during my time in the league. I came to understand that while statistics do not always offer to predict exact results, compiled data usually provides at least some indication as to future performance and how we can expect things to play out during the next game.

Today, I have noticed a few troubling statistics regarding the decline of Christianity and the rise of fatherlessness in America. As our country moves forward, these numbers could have serious consequences for the future of our country if we don’t reverse these trends. Only about 65% of American adults identify as Christian today, according to https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/. Click or tap to follow the link." data-auth="Verified" data-linkindex="0">Pew Research. This number is down 12 percentage points over the last decade. Additionally, only 47% of American adults belonged to a church, synagogue, or mosque in 2020, which was https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-below-majority-first-time.aspx. Click or tap to follow the link." data-auth="Verified" data-linkindex="1">down more than 20 points since the turn of the 21st century. Church membership in America was at 73% when Gallup began collecting its data in 1937.

Furthermore, our Nation is seeing great discrepancies when these numbers are broken down by age. Just https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/. Click or tap to follow the link." data-auth="Verified" data-linkindex="2">49% of millennials describe themselves as Christian today, while more than 80% of the Silent Generation and 76% of Baby Boomers do so. Only 22% of millennials say they attend church at least once per week, and almost two-thirds say they attend church services a few times per year or less. Some models https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/09/13/modeling-the-future-of-religion-in-america/. Click or tap to follow the link." data-auth="Verified" data-linkindex="3">estimate that America’s Christian population could fall to as low as 35% by the year 2070 if these trends continue.

America’s decline in faith has largely mirrored a decline in fatherhood. In 1960, only about 9% of https://ifstudies.org/blog/family-breakdown-and-americas-welfare-system. Click or tap to follow the link." data-auth="Verified" data-linkindex="4">American children grew up without a father in the home. Today, thathttps://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/families/children.html. Click or tap to follow the link." data-auth="Verified" data-linkindex="5"> number is around 25%, for a total of 18.4 million children absent a father in the home (the number is https://fathers.com/the-extent-of-fatherlessness/#:~:text=With%20the%20increasing%20number%20of,living%20in%20single-parent%20homes.. Click or tap to follow the link." data-auth="Verified" data-linkindex="6">over 24 million or 33% for children absent a biological father in the home). This is over 3 times the world average and the https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/12/12/u-s-children-more-likely-than-children-in-other-countries-to-live-with-just-one-parent/. Click or tap to follow the link." data-auth="Verified" data-linkindex="7">highest rate of children living in single-parent households of any country in the entire world.

The statistics also tell us that fatherlessness is a heavy indicator with a wide range of adverse outcomes for a child’s future. For example, 90% of all http://www.rochesterareafatherhoodnetwork.org/statistics#:~:text=90%25%20of%20all%20homeless%20and,homes%20%E2%80%93%2032%20times%20the%20average.&text=Father%20Factor%20in%20Education%20%E2%80%93%20Fatherless,repeat%20a%20grade%20in%20school. Click or tap to follow the link." data-auth="Verified" data-linkindex="8">homeless and runaway children come from fatherless homes, https://www.air.org/sites/default/files/FatherhoodInvolvementGuide.pdf. Click or tap to follow the link." data-auth="Verified" data-linkindex="9">as well as 85% of children and teens with behavioral disorders and 63% of teens who commit suicide.

Studies also https://www.nolongerfatherless.org/statistics. Click or tap to follow the link." data-auth="Verified" data-linkindex="10">indicate that fatherless children are more likely to drop out of school and to repeat a class than children with both parents in the home. Fatherlessness also relates to criminality, as about 70% of all the youths in https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/syc87.pdf. Click or tap to follow the link." data-auth="Verified" data-linkindex="11">state-operated institutions come from single-parent homes. Overall, fatherless children are more likely to be incarcerated than children from two-parent homes and more likely to exhibit criminal behavior.

Deep down, Americans understand this data and realize that fatherhood is essential to a stable society. According to https://americafirstpolicy.com/latest/20220608-fathers-matter-pass-it-on. Click or tap to follow the link." data-auth="Verified" data-linkindex="12">survey data from Scott Rasmussen, 84% of Americans believe a strong family is foundational to a strong America, and 65% agree that children who grow up fatherless are at a significant disadvantage in life. Along those same lines, another 84% think that parents, rather than the community, bear the primary responsibility for raising children, and 67% believe that the decline of the family is harming America’s growth and prosperity.

