Dirty Little Secrets in Black Leadership: Headwaters Foundation’s Trista Harris answer to, “Let us participate on Saturday (11/21) at General Mills”
Who are the 170 African-American leaders involved in this “work-group” tomorrow (11/21) at General Mills? I’m sure I can name some of the usual suspects that have failed the Black community time and time again. Why it is that this woman is in charge of who attends an African-American Leadership Summit? Controls are no different than Slavery in a cold Jim Crow.
Please join us at General Mills to protest the exclusion of stakeholders in the African-American Leadership Forum tomorrow at General Mills.
The following is a response from Headwaters Foundation Trista Harris:
I’m following up on our conversation this morning. Saturday’s African American Leadership Forum is for community members that have participated in previous meetings of the African American Leadership Forum. I certainly want you to know that all the people you mentioned are welcome to be a part of this effort but because this is a working meeting, Saturday’s Forum is not an appropriate place for them to become engaged.
One of the things that we set up as an entry point into the African American Leadership Forum is the need for the attendees to have a pre-meeting to become familiar with the work that’s been done to date.
We call these groups cascading groups. We have instituted this arrangement in part because we want people to become familiar with the previous work and add value in a smaller groups setting, so that we don’t have to restart the Forum every time new members come to a larger meeting.
After this weekend’s meeting if you would like to call together a cascading group of your own, we will provide facilitation assistance and food for the meeting. These have been exciting meetings where we already have 170 African-American leaders attend. People really like this approach and have gotten a lot out of the cascading group meetings. I have been heartened by this work and the need for a forum of African-American leaders to develop a shared agenda.
I also hope you understand the approach we are taking. I will make sure that they get invited to a cascading group to become part of this important work.
I look forward to working with you on this and other issues that impact low-income people in our community.
Best wishes,
Trista Harris
Executive Director
www.headwatersfoundation.org
2801 21st Ave S. Suite 131
Minneapolis, MN 55407
P: 612-879-0602 # 13
F: 612-879-0613
It’s on!
A message to the Sharptons, Jacksons, and Farrakhans of the World: The struggle is not over; the gauntlet will be passed back to you very soon
By Donald W.R. Allen,II – Editor in Chief of IBNN – 2009 ©
“This generation will have to learn from damn near scratch what a real social movement looks like.”
Reports of racism have increased. Black unemployment is sky-high. The foreclosure crisis has devastated black neighborhoods across the country. Yet no official stance on race relations in the United States has been taken by our Black President, Barack Obama.
“Is racism only prevalent if you’re a professor at an Ivy League school who is arrested in your upscale neighborhood?”
White America allegedly demonstrated their goodness and racial tolerance in 2008 by voting for a Black man to be president of the United States. We have learned that a large and decisive number of whites can be persuaded to vote for a certain kind of Black man: one who never speaks about racism, and in no way, resembles Al Shartpon, Jesse Jackson, or Louis Farrakhan.
Without question, the nation has experienced an election of historical significance, for reasons that go beyond the obvious “first Black” aspect of race. The 2009 presidential race was the most-hyped presidential campaign in U.S.history, if for no other reason than the simple fact that every presidential campaign is more hyped than the last, since hype is what corporate media sells.
But what happened to the champions of the Civil Rights movement– and their ideals? What was wrong with the words and actions of Huey Newton; Malcolm X; Dr. King – whose children are very upset by the government’s abandonment of a commitment to racial justice?
These men fought and died so that all of Black America could have the kinds of lives enjoyed today solely by the (African-American) “talented tenth.” The struggle is far from over!
What about the national Civil Rights Leaders in the United States?
In 2008, while preparing for an interview with Fox News, the Rev. Jesse Jackson apparently did not know that his microphone was on when he made the whispered comments to another guest as he prepared to do an interview. “See, Barack [has] been talking down to black people . . . I wanna cut his nuts out,” Jackson said.
But we have to look at this comment in context.
Jackson, who was shocked and maybe a little jealous at Barack Obama’s mass appeal, did not understand why a Black man, wielding this kind of “across the board popularity” still would not comment or take a position on behalf of Race, Civil Rights or the Black struggle in America.
