Y’all need to chill! Seriously!
Mitt Romney is the living embodiment of a President from Hollywood central casting. His all-American good looks and patrician bearing are reassuring to some folk and harkens back to the halcyon days of yesteryear when times were simple and dark people, women and gays knew their proper places. Following the lead of Congressional Republicans in racializing Obama’s policy agenda, Mitt Romney’s strategists, conscious of their diminishing odds of winning this election, elected to frame their horse’s throwback candidacy in a way that intentionally stokes a sense of white racial resentment. President Obama’s every thought, word and deed is construed as a racial attack on God-fearing, taxpaying white Americans. Whites are cast as the victims in this alternate Republican universe and Mitt Romney is the savior they’ve been praying for. It is a lie, like everything the modern Republican Party stands for. It doesn’t matter how confidently Mitt Romney recites his lies. A confident lie is still a lie. Remain calm. There is nothing that transpired yesterday between the contenders to America’s throne that should disturb any Obama partisan.
Let’s review. In the span of 50 years, we’ve gone from, “Segregation Now, Segregation Tomorrow, Segregation Forever,” to the eleventh great grandson of the first enslaved African serving as President of the United States. God is speaking through this recent revelation in Obama’s family tree. Can you hear him? I believe in my sanctified soul that Barack Obama’s miraculous rise to the presidency was predestined. The African ancestry traceable through his “white” mother shatters the myth of white supremacy and cleanses the stain of chattel slavery. In Jeremiah 1:5, God tells his prophet, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah 1:10 states, “See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.” Every step this brotha has taken in the last thirty years has been ordered by The One Most High.
Eight years ago, Barack Obama was a minor state legislator nobody had ever heard of. He gamely took on the State Comptroller and a Multi-Millionaire Businessman for the chance to represent Illinois in the U.S. Senate. Heavily outspent, he vanquished them both. Plucked from obscurity by John Kerry to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, he electrified the nation. Two opponents, including his attractive Republican opponent, self-destructed in sex-scandals. Smears, misinformation and right-wing distortions, many of the same we hear today, were employed by an unhinged Republican to stop his rise. None worked. Four years later he went on to defeat the most formidible political dynasty the Democratic Party has ever produced to claim the Democratic nomination for President. The Clintons questioned his fitness for the Presidency and Bill Clinton dismissed his ambition as a “fairytale” and prompted Teddy Kennedy to endorse Obama after letting rip, “A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee.” Oh, how the worm has turned. President and Mrs. Clinton both serve at Obama’s pleasure now.
We love him because he has always displayed the cool serenity and regal dignity that every child of God should emulate. This is the same president that shamed Donald Trump on Wednesday, punked his ass contemptuously on Saturday, and killed Bin Laden on Sunday. Don’t believe for one minute that an empty suit like Mitt Romney got under our president’s skin last night. Don’t fall for that. Obama set a trap and Romney took the bait. Romney shook his etch-a-sketch so hard that he broke it. This is the same president that allowed Republican extremism and obstructionism to trap them into the untenable position of opposing tax cuts, a grand bargain on deficit reduction and a debt limit extension. To hear some pundits tell it, Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he always seems to come out on top.
Romney still has much to answer for. The specificity of his budget and tax plan that journalists and pundits were critical of earlier in the week sure as hell didn’t materialize last night. What we heard was a lot of nonsensical doubletalk and backpedalling from what he was saying during the primaries. The Obama for America campaign is sure to take a hefty pound of flesh from Romney for his evasions and falsehoods. The ads should pretty much write themselves. All one has to do is stack Romney’s inconsistencies on top of one another and call it a damn day.
The corporate media knows that this race was over a long time ago. It doesn’t want to give up the ghost just yet because it invests the empty theatrics and ridiculous posturing of the modern presidential debate with more meaning than the serious policy discussions it was designed to facilitate. The contention that stagecraft means more than statecraft is a serious indictment of our fourth estate and an indication that the systemic corruption beneath the Media’s shiny façade threatens our democracy. We need to continue working, watching and praying for healing and racial reconciliation in our country.
There is a hymn that goes, “We’ve come this far by faith. Leaning on the Lord. Trusting in His holy word… Just the other day I heard someone say he didn’t believe in God’s word. But I can truly say that God has made a way. And He’s never failed me yet. That’s why we’ve come this far by faith.”
Tags Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Book of Jeremiah, Debates, God, GOP, Hillary Clinton, Jeremiah 1:5, Mitt Romney, Racialization, Republican Party, We've Come This Far By Faith
I’m Running
For the last twenty years I have struggled with a lifelong desire to be a political figure and the realization that American politics is infected with what bell hooks terms “White supremacist capitalist patriarchy.” Trying to navigate shark infested political waters in a way that preserves my integrity has been a tough slog. I’ve tried volunteering on campaigns, I’ve even run some for people I thought brought something special to the public arena. I’ve tried writing and blogging. None of it quite fits me even though I had some success.
I’ve been contacted by national writers from the Washington Post to the Los Angeles Times. During the 2008 campaign I even saw my blog mentioned on CNN. None of it was enough though. I allowed myself to become disillusioned with politics and watched passively as life passed me by.
I’ve wasted a lot of time and I’m not getting any younger. Next year when I hit forty I need to fulfill what I’ve always thought was my purpose: running for public office. I ‘ve been obsessed with politics and policy for as long as I can remember and life is too short not to try and make the world a better place. I realize that I am just as fucking flawed as some of the politicians I despise and looking for perfection in this life is a fool’s errand.
I am a progressive that believes in what the good people of Black Agenda Report call “The Black Consensus.” In sum, what that means is that we do no harm to the political, economic and social viability of the black community and that we do our level best to strengthen black institutions. The last thing we need is a dependant and prostrate black community willing to sell out for the crumbs of imperialism.
