http://www.nnpa.org/new-yorks-stop-and-frisk-policy-declared-unconstitutional-by-by-freddie-allen/
http://www.nnpa.org/jesse-jackson-jr-sentenced-to-2-½-years-wife-a-serve-12-months-by-freddie-allen/
GOP LOCAL ELECTION
BOARDS TARGETING
STUDENTS
By Cash Michaels
Editor
Emboldened
by the new voting restrictions passed by the Republican-led General Assembly
and signed into law by Gov. Pat McCrory last week, college students in North
Carolina are now not just saddled with finding a new way to vote since their
college IDs will not be accepted at the polls.
In
some parts of the state, they’ll be lucky to be able to vote at all.
That’s
because local county boards of election, now dominated by Republicans, are
passing new restrictions on college student voting that critics say will serve
to as an attempt to deter young voters from the polls in upcoming elections.
Why?
Because young voters in North Carolina traditionally vote Democratic, an
advantage, observers say, the GOP wants to eliminate to maintain their
legislative grip for years to come.
House
Bill 589, the voting omnibus bill that Gov. McCrory signed last week, not only cut
the two week early voting period virtually in half, and instituted voter photo
ID, but also required several forms of identification of college students who
didn’t already have North Carolina issued identification, like a driver’s
license.
The
bill also eliminated the pre-voter registration program which allowed 16 and
17-year-old high school students to register to vote, just as long as they
would be 18 before the next election.
That
move also slashed the prospect of a steady stream of young Democratic voters
for future elections, further suppressing their votes.
But
now, in areas around the state where college students make up a significant
voting population, GOP-dominated local election boards are voting to shut down
early voting sites, consolidate voting precincts forcing hundreds of voters to deal
with one site instead of three, and in an extraordinary case in Elizabeth City,
disqualify an Elizabeth City State University senior from running for City
Council, ruling that he has no legal residence in the city because he lives in
the university dormitory.
The
student, Montravious King, has been living and voting in Elizabeth City since
2009. But Pete Gilbert, the local chair of the Pasquotank County Republican
Party convinced the local Republican-led board of elections on Aug. 13th
to disqualify King, and promised to come back to have every student living on
ECSU’s campus disqualified from voting for the same reason.
King,
22, is appealing that decision to the Republican-led state Board of Elections,
whose members were appointed by Gov. McCrory.
Gilbert
is encouraging other Republican Party county chairs across the state to take a
page from his playbook, and go after disqualifying dorm-living college students
in their respective counties.
NCNAACP Pres. Rev. William Barber,
during a news conference in Elizabeth City Tuesday, called the local board of
elections “an anti-democratic cancer” that needed to be investigated for its
role in targeting King and other ECSU students in the denial of their voting
rights.
Barber also noted that legally, it
is the board of elections, not King, who is breaking the law.
In 1972, both the US and NC Supreme
Courts ruled that college students of legal voting age had the constitutional
right to participate in local elections where they are living while attending school.
So the ECSU case is certainly headed to court under that premise.
Black students at Winston-Salem
State University are keeping a close eye on what’s happening at ECSU. Recently,
Ken Raymond, the chair of the Republican-led Forsyth County elections board
indicated that he would push to have the early voting site on WSSU’s campus
closed down, simply because he had heard rumors that professors were allegedly
giving extra credit to students who voted.
No evidence was ever presented to
back up those claims.
That Raymond backed off having a
vote on the site shutdown this week as he had earlier promises, saying that it
was too early to consider such. But given the make up of the board, critics
know that a vote can be taken at any time.
And then there’s the city of Boone in
Watauga County, where Appalachian State University is headquartered.
This week, the GOP-led county board
of elections voted to eliminate the early voting site on the campus of ASU and force
all early voting into one hard to get to location for ASU voters.
The meeting was contentious as
citizens protested.
Afterwards, the Watauga County BOE
chair had the board meeting minutes changed so that the contentiousness would
not be reflected.
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New Report Finds an Active School-to-Prison Pipeline in the Wake County Public School System
Special to The Carolinian Newspaper
RALEIGH, N.C. – Students
exhibiting minor misbehavior may find themselves suspended and on a pathway to
the delinquency and criminal systems if they attend Wake County public schools –
particularly if they are African-American, have a disability, and/or are
economically disadvantaged – new research shows.
