Greene County Democrat

Author: greenecodemocratcom

  • Study: Minority children fear Trump presidency

    By KELLY PATRICK SLONE,
    Indianapolis Recorder Newspaper

     

    Donald Trump

    Donald J. Trump

    Though they are not yet old enough to vote, some children are acutely aware of what could be at stake in the upcoming November presidential election, and it’s had an impact on classrooms across the country.
    A recent report by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) — a nonprofit, nonpartisan civil rights organization — says many minority students are concerned about how life could change for them and their families if presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump wins the presidency. The trend, which the report dubs the “Trump Effect,” was found in survey responses gathered from 2,000 K–12 teachers across the country. More than two-thirds (67 percent) of survey respondents said students in their schools — most often immigrants, children of immigrants, Muslims, African-Americans and other students of color — have expressed concern about a Trump presidency.
    Comments from the educators shine light on the children’s concerns, and though Trump has been outspoken about plans to police immigration and has openly shared his less-than-positive views about Hispanics and Muslims, Black students have also expressed concern.
    “My students are terrified of Donald Trump,” one teacher from a middle school with a large population of African-American Muslims said. “They think that if he’s elected, all Black people will get sent back to Africa.”
    An elementary teacher in Oklahoma wrote, “My kids are terrified of Trump becoming [p]resident. They believe he can/will deport them — and NONE of them are Hispanic. They are all African-American.”
    Some teachers said Black students have even mentioned the possibility of a return of slavery in a Trump-led America.
    A high school teacher in North Carolina said her Latino students’ fears are not just hypothetical and hinging on a Trump election win — their behavior indicates they already feel insecure. “Latino students … carry their birth certificates and Social Security cards to school because they are afraid they will be deported,” the teacher said.
    In some cases, teachers said Trump’s rhetoric has emboldened school bullies, and educators are seeing an uptick in hate speech. “Many teachers reported an increase in use of the n-word as a slur, even among very young children,” the report says.
    A kindergarten teacher in Tennessee said a Latino child, since being told by classmates that he will be deported and trapped behind a wall, asks daily, “Is the wall here yet?”
    In many cases, respondents said students have taken steps backward in their abilities to engage in civil discourse, and while some educators are seeing unprecedented interest among students eager to learn more about the political process and the current election, they are wary of broaching the topic.
    In response to the statement “I am hesitant to teach about the 2016 presidential election,” 43 percent of K-12 educators in the survey answered in the affirmative, a trend the SPLC found troubling.
    “What’s at stake in 2016 is not simply who will be our 45th president or how the parties might realign, but how well we are preparing young people for their most important job: the job of being a citizen,” SPLC wrote in the report. “If schools avoid the election — or fail to find ways to help students discuss it productively — it’s akin to taking civics out of the curriculum.”
    For those who do decide to teach about the election, there is pressure to keep their own personal beliefs and opinions out of the lessons. Still others, like one Indianapolis teacher who responded to the survey, have decided to lay it all out. “I am at a point where I’m going to take a stand even if it costs me my position,” that teacher said.

  • Supreme Court rules for Black Georgia death row inmate

    By Lawrence Hurley

     

    scotus-elites_2

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday effectively overturned a Black man’s 1987 conviction for murdering a white woman, rebuking Georgia prosecutors for unlawfully excluding Black potential jurors in picking an all-white jury that condemned him to death.

