Category Archives: Commentary

Can Ferguson happen in Kent, WA?

Commentary, Current Event

Kent Black Action Commission’s statement to Kent City Council:

Can Ferguson happen in Kent?

Kent is not Ferguson, Mo, however Kent is not totally free of some of the same drivers that led up to what did play out in that Missouri town. Because of the leadership of Chief Thomas our Police Department is better connected to Black community in Kent than in the past. The Chief’s outreach to the Black citizens of Kent has been deliberate and welcomed. However, that alone does not mean that we should not reflect on our city and how we can continue to avoid the same pitfalls that has culminated in the high profile shooting to dead of an unarmed Black teenager. When living in a city like Kent, your life experience is made up of more than just your interaction with the Police department. It is also about representation and inclusion. It’s about neighbors interacting with neighbors with respect. It’s about the school system. It’s about employment and economic development opportunities. Kent has a Black citizenry that has lived in Kent as long as 40 years plus and as little as less than 1 year. During that time there have been some incidents of racial insensitivity experienced here in Kent. This along with the exchange at the August 19th Kent City Council meeting regarding whether a moment of silence should be observed in the aftermath of nationally publicized death of Michael Brown brought to light the unspoken truth that there is a racial divide in Kent. The gap may or may not be as wide as Ferguson but it does exist. We need to talk about the past, the present, and the future when it comes to race relations in Kent and in America. We need to understand that a lot of the Black experience in America has been left out of commonly taught American history and thus has been omitted from the American consciousness. We need to display the courage to open the doors on the unspoken truths and commit to insure that Ferguson will never happen in Kent.
Let’s briefly highlight past experiences of Black people in Kent. Black people have been subjected to being called a racial epithet yelled from a passing vehicle while walking on Kent-Kangley Rd. Black people have seen vulgar racial epithets scrolled on bus stops. Black people have seen Black children handcuffed in school for disciplinary issues. Black people have experienced being stopped by Police in the predominately white neighborhood where they reside for no discernible reason other than driving while Black.

In our present we have been exposed to several nationally reported incidents of Black men mainly unarmed being killed by Police or someone acting under the color of authority. The Trayvon Martin case being one of the higher profile cases; however in the month of August there have been 4 additional cases of unarmed young Black men killed in interactions with the Police. Eric Gardner Long Allen, NY. Died after being the subject of a choke hold administered by Police even though you could hear exclaim at least eleven times that he could not breath. Mr. Gardner was confronted by Police for allegedly selling non-taxed cigarettes. John Crawford Beaver Creek, Ohio was shot by Police in side a Walmart Store while holding a BB gun that he picked off a store shelf. Walmart sells the guns. Ezell Ford Los Angeles, CA was shot in the back while lying on the ground. Dante Parker Victorville, CA died after being shocked with a Taser by Police. Parker was a pressman at the local news paper. He was out for a bike ride when stopped by the Police because the Police had a call that a robbery suspect had left the scene on a bicycle. And, then we have the case of Mike Brown an 18 year old that was unarmed when he was shot to death Police in Ferguson, Mo., and his body lay unattended in the street for over 4 hours. The release of details to this point has been slow and incomplete. All of this has prompted us to give pause and question can this happen in Kent and what can we do to make sure Kent could never be a Ferguson, Mo.

What do we need to do going forward to insure that Kent is a role model of diversity and inclusion. Our conversations on Race Relations should be open and honest. We need to stop stifling the conversations by saying you are just playing the race card. Ask yourself who’s game are we playing and who brought the cards. If you don’t want the race card played take it out of the deck. We need to stop telling Black people you personally were never enslaved and slavery was ended in 1863 so just get over it. We say to people with that attitude “do you really understand what you are telling me to get over”? The emancipation proclamation was signed in 1863; however you know that the Free Blacks immediately subjected to the “Black Codes” followed by “Jim Crow Laws”.

In the United States, the most notorious Black Codes were laws passed by Southern states in 1865 and 1866, after the Civil War. These laws had the intent and the effect of restricting African Americans’ freedom and of compelling them to work in a labor economy based on low wages or debt.
Since the early 1800s, many laws in both North and South discriminated systematically against free Blacks. In the South, “slave codes” placed significant restrictions on Black Americans who were not themselves slaves. A major purpose of these laws was maintenance of the system of white supremacy that made slavery possible
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Codes_(United_States)

The Jim Crow laws were racial segregation laws enacted between 1876 and 1965 in the United States at the state and local level. They mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities in Southern states of the former Confederacy, with, starting in 1890, a “separate but equal” status for African Americans. The separation in practice led to conditions for African Americans that were inferior to those provided for white Americans, systematizing a number of economic, educational and social disadvantages. De jure segregation mainly applied to the Southern United States, while Northern segregation was generally de facto — patterns of segregation in housing enforced by covenants, bank lending practices and job discrimination, including discriminatory union practices for decades.
These Jim Crow Laws followed the 1800–1866 Black Codes, which had previously restricted the civil rights and civil liberties of African Americans with no pretense of equality. State-sponsored school segregation was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education. Generally, the remaining Jim Crow laws were overruled by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws

So when you say get over it you need to understand what needs to be overcome. For us to not let this legacy of racial injustice inhibit us from moving forward as a unified community we need to deal with each other with open minds. This brings us to the one demand at this time. The statement that Councilman Les Thomas made at the August 19, 2014 City Council “I will not participate in a moment of silence for an 18 year old thief” referring to Michael Brown, shows us that you sir do not have the kind of open mind that this city needs to move forward. So we are asking that you resign from the council.