Why hasn’t Obama addressed this issue since being elected President—other than continuing to talk down to Black people? In part it’s because his victory was contingent upon him having made a pact with white America, that he wouldn’t be like Jesse Jackson, and that he wouldn’t pursue and aggressive Civil Rights Agenda.
Rev. Al Sharpton is one of America’s most eloquent speakers- providing information on day-to-day life in black America, using his trademark in-your-face rhetorical style.
As of June of 2009, Rev. Sharpton has been seen as an ally of President Obama. The online political news blog, Politico wrote this on the “Odd Couple” pairing;
“It might be the oddest political pairing of the year. Barack Obama, whose campaign for president carefully avoided race-based political appeals, is teaming up with the man who practically perfected them: the Rev. Al Sharpton.
This double-take moment came last month (May 2009), with Sharpton holding court with reporters at the White House, fresh out of an Oval Office meeting with Obama in his role as co-founder of the bipartisan Education Equality Project.
So far, Sharpton has been to the White House more times, and for more close-up conversations with Obama, than the leaders of other long-established civil rights organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Urban League.”
Apparently, Sharpton has adopted the notion, “If you can’t beat em, join em.” While Sharpton’s visits to the White House are seen by many Black leaders as photo opportunities for Obama to show allegiance with the “real Black America,” others say that Sharpton is smart to keep President Obama within reach, ala: “keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”
If President Obama’s ride in the White House becomes more “bumpy,” Sharpton has positioned himself to either support the first-term president or say, “I told him this was going to happen.” No matter what, Sharpton has positioned himself well.
The Minister Louis Farrakhan is another story entirely.
He will never be an administration insider. But black America needs Minister Farrakhan more now than ever. With his knowledge, wisdom and historical perspective, Farrakhan could be there to catch Black America as a whole and assist Jackson and Sharpton in repairing the eventual and pending damage of Black America’s infrastructure in the upcoming months.
Farrakhan, who has a no non-sense approach and is thrilled that there is a Black man in office as the president of theses United States said in an interview with ABC News that if Obama was avoiding controversial Black leaders like himself, Rev. Al Sharpton, and Rev. Jesse Jackson for fear of alienating white voters, this would be an acceptable price to pay.
But Minister Farrakhan also had this to say: “I haven’t made myself available to him … [and] he hasn’t made himself available to me.” As for the controversy over Obama’s early Muslim education, Farrakhan said that, “If anything, it should help him rather than hurt him.”
America has but three Black leaders that can address the disparities that keep Black America from achieving its goals of education, wealth (through employment) and independence. The struggle is not over, nor has it been addressed in a cordial and diplomatic way since the election of Barack Hussein Obama.
The catch-22 for Obama is this: if he were to place leaders like Farrakhan, Sharpton and Jackson into positions where they could truly empower and uplift black America, the notoriously-fickle mainstream media, who once made Obama their darling, would likely shift towards condemnation; unleashing a kind of “buyer’s remorse” among the wider white population, and all-but ensuring that he is voted out of office in 2012.
Slain civil rights leader Malcolm X once said, “The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and guilty seem innocent – because they control the minds of the masses.”
Is this good for President Obama?
Through praise and condemnation Sharpton, Jackson and Farrakhan have remained consistent champions of the black community.
Only time will tell what will be the destiny of black American under the Obama presidency.
Prized Possessions: Media Politics and Missing (Black)Women
News from the Black Agenda Report
“In a nation of 300 million that’s half-female, only a select group is entitled to rank among the high-profile ‘missing,’ should they disappear. “In the national ‘victim-ocracy,’ small town, suburban and/or university affiliated white women get the most play as valued human
By Sikivu Hutchinson Orginally posted on the Black Agenda Report October 5, 2009.
“Location, race and gender play a pivotal role in the media’s fixation on missing person stories.”
When the L.A. Times runs a story on a missing black woman on the front page of its local features section it stimulates inquiring minds. How, in the super-charged climate of breathless cable news reports on Jaycee, Elizabeth Smart and their white sisterhood could such a feat of journalistic subversion be possible? In mid-September of this year 24 year-old Mitrice Richardson, an African American woman from South Los Angeles, went missing after being released from a Calabasas, California jail. Richardson had been arrested for apparently refusing to pay the tab for a meal she ate at a Malibu restaurant. Prior to the arrest, restaurant personnel and witnesses reported that she was behaving erratically and gave the appearance of being mentally ill. After authorities found marijuana in her car they arrested her on charges of “defrauding an innkeeper” and possession.