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    Timothy Foster

    The 7-1 ruling handed a major victory to Timothy Foster, who is 48 now and was 18 at the time of the 1986 killing of Queen Madge White, a 79-year-old retired schoolteacher, in Rome, Georgia. Prosecutors, however, still could seek a new trial.
    Black convicts make up a disproportionately high percentage of death row inmates in the United States. Opponents of capital punishment assert that the American criminal justice system discriminates against Black defendants. During jury selection, all four Black members of the pool of potential jurors were “struck” by prosecutors, meaning they were removed from consideration. Prosecutors gave reasons not related to race for their decisions to exclude them.
    Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the ruling, said prosecution notes introduced into evidence that shed light on the jury selection “plainly belie the state’s claim that it exercised its strikes in a ‘color blind’ manner. The sheer number of references to race in that file is arresting.”
    The notes showed that the prosecution marked the names of the black prospective jurors with a “B,” highlighted them in green and circled the word “Black” next to the race question on juror questionnaires.
    The prosecution gave reasons for excluding potential Black jurors including that they “did not make enough eye contact” during questioning and were “bewildered,” “hostile,” “defensive,” “nervous” and “impudent.”
    Roberts said prosecutors “were motivated in substantial part by race” when two of the potential jurors were excluded. Two such strikes based on race “are two more than the Constitution allows,” Roberts added.
    The Supreme Court ruled in 1986, the same year as this murder, that it is unconstitutional to take race into account when excluding potential jurors.
    Prosecutors said Foster broke into the elderly woman’s home in the middle of the night, broke White’s jaw, sexually assaulted her, beat and strangled her, and stole items from her house. Foster later confessed to killing White, according to court papers.
    At the time of the trial, Foster’s legal arguments regarding jury selection failed. But in 2006 his lawyers obtained access to the prosecution’s jury selection notes, which showed that the race of the Black potential jurors was highlighted, indicating “an explicit reliance on race,” according to Foster’s attorneys.
    According to court documents filed by Foster’s lawyers, the lead prosecutor said of his exclusion of the potential black jurors: “All I have to do is have a race-neutral reason, and all of these reasons that I have given the court are racially neutral.”
    Foster’s lawyer, Stephen Bright of the Southern Center for Human Rights, said the legal challenge would not have succeeded without the notes. “This discrimination became apparent only because we obtained the prosecution’s notes which revealed their intent to discriminate. Usually that does not happen. The practice of discriminating in striking juries continues in courtrooms across the country,” Bright said.
    The Supreme Court’s ruling threw out a Georgia Supreme Court decision rejecting Foster’s claim about prosecutorial misconduct in jury selection, meaning a state court will now reverse his conviction.
    The sole dissenter in the ruling was the court’s only Black justice, Clarence Thomas. Thomas said the case should have been sent back to state courts to determine whether Foster’s claim could proceed.

  • President Barack Obama signed a bill Friday that modernizes the terms used for minorities.

    By: Madison Park, CNN

    President Barack Obama

    (CNN) The federal government will no longer use the terms “Negro” and “Oriental” after President Barack Obama signed a bill into law. The official terms will be African-American and Asian-American. Welcome to 2016.
    In a rare show of bipartisan support, the measure H.R.4238, passed unanimously in the House of Representatives and the Senate earlier this year. Obama signed it into law Friday. The measure updates the terms the U.S. federal government uses to describe minorities, including American Indian to Native American and “Spanish speaking individual of Spanish descent” to Hispanic.
    Here’s what the bill states: Office Of Minority Economic Impact.—Section 211(f)(1) of the Department of Energy Organization Act (42 U.S.C. 7141(f)(1)) is amended by striking “a Negro, Puerto Rican, American Indian, Eskimo, Oriental, or Aleut or is a Spanish speaking individual of Spanish descent” and inserting “Asian American, Native Hawaiian, a Pacific Islander, African American, Hispanic, Puerto Rican, Native American, or an Alaska Native”.
    “The term ‘Oriental’ has no place in federal law and at long last this insulting and outdated term will be gone for good,” said Rep. Grace Meng of New York, who sponsored the bill.
    Meng, a Democrat from Queens, encountered the term while doing legislative research and had sought to eliminate its usage from government terminology.
    “Many Americans may not be aware that the word ‘Oriental’ is derogatory. But it is an insulting term that needed to be removed from the books, and I am extremely pleased that my legislation to do that is now the law of the land,” she said in a statement.
    Meng had similarly pushed a law that eliminated the use of the word when she served in the New York Legislature in 2009.
    The H.R. 4328 bill had 76 cosponsors, including all 51 members of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. One of the original cosponsors included Rep. Ed Royce, a California Republican.
    “Our country is a rich tapestry of cultural backgrounds, and Americans of all backgrounds deserve to be treated with dignity and respect,” he said in a statement.

