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Vol. 109 No. 45

Two Sections

‘Though we have suffered, you have stood with us.’

Bethel AME Church holds Unity Prayer Service for synagogue victims

by Rob Taylor Jr. Courier Staff Writer

Church service on a Thursday night—it’s not the usual, but neither was the catastrophic event that occurred at another place of worship just 11 days ago.

A man, filled with hate, is alleged to have entered the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill and kill 11 innocent people, wounding six more, including four police officers who rushed to the scene to stop the shooter.

October 27, 2018 is a day that Pittsburghers—and many across this country—will never forget.

The Pittsburgh-West Virginia Annual Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church wanted to remind its members, non-members, Jewish community and the entire Pittsburgh community that especially in times of crisis, in times of pain, there is unity.

On Thursday night, Nov. 1, the doors of the historic Bethel AME Church in the Hill District were open, open to all, for a Unity Prayer Service for the 11 victims of the Tree of Life mass shooting.

“This week, though we have suffered, you have stood with us,” said Rabbi Jamie Gibson, Senior Rabbi at Temple Sinai, during a press conference inside the church before the service, surrounded by Black ministers and members of the Islamic community. “Not only to dry our tears, but to cry with us.”

“In the City of Pittsburgh we see lots of development of buildings taking place,” said Imam Hamza Perez of the Light of the Age mosque. “But with this tragedy, what you’re seeing is the building of humanity. We stand here today united against White supremacy, we stand here

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NOVEMBER 7-13, 2018

65 of 98 homicides Black lives

October sees deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history

by Christian Morrow Courier Staff Writer

Remember when the most callous and calculated crime in October involved two teens who allegedly shot a pizza delivery man in East Liberty after luring him to a false address? That was two weeks before Robert Bowers allegedly walked into a Squirrel Hill synagogue with a rifle and

STANDING IN UNISON—Presiding Elder Eric Brown, Rev. Erwin McIntosh, Rev. Stanley C. Dennison and Imam Hamza Perez lead the congregation in song during the Unity Prayer Service at Bethel AME Church, Nov. 1. (Photos by Courier photographer J.L. Martello) today against atrocities done not only here in Pittsburgh, but also in Kentucky, to the African American couple who was gunned down. We stand here as human beings under one God.” A day prior, Rodman Street Baptist Church in East Liberty was home to a similar interfaith service sponsored by the East End Baptist Fellowship and Homewood Community Ministries.

The 150 people who attended the Unity Prayer Service at Bethel AME, Nov. 1, had various reactions to the speakers. Some had arms raised. Others shouted. There were bursts of applause. And there was plenty of singing. All attendees joined in repeating the final sentence of this special service’s Call to Worship: “We are directed, dedicated and determined to press on, RABBI JAMIE GIBSON

POWER aims to rid women from the addiction to drugs, alcohol a short stay at St. Francis, the former business owner, who was able to hide her addiction from her “Christian family,” began the necessary steps to regain control.

She credits her daughter’s pregnancy with motivating her desire

For New Pittsburgh Courier

Their lives reflect the power of POWER, a place where women realize they are not alone…a place where sisterhood lifts one up from hopelessness to hopeful.

POWER is a home where smiles return, confidence is gained and a desire to be the best fills the heart and soul of those who climb the difficult path from addiction to recovery.

Sixty to 90 percent of women with substance use disorders have experienced a history of trauma.

Kathy Stewart and Ramona Davis were once part of that percentile, embedded in the world of drug addiction and living on the edge. They had been lured by an intense desire for drugs and living in the dark shadows. But today, they openly share their stories of recovery for all to hear, in hopes that it brings an awareness to the public that there is, indeed, life after addiction.

More than 30 years ago, Stewart, who grew up in the Hill District, came to the realization that her life was unmanageable. After

to change.

“I did not want to be a grandmother and be on drugs,” Stewart told the New Pittsburgh Courier.

Embraced by family, she SEE ADDICTION A5

KATHY STEWART, left, and Ramona Davis overcame their addiction. They now help other women overcome addiction to drugs and alcohol. (Photo by Dayna Delgado)

Pittsburgh Courier NEW

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SEE HOMICIDES B9

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There is life after addiction

by Karen Harris Brooks

three handguns and murdered 11 people and wounded six others. Until the unfortunate occurrence at Tree of Life synagogue, there had only been three homicides in Allegheny County—but all of those victims were Black.

Years from now, people will remember the hate crime that Bowers is accused of committing; few will remember, say, Andrew Jefferson’s murder. That’s why the New Pittsburgh Courier publishes his name and others, so that years from now other murder victims will be remembered.

Cynthia Baldwin is cleared of involvement in Penn State scandal Committee finds no wrongdoing

by Rob Taylor Jr. Courier Staff Writer

attorney, Charles DeMonaco, in a statement provided to the New Pittsburgh Courier, Oct. 31.

“A neutral and objective three member-hearing committee considered all of the evidence and unanimously concluded that her conduct was diligent, proper and in compliance with all of her professional responsibilities. Although this was a six-year ordeal, justice prevailed in the end. Hopefully, this decision will put to rest any professional criticism of Cynthia Baldwin and will allow her to live her life with the dignity and respect that she has so rightly earned and deserved over her distinguished 38-year career.”

B a l d w i n served as general counsel for Penn State University be-

Cynthia Baldwin did nothing wrong.

That, in effect, was the opinion recently issued by a three-member committee, which heard allegations from the Pennsylvania Office of Disciplinary Counsel that Baldwin violated many Rules of Professional Conduct for attorneys.

“Although no attorney wants to be the subject of a disciplinary proceeding, in this case it was a blessing. It was not until an evidentiary hearing was held on the allegations of ethical misconduct that the public was able to see firsthand that Cynthia Baldwin at all times fulfilled her ethical responsibilities,” CYNTHIA BALDWIN said Baldwin’s

J. Pharaoh Doss on

The mayor of Pittsburgh, poetic or offensive?

Forum B8

SEE BALDWIN A4

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HEALTH

NOVEMBER 7-13, 2018

NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER

Take charge of your health today. Be informed. Be involved.

Gun violence prevention This month, the “Take Charge of to put an end to gun violence by Your Health Today” page focusaddressing the systematic racism GERALDINE es on gun violence prevention. and policies that have kept this MASSEY MS PRC, Erricka Hager, Health Advocate violence in place. Gun violence Family Counselor/ at the Urban League of Greatand the community trauma Outreach er Pittsburgh; Esther L. Bush, aftermath is a public health crisis.

Specialist, Center President and CEO of the Urban At the legislative level, just this of Life month, PA Bill 2060 started the “I commit to having League of Greater Pittsburgh; and Bee Schindler, Community Enprocess by passing a monumena mental health gagement Coordinator with CTSI, tal law that takes important steps evaluation completspoke on this topic. to disarm domestic abusers and ed as an action in EB: I’m so pleased that we’re make Pennsylvania families the prevention of gun finally addressing the issue of gun safer. With this week being voting violence.” violence prevention, Erricka and week, it’s a hopeful and actionBee. I hear about a new tragedy able step.

GERALDINE MASSEY, MS PRC almost every day. The Joyce EH: Voting is such an importFoundation reports that more ant, actionable step in which ESTHER BUSH than 110,000 Americans are inCourier readers can engage. jured or killed by guns every year, Readers can also join the local in community violence, domestic violence, mass shootings, Black Women for Positive Change (BW4PC) chapter.

BETTY CRUZ, suicide and accidents. It is imperative that we interrupt BW4PC is a national, policy-focused network of predomiFounder, Change this cycle of violence that’s negatively impacting the Black nantly Black women who are working to change the culture Agency, project community. of violence in the United States. BW4PC recently hosted director, All for All EH: It’s a tragic time, Ms. Bush. In urban areas like their sixth annual “Week of Non-Violence.” During the week “I commit to taking Pittsburgh, young people of color, their families and of October 14-20, BW4PC held workshops and discussion action for gun safety, communities experience the impact of gun violence most panels aimed at reducing violence in the Black community. including a ban on acutely. Tim Stevens, CEO of the Black Political EmpowerBS: Small, local and immediate change, like neighborassault weapons in ment Project (B-PEP), is correct in saying that we cannot hood revitalization, has proven to help bring communities Pennsylvania, advobecome numb and accept the constant tragedies as our together by highlighting outside collective spaces, as indicating for a federal new reality. Lack of trust between police and community cated in Dr. Alison Culyba’s research about gun violence licensing system members further weaken communities and compromise prevention. In her research, green space, proper working that limits loopholes public safety. infrastructure, like porch and street lights, and easy access in purchasing guns EB: Absolutely! The negative impact of gun violence to public transportation were linked with a lower risk of by people who must has caused us, as community leaders and city officials, to youth homicide. This could be something in which we all never be armed and demand an end to gun violence. Black communities fear could take part. urging divestment for their safety. For Black communities to feel safe and just, EB: Thanks for sharing those actionable steps with our from corporations we must renew our efforts to prevent gun violence before readers, Erricka and Bee. I’d encourage everyone to come who support the NaBETTY CRUZ it occurs. It’s important that we talk about how the Black together in this time. I hope our readers will join us at our tional i e sso iacommunity can build greater police-community trust.

Dinner & Dialogue series to have the hard discussions and tion, including instiBS: Yes, Ms. Bush. To make change, we need to all show commit to working together to put an end to gun violence. tutions located right here in Pittsburgh. There are currently I look forward to talking about another important health more guns in circulation in the United States than there are up—not only people in Black communities. It’s important, for both the health and progress of the Black community, issue next month—infant mortality. people. We need to build a future with fewer guns.”

FELICIA SAVAGE FRIEDMAN, BS, MED, registered yoga teachertrainer, Yoga Alliance, yoga teacher, Urban Zen Integrative owner, YogaRoots on Location LLC, continuing education provider, YACEP-Yoga Alliance “I commit to continue to publicly acknowledge that this country was colonized and is FELICIA SAVAGE FRIEDMAN, BS, MED still ruled with the gun, which is the antithesis of love and acceptance. I choose love moment to moment.”

RICHARD GARLAND, MSW, assistant professor of behavioral and community health sciences, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health “I commit to the work of ending gun violence, especially in the urban communities. For years, I have stated one agency cannot be responsible for stopping the spread of this disease; it is all of us working to-

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WILLIAM PEDUTO WILLIAM PEDUTO, Mayor of Pittsburgh I ommit to ghting gun violence by providing opportunities to all Pittsburgh neighborhoods—to take a gun out of someone’s han and put a paycheck in it instead.”

Gun Violence and Community Trauma

As a country and a community, we have lived through the effects of gun violence. Whether it is through the heartbreaking loss of loved ones or witnessing its effects in our neighborhoods, gun violence affects everyone. It leaves us struggling to understand why it happens. It is an emotional, politically charged crisis.

But sometimes the information circulating about gun violence is based on myths. Regardless of how people feel about gun ownership, the community trauma from gun violence is deep and long-lasting.

Any discussion of gun violence in the United States begins with an awareness of just how many people own guns. According to the latest Small Arms Survey (smallarmssurvey.org), there are 393 million civilian-owned guns in the United States—which means there are more guns than people. A 2017 Gallup report stated that 42 percent of households in the United States contained a gun—which means that the average gun-owning household contains several guns. However, the United States is one of three countries, including Guatemala and Mexico, that has a Constitutional right to arms. People start a protest march against the shooting death of Antwon Rose Jr. on Tuesday, The United States is the only one of June 26, 2018, in Pittsburgh. Rose was fatally shot by a police officer seconds after he fled those countries that has no restrica traffic stop June 19, in the suburb of East Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic) tion on who can own guns (nytimes. health. It’s not uncommon to see people who have been com/2013/04/05/opinion/rewrite-the-second-amendment. exposed to gun violence showing symptoms of post-trauhtml). In the United States, the high rate of gun ownership matic symptomatic stress disorder, which include an is coupled with a high homicide-by-firearm rate which is exaggerated startle reflex, getting angry really quickly, etc.

25.2 times higher than that of other high-income countries Something as simple as the sound of a door slamming can (Grinshteyn E, Hemenway D. 2016. Violent death rates: trigger people. What we can say, quite clearly, is that any the US compared with other high-income OECD countries, 2010. Am. J. Med. 129[3]:266–73).

“Research has found that the overwhelming majority Even though the incidence of people who are violent do not have an identifiable of gun violence in the United mental illness. In fact, people with mental illness are States is high, research three times more likely to be targets rather than pershows that incidences are petrators of violence. This myth does little more than still not as high as they are portrayed to be in national promote the stigma of mental illness and distract peomedia outlets. ple from dealing appropriately with the often separate “If we look at trends over issues of violence, mental illness and gun violence.” the past 30-40 years, gun JOHN “JACK” S. ROZEL, MD, MSL homicides are down significantly,” says John “Jack” S. Rozel, MD, MSL, associate professor of psychiatry, Univer- exposure to firearm violence from being a target, victim or sity of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and medical director witness—takes a tremendous toll. Wherever you stand in at resolve Crisis Services (sponsored by Allegheny County the gun debate, no one should have to deal with that level of stress.” and UPMC Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic).

So, what can people do to minimize the effect of gun Another common myth about gun violence is that it is violence in their lives? People need to take care of themmostly done by people with mental illness. Not true, says selves and seek help from health care providers whenever Dr. Rozel. possible because living in high-stress situations can neg“Research has found that the overwhelming majority of atively affect health. Dr. Rozel reminds people that viopeople who are violent do not have an identifiable mental lence between strangers is uncommon. Violence between illness,” he says. “Some of the violence relates more to substance-use and intoxication. In fact, people with mental people who know each other, to some degree, is far more illness are three times more likely to be targets rather than common. And there’s usually a signal well in advance that someone is under a threat of violence. People may have perpetrators of violence. This myth does little more than concerns about sharing information they know; people do promote the stigma of mental illness and distract people from dealing appropriately with the often separate issues of not want to become targets, themselves.

One of the most important things to help decrease fireviolence, mental illness and gun violence.” arm injury is trusting and loving relationships within families Despite the loaded myths surrounding gun violence, its and communities,” says Dr. Rozel. “Children need adults devastating effects on people are unquestionable. The they trust to tell if they saw or are worried about something. grief of losing a loved one is immeasurable. Research Adults need the same. Trust takes time and effort to build has shown that people who live in high-stress situations and create, but it can make a really big difference. Find the or neighborhoods experience persistent activation of the people in the community you feel you can trust. Develop body’s stress response systems (increases in heart rate, those relationships. blood pressure and stress hormones). This response can “Remember that being exposed to gun violence doesn’t have a negative effect on people’s health—especially to the mean you can’t grow from those emotional and physical developing brains of children. Even losing sleep because scars. t takes time. t takes work to find the right relationof stress can have serious health effects. ships, therapist and, sometimes, physical health interven“If you live in an environment where people are getting tions, but there’s a way to live a life after gun violence. Start shot, it’s a lot harder to feel comfortable enough to fall with a health care provider you trust and say you need help.” asleep, says Dr. Ro el. Sleep deficits take a huge toll on

HEALTH

NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER

NOVEMBER 7-13, 2018

A3

Take charge of your health today. Be informed. Be involved.

RICH FITZGERALD, Allegheny County Executive “I commit to having county departments—including Health, Human Services, Police and others—work collaboratively with the community for a comprehensive approach to combating this public health issue.”

RICH FITZGERALD

DIALLO MITCHELL JR., 23, urges youth to “become the change that we want to see,” at an Aug. 14 news conference denouncing the recent violence in Pittsburgh’s Black communities. Mitchell is paralyzed from the waist down after being shot in Greenfield five years ago. (Photo by Rob Taylor Jr.)

Can investing in neighborhoods help to reduce gun violence?

In 2016, 5,175 youths between the factors relate to fighting and weapon ages of 1 and 2 were killed by firearm violence in Pittsburgh. So far, our results homicide in the United States. More than suggest that walkable neighborhoods 4 ,000 youths were treated for firearm-rein mid-sized cities like Pittsburgh may lated assault injuries, according to the also protect youths from violence. We Centers for Disease Control and Prevenare still examining how these neighbortion. In the 2017 Youth Risk Behavior Surhood improvements help to reduce gun veillance Survey of high school students, violence. It may be, for example, that 5 percent of teens reported carrying a gun building playgrounds and sidewalks in a in the past year. community bring more people outdoors As a doctor and violence prevention to interact with each other, creating a researcher, I study how neighborhood stronger sense of community, connection factors affect youth violence. Research and safety. shows that investing in neighborhoods In partnership with community memcan affect gun violence, crime and bers, we hope to use our research to mental health. These simple, low-cost guide future interventions. By rethinking investments include improving vacant and redesigning neighborhood space, ALISON CULYBA, MD, PHD, MPH we hope to reduce youth violence. and run-down spaces. In a study done in Philadelphia, my colleagues and I found Alison Culyba, MD, PhD, MPH, is that green space, street lights, walking and assistant professor of pediatrics, School having easy access to public transportation were linked of Medicine, and of behavioral and community health with a lower risk of youth homicide. sciences, Graduate School of Public Health, University of Colleagues and I are now studying how neighborhood Pittsburgh

PASTOR NATHANIEL M. BROWN

AJAYLA JOHNSON, youth activist “I am committed to being the loud voice in the crowd of quiet faces. We should all have the chance to reach our full potential.

We were born into this generation and should have the opportunity to shape it for the next. Our plea will be heard.”

Community Resources

Resolve Crisis Services: resolve is a 24-hour, 365-day crisis service. It’s free to all residents of Allegheny County, regardless of your ability to pay.

•24-hour hotline to speak to a trained clinician at 1-888-7-YOU-CAN (796-8226).

