Volume 26 Issue 26

July 18, 2021

GREATER HOUSTON EDITION

Vol. 26, Issue 26

who police the police?

“Addressing Current & Historical Realties Affecting Our Community”

DON’T BREAK DOWN

By: Nevaeh Richardson

BLACK SUPREMACIST?

By: Roy Douglas Malonson

Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Dr. Ben Carson shared a controversial opinion last week at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas.

Carson suggested that government assistance, or welfare, was more detrimental to the Black community than slavery. You read that right. Carson believes that government assistance needed because of inequality due to race, class, etc. caused more damage to Black people than the forced displacement, torture, rape, and dehumanization during chattel slavery.

“When you look at what the Black community has been through, go all the way back,” said Carson. “It was the family, the strong family units and the faith in God that got people through that, that got people through Jim Crow, through severe segregation, through all the difficulties.”

“But what really had a negative impact,” the former Trump administration official continued,

“was when the government came along and said, ‘There, there, you poor little thing, I’m going to take care of all your needs’ and started implementing policies that were destructive to the family formation. Those things have hurt the Black communities the most.”

What was most dangerous about Carson’s callous statement is that it diminished the horrors of chattel slavery, Jim Crow, severe segregation, and all of Black people’s adversities throughout the history of the United States.

White people, especially racist conservatives like those that were present at the CPAC, are already looking for any way possible to diminish their atrocious history of violence against Black people so that they can step away from accountability. They don’t want to come to terms with the TRUTH of the past. They rather lie and cover it up, and tell you as a Black per- Black/White cont’d son that has to deal with the

page 5

Willie Wright Jr. has been servicing the Houston community for decades, providing ministry to those in need. African-American News&Issues spoke to Wright about how he got started an what spiritual challenges Blacks, particularly our youth, face today.

AANI: Are you a native Houstonian? If not, how long have you been in Houston?

Wright: Well I came to Houston via Lexington, Mississippi in the 1980’s and I’ve been here ever since. I came for Texas Southern University.

AANI: Where did you get your start in ministry, and how long have you been in it?

Wright: I started in Mississippi at my home church. I was called to the ministry, and when I was called, I didn’t feel like God wanted me to pattern after other ministers and pastors. When I came to Houston, there was one pastor, who’s now deceased, who really left an impact and imprint on my heart. That was Pastor A. Lewis Jr. of Mount Corinth in Fifth Ward.

When I needed direction, he was one I could go to and with him, there was no hidden agenda. There have been other pastors here in the city that I used to go to for conference, and they would pray, offer counsel, and Wright Jr. cont’d advise, but they had a hidden page 6

“OUR VOTE AND OUR MONEY ARE THE TWO MOST POWERFUL THINGS WE HAVE. BE CAREFUL WHO YOU GIVE THEM TO.” - ROY DOUGLAS MALONSON

2 AFRAMNEWS.COM

July 18, 2021

EDITORIAL

President/Chief Editor

Tristar

Griselda Ramirez: Production

Partin’ the Waters

By Omowale Luthuli-Allen

Office: (713) 692-1892 Wednesday – Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

GREATER HOUSTON EDITION

America is an Argument. Let’s Fight for that Argument

Professor Eddie Glaude could have said that America is an idea, and he would have been spot on.

Jeff Davis, so sad, said that the Confederacy was an idea. An idea that failures fought for and lost. Democracy in America is a winning idea that is evolving.

In a conversation with State Rep. Alma Allen on Saturday, she said, “Let me be clear.

The stakes are high. The Republican opposition is set on putting into place and set of laws that will turn back the civil rights clock.” She echoed the sentiment from a friend that said that the backward forces are feeling their Cheerios and they are seizing the opportunity to steamroll pre

1960 Jim Crow laws through the legislature.

According to Rep. Allen, when the Dems return to Austin on July 8, they will be faced with a bill that contains the following suggested actions.

• Eliminate the Souls to the Polls employed

by Black churches on Sunday.