“A Case of Identity Theft”

Commentary, Historical

Lately, there has been increasing debate over what we, as descendants of the enslaved Africans in America, should call ourselves. Are we African-American, Black, Afro-American, and yes even Negro? A lot are confused about why some Black folks call themselves African American while others call themselves Black. I am not here to advocate for one descriptor or another, however I do think that any discussion about our identity and what we call ourselves should be put into the context of how we got here and where we came from to get to where we are today. For the sake of this discussion, I separated our journey from the African continent to where we find ourselves in present day America into three phases: enslavement, the awakening, and the current reality.

Let’s start with the enslavement of our forebears. American history tends to broad-brush this chapter of history. We are taught that the enslaved people came from Africa. Africa is a continent comprised of 54 countries. There is no mention of the countries of origin for the enslaved, no mention of the Nations or the villages, from which the enslaved were stolen.

However, if you look for greater detail, you will find details of some little spoken of facts:

Where our forbearers were stolen from (country/region)

Senegambia (Senegal-Gambia) * 5.8%

Sierra Leone 3.4%

Windward Coast (Ivory Coast) * 12.1%

Gold Coast (Ghana) * 14.4%

Bight of Benin (Nigeria) * 14.5

Bight of Biafra (Nigeria) * 25.1%

Central and Southeast Africa (Cameroon-N. Angola) * 24.7%

Where our forbearers were stolen from (Region / Nations)

Region: SENEGAMBIA Nations: Wolof, Mandingo, Malinke, Bambara, Papel, Limba, Bola, Balante, Serer, Fula, Tucolor

Region:SIERRA LEONE Nations: Temne, Mende, Kisi, Goree, Kru.

Region: WINDWARD COAST (including Liberia): Nations: Baoule, Vai, De, Gola (Gullah), Bassa, Grebo.

Region: GOLD COAST Nations: Ewe, Ga, Fante, Ashante, Twi, Brong

Region: BIGHT OF BENIN & BIGHT OF BIAFRA combined Nations: Yoruba, Nupe, Benin, Dahomean (Fon), Edo-Bini, Allada, Efik, Lbibio, Ljaw, Lbani, Lgbo (Calabar)

Region: CENTRAL & SOUTHEAST AFRICA Nations: BaKongo, MaLimbo, Ndungo, BaMbo, BaLimbe, BaDongo, Luba, Loanga, Ovimbundu, Cabinda, Pembe, Imbangala, Mbundu, BaNdulunda

Other possible groups that maybe should be included as an “Ancestral group” of African Americans:

Fulani, Tuareg, Dialonke, Massina, Dogon, Songhay, Jekri, Jukun, Domaa, Tallensi, Mossi, Nzima, Akwamu, Egba, Fang, and Ge.

[Philip D. Curtin’s book, “The Atlantic Slave Trade”, (1969), p. 221.]

I am intentionally using a lot of detail to breakdown our cultural and national origins to help make my point. The theft of the human bodies from the African continent is only part of the story. Just imagine being swept-up and taken to another land cramped inside the hole of a ship with other Africans that you can’t communicate with for the most part because you are from different countries, different regions, different nations, and speak different languages and/or dialects. As it turns out, this was the de-facto first step to severing ties to your homeland, your heritage, your history and by default your sense of purpose. And, this fact probably planted the seeds of mistrust among the Africans. The next step was to forbid the enslaved from speaking their own language, practicing their own culture, and even using their African given names. All of these restrictions were reinforced through violence. Now let’s jump back on-track and talk about identity theft.

Once you have enslaved a people and robbed them of their cultural identity what do you call them. The Spanish and Portuguese referred to the Africans as negro (nay-grow) which is an adjective derived from Latin meaning black. Somehow in the inhumane ordeal of slavery that adjective got converted to a noun and the slavers began to refer to the enslaved as Negroes. It is very tempting to expose more of the ugliness of the slavery-era at this point. However, that is not my intent in this article. Let me say this. In short order the term Negro had descended to an ugly racial slur the N-word and Black was associated with every negative connotation one could imagine. It wasn’t until the 1900’s that the term Colored seemed to become a politically correct. A term that was fostered in part by the founding of the NAACP which was an integrated mostly white organization at its inception.  Keep in mind that all of these names had a White genesis that’s what they called us. Now let’s move into the awakening.