In just the 2011-12 school year alone, the
Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) handed out 14,626 suspensions,
thousands of which were for so-called Level 1 offenses such as attendance
issues and “noncompliance.” And in a system where only 24.7 percent of the
student population is African-American, more than 60 percent of the suspensions
fell on black students.
The research, distilled in a new report
entitled, “The State of the
School-to-Prison-Pipeline in the Wake County Public School System,”
was released on August 19, by Advocates for Children’s Services (ACS), a
project of Legal Aid of North Carolina. The report is based on data from the
2011-12 school year, the most recent year for which data is available.
“This is the most comprehensive
school-to-prison pipeline report ever produced about a school district in North
Carolina,” said Jason Langberg, an attorney for ACS and a co-author of the report.
“What we found in reviewing thousands of pages of public records and analyzing
extensive data was that the WCPSS does not have a comprehensive, coordinated
approach to preventing misbehavior and intervening when it occurs.”
A spokesperson for WCPSS had no comment Monday
because they had not read the report yet.
Some key findings of the report include:
- Long-term suspension rates in WCPSS
were among the highest in North Carolina, in part due to the district’s severe
shortage of alternatives to suspension (e.g., restorative justice, community
service, and mandatory counseling).
- The district had a severe shortage of
school psychologists, social workers and guidance counselors, with ratios well
below national recommendations.
- The alternative schools and programs
within the WCPSS are highly segregated, low-achieving and punitive.
- The WCPSS had a massive security
presence in its schools – including a Security Department staff, private
security guards, and law enforcement officers – yet security personnel lacked
adequate training, limitations and accountability, and inconsistencies existed
among schools.
- Arbitrary suspension recommendations
from an inadequate Code of Conduct are leading to inequitable applications.
Nearly all long-term suspensions are recommended to extend through the end of
the school year, so two students who commit the same offense may receive vastly
different suspension periods depending on when they committed their offense.
Particularly troubling was the finding that
the WCPSS is funneling students, particularly students of color, directly into
the juvenile delinquency system at increasing and alarming rates. During the
2011-12 state fiscal year, school-based delinquency complaints increased by
23.5 percent from the previous year, with nearly three-quarters of those
complaints being filed against African-American students.
“This report provides a clear overview of the
state of school discipline in Wake County,” said Matt Ellinwood, a policy
analyst at the Education & Law Project of the North Carolina Justice
Center. “While some progress has been made in recent years, it is apparent that
the WCPSS and districts across the state continue to adhere to punitive school
discipline policies that are counterproductive in terms of improving student
achievement and behavior rather than implementing research-based practices
designed to prevent misbehavior and support the education of at-risk students.”
The report also found that while alternative
education programs can be effective in managing students with academic or
behavioral issues and can combat the school-to-prison pipeline, such programs
in the WCPSS often work counterproductively. All WCPSS alternative schools
operate as racially-identifiable, high-poverty schools. African-American
students comprise 71.5 percent of the population and more than 75 percent of students
come from economically disadvantaged families. The suspension rate for these
alternative schools in the 2011-12 school year was almost 12 times the rate at
the district-wide level, with 11.7 suspensions per 10 students. All alternative
settings reported significantly lower end-of-grade (EOG) and end-of-course
(EOC) exam passage rates than at the district-wide level. At the lowest end of
the spectrum, only 5.1 percent of Longview school students demonstrated
proficiency on all EOG exams, only 23.7 percent of students were proficient on
all EOC exams, and only 10.5 percent of students graduated on time. For
students suspended from a traditional school seeking an alternative learning
environment, the WCPSS’s alternative programs fall short in providing adequate
support and services.
Although the WCPSS has a massive security
network (private security guards, school resource officers, WCPSS security
staff, off-duty law enforcement officers and law enforcement officers who come
onto campus for investigations), the report found there were few guidelines and
accountability mechanisms in place. The lack of such accountability is
troubling, given the reported increase in school-based delinquency complaints
and the history of security personnel using TASERs, pepper spray and excessive
force in Wake County.