The Times chronicled the massive search made for Richardson by friends, relatives and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. The story was also picked up by local news and has outraged African Americans nationwide. Questions swirl around the County Sheriff’s conduct in both the arrest and release of Richardson. Why, for example, was she not placed on a 72-hour psychiatric hold (a common practice when dealing with mentally ill “suspects”) when detained? And why, after being released from jail was she sent off into the dead of night in a remote area without a cell phone or vehicle? Families of missing and abducted people of color organize tirelessly to generate any shred of coverage they can get from the media in “post-racial” America. Tired of the media’s ritual indifference to the lives of black women in their community, the mothers of missing women in Edgecombe County in North Carolina launched a billboard campaign called MOMS (Missing or Murdered Sisters) to advertise a slew of suspected abductions and murders of black women in their area. So what distinguishes Richardson’s case from that of the scores of other missing and abducted people of color which seldom score even a few lines buried in a big city newspaper? Location is apparently the only factor that would warrant such an aberration.
“Families of missing and abducted people of color organize tirelessly to generate any shred of coverage they can get from the media in “post-racial” America.”
The Malibu sightings of Richardson were evidently so jarring for local white residents that they elicited instant recollection from those reported to have seen her. Unlike other missing person cases tainted by the urban “grit” of South Los Angeles and other communities of color where crime is perceived to be the cultural norm, the crime free veneer of an almost exclusively white community in which “it’s strange to see a black woman walking in the (Malibu) canyon,” is the subtext. Location, race and gender play a pivotal role in the media’s fixation on missing person stories. In the national “victim-ocracy,” small town, suburban and/or university affiliated white women get the most play as valued human interest subjects and cultural possessions. The endless media loop of search parties, dragged lakes, crack of dawn patrols and tearful living room pleas from grieving family members only lodge in the public imagination as national pathos when “our” little hometown girls are at stake. As exceptions to the rule, Richardson’s case—coupled with the more prominent example of slain Vietnamese-American Yale University student Annie Le—illustrates the extent to which location can obscure the regime of white privilege and entitlement that frames the stories and lives deemed most valuable by the mainstream media.
“Small town, suburban and/or university affiliated white women get the most play as valued human interest subjects.”
Centered in a bastion of Ivy League power and privilege nestled uneasily in the racially segregated city of New Haven, the Le case garnered national attention in spite of Le’s ethnic background. As a member of the academic elite, Le represented a student body potentially imperiled by the urban dangers of crime-ridden housing “projects” and other undesirable areas. And as with any good colonialist private university regime (e.g., the University of Chicago and the University of Southern California) hell-bent on takeover of the “ghetto,” these untamed areas naturally sully a city’s cosmopolitan aspirations. Once it was discovered that Le was murdered by a white insider, and not an encroaching racial Other, the tabloid cable news mafia modulated its budding hysteria and moved on.
Clearly the racist “model minority” myth and the promotion of the docile, assailable Asian stereotype make Asian Americans more palatable to mainstream white society than African Americans. Le and Richardson’s backgrounds are dissimilar save for their being young women of color. Yet take away Le’s Yale pedigree and they would be “united” as victims of the mainstream media’s hierarchy of the disposable. For it is utterly certain that the mainstream media would not have deviated from its nationally sanctioned script of victimized white women if either Le or Richardson had gone missing in South L.A. or the “gritty” streets of New Haven.
Sikivu Hutchinson is the editor of blackfemlens.org and a commentator for Some of Us Are Brave, KPFK 90.7 FM in Los Angeles.
Click here for more information on MOMS.
Naomi Campbell attacks companies for ‘dropping’ black models in recession
Article originally from the Telegraph.co.uk (Digital Publisher of the year).
We (people of color), have the power to control spending habits in the country. We can make advertisers, television stations, and brand names respect our dollars. In other words, “If you don’t see Black, put it back!” IBNN was made aware of this article by Ms. Michelle Renee of San Francisco, California.
(Photo: Sisters “Missing in Action.”)
Reprinted with permission.
The 39-year-old supermodel, who is a close friend of Sarah Brown, the Prime Minister’s wife, claims that major companies are refusing to use non-white women to promote their products.