  • Meet the Smith Family: Winners of the $429.6 Million Powerball

    BY CORKY SIEMASZKO, NBC NEWS

    images-3 

    Pearlie Mae Smith, second right, reacts as she sits with daughters Rene Bethina Smith, third right, and Katherine Nicole Nunnally, right, and five other children, not shown, as they talk about life after winning the lottery Friday, May 13, 2016 in Lawrenceville, N.J. Mel Evans / AP

     

    The Smith family — 70-year-old matriarch, Perlie Smith, and her seven children — were identified Friday as the winners of the $429.6 million Powerball jackpot.
    Oldest daughter Valerie Arthur, a recently retired prison administrator, said the winning numbers came to them “in a dream.” “We had divine intervention,” she said.  “That’s the only way you can explain how the numbers were chosen. It was through a dream.”
    Arthur said it was “big shock” when they found out they won and an even bigger shock when they realized they were the only winners. She said they are planning to use the money to pay off mortgages and student loans — and do some good in their communities.
    They are also bracing for phone calls from people they have not heard from in years now that they’ve been outed.
    “In about an hour, everybody is going to come out of the woodwork,” she said. “I know everybody in the Department of Corrections will be calling me. This was the 6th largest haul in the Powerball’s history. The winning ticket was purchased Saturday at a 7-Eleven in Trenton, New Jersey, lottery chief Carole Hedinger said earlier.
    Store owner Andrea Shin said on Wednesday, when she collected $30,000 for selling the prize-wining ticket, that she suspects the winner is one of her regular customers.
    “It’s great for the Trenton community to have something positive going on, ” she said. “Everybody is excited for the winner.”
    Arthur did not specify where her family was from. “We live in different cities,” she said.
    One of the lucky eight picked all the right numbers — 5, 25, 26, 44, 66 and the Powerball number: 9, Hedinger said.

    It was purchased as a cash ticket, so the eight will split $284 million. It’s worth the full $429.6 million only if the winner — or in this case, winners — opt for an annuity to be paid over 29 years.

  • National Urban League’s 40th report on the “State of Black America” shows deep inequality

    By Stacy M. Brown (NNPA News Wire Contributor)

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    Mark Morial,
    President of National Urban League