Moreover, North Carolina is the only state
that treats all 16- and 17-year-olds as adults, so any time a school-based
complaint is filed against a WCPSS student over age 16, the student goes
straight into the adult criminal system. In an attempt to increase safety and
security, the WCPSS is instead sending students directly into a
school-to-prison pipeline.
“The data unfortunately show that the WCPSS
still too often relies on pushing its most high-need students into
low-performing alternative schools, out on the streets via suspension, or, at
alarmingly increasing rates, straight into the court system,” said Jennifer
Story, an attorney for ACS and co-author of the report. “We hope that this
report will educate stakeholders about current problems and best practices and
stimulate necessary dialogue and action.”
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STATE NEWS BRIEFS 8-22-13
STATE JOBLESS RATE
JUMPS TO 8.9 PERCENT
[GREENSBORO]
If state leaders were looking for good news from the July unemployment numbers,
they didn’t get it. The jobless rate for the state crept up to 8.9 percent,
one-tenth of a percent higher than June, according to the state Dept. of
Commerce’s Labor and Economic Analysis Division. That ties North Carolina with
Rhode Island in having the third worst unemployment rate in the nation, behind
Illinois and Nevada – both with 9.5 percent. The national jobless rate in July
was just 7.4 percent. North Carolina did add over 8,200 jobs last month, but
that was offset by over 5,300 government jobs lost. Local jobless figures will
be released August 28th.
SEN. ELLIE KINNAIRD,
DEMOCRAT, RESIGNS FOR STATE SENATE
[CARRBORO]
Saying that her energies now are best spent helping Democrats across the state
get elected, State Sen. Ellie Kinnard [D-Orange] announced her resignation from
her Senate seat Monday, effective immediately. Kinnaird, 81, served nine terms
in the NC Senate. She is seen as a liberal stalwart who fought for women’s
rights, and the rights of the poor. Kinnaird added that she would work to
ensure that all who need voter photo identification, per the new law, will have
them.
ALSTON RESIGNS AS
CHAIR OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MUSEUM
[GREENSBORO] Former Guilford County Commissioner and
NCNAACP Pres. Melvin “Skip” Alston has announced that he’s stepping down as
chairman of the financially beleaguered International Civil Rights Center &
Museum on Sept. 16th. Alston, however, will remain as a voting
member of the governing board. Alston is a cofounder of the civil rights
museum, which is the historic F. W. Woolworth store where four NC A&T
University students challenged segregation laws in February 1960. Alston said
his decision to leave is based on his business interests, and probable
candidacy in 2014 for a state or federal office. A longtime figure of
controversy in Greensboro, editorials in both The Greensboro News & Record, and the local African-American
newspaper, The Carolina Peacemaker, virtually
demanded that Alston leave the museum board as to not damage its progress.
-30-
TRIANGLE NEWS BRIEFS 8-22-13
ASST. DURHAM POLICE
CHIEF FILES EEOC COMPLAINT
A
black assistant Durham Police chief has filed an EEOC complaint against Durham
Police Chief Jose Lopez alleging racial discrimination for being passed over
for promotion to Deputy Chief. Asst. Chief Winslow Forbes alleges in the
three-page complaint that Lopez passed over him because he had complained about
the chief’s negative treatment of black officers in 2011 and 2012. Forbes has
25 years with the DPD. At presstime, there was no response to the complaint
from Durham city officials.
WAKE SCHOOL BUS
ROUTING INFO ONLINE
Wake
County parents can now keep up with their children’s 2013-14 bus route, and any
changes. WCPSS has now posted that information at http://www.wcpss.net/parents/transportation/routes-and-stops.html.
Just click on your child’s elementary, middle or high school, and the listing
of bus stops per route number will appear. Parents are asked to bring their
children to the bus stop in the morning at least ten minutes before its
scheduled pickup.
HONOREES OF WCPSS
HALL OF FAME ANNOUNCED
The
six honorees to be inducted in the Wake County Public School System Hall of
Fame have been announced by the Wake Educational Partnership, to be awarded on
Oct. 3rd at Marbles Kids Museum. Those to be recognized include
former Wake Supt. Bill McNeal; Ann Goodnight on behalf of SAS Institute;
community leader Sherry Worth; businessman Zach Clayton; David West, a graduate
of Garner High School who now plays for the NBA’s Indiana Pacers; and Elizabeth
Grimes-Droessler, WCPSS arts administrator. Special lifetime awards go to
former Wake Supt. Dr. Robert Bridges, and former Raleigh Mayor Smedes York.