“This year, we have gone back all the way that we had advanced,” she says. “I don’t see any black woman, or of any other race, in big advertising campaigns.“
Campbell, who was born in London to a mother of Caribbean descent, refers to the publication last year of a special edition of Italian Vogue dedicated to non-white models.
“That made some noise, but, unfortunately, we are the same as before,” she says. “People, in the panic of the recession, don’t dare to put a girl of colour in their campaign, full stop. Nor of any other race. It’s a shame. It’s very sad.“
The model, who is a friend of Nelson Mandela, has won support from Bruce Oldfield, the designer of the wedding dress worn by Samantha Cameron, the wife of the Tory leader. Read more
“You guys have a Black President, what more do you want?” From Abe to Barack, racism continues and nothing has “Changed”
by Donald W.R. Allen, II – editor in chief of the Independent Business News Network
More than 50 years ago, Malcolm X said, “The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”
Too many mainstream radio, television and print media outlets in the Twin Cities, actively deny residents the opportunity to see, hear and read news about the local minority-ethnic population.
News and information racism – a form of structural, systemic racism, manifests itself in the form of a virtual blackout in terms of reporting on events that take place day-to-day in the local population of color. In other words, “White News,” appears be the only “Right News.”
On Friday, August 21, 2009 a press conference was held in north Minneapolis to discuss an upcoming engagement with local activists overseeing the remodeling of foreclosed homes. The problem? Minnesota’s “trusted news source” never showed up. Nothing new!
When Blacks or other people of color call press conferences, the local media does not seem to feel moved or obligated to cover events of this nature.
This week in the Twin Cities, no minority-ethnic news item could possibly top Brett Favre becoming a Minnesota Viking. While newsrooms hurried to get crews to the Viking training camp, the minority-ethnic population of the Twin Cities became the shadow of concern, again – no news is good news?
On Friday August 21, 2009, the Barnes and Noble stores at the Mall of America and at the Galleria decided that a published black author, who was a star athlete at the University of Minnesota, and is today a highly-regarded motivational speaker, was not an appropriate candidate for a book signing at their stores because of their customer base.
When IBNN called the Mall of America branch of the company, customer relations manager Mike Sedki told us, “The author you speak of is not a good fit for the MOA. Our guests are from all over the world – they wouldn’t be interested in the author or his book. We want authors like Marie Osmond and Buzz Aldridge at this store.”
If you want to clean the bathrooms, there’s always a place for minorities at the Mall of America.
Despite the election of a black man as president, news distribution outlets continue to overlook, bypass, and hoodwink the minority-ethnic community, by failing to consider their news to be “news that’s fit to print.”
It’s like, “You guys got a Black President, what more do you want?”
In 2009, Black males are still most often portrayed as a menace to society. Black females appear routinely as hoes or sex objects, and the mainstream media has done little to show the American public that those stereotypes are incorrect.
Soledad O’Brian’s highly touted “Black in America” CNN mini-series is a patronizing, simplistic portrait of the American-American community, that appeals to the voyeuristic curiosity of the liberal White audience, but has no real substance or meaning. The show should be called “Black in America (Made for Whites).”
As an article from Science Daily (July 17, 2008) reports, “Watching the news should make you more informed, but it also may be making you more likely to stereotype. . . . In a pair of recently published studies, [one] professor found that the more people watched local or network news, the more likely they were to draw on negative stereotypes about blacks.” (*University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2008, July 17). Negative Perception of Blacks Rises with more News Watching, Studies Say.)
Of course, if a Black man shoots himself in a night club and gets two years in jail –that’s news.
If a Black man commits a heinous crime, it’s on at 5, 6 and 10.
Other than the above examples, Blacks in the media are almost non-existent.
As another article from The Ohio State Research News titled, “African Americans Still Nearly Invisible in Media,” states, “While African Americans have made inroads into some parts of American society, they are still nearly invisible in many parts of the news media and the entertainment industry. . . . Rudolph Alexander, Jr., professor of social work, argues in a newly revised book that the media often ignores African Americans in stories of both heroes and victims, even when they are an integral part of the narrative. (From the book, “Racism, African Americans, and Social Justice, (Rowman and Littlefield, 2nd edition, 2005)
Black leaders in the Twin Cities and the broader US must address this ongoing disparity in coverage of a population that in 2025 is estimated to be the “majority” in the United States. (NY Times, “In a Generation, Minorities May Be the U.S. Majority,” by Sam Roberts, published on August 13, 2008)
“Will the roles be reversed?
