(NNPA)—This month is Hispanic Heritage Month, a celebration to recognize the lives and contributions of people from Latin America and Spanish-speaking Caribbean countries in the U.S. This is an important month but how it is celebrated in the US leaves many African-Americans not fully understanding the important stake we have in this month. That is because so often celebrations of this month very rarely highlight the important, vibrant Afro-Latino population living and working in every Latin American country. Every country — Yes, even Mexico and Argentina.
I don’t know what part of the video sickened me most. There was the exultation voiced by the one young…I can’t call him a man because he isn’t of age and he demonstrated no evidence of manhood…punk, who threw a punch at a boy who had been hit across the head by a railroad tie. There was the boastful bleating of another punk, who screamed aloud, “Put that n-----r to sleep!” I’ll hear that in my head for a long time…or at least until the next savage murder of a young person on the streets of Chicago.
(NNPA)—It was the 1960s, and after decades following the abolishment of slavery, African-Americans were still vying for simple fundamental human rights, including the most basic form of involvement in society—voting. Routinely disenfranchised from the process via underhanded tactics such as literacy tests, and more blatant intimidation methods like outright murder and violence, the Black community found itself intricately excluded from actively participating in any discourse that may have altered their lives for the better. Following the murder of voting-rights activists in places like Mississippi and Alabama, the president and Congress finally passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that aimed to ensure equality in our election process.
The question to many of you is Who is Donald S. Carter? Carter was a deputy director at the Small Business Administration who died, but his sense of commitment still lives on. Don also is one of the unbelievable numbers of people across this nation who are not household names, but did an incredible job in making it possible for Blacks, Whites, women and all minorities to have a share in the American Dream of being successful entrepreneurs. Don was the kind of person who never saw his role as a job, but a mission and he would go above and beyond to help a business succeed and hopefully grow to a larger business. Don had been bypassed by the system when the director position became vacant and it was natural that he was disappointed, but it never affected his deep commitment to helping those who needed his expertise.
(NNPA)—Of all of the statistics about the disproportionate number of HIV cases in Black America, few are as perplexing as those about African-American women. Although Black women represent only 12 percent of the U.S. female population, they represent 61 percent of all new HIV infections among women—a rate nearly 15 times that of White women—and 66 percent of AIDS cases among women. An astounding 83 percent of Black women were infected through heterosexual activity, according to figures compiled by the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.
(NNPA)—I’m deeply disturbed that after a decade of decline, the number of firearm deaths among children and youths has increased for the second year in a row. Our 2009 Protect Children, Not Guns report released in September reveals that almost nine children and teens die from gunfire every day—one child death every two hours and 45 minutes. The report, based on the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, states that 3,184 children and teens died from gunfire in 2006, a six percent increase over 2005, a total of 17,451 were victims of non-fatal firearms injuries, a seven percent increase from the previous year. When people from other industrialized democracies learn of America’s child gunshot death rates, they’re equally troubled.
(REAL TIMES MEDIA)—The Cleveland metropolitan area has finally done it. The city has become the center of a political and cultural story that has nothing to do with foreclosure crisis, the lousy football team, the horrible bond rating or horrendous infrastructure. Last week, the Cleveland metro area managed to be the center of a whole new conversation about gay rights in the United States, both moving things forward and setting the narrative back 20 years. Not bad for a city some still affectionately refer to as the “Mistake on the Lake.”
(NNPA)—It was with some concern that when 16 year-old student Derrion Albert was killed recently by other youths wielding wooden clubs in Chicago, the White House responded by deciding to send Attorney General Eric Holder and Schools Chief Arne Duncan into the fray. First of all, we should be pleased that this incident attracted action by the White House at all, but my concern is that at base it is really not an issue of policing or one of school administration, since 400 youths have been killed in Chicago in the past year.
In his first year in office, former president Bill Clinton, who had run as a centrist, was drawn into the new left vortex of socialized health care, which led to a resounding defeat for Clinton and the Democrats in the 1994 mid-term elections. Current President Barack Obama too is attempting to reform health care and like Clinton has seen his popularity sink. Some political pundits are drawing comparisons between the two administrations and positing that Democrats are setting themselves up for a bit of a spanking come 2010. It is, as Shirley Bassey sang, “all just a little bit of history repeating.”
by Shannon Williams Dorothy Height, chairwoman and president emerita of the National Council of Negro Women once said (I’m paraphrasing) that African-American women are very unique. We rarely do what we want to do, but always do what we need to do.