Although there were many incidents of the enslaved defying bondage by suicides-of-defiance, rebellions, escapes, and the infamous Amistad mutiny, the awakening for the sake of this discussion took place later. The Civil Rights movement was the most recognized outward manifestation of the fact that Black people had enough of bad treatment, and were willing to take to the streets for change. Simultaneous to the civil rights movement was the growing numbers of the Black Nationalist movement of the Nation of Islam and the more militant Black Power movement. The mainstay of the Civil Rights movement was non-violent social disobedience. On the other hand the Black power movement had an undercurrent of “By any means Necessary”. The Civil Rights movement was personified by Martin Luther King Jr. The Black Nationalist movement was personified by The Honorable Elijah Muhammad and later Malcolm X. The Black Power Movement was personified by the Black Panthers, and Angela Davis to name a few. The Black Power movement gave birth to the “Black is Beautiful” campaign to fly directly in the face of Whites who wanted to paint everything Black as undesirable. James Brown contributed mightily to the campaign for Black people to take control of their own identity with his hit record “I’m Black and I’m Proud”. No longer will Black people be Negroes, Colored, or any other name that White people wanted to call us. Fast forward to the middle 1980’s after a poet used the term African-American in his poem, the descriptor of African-American became widely accepted by Blacks and was a symbol of reclaiming the African heritage that was all but stolen in slavery. Now back to the current day discussion.

I believe that there should be an open discussion of what American-born Blacks should call themselves because there are questions that need to be answered. In the face of recent increase African immigration into this country what does African-American mean today? How do we deal with the reality and baggage that comes with being descendants of the enslaved? Is Black still Beautiful? Are we still proud? Is want we call ourselves an important issue?

I hope that this article provides some food for thought and adds context to any future discussions.

Immigration: More of the Story

Commentary, Current Event

When dealing with issues in America we often deal with what is on the surface and never get to the root of the issue. We hear a sound bite on the so called “News” and we run with it. With immigration we’ve been conditioned via a constant bombardment of sound bites and negative stories to see: An endless stream of Mexican Nationals streaming across our southern borders undocumented, a crush of Mexican Nationals overwhelming our social services system taking welfare and food stamps, an endless supply of low wage workers taking jobs from Americans especially African American workers etc… etc…etc.

Well I am not here to argue for or against these popular beliefs about our current immigration situation. What I do want to talk about is facts about our immigration system and other reasons why it needs to be reformed. What I do know contrary to what some would have us believe is that we have undocumented people here in America from almost every country on the globe not just Mexico. These people come through every port and across every border not just the Mexican border. There is one aspect of our current immigration situation that is not widely reported. There are profits to be made in this broken system and the profiteers may want to keep things the way they are. How do you profit from a broken immigration system?

Did you know that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has a mandate of 33,400 (ACLU, March 30, 2010) detainees per day? I like to connect dots and follow the money. So let’s see what we have here. If the cost of detaining a person is $150/day and you multiply that by 33,400, you quickly see that detaining people can be a very lucrative business to the tune of $1.9 billion per year. Also, did you know that the same people that run the private prisons of the prison industrial complex are in the detention center business? Do you think that they and their congressional lobbyist are in favor of meaningful immigration reform or do they want to protect the status quo?

We live in a time that more money goes into swaying public opinion with sound bites and misinformation than any concrete effort to our citizens.

To see more visit: https://www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights/controversial-memo-immigration-detention-quotas-raises-doubts-about-ice-leadership

“Save Our Voice” KRIZ Radio

Commentary

I started on Facebook to tell a story of how, what consider the voice of the Black and minority community in the Pacific Northwest, is in jeopardy of being forced to close its doors. One of my favorite sayings is “always connect the dots”. Well I want to connect the dots on how and why the community has stepped forward to save our voice. Here’s the rest of the story.

We have all heard the stories of bank failures during and in the aftermath of the terrible economic Wall Street recession. Many of us lost a lot of financial value via lost of jobs, homes, retirement savings, and countless other forms of economic viability. This is a story that has its roots in the bank failures that were part and parcel to the damage done by the man made recession.

Through no fault of its own a few years back Chris Bennett Broadcasting(CBB) was forced to relocate station and transmitter assets to a new location. To accomplish this move the company took out a capital loan to cover the relocation cost. The loan was granted by small bank that had a long standing financial relationship with CBB. Well as a result of the economic calamity (recession) the bank failed and the banks assets were liquidated and loans were sold off by the FDIC. The new loan holder bank has called the loan which amounts to a huge balloon payment due by December 31, 2013.

These airways are a jewel to our community so we are not taking this lying down. We have seen tremendous loses in our community due to gentrification and other forms of economic migration and we are going to make a stand on this one. We are prepared to fight with all means at our disposal to not lose our voices in the form of this radio station network. Please visit www.SAVEKRIZ.COM and get more facts and help in any way you can. No amount is too small.