Will White America protest against the minority mainstream media for overlooking them?
For now, the mainstream media must be held accountable for the slice of “white cake” that they call news. Furthermore, mainstream media must broadcast and report on issues in the minority-ethnic community with “unconditional coverage.”
Now that’s love!
Deleted without being read – Twin Cities Mainstream Media forgets about the minority ethnic community when it comes to News We Can All Use
“Black crime, they’ll cover it all the time. A Black man with a business, they run with a quickness!” …IBNN
by Donald W.R. Allen, II editor in Chief – IBNN (Join our group on Facebook, “African Americans (and Friends) Against Mainstream Media)
In 2008 I had the opportunity to attend the annual dinner of a local non-profit, at the downtown Minneapolis Hilton Hotel. The keynote speaker was an author, educator, and political pundit affiliated with the Democratic Party – and an all-round great speaker. At the time, Donna Brazile had not personally endorsed Hilary or Barack, and rumors spread that at this dinner, she might just make such announcement. This woman, Donna Brazile, an icon in her own right, had made news just by coming to Minneapolis, or so I thought… (I also thought that she’d make a great Republican!)
The only problem was this – only one Twin Cities mainstream media outlet showed up to cover the event.
Yet across the street from the downtown Hilton Hotel sat one of Minnesota’s hottest television media properties.
Curious, I decided to walk over to this fine establishment to find out why there was no coverage of the event featuring Donna Brazile.
Ring…Ring…Ring… A voice from the speaker said, “Can I help you with something?” I said, “Yes, my name is Don and I was attending an event across the street at the Hilton and it just so happens that Donna Brazile is the keynote speaker. Are you guys planning to cover it?” Read more
Prohibited Activities – We’re Watching…
Election year 2008 was very interesting. Several non-profit organizations approached candidates to ask for support of their agendas. Clearly, this was a direct violation of IRS 501(c)(3) procedures and rules. Much like the congregation at a local church (in 2008) being asked to support the Minneapolis Public Schools Referendum – “The Minneapolis Public Schools are going broke and need your assistance.” Still with the Referendum passed, children of color are no better in Minneapolis Public Schools then a year ago. Of course, the “students” and classes probably won’t see that money until the 2010-2011 school year. Lets watch the test scores or Yearly Average Progress, pass or fail?
Non-profit organizations in 2008 blatantly solicited candidates support for their issues and platforms.
In the Twin Cities forums were controlled by the League of Women Voters, and community hubs like Jordan New Life Hub would get a small grant or stipend to hold the forum with a representative from the LWV hosting and moderating the debate…I was there, and informed of the obvious set-up. KSTP-TV Channel 5 has never gotten back to us on how much they received if any for last year’s series of debates sponsored by the League of Women Voters.
All I know is that Mr. Stanley Hubbard, Jr. would not support the GOP Endorsed 5 Congressional District candidate telling me at the Minneapolis Athletic Club, “It’s not the right time.” Well, slip happens!
We had phone calls by non-profit presidents to community members asking for support of particular candidates, some that were employees of the non-profit organization. Is this really okay?
On Sunday, July 26, 2009 – we had a local politician make up his own rules. (More to come later.)
What will it take for non-profit agencies in the Twin Cities to learn a valuable lesson about non-partisanship? Will it take a loss of a tax exempt status?
A new “watchdog” is on the scene, The Nationwide Republican Opportunity Council of America (NROCA) – (ACORN spelled backwards.) The NROCA will not allow an inch in partisanship with any candidate, no matter what party him/her are associated with.
Irony…
So that we’re clean on the rules, the following information applies to 501(c)(3) organizations.
Advocacy of candidates: The IRS prohibits 501(c)(3) organizations from engaging in either the expressed or implied advocacy of particular candidates. Express advocacy exists when a statement or publication encourages the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate. Implied advocacy exists when a communication does not clearly identify the candidate to vote for or against, but instead makes statements such as “Remember, vote Democrat.”
