Police accountability report could relate to other US law enforcement agencies

Good relationships take practice, courage, and commitment on all sides. (Photo by Kurk Johnson, July 4, 2008)

In a scathing indictment of the Chicago Police, members of a citizen's oversight committee have given clues into how other police departments may treat people of color in other U.S. neighborhoods.  If in Chicago, so could the rest of America benefit from this report.
https://chicagopatf.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/PATF_Final_Report_4_13_16-1.pdf

In an April 13 press release, members of the Police Accountability Task Force presented its findings focused on rebuilding the fabric of trust between Chicago’s Police Department and the communities they serve.

From report: "...daily, pervasive transgressions that prevent people of all ages, races, ethnicities and gender across Chicago from having basic freedom of movement in their own neighborhoods. Stopped without justification, verbally and physically abused, and in some instances arrested, and then detained without counsel—that is what we heard about over and over again. Many of those voices came from young people who are on the frontlines of daily encounters with the police whether on the streets or in schools."

The Task Force, appointed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel in December 2015 in the wake of the shooting death of teenager Laquan McDonald, engaged in a robust community process through five Working Groups whose members included a cross section of Chicagoans.  The Working Groups met with a broad and diverse range of experts, organizations and individuals from all across the city which included over 750 people.

The Task Force report contains comprehensive findings based on community input as well as detailed research; interviews with community, legal and civil rights organizations; current and former police officers; and young people across the city, as well as a review of best practices in other police departments. The report contains over 100 recommendations for reform.

“We heard Chicago citizens decry the lack of discipline for officers involved in wrongful shootings or other serious issues," said Task Force member Victor Dickson. "They told us that community policing had once been effective, but now exists in name only. And residents of Chicago spoke of random police stops in which they are treated with disdain, and fearful that any interaction with police could lead to violence against them. Unfortunately, our research supports those perceptions.”

Here are summary bullets from the report.
• 74% of people killed or injured by Chicago police officers were African American, over the last eight years.
• 72% of people stopped by Chicago police in 2014 were African American, and 17% were
Hispanic.

The Task Force acknowledges that policing is an increasingly challenging and often dangerous job. Illegal guns are awash in communities that are devastated by crime, poverty and unemployment.

“Overall, we found that good police are not supported or rewarded, while too many bad police are given a pass," said Task Force Chair Lori E. Lightfoot. "Red flags about officers heading down the wrong path are not quickly and aggressively addressed, as they should be. And officers can go from the Training Academy to retirement with virtually no mandatory training in between. The Department needs to invest in its human capital and professionalize the way it manages its people.”

The recommendations of the Task Force address three critical areas: the need for community empowerment, lack of accountability, and other systemic problems. The following highlight some of the key recommendations from the report.

EMPOWERING  PEOPLE
Create a Community Safety Oversight Board , a powerful platform and role for the community in police oversight Implement a citywide Reconciliation Process beginning with the Superintendent publicly acknowledging CPD’s history of racial disparity and discrimination Replace CAPS with localized Community Empowerment and Engagement Districts (CEED) for each of the city’s 22 police districts.

ADDRESSING LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY
Replace the Independent Police Review Authority with an empowered, fully transparent and accountable Civilian Police Investigative Agency , which will enhance structural protections, powers and resources for investigating serious cases of police misconduct, even in the absence of sworn complaints.

Create a dedicated Inspector General for Public Safety to independently audit and monitor CPD and the police oversight system, including for patterns of racial bias.

Require that all disciplinary information be provided online so that citizens can track complaints and discipline histories.

Implement an Early Intervention System for CPD to identify officers with problems before they become problems for the community.

ADDRESSING OTHER SYSTEMIC PROBLEMS
Dismantle the institutionalization of the police “code of silence,” including changes to the police unions’ collective bargaining agreements, ending command channel review, reforming the role of CPD supervisors and prioritizing pattern and practice analysis.

Create a “Mental Health Critical Response Unit” within CPD that is responsible for mental  health crisis response functions, including training, support, community outreach and engagement, cross-agency co-ordination and data collection.

Establish a smart 911 system for the Office of Emergency Management and Communications (OEMC), allowing residents to pre-enter information on mental health or other issues that would be instantly available to 911 operators.

Create a mult-layer co-responder system where mental health providers work with OEMC and CPD to link individuals to treatment.

“Reform is possible if there is a will and a commitment,” continued Lightfoot. “But where it must  begin is with an acknowledgement of the sad history and present conditions that have left the people totally alienated from the police.

"The Chicago Police Department cannot begin to build trust, repair what is broken and tattered  unless from the top leadership on down – it faces these hard truths, acknowledges what it has done at the individual and institutional levels, and earnestly reaches out in respect. Only then can it expect to engage the community in a true partnership,” Lightfoot concluded.

To read the full report, go to: www.ChicagoPATF.org

Run, hide, or fight?

Make sure you have adequate shoes if you decide to run...

"...self-defense is a moral thing, and perhaps a responsibility, rather than cowering in a corner hoping that some madman, gang banger or religious fanatic isn’t going to put one through your forehead." Dave Workman, Seattle
http://www.examiner.com/article/lesson-from-san-diego-non-shooting-run-hide-or-fight

"Each person is responsible for their own safety!"... Officer Fowler, Cobb County Police
Photo by Tomi Johnson

Thought for today...