Capitalism, for the most part, operates to the detriment of people of color. Not always, but mostly. It is the obligation of African American pol’s to level the playing field in any way possible. Some of you will complain that this explicit racial consciousness is un-American, but I can assure you that as a dreadlocked skeptical brotha, nobody allows me to forget my race. The knee-jerk apprehension when I enter white spaces is palpable.
President Obama is the main example of this phenomenon. Since the day it was apparent that he would defeat Hillary Clinton, it has been open season. Conservatives have been ringing the bell and sounding a disturbing racial alarm. The sound and fury of conservatives signifies discomfort with everything Obama symbolizes. They refuse to accept his legitimacy as president and displace that into rhetoric questioning his citizenship, patriotism, and religion and they smear him as a socialist, Marxist, and Muslim.
Their thinly veiled racism and full throated hatred ain’t fooling nobody, honey. They want to “take their country back” from the unwashed hoards of Negroes, Latinos, Asians, and Gays of all persuasions and turn back the clock to a simpler time when they knew their proper places in the underclass.
Some of us have gotten sidetracked the last 18 months worrying about these attacks, but it really isn’t about Obama, it’s about us, people. Obama is just the proxy, y’all, conservatives are attacking progressive progress in general and the black community in particular. Obama is a very flawed politician despite his many gifts. I admire him tremendously, but his penchant for defending an unacceptable status quo and softening the edges of America’s harsh imperialism is not really admirable. TripLBee said it best:
When any President, including this one, glamorizes and sanitizes warfare, I will be offended. I found his speech offensive; especially because he knows he was spouting nonsense. Does he really want his daughters buying into his blather about the sanctity of waging war against the poorest country on the face of the Earth? He is sounding like every other emperor. It’s pathetic.
Lastly, I feel compelled to run because l feel an obligation to do something more than bitch and complain on a keyboard. Some folk can effect positive change that way, but I don’t think that is really my gift.
Tags Barack Obama, bell hooks, Black Agenda Report, black consensus, explicit racial consciousness, flawed politicians, harsh imperialism, Marxism, Muslim smear, Running for Office, Socialism, White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy, Xenophobia
Barack Obama’s Fantasy Island
“The delusion of power also appears to provide an escape for middle-class Negroes from the world of reality which pierces through the world of make-believe of the black bourgeoisie. The positions of power which they occupy in the Negro world often enable them to act autocratically towards other Negroes, especially when they have the support of the white community. In such cases the delusion of power may provide an escape from their frustrations. It is generally, however, when middle-class Negroes hold positions enabling them to participate in the white community that they seek in the delusion of power an escape from their frustrations.
Although their position may be only a “token” of the integration of the Negro into American life, they will speak and act as if they were part of the power structure of American society. Negro advisors who are called into counsel by whites to give advice about Negroes are especially likely to find an escape from their feelings of inferiority in the delusion of power.”
-E. Franklin Frazier, Black Bourgeoisie
I am Skeptical Brotha, your blog host. Welcome to Barack Obama’s Fantasy Island.
The passing of actor Ricardo Montalban last month has reminded me of the power of fantasy and delusion. Portraying the fictional Mr. Roark, the owner of a mystical Fantasy Island where people paid munificent sums to live out their fantasies, Montalban became an icon of the seventies and eighties and for me, the personification of an era fixated on the make-believe of Ronald Reagan’s right-wing conservatism. Tall, elegant and regal, Ricardo Montalban possessed a rich baritone and perfect diction. In the late seventies, the Mexican-born actor was the “happy darkie” white America needed to facilitate their fantasies. Today, we have a tall, elegant and regal African American President with a rich baritone and perfect diction to fulfill that function.
The historic election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States has fueled some troubling delusions about the nature of power in this country and the role of African people in running it. It ain’t what some of y’all think it is.
Montalban said of the iconic series Fantasy Island:
What is appealing is the idea of attaining the unattainable and learning from it. Once you obtain a fantasy it becomes a reality, and that reality is not as exciting as your fantasy. Through the fantasies you learn to appreciate your own realities.
Blackfolks have been stumblin’ around for the last two months as if we landed on Mr. Roark’s Fantasy Island. Metaphorically speaking, we’ve attained the seemingly unattainable fantasy of electing a Black President. Now, we’re about to enter the stage where the reality of Obama’s election won’t be as exciting as our collective fantasies. It is up to us to use this surreal event to appreciate the racist, imperialist reality of the world we still live in.
Let me be clear. We ain’t running nothing up in here. We ain’t now and won’t be after the inauguration. Don’t get caught up in the delusion of power that Frazier wrote about or get any wild ideas about the real status of the Negro in American society. The white corporate power structure ain’t relinquished control of a damn thing, shug.
The View co-host, Sherri Shepherd, moved me to tears after the election when she retold how she would be able to tell her son that because of Barack Obama, there were no longer any limitations on the aspirations of black men in this country. We could do and be anything we wanted. Sherri tapped into the powerful flood of emotions that flowed as I wept with millions of people watching Barack Obama solemnly claim the Presidency.
What Sherri said was raw—her pain jumped out of the screen. What she said felt real, but after the emotions subsided and I allowed myself the space to critically think and evaluate what I’d seen and heard over the course of the campaign, I knew immediately that it wasn’t true no matter how I longed for it to be. We can be many things, more than ever before, but I am still waiting on whether a Negro can be a progressive president.
Sherri’s claim is synonymous with the historic battle of African people in this country to be freed from the stigma of slavery and subjugation. It is what we’ve always demanded and what we’ve historically been denied. Barack Obama’s “victory” changed nothing in that respect. The battle for equality and economic justice continues.