Churches that have early morning

services such as 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. services could not access the voting booth until 1 p.m. All day Sunday voting would be cancelled.

• Ballots would be prohibited to disabled citizens without a formal request from that citizen.

• Handicapped citi-

zens would have to sign an affidavit explaining their handicap.

• Ballots deemed to be “harvested” from nursing homes would be subject to criminal prosecution and conviction of the organizer-collector of ballots.

• Driving three of more citizens to the polls would require an affidavit of the reason for providing transportation for the citizens.

According to Rep. Allen, the intent of these restrictive laws appears to be to lure people into situations to get them arrested.

Rep. Allen and the other members of the resistance will have to put on the shield and buckler to fend off this terrible legislation that is no longer “in situ.” She thinks that we need to take a deep breath and embark on a campaign to educate every citizen on this backwards legislation.

Rep. Allen said that

America cont’d page 7

A Revival of God

Consciousness Bobby E. Mills, PhD

What’s Going On? In the 20th century, an infamous (flawed human being) singer, Marvin Gaye, asked the question, “What going on?” This question is still relevant today, in the 21st century America, because we are moving from one confused moral state of existence to a higher level of moral confusion; there seems to be no end in sight. This is why we must become spiritually intelligent enough to understand the solution (answer) to the question, because whatever is going on is not good for American society.

Subsequently, we are more segregated and politically divided today than we were prior to the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act (Jim Crow Era). The question is why: what’s going on?

In part, the answers lie in these socio-economic-political-religious realities:

• The breakdown of the nuclear family structure. Too many children being born out of wedlock is a serious spiritual, moral, and societal problem that must be remedied. Children must be taught character development traits and spiritual values at home, before going to church and school.

Tough love must be exampled in the home environment. Children must be given positive modeling behavior responsibilities in their home environments.

• Educational institutions are allowing too much of the societal “instant-gratification” confusion to influence the structure of schooling; which in turn, influences educational development (thought processes).

This has produced the: me, myself, and I syndrome. The human mind is our greatest resource, and not enough economic capital goes into the development of minds and hearts (attitudes). We need a better quality of professional teaching in our educational institutions, and teachers who have the spiritual

Whats Going On cont’d page 4

GREATER HOUSTON EDITION Whats Going On cont’d desire and professional ability to motivate, develop, and inspire the students entrusted in their care.

• The current twoparty-political system has divided America by race/ethnicity, social class, religion, and gender discrimination. Even so much so that some seek to keep “certain” individuals from exercising their Constitutional sacred right to vote.

Lest we forget, charity begins at home, and then spreads abroad.

This in and of itself creates political governing confusion-polarization. But, more i m p o r t a n t l y, the “corporate party” that is big-money (dark-money) is controlling public policy by buying elections and influencing voting patterns.

• One of the primary obstacles to societal unity is workplace economic-discrimination. Most Americans know that work is a spiritual commandment from God (the gift of God): no work, no eat (Genesis 3:19). Work is a spiritual obligatory reality with a sacred

July 18, 2021

AFRAMNEWS.COM 3

purpose.

• Eliminate gender discrimination in the workplace and social structure of society: equal pay for equal work.

• We need a “dollar” that circulates at least three times in underdeveloped and underserved communities

violations of laws.

No ethnic-category, social class or religious persuasion of individuals should be profiled by police departments.

State legislatures should enact laws mandating civilian review boards with subpoena power in

licing more difficult and potentially more unsafe. Body cameras have become a “social-justice-must” both for the legal protection and civil rights of citizens as well as policemen.

Police officers must be professionally trained in techniques of how to

order to foster better community and police relations (societal stability and social justice). In addition, policemen (citizen policemen) should be given financial incentives to live in the communities-neighborhoods in which they serve.

as common-sensespiritual solutions for economic justice.

Governmental incentives should be given to entrepreneurial investors who are willing to provide goods and services in economically deprived communities (income inequality issues).

• Law enforcement agencies must be transparent in their policies, procedures, and enforcement of

order to ensure police-citizen-accountability. Police officers are the first line of defense for apprehending law-breakers, and they should never become the judge, jury and executioner.