Photo by Tomi Johnson

"Peace can only come as a natural consequence of universal enlightenment and merging of races, and we are still far from this blissful realization, because few indeed, will admit the reality that "God made man in His image"  in which case all earth men are alike. There is in fact but one race, of many colors. Christ is but one person, yet he is of all people, so why do some people think themselves better than some other people?"---Nikola Tesler
http://philosophiesofmen.blogspot.com/2012/08/nikola-tesla-on-religion.html

Lockheed's Shan Cooper resigns post in Georgia

Photo by Ilea Johnson

According to a news report from the Marietta Daily Journal, Shan Cooper, general manager and vice president of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company in Marietta, Ga., has resigned.  Cooper was responsible for 6,300 employees. It is unclear what Cooper's next assignment will be. 

Cooper's last public appearance was noted Monday by the Watchdog at Turner Chapel AME Church during the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday celebration. Lockheed Martin, the local NAACP, and Cobb County Government cosponsored the event. Cooper was a "Living the Dream" award recipient in 2013.

According to her company profile, Cooper joined Lockheed Martin in 2002 and prior to that, she held leadership positions with Lucent Technologies and consulted with other Fortune 500 companies. Cooper holds an MBA from Emory University and is a graduate of Rutgers.

Formerly Lockheed’s VP of Human Resources, Cooper is a wife and mother of one daughter. "I tell my employees to pray, and then get back to work," she told women at a conference in 2014. 

To learn more about Cooper and her work ethic, go to: http://wingcomwatchdog.blogspot.com/2014/04/shan-cooper-woman-of-integrity.html .

Dehydrated Ignorance: dumbing down the poor using H2O and untruth as weapons

Water wars
Photo ©2016 Tomi Johnson. All rights reserved. 

In the preface to his book The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South, the late author Kenneth M. Stampp wrote, "I have simply found no convincing evidence that there are any significant differences between the innate emotional traits and intellectual capacities of Negroes and whites."

Poisoned water in Flint, Michigan, however, has turned this theory on its head because scientists and doctors are now saying lead-laced water will affect the "natural" intelligence and behavior of some 8,000 children living there who have ingested and bathed in poisoned water as well as the health of residents with compromised immune systems, the elderly, and pregnant women.

What is the simplest way to exterminate people? Give them contaminated water.  It's almost like giving blankets laced with chicken pox virus to indigenous peoples and smells like the syphilis tragedy known as the Tuskegee Experiment.

Flint's water poses an environmental emergency, and citizens should be evacuated just as they should be moved from any unsafe place.

According to the Census Bureau, Flint's Black population is 53%, the median income for a household in the city was $28,015, and the median income for a family was $31,424. The U.S. estimated real median household income was $53,657 in 2014 and $54,462 in 2013. 

What are private companies doing to help citizens in Flint?

I reached out to the top private U.S. companies according to Forbes' - Cargill, Koch Industries, and Mars - to see if they were going to help citizens in Flint... only got a response from Cargill, a global food processing corporation based outside Minneapolis, Minnesota that operates a living sea salt business in St. Clair, 68 miles from Flint.

At press time, Cargill Spokesman Mark Klein said he had not heard of anything his company was doing to help in Flint, but they recently had helped folks after "the recent flooding along the Mississippi River." 

I received no response from Koch (I wasn't surprised!) or Mars.

Photo ©2016 Tomi Johnson. All rights reserved.

Jesus and water

Looking back at biblical times, while on the cross, Jesus stated, "I thirst." He was given vinegar to drink, and soon expired.

"Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth. When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost." (John 19:29-30) http://www.housetohouse.com/BibleQuestions.aspx?Letter=all&Question=4197

Before, in Samaria, Jesus asked a woman at the well, "Will you give me a drink?" He informed her that man becomes thirsty after drinking potable water but the water of truth he was about to give her would quench her thirst forever. That is the two-pronged catastrophe residents of Flint have been denied - water and truth - and they will find themselves suffering from dehydration and cognitive maladjustment for a lifetime.

Just deny them water

When I was a substitute teacher in the Cobb County public school system, I could count on one hand the number of times I saw students get a drink from the water fountain or buy bottled water instead of a soft drink. School officials told us not to let kids out of the classrooms for a drink of water when they raised their hands and said they were thirsty. If they got a drink, then they would have to go to the bathroom and may not come back to class!  Kids on reduced (paid) school lunch chowed down each day on a bottled Coke and French Fries.  Wonder how their PURE water intake compared to students in private or charter schools...

The children of Flint have been denied clean water and truth, and they could live in dehydrated ignorance for life.

According to some nutritionists,  if you do not supply enough water to your body, your brain cannot function well, and you could develop headaches, migraines, become fatigued and develop joint pain. Time will tell the list of ailments the citizens of Flint will endure.

The body is 55-78% water. Tissues and organs are mainly made up of water.  