The Price of Admission
Barack Obama writes in Dreams of My Father about the advice given by a black mentor and father figure:
“You’re just like the rest of these young cats out here. All you know is that college is the next thing you’re supposed to do. And the people who are old enough to know better, who fought all those years for your right to go to college—they’re just so happy to see you in there that they won’t tell you the truth. The real price of admission.”
“Leaving your race at the door,” he said. “Leaving your people behind.” “…Understand something, boy. You’re not going to college to get educated. You’re going to get trained.
They’ll train you to want what you don’t need. They’ll train you to manipulate words so they don’t mean anything anymore. They’ll train you to forget what it is that you already know. They’ll train you so good, you’ll start believing what they tell you about equal opportunity and the American way and all that sh*t. They’ll give you a corner office and invite you to fancy dinners, and tell you you’re a credit to your race. Until you want to actually start running things, and they’ll yank on your chain and let you know that you may be a well-trained, well-paid nigger, but you’re a nigger just the same.”
Barack Obama understood from the beginning what the price of admission was for the U.S. Senate and the Presidency. He paid in full. What was the price? It was the unconditional acceptance of ruling class demands and an uncritical embrace of neoliberalism and globalization. The price of this bourgeoisie fantasy, if we knew what it really was, would be a price that most blackfolks would be unwilling to pay.
Barack Obama cannot embody the aspirations of the African Diaspora because he is the president of the United States. As such, he is a tool of the corporate power structure that controls our country and the top spokesman for the ruthless neo-colonialism that oppresses the majority of African people through despotic institutions like the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and World Trade Organization.
It’s time to grow up and wake up, black people. Deep down, we all know damn good and well what the deal is. It is time to snap out of the fantasy.
Africa Action, the oldest black-run lobby in D.C. that’s half-way decent in fighting for the rights of the entire African Diaspora succinctly summarizes the real obstacles to black self-determination:
Africa‘s massive external debt burden is the single biggest obstacle to the continent’s development and to the fight against HIV/AIDS. The over $200 billion that African countries owe to foreign creditors represents a crippling load that undermines economic and social progress. The All-Africa Conference of Churches has called this debt “a new form of slavery, as vicious as the slave trade”.
The albatross of illegitimate debt diverts money directly from spending on health care, education and other important needs. While most people in Africa live on less than $2 per day, African countries are forced to spend almost $14 billion each year servicing old, illegitimate debts to rich country governments and their institutions, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Over the past two decades, African countries have paid out more in debt service to foreign creditors than they have received in development assistance or in new loans.
Much of Africa‘s foreign debt is illegitimate in nature, having been incurred by unrepresentative and despotic regimes, mainly during the era of Cold War patronage. Loans were made to corrupt leaders who used the money for their own personal gain, often with the full knowledge and support of lenders. These loans did not benefit Africa‘s people. More generally, many Africans question the notion of an African “debt” to the U.S. and European countries after centuries of exploitation. They ask, “Who really owes whom?”
Yet, despite the social and economic costs of this massive outflow of resources from the world’s poorest region, the wealthy creditors of Africa‘s debts continue to insist these debts be repaid. …The U.S. is the single largest shareholder in the World Bank and IMF, the institutions to which most of Africa‘s debts are owed. As such, it holds major influence over the international response to Africa‘s debt crisis.
Barack Obama campaigned on doing nothing meaningful to alleviating Africa’s crushing debt. His official position commits him to the IMF/WORLD BANK shell game of exclusionary rules and mealy-mouthed guarantees that continue to bleed the continent dry, leaving it impoverished, and beset with skyrocketing infant mortality rates, declining life expectancy and writhing under the weight of pandemic levels of AIDS, TB, and Malaria.
Moreover, because of African indebtedness, the IMF/World Bank imposes onerous structural adjustment programs on indebted countries that:
“…Are designed to reduce consumption in developing countries and to redirect resources to manufacturing exports for the repayment of debt. This has caused overproduction of primary products and a precipitous fall in their prices. It has also led to the devastation of traditional agriculture and to the emergence of hordes of landless farmers in virtually every country in which the World Bank and IMF operate.
Food security has declined dramatically in all Third World regions, but in Africa in particular. Growing dependence on food imports, which is the lot of sub-Saharan Africa, places these countries in an extremely vulnerable position. They simply do not have the foreign exchange to import enough food, given the fall in export prices and the need to repay debt.
Basic conditionalities of the IMF-World Bank include drastic cuts in social expenditures, especially in health and education. According to the UN Economic Commission for Africa, expenditures on health in IMF-World Bank programmed countries declined by 50 percent during the 1980s, and spending on education declined by 25 percent. Similar trends are evident in all other Southern regions.
IMF-World Bank programs come with other requirements. Governments are generally forced to remove subsidies to the poor on basic foodstuffs and services such as rice and maize, water and electricity. Tax systems are made more repressive, and real wage rates are allowed to fall sharply.
..But the greatest failure of these programs is to be seen in their impact on the people. Using figures provided by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the UN Economic Commission for Africa, it has been estimated that at least six million children under five years of age have died each year since 1982 in Africa, Asia and Latin America because of the anti-people, even genocidal, focus of IMF World Bank SAPs.
The fanatical insistence on a “post-racial” reality is fuc*ing ludicrous. It represents a willful ignorance that cannot be defended when any cursory examination of empirical data on globalization and income inequality is undertaken. The election of Barack Obama changes nothing for the black victims of globalization and neoliberalism. Moreover, it is a disingenuous act of token integration by the power structure. The browning of America inevitably means that some coloredfolks need to front for the power structure to camouflage the predatory nature of American imperialism and give the illusion of inclusion.
