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CAST THE
FIRST STONE
Charlotte
Cotton : CAO of Americus
I would like to
extend my condolences to all the people who lost their homes,
businesses, and jobs due to this month’s deadly tornado; especially
to the families who lost loved ones during the storm. My thoughts
and prayers are definitely with you during your time of bereavement.
While I realize some of our citizens are still in the midst of
trying to cope with the most devastating natural disaster to ever
hit Americus, the news must go on and here are a few thoughts to
ponder as we attempt to move forward.
I am the first
one to agree with the general sentiment that now is a good time for
peace and racial healing. I understand that the entire community is
needed to rebuild our torn down city bigger and better than ever.
However, I am also one of the very few people who would still dare
to say that now is also a good time to challenge our citizens to
hold our city leaders accountable for their actions.
While the
purpose of this editorial is not to point fingers and lay blame, one
cannot ignore the fact that the city of Americus put thousands of
lives in danger when city leaders decided not to activate the storm
siren. Citizens were not warned that a tornado had been reported in
the area and was possibly headed for Americus. It was by the grace
of God that only two lives were lost. It was so embarrassing to hear
and read about this major gaffe on CNN news, several TV stations in
Atlanta, the internet, and many major newspapers throughout the
state of Georgia and the country.
Charlotte
Cotton, Chief Administrative Officer for the city of Americus, said
in the Americus Times Recorder, “a firefighter was called to
activate the siren, but he was called to abort the mission because
supervisors feared it was too late to sound the alarm. Now I have a
serious problem with this explanation. Who was the “supervisor” who
requested the siren be activated, then changed his/her mind two
minutes later? The distance from the fire department to the
municipal building is less than 50 yards. Where and what was this
“supervisor” doing an hour or even 30 minutes before the storm hit?
Cotton furthered
stated, “Even if the antique alarm had been sounded, it was only
loud enough to be heard in the downtown area and most likely would
not have been heard over the roar of the tornado” This is absolutely
ridiculous! First of all, in a day of modern technology, why do we
still have an antique storm siren? And how does Ms. Cotton know that
if the siren had been sounded it would have only been heard in
downtown? Has she heard it before?
And finally
Cotton concludes, “ It’s hard to go back and see what might have
happened if we had more warning, but a countywide warning system is
worth looking into especially if local officials could get help from
state or federal disaster agencies.” Oh, so now after two people
have been killed and numerous more severely injured, it might be
worth looking into getting an up to date storm siren when the city
council decides its important enough to ask state and federal
officials for some money to purchase the machine. You have got to be
kidding me!
I am not a
lawyer, but someone needs to take a closer look at the negligence of
the city for not activating the storm siren. Charlotte Cotton
admitted that the siren was old and inadequate. How long has she
known this? Why wasn’t this issue addressed with the mayor and
council before the storm? It’s amazing how Ms. Cotton quickly
reminded the city that she needed a new SUV for the job, but slowly
forgot to request that the city purchase a new siren to possibly
save lives.
I said it two
years ago and the proof is in the pudding: Charlotte Cotton is
incompetent and does not deserve to be in her current position.
First of all, her longtime boss former CAO Sybil Smith recommended
her to the city council. Smith resigned to be a Vice President at
Citizens Bank where former Mayor Russell Thomas was chairman of the
Board at that time. Next, Cotton is not qualified to be a CAO. It
took her nearly twenty years to complete her undergraduate degree in
English from GSW State University. And her only experience in
working with the city was in the capacity of a clerk. So in a
nutshell, what can you expect from an $80,000 a year overpaid proper
speaking clerk?
No pun intended,
but Charlotte you are out of your “Cotton Picking” mind. You need to
resign or be removed by Mayor Barry Blount and the city council
before you make more critical mistakes that negatively impact the
citizens of Americus. Remember he that is without sin, let him cast
the first stone!