Brain- 90%

Blood - 83%

Muscle -75%

Bone - 22%

According to the Mayo Clinic, lead poisoning in adults can cause abdominal pain, constipation, high blood pressure, kidney failure, seizures, nervousness, muscle and joint pain, and mental functioning decline. It can also result in a medical emergency causing vomiting and toxic metabolic encephalopathy, a syndrome of overall brain dysfunction.
(http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/lead-poisoning/basics/symptoms/con-20035487)

Just giving out bottled in Flint will not solve the problem. "Treatment for lead poisoning involves removing exposure threats and sources of contamination," notes Mayo Clinic. "Chelation therapy, which involves taking medication that binds to the lead and allows it to pass during urination, is standard in treating the condition. EDTA therapy using ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid is another treatment reserved for people with higher levels of lead. Even with therapy, damage caused by lead poisoning is not always reversible." 

Photo ©2016 Tomi Johnson. All rights reserved.

The big "water is good" lie

Have you ever had a big glass of cool water on a hot summer day? There's nothing like it if the water is free from contaminants. But poor children are not being raised on clean water. Even though bottled water sales have increased, many people are forced to bath in it instead of drinking it. On the news, I saw a Flint mother bathing her one year old with room temperature (cold) bottled water in the kitchen sink. "I feel like I'm living in a Third World country," she explained.

Lead based water negates the melanin advantage

Despite a theorized melanin advantage, Black children in Flint are now intellectually inferior to whites who have also ingested the water there.  Dr. Francis Cress Welsing stated that blacks were genetically dominate and superior to whites because of melanin, but her Theory has been set upon its head by Flint's unclean water system. Two weeks after Welsing's  death, scientists have proclaimed that folks who drank and/or bathed in Flint's water over the past two years could have lower intelligence and social problems going forward. Guess that trumps (bad word choice) the melanin advantage.  

Dehydrated ignorance is a term coined by Tomi Johnson on 1/22/2016.

Thought for today...

Photo by Kurk Johnson

H₂O.  

Life on Earth starts and ends with water. Disease and death come from poisoned water. Water is life! "Water is the major constituent of the fluids of organisms. Safe drinking water is essential to humans and other lifeforms." When you poison the water, you poison life on Earth. 

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water)

Proverbs 5:15 - Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.

Gary Brown of Kentucky to advise Civil Rights Commission

Gary Brown, committee member

Update: This information was originally released through the Civil Rights press office on September 16, 2013 (http://www.usccr.gov/press/2013/KY-SAC-final_PR.pdf) by Peter Minarik, Director of the Southern Regional Office.  

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights announced the appointment of 13 members to its Kentucky Advisory Committee. Gary Brown of Versailles, Ky. will serve along with
Dr. Betty Griffin of Danville, chairwoman. Other members of the Committee include Richard Clay of Danville,  Rosa Alvarado of Louisville, Dr. Christia Brown of Lexington, Dr. John Chowning of Campbellsville, Christopher Hunt of Lexington, Dr. Lee Look of Louisville, Samuel Marcosson of Louisville, Dr. Patricia Murrell of Louisville, Alice Wadell of Bowling Green, Mitchell Payne of Louisville and Christopher Hunt of Lexington.


Brown is a graduate of Lincoln Institute, studied at Colombia University, and is retired from IBM Corporation. He also is a Navy veteran.

Dr. Betty Griffin, committee chairman

Congress mandates the appointment of members to advisory committees in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Appointees to the advisory committees serve four-year terms and are unremunerated. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is an independent, bipartisan agency charged with advising the President and Congress on civil rights matters, studying civil rights issues, and issuing a federal civil rights enforcement report. For information about Commission’s reports and meetings, visit http://www.usccr.gov/

When will we stop singing/dreaming about overcoming injustice and truly end racism?

"How long, not long," MLK refrains,
but only if Black Lives Truly Matter and political and economic systems are completely transformed! (Turner Chapel church ceiling where I looked up, hoping an image of Prophet King would appear...all I could see were shades of grey which reminded me of King's speech, "A Knock at Midnight.")

Cobb County, Georgia's 30th annual celebration honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was held at Turner Chapel AME Church this morning in Marietta, Ga. The event was sponsored by County Government, the local NAACP, and Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company.

In the opening prayer, it was stated,  "The worst is over, and the best is yet to come." Nice idea, but where is the reality? The event itself could be billed as entertaining and inspirational, but did not give strategies to further King's agenda of non-violence, war and poverty cessation, and blanket justice.

County Commission Chairman Tim Lee said he hoped the event would help promote the theme "Pursuing LIBERTIES in the face of Injustice."

The best "Star Spangled Banner" I have ever heard was a duet performed by Princess and Juanita Brigman. The lighting in the church whitened everyone. Even my cellphone pics at the event were whitewashed, and the feel good messages were lukewarm. The temperature outside was chilly, and the mood inside intense.

Cobb NAACP President Deane Bonner said the community is battling the police department. Her family owns a bail-bond business, yet she pulled several stats out of her bag of concerns.

* Of 2,200 inmates in county lockup, the majority are black. They are not getting speedy trials, are not being visited by families, and are being convicted of felonies while public defenders are convincing them to plead guilty instead of fighting in court.

* Too many black elementary students are being expelled from school. Ninety percent of the complaints the NAACP gets are against the school system.

*  Community leaders are not participating in public or private events involving the black community.