If these trends continue, our country’s very future could be in jeopardy. Faith and family are two of the most sacred values in our society. As they both decline, we expect many other issues to follow. Rising crime and drug use, failing education systems, and so much more will only continue to proliferate as America’s faith declines and family formation disintegrates.

In the NFL, when we didn’t like the statistics in front of us, we called an audible and changed the play. At the end of the day, it just came down to hard work. That’s true of our country too, and it’s up to all of us to call an audible and lead the charge in returning to a society based on faith and family — the things that matter most.

Jack Brewer serves as Chair of the Center for Opportunity Now and Vice-Chair of the Center for 1776 for the America First Policy Institute.

April 3, 2023

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Kindred spirits will always be drawn to one another. Therefore, positive-driven people will be attracted to the strong motivation and integrity which comes from other positive-driven people. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. When the written and spoken rhetoric by divisive-driven people is used to promote intimidation, hate and animosity toward those in society who are considered to be inferior, it draws the attention and passionate reactions of other like-minded individuals.

Words are powerful, therefore hate filled words have historically been used as an effective rallying cry for racial violence. The motivation behind hate-filled words is a distinct part of American history where the threat of Black political power, the social mobility of Black people or just being Black has led to deadly actions by white lynch mobs. Many Black massacres in the U.S. included widespread destruction of property, deaths and the exile of Black residents from their communities. It takes one person to make a false accusation motivated by racial hatred, and it has led to lynching, massacres, and the wrongful imprisonment of Black people. The pattern throughout history is clear. In late May 1921, a Black teenager was falsely accused of assaulting a white woman in Tulsa, the result was the Tulsa massacre. In January 1923, a mob of over 200 white men attacked the Black community in Rosewood, Florida, killing over 30 Black men, woman and children, burning the town to the ground, and forcing all survivors to permanently flee Rosewood. It began with a young white woman claiming she was assaulted by a Black man despite there being no evidence against the man.

Yusef Salaam was one of the five New York teenagers who was wrongly convicted and imprisoned for the 1989 rape and assault of a white woman jogging in Central Park. The five Black and Latino teens were beaten and coerced by New York City police into falsely confessing to the rape and assault. As a 15 years old teenager, Salaam was arrested but eventually exonerated after being imprisoned for over six years for a crime he did not commit. In early 2002, Matias Reyes, a convicted murderer and rapist, admitted that he alone was responsible for the attack. When referring to the false accusations from those in law enforcement, Salaam said, “The overwhelming feeling that I have toward the police and prosecutors is that they knew that we had not done this crime. They knew it, but yet they chose to move forward…..the people who are suppose to uphold the law, it is criminal when they do the exact opposite of that.” Salaam no longer refers to the men as the Central Park Five, but the Exonerated Five.

Dr. Yusef Salaam’s remarkable journey took him from being wrongfully imprisoned as a teen to becoming an award-winning motivational and transformational speaker, thought leader, trainer, New York Times Best Selling author and coach. His time in prison was not wasted. He used it to not only find his purpose in life, but to become a writer. While Salaam is currently a prison reform activist who has formally announced his candidacy for the New York City Council seat in Harlem’s 9^th District, yet he will forever be tied to Donald Trump.  As Trump runs for president for a third time, we should never forget how he led the charge against the Exonerated Five with his divisive and hate-filled rhetoric. Now that Donald Trump himself is indicted, for a brief period, the former president will become an ordinary citizen when he is formally booked for criminal charges.

Thirty-four years after the arrest of Yusef Salaam, Donald Trump will be fingerprinted and photographed for a mug shot like Salaam and the other members of the Exonerated 5. He will be read the standard Miranda warning like every other person who has ever gone through the booking process. While the indictment of a former president is a sad moment in our nation’s history, it becomes a vindication of the principle that no person is above the law. His arrest in Manhattan has great significance. Before the five teenagers were convicted in 1989, Trump spent $85,000 on a full page ad that ran in all four of New York’s major newspapers. The ad was a hate-filled message which called for the return of the death penalty in response to the attack. For a man who has a lot to say, he never issued an apology or any acknowledgement of their innocence after the men were cleared. The ad ran in part:

“Mayor Koch has stated that hate and rancor should be removed from our hearts. I do not think so. I want to hate those muggers and murderers. They should be forced to suffered…Yes, Mayor Koch, I want to hate these murderers and I always will…How can our great society tolerate the continued brutalization of its citizens by crazed misfits?”