Use Your
Heads
When I was a
kid, my mother had all kinds of pithy sayings, which I figure she
inherited from my Polish grandmother, who spoke in Polish with her
sisters. While I didn’t understand their conversations, it always
sounded colorful, poetic, and lively—much like the poetry of the
conversational, African American South. Whenever we kids would do
something particularly stupid, Mom would say, “Use your head for
something other than a hat-rack,” and I always imagined the Polish
sentence coming out of Gramma Shefchuk’s mouth.
For the past
year, I’ve felt so much like collaring the Georgia State
Legislators, and saying to them, “Use your heads for something other
than a hat-rack.” Always in a race to be the toughest on crime, the
State of Georgia incarcerates more of its citizens than any other
government in the entire world. Although the State of Texas has
been through an execution frenzy, Georgia still holds the record for
the state-killing of the highest number of its own citizens. Of
course, Georgia also ranks 47th (that means at the bottom) for
educating its children. And some statistics place Georgia at 49th,
right next to Mississippi, for infant mortality, actually putting
Georgia on an equal plane with some very impoverished, developing
countries. During this legislative session, our law-makers have
decided that we can’t afford to provide healthcare for our babies
and children.
However, we do
have the money to enforce a new sex offender registry law that may
result in a life sentence. The National Institute of Corrections
figures for 2001 (most recent available) report that Georgia spends
approximately $20,000 per year on each prisoner, and that in
severely over-crowded prisons, Georgia houses well over 50,000
prisoners. That is a huge amount of money we’re wasting each year.
So here’s a
story about the Legislators’ stupidity I read in the Augusta
Chronicle on February 13, 2007. Mr. Billy Joe Laws of Augusta, was
sentenced to 30 years in prison (that’s at least $600,000!) for not
registering a new address within 72 hours of moving. Actually,
things could have been worse for Mr. Laws because the new sex
offender registry law provides a Life Sentence on a second offense,
and this was Mr. Laws’ second offense. In a plea agreement, Mr.
Laws confessed that he “didn’t register a new address because he
didn’t have an address—he had lost his home and was living on the
streets.” Mr. Laws is being imprisoned for being impoverished and
homeless. He has already served 18 years in prison on his original
charge. He has already been punished for that.
I also received
a letter from a prisoner in a similar predicament. Last year in the
massive TB outbreak at Autry, he was infected. Then his liver was
damaged by improper medication procedures. He wrote to me, “I was
sentenced in 1987 for my crime. . . I’m serving every day of my
incarceration. I’ve got no problem with that. . . I must pay the
price. . . On top of this, the State has created another new law
that tells me where I can live and work, which places hardships upon
me; even though it wasn’t around when I was sentenced. I sure
haven’t been given a hearing concerning this matter, so how can it
legally apply to me?. . . Why can’t this be considered double
jeopardy? After all, I feel like I’m being tried all over again for
the same crime for the rest of my life, without a courtroom, jury,
or a judge. How can this be? Will I ever finish serving my
sentence before I die and leave this world?”
All good
questions. What we need in the State Legislature are some good
heads, not hat-racks!
“Conquer It, Steal It or
Plant a Seed”
A Black owned
conference center called “Franklinton Center at Bricks” in
Whitakers, NC was the scene of the 9th Annual Black Land Loss Summit
held February 16th -18th. The theme of this year’s conference was
“Returning Black Farmers to the Land: A Gathering of Minds to
Develop a New Strategy”. The emphasis was on implementation of
solutions and not just describing the problem.
Mike Callicrate,
founder and owner of Ranch Foods Direct Market, stated that “Food is
the creation of wealth. Wealth is created on the land.” According to
Mr. Callicrate, Benjamin Franklin gave three ways by which wealth is
built: 1. conquer it, 2. steal it and 3. Plant a seed.
Archie Hart gave
us a view into the problems of program delivery to Black farmers by
pointing out the discrepancies between funding to the Black Land
Grant Colleges and Universities in comparison to the white ones. Mr.