* Police are rude, need to practice community policing, and need to be held accountable for not doing their jobs. 

Bonner's remarks flecked with broken English were followed by a recording which blared,  "War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing!"

Kennedy Williams' powerful performance of "Strange Fruit" made me think of a recent, modern-day lynching last year in Cobb: the killing of Nicholas Thomas by police after a customer's luxury car he was driving was chased by dogs and bullets at a discount tire store. And nothing has been done about it...

What will happen next while we continue to sing of overcoming someday, while we are still pursuing a dream sponsored by governments we fund and organizations who trifle away our donations?

What a beloved community of actors! We can do better than this. In order to eradicate racism, we must confirm that it exists, fight it individually on our own doorsteps, and be all in for a win.

Let's set a date and see if we can overcome today!

MLK's birthday: why celebrate?

President Ronald Reagan's Remarks on Signing the Bill Making the Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., a National Holiday, November 2, 1983
The President: Mrs. King, members of the King family, distinguished Members of the Congress, ladies and gentlemen, honored guests, I'm very pleased to welcome you to the White House, the home that belongs to all of us, the American people.

When I was thinking of the contributions to our country of the man that we're honoring today, a passage attributed to the American poet John Greenleaf Whittier comes to mind. ``Each crisis brings its word and deed.'' In America, in the fifties and sixties, one of the important crises we faced was racial discrimination. The man whose words and deeds in that crisis stirred our nation to the very depths of its soul was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King was born in 1929 in an America where, because of the color of their skin, nearly 1 in 10 lived lives that were separate and unequal. Most black Americans were taught in segregated schools. Across the country, too many could find only poor jobs, toiling for low wages. They were refused entry into hotels and restaurants, made to use separate facilities. In a nation that proclaimed liberty and justice for all, too many black Americans were living with neither.

In one city, a rule required all blacks to sit in the rear of public buses. But in 1955, when a brave woman named Rosa Parks was told to move to the back of the bus, she said, ``No.'' A young minister in a local Baptist church, Martin Luther King, then organized a boycott of the bus company -- a boycott that stunned the country. Within 6 months the courts had ruled the segregation of public transportation unconstitutional.

Dr. King had awakened something strong and true, a sense that true justice must be colorblind, and that among white and black Americans, as he put it, ``Their destiny is tied up with our destiny, and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom; we cannot walk alone.''

In the years after the bus boycott, Dr. King made equality of rights his life's work. Across the country, he organized boycotts, rallies, and marches. Often he was beaten, imprisoned, but he never stopped teaching nonviolence. ``Work with the faith'', he told his followers, ``that unearned suffering is redemptive.'' In 1964 Dr. King became the youngest man in history to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Dr. King's work brought him to this city often. And in one sweltering August day in 1963, he addressed a quarter of a million people at the Lincoln Memorial. If American history grows from two centuries to twenty, his words that day will never be forgotten. ``I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.''

In 1968 Martin Luther King was gunned down by a brutal assassin, his life cut short at the age of 39. But those 39 short years had changed America forever. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 had guaranteed all Americans equal use of public accommodations, equal access to programs financed by Federal funds, and the right to compete for employment on the sole basis of individual merit. 

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 had made certain that from then on black Americans would get to vote. But most important, there was not just a change of law; there was a change of heart. The conscience of America had been touched. Across the land, people had begun to treat each other not as blacks and whites, but as fellow Americans.

And since Dr. King's death, his father, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr., and his wife, Coretta King, have eloquently and forcefully carried on his work. Also his family have joined in that cause.

Now our nation has decided to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., by setting aside a day each year to remember him and the just cause he stood for. We've made historic strides since Rosa Parks refused to go to the back of the bus. As a democratic people, we can take pride in the knowledge that we Americans recognized a grave injustice and took action to correct it. And we should remember that in far too many countries, people like Dr. King never have the opportunity to speak out at all.

But traces of bigotry still mar America. So, each year on Martin Luther King Day, let us not only recall Dr. King, but rededicate ourselves to the Commandments he believed in and sought to live every day: Thou shall love thy God with all thy heart, and thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself. And I just have to believe that all of us -- if all of us, young and old, Republicans and Democrats, do all we can to live up to those Commandments, then we will see the day when Dr. King's dream comes true, and in his words, ``All of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning, `. . . land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.'''

Thank you, God bless you, and I will sign it.

Mrs. King: Thank you, Mr. President, Vice President Bush, Majority Leader Baker and the distinguished congressional and senatorial delegations, and other representatives who've gathered here, and friends.

All right-thinking people, all right-thinking Americans are joined in spirit with us this day as the highest recognition which this nation gives is bestowed upon Martin Luther King, Jr., one who also was the recipient of the highest recognition which the world bestows, the Nobel Peace Prize.

In his own life's example, he symbolized what was right about America, what was noblest and best, what human beings have pursued since the beginning of history. He loved unconditionally. He was in constant pursuit of truth, and when he discovered it, he embraced it. His nonviolent campaigns brought about redemption, reconciliation, and justice. He taught us that only peaceful means can bring about peaceful ends, that our goal was to create the love community.

America is a more democratic nation, a more just nation, a more peaceful nation because Martin Luther King, Jr., became her preeminent nonviolent commander.