•mobile crisis team can travel anywhere within Allegheny County to respond to a crisis. They provide face-to-face support and will work to arrange further care and stabilization if needed.

tion and Advocacy Center

Greater Pittsburgh Coalition Against Violence: 2201 Wylie Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15219, 412-758-7898 or 412212-8775

Black Women for Positive Change is a national, policy-focused network of predominately African American women. The network has two primary goals—to positively contribute to ideas and methods that can strengthen and Center for Victims is a community-based, nonprofit expand middle and working classes in the United States, organization. It is the largest, most comprehensive and with an emphasis on the African-American community, inclusive provider of services, advocacy and education for and to change the culture of violence in the United States. victims of all crime in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. E-mail Diane Powell at pittbw4pc@gmail.com for more Center for Victims provides critical programs and serinformation. vices to the Allegheny County as a: •Domestic Violence Emergency Shelter, Housing and CeaseFire Pa is a statewide organization working with Counseling Center mayors, police chiefs, faith leaders, community organi•Rape Crisis/Sexual Assault Center zations and individual Pennsylvanians to take a stand •Comprehensive Crime Victim and Witness Assistance against gun violence. Through outreach, education, Center coalition building and advocacy, we work to reduce gun •Community Crisis Response Team violence and gun tragedies in our communities, stop the •Professional Development, Training, Education, Media- flow of illegal guns onto our streets and keep guns out of the hands of people who should not have them.

DIANE POWELL DIANE POWELL, Black Women for Positive Change “I commit to work toward changing a culture that leads to violence, one person, one family and one community at a time.”

REVEREND PAUL ABERNATHY

KAREN HACKER

PARISHA “SHAE” TAYLOR

REVEREND PAUL ABERNATHY, Director, FOCUS Pittsburgh “I commit to continuing to support the Trauma Response Team as a healing response to gun violence in our community.”

KAREN HACKER, director, Allegheny County Health Department “I commit to educating the public on gun violence as a public health issue and continuing Allegheny County Health Department’s efforts to reduce it.”

PARISHA “SHAE” TAYLOR, youth activist “I am committed to bringing the peace of God that surpasses all understanding by loving my generation so hard that they have no choice but to love for themselves.”

ROBERT MARIN, MD something about this.’”

PASTOR NATHANIEL M. BROWN, president and CEO, 5A Elite Youth Empowerment “I am committed to partnering with students to reverse the impacts of historical and generational trauma, while training them to activate holistic wellness in urban youth environments. “

AJAYLA JOHNSON

ROBERT MARIN, MD, Board of Directors, Community Empowerment Association, Homewood, PA, associate director, Center for Public Service Psychiatry, UPMC Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic “I commit to working with others as an advocate and partner, an independent voice, an activist, good listener and not just someone who says, ‘Isn’t this terrible…someone should do

TIM STEVENS, Chairman and CEO, Black Political Empowerment Project (B-PEP), Co-convener, Greater Pittsburgh Coalition Against Violence (CAV) “I am committed to expand our work to bring anti-violence youth summits to as many schools as possible in order to share our CAV strategies on gun TIM STEVENS violence and to share the personal pain and destruction gun deaths cause to family members, friends and the community at large. We will continue to partner with CeaseFirePA in advocating for rational and reasonable statewide gun legislation and background checks.”

Take Charge of Your Health Leadership “The tragic loss of life from gun violence at the Tree of Life in Squirrel Hill recommits the Take Charge of Your Health page in its goal to support and disseminate necessary and innovative approaches to research that directly affects public health practice and policy, such as gun violence and the associated trauma that affects communities across the spectrum.”

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METRO

NOVEMBER 7-13, 2018

NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER

Cynthia Baldwin is cleared of involvement in Penn State scandal ‘The Funeral’ BALDWIN FROM A1

ginning in 2010, after retiring as a Pennsylvania state Supreme Court Justice in 2008. Prior to her appointment to the bench in 2006, she spent 16 years as an Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge, breaking down barriers as the first African American woman to achieve this feat.

As the university’s first-ever general counsel, Baldwin was to build a legal counsel’s office within Penn State. At the time, she was also a member of Penn State’s board of trustees and previously served as its chairwoman.

But a year into her new role, the university was turned upside down with what’s known as the Penn State sexual abuse scandal, where, ultimately, former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky was convicted on 45 counts of rape and sexual assault against children. He was sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison.

The university’s top brass was also forced out of their positions, some sentenced to jail time, as they were accused of covering up Sandusky’s actions or at the least, not doing enough to prevent future actions.

As Baldwin represented the university, former Penn State president Graham Spanier, former vice president Gary Schultz and former athletic director Tim Curley, she was accused of having a “conflict of interest” in representing all

mittee’s report, obtained by the New Pittsburgh Courier, the committee disagreed with the allegations against Baldwin, and wrote that Baldwin made it clear to Spanier, Schultz and Curley that she would not be able to represent

cal attorney Leonard J. Marsico, later read: “They all knew she (Baldwin) was General Counsel to PSU, and they were anxious to show PSU they had done nothing wrong and had nothing to hide by securing her representation of them

“Although this was a six-year ordeal, justice prevailed in the end.

Hopefully, this decision will put to rest any professional criticism of Cynthia Baldwin and will allow her to live her life with the dignity and respect that she has so rightly earned and deserved over her distinguished career.”

CHARLES DeMONACO Attorney for Cynthia Baldwin

the entities at the same time before the grand jury.

Baldwin was additionally accused by the Office of Disciplinary Counsel of not providing proper representation to Curley and Schultz before the grand jury, and improperly testifying before the grand jury and wrongfully disclosing confidential client information.

Baldwin, in a flip, eventually became an important witness for the prosecution against the same Penn State administrators.

In the three-member com-

them if their interests were not similarly aligned with those of Penn State University.

“Respondent (Baldwin) very clearly sought to ensure that there was no conflict between their interests and the interests of PSU. She said that she could not go in with them to the Grand Jury proceedings unless she was sure that there was no conflict between them and the University,” the report, released Oct. 26, read.

The report, signed by lo-

jointly with PSU. They each heard her tell them that she could not do so until she determined if their stories were consistent and

not adverse to the interests of PSU.” In May, when the Office of Disciplinary Counsel brought its allegations against Baldwin, she was able to take the stand and announce that she felt “duped” by the same Penn State officials she testified against. She was under the impression from the administrators that there was no criminal wrongdoing done on their part.

Baldwin was facing disciplinary action anywhere from a private reprimand up to disbarment.

However, with the three-member panel’s decision, which almost certainly will be accepted by the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, Baldwin has been exonerated of any wrongdoing.

CUBA’S OPEN SECRET

Veteran reporter LaMont Jones Jr. traveled to Cuba, and witnessed firsthand the color bias that is believed to exist in this aribbean island nation. Read Mr. Jones’ exclusive report, uba’s Open Secret, beginning on page B .

comes to the AWC, Nov. 9

by Christian Morrow Courier Staff Writer

Several plays and movies have looked at the dynamics surrounding the death of a friend or family member; some funny, some dramatic.

Actor and writer Derrell Lawrence says his production, “The Funeral,” which debuted to soldout performances and solid reviews in his native Philadelphia in January, is a distinct view on that dynamic and he will bring it to the August Wilson Center for a single performance, Friday, Nov. 9.

“It’s funny until it’s not,” he told the New Pittsburgh Courier. “It’s unique. It’s about a family preparing to bury their father, and a lot of things that come out— memories secrets, lies and how those things seem to replace him.”

Though Lawrence has written and produced two previous plays with his Lawrence Theater Company—“Do You Trust Your Best Friend?” and “When Heaven Calls”—this marks his company’s first venture west of the Alleghenies.

“I want to come and introduce myself to Pittsburgh with one show and start a relationship with the city, and test the market,” he said.

“It’s important for me that it plays and the August Wilson Center because he was one of the greatest playwrights ever. It’s very symbolic for me, and I think he’d be pleased.

“Pittsburgh is in for a tremendous story and a great show,” added Lawrence. “It’s realistic, it doesn’t feel like a play.”

Lawrence said he is in the process of setting up dates for the play in Detroit, Chicago and New York City, but that will have to wait until he finishes shooting his part in the upcoming film, “The Knights of Graterford.”

“It’s a great story,” he said. “There were these lifers at Graterford state prison back in the late ‘60s, early ‘70s who formed this funk band called ‘Power of Attorney’ and were allowed to leave the prison to perform. They even opened for James Brown. The producer and director saw me in ‘The Funeral’ and hired me on the spot—so that’s pretty cool.”

(Tickets for “The Funeral,” 7:30 p.m. performance on Nov. 9 can be purchased online at https://trustarts.org, or by phone through the box office at 412-456-6666.)

METRO

NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER

NOVEMBER 7-13, 2018

A5

There is life after addiction

POWER aims to rid women from the addiction to drugs, alcohol ADDICTION FROM A1

found within herself the strength and determination to escape a world of lies and deception.

After recovery, Stewart went on to establish a solid career with a local drug and alcohol organization known as Living Sober, until its closure.

For current Munhall resident Ramona Davis, in efforts to finance her own addiction, she attempted to sell drugs—only it was to an undercover narcotics agent. The judge gave her two choices. One was for treatment for drug addiction; the other was an involuntary stay at Muncie State Correctional Facility.

Facing the fear of incarceration and the thought of losing her children awoke the young mother to a decision that would change her life in ways she never imagined. “I had burned all my bridges. I went to rehab believing in my heart that I was going to relapse. I was scared to death. Living sober caused me to be fear-

Pennsylvania Organization for Women in Early Recovery. The organization began in 1991. POWER has offices at 7501 Penn Ave., Suite 8.

POWER’s services include: confidential, woman-centered screening, assessment, and referral to drug and alcohol treatment; a residential treatment program with as many as 25 beds, staffed 24 hours a day; outpatient treatment; and recovery support.

It was POWER that called Stewart initially. “POWER chose me,” she said.

Stewart was content with living her life in retirement, but soon became a Recovery Support Specialist at POWER House, the organization’s residential treatment program.

“It was not anything I planned. It was not me who made the choice to change,” Stewart said. “It was by the grace of God.” After a thoughtful pause, she continued: “My life has been good. It was not an easy road and I put in a lot of work.”

“I did not want to be a grandmother and be on drugs.”

KATHY STEWART

ful,” Davis told the Courier.

With support from family, she made the long journey back.

POWER’s mission is to help women reclaim their lives from the disease of addiction to alcohol and other drugs, and to reduce the incidence of addiction in future generations.

POWER is an acronym for

The Courier is The VOICE of Black Pittsburgh.

Not one to make excuses, her feet are now “permanently planted.” Notably self-assured, she smiles as she separates the past from the present. “My life is now phenomenal. I am older, wiser and more tolerant.

God opens doors and life is good. I have returned to my roots and the way I was raised.”

KATHY STEWART explains how she overcame addiction, and now works at POWER as a Recovery Support Specialist at POWER House, the organization’s residential treatment program. Ramona Davis, right, who has worked with POWER for 18 years, looks on. (Photos by Dayna Delgado) “My children saved my life,” Davis said. “I know it was a path chosen by God. But I have grown up. Everything I went through has brought me this far.”

Davis smiled as she spoke of living drug-free for more than 23 years. For the past 18 years, she’s been employed by POWER as a supervisor for POWER Connection. She supervises a team of people who go out to local communities, assisting POWER clients with a variety of tasks and activities. Davis is proud of the path she now walks.

When she remembers her past, she is adamant: “I do not want it for the future.”

As both ladies reflected on their individual pathway to recovery, the undeniable strength and fortitude of each is evident. The honest and bold courage in which they tell their own stories continually touches the lives of the many women who arrive at the open arms of the organization.

POWER’s executive director, Rosa Davis, believes deeply in the empowerment of women and is proud of the people who work with and for her. She describes Ramona Davis as “one of

the strongest members of my staff who has the key to develop trusting relationships while mindful of boundaries. Ramona’s excitement for her accomplishments is embraced by all with whom she shares her story.”

Rosa Davis’ faith in Stewart is one of admiration, stating she is extremely

impressed by the woman whose love and compassion for others never dims.

“Both of these ladies have been working with women on the road to recovery for a long time, but they never tire of reaching back to help others.”

Rosa Davis’ love and concern for others guides the heartbeat that makes her

who she is today. “No one,” she stated with humility, “wants a life of pain and addiction. POWER gives me the opportunity to be a confident, fearless voice for women.”

(If you or a woman you know is struggling with a drug or alcohol problem, call the POWER Line at 412-243-8755.)

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NATIONAL

OCTOBER 7-13, 2018

This Week In Black History

Week of October 17-23 November 7 1837—Elijah P. Lovejoy, one of the White heroes of Black history, is killed by a pro-slavery mob while defending his anti-slavery newspaper in Alton, Ohio.

1841—The “Slave Revolt On The Creole” occurs when 125 Black slaves overpower the crew of the

slave ship Creole and sail it to the Bahamas, where they were granted freedom and political asylum.

1876—The disputed presidential election which changed the course of Black history occurs.

The dispute led to the Hayes-Tilden Compromise. In order to be declared president, Repub-

lican Rutherford B. Hayes reached an agreement with southern Democrats, which had the effect of ending much of Reconstruction and the protection of Black rights. The Jim Crow era began with “Black codes” and other measures which severely limited Black rights. Many of these rights were not restored

NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER

until the 1960s.

1934—The first Black Democrat is elected to the United States Congress.

His name was Arthur L. Mitchell. Up until this point in history, most Blacks were Republicans because of the roles of Abraham Lincoln and a group, known as the “Radical Republicans,” played in ending slavery.

Mitchell defeated Oscar DePriest for the congressional seat from Chicago.

November 8 1898—The Wilmington Massacre occurs. A mob of Whites launches a terror campaign against Blacks in Wilmington, N.C. They destroy a Black newspaper plant, seize control of city government and officially leave nine to 11 Blacks dead. However, the unofficial death toll was said to be closer to 100. The Black press building was burned.

1933—Actress Esther Rolle is born in Pompano Beach, Fla. She is best remembered for her role in the 1970s television series “Good Times.”

1966—Edward W. Brooke is elected the first Black U.S. senator since Reconstruction. He was a Republican from Massachusetts. The 90-year-old Brooke is scheduled to receive a Congressional award next month for his service.

November 9 1731—Multi-talented scientist and inventor Benjamin Banneker is born in Ellicott Mills, Md. He is generally considered America’s first Black scientist.

Banneker constructed the first clock made in America; completed the design and layout of Washington, D.C., after Pierre L’Enfant returned to France; published a farmer’s almanac for 10 years, while also studying astronomy; and predicted solar eclipses.

1868—The governor of Arkansas, Powell Clayton, calls out the state militia and declares martial law in 10 counties in a bid to put down a Ku Klux Klan-led insurrection.

1868—The Howard University Medical School—the first designed to train Black medical personnel—opens in Washington, D.C. There were eight students in the first class.

1901—Fiery pioneer Black journalist William Monroe Trotter starts the Guardian newspaper in Boston, Mass. Trotter made headlines throughout the nation when in November 1914, he confronted President Woodrow Wilson in the White House for failing to do more to stop the lynching of Blacks. For daring to argue with the president, the New York Times denounced Trotter saying he had “superabundant untactful belligerency.” But W.E.B. DuBois called him “fearless.”

1922—Actress Dorothy Dandridge is born in Cleveland, Ohio. She is generally considered one of Hollywood’s first Black female sex symbols. She appeared opposite Harry Belafonte in “Carmen Jones” and was the first Black woman nominated for an Oscar. Dandridge died in 1965 at age 43.

November 10 1898—George H. White introduces the first anti-lynching legislation in the U.S. Congress. The North Carolinian was one of the last Blacks in Congress before Jim Crow laws and attitudes drove most Blacks from high elected offices. After leaving Congress, he founded a Black bank and established an all-Black community called Whiteville near present day Trenton, N.J. 1891—Granville T. Woods patents an improvement to the electric railway.

Woods was one of the most prolific Black engineers and inventors in U.S. history.

His motto could have been “I didn’t invent the product, but I invented something that made it better.”

Born in Columbus, Ohio, he invented and patented improvements to the electric railway, air brakes, telegraphs, telephones and numerous other products.

1957—Charlie Sifford wins the Long Beach Open, becoming the first Black person to win a major professional golf tournament.

1994—Famed Jazz singer Carmen McRae dies in Beverly Hills, Calif. She

was born in New York City on April 8, 1920.

November 11 1831—Anti-slavery rebel Nat Turner is hanged roughly two months after his capture for leading the bloodiest slave revolt in U.S. history. The minister and mystic told reporters God had called on him to lead the revolt, which left 55 Whites dead.

November 12 1775—General George Washington, first president and “father of the country” issues an order barring free Blacks from serving in the army as the U.S. struggled for independence from England.

Washington was also a slave owner. The slave owning aristocracy felt if free Blacks fought for America’s liberation they would demand freedom for their enslaved brothers and sisters. Despite Washington’s order, hundreds of Blacks did fight in the Revolutionary War. 1900—Henry Ossawa Tanner becomes an internationally acclaimed artist as he takes a silver medal for his art displayed at the Paris Exposition. Nearly 7,000 artists had entered their works. The Pittsburgh-born Tanner had numerous major works including his painting called “The Banjo Lesson.”

1922—Sigma Gamma Rho is founded by seven Black women in Indianapolis, Ind. The sorority grows to become one of the largest in the nation.

1977—Ernest “Dutch” Morial is elected the first Black mayor of New Orleans, La. 1994—Track and field great and Olympics star Wilma Rudolph dies in Nashville, Tenn., at the age of 54.