Non-profits concerned about specific issues are allowed to use an election to get increased exposure for their issues. They also are allowed to work to get their positions on issues included in political party platforms. While nonprofits are free to publicize their issues, they are not allowed to directly solicit candidates to support such issues.
Although the IRS says it allows 501(c)(3) organizations to deal with moral, social, or economic issues during election years, nonprofits are not allowed to engage in political intervention by using “code words” (e.g. Go Democrats, Bad Republicans, anti-gun) in communications that are timed to help or hurt the election chances of any candidate.
…So non-profit organizations, when you get that “star struck, I’ve seen a celebrity” look in your eye – look at the rules, more importantly, look at your community, especially in north Minneapolis – you’ve seen nothing….
White Cop Walks In Killing Of Black Officer
“When will the conversation about race begin again? America has turned its back to the politics and events of race, color and status – only to yell “foul” if you’re a professor at an Ivy League University.” …IBNN
by JORDAN C. ALSTON August 15, 2009, 10:32am – Originally posted on Hip Hop Wired.com 
Racial tensions in the nation are at heights that have not been seen in decades. Be it North or South, hatred knows no barriers, with the point being brought home recently by none other than those tasked with protecting the masses. Officers of the law have long been at odds with members of minority communities, usually due to them using less than altruistic means to brandish their own form of cowboy-esque law enforcement procedures reminiscent of their predecessors from a bygone era.
Even still, racially motivated incidents from within their ranks are often never reported, creating a public front that would have a gullible citizenry believe that the only color police officers car about is blue emblazoned with a smidgeon of gold. In spite of that effort, recent activities have exhibited otherwise, as a racially charged case of cop-on-cop violence has ended with the scales of justice seemingly tipped in the favor of the melanin deficient aggressor.
On May 28th, Officer Omar Edwards was shot and killed while pursuing a man that he believed was responsible for breaking into his car. His murderer, Andrew Dunton, was none other than a fellow “brother” in blue. Stories by officers that witnessed the incident say Dunton yelled “Police. Don’t move. Drop the gun. Drop the gun” before opening fire on Edwards. Edwards was off-duty at the time and Dunton was in plain clothes.
Accounts after that detail vary, as a New York grand jury decided to settle on a version that had Edwards make eye contact with Dunton while “pointing” his gun toward him, a move which purportedly prompted the white officer to unleash six shots into the junior officer. The eye contact between the two officers led to the jury’s decision that will see no criminal action taken against officer Dunton, giving better incite into their decision that they deemed no criminal wrongdoing was committed.
The decision made in regard to the four-year NYPD vet came as less than shocking to members of the Black community, with Marquez Claxton of the Black Law Enforcement Alliance choosing to publicly decry its often too common similarity to other polarized, racially induced incidents.
“Well, first and foremost, it disturbingly predictable,” said Marquez to New York’s ABC affiliate. “Once again, we cannot have complete confidence in a process that relies so heavily on a relationship between the police department and the DA offices.”
The decision handed down by the grand jury finally allows for the NYPD to conduct an administrative review of the case, allowing them get Officer Dunton’s account of what happened on that infamous day in May.
Officer Edwards was a 25-year-old newlywed who left behind a wife and two young children.
Politics and Blacks
By Walter E. Williams -Bio
Originally Posted in Townhall.com
President Barack Obama won an unprecedented 96 percent of the black vote. That’s not much of a news story since blacks typically give their votes to the Democratic candidate. Blacks are probably the most politically loyal people in the nation and it is almost taken as gospel, at least among civil rights organizations and black and white liberals, that the only way black people can make socioeconomic progress is through the politics of race and special government programs. However, such a vision can be subjected to empirical evidence.
In 1940, when blacks were politically impotent, their poverty rate was 87 percent. By 1960, before blacks achieved much political power, it fell to 47 percent. During that interval, in various skilled trades, the incomes of blacks relative to whites more than doubled. Before 1960, there were no anti-poverty programs or affirmative action programs that can explain an economic advance that exceeded any other 20-year interval, though there were Truman and Eisenhower administration attacks on some of the gross forms of racial discrimination. A significant chunk of black progress occurred simply through migration from rural areas in the South to big Northern cities. Between 1960 and 1980, black poverty fell roughly 17 percent and continued falling to today’s 24 percent. The decline in black poverty between 1960 and 1980 might have simply been a continuation of a trend starting much earlier and cannot be attributed solely to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, President Johnson’s War on Poverty, or Richard Nixon’s affirmative action.