Martin Luther King, Jr., and his spirit live within all of us. Thank God for the blessing of his life and his leadership and his commitment. What manner of man was this? May we make ourselves worthy to carry on his dream and create the love community.

Thank you.
 
Note: The President spoke at 11:06 a.m. in the Rose Garden at the White House.
As enacted, H.R. 3706 is Public Law 98 - 144, approved November 2.

Thought for today...

"Only when it's dark enough can you see the stars."  

--- MLK's last speech

Wake up on MLK's birthday!

"Truth is beauty; beauty truth... Peace is more precious than diamonds or silver or gold." ---MLK

As I prepare to celebrate the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s real birthday tomorrow, I revisited his 1964 Nobel Prize for Peace acceptance speech in Oslo, Norway to hear a new message.
( http://www.nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/index.php?id=1853 )

Viewing the video, around 11 minutes into a 12 minute speech, I noticed one Negro (which is what African Americans were called back then) dozing off in the audience while others sat attentive.  Growing up in the black church, I often noticed that congregants would fall asleep during the morning sermon. Why?

Possibly because they were tired from a hard week's work of protesting for justice all night long, or planning strategies to register more folks to vote, or protecting their property from arson, or nursing their wounds from dog bites. Maybe they slept in church because they were bored at hearing the same message and quotes from the bible. Perhaps they had sleep apnea and couldn't sleep at night but dozed off while sitting on hard pews early Sunday morning.

It may be noted that sleep apnea can be treated by changing behavior - by losing weight, avoiding alcohol and smoking, and breathing right. It also can be treated by not sleeping on your back!

We cannot sleep now. We must be awake.  Be mindful of King's message.

Yesterday, I found the courage to go by myself to talk to the Cobb County police precinct captain about community policing. We had a nice discussion, but time for talk is over. And no, I don't want to sign up to be in a program that will teach me how trained killers organize their system. I want armed servants to become real protectors, not aggressors. A moral agenda must be holstered beside the gun and Taser. A right relationship between the served and armed must exist.

The best way we can honor Dr. King is to foster living in peace and become more civilized by not resorting to violence, self-doubt, hopelessness, injustice, and poverty.

Hey, if we can wait in line for hours to buy Powerball tickets, we can stand up for justice and protest against oppression.

Find a new sense of dignity, one person at a time!

Obama's take away message inspiration of hope, challenge for future

Obama's words are ground cover protecting our land.

Lead without quitting, move forward without compromising although tears and dangers are in your midst. Those were the messages I gleaned from U.S. President Barack Obama's final major speech to a weary nation, words citizens can chew on while struggling against forces trying to destroy us from within.

Let me digress...A few moments ago I awoke from what could have turned into a nightmare. In my dream, I was tutoring a child who's father was rich and acknowledged that he preferred a previous teacher. His daughter was spoiled, ambivalent, and mouthy, showing her underpants as she talked to me. She was more focused on staying off task than doing her assignment. She squirmed and talked back in a confrontational tone and was not interested in learning her lesson.

When I threatened to quit which was where this was all leading, she challenged me. When I walked away to talk to my supervisor (a higher power) I was informed that WE couldn't afford to quit because WE were needed for an important task - saving out kids (future)!

When I woke up, I compared this to what President Barack Obama and many leaders in history have faced through the ages.  In his remarks last night, Obama related back to the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Nobel Prize for Peace acceptance speech of December 10, 1964 - that "unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word." Truth has to have the final word!

Truth be told, many thought an African American (former slave) could never become President of the United States. Many thought CONGRESS would never pass the Affordable Health Act, that gas prices would dip to under $2 a gallon, that homeowners threatened with foreclosure would be able to keep their homes and lower their interest rates. 

No one would have believed that unemployment would be at 5% and people would be working towards a raise in the minimum wage. That automobiles would make a comeback and companies be transformed. That bin Laden would be punished and El Chappo put back behind bars.

That a lawyer could convince politicians and economists to come to terms and save us from financial disaster. That a used car salesman-like businessman/entertainer would be moving in the polls towards the presidency, and a woman just might become commander-in-chief. That water would be undrinkable in Flint, Mich. That racism would be talked about with vigor again and black lives could matter in jails across the country. 

That the largest illegal immigrant population would be coming from India. That we would be on the verge of WW III, fighting a religious ideology. That a savior, worshiped by Christians and Muslims, would be awaited again.

This is the truth we face. There is no compromising what we must do.

Thank you, Obama, for letting your words ring true. Even though you may have had help from a speechwriter, that doesn't change the course we must take into the future.

As we move forward and remember the sacrifices of Obama near the King Holiday, may we take strength from those who suffered for this nation and continue on the course of making the world a better place.

Dr. Welsing was a race woman!

Dr. Francis Cress Welsing's legacy is striving to bring justice to a world rife with racism/white supremacy, of trying to understand the "why" of white domination and control so it can be eliminated through scientific approach and evaluation. She fought the stress of being black until age 80 when she succumbed to a stoke and was taken off life support by her family after a ritual asking deities to receive her from Earth. (photo:goblackcentral)

Makeda
Queen Nzinga
Sojourner Truth
Harriet Tubman
Yaa Asantewa
Ida B. Wells
Mary Mcleod Bethune
Rosa Parks
Coretta Scott King
Dorothy Height
Amelia Boynton Robinson
Frances Cress Welsing

Will you or should you be added to this list when you go to meet your ancestors?