November 13 1839—The Liberty Party—the nation’s first anti-slavery political party—is formed in Warsaw, N.Y. Among the founders were legendary abolitionists Samuel Ringgold Ward and Henry Highland Garnet. At this point in history the two major political parties—the Whigs and the Democrats—were both pro-slavery.

1913—Pioneering Black surgeon Daniel Hale Williams becomes a member of the American College of Surgeons. Williams is generally credited with being the first American doctor to perform open heart surgery. The history-making event took place in Chicago on July 9, 1893.

1922—Many Black historians have selected this as the date which marks the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance—perhaps the greatest period of artistic achievement by African-Americans in U.S. history. From poetry to plays and from paintings to sculptures, Black art reached a pinnacle. In a broader sense, the Harlem Renaissance ran from the early 1920s to the mid 1930s.

1951—Ballerina Janet Collins becomes the first Black woman to dance with the Metropolitan Opera Co. in New York City. Prior to that achievement she performed with the world-renowned Black dance troupe directed by the legendary Katherine Dunham.

1955—Whoopi Goldberg, given name Caryn Johnson, is born in New York City. She graduates from a stand-up comedy routine to become a major Hollywood actress and is currently one of the principal hosts of the television talk show “The View.”

1956—The United States Supreme Court upholds a lower court ruling which banned segregation on public buses in Montgomery, Ala. The decision was forced in major measure by a year-long Black bus boycott sparked by the refusal of Rosa Parks to give up her seat to a White man. Leadership of the boycott also launched the civil rights career of Martin Luther King Jr. and his status as the national Black leader.

1967—Carl Stokes wins the race for mayor in Cleveland, Ohio. In doing so, he becomes the first Black mayor of a major American city.

1985—New York Met Dwight Gooden becomes the youngest pitcher ever to win the Cy Young award.

PEOPLE

NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER

NOVEMBER 7-13, 2018

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Beltzhoover native James ‘Ruff Bone’ White creates ‘Everyday Hustle’ Film Showing at Penn Hills Cinema, Nov. 9—also available online

by Merecedes J. Williams For New Pittsburgh Courier

No script. No actors. No budget. That’s what Beltzhoover native James “Ruff Bone” White was working with when he created, directed, and produced the film, “Everyday Hustle.”

White stars in the movie as a single father who fights the pressures of returning to the drug game. His criminal record haunts him at every job interview as he tries to live life right, all while taking care of his 6-monthold daughter, Kimora.

“Everyday Hustle came about from me being at home watching my daughter. I was just filming myself feeding her, and then I thought about making a documentary about single dads. I started making up scenes and calling friends to be a part of it,” said White.

White takes “keeping it in the family” to a whole new level when his family and friends chipped in to serve as characters in “Everyday Hustle.” His wife, Quaila, plays his deceased wife and she is co-executive producer of the movie. Baby Kimora brightens the big screen with her beautiful smile, starring in the movie as his daughter. White’s children, Jadyn, Nason, Nasyr, Jayda, Norah and Jiana, serve as executive producers. Von Madden Tiffany “Fya” Lucas, Joe “Owey” Gales, Chevar “Fat Mac” Simpkins, James “Pwee” White, and Kizzl lent their talents as well. The in-

stitution of family is clearly a premise to the film.

Netflix is in Homewood filming the second season of their series, “Mindhunter.” Tom Hanks is in Squirrel Hill recreating the life of Mister Rogers. Denzel Washington keeps visiting the Steel City after paying homage to August Wilson with his 2016 rendition of “Fences.” People are coming from all around the world to make films here, and while they are generating revenue, it is refreshing to see a local film production company.

“I’m from Pittsburgh, and I love my city, so I’m building it up with film and creating our own market,” said White, 39.

Ruff Bone, as his friends call him, should be applauded for artistry, perseverance, and risk-taking because making a movie is hard work. He completed a strong project that others would have abandoned at infancy.

I thoroughly enjoyed the film’s soundtrack, mostly filled with local artists. I haven’t heard S-Money’s “I’m The Man” in years, so when the film opened with the song I was ready for the next 65 minutes. Each song seemed to represent every hood, and their favorite local rapper. The film also featured music from the late Pittsburgh rapper Jimmy Wopo with a tribute at the end.

“Everyday Hustle” captures all of the Black Pittsburgh staples—the ladies

getting your hair done on Saturday mornings, men cutting up in the barbershop, flagging down your local jitney, the infrequent negotiations with the local booster, and the “everyday hustle” of making it day to day.

Most importantly, the film reminds you that there are certain familiar amenities that you can only experience in Pittsburgh, like Dreamz Hair Salon (Tenel Dorsey) and Big Tom’s Barbershop (Thomas Boyd Sr.).

Next on the docket for Jay White Digital Media is “Everyday Hustle Part 2.” He also plans to launch the Pittsburgh Black Film Festival “to give local filmmakers an opportunity to showcase their talents.”

The film premiered on Oct. 21 at the August Wilson Center. The second premiere will be held at Penn Hills Cinemas on Nov. 9. “Everyday Hustle” is available for digital download and hard copy at www.jaydigitalmedia.com.

ENTERTAINER New Pittsburgh Courier

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NOVEMBER 7-13, 2018

www.newpittsburghcourier.com

WAMO’s FALL FEST 2018

Pittsburgh Obama was the location for WAMO-FM’s (100.1, 107.3) annual Fall Fest, Oct. 21. Local kids came in costumes, walked away with lots of candy, and enjoyed local performances and games. In the left photo, it’s MiraKael Easley, right, with Tamara Smith, middle, and Lachelle Allen with LA Creative Eye. A young one is dressed up as The Joker in the middle photo, while George Featherstone brought his young family members to the event in the right photo. (Photos by Paige K. Mitchell)

MIKE TOMLIN, PAIGE K. MITCHELL, MIKE DEAN, VANESSA DOSS

TYSAIR, CHER, CHYNA

DJ SWAG, PORTIA FOXX, LOU WINGFIELD

DIONA, JYAIRE, NAIMAH, NIHEEM, MICHELLE

JOCELYN SIMMONS, with her children

JEROME, MAKHYA, TRACEY

ENTERTAINER

NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER

NOVEMBER 7-13, 2018

A9

Fighting for what you believe in

“BLACK SPARTA” is playing at the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater in East Liberty, Nov. 9-11.

‘Black Sparta’ opens New Horizon’s 27th season, Nov. 9-11

by Genea L. Webb For New Pittsburgh Courier

When you want something, when you believe in something, you’ll fight for it.

That’s the moral of Layon Gray’s off-Broadway hit play, “Black Sparta,” which will run at the Kelly Strayhorn Theater in East Liberty, Nov. 9-11.

“Black Sparta” tells the story of the Dahomey amazons, an all-female military regiment that existed from the 17th to the 19th century in the kingdom of Dahomey, West Africa (currently the

Republic of Benin). At one time the army contained as many as 6,000 female warriors.

“I call it ‘Black Sparta’ because that name kept coming up in all my research for these ladies,” explained Gray, who resides in New York and learned from a DNA test that he is 15 percent Dahomey. “A reporter shared back in that time that they shared the same intense fighting methods as Sparta did back in those days. He said he found a little Black Sparta and I thought that would be a fascinating title to name

the show. The only difference between the women of Sparta was that they hardened their bodies (to) give birth to stronger men, whereas the women of Dahomey hardened their bodies for battle.

“I find it fascinating that this part of history isn’t known to the world,” continued Gray. “It wasn’t until the movie ‘Black Panther’ came out that everyone was saying, ‘who are these incredible women warriors in the movie,’ and they were loosely based on the Dahomey warriors. Now you start to see a lot of people talking about these women and I had written about it before the movie came out, so it’s fascinating that it’s finally starting to get the recognition it deserves and people are really researching to find out who these incredible women were back then.”

New Horizon Theater Inc., chairperson Joyce

Meggerson-Moore believes the historical and educational aspects of “Black Sparta” will be a draw to young and old audiences alike.

“These women knew how to fight, and they were

LAYON GRAY

rightly feared. They had a reputation and people will understand that,” Meggerson-Moore said. “People love Layon’s work here, he has a good grasp on how to tell history—that’s appealing to people.”

In addition to “Black Sparta,” New Horizon Theater Inc., has presented several of Gray’s plays including “Black Angels Over Tuskegee” twice, “Kings of Harlem” and “The Girls of Summer.”

“People love his work here and I believe that people will like this as well. New Horizon brings him in for one weekend so people have to realize they can’t wait, they just need to come on out,” Meggerson-Moore said.

“Black Sparta” will run Friday and Saturday, Nov. 9-10, at 7:30 p.m., with a matinee on Sunday, Nov. 11, at 3 p.m.

The production is funded in part by grants from

the Advancing Black Arts in Pittsburgh program, a partnership of The Pittsburgh Foundation and The Heinz Endowments, Allegheny Regional Asset District, Chris Moore Communications Inc., Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council.

“We hope the Pittsburgh audience will support this production—which is a combination of history and drama—and all of New Horizon’s productions this season,” Meggerson-Moore said. “The rest of the 27th season of New Horizon is set and listed on our website, newhorizontheater.org.”

All seats are $35 general admission, $30 for seniors age 65 and older, $25 for groups of 10 or more at the same performance. Student rates are also available. For tickets or more information call 412-431-0773 or visit brownpapertickets.com.

LIFESTYLES New Pittsburgh Courier

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NOVEMBER 7-13, 2018

www.newpittsburghcourier.com

Debbie Norrell

Lifestyles Report

Words matter I was sitting in a pizza restaurant recently and spotted a handsome picture of Elvis Presley on the wall; the photo brought back memories of how much I liked him when I was a little girl. I had an Elvis Presley red wallet that folded in half and a few Presley forty-fives and then the rumor started to spread that Presley had said that the only thing that colored people could do for him was shine his shoes and buy his records. I asked my mother to throw the wallet away and I no longer spent time watching his movies. Presley later denied he made the comment.

Words matter and you can probably remember hurtful things that people have said to you for decades. Once those words escape your mouth it’s too late; apologies don’t matter and more often than not those apologies are not genuine. The apology is only given because someone has suggested that an apology should be issued.

Lately words have become so important. Since when have the Democratic Party been called “dems,” it sounds like dimwit or diminished, it has a negative ring to it. The words that have been used to describe immigrants and other countries are so negative. The words stick in your head for a long time. I truly believe the current president was catapulted into running due to words. Let’s go back to those White House Correspondents Dinners where Obama fried Trump in 2011 and 2016, I could see the writing on the wall that night, Trump was seething and was not going to let these “words” go unchecked.

Sometimes it can just be one word that can trigger an emotion or change the way you feel about someone. Recently someone that I know on a professional level referred to a friend of mine using the “B” word; they said it with a smile on their face and laugh in their voice. It has been two weeks since the comment was made but I can’t get the word out of my head. Did he think it was funny or somehow appropriate to use that language, what made him think it was acceptable?

Words matter. When Trump referred to himself as a nationalist while stumping for Senator Ted Cruz according to Business Insider, “You know they have a word, it sort of became old-fashioned, it’s called a nationalist,” Trump said. “And I say ‘really, we’re not supposed to use that word?’ Do you know what I am? I’m a nationalist.” The crowd inside the Toyota Center in Houston cheered wildly. His new nationalist title dominated the news for days and reportedly the person who committed the crimes at the Tree of Life synagogue paid attention to it as well.

Words are so far reaching now. Within minutes someone’s words can spread across the entire world and it only takes a point and a click to find them and hear them over and over again. Think about your words and how they will impact others.

Once they are released there is no pulling back.

(Email Debbie at debbienorrell@aol.com.)

WELCOME—Darlene Powell, Evelyn McMullen-Stephens, Andrea Lovelace and Chalese Floyd

Madelyn Hairston Giddens Games & Card Party

by Debbie Norrell

its annual card party Lifestyles Editor for Madelyn Hairston If you had the pleasure of Giddens. meeting Madelyn Hairston The annual Giddens you will rememsoiree took ber her outgoing, sparplace on Oct. kling personality. She was 6 at the Doua stately lady and never bletree Hotel had a hair out of place. She in Monrowas an avid card player eville. A full and was party of a regular house enbridge group. joyed shopThe Alpha Alpha Omega ping, dining, chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., was INVOCATION—Mamar Gelaye, card games and bingo. pleased and proud to name chaplain Not only did guests enjoy an afternoon of fun but they EVENT CO-CHAIRS—Peggy Harris and Joelynn Parham (Photos by Debbie Norrell) also “stacked the deck for education” University) and Shawte care and Wellness, Buildand awarded scholarships Jeanelle Hicks (Clark At- ing Economic Legacy, The valued at $1,500 each to lanta University).

Arts! and Global Impact. five students that will atLocal AKA chapter presi- She also thanked the entend Historically Black dent Dr. Rhonda Taliaferro ergetic co-chairpersons Colleges or Universities thanked first-timers and Peggy Harris and Joelyn (HBCUs). The scholar- return guests for support- Parham and their commitship recipients includ- ing their programs: HBCU tee for coordinating a great ed: Crystal Cox (Howard For Life, Women’s Health- event.

University), Mikaela E. Jessamy (Norfolk State University), John Horsley Jr. (Lincoln University), GREETING GUESTS—Emma Lucas-Darby and Ruthie Rea Erica Jackson (Hampton

HOSTESSES—Moriah Boyd, Imami Jai Chisom and Yazmin Bennett-Kelly

ENJOYING A GREAT AFTERNOON—Rhonda Tali- FEELING LUCKY—Marlene Hogan, Cynthia Franklin, Donna Pollard aferro and Darlene Powell and Rosita Edison

ACCEPTING FOR THEIR CHILDREN—Standing: Arlene Hicks, Harriet Jackson, John Horsley Sr., Natalie Meade and Crystal Cox. Seated: Anita Edwards, Rhonda Taliaferro, Linda Bryant and Evelyn McMullen Stephens

SHOW ME THE MONEY—Natalie Tyler and Ruthie Walker

RELIGION

NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER

NOVEMBER 7-13, 2018

‘LOVE IS STRONGER THAN HATE’

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Praise & Worship ST. BENEDICT THE MOOR CATHOLIC CHURCH Crawford & Centre Ave. Pgh., PA 15219 412-281-3141 Mass Sunday 10:00 A.M. & 12:00 P.M. www.stbtmchurch.org

East Liberty Presbyterian Church Rev. Dr. Randy Bush, Senior Pastor 412-441-3800 116 S. Highland Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15206

www.cathedralofhope.com Worship on Sunday: Journey Worship........8:45 a.m.

Sanctuary Worship........11 a.m.

RABBI JAMIE GIBSON is surrounded by a host of ministers during a press conference prior to the Unity Prayer Service, held at Bethel AME Church in the Hill District, Nov. 1. “Though we have suffered, you have stood with us,” Rabbi Gibson said. In the right photo, Imam Hamza Perez said that in this show of unity, “what you’re seeing is the building of humanity.” (Photos by Courier photographer J.L. Martello)

Bethel AME Church holds Unity Prayer Service for synagogue victims UNITY FROM A1

because love and unity are stronger than hate! We are striving for unity in the community.”

The crowd heard words from AME Church Third Episcopal District Senior Bishop McKinley Young, who prayed that “God will bring us to a new space which cannot yet be seen, but we do believe that it is there. And that God will take us there by his grace and mercy, where no one will hunger, no one will be harmed, no one will be destroyed, and our life will be enhanced and embraced.”

Reverend Stanley C. Dennison, representing the AME Zion Church, told the crowd that “we’re leaders, we’re Pittsburghers, and we are people of unique perspective on scriptures— still, we stand with our Jewish brothers and sisters in calling for love rather than hate, unity rather than division, and justice rather than revenge.”

NAACP President Richard A. Stewart Jr. told congregants, “This is personal.”

He told the story of living in the Hill District as a youngster, his godparents,

unison, opened their hym- To God’s Unchanging who were Jewish, living love conquers hate.”

Then, the crowd stood in nals and sang #513—“Hold Hand.” next door. “They helped raise me, they guided me, took care of me, so this is personal.”

Stewart also reminded the crowd that “a lot of Jewish folks in New York started the NAACP. They walked with us, they marched with us, they died with us. They went down South with us.”

The alleged gunman, Robert Bowers of Baldwin Borough, was heard by police officers responding to the synagogue that “he wanted to kill Jews.”

State Rep. Ed Gainey said, in effect, there’s the problem. “So many times we see people based on their color, their gender, their sexual orientation, their religion, that we never look into the heart and see the person that they are, and what we end up doing is dividing B-PEP PRESIDENT TIM STEVENS, far left, among those in attendance at the Unity Prayer Service. ourselves.”

Representative Gainey kept the inspiring words coming, to thunderous applause.

“If we don’t love each other every day, then we can’t use the universal principle that makes sure that we win. And there’s only one way that we win—when

Curious about Quakerism?

You Are Welcome at our Meetings for Worship Sundays at 10:30 a.m.

Pittsburgh Friends Meeting 4836 Ellsworth Avenue http://www.quaker.org/legacy/pghpamm

Seminary at the Tabernacle 43 Belvedere St., Crafton, PA 15205 Sept. 10, 2018-May 16, 2019 Sr. Pastor Tony Armstead, MDiv Christian Leadership School (CLS) a Four-year Program currently offering Four non-credited courses in four years.

Teaching includes Doctorate and Master of Divinity Teachers.

When: Fluctuates Mon. or Thurs., 6:308:30pm Cost: $75 per class, plus any required books Contact: Rev. Marjorie Davis, Ph.D. 412335-2832

New Destiny CME Church 114 North Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15212 412-231-7882 Rev. Kornelus Neal, pastor The Rt. Rev. Marvin Thomas Sr., presiding bishop Sunday School....................................9 A.M. Morning Worship Service............11:00 A.M.