You could see the change his assumption of power wrought after he solemnly addressed the nation on Election night. His establishment cabinet, the continued no strings attached Wall Street Bailout and his unconscionable, silent complicity in the face of Israeli aggression against the Palestinians in Gaza. The first Negro has completely nailed his part as America’s stern father figure dispensing status quo medicine. No matter what he does and no matter how many times he betrays the African Diaspora, blackfolks will make excuses for his departures from progressive principle and will highlight the admirable aspects of his character as a devoted husband and father that a desperate black community seems to need to repair the brokenness endured in a country weaned on white supremacy and the deliberate destruction of the black family.
Mary Mitchell, a black columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, is a prime example. In her first appearance on the establishment’s top televised salon, Meet the Press, she said:
You have someone who did what he was supposed to do. He got a good education, he married his sweetheart, he’s a father for his children. That’s the kind of image the African-American community needs right now.
I hate to think that we’re so desperate for the validation of whitefolks and for appropriate black role models that we’d accept anything an establishment Negro President does at the behest of his corporate puppet masters.
DON’T HATE THE PLAYA; HATE THE GAME
It is difficult to muster the energy to demonize or dislike Barack Obama after being inundated by endless streams of positive, empty propaganda spoon fed by a compliant corporate press. However, as blackfolks, we need to stand ready to rebuke the President we claim to love so much when he inevitably falls off the wagon of progressive principle. Our shared African heritage and the uniqueness of this moment in time do not constitute valid reasons to give Obama a pass. Despite the laughable and despicable efforts of the right-wing to portray our President as a “terrorist” and “secret Muslim,” Barack Obama is an establishment politician that sold out a long time ago and that makes him a “safe Negro” in the minds of the imperial power structure.
What I am saying is not meant to turn you against the President, dislike him in any way or fail to honor and celebrate this remarkable achievement. Hate is so counterproductive. What I’m saying today is meant to get you to think critically, evaluate what his Administration does objectively, and demand that Barack actually becomes the progressive president he fooled you into believing he would be. In short, don’t hate the playa; hate the game.
From the Urban Dictionary:
Do not fault the successful participant in a flawed system; try instead to discern and rebuke that aspect of its organization, which allows or encourages the behavior that has provoked your displeasure.
One day in the distant future, the first African American President will pass away after living a long life, just as Ricardo Montalban did, and hopefully, the President be remembered for the progressive, concrete achievements of his era and not for some ridiculous bourgeois fantasy concocted by a crooked corporate power structure to disguise it’s racist imperialism.
Tags Africa Action, Africa's Debt Slavery, African Diaspora, black bourgeoisie, black role models, Bourgeoise Fantasy, Delusion of Power, Dreams of My Father, economic justice, Fantasy Island, Gaza conflict, Globalization, Happy Darkie, HIV/AIDS, IMF, Imperialism, International Monetary Fund, Israeli aggression, Mary Mitchell, Mr. Roark, neocolonialism, poverty and disease, racist imperialism, Ricardo Montalban, Sherri Shepherd, The Price of Admission, The View, white approval, Word Bank, World Trade Organization
THE QUICKNESS, a political homage to Jill Scott’s “The Thickness”
By Skeptical Brotha
Ain’t this some shit. He got,
Big ol’ ears,
Big ol’ eyes,
Big ol’ lips,
Big ol’ hands,
And a Big ol’ dick,
He so big!
He supposedly has an expansive mind
But he still looks 14,
Articulate, clean, supple, and fine,
Hear them,
all those oohs and ahhs slip as he licks his lips,
Oh, all the women wanna fuck him,
They want him to talk about it, (Hope)
Tell it,
Spread it,
Relive the conquest,
How he beat her stupid ass (Hillary) and how he knocked that shit, (outta her hands)
Blacks folks don’t stop,
Won’t stop,
To recognize that there’s more,
More underneath that quickness,
That sweet and round, brown, intellectual bigness,
Barack likes his Negroes mindless and eager,
Sweet and meager,
Shhhhh!
Don’t you complain about my shifting positions (Jeremiah Wright, FISA, Affirm Action),
Just drop that pro-black shit (Reparations),
And help me rise to the presidency with a quickness,
Black folks don’t stop (to think),
Won’t stop (to think),
Lift it, (his campaign)
Lift it,
Lift it baby,
Drop that pro-black shit again,
Cause I ain’t your tribesmen no more,
I ain’t your friend,
Come on y’all just let me get in,
Let me into all that thickness, (of imperial presidential power)
That sweet and round supple bigness,
Now that he’s won the nomination can’t nobody even try to reach yawl’s minds,
The Black Community has been degraded, exploited, NOT celebrated,
Saturated with self hatred,
Let me say that again please:
We’ve been degraded, exploited, NOT celebrated,
Cause every time we turn on the TV,
What do we see, big ol’ Obama changing positions to please whitefolks who will never fucking vote for him,
And it don’t have nothing to do with what is right for all of America,
Thus, my definition of progressive betrayal,
Jesse hit the nail on the head
Oh, oh, oh Lord,
Oh Lord,
Let him,
Let him recognize the magnificent opportunity you’ve created,
Lift him,
Let all of America be elevated,
Lord, Lord,
Let her be elevated,
Cause he is so big,
he’s so big,
Let her be elevated.
Tags Barack Obama, Black Politics, Jill Scott, Obama for President, political expediency, Race, The Quickness, The Thickness, White Supremacy
I voted today and did as I said I would do and voted no preference for the Democratic nomination for President because I am profoundly dismayed and angered by the lack of backbone shown by Barack Obama during the recent attacks upon his faith and the Black Church.
I struggled mightily. The twenty minutes I stared at my ballot seemed like an eternity. I went back and forth several times. Surrounded by other blackfolks, I became self-conscious. I wrestled with the lie I told the cheerful White Obama canvasser who ambushed me as I left my home. I then struggled with the commitment that I felt strongly enough to tell all of you about and my twenty-five year desire for a black President.