Hart rhetorically asked the question of why can’t the administrators
at the 1890s admit that they are under funded. He later explained
that the Black Land Grants were financed exclusively by the USDA and
therefore those administrators know that if they complain too much,
they will be terminated.
Dorothy Barker,
Director of Operation Spring Plant, gave us a blow by blow account
of the many barriers that prevent Black farmers from entering the
fresh produce market and capture long term contracts with the food
and hospitality industry. Operation Spring Plant just completed a
three year pilot project with the Marriott Hotel chain, but had to
overcome a number of barriers that all Black farmers experience
including a $5 million liability insurance policy, threats from the
mafia if they brought fresh produce into the inner city,
requirements on the size of truck and demand that the truck be less
than 7 years old, increased inspections on produce when using Black
truckers instead of white truckers, increased security requirements
from Homeland Security and buyers playing games with price
quotations, i.e. bait and switch.
Lloyd Wright, a
former head of the Civil Rights at the USDA, presented the group
with the basic structure of a bill to influence the contents of the
proposed 2007 Farm Bill. The bill that he proposed called the
“Endangered Black Farmer Act of 2007” was developed by a consortium
of Black Agricultural leaders and groups over the last year to stem
the tide of Black land loss and get knew Black farmers onto the
land. The purpose of this Act is to provide the services and
assistance needed by Black Farmers to ensure that Black Farmers who
want to farm can stay in farming. The assistance is in the form of
policy changes, available direct credit, and access to farmland,
technical assistance and information to overcome the problems
created as a result of lack of services in the past due to
discrimination.
Mr. Wright, who
is also the 2007 recipient of the “A Man Called Mathew Award”, gave
a historical perspective on how land was acquired by Blacks after
slavery but was taken from Black farmers over time through acts of
terrorism. With the combined resources of a few black ministers,
entrepreneurs, and educators, more than 50 black-owned lending
institutions were established by 1911, with annual transactions
worth more than $20 million. By 1910, about 16.5 percent of land in
the south was black owned. But, by 1928, most whites would not sell
land to blacks.
There was a 30
year period of lynching where Black land owners, farmers and
community organizers were targeted. Of the 551 cotton growing
counties in the US, 345 (62.6%) had at least one lynching between
1900 and 1931. One hundred and seventy of these counties (30.9%) had
10 or more lynching between 1900 and 1931.
The Black Land
Loss Summit provided a perfect segue into the Agricultural Workshops
held at the Nation of Islam’s 2007 Saviours’ Day Celebration held in
Detroit, MI on Friday and Saturday, February 23rd and 24th. In line
with the Saviours’ Day theme of “One Nation Under God” the theme of
the Ministry of Agriculture was “Why we must grow our own food”. Our
strategy session on Friday brought together community leaders such
as Reverend James Bevels who has moved to Alabama to work closely
with Bishop Luke Edwards, who over the last 40 years has put
together a thriving agricultural based community based on the
Economic Blueprint of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
Gary Grant,
President of BFAA, and Attorney Rose Sanders gave the history of the
Pigford v Glickman Consent Decree and presented the “Endangered
Black Farmer Act” which was revised the previous week at the Black
Land Loss Summit. Oscar Smith, owner of a trucking firm that
operates 10 refrigerated tractor trailers, described what Black
farmers and Black consumers in the cities need to have in place for
Black truckers to make that vital transportation connection.
Emil Muhammad,
an agricultural student at Florida A&M University described how he
made his career choice. He decided that if he wanted to be “free,
strong and healthy, you can’t be free, strong or healthy eating
other’s food.”
In agreement
with Bro. Emil the group of 33 organizers decided that Black people
must establish an independent and safe food production, processing
and marketing system where we control our food from the “land to the
man”. The Ministry of Agriculture of the Nation of Islam must
therefore be expanded and become the Agricultural Ministry of the
Millions More Movement.
The strategies
to be further developed after Saviours’ Day will be designed to: 1.