    In 1976, then-President Gerald Ford delivered the annual “State of the Union Address,” virtually ignoring the plight of African-Americans and Latinos.
    That drove Vernon Jordan, then-president of the National Urban League, to commission his own report. Now, 40 years later, the “State of Black America” report is a prominent tool that continues to show just where African-Americans, Latinos and other minorities stand in the United States.
    National Urban League President Marc H. Morial said that it’s clear, that much needs to be done.
    “As we observe the 40th anniversary of the State of Black America, the similarities in the nation in 2016 and that which, then-National Urban League Executive Director Vernon Jordan documented in 1976 are disheartening,” Morial said on Tuesday, May 17, at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., during the unveiling of the 40th annual report. “Our nation was struggling to overcome the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Pressure was building to slash social services for the poor, who were demonized and characterized as swindlers. Communities were rocked by hostility and violence triggered by legal challenges to the social status quo,” Morial said.
    As with every economic downturn, communities of color bore the brunt of the decline, Morial noted. Black Americans remained nearly twice as likely as Whites to be unemployed and, since 1976, the Black unemployment rate has consistently remained about twice that of the White rate across time, regardless of educational attainment.
    “The household income gap remains at about 60 cents for every dollar. Black Americans are only slightly less likely today to live in poverty than they were in 1976,” he said.
    On the criminal justice front, Morial said Jordan, who served as president of the National Urban League from 1971 to 1981, noted that Blacks were underrepresented in law enforcement in 1976.
    “The City of Chicago is an example: with a population that is 32.7 percent Black, it has a police force that is only 16 percent Black,” he said. “Today, in hundreds of police departments across the nation, the percentage of Whites on the force is more than 30 percentage points higher than in the communities they serve.”
    Morial spoke fervently about how Blacks were once considered by law to be just three-fifths of a human.“That’s about 60 percent and, if you’re looking for a way to measure how far we’ve come, in 2004 we introduced the equality index and in 2016 that number is 72.2 percent,” he said.
    The report’s bottom line is that African-Americans and Latinos continue to fall way behind Whites in key economic areas, including household income and unemployment rates.
    The State of Black America examined economic data for 70 metro areas for Blacks and 73 for Hispanics and found that there were no regions in the United States where Blacks were more likely to be employed or make more money than Whites.
    Like Blacks, Hispanics in all regions were consistently paid less than Whites though, on average, the gaps between White household income and Hispanic household income were smaller than those between Whites and Blacks, the report found.
    “This is the remaining issue of civil rights and economic justice in America,” Morial said.“This economic gap between Blacks and Whites, which is a component of the gap between rich and poor and working class people in America is a continuing problem.”
    In 2015, nationally 6.6 percent of Hispanics and 9.6 percent of Blacks were unemployed compared with 4.6 percent of Whites.
    The report revealed that African-Americans are doing about the same as they have in previous years as the nation rises out of the Great Recession, which still is surprising better than they did when the first State of Black America report was released in 1976.
    The National Urban League’s equality index is based on collected data from federal agencies including the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the National Center for Education Statistics, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. With full equality with Whites in economics, health, education, social justice and civic engagement set at 100 percent, the National Urban League said this year’s equality index for Blacks stands at 72.2 percent, compared with last year’s 72 percent. For Hispanics, it’s 77.8 percent compared to last year’s rate of 77.3 percent.
    Since 1976, fewer Blacks live in poverty – 29 percent in 1976 compared with 27 percent now. More Blacks have graduated high school and college – 28 percent in 1976 and 33 percent today for high school, and 6 percent four decades ago versus 22 percent today for college. Life expectancy of African-Americans has increased from 68 in 1976 to 75 today. Homeownership and voting, however, continue to be major obstacles with 43 percent of African-Americans owning a home compared to the 43.7 percent that owned homes in 1976.
    Voting is down considerably as 48.7 percent of African-Americans cast ballots in 1976 compared with just 39.7 percent today.
    For the second year in a row, California’s Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metroplex is the best for Blacks when it comes to income equality compared to Whites. An African-American worker makes 76 cents to every dollar a White worker makes in those cities, the highest ratio in the nation. For Latinos, Honolulu is the most promising for income equality: Hispanics make 80 cents for every dollar made by Whites.
    Washington, D.C., and its suburbs are where Blacks, Whites and Hispanics have the highest median household income. Whites make $109,460, Hispanics make $66,523, and Blacks make $66,151.The cities with the lowest Black unemployment rate are Oklahoma City and San Antonio at 8.3 percent. The city with the lowest Hispanic unemployment rate is Tulsa, Oklahoma, with a 4.6 unemployment rate.
    Morial has put out the call for a major commitment from the government to rebuild the nation’s urban communities called the “Main Street Marshall Plan.” He’s seeking $1 trillion over the next five years committed to several programs including universal early childhood education, homeownership strategies, high-speed broadband and technology, and a $15 per hour federal living wage indexed to inflation.“While education is crucial, education alone is not going to solve the economic gaps in the country,” Morial said.
    To view the full report, visit http://www.stateofblackamerica.org.