I teared up a bit and stared at the paper some more. My thoughts drifted to a dear friend’s 25 year-old brother lying comatose in intensive care, the victim of double aneurisms, dangling somewhere between life and death, and I wondered what is so damn wrong with refusing to compromise your core values and living the life God gives you informed by Trinity United Church of Christ’s motto “Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian.”
If the Father gives that boy a second chance at life, as I pray he does, I have no doubt that he will live his life to the fullest and without regrets. He comes from a proud Nigerian household and their love and commitment to each other is uniquely powerful. It makes me proud to know his sister and count her as one of my dearest friends. Their pride in their heritage makes them stronger as black people and as a family. It is unfathomable to me why Obama, a son East Africa, is afraid to embrace the power of his black religious heritage and stand on what I know he believes but refuses to confess to White America.
And yes, contrary to his 2004 Democratic National Convention speech, there is a White America and a Black America. And they are separate and unequal because we are not one people and never have been.
I watched Bill Moyers interview with Dr. Wright last night and heard nothing a reasonable person who understands the depth of African American suffering and the shame of our country’s history of slavery, genocide, and Jim Crow could be offended by.
Still grappling with my decision, I remembered Obama’s Friday presser. Senator Obama continued to distance himself from his Pastor of two decades yesterday by continuing the use of his weasel word mantra of “profound disagreement” over Dr. Wright’s, “objectionable” comments and why he and White America, “took offense.” I marked my ballot, smiled at the sistah who took my name and gave me ballot, and strode confidently back to my car.
Some people would rather live shackled by a cacophony of patriotic white supremacist lies than live in freedom and truth. Any campaign which genuflects to the head in the sand mentality so prevalent in White America is a campaign based on lies of political expedience and I cannot support that without protest.
If you disagree, watch Dr. Wright and Obama for yourself.
Tags 2008, Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright, Obama for President, political expediency, Politics, Power Games, Race, racism, Religious Bigotry, Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr


Remi Drolet is coached by David Wood.
Rossland’s Drolet receives FACE Program grant
Remi Drolet has joined one of the most prestigious athletic clubs in Canada.
Mar. 14, 2018 5:44 p.m.
Drolet, 17, was named this month as one of 55 young Canadian athletes from both summer and winter sports selected by Petro-Canada and the COC to receive Fuelling Athletes and Coaching Excellence (FACE) Program grant.
These athletes and their coaches are awarded a $10,000 FACE grant to help them with their journey ($5,000 directly to the athlete and $5,000 to their coach). FACE grants are often used for training, equipment and travel expenses.
Past recipients include Olympic and Paralympic medallists Patrick Chan, Hayley Wickenheiser, Rosie MacLennan, Mark Tewksbury, Kaitlyn Lawes, Marielle Thompson Mac Marcoux (GOLD, Para-alpine skiing) and Nicholas Gill.
Last month the Rossland resident, who is in his first year with the senior national team, won the open men’s 11-kilometre race at the Clearwater Challenge hill race in Nelson. He also competed in the 2017 Junior World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah, finishing 49th in the men’s 20 k skiathlon.
Drolet is coached by David Wood.
Developed by Petro-Canada, the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) and Canadian Paralympic Committee (CPC), and facilitated by their National Sport partners, the FACE Program supports up-and-coming athletes when they need it most: when they are striving to represent Canada at the Olympic or Paralympic Games, but don’t yet qualify for government funding. Recipients are selected based on potential. The funding is courtesy of Petro Canada.
Since 1988, FACE grants have supported more than 3,000 athletes and coaches by providing more than $11,000,000 in financial support.
Recent FACE grant recipients participating at the recent 2018 Winter Olympic Games include Kim McRae (Luge), Cendrine Browne (Cross-Country Ski), Mirela Rahneva (Skeleton), Gabrielle Daleman (Figure Skating), Mélodie Daoust (Women’s Hockey) and Chris Spring (Bobsleigh).
In addition to providing financial support, FACE athletes and coaches are invited to an annual summit to learn from Olympians and Paralympians and receive advice on media training, public speaking, and personal brand development.
B.C. woman wins lottery spot in New York City marathon
Punchless Canucks shut out for third straight game, fall 3-0 to Ducks
Hospital in Trail goes from zero to 100!
Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospital is one of 4 service hospitals operating in Interior Health


Category Archives: World News
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Opera Singer Brian Mulligan
posted on September 24, 2015	by WCBloggers	in AI, World News
Many people have heard of Brian Mulligan. He is an accomplished opera singer who has paved his way to the music business by exhibiting incredible talent. This musician is known in different countries for his unique forte in this industry, and he continues to impress his audience members every day.
Brian was born in Endicott, New York. When he was only 17, Brian starred in his first musical in high school as a singer. His music teacher during this time set him up to start seeing a vocal trainer, Todd Geer. Mulligan soon fell in love with opera singing. After showcasing his interest in music in high school, he went on to Yale University and Julliard. W. Stephen Smith was his voice instructor during college and continues to be today. Mulligan decided to be a baritone singer in the opera, and his first introduction was in 2003 at the Metropolitan Opera in the show Die Frau ohne Shatten. He was still a student at Julliard at the time, but this outstanding performance quickly launched his prosperous career.
Soon after this accomplishment, Brian became well known as a baritone opera singer. He started performing at some of the most popular opera houses in America, being applauded and praised in ever act. A few operas that Mulligan sang at were the San Francisco Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Houston Grand Opera, and the New York City Opera. These performances won Brian a lot of career opportunities and fame.
A few of Brian’s most memorable performances include him playing Richard Nixon in Nixon in China and being the leading star in Hamlet. His opera shows have been acknowledged all over the United States and also in Ireland, where Mulligan was named a top Irish American singer in the Irish America Magazine. Brian has Irish heritage, and has stated that he loves to visit this country and has gotten inspiration from Irish singers since he was a little kid.