Keep Black farm land within the Black community, 2. Develop
promotional campaigns and training programs for Black youth to enter
Agricultural careers, 3. Develop Urban Gardens, 4. Set up
distribution systems for products from Black farmers, 5. Develop
Black owned supermarkets in the cities, 6. Develop our own food
processing plants, 7. Mobilize the people to grow their own food to
protect their health, and 8. Develop proper rules of governance
among ourselves.
The group was
divided into committees which determined what was to be presented to
the larger body on Saturday. Presenters emphasized to the 200
workshop participants how the projects and programs that they were
already working on could be expanded and coordinated to fit the long
run goals of the Ministry of Agriculture. Efrion Smith, of the
Michigan based collective buying system called Consumers Unlimited,
LLC, pointed out the value of food buying clubs in providing an
outlet for Black farmers and urban gardeners.
Sister Jean
Muhammad, Director of the Three Year Economic Savings Program, gave
the history of this economic development program, its track record
and why it should be the center pin for pooling our resources and
financing our Agricultural movement. Dr. Ridgely Muhammad presented
last year’s fiscal report of the Three Year to the participants and
asked for their continued support.
This Millions
More Movement Agricultural Ministry had its first conference call on
Thursday, March 1st and will be the backbone and “seed” for a new
economic paradigm under the banner of “Do For Self or Die A Slave”.
Dr. Ridgely will be going across the country delivering produce and
chanting “Do For Self or Die A Slave”.
I Wonder Why Our Government is Looking the
Other Way
As U.S. companies continue to
shut-down these same companies open-up new ones in other countries.
They are out-sourcing jobs to foreign countries that should stay in
America for American workers. Our government, continue to "Blow
Smoke" up our noses, saying "the Economy is doing just fine."
Recently their own lies caught-up to them, when the stock market had
a steady drop. How can we believe the lies?
I wonder why we do not stand as one and say no more? If it is not
made in the U.S.A., we are not going to buy it!! Everything we buy,
a car, stove, radio, camera, clothes, shoes, and any other item that
is not made in the U.S.A. contributes to putting an American out of
a job.
I wonder why we stay in such a
hurry… what is faster about a self-serve check-out? Each time it is
used, another American cashier is without work. If you go to a bank
drive-thru with one person physically working one service lane and
two or three automated lanes open, most of the times you will find
two or three cars waiting for the lane with the person rather than
depositing into an ATM. Why? Because it is your money and you feel
that your money is better taken care of by a person rather than a
machine. The same scenario with automated phone conversations;
depending on the importance of our issue we will go through all of
the steps to get to a person to help us rather than leaving our
information on the machine for it to be catalogued.
I wonder why we continue to accept
this "mumbo jumbo" and do nothing
to change the hand we are being dealt?? You may ask how can we stop
the loss of jobs being sent overseas?? Believe it or not our
government can do something to curtail this outsourcing process,
whereby you can do something about the problem. Our politicians are
influenced by lobbyist of big businesses. Find out what position
your congressman, your senator and your legislators are taking on
outsourcing vs. keeping jobs in Georgia and the country. Once you
have this information you will be able to make your voice heard at
the election polls by voting for the candidate who supports keeping
jobs in this country, not in China, India and elsewhere overseas!
Let's face the facts. Our
government is so messed up these days until it would be hard to do
worst with voting in new elected officials. Our vote is our most
powerful weapon to get elected officials attention as to the desires
of the majority (poor) Americans! My plea is for Americans to stop
supporting companies who have their products made outside the U.S.
and then resale them to us. When we do this we are making their
bottom line (profit) better for their bank accounts. The remedy to
outsourcing is to take the stance of, "If we can't make it, we won't
buy it!" Likewise, our elected officials need to be sent a message
which concurs with this same thought. "Get it right for the people
(American poor) who voted you in or we will vote you out!"