In a 2019 interview, Salaam said, “We were convicted because of the color of our skin. People thought the worst of us,” he said. “And this is all because of prominent New Yorkers-especially Donald Trump.” He added, “I look at Donald Trump, and I understand him as a representation of a symptom of America.” Many of Trump’s supporters will continue to vote for him despite two impeachments, one insurrection and now a criminal indictment. At times, his divisive hate-filled rhetoric connects with the motivations behind the death of Emmett Till and the massacres in Tulsa and Rosewood. The motivation to seek the death of a Black person when it comes to a Black man attacking a white female is a symptom of America even when the accusation is known not to be true. Trump’s arrest may be violently opposed by many of his supporters, but to see that Trump may likely walk into the same courtroom where the Exonerated Five were falsely convicted is priceless.

David W. Marshall is founder of the faith based organization, TRB: The Reconciled Body, and author of the book “God Bless Our Divided America”. He can be reached at www.davidwmarshallauthor.com

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The recent massacre of three students and three adults in Nashville is alarming. How and why did a former student invade the school locked and loaded with an automatic weapon and ruthlessly kill innocent students and their caretakers? While it is useless to speculate on the thought process that led someone to kill people, perhaps to make a statement, it is clear that the multiple school shootings that have taken place in the last several months have encouraged many to continue the trend by executing shootings of their own. In the wake of the March 27 Nashville shooting, we were treated to the usual rhetoric of "thoughts and prayers" and even calls for stronger gun legislation. But the gun lobby is so strong and gun-toting zealots so politically powerful that attempts to limit the availability of automatic weapons get caught in the political crossfire. Anyone can offer thoughts and prayers. Who is willing to change policy to protect our students?

While I am wondering how students are reacting to the ever-present school shootings, the American Association of Pediatrics (AAP), the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), and the Children’s Hospital Association declared a national emergency in children’s mental health two years ago (https://www.aap.org/en/advocacy/child-and-adolescenthealthy-mental-development/aap-aacap-cha-declaration-ofa-national-emergency-in-child-and-adolescent-mentalhealth/), citing the severe toll of the COVID-19 pandemic on top of existing challenges. While their report does not explicitly reference school shootings as part of the problem, Lee Savio Beers, AAP President, said, "Young people have endured so much throughout this pandemic, and while much of the attention is often placed on its physical health consequences, we cannot overlook the escalating mental health crisis facing our patients.” The mental health crisis shows up through increasing incidences of child suicide, the second leading cause of death for young people 10-24 in 2018.

The number has likely increased since we have experienced much disruption since the COVID epidemic that shifted life paradigms between 2019 and 2021. If adults have problems handling this disruption, how do we think our children and young adults are faring? “We are caring for young people with soaring rates of depression, anxiety, trauma, loneliness, and suicidality that will have lasting impacts on them, their families, their communities, and all of our futures,” said AACAP President Gabrielle A. Carlson, M.D. “This is a national emergency, and the time for swift and deliberate action is now.”

The 2021 report noted that young people in communities of color had been impacted by the pandemic more than others and how the ongoing struggle for racial justice is inextricably tied to the worsening mental health crisis. When young people witness the heinous killings of Black motorists or people simply "walking while Black," how does it affect their mental health? While our attention is focused on young people who are students, we have often ignored the children who, as young as twelve or thirteen, are working in unsafe environments. There are federal child labor laws that restrict the hours that those under 16 can work, especially during school hours. Too many employers ignore the rules and are rarely held accountable.

The National Child Labor Coalition (https://stopchildlabor.org/)ß has documented the reckless use of children in manufacturing plants, especially automobile manufacturing plants in Alabama (Kia and Hyundai are especially egregious violators). Nearly half of all employed children work in agriculture, where they are exposed to, among other things, life-threatening pesticides. While laws prevent child labor, enforcement is lax when regulatory agencies are understaffed. Louis Hine photographed jarring images of children working in agriculture, mines, and other dangerous places.

His work, much of which was documented at the turn of the twentieth century, was responsible for the child labor legislation from 1912, and was part of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938. Our nation is moving backward in protecting children, but that is no surprise since we are going backward using legislation to prevent exploitation. Still, too many of us mouth the platitude that we believe that children are the future while ignoring our children's mental health in the classroom, the workplace, and the world. Our indifference to our young people will likely result in their indifference to us a decade or two from now.

Can we expect the young people we have ignored to protect our Medicare or Social Security? Why should they care for us when we have not cared for them? Dr. Julianne Malveaux is an economist, author, and Dean of the College of Ethnic Studies at Cal State LA. She can be reached at juliannemalveaux.co