Brian continues to excel in his career. Whether it be a opera or a musical, Mulligan has big plans for his future. He is an exceptionally talented singer and performer, and with his competitive and inspiring attitude Brian will have no problem surpassing every milestone in his profession.
How Aspiring Human Rights Activists Can Emulates Yeonmi Park’s Motivating
posted on September 22, 2015	by WCBloggers	in World News
Human rights activists have become critical members of the society as they continue to oversee the liberation of oppressed people worldwide. These individuals dedicate their time and resources for the welfare of the greater society. They are selfless and fearless. Activism is a challenging field and any individual who wants to join it need to be highly motivated.
1) Figure your passion
Just like any other field, passion is what will drive any activist against all the obstacles that he will go through during his campaigns. One’s passion can be freedom of speech, education, gender equality, and many others. With passion, an aspiring activist will be able to concentrate both his energy and resources at ensuring that real change is achieved in his area of campaign.
2) Research existing effort
There is a high likelihood that there are already some actions in your area of passion. Do adequate research to identify what actions have been taken at the local, national, and world level. It is easier to work with already existing efforts rather than starting a whole new system. With already existing efforts, one can also land paid activist positions. Positions with pay will help an activist to concentrate better on his campaigns as he will not have to worry about how to pay his bills and travel expenses. Doing online searches from one’s web enabled phone or computer is the easiest way to find already existing efforts.
3) Find how you can contribute to your cause
The main aim of activism is to bring change; as an activist, you should ensure this happens. Development of ideas on how the existing problems can be solved is a great way to start. The ideas should be generated in a step by step method. It has been proven that the society accepts small changes faster than massive changes. Deciding whether you want to use radical activism or reformer activism, is also important. Radical activists stage boycotts, protests, and summits to force changes. Reformer activists on the other hand prefer to get into a system and change it from within.
4) Practice patience
Societies tend to be rigid. They always tend to fight human rights activists. A number of activists have been pushing for certain changes for years and no tangible changes have been realized. Impatient activists will usually give up within a few years rather than continuous fighting till a change is achieved. Aspiring activists should always remember that they don’t have to see immediate rewards; the reward by come much later, but as a result of their current efforts.
Yeonmi Park is an example on youtube of highly motivated human rights activists who has continued with her fight for the rights of the oppressed people in North Korea. Despite over two years of campaigns, major world leaders are yet to take an action against the regime. Park is famed for her escape from the brutal North Korean regime through the aid of human traffickers. Yeonmi Park is currently writing a book to help her campaign efforts.
Motivation is what keeps many established activists going. Aspiring activists should ensure they remain highly motivated to avoid succumbing to the challenges in the field. Working with other like minded individuals will help aspiring activists to remain motivated.
Ceasing the Sale of Confederate Flags
posted on July 25, 2015	by WCBloggers	in World News
“If there is something controversial to the entire country that a company is selling, then it shouldn’t be sold any longer until there are other options for those who don’t like the product” says Christian Broda. The Confederate flag is one of those items that stores have stopped selling simply because there are so many who are associating it with slavery and racism. That’s not even what the flag is about. It’s a symbol of the freedom of the southern states from the north. Some people don’t see it like that. Just because it’s used in a different way by a small group of people, stores online like Amazon and eBay, are no longer allowing the sale of items with the Confederate flag. That means people won’t be able to post anything that has the flag on it, such as clothing or decals, and it also means that a symbol that has been in the United States for dozens of years can no longer be purchased at those companies. If one flag is removed, then all of the flags that spark any kind of controversy should be removed, but this isn’t happening as Nazi flags and items that relate to other groups aren’t being pulled. This isn’t fair to the people who are proud of their heritage, and it isn’t fair to the companies that simply want to act as a venue for people to purchase the symbols of freedom.


Farm Bureau Calls for Intervention in Sage Grouse Preservation Claiming Federal Overreach
Wed, 29 Jun 2016 14:54:34 CDT
The American Farm Bureau Federation and Utah Farm Bureau Federation have asked a federal district court in Utah to overturn a host of illegal land-use restrictions hampering ranchers in the western states. The groups made the request as part of a motion to intervene on the side of the State of Utah in a lawsuit against the federal government. The litigation challenges federal land management plans imposing restrictions on ranching and other human activities in Utah as part of a larger effort to manage federal lands for species protection rather than for “multiple uses” as required by law.
In papers filed Tuesday, the Farm Bureau organizations asked the U.S. Court for the District of Utah to find that the federal government broke the law when it drew up rules designed to protect the habitat of the Greater Sage Grouse. Among other things, the complaint alleges that the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service ignored numerous congressional mandates designed to ensure transparency and management of federal lands for multiple uses and sustained yields. The suit cites violations of the Administrative Procedure Act, the Federal Advisory Committee Act, Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the National Forest Management Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.
“Ranchers have long used federal lands for grazing,” AFBF President Zippy Duvall said. “And all that time, ranchers have been at the forefront of protecting forage and water resources so that wildlife and ranching can thrive together. These plans, however, hang ranchers out to dry in the drought. Western ranchers have faced continued threats to their water rights and reductions in their ability to graze livestock on federal lands. We have to intervene now to preserve our ranches and our way of life.”


Home Obituaries Western Wayne News Obituaries Richard E. Runkle
Richard E. Runkle
CENTERVILLE, Ind. – Richard E. Runkle, age 93, of Centerville, Indiana, died Friday, January 10, 2020, at Reid Health.
Born October 26, 1926, in Logansport, Indiana, to Albert F. and Hilda Annette Opp Runkle, Richard lived in Wayne County, Indiana, most of his life.