Police departments should be very, very concerned about “Stand your ground laws”, and the “open carry of firearms”.

These types of laws make community po-

handle family domestic disputes and violence “emergency” calls.

Police car-chasing incidents have become life and death situations both for policemen as well as civilians, and therefore helicopter and drone-sur veillance should be the firstline of defense used in pursuit of criminals. Communityneighborhood policing is needed in

This will help reduce the fear-factor associated with policing in urban environments.

Sunday morning at eleven o’clock is still the most segregated hour in American society.

Question: why? (Individuals of the same religious persuasion, serving the same invisible God, but cannot worship that spiritual God together in the same physical

buildings: choice).

This is a monumental spiritual problem. Most of all, churches should model “charity: love and service”. Christian churches are speaking “socialtruths”, but not the kinds of spiritual truths that make individuals free (John 8: 31-32).

In conclusion, “For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed.

Therefore the Lord shall have no joy in their young men, neither shall have mercy on their fatherless and widows: for every one is a hypocrite and an evildoer, and every mouth speaketh folly. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.” (Isaiah 9: 1617). “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23). At one time, we were in some-superficial-symbolicrespects “one nation under God”. Today, America has become a “No-God” society, because too many Americans do not want to spiritually know God. Selah! - AANI

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July 18, 2021

KNOW YOUR HISTORY

ETTA BARNETT By: AANI Staff

Meet groundbreaking actress and activist Etta Barnett this week in “Know Your History!”

Etta Moten was born in Weimar, Texas, and is the only child of Methodist minister, Rev. Freeman F. Moten, and his wife, Ida Norman Moten, who was a teacher. She started singing as a child in the church choir.

On January 31, 1934, Moten became one of the rare Black stars to perform at the White House since Marie Selika Williams performed for President Rutherford B. Hayes and First Lady Lucy Webb Hayes in 1878. Moten performed The Forgotten Man from her movie Gold Diggers of 1933 for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt at his birthday celebration.

The song echoed Roosevelt’s campaign promise that he would remember the “forgotten man.” She performed in two musical films released in 1933: Flying Down to Rio (singing “The Carioca”) and a more substantial role as a war widow in the Busby Berkely musical Gold Diggers of 1933 (singing the emotive “My Forgotten Man” with Joan Blondell).

Also, in 1933 dubbed the singing of Theresa Harris in Professional Sweetheart.

Up until this point, the representation of black women in movies was limited to maids or nannies (the

Mammy archetype). Moten made a breakthrough with her roles in these movies and is generally recognized as the 1st black woman to do so. Etta Moten Barnett crossed over decades before that music-industry phrase existed. Disturbed by subtle but persistent racial discrimination, Moten persevered, believing she had to be “twice as good to get anywhere at all.”

Gershwin discussed her singing the part of “Bess” in his new work, Porgy and Bess, which he wrote with her in mind. She was concerned about trying a role above her natural range of contralto. In the 1942 revival, the part of Bess was rewritten. She did accept the role of “Bess,” but she would not sing the word “nigger,” which Ira Gershwin subsequently wrote out of the libretto. Through her performances on Broadway and with the national touring company until 1945, she captured Bess as her signature role.

She stopped performing in 1952 owing to vocal problems after doctors found a cyst on her vocal cords that required surgery.

After her husband, Claude Barnett, died in 1967, she lived in Chicago, where she became active in the National Council of Negro Women, the Chicago Lyric Opera and the Field Museum. She was also active in the DuSable Museum, and

the South Side Community Art Center.

In addition to activities with civic organizations, Ms. Barnett served as a board member of both The Links, a service organization for African American women, and her sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha.

She was also active in Inte r nat i ona l Wo m e n’s Year activities and events in the 1980s.

Etta Barnett died in Chicago, Illinois in 2004 at the age of 102. - AANI

GREATER HOUSTON EDITION

GREATER HOUSTON EDITION Black/White cont’d page 5 repercussions of their actions, that you need to move on. Any attempt at revealing the truth is presented as someone sowing division.