  • Obama to make historic visit to Hiroshima

    By David Nakamura, Washington Post

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    President Obama will make a historic trip to Hiroshima, Japan, on May 27, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to visit the site of the world’s first atomic bombing.
    The White House formally announced the visit last week after weeks of speculation that Obama would stop in the city after attending the Group of 7 economic summit in Ise-Shima. The president is expected to deliver a speech on nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will join Obama on the visit, where the president will “highlight his continued commitment to pursuing the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,” the White House said in a statement.
    Obama aides say there will be no presidential apology for the U.S. decision to drop the atomic bomb on Aug. 6, 1945, which killed an estimated 140,000 people in Hiroshima. Three days later, a second atomic bomb killed up to 80,000 people in Nagasaki.
    “He will not revisit the decision to use the atomic bomb at the end of World War II,” White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said in a blog post. “Instead, he will offer a forward-looking vision focused on our shared future.”
    Critics, including many conservative news outlets, have called a visit unnecessary and framed a potential trip by Obama as an apology for an act that helped bring the war started by Japan to a quicker end, saving lives of U.S. service members.
    But the White House believed the time was right, in Obama’s final year, to make a grand symbolic statement toward the president’s disarmament goals that he announced during his first year in office. Though Obama has made only modest progress in that effort, aides said the trip would allow the president to focus international attention on the issue at a time when presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has suggested Japan and South Korea develop their own nuclear weapon arsenals in the face of threats from North Korea.
    Rhodes emphasized that Obama will pay homage to U.S. service members who fought in World War II: “Their cause was just, and we owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude. ” He added that “the visit will also symbolize how far the United States and Japan have come in building a deep and abiding alliance based on mutual interests, shared values, and an enduring spirit of friendship between our peoples.”
    Kevin Martin, president of Peace Action, which advocates for the abolition of nuclear weapons, said that Obama must take concrete steps toward that goal.”It’s not enough to repeat the words Obama has said several times since his historic Prague speech [in 2009] calling for the abolishment of nuclear weapons,” Martin said. “Obama must announce actions he will take in the his remaining months as president that will actually bring the world closer to being free of nuclear weapons.”
    The president, Martin said, “will look insincere if his words espouse ridding the world of nuclear weapons while at the same time his administration continues its plan to spend a trillion dollars over thirty years to upgrade nuclear weapons.”
    Obama also will make his first visit to Vietnam, visiting Hanoi on May 24 and Ho Chi Minh City on May 25, the White House said.

  • Judge Brown rules for Greenetrack to return seized ‘bingo’ machines

    • At press time, the Democrat learned that Judge Houston L. Brown, Special Circuit Judge, dealing with matters related to gaming in Greene County, ruled in favor of Greenetrack and ordered the return of hundreds of electronic bingo machines and other records seized in the first raid against Greenetrack in July 2010.
      The judgment relies heavily on the specific wording in Constitutional Amendment 743, voted on by the people of Greene County, which permitted bingo, including electronic forms of bingo, in Greene County.
      A more detailed story on the judge’s ruling will be in next week’s issue of the Democrat.

  • Davis claims 41 years of Black Belt Blues

    By: Mynecia Destinee Steele
     

    Davis3.jpg
    Mr. Clarence Davis

     

    Mr. Clarence Davis has been around since the first Black Belt Folk Roots Festival, and he remembers it well.
    Clarence attended the first Black Belt Folk Roots Festival 41 years ago and he has not missed one yet.
    Davis says that he remembers when Jane Sapp, music and cultural instructor for the event, and other staff of the Miles College-Eutaw Program, started the festival. “I remember them going around trying to get people and musicians together,” said Davis.
    Davis has not only attended the festival regularly, but he also participates in musical performances. Davis was inducted in the Blues Hall of Fame in 2014. The City of Eutaw is privileged to have had Davis’ music grace its courtyard square every August.
    He plays what he calls Delta Blues. This style of music came from the Mississippi area during the ‘20s and ‘30s.Growing up, Davis fell in love with this style of music, and eventually taught himself to play blues on the bass.
    “I first started playing around with a guitar at seven”, said Davis. “But, I really started getting into it when I was 12.”
    Learning to play took lots of practice, but Davis was dedicated. He would listen to songs and mimic the sounds of other musicians until he sounded exactly like them.
    According to Davis most musicians during that time tried to imitate that delta sound. The music expressed the hardships that many people, especially farmers, were experiencing during that time.
    Davis went on to reminisce about some of the other original festival performers and musicians.  He clearly remembers that raw down-home sound. He particularly loved the way the performers played the hambone.
    There was something special about those homemade instruments said Davis. These instruments were reflective of our roots. And that is what the Black Belt Folk Roots Festival is all about.
    He misses the old time sounds of the festival, but he also appreciates the way that younger generations have taken on the tradition of playing at the festival, with their new school blues and hip-hop.
    Mr. Davis says that one thing he would love to see, before his last festival, is for it to continue to grow. He suggested that the event be moved to the local park.  This space would provide a larger venue, and therefore more vendors could participate and more people could attend.
    Davis emphasized how important this event is to the Black Belt community. “For a lot of the older people, this is probably the only time they really get to come out of the house,” said Davis. He said that this event is one time out of the year that the entire community is able to get together and have a great time.