He attended school at the Indiana Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Children’s Home in Knightstown, Indiana.
Richard served in the U.S. Army during WWII as part of the Pacific and European occupation. He was a carpenter by trade and built several homes in the Wayne County area. Richard formerly co-owned and co-operated Americana Pizza in Centerville for six years, worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad for a year, and was employed at the Crosley factory for a couple of years.
He was a member of American Legion Post #287 in Centerville. Richard loved airplanes and had a special interest in WWII airplanes. On April 4, 2015, he was awarded the privilege to participate in the Indy Honor Flight 10 for veterans to Washington, D.C. Richard most recently enjoyed taking flight in a B-17 bomber at the Richmond Municipal Airport.
Survivors include his daughters, Kathy (Junior) Tillson of Oxford, Alabama, Sandra (Ed) Spiece of Fishers, Indiana, Jacqueline (Larry) Pugh of Farmland, Indiana, Vickie Graw of Milton, Indiana, Teresa (Ray) Dearing of Elkhorn, Wisconsin, Mary (Curt) Lockwood of Virginia Beach, Virginia, and Lisa (James) Gilbert of Cambridge City, Indiana; son, Kelly (April) Runkle of Milton; 15 grandchildren; 18 great-grandchildren; three great-great-grandchildren; sister, Magdalena Bowmer of Winchester, Indiana; stepsister, Betty Jane Huber of Muncie, Indiana; several nieces and nephews, including special nephew, Paul (Betty) Uhlman; cousins; and many friends, including special friends, Marilyn and Randy Coldiron and Barbara and Lawrence McQueen.
He was preceded in death by his wife of 51 years, Nancy E. Ryan Runkle, who died November 10, 2002; parents; sister, Betty June Uhlman; and brothers, Albert P. and John Runkle.
Memorial visitation for Richard E. Runkle will be from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. Sunday, January 19, 2020, at Mills Funeral Home, 405 East Main Street, Centerville.
A private graveside service will be held at the convenience of the family. Burial will be in Crown Hill Cemetery with military honors provided by the Wayne County Honor Guard.
Memorial contributions may be made to: Indy Honor Flight, P.O. Box 10, Plainfield, IN 46168 or Champaign Aviation Museum, 1652 N. Main Street, Urbana, OH 43078.
Condolences may be sent to the family via the guest book at www.doanmillsfuneralhome.com.
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Beyond gentrification
Gentrification doesn’t fix inner-city schools
By Nikole Hannah-Jones on Feb 27, 2015
We know the narrative on white flight: Coasting on federal perks like home loans from the Veterans Administration, G.I. bill grants, and heavy subsidization for highways, white families fled northern industrial cities like gangbusters in the 1960s. Whether this was because of financial incentives, or because they were running from court-sanctioned desegregation, the outcome was abandoned communities with devastated city tax bases.
The highest costs of white flight, however, were born by the children left behind in even more segregated, and now almost entirely poor neighborhood schools. Decades of research shows that this resulting racial and economic isolation created toxic, severely under-resourced learning environments for black and brown students, from Detroit to Philadelphia to New York City.
That white and middle-class outflow has reversed, though, in recent years in locales across the country, with many residents returning to the cities their parents had left behind. Gentrification has led to much hand-wringing among policy makers, hipsters, and long-time urban residents who whipsaw between fears of displacement and the desire for neighborhood improvements that gentrification promises. It’s not always clear who wins and loses when communities gentrify.
It would seem that white residents moving into segregated black and brown neighborhoods can only be positive for local schools, though, right? Those wealthier families’ tax dollars must be, at least, invested in neighborhood schools. And when those families send their children to these schools, it has to improve the school services, which are then shared with their new neighbors, no?
Except, they aren’t.
For those living outside of these neighborhoods, this might be gentrification’s dirtiest little secret. For those of us who live in gentrifying neighborhoods, it’s not a secret at all.
“There are many ways to opt out of the neighborhood schools and gentrification has a limited effect on public schools,” said Mincere Keels, a University of Chicago professor who focuses on race and inequality.
“Many of the policies of urban education are focused around bringing upper-income families back into the public school system based on the assumptions that they will come into these neighborhoods and invest in the neighborhood schools and revitalize both the neighborhoods and schools,” she said. “But families that move into neighborhoods that are low-income often opt out of the neighborhood schools and these higher income families take their individual household resources with them and contribute them to” other schools.
Keels, along with researchers from Brown and Cornell universities, published a study in 2013 that looked at whether schools in gentrifying Chicago neighborhoods saw benefits, including improved academics and more economic diversity. They did not.
“These schools remain uninfluenced by gentrifying families,” the study concluded.
Gentrification, it turns out, usually stops at the schoolhouse door.
The researchers found that middle class residents who chose to move into low-income, segregated areas either did not have kids, sent their children to private schools, or utilized public schools “choice” policies that allowed students to attend wealthier, whiter schools outside of the neighborhood.
In fact, “school choice” is often a hallmark of cities looking to entice white and middle-class residents. City officials strike a Faustian bargain with gentrifying parents that if they agree to buy into lower-income, segregated neighborhoods they need not send their children to the same under-resourced and struggling schools as their neighbors. Instead, Keels said, city officials set up elite, un-zoned public schools — often with strict admissions criteria –that educate the children of gentrified.
[Editor’s note: Comedian Wyatt Cenac made these same points about his experience living in Brooklyn in an interview with Grist last November.]
These practices, rather than improve the educational outcomes for neighborhood children, tend to concentrate “higher status children in select public schools that only replicate larger inequalities” and “can create a paradoxical situation in which new public educational resources and opportunities go to those who are least in need.”
It’s a phenomenon born out in proudly progressive cities from Portland, Ore., to New York.