My dear brothers and sisters we
live in a one-sided democracy;" the have and the have not". It is
time that the "have not" look-up to the hills from which all our
help comes. Let go and let God lead us to a better place in life,
but we have to stop being complacent and take one step so God can
take two. Let's take a stand together; not wavering, not divided,
and not afraid. Our vote has the power to improve our lives!
Stand….and a change for the better will surely come…I wonder why
"not", you should also wonder why "not", too?
A step toward racial healing?
FinalCall.com
While it is regrettable that so
far only one state—Virginia—has taken any step at all toward
offering an apology for slavery, there is much to applaud in the
unanimous decision by the Virginia House of Delegates February 2,
expressing “profound regret” for Virginia’s role in the slave trade.
A similar measure also cleared a state Senate committee.
The apology is notable because,
not only did Gen. Robert E. Lee, Commander of the Confederate Army,
hail from Virginia, but because Richmond was even the Confederate
Capitol. It is notable because the very same Virginia House once
started each day with a salute that symbolized the state’s
Confederate heritage.
The 91-0 House vote came for House
Joint Resolution 728, a measure intended to promote racial
reconciliation, as the 400th anniversary approaches, of the founding
of the settlement at Jamestown, Va.
The resolution calls slavery “an
immoral institution” that “ranks as the most horrendous of all
depredations of human rights and violations of our founding ideals
in our nation’s history.”
Sponsored by two Black Virginia Democrats, Delegate Donald McEachin
and Sen. Henry Marsh III, the resolution goes on to express the
General Assembly’s “profound regret for the Commonwealth’s role in
sanctioning the immoral institution of human slavery, in the
historic wrongs visited upon native peoples, and in all other forms
of discrimination and injustice that have been rooted in racial and
cultural bias and misunderstanding.”
The Virginia legislation is an
example of taking one of the most difficult steps on the eight-step
path to atonement. One of the hardest parts of “Confessing the
Fault”—the third stage of atonement—is publicly admitting fault to
those who were ill-affected by the wrongful behavior.
The contrition being expressed by the Virginia House was almost
undone however, by the intemperate words of one senior Virginia
lawmaker. Seventy-nine-year-old Republican Delegate Frank Hargrove
drew criticism when he said today’s Virginians have no
responsibility for slavery, and that “Black citizens should just get
over it.”
In his own defense, Del. Hargrove
told an interviewer after he was showered with condemnations for his
remarks: “Are we going to force the Jews to apologize for killing
Christ?”
Del. Hargrove eventually voted in favor of the apology, but not
before he asked his colleagues to support his own resolution
establishing an annual “Juneteenth” observance that celebrates the
end of slavery. That resolution would designate the third Saturday
in June as “Juneteenth Freedom Day” in Virginia. It would recognize
the June 19, 1865, date on which a Union general ordered the freeing
of remaining slaves in Galveston, Texas, the last vestige of slavery
after the Civil War.
It goes without saying that official designations of Juneteenth as a
holiday are appropriate. But Blacks do not need White authorization
to recognize Juneteenth.
No. Juneteenth was declared a
holiday by the slaves in Texas themselves, who—upon hearing that a
Union General had read the Emancipation Proclamation in the Port of
Galveston, freeing them—commenced to celebrate in the fields,
walking off, leaving their tools behind.
The Virginia apology for slavery is, on its own, a step in the right
direction, toward repentance, atonement and forgiveness. It should
be a model for other states and for the federal government to also
confess and apologize for slavery... “the most horrendous of all
depredations of human rights and violations of our founding ideals
in our nation’s history.”
A decade ago, the U.S. House of
Representatives considered a resolution introduced by former Rep.
Tony Hall (D-Ohio), offering an apology for slavery from the U.S.
government. That resolution was never even offered for a vote in the
House. More recently, the Senate took a tiny step down the right
path, apologizing for its silence and thereby complicity with
slavery.
Reparations of course, are
required to complete this full process, but now Americans—government
bodies, corporations, individuals—must acknowledge that slavery and
genocide against the Native people were wrong, and that they
confess.
The Bible says, confession is good for the soul.
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