Join our growing Praise and Worship Church Community!

For rate information, call 412481-8302, ext.

128.

REVEREND LEA TUNSTALLE, far right, among those in attendance at the Unity Prayer Service.

AME CHURCH THIRD EPISCOPAL DISTRICT SENIOR BISHOP MCKINLEY YOUNG

TELL US ABOUT YOUR NEXT CHURCH EVENT! \We want to place your event in our Church Circuit weekly calendar!

Send info to: New Pittsburgh Courier 315 E. Carson St. Pittsburgh PA 15219

NAACP PRESIDENT—Richard A. Stewart Jr.

REV. LIDDY BARLOW

Or Email us! religion@ newpittsburgh courier.com

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NOVEMBER 7-13, 2018

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BUSINESS New Pittsburgh Courier

Allderdice wins back-toback City League titles Sports B10

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Classifieds

Find what you need from jobs to cars to housing B4-B5

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With mobile pay, you can go without a wallet at checkout

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Pennsylvania’s Disparity Study released

Don’t make these big life insurance blunders

by Barbara Marquand NerdWallet

DISPARITY STUDY COMPLETE—MWDBE Governmental Committee members Judy McNeil, Kim Evans, Juan Garrett, Deborah Lewis and Lisa Moses share a moment with Kerry L. Kirkland, Deputy Secretary of Diversity, Inclusion and Small Business Opportunities for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. (Photos by Diane I. Daniels)

Kirkland confirms state has ‘a lot of work to do’ to even the playing field for small businesses

by Diane I. Daniels For New Pittsburgh Courier

The long-awaited Pennsylvania disparity study has been released.

Kerry Kirkland, Deputy Secretary of Diversity, Inclusion & Small Business Opportunities for the state of Pennsylvania, had mentioned during a speech in Pittsburgh that a disparity study was on the way. The objective of the study is to provide information to assist the Department of General Services (DGS) implement the Commonwealth’s Small Diverse Business Program.

On Nov. 1, Kirkland returned to Pittsburgh, announcing that the study, completed a day prior, confirms that the state of Pennsylvania has “a lot of work to do” to even the

playing field for small businesses.

The study included analyses of the participation of minority-, women-, disabled-, veteran-, and lesbian gay bisexual and transgender-owned businesses in prime contracts and subcontracts that the DGS awarded during the period of July 1, 2011 through June 30, 2016.

“This is a good time for small businesses in the Commonwealth,” stated Kirkland. “Because of the environment Gov. Wolf has set with all secretaries and QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS—Barbara Hill, of Lowenhill Health deputy secretaries in the Care Services in Aliquippa, questions Kerry L. Kirkland on how she SEE DISPARITY B2 can do business with the state.

Life insurance provides a financial safety net for families. Sounds simple, but decisions over whether and how much to buy can get complicated, and mistakes can be costly.

Here are common mistakes financial planners see: BUYING TOO MUCH OR NOT ENOUGH Not everyone needs life insurance.

“If there’s no one else depending on your income, you probably don’t need much or any at all,” says Alyssa Lum, certified financial planner and founder of Luminate Financial Planning in Sterling, Virginia.

But those with young children will need a lot. For breadwinners, a rule of thumb is at least seven times your annual salary, plus money to pay off debt and fund college. “Those dollars really add up,” Lum says.

Stay-at-home parents don’t need as much, but should have some coverage, says Greg Klingler, a certified financial planner and director of wealth management for the Government Employees’ Benefits Association. Buy enough to cover child care and other services that the stayat-home parent provides.

BUYING THE WRONG POLICY There two main types of life insurance: term and permanent .

•Term life insurance is simple, cheap and offers coverage for a certain period, such as 10, 20 or 30 years. It pays out if the policyholder dies during that term.

•Permanent life insurance, such as whole life, lasts your entire life and includes a savings component called cash value, which grows slowly over many years. You can borrow against the cash value or surrender the policy for the cash. It’s more complicated and expensive than term life. It also nets the highest commission for insurance agents.

Term life is the best choice for most families, Klingler says, because “most people are going to have a finite need.’’

Term life can cover you while the kids are growing up or you’re paying off debt, such as a mortgage. Ideally, at the end of the term, you don’t need life insurance anymore.

Yet some people get talked into permaSEE BLUNDERS B2

Debt and rising home costs continue to defer homeownership Charlene Crowell

Commentary

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BUSINESS

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Harry C. Alford & Kay DeBow

Beyond the Rhetoric

What if Black professional athletes respected Black economic empowerment?

Oh, what a wonderful world this would be for Black communities throughout our nation. We, as a people, have over $1.3 trillion (T) in annual spending. However, our Black owned businesses account for over $183 billion. Do you see the problem? We don’t recycle our money within our own communities. Not even 20 percent of what we have stays within our own business infrastructure. As Malcolm X once remarked, “The ‘eagle’ flies on Friday in Black communities and by noon Saturday it is one dead bird.” Nothing recycles and thus, nothing is going to build or grow larger. We are consumer slaves.

We live in a complex on the Virginia side of Washington, DC. A few of our neighbors are professional athletes. You can always tell when their crew is assembling. The parking area out front suddenly looks like a Maybach or Lamborghini car dealership. There is a million dollars’ worth of depreciating assets right before our eyes. They think it is so cool. We think it is depressing. I guess it is their money and their business. However, if we look collectively there is an immense opportunity slipping right before our eyes.

The Black percentage of professional football players exceeds 70 percent. The National Basketball Association approaches 90 percent +. These gifted athletes control billions of dollars that could be directed to significant economic empowerment for the Black communities from which they come.

Allow us to show you a few examples of what could be done.

Basketball arenas and football stadiums are being built around our nation on an ongoing basis. Right now, there is usually no Black participation included during the construction and design of these stadiums. Levi Stadium in California had only 1.4 percent participation. Imagine if the Players’ Associations for these two sports would put this on the negotiating table before the owners: Thirty percent of all construction performed on the next stadiums be done by Black owned and managed construction firms. The stadiums should be built in areas that will not gentrify Black neighborhoods and business communities. Thirty percent of all concessions, restaurants, etc. that are allowed within the stadiums and arenas must be Black owned. Black advertising and public relations firms should be included.

Levi Stadium brings up another matter. The NFL and NBA player associations seem to have a great affinity to construction unions. They assume that they are fair and equitable to Black labor. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Only 2 percent of Black owned construction companies are union. Why? Because of the Jim Crow treatment by these construction unions. The time is overdue for these Black athletes to step up and do the only responsible thing they can do. Don’t tolerate racist construction unions. Hell no! to solidarity.

Additionally, where are these teams parking their money? Financial institutions and money management firms should have significant Black utilization. Significant should equate to over 30 percent. No more scandals such as Merrill Lynch bilking NBA players with the encouragement of their upper management (a Black CEO).

The athletes must participate in the selection of the Super Bowl city. There should be a rating system which determines the likelihood of racially diverse people participating in the wealth that a Super Bowl brings. Which city will have the blackest vendors? Who is printing the jerseys, the T-shirts, the souvenir books? Who is advertising the Super Bowl? And may we suggest that teams look for Black owned hotels.

These team owners are asleep at the wheel of diversity and inclusivity. They must feel pressured to have desire for diversity. The pressure will come from the athletes.

Just because these teams have been using select vendors for dozens of decades doesn’t mean they can’t change now.

The sooner they do it the better off America will be.

The player associations should have formal Memorandums of Understanding with the top Black professional organizations such as Black architecture and engineering associations, Black contractors, banks, accounting associations , attorneys, realtors, etc.

Now this would change the world! After doing that correctly we could move to our entertainers who would only perform at venues that have documented proof of Black construction, architecture/engineering participation.

Again, God has blessed us with remarkable talent. Let’s leverage it. Oh, how badly we need a bigger share of that $1.3 trillion. We can’t think of a better way. Our destiny is in our own hands.

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Pennsylvania’s Disparity Study released DISPARITY FROM B1

state. His leadership and commitment since he has been in office is setting the tone for change. I am glad that he has the courage to address the issue that discrimination exists in the marketplace.”

The study, completed by BBC Research and Consulting, located in Denver, examined quantitative and qualitative information related to: the legal framework surrounding the DGS’s implementation of the SDB Program; local marketplace conditions for different groups of SDBs; and contracting practices and business assistance programs that the DGS currently has in place.

According to the executive summary, BBC summarized key information from the study in five parts which included analyses in the disparity study, availability analysis results, utilization analysis results, disparity analysis results, and program implementation.

The final chapter of the study, program implementation, addressed and had recommendations for 15 issues: Consolidation of Programs, SDB Participation, Statutory Authorization of DGS Programs, Overall Annual Aspirational Goal, Subcontract Opportunities, Subcontracting Goals, Certification, Unbundling Large Contracts, Bidding Procedures, Prime Contract Opportunities, Prompt Payment Policies, Contract Management, Growth Monitoring, Subcontract Data, and Networking and Outreach.

The Business Development and Outreach recommendation of the study suggests that the DGS considers continuing and expanding efforts to grow and support small businesses throughout the Commonwealth. It stated that the DGS and other en-

tities throughout Pennsylvania currently operate numerous programs that provide technical assistance, mentoring and networking opportunities for entrepreneurs.

But data from other components of the study indicates that there are still substantial disparities in business ownership for women, minorities and other diverse individuals. It stated that based on those results, the DGS should consider expanding and improving its business development programming, and networking and outreach events in order to further catalyze small business formation and success.

It was also recommended that the DGS hosts and participates in many networking and outreach events that include information about marketing, becoming certified in the Commonwealth, doing business with the Commonwealth, and available bid opportunities. The DGS should consider continuing those efforts but might also consider broadening its efforts to include more partnerships with local trade organizations and other public agencies. The DGS might also consider creating a consortium of local organizations and public agencies that would jointly host quarterly outreach and networking events and training sessions for businesses seeking public sector contracts. In addition, the DGS should consider ways that it can better leverage technology to network more effectively with businesses throughout the Commonwealth. The DGS could consider making use of online procurement fairs, webinars, conference calls, and other tools to provide outreach and technical assistance.

“Get the study and read it,” Kirkland advised.

“Now is the time for change because our communities are changing. We want to have one of the best diversity programs in t h e c o u n t r y, but

we all have to work together, we can do it, but we must remain steadfast.” The study can be found on the DGS website at www. dgs.pa.gov.

Kirkland was in Pittsburgh participating in the Governmental Committee’s “Leadership Sets the Tone” Closing the Disparity: Action, Access, and Accountability event. The Governmental Committee, stated Juan Garrett of the Riverside Center for Innovation, is working to become an advocate for small businesses within the region. “We are striving to work with our elected officials to assist us in putting strategies in place to assist MBE firms overcome some of the existing barriers and hurtles that they go through to get government contracts. Who better to help craft a policy than the procurement officers that work in the space every day.”

He also pointed out that help is needed from the small business owners to make sure that they are qualified and certified to know their capabilities and to stay focused on the work they do and not venture in other areas. “Be the best that you can be at what you do to be assured to get the contracts that are available to you.”

Diamonte Walker of the Urban Redevelopment Authority and Governmental Committee member reflected on the Governmental Committee’s “Leadership Sets the Tone” philosophy and refreshed the audience’s memory of the pledge that was enacted during the group’s March conference. She mentioned that the Committee’s vision to improve the equity development landscape in the region was a factor. “As a body we agreed that the work we do as procurement and compliance officers and business development practitioners in this space, that it does not mean a lot if the leaders of the organizations and those governing our region don’t set a serious tone around what it means to be equitable and inclusive,” she explained.

The mission of the Governmental Committee is to create effective methods that strengthen economic opportunities for MWDBEs and to provide assistance-enabling contractors and businesses to secure contracts in the goods and service, construction and professional services markets leading to profitability and growth for the businesses.

KERRY L. KIRKLAND, Deputy Secretary of Diversity, Inclusion and The Committee’s 18th Small Business Opportunities for the Commonwealth of Pennsylva- annual conference is set nia, discusses findings of the state’s disparity study. (Photo by Diane for March 7, 2019 at RivI. Daniels) ers Casino.

Debt and rising home costs continue to defer homeownership HOMEOWNERSHIP FROM B1

dian equity gain of $55,000 when they sold their residence over the past year.

Additionally, after selling their homes, 44 percent traded up to a large home.

In other words, if you

can find a way to become a homeowner, the costs incurred will likely be outweighed by the economic gains.

But making that important financial transition from renter to homeowner

will become harder as mortgage interest rates climb from the historic lows of recent years. Additionally, should home inventories remain low, the likelihood of ‘supply and demand’ economics will keep driving prices higher as well.

“Now more than ever,”

added Rice, “we need radical policies that will spur the development of affordable housing in all communities.”

(Charlene Crowell is the Center for Responsible Lending’s Communications Deputy Director.

She can be reached at Charlene. crowell@responsiblelending.org.)

Don’t make With mobile pay, you can go these big life without a wallet at checkout insurance blunders MOBILE FROM B1

BLUNDERS FROM B1

nent policies when they all they need is term life, says Jason Speciner, a certified financial planner in Fort Collins, Colorado. Building cash value inside a policy can sound appealing, but fees and the agent’s commission eat away at returns. Instead of pouring money into a permanent policy, max out savings in tax-advantaged retirement accounts. If there’s money left over for long-term investing, a low-cost index fund will probably produce better returns than life insurance, he says.

“In most cases the old saying, ‘buy term and invest the difference,’ makes sense,” Speciner says.

Permanent life insurance can be an important estate planning tool for those who have a lifelong financial dependent, such as a child with special needs, or whose estate is big enough to incur taxes for heirs. (Only estates over $11.18 million for an individual and $22.36 million for a couple are subject to federal estate taxes in 2018.)

PUTTING OFF THE PURCHASE It’s easier to put off buying life insurance than think about how your death would affect others. “But that’s a pretty risky gamble, especially if you have small kids,” says Michael Kelley, a certified financial

planner in Cleveland, Ohio.

Worried about the cost?

It might be cheaper than you think. Most consumers overestimate the price of term life insurance by more than three times, according to a 2018 study by industry groups Life Happens and LIMRA. The study was based on a survey of about 2,000 adults who are household financial decision-makers. The actual cost of a 20-year, $250,000 term life policy for a healthy, 30-year-old nonsmoker is about $160 a year, the study says.

Compare quotes from at least a few companies to find the best rates.

RELYING ON FREE LIFE INSURANCE AT WORK Life insurance benefits through work probably aren’t enough for those who have a family depending on their income, Speciner says.

That coverage is typically one to two times your annual salary -- not enough to sustain a family after the loss of a breadwinner. Another drawback: The coverage usually ends when an employee leaves the company.

Buy your own policy if you need life insurance, and consider the free benefits from work a bonus.

(This article was provided to The Associated Press by the personal finance website NerdWallet. Barbara Marquand is a writer at NerdWallet.)

To start, you’ll need to load your bank information onto your preferred mobile wallet device. That generally means entering a credit card or debit card number and security code, and accepting the terms and conditions in the mobile app.

When it’s time to make a payment, show your device at the checkout line.

You typically complete the transaction by placing the device near the terminal and scanning a barcode or using a biometric reader that may, for example, scan your fingerprint to sign off on the purchase.

MOBILE WALLET ADOPTION HAS STALLED. Despite the ease of using mobile wallets, less than half of all smartphone owners use the technology, and adoption has not grown over the past three years, according to Augustine. One problem may be that some don’t consider it to be much more convenient than using a regular credit or debit card, she says.

Concerns about safeguards are another issue.

Many consumers are more worried about the security of mobile wallet payments than traditional card payments, says Ryan Grogman, senior vice president and practice lead at Boston Retail Partners, a retail consulting company.

But mobile wallets do have some security advantages

over regular credit and debit cards.

HOW BANK INFORMATION IS KEPT SECURE. Mobile wallets rely on near-field communication, or NFC, which uses a chip in the mobile device to wirelessly communicate with the merchant’s payment terminal. The devices communicate using special short-term codes to verify customers’ identities and don’t reveal actual credit card numbers.

Along with NFC technology, smartphones typically add their own layer of security. You probably need to use a fingerprint reader or enter a code to unlock a screen, for example, to access the device and its digital wallet.

If a consumer loses a smartphone or watch, they know their information likely lives behind a locked screen, and its sensitive contents can be erased remotely. With a physical card, a criminal could steal it and start making fraudulent purchases before a consumer even knows the card is gone.

Most people have a host of payment choices, and they don’t mind juggling and digging for their plastic at checkout. But that hardware in their hand or on their wrist can double as another way to pay for their holiday shopping.

(This article was provided to The Associated Press by the personal finance website NerdWallet. Margarette Burn)

OPINION

NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER

Guest Commentary

We are all to blame for violence

by Armstrong Williams

Today, we live in an ever-expanding society that is becoming increasingly open. We can connect with someone on another continent in seconds, thanks to technology, whereas just decades ago, the simple idea of a transcontinental cable was fantasy.

At the same time, we have the ability to cloak our identities and carry out threats—and actual violence—with some degree of anonymity. The recent mail bombs directed at prominent American politicians, media and a movie star illustrate the intersection of these two forces in motion.

In a single sequence, Cesar Sayoc, who has been arrested for mailing the bombs, allegedly accessed the private addresses of public individuals. In an open society, made ever smaller by the Internet, those with evil intentions can take this personal information and wreak havoc. That alone is incredible—and a grim reminder of how vulnerable we are and how fragile life can be.

As to why these incidents have occurred, many questions remain unanswered. In reality, the answers do not really matter. But I wonder, do people understand what they are unleashing when they construct pipe bombs, or when they murder the law enforcement officers who are sworn to serve and protect us?

Neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama was ever going to open the packages addressed to them. The same goes for Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), former Vice President Joe Biden and others to whom suspicious packages were addressed. Instead, those put at risk by the actions of Sayoc were the postal workers or delivery persons handling the packages, or the politicians’ staff members—the innocent young men and women who are just starting their political careers and would have opened the packages.

The 20th century British author C.S. Lewis wrote that the Judeo-Christian demand of our lives should be that we “order our loves.” In other words, we should love things in proportion to their worth. When you place that in the context of our cosmic creator, it’s easy to see who should come first: God. Those who adhere to biblical teachings—to love our spouses, our friends and all of mankind—quickly understand what is of value and what is not.

We risk losing sight of that without a deeper, more reflective look into these pipe bomb threats. Let’s take away theology and gauge what has happened through a moral lens. When we as a society lose our sense of what is truly valuable and what is truly worthy of our affection, our time and our treasure, then we are destined to experience more of such disturbing violence.

Much about this situation remains unclear, but I have no doubt that this perpetrator (or perpetrators) has become obsessed with the white noise that fills our airwaves and halls of our society. Caught up in our stark political divisions, we have allowed ourselves to become enthralled with justice and vengeance. As a result, some sick individuals seek to exact their own twisted form of “justice.”

Recall Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, for example, who said he felt he was doing the right thing to get across a message, and that he was influenced by his fanatical older brother. A twisted, self-interested focus led him to believe that he and his brother needed to maim and kill to achieve their selfish goal. They forever changed the lives of many innocent individuals in a pathetic attempt to avenge something Tsarnaev later acknowledged he did not fully understand.

To be clear, I’m not excusing or justifying his behavior— and certainly there is no justification for the latest incidents of attempted violence. Like many Americans, I regret that we have allowed our political discourse to be absent of love and the pursuit of what is virtuous and pure of heart We no longer pursue the character and justice of which Socrates spoke in Plato’s “The Republic.” Instead, we allow our minds to be filled with a singular pursuit of hatred that can only be satisfied when harm is inflicted. We’ve done that collectively. We have allowed that collectively. And we can only end it collectively, as Americans.

It starts with seeing people as human beings, first, rather than as members of a sect or race or political party, or anything else that we use to divide ourselves from each other. We need to immerse ourselves, and our society, in the grace of God. A solid foundation can bear any weight, and America must remain founded upon the principles and moral virtues that have been outlined for us since the dawn of mankind. The fabric of our society depends on it.

(Armstrong Williams is author of the book “Reawakening Virtues” and served as an adviser and spokesman for Dr. Ben Carson’s 2016 presidential campaign.)

(Reprinted from the NY Amsterdam News)

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The time has come (TriceEdneyWire.com)—Several of us had just begun our RESPECT US campaign against the degradation of women, especially Black women. We face it on a daily basis. We hear well known leaders defend the behavior.

We just heard of a rapper insulting a woman. Never mind that this was the First Lady of the United States who was being insulted. No matter what we think of her, she doesn’t deserve to be humiliated simply because she happens to be married to a person who appears to not be well. The First Lady is obviously under duress.

You see the fear in her eyes whenever she’s in the presence of her husband. I can’t help but feel sorry for her. Being a survivor of domestic violence, I can often detect the symptoms of an abused woman. I don’t think she deserves to be treated like her husband. While he is deserving of every criticism about him, she’s not responsible for his lewd, racist, ignorant behavior.

On the same day, I read a story about a woman in line at a store being yelled at and loudly referred to as a bitch--a word often used by gangsta rappers to refer to Black women who don’t deserve to be called such a name. Yet, many radio stations playing to audiences aimed at the Black community, paid for by many of the corporations with which we spend our dollars without seeing the connection of the filth to the dollars being used to denigrate

Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq.

Commentary

Aretha Franklin, John Legend, the new Common and people who deserve to be heard by promoting good things can be heard more often.

Our Respect Us campaign is simple.

Don’t buy products from the companies mentioned until they withdraw their support from the offending stations and companies. Begin withdrawing your support until they change the filth they pay for in our communities. Make a special effort to refrain from patronizing any of these companies on Black Friday—the day after Thanksgiving. That’s not a big ask to stop the degradation of our community. We ask you to listen to a song by Kanye West called “I Love It” and just any song by Niki Minaj.

After listening to them or to any urban radio station, you will hear songs that glorify gang rape, illegal drugs, deadly violence, shooting up whole neighborhoods, etc. Think about your own daughters, sisters, mothers, grandmothers. Do they deserve the degradation when Black women do so much to lift up our community and our nation?

The time has come for us to demand action from our leaders to put a halt to such harmful behavior all too prevalent in our society. Behavior that leads to deliberate harm to others must be made costly, not glorified.

us. Well, many of us have had enough.

Along with Bob Law, President of the National Black Leadership Alliance, Rabena Rasuli of Clear the Airwaves, and the National Congress of Black Women, the organization for which I serve as National President and many others have again begun to do something about it.

We’re monitoring radio stations and the companies advertising on them.

We’ve decided to take action. We ask everyone to join us in limiting the money we spend at McDonald’s, Subway Restaurants, Adidas, Penny’s and Kohl’s until we can report that these companies are no longer making it possible for the filthiest music to be promoted—even during hours little children are listening. These companies are some of the main advertisers on urban radio stations directed at the Black Community.

On the other hand, they spend little or nothing on radio that has conscious (Dr. E. Faye Williams is president of the or positive music. We urge them to National Congress of Black Women [www. spend money where Melba Moore, nationalcongressbw.org]).

The gospel of White Supremacy: America’s brewing holy race war (TriceEdneyWire.com)—The election of Donald Trump embodies White supremacy theology that is hostile toward non-whites Black—in particular Black men. He began spurring flames of discord, as the driving force of the birther movement, and also called Mexicans rapists and targeted Muslims with a travel ban. These are underpinnings of the hate of the Ku Klux Klan and a deeply seeded Evangelical apocalyptic theology of a Holy Race War. It is a fact that White evangelicals voted at a rate of 81 percent for Trump.

As someone who attended Vacation Bible School, in the conservative bayou of Louisiana, one of the first songs I remember was “Yes, Jesus Loves Me”.

Winan United Methodist Church was the place where a White, blonde hair, and blued-eyed Christ was introduced to me as the Savior of the world. This Christ and his church was a place of safety from our personal sins, the social ills on the outside, yet assuredly as place of his love.

The fact that, in 1915, a UMC minister, William J. Simmons, played a major role in the new charter of the KKK, was either unknown or accepted by many.

Simmons’ first public order was consecrating their Christian morality by setting a fire to the old rugged cross atop of Stone Mountain, Georgia.

And yet there is an idea of racial hierarchy, embedded into religious teachings, that has been a part of our culture for over 400 years.

While confined within the chattels of slavery, religion was an outlet that gave hope in this faith of a suffering servant.

The idea was that suffering with him might make it possible to reign with him in eternity.

His blood shed, on the cross, was the horror of death and yet the beauty of a saving grace for all. However, it is the same symbol of the cross that is burned, as a form of intimidation, to remind Black people that even this White Savior can’t save them from the venom of White hate.

It seems that daily, throughout America, another Black life is suffocated to death at the hands of someone, in a blue uniform, who is protected by the government. Recently, the death of Botham Jean of Dallas has created a deeper level of anger and outrage.

Now it is being communicated that not only are Blacks in danger while driving, standing on a street corner, and in their back yard. But, there is no safe place—even in the sanctuary of their own home.

While Muslim mothers and children have been caged like animals. And, in the last 48 hours, Jews are being reminded of the never-ending antisemitism through the loss of 11 lives during a baby naming ceremony.

The use of religion to stoke racial

Dr. Keith Magee

Commentary strife and violence is prevalent in our societies. This past August 2018, while meeting with Evangelical Christian leaders, Donald Trump told them that there would be “violence” if Republicans lost their majority in Congress, as a result of November’s mid-term elections. He told them to take to their pulpit to tell their followers that this is a referendum on him, their religion and freedom of speech. The same religion that teaches love thy neighbor, don’t steal, cheat or commit adultery, is seemingly using white-out to affirm this American president. The adulterer, one

who pays for sex and speaks freely about being able to walk down 5th Avenue and shoot someone, is touted as the one to save and make America great again.

The duality of religion and vulnerability was something I learned a long time ago from my father who was a lover of dogs. As he would sit out back on a stump, he would give me world wisdoms. He often told me that “if you keep kicking a dog, he will bite back.” The preaching of “whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also”, seemed to apply only to those seen as less than human while these White Christians raged injustice and violence against our communities and leaders. Just over 50 years ago the KKK offered a $100,000 bounty for the assassination of the non-violent Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., resulting in the cowardly shooting of James Earl Ray. The snuffing out of his life led to anger and biting back with people taking to the streets in over 125 riots in American cities and around the world. This isn’t 1968 when im-

passioned response for a revolution, from was Pittsburgh to Paris to Prague, happening with protest in the streets. It would appear that this indignation of these Whites is ushering Jesus’ sign of the end, “nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.” The word nation is translated from ‘ethnos’ which is the root of ethnicity.

It is clear that the White House is being led by an Imperial Wizard and king, the GOP is serving as his Klexter (outer-guard), and his latest US Supreme Court Associate Justice is his Klarogo (sergeant-at-arms). By invoking an evangelical theology and using the Bible to justify their cruel actions, while also trying to subjugate Black people under that same God, there appears to be no recourse but to go to war.

A war for the soul of the country is the true meaning of a righteous doctrine. This hatred under the guise of religious teachings can no longer be met with patience, peace talks or Twitter protests. And, if there’s resistance in it being met with preaching the gospel of Jesus’ love to a Christian sect who apparently welcome the KKK’s, “So I’ll cherish the bright fiery cross, till from duties at last I lay down, then burn over me a bright fiery cross, the day I’m laid in the ground.”

Nor can we have any hope that this President, who just affirmed to his Texas supporters that he’s a proud nationalist and believes that if the synagogue had an armed guard there would have been a different outcome.

The only thing that he can do is continue to spark and ignite more flames of discord and hatred.

It calls to question: Do we have to accept that non-White Christians, along with White Christians, who don’t believe this rhetoric, won’t be able to enter paradise through the same pearly gates? Possibly there’s a backdoor for the rest, on a lower level, because of an unequal salvation? Or perchance there’s a difference in how Jesus loves me verses them?

It is obviously that this sect of Christians has completely forgotten the Jew, from Nazareth, who came to fulfill the law through the good news of love. It was his belief, and that of his father, Yahweh, that his death would save the entire world, regardless of difference—through his selfless act and message of love. It is that love that most dominates all of our hearts and theologies, so that we can have peace on earth.

(Dr. Keith Magee is a public intellectual, theologian, and social justice scholar. He is Senior Fellow in Culture and Justice, University College London and serves in leadership, The Berachah Church, Boston, MA and The Tab Church, London, England.)

Letters to the editor for publication The New Pittsburgh Courier welcomes all responsible viewpoints for publication. All letters should be typewritten and contain writer’s address and phone number for verification. All letters will be edited for clarity and length. Address all letters to Letters to the Editor, New Pittsburgh Courier, 315 East Carson Street, Pittsburgh, Pa. 15219 You may fax your letter to 412-481-1360, or via e-mail to letters@newpittsburghcourier.com

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SAP TECHNICAL LEAD (Multiple Openings)

TENURE STREAM ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, ISTM

L.B. Foster Company (Pittsburgh, PA) seeks SAP Technical Leads to be responsible for prvd’g tech dsgn & programming perspective to complex business & system scenarios.

Spec job duties incl: creating & executing unit test scripts to ensure the dvlpmnt objects prvde accurate results & meet rqrmnts of the business; dvlpng ABAP & Object Oriented ABAP appls on an SAP Net Weaver platform; ensuring the quality of the ABAP code & optimization for SAP HANA utilizing analysis tools, like Run time analysis, SQL Trace, code inspector & SAP ABAP Test Cockpit; correcting customer exit changes after upgrade migration of SAP ECC on HANA; carrying out ABAP code pushdown & Data modelling to SQL for ECC Suite on HANA, CDS views & AMDP; dsgn’g , testing, training & implmntng practical bus sltns. Bach’s degree in MIS, Comp Sci, Electronic Engnrng or directly rltd field, yrs of progressively responsible exper in the position offered or rltd utili ing S 4 HANA, Lumira&PA, Webi, ABAP, NetWeaver Gateway & ODATA, Webdynpro & FPM, as well as best practices w Open ODS ODP, Smart Data access & Eclipse, Lumira, Design Studio, Fiori-SAP-UI5, & Business Objects portfolio; HANA Enterprise Cloud (HEC) & cloud tools. Apply at www.lbfosterjobs.com

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Perfect Pristine Annie Lee Collectibles, Sass n lass W ertificates of Authenticity & boxes – best offer.

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THE BOARD OF PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE SCHOOL DISTRICT OF PITTSBURGH

Sealed bids will be received in the Office Of The hief Operations Officer, Room 2 1, Administration Building, 41 South Bellefield Avenue until 11:00 A.M. prevailing time November 13, 2018 and will be opened at the same hour for the purchase of the following equipment and supplies: Classroom Supplies Musical Instruments Interscholastic Athletic Supplies General Information regarding bids may be obtained at the Office of the Purchasing Agent, Service Center, 1305 Muriel Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15203. The bid documents are available on the School District’s Purchasing web site at: http:// www.pghboe.net/pps/site/default. asp Click on Bid Opportunities under Quick Links.

The Board of Public Education reserves the right to reject any and all bids, or select a single item from any bid.

M. Jordan Purchasing We are an equal rights and opportunity school district

WPXI - NEWS PRODUCER WANTED

Job Description: WPXI is seeking a full-time newscast producer with great writing, news judgment and creativity to help drive the best local newscasts in Pittsburgh.

The ideal candidate will produce newscasts with a focus on breaking news, severe weather, local news, and live shots.

We’re looking for a naturally curious, competitive producer who is a team player, a strong leader, and who communicates and collaborates with others to create great television and helps collaborate with content on digital platforms every day.

If you’re up to the challenge, this is the opportunity for you! ualifications Bachelor’s degree in broadcasting ournalism or related field preferred.

2 -3 years of newscast producing experience.

Please send resumes by email to acoulter@wpxi.com or by mail to Amy Coulter, Executive Producer, WPXI TV 4145 Evergreen Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15214.

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DIRECTOR OF RESIDENTIAL SERVICES & PROGRAMS

Operation Better Block(OBB) invites all applicants with Program Management, a passion for serving the African American community in Allegheny County, and philanthropic experience to apply. The selected individual will have supervision of up to 3 staff while coordinating all program activities needed to drive improvement in the residential and related services for various stakeholders. Activities include but are not limited to: working with project teams and partners, as appropriate, to ensure timely completion and compliance. Coordinates, plans and delivers on key programs including the development of output and outcome measures. Prefer candidates with a BS degree while an MS is a plus, prior supervisory experience, and a minimum of three to five years’ relevant experience in the nonprofit philanthropic sectors. Visit http://www.obbinc.org for more information on (OBB). Applications are only accepted at operationbetterblockjobs@gmail.com.

OBB is an EOE.

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2018 – 2019 BOARD OF TRUSTEES MEETINGS

437 Turrett Street Pittsburgh, PA 15206 Dial In: 605.475.4756 Pass Code: 403696 REGULAR TRUSTEE MEETINGS 6:00 PM Call to Order & Public Comment | 7:30 PM Adjournment September 13, 2018 October 11, 2018 December 13, 2018 February 13, 2019 April 11, 2019 June 13, 2019 Requests to speak at the public hearing will be accepted beginning one week prior to the date of the hearing until noon of the day of the meeting. Call 412-361-1008 ext 207 to register. Each speaker will be limited to three minutes of uninterrupted testimony.

COMMITTEE MEETINGS Dial In: 605.475.4756 Pass Code: 403696 (MEETINGS WILL TAKE PLACE

BY CONFERENCE CALL) 9:00 AM | School Performance 10:00 AM | Finance 11:00 AM | Executive September 4, 2018 October 1, 2018 December 3, 2018 February 4, 2019 April 1, 2019 June 3, 2019

Estate of GEORGE H. COX, Deceased of Collier Township, Pennsylvania No. 05377 of 2018. PNC Bank, National Association, Executor, c/o Sharon Whitney,300 Fifth Avenue, 31st Floor, Pittsburgh, PA 15222, and James J. Bowman,Executor, 429 Washington Avenue, Bridgeeville, PA 15017 or to AUBREY H. GLOVER, Atty; BRENLOVE & FULLER, LLC, 401 Washington Avenue, Bridgeville, PA 15017 Estate of THOMAS J. SEIFERT, Deceased of 3224 Eastmont Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15216 No. 02-18-06006 Administrator, Matthew J. Seifert, 3224 Eastmont Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15216 or to American Wills & Estates, Lloyd A. Welling, Esquire, 2100 Wharton Street, Suite 302, Birmingham Towers, Pittsburgh, PA, 15203.

Estate of HUDAK, ANTHONY S., Deceased of Franklin Park. No. 05081 of 2018. Anthony R. Hudak, 1428 Balsam Dr., Allison Park, PA 15101. Exec. or to Michael J. Saldamarco, Esq., STE. 100, 908 Perry HWY., Pittsburgh, PA 15229.

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To place a display ad in the New Pittsburgh Courier call 412-481-8302 ext. 128 or 129

RENTAL SERVICE Unfurnished Apartments

SENIORS 62 AND OLDER! The Commons at North Aiken Now accepting applications Call or stop by 412-661-1075 5330 N Aiken Ct, Pgh, 15224 Equal Housing Opportunity COURIER CLASSIFIEDS

1. The Public Parking Authority of Pittsburgh (“Authority”) shall accept sealed bids for the performance of the work described below (the Work at its office at 2 2 Boulevard of the Allies, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 15222, until 11:00 a.m. local time on Friday, December 14, 2018.

2. DESCRIPTION OF WORK: The Project entails new Dry Fire Suppression System installation for Mellon Square Parking Garage.

System consist of 4 bottom subfloors with sprinkler arrangement and 3 standpipes covering entire garage areas. Project shall meet or exceed local, state and national codes at Parking Authority owned Facilities.

3. The Instructions to Bidders, including the Form of Bid, Form of Agreement, General Conditions, Plans and Specifications, will be made available after 1:00 p.m. local time on Tuesday, November 6, 2018, via email request to the engineer, O&S Associates, Inc. at BFrasca@OandSAssociates.com.

4. A Mandatory pre-bid conference will be held at the Authority’s office at 2 2 Boulevard of the Allies, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15222 at 1:00 p.m. local time on Tuesday, November 13, 2018. The purpose of the pre-bid conference is to provide additional detail regarding the Work. The information provided at the pre-bid conference will be essential in preparing a bid to perform the Work. Persons or entities that intend to submit bids to perform the Work are required to send to the pre-bid conference at least one representative who will understand the information presented at the pre-bid conference in a manner that allows such information to be incorporated in the preparation of the bid to perform the Work. It is expected that the representative who attends the pre-bid conference will be experienced in construction matters and employed by the bidder in a supervisory capacity. Pre-bid attendance is mandatory.

5. Sealed bids received prior to the deadline will be publicly opened and read at 11:00 a.m. local time on Friday, December 14, 2018.

6. Each bid submitted must be accompanied by a bid guaranty of ten percent (10%) of the proposed bid in the form of a bid bond, certified cashier’s or treasurer’s check payable to the Authority.

7. The Authority reserves the right to in its sole discretion, (i) change, at any time prior to the bid deadline at 11:00 a.m. local time on Friday, December 14, 2018 the Contract Documents; (ii) waive any defect, irregularities, or informality in any or all submitted bids; and (iii) reject any or all submitted bids.

David G. Onorato Executive Director

COURIER CLASSIFIEDS…THE ONLY WAY TO GO!

We offer a comprehensive compensation and benefits package. nterested candidates should forward a cover letter (with salary requirements) and resume to: Amy Giammanco Employment Department 345 Sixth Avenue, 3rd Floor Pittsburgh, PA 15222-2527 AGiammanco@portauthority.org EOE

The Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business and College of Business Administration at the University of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, PA) seeks a Tenure Stream Assistant Professor in Information Systems and Technology Management to teach the undergraduate and graduate ISTM courses in database management and to conduct research in the area of health care IS and health care management. Must have a PhD degree in Information Systems. Must have proven publication record in leading academic journals on ICT implementations in organizations, usability, and healthcare IT, with special emphasis on patient-centered e-health and analytics. Please send an application expressing your interest and following attachments to: Katz Business School, 372 Mervis Hall, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260 Attention: ISTM Search Committee

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Port Authority is seeking an Associate Counsel – Claims & Litigation to represent Port Authority as the attorney of record in civil, labor, criminal and administrative matters; provide legal advice and counsel to Authority personnel; provide legal services and counseling regarding internal and external legal matters.

Essential Functions: •Provide proactive and effective legal representation for Port Authority and its officers and employees in a wide range of legal matters, including personal injury, property damage, unemployment compensation and contractual claims.

•Prepare legal documents including pleadings, discovery responses, motions, etc., as litigation needs dictate.

•Interview witnesses, parties, etc. for the development of facts relative to matters asserted against Port Authority or by Port Authority, as the issue or issues dictate.

•Draft, review, analyze and interpret legal documents, including civil complaints, answers, discovery matters, contracts, construction documents, etc.

Job requirements include: •Degree of Juris Doctorate and membership in good standing of the Pennsylvania Bar. •Valid Pennsylvania License to Practice Law. •Minimum of three (3) years substantive experience in civil litigation with emphasis on discovery, trial preparation and trial of civil matters, including personal injury and property damage cases, in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County or comparable forum.

•Admission to Pennsylvania State Courts.

•Admission to U. S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

•Demonstrated knowledge of Pennsylvania and Federal Rules of Civil and Appellate Procedure and applicable statutes.

•Demonstrated ability to analyze issues and communicate legal advice, both in written and oral form, to non-lawyers.

•Demonstrated ability in the use of Windows, Microsoft Word, Outlook and Westlaw legal research software.

•Professional and effective communication skills.

Preferred attributes: •Experience prosecuting and defending litigation matters on behalf of a Pennsylvania government agency or Pennsylvania municipal entity.

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COURIER CLASSIFIEDS… THE ONLY WAY TO GO!

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NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER

LEGAL ADVERTISING

LEGAL ADVERTISING

Bids/Proposals

Bids/Proposals

INVITATION TO BIDDERS THE PITTSBURGH WATER AND SEWER AUTHORITY ADVERTISEMENT

REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS THE PITTSBURGH WATER AND SEWER AUTHORITY ADVERTISEMENT

SEPARATE and SEALED BIDS for the following solicitation, will be received by the Office of Procurement, Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority, 1200 Penn Ave., Second Floor, Pittsburgh, PA 15222, until 2:00 PM Prevailing Time November 21, 2018. Bids must be received in the hands of and stamped in by a PWSA Procurement Officer in sufficient time prior to the opening in order for a bid to be considered.

INVITATION FOR BIDS (IFB) FOR PICKUP AND REMOVAL OF CLEAN FILL PWSA PROJECT NO. PWSA111 It is the intent of the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority (“Authority” or “PWSA”) to establish a contract for Pickup and Removal of Clean Fill, as described in this solicitation, on an “as needed” basis.

All bids must be submitted in accordance with the solicitation that can be obtained by sending an e-mail to procuremenrt@pgh2o. com. There will be no charge for the solicitation, as it will be sent via e-mail. All questions relating to the solicitation itself shall be directed to James Tracey, Contract/Procurement Specialist, via e-mail to: jtracey@pgh2o.com, no later than November 14, 2018 at 4:00 p.m.

No bonds are required.

The Contractor must assure that employees and applicants for employment are not discriminated against because of their race, color, religion, sexual preference, sex, or national origin.

The Authority reserves the right to withhold the award of the Contract for a period of 90 days after the opening of the bids.

The Authority reserves the right to reject any or all bids, and to waive any informality or minor irregularity in any bid or bids. The Authority also retains the right to investigate the qualifications of bidders prior to any award and to award contracts only to contractors who, in the sole judgment of the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority, are qualified and equipped to properly execute the specified work.

SEPARATE and SEALED BIDS for the following solicitation, will be received by the Office of Procurement, Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority, 1200 Penn Ave., Second Floor, Pittsburgh, PA 15222, until 2:00 PM Prevailing Time December 5, 2018. Bids must be received in the hands of and stamped in by a PWSA Procurement Officer in sufficient time prior to the opening in order for a bid to be considered.

REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS (RFP) HUMAN RESOURCES INFORMATION SYSTEM PWSA PROJECT NO. PWSA109 The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority (PWSA) is seeking proposals for a cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) Human Resources Information System (HRIS).

All bids must be submitted in accordance with the solicitation that can be obtained by sending an e-mail to procurement@pgh2o.com. There will be no charge for the solicitation, as it will be sent via e-mail. All questions relating to the solicitation itself shall be directed to Thoryn Simpson, Sr. Contract Specialist, via e-mail to: tsimpson@pgh2o. com, no later than November 28, 2018 at 4:00 p.m.

No pre-proposal meeting required.

No bonds are required.

The Contractor must assure that employees and applicants for employment are not discriminated against because of their race, color, religion, sexual preference, sex, or national origin.

The Authority reserves the right to withhold the award of the Contract for a period of 90 days after the opening of the bids.

The Authority reserves the right to reject any or all bids, and to waive any informality or minor irregularity in any bid or bids. The Authority also retains the right to investigate the qualifications of bidders prior to any award and to award contracts only to contractors who, in the sole judgment of the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority, are qualified and equipped to properly execute the specified work.

PORT AUTHORITY OF ALLEGHENY COUNTY ADVERTISEMENT

Separate sealed Bids for the Work as listed hereinafter will be received at the Purchasing and Materials Management Department of Port Authority of Allegheny County (Authority) Heinz 57 Center, 345 Sixth Avenue, Third Floor, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 15222-2527 until 1:30 p.m. on December 5, 2018 and will be publicly opened and read immediately thereafter at the same address. Each Bidder shall be solely responsible for assuring that its Bid is both received and time stamped by a representative of the Purchasing and Materials Management Department at or before the advertised time for submission of Bids. Bids received or time stamped in the Purchasing and Materials Management Department after the advertised time for the submission of Bids shall be non-responsive and therefore ineligible for Award.

WASH RACK REPLACEMENT AT ROSS, COLLIER GARAGES CYCLONE INSTALLATION AT ROSS, EAST LIBERTY GARAGES CONTRACT NO. SYS-18-12 G CONTRACT NO. SYS-18-12 P CONTRACT NO. SYS-18-12 E The Work of this Project includes, but is not limited to, the furnishing of all labor and materials for Wash Rack Replacement at the Ross and Collier Garages as well as cyclone installation at Ross and East Liberty Garages.

Bid Documents will be available for public inspection and may be obtained on or after November , 2018 at Authority’s offices at the following address Port Authority of Allegheny County Purchasing and Materials Management Department Heinz 57 Center 345 Sixth Avenue, Third Floor Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15222-2527 Bid Documents are available for purchase as follows: Bid Documents are available in an electronic form on compact disk upon payment of $15.00 per CD. Payment shall be by check or money order (NO CASH), payable to “Port Authority of Allegheny County.” No refunds of payment will be made.

Upon request, Bid Documents can be mailed upon receipt of payment in full. Should the purchaser wish to have the Bid Documents delivered via special delivery, such as UPS or Federal Express, the purchaser shall provide its appropriate account numbers for such special delivery methods.

This Project may be funded, in part, by, and subject to certain requirements of, the County of Allegheny and/or the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Authority, in compliance with 74 Pa.C.S. § 303, as may be amended, require that certified Diverse Businesses DBs have the maximum opportunity to participate in the performance of contracts and subcontracts for this Project. In this regard, all Bidders shall make good faith efforts in accordance with 74 Pa.C.S. § 303, to ensure that DBs have the maximum opportunity to compete for and perform contracts. Bidders shall also not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, age, disability, national origin, sexual origin, gender identity or status as a parent in the award and performance of contracts for this Project. If aid is required to involve DBs in the Work, Bidders are to contact Authority’s Director of Employee Relations and OEO at (412) 566-5262.

The Bidder’s attention is directed to the following contacts for Bidder’s questions: Procedural Questions Regarding Bidding: Cindy Denner - Authority (412) 566-5117 All other questions relating to the Bid Documents must be submitted by mail or email to: Port Authority of Allegheny County Heinz 57 Center 345 Sixth Avenue, Third Floor Pittsburgh, PA 15222-2527 Attn: Cindy Denner cdenner@portauthority.org In addition, the Bidder’s attention is directed to the following schedule of activities for preparation of its Bid: 9:00 a.m.

Pre-Bid Conference November 16, 2018 Port Authority of Allegheny County Heinz 57 Center Plaza Conference Room 345 Sixth Avenue, Third Floor Pittsburgh, PA 15222-2527 (Attendance is not mandatory, but strongly recommended) Pre-Bid Site Tour (Immediately following the Pre-Bid Conference) Participants shall wear a safety vest and appropriate footwear.

Transportation will be provided.

1:30 p.m.

Bids Due December 5, 2018 Purchasing and Materials Management Department Authority reserves the right to reject any or all Bids

To place a display ad in the New Pittsburgh Courier call 412-481-8302 ext. 128 or 129

NOVEMBER 7-13, 2018

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LEGAL ADVERTISING

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Bids/Proposals

Public Notice

OFFICIAL ADVERTISEMENT THE BOARD OF PUBLIC EDUCATION of the SCHOOL DISTRICT OF PITTSBURGH

PUBLIC NOTICE ALLEGHENY COUNTY SANITARY AUTHORITY

Sealed proposals shall be deposited at the Administration Building, Room 2 1, 41 South Bellefield Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15213, on December 4, 2018, until 2:00 P.M., local prevailing time for: •Pittsburgh Pioneer Vertical Transportation Modernization General and Electrical Primes •Pittsburgh South Annex (Online Academy) Vertical Transportation Modernization General and Electrical Primes •Pittsburgh Clayton Restroom Renovations General, Plumbing, Mechanical, Electrical, and Asbestos Abatement Primes •Pittsburgh Liberty Replace Electrical Distribution System and Emergency Generator General and Electrical Primes •Pittsburgh Morrow, Pittsburgh Pioneer/South Brook, Student Achievement Center Replace Emergency Generator Systems General and Electrical Primes •Pittsburgh Arsenal Classroom Ceilings and Lights General and Electrical Primes Project Manual and Drawings will be available for purchase on November 7, 2018 at Modern Reproductions (412-488-7700), 127 McKean Street, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15219 between 9:00 A.M. and 4:00 P.M. The cost of the Project Manual Documents is non-refundable.

Project details and dates are described in each project manual.

TO PLACE AN AD IN SOUL READERS Call 412-481-8302, Ext. 140 The deadline for all ads to be placed is Monday at 4 p.m.

All ads must be paid for in advance. We accept Money Orders, Credit Cards and Western Union “Quick Collect” payments.

The Green Committee of the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority will hold a special meeting for general purposes on November 8, 2018 at 10:00 a.m. prevailing time in the Tref Board Room at its offices located at 3300 Preble Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15233.

The public is invited to attend and participate.

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Classifieds 412-481-8302 Ext. 140 E-mail: ads@newpittsburghcourier.com Deadline/Closing/Cancellation Schedule for copy, corrections, and cancellations: Friday noon preceding Wednesday publication

Steelers get redemption over Ravens— Dobbs shows his poise, talent

by Aubrey Bruce For New Pittsburgh Courier

On Sept. 30, when the Steelers lost, 26-14, to the Baltimore Ravens at Heinz Field, there were many funeral marches played for the Steelers’ 2018 season.

There were varied components that were credited with being the origin of the Steelers’ early season losing streak, from the “phantom-like” lax disciplinary methods utilized by Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin, to the disappearance of Pittsburgh running back Le’Veon Bell, to Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and wide receiver Antonio Brown not operating on compatible “Wi-Fi” frequencies.

Losing allegedly caused the Steelers to begin to sorta, kinda start looking for love in all the wrong places, not realizing that if they found it, it would be worthless anyway. It’s funny how winning eliminates the need to draw and quarter, coaches, players and to create scapegoats to unjustly accuse and vilify. It appears that victory helps those looking for persons on whom they can vent their anger instead of using real goats to throw on the grill and barbecue for some great tailgating and some fantastic eating. Genuine goat meat certainly does far more for the taste buds than eating crow and it is far better optics than dried feathers around the corners of a few mouths: No one is whining about how Mike Tomlin has lost the team or his lack of discipline now.

A few years back when former Steelers backup QB Landry

Jones was pressed into duty after Roethlisberger was injured in the second half of a playoff game in Cincinnati against the Bengals, Jones appeared as if he were the “son of Bambi,” staring into a set of floodlights. From the outset, Jones was so ineffec-

JOSHUA DOBBS (AP Photo) tive that “Big” Ben was forced to re-enter the game in spite of his injury in order to at least give the Steelers a chance at victory.

Fast forward. During the 23-16 Steelers victory at M&T Bank stadium in Baltimore, Nov. 4, Roethlisberger was temporarily knocked out of the game. No one knew his status but the situation facing his backup QB, second-year signal caller Joshua Dobbs, was in a word, daunting. It was second down and 20, with the Steel-

ers perilously with their backs against the wall. Now they were faced with an ice-cold quarterback with the Ravens “vulture” squad fantasizing about the taste of this new wonderful prey. Instead of handing the ball off, Mr. Dobbs zipped a 22-yard completion from the Steelers 5-yard line to the 27yard line to JuJu (I can be myself on Halloween) Smith-Schuster and a first down. “Big Ben” returned on the next play and on the play after that Roethlisberger tossed a 51-yard completion to Steelers tight end Jesse James who for a second looked at the incoming football not entirely sure if it was friendly fire or not before finally hauling it in.

Tomlin had this to say about that one play. “Josh (Dobbs) is uniquely mature as an individual not as a football player. He’s ‘Steady Eddie.’ That is a personality trait. We have a great deal of confidence in him. You know, that guy was challenged in a big way to earn the job he has, the role that he has for us. He has never blinked at any point in the process even when it was seemingly stacked against him. He confirmed it with his play.”

I know one other thing that Joshua Dobbs confirmed. He made it clear that he has no intention of getting “clipboard elbow” backing up any quarterback and if he is given the opportunity is going to try to make certain that on his watch, the Pittsburgh Steelers offense will not miss a beat.

I think we may have gotten a just a small sample of his talent.

Sometimes competition can facilitate healing...you dig.

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NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER

A NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER SPECIAL REPORT

This enigmatic island nation denies that racism exists there, but a complex color bias rooted in colonialism continues to disadvantage those with dark skin

CUBA’S OPEN SECRET

by LaMont Jones Jr.

HAVANA—On a typical balmy September afternoon, pedestrians make their way along narrow streets in the heart of the capital. As a tall, lanky man saunters past Academia De Belleza, the little girl hoisted on his shoulders gazes at posters spanning the beauty school’s large windows.

The complexions of the six female models are the color of cream. The child’s skin is the shade of cocoa. And although the girl doesn’t yet understand the complexities of color in her society, those who do have good reason to doubt that she will grow up with a healthy self-image in a culture that—virtually everywhere and all the time—privileges light and white skin.

Cuba’s color problem is reflected in its neighbor country 100 miles north.

But unlike in the United States, where color and race are routinely engaged in the public sphere, those issues are not part of open discourse here. When the Cuban government ended legal discrimination by race at the end of the revolution six decades ago, the notion that racism no longer existed in Cuba became part of the national narrative.

But the truth contradicts the claim. In fact, color bias may be the most intractable social problem in this enigmatic island nation of 11 million.

Racism and its not-sodistant cousin, colorism, can be complicated topics.

In Cuba, color bias is so complex that it doesn’t fit neatly into either category, even as it evidences characteristics and consequences of both.

Colorism must be understood as “a result of racism,” explains Shawn Alfonso Wells, an Africana studies professor at Carnegie Mellon University who studies Cuba’s color-classification system and race relations.

“If there is a preference for a color or phenotypic feature, that is because higher status and better opportunities are associated with it. Racism determines who is of higher status and what access they will have to resources and opportunities. In other words, racism sets the tone of a drawing and colorism fills in the lines.”

That can help outside observers begin to understand what they see in Cuba, where the phenomena of race and color have

In the decades since, many have sponsored their kin to immigrate to the U.S. and have used the remittance system to financially benefit relatives who remain in Cuba—indirectly perpetuating the economic disparities based on color.

Mixed-race Cubans, specifically mulattos and mestiza, rank second behind White Cubans in terms of power and privilege. Cuban culture esteems them as the most physically attractive and sexually desirable —depending upon how closely their physical features conform to European beauty standards. A major benefit of this exoticism is preference in higher-paying employment in the hospitality industry as well as other public-interfacing jobs.

Meanwhile, so-called Black Cubans are, in many regards, third-class citizens. They are least likely to have the funds to leave the country for greater opportunity and most likely to be negatively influenced by government propaganda that paints the U.S. as violently racist. As a result, they are stuck on the bottom rungs of a dilapidated socioeconomic ladder in a struggling Socialist country. They are the most likely to be poor and the most vulnerable to social and economic realities that diminish quality of life.

Wells’ husband, Vladimir Alfonso, remembers the discrimination he suffered growing up in Havana with dark-brown skin inherited from his grandmothers.

From insults masked as jokes to random police harassment and abuse, to teachers questioning his intelligence, it became clear to him that dark-skinned Cubans shared a common disadvantage and disrespect.

Armed with a college education and training in electronics, Alfonso left Cuba for the U.S. in 1999. Periodic trips back to his homeland have allowed him to see how unchanged the color dynamics are.

“White people have the power. You don’t see Black people in power,” says Alfonso, 53. “You don’t see dark-skinned people in the jobs where people make money. Or in the government, at high levels in the government. We struggle.”

And the general response of Cubans?

“They say that they don’t have problems. They don’t want to talk about it.”

Alfonso is among those

an added twist. Economic and virtually all other advantages historically and contemporarily accrue to White Cubans and, to a lesser extent, light-skinned people of mixed race. White Cubans overwhelmingly were the ones with the financial means to flee to the United States when the Cuban revolution began.

who contend that Black Cubans are a majority, even though the Cuban government’s most recent census in September 2012 documented a population that was 9.3 percent Black.

But there is fluidity and subjectivity in the official tallies. Native Cubans don’t use the terms Black or Afro-Cuban, opting in-

For New Pittsburgh Courier

THE PHOTOS that are shown on the front of this beauty academy in Cuba feature only light-skinned women. Dark-skinned people in Cuba are viewed as being in a lower class. (Photos by LaMont Jones Jr.) stead for labels such as jabao, moro and Indian to differentiate among darker groups based on physical characteristics such as skin tone and hair texture.

The 2012 census identified White Cubans as the majority, just over 64 percent of the population, with mixed-race individuals constituting 26.6 percent—and often enjoying as much privilege as White Cubans.

“Light skin is considered beautiful in the U.S., but although it is also considered to be beautiful in Cuba, the epitome of beauty by Cuban standards is a mulatta,” a mixed-race woman, notes Wells, who also studies how race, gender and class intersect in the Caribbean and Americas. She notes that the bias doesn’t equally favor every mixedrace woman. Females are considered attractive to the degree that they conform to a range of physical markers beyond light skin—a nose that is narrow rather than broad, hair that is straight as opposed to kinky, lips that are thin rather than thick and other attributes associated more with Norway than Nigeria.

So, in the final analysis, it is what people see physically rather than what is declared legally that determines favor, advantage and opportunity in the lives of

everyday Cubans.

Historical roots Many historians agree that Cuba’s color-impacted history began with four Africans brought as slaves in 1513. By 1867, an estimated 500,000 others had arrived. Cuba was the last country in the Atlantic to stop importing African slaves and abolished slav-

ery in 1886.

When Cuba’s revolution ended in 1959, the new Communist-leaning Socialist government, led by Fidel Castro, immediately acted to end legal racial discrimination. In Castro’s opinion, capitalism could not dismantle social problems such as racism.

Since then, the national narrative has been a no-racism, one-Cuba man-

democracies, but where you do see images of models— as in the façade and lobby of the beauty school in central Havana—all are light or White.

Academics challenge the myth that Cubans see color, not race—as if that somehow would be better for darker-skinned Cubans, even if it were true.

While Cubans don’t share the same concept of race as

Although that no longer occurs, Cuba still perpetuates a social hierarchy according to color distinctions that are the legacy of a White-superiority ideology and colonial policies and practices. The lighter-skinned receive preference and privilege and are placed in positions of power over darker-skinned and more African-featured members within the cul-

“White people have the power. You don’t see Black people in power. You don’t see dark-skinned people in the jobs where people make money. Or in the government, at high levels in the government. We struggle.”

VLADIMIR ALFONSO tra. But Wells and other scholars say the facts tell a different story.

“Although there were jobs and opportunities in education that opened up for Blacks and mulattos in Cuba during the 1960s, racial hierarchies were not eradicated,” says Danielle Clealand, an assistant professor in the Department of Politics & International Relations at Florida International University. Her book, “The Power of Race in Cuba: Racial Ideology and Black Consciousness During the Revolution,” examines institutional mechanisms such as racial categories that reinforce racial inequality in Cuba.

“Cuba is still a culture that values Whiteness,” Clealand asserts, “and race still matters not only aesthetically, but for opportunity, as well. Non-White Cubans are still underrepresented at the university level, in managerial and other top positions, in the media and in the government. The lack of dialogue contributes to the images (of color bias) because there is no national reflection on racism and the invisibility of Blackness on the island.”

The highest-profile and best-paying jobs in Cuba tend to be in the hospitality industry, where Cubans with dark or even medium-brown skin are virtually unrepresented.

In hotels and restaurants, dark-skinned workers are rarely seen in visible roles and uncommon behind the scenes.

The exclusion is even more glaring in retail. Step into any of the few fashion shops in this capital city and you are unlikely to see a dark-skinned face among employees. There is much less signage than in competition-fueled capitalist

Americans, the admitted awareness of color distinctions is significant—and part of a larger cultural context in the southern hemisphere.

Both racism and colorism are legacies of European colonial legacies and White supremacy, but the difference is that colorism is an intraracial internalization of White supremacist ideologies. Clealand and other race scholars say color plays more prominently than the idea of race in Cuba and other Caribbean countries because the majorities in many of these countries are people of color, and there have been successful nationalist agendas that advanced a sense of unified national identity against their former colonial metropoles and other larger political powers.

So, attempts by Cuba, for example, to assert a unified national identity and deny the existence of racism are efforts to portray their national policies and identities as superior to the United States in that one regard. But the everyday material reality of people of visibly African heritage in contrast to their lighter-skinned fellow citizens calls into question the rhetoric.

Cuba is geographically unique in its location at the juncture of the Caribbean, Latin America and South America, but it reflects the same color bias evident throughout the western half of the southern hemisphere. Like some of its neighbors, Cuba was majority Black for most of its history until the government took steps to limit immigration of Africa-descended Black people while increasing White immigration in a deliberate effort to shift the racial balance.

ture. This is then borne out in a color and class divide, with light and fairskinned in the middle and upper classes and access to better jobs, education, and wealth—and the darker-skinned on the bottom of the class divide with fewer opportunities and chances to escape poverty.

“In Cuba—and all of Latin America—the color of your skin matters. Darker always correlates with fewer economic opportunities,” observes Alejandro M. de la Fuente, a Harvard University historian whose extensive research and writing focus on racial discrimination in contemporary Cuba and comparative slavery and race relations in the Caribbean and Latin America.

At Harvard, de la Fuente is a professor of Latin American history and economics and of African and African American studies, co-chair of the Cuban Studies Program and director of the Afro-Latin American Research Institute. One of America’s foremost authorities on color and race in Cuba, he has written books and organized seminars and conferences that inform the discussion.

“It is false that Cubans see color and not race,” asserts de la Fuente, who holds a law degree from the University of Havana.

“Color operates as a proxy for race.”

In 2013, discussing strides toward racial equality Cuba made after the revolution, de la Fuente wrote in an op-ed piece in the New York Times that “despite Cuba’s success in reducing racial inequality, young Black males continued to be seen as potential criminals. Perceptions of SEE SPECIAL REPORT B7

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people of African descent as racially differentiated and inferior continued to permeate Cuban society and institutions.”

Despite significant major changes, he wrote, “Blackness continued to be associated with negative social and cultural features.

Black was still ugly. Black still meant deficit of culture and refinement, rates of schooling notwithstanding.

Black was still associated with violence, rape, robbery, crime. Black continued to be Black. The justice system kept criminalizing Black youths, sending a scandalous number of them to prison. In this regard, Cuba looked very much like the United States.”

In spite of the persistent denials of racism, Cuban children are given informal color categories in the census. When they reach adulthood, the government assigns them a formal racial category based on their physical appearance.

“Nobody is born Black in Cuba,” says de la Fuente.

“People are made to be, socially, Black or White.”

or indigenous ‘blood’ that prevented one from accessing particular jobs or marrying someone from a higher caste. This loophole in the caste laws provided wealthy free people of color the possibility of buying whiteness.”

The policy was an inversion of the so-called “onedrop rule” in the United States, where anyone believed to possess even the remotest trace of African ancestry was considered Black by both Whites and Blacks. Although Cuba has formally moved from a policy under which “one drop of non-Black blood makes you not Black,” Queeley said, its legacy “has helped maintain this system of inequality in that it is possible for people of color to gain social status, but only if they assimilate into whiteness physically or culturally.”

“This practice of organizing the distribution of resources around color and other racialized features such as hair texture, nose width, etc., was enshrined in law,” adds Queeley, an associate professor of anthropology in the Department

Black characters on television. It is important to understand that Cubans across the color spectrum participate in this, and that there is a clear contradiction between the antiracist ideology so many believe in and the everyday behaviors we see.”

The economic consequences of race and color bias are far-reaching and affect everyday life for victims. For example, dark-skinned men and women, rarely able to gain employment in Cuba’s increasingly profitable tourism industry, have created underground ways to participate in the economy. Although the impact of color bias may be most severe in Cuba, whose population remains more culturally isolated than formerly colonized neighbors in the Caribbean and Latin America, the politics of color have similarly debilitating effects in those countries.

And not one of those countries can one go and find where the opposite is true— where darker-skinned citizens have preference

IN CUBA, it’s evident that light-skinned people are viewed in a higher class than those with dark skin.

(Photos by LaMont Jones Jr.) tured, institutionalized and violent. It is racial homogeneity in neighborhoods, schools, recreation facilities, jobs, etc. The (Cuban) revolution eliminated these forms of racism and so, for

At the same time, says Queeley, it subjects lighter-skinned, mixed-race women “to a particularly vociferous sexual objectification in the Cuban imaginary.”

for formal employment in the tourist industry. And, you guessed it, people who are darker and have more African features cannot possess a good appearance by definition.”

“Nobody is born Black in Cuba. People are made to be, socially, Black or White.”

‘Pigmentocracy’ influences Further compounding the deep complexities of race and color in Cuba is the country’s relative cultural, social and political isolation and how it shapes the average Cuban’s self-awareness and worldview.

The history of most Caribbean, Latin American and South American countries—shaped over centuries by a combination of indigenous native and later African and European cultures—reveals the roots of color bias. While Spanish, French, British, Dutch and Portuguese colonizers planted the seeds of racism and color bias, the United States helped water them.

Color bias in Cuba has been shaped by individual attitudes domestically and institutional policies abroad. The phenomenon closely resembles color dynamics in the United States, as de la Fuente notes, but in Cuba it is more blatant and accepted.

“The basis of colorism in Cuba is a combination of colonialism, enslavement, U.S. intervention and legislative policies,” explains Wells. “It is not just a person’s color per se that determines how they are perceived, but socio-economic status and phenotypic features also play important roles.”

Though African Americans with extremely light skin and European features sometimes have intentionally “passed” for White in the U.S., race historically was much more fluid in Cuba. In colonial Cuba, for example, nonWhites—no matter how dark-skinned—could literally purchase whiteness, and, presumably, the attendant privileges.

“Free people of color,” anthropological scholar Andrea Queeley explains, “could change their caste by buying what was called a ‘cedula de gracias al sacar,’ which was a certificate given by the king that ‘took out’ the African and

of Global and Sociocultural Studies at Florida International University. “Colonial Cuba, similar to the rest of Latin America, was governed by caste laws that were based on a hierarchy of ‘race’ and origin and limited free Black upward mobility through such tenets as restricting the jobs they could perform, clothes they could wear, weapons they could carry, etc.”

Cuba and other nations subjected to Spanish colonialism differed from British-style colonialism in the implications of color and ethnicity. In addition to purchasing whiteness in the manner outlined by Queeley, there was a generational way that nonWhites could transition to whiteness. Individuals who married White could, with each generation, whiten their families out of Blackness and into higher social strata.

The combination of internal and external influences turned Cuba into what some scholars call a “pigmentocracy” in which past de jure and current de facto color bias ensure that darkskinned people are economically disadvantaged.

In her research on structural social and economic inequalities in the African diaspora and how racialized people assert shifting cultural identities within social hierarchies, Queeley has found that notions of Black inferiority are held

by Cubans of all colors.

“When in Cuba, I was often confronted with how deeply held and unquestioned the belief in Black inferiority is. It was apparent in everything, from someone wondering why I, as an educated woman, don’t straighten my hair in order to ‘improve’ my race, to jokes, sayings and stories that reinforced the connection between Blackness and criminality, filth and hypersexuality, to the startlingly ubiquitous presence of racist imagery in the form of Blackface dolls and stereotypical

and privilege over lighter-skinned or White groups.

Race self-identification in Cuba is no longer negotiated and transacted in a cold, commodity-like manner. However, the contrasting physical appearances among the population that have resulted from longstanding cultural color codes still matter.

And the repercussions are deeply personal. When physical traits are consistently used to advantage some groups and disadvantage others, it becomes “a form of psychological abuse that has a lasting impact on victims,” says Shanika Lavi Wilson, an assistant professor in the Department of Social Work at North Carolina Central University. She’s also a therapist whose research interests include racial identity and mental health and the intersection of colorism and well-being.

“Hearing constant negative messages regarding your skin tone or other phenotypical features can affect the way you view yourself, can alter your perception of how society views you, and can cause you to have an unhealthy racial identity, which can indefinitely affect your mental health and well-being,” says Wilson.

People are particularly vulnerable to such influences in childhood, when self-esteem is formed in ways that often last a lifetime. In cultures such as Cuba where physical appearance, particularly skin color, is so determinative of opportunity, color bias cannot be dismissed as less insidious than race bias.

Gendered colorism The complexity of race and color in Cuba tends to leave the average outsider confused and the average Cuban conflicted.

“This conflict is in part due to the way in which Cubans define racism,” says Queeley. “For many, ‘racismo’ is de jure segregation, a la the U.S. Jim Crow and the KKK. It is struc-

many, racism doesn’t exist.

And the preference for light skin? Well, that is simply common sense.”

In the U.S., colorism among African Americans has diminished but is still a divisive issue. It was the subject of Spike Lee’s seminal 1988 movie “School Daze” and has been the focus of several documentaries, including at least one in Cuba.

Wells, who has traveled to her husband’s native land

“The Cuban saying that Black women are for work, White women are for marriage and mulattas are for sex illustrates this, and the notion that the darker one is, the less attractive,” she says. “Of course, there would be no mixed people without the sexual and psychological terrorism to which Black women have been subjected.”

The consequences of color bias impact everyday life for darker-skinned Cuban

Clealand discusses the phenomenon in her 2015 book, “Rescuing Our Roots: The African Anglo-Caribbean Diaspora in Contemporary Cuba.” The “exclusion of darker-skinned Cubans from the new economy,” she contends, has “motivated Cubans of English-speaking Caribbean origin to revitalize their ethnic institutions in search of an affirmative Blackness to buffer themselves from the increasingly overt Negro-

“Cuba is still a culture that values whiteness, and race still matters not only aesthetically, but for opportunity, as well.

Non-White Cubans are still underrepresented at the university level, in managerial and other top positions, in the media and in the government.”

DANIELLE CLEALAND

Assistant Professor Department of Politics & International Relations Florida international University many times, has witnessed blatant color bias that is treated as normal.

“People who are considered to be people of color will say some very racist things about darker-skinned people to their faces,” she says, recalling an incident in a home where a girl called a dark-skinned visitor “Donkey Kong,” a reference to a gorilla featured in a popular 1980s video game.

“Everybody was laughing,” Wells says. “I was profoundly disturbed.”

The effects of colorism and what makes one more preferable, especially among women, is evident in the U.S. and other democracies, particularly in the West. Consider the idea of “crossover appeal” in entertainment that leads performers of color to deliberately conform to a European beauty standard in hopes of appealing to greater numbers of consumers, particularly Whites.

Multiple decisions—from straightening, lengthening and lightening hair to creating the appearance of lighter skin to making bodies and facial features thinner—are routinely made by women of color, perhaps most notably Jennifer Lopez and Beyoncé.

It’s not a burden generally borne by their male counterparts, Michael Jackson notwithstanding.

“Colorism is extremely gendered,” notes Wells.

“Color doesn’t affect men the same way because men aren’t judged based on their looks in the same way that women are.”

If the society-assigned value of a person is dependent upon appearance for women more so than men, then a color hierarchy would affect women more than men. On a practical level, that makes color bias in Cuba particularly burdensome for dark-skinned women.

women. They are subjected to different ideals and expectations in terms of attractiveness and desirability that contribute to limitations on work, social and class mobility. For women who live in a society where they are already limited by gender as to what kinds of work they can pursue, areas related to beauty, sales and other industries that rely on selling image vis-avis cultural norms of beauty become unavailable, as well, further limiting the kind of work they might pursue.

Cuba’s evolution since the Soviet Union’s collapse and, more recently, the rise in foreign tourism have exposed color bias and its impact, notes Clealand.

“Jobs in tourism are the most lucrative, and they are disproportionately available to White and lighter-skinned Cubans due to an informal policy or practice known as ‘buena presencia.’ Literally meaning ‘good appearance,’ this policy dictates that people who have it are preferred

phobia.”

In other words, they are finding ways to mediate the oppression of color bias by using their cultural histories to affirm their worth, dignity and beauty.

Indigenous hip-hop artists are at the forefront of public conversation about color and race in Cuba.

Sometimes they engage the issue in their music, risking a ban by the government. Anything that can be construed as criticizing the country or the government, or that openly defies the national narrative, invites repercussions.

“It’s a difficult topic to address,” says Harvard’s de la Fuente. “The difference in other countries is that Afrocentric movements would go after publicity and marketing that excluded darker skin. In Cuba, they can’t inject that message in public discussion.

There is a vibrant Afro-Cuban movement, but the public spaces for them to press demands and make claims and raise voices are still fairly limited.”

LAMONT JONES JR. is an award-winning veteran journalist across multiple genres and an independent book publisher. He is the author of two books and resides just outside Washington, D.C.

B8

NOVEMBER 7-13, 2018

Hate and horror – When does it stop?

(TriceEdneyWire.com)—As strange as it seems, I now view the Bush years with nostalgia. Both Big Bush (POTUS 41) and his son Shrub (POTUS 43) incurred the ire of Democrats, with Shrubs Supreme Court-complicit theft of the 2000 election prompting anger and protests.

Both Bushes, perhaps because of their love of country, comported themselves as gentlemen despite the protests. In the face of Democratic anger, they exuded civility. And why not? Each won his election, each loved the country, neither had to be mean or hateful to Democrats, people of color, immigrants, Jewish people, the GBLTQ community or anyone else.

While they did not budge on their ideology, neither painted their political opponents as enemies.

Fast forward. Now we have a President who lost the popular vote by 3 million. He bullied his way into the Republican nomination, doing the kind of name-calling that we’d put a 5-year-old on a timeout for. And he has blustered his way into the Presidency with the same invective, hate, anger, and crowd-pleasing tirades that marked his campaign. Even when he attempts to be decent, which means merely reading from the teleprompter language someone else has drafted, he has to stop, mid-comment, to pat himself on the back and remind us that he is “being good.” Really! A 70-year-old man trumpets that he is “being good” and he expects applause.

The tragedy of Trump is that his Republican allies have not condemned his nonsense because they see political gains in

Julianne Malveaux

Commentary his “leadership.” Motivated by 45, Cesar Sayoc has “allegedly” mailed at least 15 pipe bombs to Democratic political figures that Trump has criticized. Instead of doing the decent thing (like calling his predecessors, Presidents Obama, and Clinton to pledge to use federal resources to get to the bottom of this madness), he spent time speculating that perhaps this was a Democratic set-up. Even when Sayoc, with a van emblazoned with Trump paraphernalia and anti-CNN propaganda, was caught, he had little to say to condemn the bomber. We don’t know if Sayoc worked alone, or had company.

We do know that Democratic leaders are being forced, now, to take precautions against insanity.

During the same week that Sayoc was arrested, on Oct. 24, a White man, Gregory Bush, 51, tried to break his way into First Baptist Church, a Black church in Jeffersontown, Kentucky, a suburb of Louisville. When he failed to gain entry to the church, he went to a nearby Kroger and shot a Black woman Vicki Jones, 67, in the store. Then he shot Maurice Stellard, 69, in the parking lot, in front of his 12-year-old grandson. A White man had the possibility of shooting him to stop him, but when Bush assured the White man that “White people don’t shoot White people,” he let him go. Thankfully, law enforcement officers caught him, but it took them four days to declare his crimes a hate crime. Why? Have we so normalized the shooting of Black people that it is okay for an armed bigot to go into a public space and kill Black people and law enforcement officials have to think about whether this is a hate crime or not?

The end of a week when hate prevailed was the occasion of the worst crime of that week. Robert Gregory Bowers, 46, entered the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and massacred 11 people. The oldest was a Holocaust survivor in her 90s, the youngest, a pair of disabled brothers in their 50s. Bowers has now pleaded not guilty to 44 counts of murder, attempted murder and hate crimes. Our hateful President, despite community pleading, insisted on visiting Pittsburgh for a photo op (he says to pay his respects).

It is futile to think that a man who uses hateful rhetoric as his stock in trade will back down, even as it is clear that the rhetoric is working. It is pointless to think that Republicans will call him to task because they are gaining too much from his hate. It is fruitless to think that some of the Republican White men in power—Sen. Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Paul Ryan, Sen. Lindsey Graham, and others—will talk to White men like Gregory Bush, Robert Gregory Bowers, and Cesar Sayoc—to explain why their actions are unacceptable. The new reality is that we have an unchecked leader who spews hate and his loyal army follows with hateful actions, whether it is assaulting people who come to his rallies, chanting ugliness, or sending bombs and killing people.

The week of Oct. 22 may have been one of the saddest weeks in our nation’s recent history. It is unfortunate because of the hate spewed and the lives lost, but also because of the delayed news coverage of the Jacksontown massacres of two Black people at a Kroger’s store. Initially, the media failed to connect the dots, leaving many Black people ready to shout, again, Black Lives Matter. Hate is hate is hate is hate, and we have to resist it all! Republicans of conscience, where are you.

(Julianne Malveaux is an author and economist.)

FORUM

I am in God’s will — Are you?

On Sunday, Oct. 21, my what God had left me in home church, New Desti- Louis ‘Hop’ Kendrick his will. God had willed ny CME, canceled church me the true understandservice. I pondered for a ing of his greatest comfew minutes over what mandment, LOVE. The church I would attend. I understanding was fuleventually decided that I filled under the guidance would drive to East Hills of my father and mother, and attend Petra Ministrue Christians. tries, pastored by Bishop My brothers, sister Donald Clay. and I were introduced to It proved to be a wonderful decision, because church and God from our birth. As I grew into Bishop Clay is an excellent preacher and teach- maturity and developed a true understanding of er, and he was in a teaching mood that Sunday. Love Thy Neighbor As Thyself, loving and proHe focused not on the will of God but the es- viding for my family. My father’s favorite gospel tablished fact that God had included some of song was, “I am on the battlefield for my Lord.” us, most of us in his will. It was apparent to Daddy instilled in me a sense of commitment me instantly that I had made the right choice that it was mandated that I was destined to be attending Petra Ministries. not an officer, but a soldier on the BATTLEBishop Clay started off with the earthly chal- FIELD OF EQUALITY FOR MY PEOPLE. lenge of how we are so concerned about parents At the conclusion of church I made a point of or grandparents leaving us something in their congratulating Bishop Donald Clay and I told a will, money, property, etc. Then he reminded us number of persons about the message: “GOD’S about what God had left us in his will, what he WILL.” (Louis “Hop” Kendrick is a contributor to the New Pittshad bequeathed us. It was obvious to me that I was one of those, because I have always realized burgh Courier.)

To Tell The Truth

The mayor of Pittsburgh— poetic or offensive?

In the third decade of of humanity toward recthe 20th century, Jean J. Pharaoh Doss ognizing we are all one.

Toomer published a book The mayor’s words were called Cane. It was critipoetic like Robert Kencally acclaimed and connedy’s words after MLK sidered visionary—for Jr.’s assassination. (Let’s a “Negro.” This upset dedicate ourselves to Toomer. He felt betrayed what the Greeks wrote so by his White publishers many years ago, to tame who introduced him to the savageness of man the public as a “Negro” and make gentle the life writer against his wishes. Baffled by Toomer’s of this world.) The mayor echoed Jean Toomer’s anger and his preference to be known as an vision of the future, except the mayor suggested “American” writer the publishers asked Toom- we are still marching toward this goal of comer why he rejected his race. Toomer replied he monality, the time still isn’t ripe. But the time didn’t reject it, he rejected their version of it. was ripe a quarter of a century ago and the naToomer explained social strife caused by ra- tion is tragically behind schedule. cial/ethnic/and religious tension would evapoWhat’s the hold up? rate once different groups embraced a common Most will answer because hate is taught, but identity, and Toomer wanted to be a pioneer in there’s something else being taught that subtle. promoting our common bond. Toomer’s vision of Suppose the mayor of Pittsburgh was invited the future was beyond the publisher’s compre- to give a speech at the University of California hension. on a regular day, and the mayor said the same A decade later, James Weldon Johnson, lyric poetic words to encourage the next generation writer of Lift Every Voice and Sing, wanted to to join the march toward recognizing we are include some of Toomer’s poetry in an anthol- all human beings. The mayor would have been ogy of Negro literature. Toomer reiterated his shouted down and ran off campus for being ofvision of the future. Johnson acknowledged fensive.

Toomer’s individual position as an American Why? but expressed the time wasn’t ripe for a genIn 2015 the University of California produced eral movement toward the Americanization of a list of over 50 statements their administraall people in the United States and Toomer was tion classified as microaggressions. They deleft out of the anthology. fined microaggressions as everyday verbal and Let’s fast forward to the second decade of the nonverbal slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate 21st century.

Recently, in Pittsburgh, an armed man en- hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to tartered a synagogue and executed 11 worshippers get persons based solely upon their marginaland wounded six others. This was the deadliest ized group membership.

And under the section marked colorblindness anti-Semitic attack in American history. During the aftermath’s press conference, the mayor of the statement, “There is only one race, the huPittsburgh fielded questions about getting rid of man race” is listed as a microaggression that the gun in American society and the massacre’s shouldn’t be said in public.

Apparently, we can only proclaim our oneness impact on the midterm elections, but the mayor concluded by stating, there is an outpouring as human beings after a tragedy, that’s the only being heard through the people of Pittsburgh, time the idea will be tolerated by those taught right now, of where people want to see society to reject it on a regular basis, and the march tomove toward, and it’s not about finding ways ward recognizing our common bond is preventto divide us, it’s about finding ways to unite us ed for another century.

(J. Pharaoh Doss is a contributor to the New Pittsburgh through our commonalty as humans. Let this horrific episode be another mark in the march Courier.)

Check It Out

President Trump’s latest idea: A cruel and unconstitutional attack on American birthrights The first sentence of the overturn 150 years of law, 14th Amendment makes it Jesse Jackson Sr. history and equality, I was clear, “All persons born or baffled. The idea was crunaturalized in the United el, wrongheaded and unStates, and subject to the constitutional. Surely, the jurisdiction thereof, are citpresident and his advisers izens of the United States must know that he cannot and of the State wherein overturn a constitutional they reside.” amendment with an execuThat has been the law of tive order nor can Congress our great country for 150 do it by passing a law. The years. Now President Trump wants to destroy only way constitutional amendment can be it—a betrayal of the oath he took nearly two overturned is with a constitutional amendment. years ago to protect and uphold the ConstituHe can’t be serious, I thought. Then I realized tion of the United States. there are just seven days to go before the midThe 14th Amendment, according to professor term elections. President Trump is trying to Akhil Reed Amar of Yale Law School, essen- distract and divide us with harsh words and tially declares that if you were born here or heartless policies. naturalized it does not matter “if you’re male This is a season of darkness. But with our or female, rich or poor, Black or White, gay or votes on Tuesday, Nov. 6 we can turn on the straight, the daughter of a president or the son lights so bright that even President Trump of an undocumented” immigrant. will see that we will not be divided, distracted “You’re a free and equal citizen.” or discouraged—that we are united in taking This principle of equal citizenship, Professor back our country and preserving our American Amar adds, “was at the core of the Republi- birthrights. can vision for post-Civil War America.”

The purpose of the birthright provision of the 14th Amendment was wide ranging. It was a direct assault on the dreadful Dred Scott decision, and overturned the idea that former slaves were not citizens and therefore had no rights a White man must respect. It reflected the language of the 1866 Civil Rights Act and negated the infamous Black Codes that were adopted to limit the rights of former slaves.

So, when I first heard that President Trump wanted to revoke birthright citizenship with an executive order, and

Commentary

NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER

Bill Fletcher Jr.

Commentary

Our parents lied to us

(NNPA)—In the immediate aftermath of the discovery of bombs targeted at Democratic political leaders, media outlets and personalities critical of Donald Trump, I found myself thinking about that old rhyme, “…sticks and stones will break your bones, but names will never hurt you…” Well, it turns out that was a lie; names and words do hurt.

Trump’s immediate reply to the discovery of the bombs was to call for unity and then, once again, attack the media, as if the media is the source of the growing political tension. Yet what was missing was any acknowledgement of the impact of his own words. Take, for instance, his support of a Republican Congressman—Greg Gianforte—who assaulted a journalist. To praise such a person, even if Trump was joking (and I have no reason to believe that he was joking) sends a message that physical assault is permissible. Or, consider what took place last year in Charlottesville with the march of the neofascists.

When Trump condemned both sides equally, failing to acknowledge that it was the neofascists who not only provoked violence but killed a demonstrator, he was sending a dangerous signal.

It is not a giant step between approving physical assault and members of his base believing that it is permissible to up the ante and plant bombs.

I hasten to add that as soon as the bombs were discovered, many Trump supporters jumped forward describing this as a “false flag” operation, i.e., something made to look as if it originated from the political Right but actually came from the Left. This has been the response of the political Right generally when right-wing terrorist plots or actions have been discovered. What we do know is that since 11 September 2001, the preponderance of terrorist actions in the USA have originated among right-wingers (rather than jihadists), so the likelihood is that the actions did arise from the Right.

So, not only do we now know that the alleged bomber was a Trump supporter but that this attempt at mass assassination has coincided with the murder of two African Americans in Kentucky and the massacre of Jewish worshipers in Pittsburgh. Trump’s language has encouraged an obnoxious, offensive and dangerous behavior among his supporters, a behavior which he has either failed to condemn, explained away or minimized. His behavior and language have encouraged the open use of racist and sexist rhetoric; it has encouraged the mocking of the disabled; it has encouraged assaults and harassment of various racial, ethnic, and religious minorities, not to mention the harassment and vilification of women.

And even when he chooses to condemn any action taken by a domestic terrorist, his words ring hollow, as former President Obama noted last week.

So, let’s be clear that this is not a moment to ignore the words of demagogues. This is not a moment to question the thinking of President Trump or his intent. His intent is obvious insofar as he lays the groundwork for his followers to go forth and engage in a range of actions that have no place in a society that calls itself democratic. This is a moment to challenge the words of a demagogue and the actions of his followers directly and create an environment in which racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia and religious bigotry is never tolerated. There is no middle ground on this.

(Bill Fletcher Jr. is the former president of TransAfrica Forum.)

METRO

NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER

NOVEMBER 7-13, 2018

65 of 98 homicides Black lives...October sees deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history HOMICIDES FROM A1

OCT. 1—Andrew Jefferson, a 26-year-old Black male, was found dead in the 1800 block of Forte Alley in McKeesport by officers responding to a shots-fired call.

Allegheny County Homicide Lt. Andrew Schurman said he had been shot in the head four times. No suspect has yet been identified. Anyone with information is asked to call the county tipline at 833-255-8477.

OCT. 3—Eric Turner, a 40-year-old Black male, was killed in the 500 block of Mullberry Alley in Clairton when a man he’d already shot twice took the gun from him and shot him in the head. Allegheny County Homicide Lt. Andrew Schurman said Turner and a 42-year-old male were in a heated argument when Turner pulled a pistol and shot the other man in the arm and leg. A fight ensued during which Turner was shot. Schurman said witnesses corroborated the surviving victim’s account. The district attorney will determine if charges will be filed.

OCT. 13—Abdulganiyu Sanusi, a 56-year-old Black male, was fatally shot while delivering pizzas for Domino’s on North St. Clair Street in East Liberty. Pittsburgh police Spokesman Chris Togneri said a witness hear someone shout, “Give me your money” twice, then a gunshot. D’Ambrosse Garland, 18, and Timothy Walls, 17, were arrested five days later and have been charged with homicide. Both are in the Allegheny County Jail.

OCT. 27—Joyce Fienberg, a 75-year-old White female; Richard Gottfried, a 65-year-old White Male; Rose Mallinger, a 97-yearold White female; Jerry Rabinowitz, a 66-yearold White male; Cecil Rosenthal, a 59-year-old White male; David Rosenthal, a 54-year-old White male; Bernice Simon, an 84-year-old White female; