THE WITHDRAWAL FROM AFGHANISTAN WAS WELL DONE
It is not easy to stand your ground in the face of criticism from all sides. But that’s what real leaders do and that is what President Joe Biden did in the face of criticism over his decision to end the war in Afghanistan. The decision was the right one although the execution started out rocky, which is why so many seized on the opportunity to join the chorus of critics. Never mind that in the end, the withdrawal was one of the most successful since Dunkirk.
ACTING BOSTON MAYOR KIM JANEY
IS IN A TOUGH FIGHT
I always thought that the final election for Boston mayor would come down to Boston’s Acting Mayor Kim Janey, one of two Black women running in the primary, and Michelle Wu, the Asian candidate, which, in either case, Boston would have its first woman of color mayor. But if the most recent poll (Emerson College/7News) is any guide, I could be proven wrong and the reason is disappointing. Many Black folks were concerned that the other Black candidate in the race, Andrea Campbell, would split the Black vote with Janey and each cause the other to lose the primary. According to the poll, they may both lose but it won’t be because they split the Black vote but because the Black vote split itself between the two Black candidates and the nonblack candidates. You read it right. The poll revealed that the combined Black vote of Janey and Campbell came to only 55%, barely more than half the Black vote. As a result, the poll showed Janey in third place at 16% of the total vote and Campbell in fourth at 14%. Michelle Wu was first with 24% and Annissa Essaibi-George second with 18%. If the trend continues up to the September primary, the opportunity for a Black mayor of Boston will once again be frustrated but this time the finger of blame may point straight at Black voters.
RACE AIN’T WHAT IT USED TO BE
“Nearly three in 10 Asian, one in four Latino and one in five Black newlyweds are married to a member of a different ethnic or racial group….in…1967, only 1 in 33 newlyweds married someone from a different racial background. Today, 1 in 6 newlyweds intermarries – so many that by now, fully 10 percent of all married couples in America include partners of different races….Today 1 in 9 American children is growing up in a household with one white parent and one nonwhite or white Hispanic parent.” (Boston Sunday Globe, August 22, 2021)
HOORAY FOR HARAMBEE 2021 BUT…
I am not known to be an ego driven person but even my ego gets pumped up and riled once in a while when some rookie reporter who doesn’t know his history or his facts prints an article about the originators of the Harambee that is so far off the mark that it rises to the level of journalistic malpractice. Writer Dave Canton wrote in The Republican (August 8, 2021): “Harambee started in 1968 when community activists Ray Jordan, Bud Williams, Bruce King and Margery and Justin Hearst created a festival to celebrate African-American culture and creativity in Springfield.” First of all, the list of names of the founders is incorrect. Bud Williams was barely out of high school when the Harambee was formed in a booth at the now-defunct Windsor Court Lounge by Jay Griffin, Ray Jordan, Mo Jones, Bruce King and Rick Hurst. We sat down later with Bob Hafey, who was on the Board of the Springfield Chamber of Commerce, and worked out the logistics for involving different elements of the business community in our first event at DeBerry School grounds. Bud Williams was so wet behind the ears that he wouldn’t have been allowed into the Windsor Court and the meeting took place more than a dozen years before Justin Hurst was even born. Marjorie Hurst played a major role in the initial event but she was not among the initial organizers. I suspect that Canton took his information from Bud Williams and was duped by Williams’ well-known inclination for ego inflation and propensity for hyperbole (lying). Anybody who knows him knows that his every word must be double checked as any reporter worth half his certification as a journalist should know just as Canton should have known the spelling of the Hurst name (not Hearst) and the spelling of Marjorie (not Margery). I may sound angry but I am not. All of us Hurst’s got a big laugh out of the misrepresentations. Not only that, I have no problem taking a back seat to my wife and son. They enjoy the attention more than I do. I prefer the background. But I don’t relish the idea of being erased from my own history by a roguish thug like Bud Williams who would mislead an innocent young reporter down the road to journalistic perdition without a second thought. Hooray for the rebirth of the Harambee!
MY PILLOW DEBACLE This business of a man who sells pillows becoming a national political figure astounds me. That’s what happened to My Pillow chief executive Mike Lindell whose advertisements pollute the cable channels. He should have stuck with his pillow business rather than jumping on the Trump voter fraud bandwagon. On the small side, all of his pillows that we bought at the Exposition we threw in the trash. And if that didn’t get his attention, Dominion, the voting machine company that Trumpites love to malign, is suing him and others for billions. And to add insult to injury, Fox News, of all news platforms, refused to air his commercial linked to his efforts to promote his claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Lindell doesn’t need people like me throwing his pillows out and pledging never to buy any more. He’s going to need to sell every pillow he can to cover his legal fees and damages.
JOSEPHINE BAKER HONORED IN PARIS
If you are Black and knowledgeable, it gives you a good feeling to hear that France is about to reinter the body of Black singer and dancer and French war hero, Josephine Baker, from her original burial place in Monaco (where she was buried dressed in a French military uniform) to the Pantheon monument in Paris. It is considered the country’s highest honor. Baker will be in such high company as scientist Marie Curie, French philosopher Voltaire, writer Victor Hugo and many others. On the other hand, the knowledge might also weigh heavily on you that she was only one of many Black Americans who left America for France to live the dignified life she was denied in America.
56,000 MORE VOTES
A panel of North Carolina Superior Court judges voted 2-1 to allow convicted felony offenders who have served their time or who were not sentenced to prison to vote. As a result, 56,000 former North Carolina felony offenders who have served their time or who were not sentenced to incarceration can vote which means, of course, the Black vote will increase because of their controversial disproportionate numbers of felony convictions. Other states should follow this good example.
NUNS CHALLENGE GUN-MAKER…
So what’s new. Many have challenged gun-makers because they are the largest contributors to gun violence in the country and, as it turns out, in Mexico too where the government is suing Smith and Wesson and others for “fueling cartel wars south of the border where there are few gun shops…” The nuns, the Adrian Dominican Sisters, picked a novel approach. They bought stock across the country through their many affiliates and then challenged the company to change its ways as stockholders. Others are picking up on the idea. It’s good that somebody is willing to call out the gun manufactures without honey coating their negative impact as most politicians who are funded by gun manufacturers do.
SIRHAN SIRHAN ALMOST FREE?
Wow! I never expected Sirhan Sirhan, the killer of Robert Kennedy, to ever see the light of day. A California parole board has recommended his release. Although their reasoning was solid, the man assassinated an esteemed presidential candidate and was sentenced to death. The only reason he is alive today is that the California death penalty law was trashed and his penalty was converted to life. I, like many, was personally horrified by the assassination and would gladly have seen the man put to death even though I don’t trust the death penalty because of its disproportionate impact on Black folks, many of whom have been found innocent after conviction. But Sirhan shot Kennedy in the back of his head in front of a room full of witnesses. His guilt was beyond a doubt as were his intentions. He should have been executed and certainly should never be released from prison. ■