  • BBCF awards $60,000 in grants to Arts Programs throughout 12 Black Belt counties

    Greene Co.-Woman-To-Woman.jpg

    L to R: Rev. Christopher Spencer, Vassie Welbeck-Browne, Johnnie M. Knott, Mary Beck, Darlene Robinson, Felicia Lucky.
     Woman-To-Woman , Inc. recieved a $10,000 grant to support the project, “Pathway to Nurturing, Strengthening and Changing.”   Greene County youth will use drama, dance and poetry to increase academic achievement, improve self-esteem, and develop communication skills.  Through this project, students will use several art disciplines to improve academics and creativity by working with community partners and professional artists.

    Greene Co. Art Grantees-Greene Co. Alumnae

    L to R:  Felicia Lucky, Rev. Christopher Spencer Andrea  Perry, Darlene Robinson and Braxton Carlilse. Greene County Alumnae Chapter Delta Sigma Theta:  $2,000 to support the DST Café project which will expose the community to a combination of arts by presenting creative expressions in  performing, visual and literary arts.

    Greene Co.-Society of Arts & Culture

    L to R: Rev. Christopher Spencer, Felicia Lucky, Debra Eatman and Darlene Robinson. Society of Folk Arts and Culture:  $3,000 to support the 41st Black Belt Folk Roots Festival which celebrates the culture, traditions and folkways of the West Alabama Region.

     

     

    •Greene County
    receives $15,000
    in grant awards

    The Black Belt Community Foundation, located in Selma, Al, awarded $60,000 in grants to fund programs throughout 12 counties located in the Black Belt Region to bolster efforts in the art programs.  The awards were presented in a ceremony at the Hank Sanders Technology Center, Wallace Community College, Selma, AL, on Saturday, June 18, 2016, to recipients who gathered for a day of celebration and fellowship.  Greene County received $5,000 in arts grant support for art related programs and a $10,000 Arts Education Grant.  The total of grant awards for Greene County was $15,000.  “The Black Belt Community Foundation has awarded nearly $3.2 million in grants to our 12 counties since 2005,” said Felecia Lucky, President of the BBCF.  It is gratifying to see the organizations and community leaders who work hard every day to transform our region through the arts gather together and attend the ceremony, which is a vibrant celebration of our mission.”
    This past April, community led organizations located in Bullock, Choctaw, Dallas, Greene, Hale, Lowndes, Macon, Marengo, Perry, Pickens, Sumter, and Wilcox counties were welcomed to apply for grants to support the arts.  The BBCF awarded $60,000 in grants  to arts initiative project.

  • Judge Brown rules for Greenetrack to return seized ‘bingo’ machines

    At press time, the Democrat learned that Judge Houston L. Brown, Special Circuit Judge, dealing with matters related to gaming in Greene County, ruled in favor of Greenetrack and ordered the return of hundreds of electronic bingo machines and other records seized in the first raid against Greenetrack in July 2010.

    The judgment relies heavily on the specific wording in Constitutional Amendment 743, voted on by the people of Greene County, which permitted bingo, including electronic forms of bingo, in Greene County.
    A more detailed story on the judge’s ruling will be in next week’s issue of the Democrat.