Most of the major problems that many black people face are not amendable to political solutions and government anti-poverty programs. Let’s look at some. In 1940, 86 percent of black children were born inside marriage, and the illegitimacy rate among blacks was about 15 percent. Today, only 35 percent of black children are born inside marriage, and the illegitimacy rate hovers around 70 percent. Today’s breakdown of the black family is unprecedented. It began in the 1960s with the War on Poverty and the harebrained ideas of the welfare state. In the mid-1960s, Daniel Moynihan sounded the alarm about the breakdown in the black family in his book “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action.” At that time black illegitimacy was 26 percent. Moynihan said, “(A)t the heart of the deterioration of the fabric of the Negro society is the deterioration of the Negro family.” He added, “The steady expansion of welfare programs can be taken as a measure of the steady disintegration of the Negro family structure over the past generation in the United States.” Moynihan’s observations were greeted with charges of racism and blaming the victim. By the way, the welfare state is an equal opportunity family destroyer. Today’s illegitimacy rate among whites, at nearly 30 percent, is higher than it was among blacks in the 1960s when Moynihan sounded the alarm. In Sweden, the mother of the welfare state, illegitimacy is 54 percent. Read more
Hitchhiking for compliance on Minnesota’s roads and highways, who will facilitate a facilitation for the facilitators at MnDOT?
“The Civil Rights Office of MnDOT (Minnesota Department of Transportation) is committed to ensure equal opportunity for all businesses and personnel on The Minnesota Department of Transportation and Public Facilities projects. To hold policies to ensure that no person be excluded from participation, or be denied benefits, based on race, religion, color, gender, age, marital status, ability, or national origin.”
The Law: 49 CFR Part 26.7 states:
a. You must never exclude any person from participation in, deny any person the benefits of, or otherwise discriminate against anyone in connection with the award and performance of any contract covered by this part on the basis of race, color, sex, or national origin.
b. In administering your DBE program, you must not, directly or through contractual or other arrangements, use criteria or methods of administration that have the effect of defeating or substantially impairing accomplishment of the objectives of the program with respect to individuals of a particular race, color, sex, or national origin.
What happened at MnDOT?
H.I. R.E. Minnesota (www.hiremn.org) based in north Minneapolis, one of the state’s largest advocate’s for jobs in the construction and green trades, has battled with the practices of MnDOT’s “lack of inclusion” on road and highway projects in the State of Minnesota.
Louis King co-chair of HIRE Minnesota says, “We’re not asking for any ‘handouts’ – just the opportunity to get trained participants jobs working on Minnesota roads and highways, hence, equal opportunity for all businesses and personnel on The Minnesota Department of Transportation and Public Facilities projects.”
The late Dr. Martin Luther King in his prophetic last speech (1968) said, “All we say to America is be true to what you said on paper.”
On paper as well as the MnDOT website, MnDOT’s inner office agency or the “minority conduit” to assure checks and balances as it pertains to minority-ethnic compliance the Civil Rights Department states the following:
1. To promote fair and equitable public service, advocating non-discriminatory treatment in providing transportation services.
2. To ensure transportation services are provided in a non-discriminatory manner.
3. To ensure equal opportunity in employment, participation, benefits, services, and contracts.
4. To eliminate discrimination.
5. To increase the number of businesses owned by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals in the highway and bridge construction industry.
These five points heinously say, “Okay, I don’t have to ride in back of the bus and someday MnDOT might have a level playing field.” Read more
IBNNNEW- The Death of North Minneapolis… Donald Allen
- IBNN Exclusive Report: Youth with weapon attempts to enter funeral of Alisha “Lele” Neely (Captured on Film) Donald Allen
- WCCO 4 (CBS) Television fails in journalistic integrity with “edited and spliced” tape of the Minneapolis Police Beating of Ira Stafford…rating F- Donald Allen
- MURDERAPOLIS – Code 4, No More Donald Allen
- Minneapolis’ Star Tribune newspaper’s bias reporting causes defamatory speculation at Internet marketing firm (Updated) Donald Allen
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