-30-
CASH IN THE APPLE 8-22-13
By Cash Michaels
THICKE
VERSUS GAYE – When the person who should be sued, sues first in order to keep
from being sued, then you know that something is wrong somewhere.
By
now you know about the “reluctant” lawsuit filed by performer Robin Thicke against the family of soul
singing legend Marvin Gaye to keep
them from suing him because his monster summer smash hit, “Blurred Lines”
sounds very, very close to Marvin’s old dance hit, “Got to Give it Up.”
Being
from the old school of disco DJ music, the first time I heard “Blurred Lines,”
the first thing I said to myself was,” Hey wait a minute, that’s Marvin Gaye!”
And when I saw Thicke’s video, I was certain I was listening to a more
contemporary version of Marvin’s great classic.
I
even told my daughter, KaLa. She, of
course, dismissed my contention that something was rotten in Robin
Thicke-ville, but all of that changed when Thicke, along with “Blurred Lines”
co-writers Pharrell Williams and Clifford Harris Jr., filed suit August
15th in a Los Angeles federal court against Marvin’s family, as well
as Bridgeport Music, Inc., who owns
the music to Funkadelic’s portfolio
of hits.
Apparently
folks at Bridgeport believe Thicke & Co. allegedly ripped off one of their
songs, “Sexy Ways.”
In
Thicke’s pre-emptive lawsuit, he alleges that Marvin Gaye’s family –
specifically his three children Marvin
III, Frankie and Nona – don’t even have standing regarding “Got To Give It
Up” (meaning they had nothing to do with the song), let alone that he did not
rip it off.
But
you have to love how Thicke’s lawsuit opens. Get a load of this:
Plaintiffs, who have the utmost respect for
and admiration of Marvin Gaye, Funkadelic and their musical legacies,
reluctantly file this action in the face of multiple adverse claims from
alleged successors in interest to those artists.
There
are no similarities between plaintiffs’ composition and those the claimants
alleged they own, other than commonplace musical elements. Plaintiffs created a
hit and did it without copying anyone else’s composition.
Well
that remains for a court of law to decide. Attorneys for the Gaye family and
Bridgeport Music had not filed a response to Thicke’s lawsuit by presstime
Tuesday, let alone file a lawsuit against him actually making the claims, but
they’re coming.
The
reason why this case is so fascinating is because it raises the question,” How
much of someone else’ intellectual property can you use without their
permission?” Thicke alleges that
he and his crew didn’t use any of Marvin Gaye’s song, and yet clearly there are
definitive elements of “Got To Give It Up” in “Blurred Lines” that cannot be by
accident.
Don’t
get me wrong…it can happen, and has with other songs in the past. But in this
case, it’s not likely. Marvin Gaye was a towering performing artist who defined
a generation with his musical genius. It’s simply hard to believe in the
process of producing “Blurred Lines” that somebody didn’t hear the similarities
and say something.
That
is, unless they did it deliberately.
We’ll
see.
MSNBC
FOLLIES – I will be the first to admit that being a television programmer can’t
be an easy job. You’ve got to compete with other channels and stations, and
figure out a way to not only attract the largest audience possible, but then
hold that audience for the longest period of time possible. That’s what
advertisers want, and ultimately how money is made.
That
said, there are some things even I knew wouldn’t work programming-wise over at
MSNBC.
When
evening talker Ed Schultz was moved
out of his 8 p.m. weeknight slot to the weekends a few months back, and
replaced by super-sharp wonker Chris
Hayes, I knew it wouldn’t work.
Schultz,
a hardnosed “every man” whose claim to fame was standing strong for the
middle-class and the working man, had an undeniable edge and in-your-face style
that was the perfect counter to Bill O’Reilly
over at Fox News.
But
the suits at MSNBC had decided that the best way to counter O’Reilly was with
someone intrinsically smarter. Problem was while Hayes is indeed sharp, he can
also be too analytical, which is what always made him a good guest for ten
minutes.