All of these women are now deceased but had one thing in common - fighting racism and domination by white society.  This is not just a roll call but a call to action. How will you follow in their footsteps and learn from their legacies? Learn how they brought a message of problem identification and sought to bring justice to their people.

Do your research, and ACT!

Gender of U.S. president needs constitutional amendment update

Neither Hillary Clinton nor any woman can become U.S. president, unless the Constitution is amended. Intellectual Copyright  ©12/17/2015

Although to my knowledge no one has mentioned this before, our Founding Fathers did not intend on Hillary Clinton or any woman, for that matter, to become president of the United States.

According to two personal pronouns used in Article 2, Section 1, 

"The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows..."

Although the Constitution talks about the President being a "Person", it never uses the words she or her. At that time the Constitution was written, of course, women also did not have voting rights.

"The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them.

"Before he enters on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:—'I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.' "

In order to amend the Constitution, 

"In the U.S. Congress, both the House of Representatives and the Senate approve by a two-thirds supermajority vote, a joint resolution amending the Constitution. Amendments so approved do not require the signature of the President of the United States and are sent directly to the states for ratification."

Team Hillary, it seems you've got some work to do! Let me know if you have any information on this topic.

Running red light can be first bad accident

Slow down. Be careful.

According to the driver of this upturned car, this is his first major accident. What a bummer. One ambulance was seen speeding away with a victim, while the two drivers walked away. I saw what just happened around 1 p.m. as I was leaving the grocery store.

The woman who walked away from the accident was wearing a small gold cross necklace, and she says she doesn't go anywhere without it!

The woman he hit said he ran the red light, and she's lucky to be alive.  It happened in Cobb County on Highway 92 at a busy QT intersection.

The accident stopped traffic in all directions, and I circled around through a parking lot so I could share these pictures.

One policeman at the scene said it could have ended differently. To God be the glory! A friend of mine was not so lucky last Friday - he died in a motorcycle accident. Stay focused when you're driving, and count your blessings when you get home.

Respect and school discipline have to be discussed.

During my teaching experience, I tried to respect students because I knew classroom learning is a complicated social experiment.

This is a transcript from news anchor Brenda Woods' LAST WORD from Atlanta's Channel 11 whose motto is, "holding the powerful accountable." It's in response to a South Carolina resource officer using excessive force against a 16-year old Algebra student.

"It's the age everybody is recording, so Officer Fields is fired. No question, he was unprofessional. His behavior was absolutely unacceptable. But, don't miss the bigger picture here. The discipline problem in our schools is out of control. Not on the part of resource officers, but the kids. 

"Our outrage collectively over that video is rooted in our naïveté about what actually goes on in schools all the time. Talk to those on the front lines and you'll learn that that video is not as black and white as it may seem. 

"Just about every teacher in a big city public school will tell you their biggest daily issue in the classroom is that kids have no respect for authority, and that when a student gets aggressive, the teacher has no power to do anything about it. And the students know that, so they have no incentive to back down when a teacher asks them to or asks them to follow orders.

"In the video, we just see the reaction; we don't see the action that precipitated it. Note what everybody else is doing in that classroom. Just sitting there, no '0oh, oh no he didn't. You wrong.' No, none of that because the kids know this wasn't one sided. That video gives us only one dimension. 

"Now again, let me be clear. I think the officer abused his power. What he did was not OK. But don't get it twisted. That's not the problem in our schools. 

"Teachers and those students who were truly trying to learn are burdened every single day with the albatross of disrespectful, mouthy, misbehaving kids who have no intention of following the rules and will defy anyone who tries to make them. I challenge you, talk to some teachers. They'll tell you. It's a war out there, and the teachers are losing."
 
First, I have attended both public and private schools and am a graduate of Indiana University in Telecommunications. I am a former educational television producer, college professor, Upward Bound instructor, and substitute and supply teacher in over 15 county schools in one of the largest school districts in Georgia. I also am the mother of three children who all graduated college and have careers in metro Atlanta. I homeschooled my last child for 2 1/2 years of high school, and she graduated magna cum laude with a degree in Business. One reason I ran for the Cobb County Board in 2008 was because I felt that the school system had policies in place to help students, but they were not being followed.
 
Second of all, Brenda's "last words" give neither facts, data, nor personal observations on school discipline and student disrespect, and her remarks are a simple opinion piece prescribed to describe a volatile situation involving a powerful officer and a small child trying to protect her property and reputation. The other students in the classroom did the only thing they could - document the situation, but all violated the "cellphone rule" by having their phones out and pressing record. 

Since Brenda, who is a "morally correct" 7th Day Adventist and wife of a minister, said we should ask teachers about Classroom Wars, here are some facts and opinions from someone who worked in the trenches as a teacher and observer in the public schools.
 