That is why it was so dangerous for a Black man to get up on stage and diminish the history of violence against Black people. His statement only served to affirm their delusions, it allowed them to step away from accountability. It allowed them to take his narrative and use it to justify inequality and discrimination in health care, education, in economics, etc.

Welfare is comparable to and worse than slavery? Well, Dr. Carson came out of welfare okay. Dr. Carson speaks as if the welfare that helped his family did not contribute to his success and career as a neurosurgeon.

In his autobiography, Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story (page 48), Carson reveals his family’s dependence on welfare for survival: “During ninth grade one task brought

July 18, 2021 more embarrassment to me than anything else. As I’ve said, we received food stamps and couldn’t have made it without them.”

Why then, would Carson advocate against the same resources that helped make him a wealthy man today? It seems that Carson wanted to climb up the rope of social mobility, and cut it to prevent others from getting help.

Strong family units during slavery got Black people through? How can that be, when the separation of the family was a main tactic in weakening or “breaking” Black enslaved people?

Carson doesn’t believe he’s pandering to white people, because his views are the same as the white conservatives at the CPAC and abroad, even though he benefited from the same welfare system he is condemning.

Carson is a shining example of what a Black “White Supremacist” looks like. You don’t have to be white to qualify as a white supremacist, you just need to spread and act on those

white supremacist ideals at the expense of Black people. Remember that when looking into Black politicians and representation because while there are people who share the same skin as the rest of the Black community, they can also share the same agenda of racist white people that will lead to their own detriment.

In the end, white supremacy only

AFRAMNEWS.COM 5 serves white people and is used to oppress in one way or another, anyone that isn’t white. No amount of wealth or education can change that.

Clearly, we need to think for ourselves, because there are clearly people out here – who may even “look” like us, that are not always “for” us.

- AANI

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6 AFRAMNEWS.COM Wright Jr. cont’d page 6 agenda. They wanted to take the church and undermine me so that they could sell it for their own personal use.

Other preachers had hidden agendas, but not Pastor Lewis - and I want to say the same thing for the late Minister Johnson.

AANI: What do you think of the decline of younger Black people going to church?

Wright: Well they have options now. Everything is online. They have options without having examples. I can’t get you to come over to be a part of what I’m doing at church, if I’m doing the same thing you are doing in the world if I’m cussing you out big t i me, drinking and gambling big time, acting gay or lesbian big time, why should they attend church, when everybody in the church is doing the same thing that they are doing.

AANI: What do you think is driving younger Black people away from the church?

Wright: Lack of leadership. There is no vision. Other than having music, they are not being fed spiritually. Their spiritual needs are not being met. I was raised in the rural areas of Mississippi, and whenever you call cows to the trough, you better have something for them to eat, because if you call them again, they’re not

July 18, 2021 going to show up. We are inviting them, but we are not giving them anything to eat spiritually, and their spiritual needs are going unmet.

AANI: Do you think the church could do a better job of reaching out to Black youth?

Wright: We have to meet them where they are. Most of Jesus’ ministry was spent outside of the church. What most churches are doing… they rather shop and take members from someone else’s congregation. There are more people out in the world who are not part of anybody’s church, but we are so complacent now...

‘Well I’m not going to go

through that effort, I can take or borrow from someone else’s church.’ Instead of being out with the homeless population… there’s a population of those who are incarcerated, those who are being paroled, we are not trying to bust them into the churches. We leave that population unattended and unaddressed. And then you have the sick and shut in, the homebound.

When I’m out in the streets some of the seniors who have been active in church with their presence and with their finances, many have told me that my

prayers have been the only prayers that they have received because their churches are not praying for them, their pastors are not visiting them, their Sunday School teachers and department heads are not checking in on them.