But
as host of an hour-long show, that wears thin fast, because there’s little personality
to carry the intellect. Schultz was never an intellectual, but he did have
personality and common sense, and that combination made his show fun to watch.
Well
apparently the wheels came off the master plan, because Hayes’ ratings at 8
p.m. have been gut-awful (even Anderson
Cooper on CNN is beating him), and it’s affecting the rest of the
prime-time lineup, which includes the brilliant Rachel Maddow (still the star of MSNBC) and Lawrence O’Donnell.
So
this week it was announced that as of August 26th, Ed Schulz will
move his show to 5 p.m. weekdays, and Chris
Matthews’ “Hardball” will be seen only at 7 p.m. (It had been seen both at
5 and 7 p.m.). MSNBC suits hope that “Hardball’s” single-showing audience at 7
will give Chris Hayes’s 8 p.m. show more of a boost.
That’s
not going to work. Hayes is Hayes. What would make much more sense is to move
Ed Schultz back to 8 p.m. where his audience loves him most, and move Hayes to
5 p.m. But that won’t happen (for now) because that would be an admission that
MSNBC was wrong to put him in the 8 p.m. nightly spot in the first place.
So
let’s see what happens, shall we?
OLBERMANN
– Keith Olbermann’s brand new ESPN2
weeknight show, “Olbermann” premieres Monday August 26th. From what
I see, Keith is back in shape after a disastrous run at Current TV, and before
that MSNBC. And the fact that he kissed and made up with ESPN is novel in and
of itself, given to how folks simply hated the man there when he was top talent
dog during the 1990’s. But even his detractors admit that KO is a great writer,
and knows how to handle himself on camera better than anybody else. His bad
attitude has always lost him jobs, but his skill as a commentator and
interviewer has always saved his fanny.
Who
knows, after ESPN fires him again, perhaps Keith will kiss and makeup with
MSNBC…. in about a hundred years!
CONGRATULATIONS
– Lots of folks doing great things of late, deserving
a shoutout.
Congrats
to director Lee Daniels and the cast
of “Lee Daniels’ The Butler.” Indeed there is Oscar buzz already about stellar
performances by Forrest Whitaker, Oprah
Winfrey, Jane Fonda, Cuba Gooding Jr., Terrence Howard, Robin Williams, and
the list goes on.
Congrats
to filmmaker Spike Lee for
surpassing the $1.25 million fundraising mark for his new film on Kickstarter.
Thanks to contributions from fans, Lee will now be able to make the movie he
wanted to make about….blood?
Congrats
to former television journalist Allison
Stewart on her new book, “ First Class: The Legacy of Dunbar – America’s
First Black Public School.” The former MTV and MSNBC anchor writes about the
legacy of Dunbar High in Washington, DC, and shares stories from some of its
early graduates (good work, Allison).
AND
FINALLY… - I don’t know what businessman and Def Jam rap music producer Russell Simmons was thinking when he
posted a video of black history icon Harriet
Tubman having sexual relations with her white “massah,” but the righteous
backlash from folks like Spike Lee,
Julianne Malveaux and the NAACP convinced him to take the blasted thing
down, that he clearly was not in his right mind. Simmons has apologized, and
word is he is working on a more constructive and inspiration video about the
great Harriet Tubman.
But
what in the world was he thinking?
Make
sure you tune in every Thursday afternoon at 4 p.m. for my talk radio show,
''Make It Happen'' on Power 750 WAUG-AM, or online at www.myWAUG.com.
And read more about my thoughts and opinions exclusively at my blog, ‘The Cash
Roc” (http://thecashroc.blogspot.com/2011/01/cash-roc-begins.html).
I promise it will be interesting.
Cash in the Apple - honored as the Best
Column Writing of 2006 by the National Newspaper Publishers Association.
Columnist Cash Michaels was also honored by the NNPA for Best Feature Story
Journalist of 2009, and was the recipient of the Raleigh-Apex NAACP’s
President’s Award for Media Excellence in Sept. 2011.
Until next week, keep a smile on your face,
GOD in your heart, and The Carolinian in your life. Bye, bye.
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