The bigger picture, in my opinion, is that the school is a place where administrators and teachers are trained and paid to do their jobs and are citizen's employees, not the other way around. Parents and business owners are tax payers who want safe learning environments for their employees and their children. I worked many years as a substitute so I could be home with my kids if they got sick...and believe me, being a substitute is no cakewalk when it comes to classroom discipline. Substitutes are not privy to any student records, so you don't know the backgrounds of students. You've got to be creative to work in this type environment, believe me!!!
 
Brenda describes a "war" going on inside classrooms where a teacher is outnumbered by 4-30 students, but instructors are suppose to have the leadership, academic and psychological training as well as administrative, political (school board) and security (police) power to back them up. So why does Brenda think the teacher is losing the classroom war? Wars are fought with weapons. A student may have disrespect and a cellphone in her pocket, a little like David and Goliath scenario coming against the giant school system with all its policies to secure its power. That's why in many locales parents have banned together to end battles going on in schools. The only war that we should be fighting in the classroom is the war against ignorance.

U.S. Department of Education suggests we rethink school discipline as it related to students.
    Increase their awareness of the prevalence, impact, and legal implications of suspension and expulsion;
    Find basic information and resources on effective alternatives; and
    Join a national conversation on how to effectively create positive school climates.
    http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/school-discipline/index.html
 
Yes. Let's take a larger look at this picture as Brenda suggests. A cellphone means a lot to a student and sometimes is the only asset they possess. It is policy in most school districts that if you're caught using a cellphone in class, it is confiscated, you are disciplined and written up, and parents have to be called in to pick it up. A cellphone is a 21st century communication device (sorta like those notes we used to use in class) and often are distractions in school. Cellphones give a person a sense of power - to be connected to the world. If not for cellphones in classrooms, some violent incidents would not have been reported. 

Some kids show such an affinity to this communication tool that they sleep, eat, and bath with it. Adults are also attached to their cellphones. That's why you see corporate executives checking them constantly, even during important conventions and meetings. Just because you don't turn off your cellphone in a movie theater and it rings during the film shouldn't mean you're lifted out of your seat by security!

In my view, if cellphones are a problem in classrooms (I'd like to see the stats on this if school districts would release the data), then cellphone companies need to become involved with this issue. This conversation needs to include why and how cellphones in the classroom can be beneficial to students and used as tools just like laptops. A cellphone is a device, not a threat to learning. Thank God that those brave students capture Officer Fields on video... We learned a lot from Rodney King!!!

As far as respect goes, I learned years ago from my niece that respect is earned, not freely given. Respect has a trust dimension to it and involves good communication. Respect is a mutual endeavor and is not one-sided. The family, classroom, and community are places which breed respect, and if young people are disrespected by poor healthcare, inadequate moral training, poor parenting and job opportunities, disrespect can grow like cancer and invades the classroom.
 
I believe that people who are loved, trusted, and respected don't need to be powerfully prodded into authoritative submission. When rules are clearly mandated and agreed to by both parties, they can easily be followed. Kids, however, like adults are not perfect, but minors are not to be abused, especially by systems of power. Anarchy can result from this type of power struggle in an age when every student has a cellphone. The school to prison pipeline is in force and leads to a stripped community.
 
Officer Fields was a resource officer at Spring Valley High School, and he was wearing a badge and some equipment which may have included a gun. I don't know anything about the student, whether she had a disciplinary record, was from a single parent home, or whether she was an A student. News reports say she was a 16-year old in an Algebra I classroom who didn't want to give up a possession prized by many - a cellphone.
 
If Brenda wants to see what precipitated Officer Fields' encounter, she should suggest that teachers record situations themselves when disrespectful disruptions go down in classrooms.
 
Brenda talks about school discipline being a major issue in big city schools. This school cannot be compared to "a big city public school" because it is a county school in a Columbia, S.C. suburb. The school has just under 2,000 students, and the racial makeup of the school is 50.8% black, 34.1% White, and 6.8% Hispanic, with 35.8% receiving free or discounted lunch. In the U.S., "The largest regular school...was the 7,693-student Vick Early Childhood and Family Center...in the City of Chicago..." ---U.S. Dept. Of Education
 
"Sometimes we forget where many of these students come from and the situations that they deal with on a daily basis. School should be a safe haven and kids should trust all of their administrators, teachers, and staff members." Derrick Meador, Teaching Expert

I must admit, I decided not to continue my assignment at one middle school because after I wrote a student up for class disruption, he came back to my classroom and threatened me. Also, I learned that a student who had major discipline issues was a victim that I couldn't turn around. From talking to the child's grandmother, I found out that discipline at home was difficult because her mother was dead and both her father and brother were incarcerated. She was sexually active, and acting out in the classroom gave her a sense of power in front of peers. 

Another student dropped a box of condoms in front of me in the hallway and was later transferred to another school when they found razor blades in his book bag. These were all issues that should have been addressed by the school counselor, not a supply teacher who had no access to student files. Also, I noticed that many students with discipline problems were eating only French Fries and downing Cokes at lunch. When I mentioned it to the principal, he said students were free to make their own eating choices. Many of them were on free or reduced fee lunch programs.

I felt helpless to improve their situations. Personally, I was working up to three hours a day after school on lesson plans, grading papers, and designing tests and extra hours on weekends inputting student data into the system. I felt I wasn't being paid enough money and had no benefits, and my own kids increasingly needed me to help them with their homework.