Portland, considered the whitest major city in the country, has been undergoing some of the swiftest and most extensive gentrification in the country. Within a span of 10 years, nearly every neighborhood in the inner North/Northeast sector of the city where the black community had been forced to live flipped to majority white. Even though its black population has always been tiny — today black residents are about 6 percent of Portland’s population — that part of town housed all black elementary and high schools. Those schools, schools such as Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary and Jefferson High, are almost entirely black and Latino even as the neighborhoods around them have turned white.
In New York City, the historic black neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant is one of the most rapidly gentrifying. Between 2000 and 2010, Bedford-Stuyvesant’s white population shot from 2.4 percent to 15 percent, while the black population dropped from 75 percent to 60 percent. Yet its public schools have been impervious to gentrification. They remain largely poor and segregated.
But probably the most distressing aspect of gentrification is that it may not only fail to help neighborhood schools and children — it often hurts them.
Individual schools receive funding based on the number of students enrolled in what is called per-pupil funding. When lower-income families are displaced by gentrifiers who either do not have children or do not send their children to the neighborhood schools, enrollment in the local schools drops, as does the school funding. A 2002 study followed this decline in three Chicago neighborhoods, where schools had to layoff teachers and cut programs.
“Dollars will follow the children whose parents opt out of the neighborhood schools and that means the students who remain get less,” said Keels.
A 2005 report by Catalyst Chicago found that gentrification in three Chicago neighborhoods led to declining local school enrollment, followed by a drop in funding, which then led those schools to layoff teachers and cut programs.
Further, districts funnel inordinate resources into Cadillac programs, such as magnets and other “choice” schools, in order to entice middle-class parents. But school districts have finite resources, so to provide elite opportunities at some schools, other schools — those that have the greatest need — get less.
When gentrifying parents do choose to send their children to neighborhood schools, it often results in a takeover where the school flips to white and middle-class and most of the black, brown, and poor children are pushed out, other researchers found. A University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher studied a high-performing black elementary school that began to draw white parents from gentrifying neighborhood in northern California. Within a decade, the school turned from nearly 80 percent black to 20 percent.
Several studies through the years found that because urban districts prize more affluent and white parents, when they choose their neighborhoods schools, districts allow them disproportionate influence over school policy and often bestow academic advantages on their children.
“Increasing the fraction of middle-income families may increase the school’s aggregate cultural, economic and social capital, but at the student level, within-school inequality may be exacerbated,” the Chicago study found.
Still, some have argued that even if gentrifiers don’t enroll their own children in neighborhood schools, their living in the neighborhood still brings indirect benefits because those families will invest in the neighborhood schools and other public neighborhood institutions.
Unfortunately, this is also seldom true. Since schools act as community hubs, when parents opt out, they do not typically put their energy into supporting neighborhood schools where their children to do not attend, Keels said.
So what, then, can be done? Keels said instead of funneling resources to elite choice schools, districts should bolster neighborhood schools and market them as heavily as they do other schools. But more importantly, districts need to adopt policies that break up the high concentrations of poverty that plague many schools and disperse disadvantage more evenly across schools.
And this is where gentrifiers can have a positive impact. Instead of simply securing advantages for their own children, they can advocate for and support district efforts to adopt policies that ensure all students are getting the same opportunities.
Nikole Hannah-Jones is an award-winning reporter for ProPublica. Her investigative report “Segregation Now” was nominated for a 2015 National Magazine Award by the American Society of Magazine Editors in the Public Interest category. You can read more about the impacts of continued segregation in America from Hannah-Jones and her colleagues in the Facebook group Segregation Now: A Conversation on Race in America Today. Read more of Hannah-Jones reporting on race at ProPublica here.
More In This Series: See All
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With "equitable development," planners say they've finally figured out how to make sustainable, healthy neighborhoods accessible to everyone.
Who says gentrification is a myth?
Recent reports claim that gentrification is fiction. But it’s a fact of life for those who’ve been displaced by it.
Why living in Detroit doesn’t come cheap
Detroit's housing market may look accessible, but once you do the math imposed by the city's sometimes tough conditions, it's hardly a bargain.
See all articles in this series


GET A SIGN
Tom Macdonald
for Orem City Council
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FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE
Tom's background as a CPA, and as a CFO and CEO in business have helped guide the City of Orem to decrease its debt by 27% over the last four years.
STRONG LEADERSHIP
Tom's experience as a leader both in business and non-profit (board member at Timpanogos Regional Hospital, UVU, CEDO, and the Utah Valley Chamber of Commerce), has helped him be a leader on the Orem City Council. It's why every single Orem City Councilor is endorsing him for this election, despite their different backgrounds and opinions.
DEEPLY INVESTED IN OREM
Tom and his wife Kaye have been married for nearly 40 years, and have lived in Orem their whole married lives, except for a brief 3 year stint in Oregon. They raised each of their four children here, and care deeply about what happens to this city.
WHY I'M RUNNING
Orem has been my home since 1969. Kaye and I have 4 married children and 13 grandchildren.
Four years ago, I entered the race to become a city council member as I thought I could help the fiscal strength of Orem and be a voice a reason to the council.
We have made significant improvements these last four years, but I think there is more to do.
A graduate of Orem High and BYU, I am currently an Assistant Dean at the Utah Valley University Business School.
Prior to coming to UVU, I was a CEO, a CFO, Partner, Board Member, and an International VP in the business world and have a background as a CPA.
WHY I'M QUALIFIED
I have a long history of civic service in Orem, am currently a member of the Orem City Council and a Board Member at Timpanogos Regional Hospital.
I have served on various boards at UVU, The Chamber, and CEDO.
I am passionate about this city and want to continue to use the skills I gained in business leadership and volunteer service to help Orem improve its fiscal health and the quality of life for its citizens.
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