AANI: There’s an increase of young Black adults and youth saying Christianity is an aspect of white supremacy introduced to us through slavery and that it has harmed the Black community more than it has

word, we are not living the word. We learn the word, but we are supposed to love and live the word. For most of us it’s head knowledge, it never makes it to the heart. We are not profiting from the promise of God, because we are not practicing the principles of God. AANI: What would you say to those who’ve experienced church hurt?

Wright: It has been said that hurt people, hurt people. You experience hurt because you

done good. What do you think of that?

Wright: Christianity has been a big benefit. Now initially, Black people had the land… later missionaries had the Bibles. Missionaries came with the bibles, but they left with the land and left us with the bibles. But the word of God is true. We must practice the word. The word of God is doable… it is practical, and when we live out the word of God, we are able to make a difference. But right now, we are not practicing the

came across someone who was hurting. You go to the bank, someone started out with a bad day, that person’s going to take it out on you, you get hurt at the bank and you don’t stop banking. You don’t stop going to the church, because the good always outweighs the bad.

When it comes to doing God’s work, the best is yet to come. We break down before we receive the breakthrough, and sometimes the breakthrough is right around the corner. You have to press through.

GREATER HOUSTON EDITION AANI: What is your vision for the Black community and the church? Do you think the relationship between the Black community and the church can heal? What will it take to make healing possible?

Wright: We have to be sincere. We have to put people first. We have to make the Bible our authority. We have to use the word of God as our authority, because if the word of God is not our sole authority we’ll be going by public opinions, we’ll be going by hot topics, we’ll be going by current issues.

If the

word of God is not our authority, then we would be promoting the homosexual agenda.

Some churches are known for their political platforms and not known for the word of God. They’d rather be politically correct instead of being biblically correct. Even though we love sinners, we hate the sin. I have endorsed gay and lesbian candidates, so I don’t dislike them, but God considers that lifestyle an abomination. I would choose a gay person over anyone who is a

racist. I would choose a gay person over Donald Trump...I can vote for a gay or lesbian person, but I would fight him or her every step of the way to make sure that we are not promoting that lifestyle into public policy…

Most people will accept being Christian if they saw a real Christian. The only thing that keeps the community from becoming more Christ-like is that they don’t see Christians. They see Christians only at church, but not in the community. The church has adopted the lifestyle of the community and the city, instead of the city adopting the lifestyle of the church. But our focus has to be the word of God, and in the words of Pastor A. Lewis Jr., “Be Christ-centered, keep Him center, sum, and circumference, everything revolves around Him. Stay bible-based, the bible is our source of authority, it is our sole authority, and be prayer-minded.” If you want to catch the fish, you have to go where they are, because we are too busy waiting for them to come to us, knowing we have to go to them. Most of Jesus’ ministry was not spent in a sanctuary, It was spent in the streets, away from the sanctuary, away from the church. - AANI

GREATER HOUSTON EDITION

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America cont’d she realized that our struggle is long and protracted. This is bad but it is not doomsday. It shakes up our complacency and sets a blaze under our lethargic bottoms and encourages us to activate and mobilize grandparents, momma, daddy and sister and brother to challenge these restrictions by getting educated and voting.

Unfortunately, the Democratic legislators do not have a unified command. It is still necessary that we support those that have walked out and refuse to return under the current conditions. Let us keep in mind that the staffs of these legislators need to get paid to ensure that they can take care of their families.

Back to Professor Glaude, the verdict is not in on this vibrant but struggling democracy. This democracy only works when we

work together. Ignorant, apathetic and complacent citizens will enable demagogues in subverting the democracy. ExUS Attorney General Bill Barr states that demagogues will be able to push unfounded claims such as “Stop the Steal,” and he did call the claims of POTUS 45 as BS. This democracy in Texas requires that we get engaged and stay engaged in election season and out of election season. Voting is an important and critical part of the process.

Tell your homie that you kick it with that if they are not engaged, an active voter that you might have to kick them to the curb, temporarily declare the persona non grata. Maybe we need to ask our prayer partners if they think that voting has any relation to the establishment of the Kingdom of God on Earth. - AANI

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July 18, 2021

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