My mind is a camera, but I wish I could have videoed horror stories of power I saw inflected by middle school and elementary teachers. I remember seeing a teacher grading papers during lunch. She was slashing through a color-printed assignment that must have taken the student hours and a lot of expensive ink to generate.  "He didn't follow directions," she said as she slashed through each page with a red X. She gave the student an F. I could imagine that student not wanting to try again least of all respecting himself or the teacher.
 
Then there was the time I saw a special needs student being tackled to the floor for trying to verbally defend another student. There was the time I saw a student in a similar classroom straight jacketed and placed behind a screen. Similarly, a teacher from another classroom came in and seeing a student working quietly on the computer wrestled him to the ground where he embarrassingly peed on himself.

I remember my daughter coming home from kindergarten one day complaining about her face hurting because the teacher had squeezed her cheeks for talking too much. The teacher denied it, of course. My daughter also told me she was bitten in the neck by a teacher walking down the hall from the bathroom, but I had no video to prove it. I don't believe my child made that up!
 
This Officer Fields episode reminds me of a cringing "before cellphone moment" when I saw a nun break her cane over my elementary school comrade's back for not sitting down.

Yes, Virginia, teachers are humans, too... Nothing human is alien to them! But respect comes along with the territory. With the Internet, anyone can take classes and learn, even from Harvard, so the physical classroom isn't the only learning vacuum but is a non-virtual social environment. This is the battlefield Brenda alluded to. Yes, hold the powerful accountable - the community and the school- and don't side with perpetrators!

What we're learning about South Carolina

Tranquil South Carolina before the 2015 flooding tears hit

My maternal great grandparents were from Rock Hill, S.C., so I've always wanted to visit that town but haven't had the opportunity. But now, after much violence being reported and the state being hit with major flooding, I may never visit Rock Hill. Just left South Carolina in August, visited Hilton Head's Harbour Island where I had a terrible dinner at the Crab Shack. My last memory of S.C. is watching an alligator swimming in the resort pond.

What's up with S.C.? As an African American, has it replaced Mississippi as the state I never want to be caught living in?

If you know American History, South Carolina was a major slave state with the black population outnumbering the white population at some point which is probably why white supremacy/racism abounds there - a means of power and control. Even though they've removed the 'ole Confederate Battle Flag from state grounds after Dylann Roof went into a black church bible study and murdered nine people, now comes the fact that cellphones have documented a black man being shot in the back and a 16-year old female student being violently removed from her desk.

Then there's the rain and flooding that continue to impact the state, making it a wasteland.  It could be a beautiful place, but tears are falling there. May God have mercy on its residents.

South Carolina is a beautiful place with painful memories. (Honey Hill Plantation, Hilton Head Island, S. C.)

To read more news on what's happening in S.C., go to: http://wbt.com/here-is-the-latest-south-carolina-news-from-the-associated-press/

Contemplating healing in a technological age

Instead of preaching to birds, we have to use technology to reach humans who will listen.

As I've gotten older, my ideas have changed but never my basic beliefs and ideals. 

My moral training started out in the all black Christian Methodist Episcopal Church that my parents attended, but I never went to Sunday school there because my parents deemed the one hour daily Catholic Catechism class I was receiving at St. Joseph's School over eight years enough religious indoctrination. 

Now, when I get sick and can't sleep, I revert to my meditative standby: repeating the Lord's Prayer over and over again while listening to soothing music on my IPad and the pronouncements of Dr. Deepak Chopra. When I feel my breathing labored, I pull out my knitting needles and yarn, something I learned as a Girl Scout many years ago, my fingers now concentrating on stitches and how I might give away scarves as Christmas presents.

Last night and way until the morning hours, after taking antibiotics for an infection, I watched a video on the life and death of St. Francis of Assisi. Born into wealth and luxury, he had everything in life going for him until he was imprisoned after a Civil War. Languishing in a dark, damp dungeon for a year until a ransom could be paid, St. Francis contracted malaria. 

After returning to his family and visiting a dilapidated church, he felt called to serve the poor. Despite all odds, he wanted to become a preacher and was granted his wish of becoming a friar by Pope Innocent. He first began preaching to birds depicted as the poor in medieval iconography. He cared for lepers and contacted the dreaded disease. He left the religious ministry he founded because of organization disputes. He died poor and ill at age 44, reciting Psalms with only his closest friends around. 

Such a life could have been lived differently, and many thought he had thrown his life away, but he felt called by God. May God have mercy on us and lead us to a greater understanding of His Will.

Separation/racism symbolism first in Bible

What do you think of this idea of racism leading the biblical Creation Story in Genesis on which Jewish and Christian belief systems are based?

Black people (darkness) were first on the Earth but were considered to be living in a void (uncivilized, chaotic people without culture or sense of community).

Then came light (white people with knowledge) which was heavenly and supreme (good) when compared to darkness.

Dark and Light were then separated by God (the Creator) into Night and Day. (Segregation)

1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. ² The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

³ And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. ⁴ And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

Breaking news: Freddie Gray settlement offer

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/09/08/city-says-it-has-reached-64m-wrongful-death-settlement-with-family-freddie-gray/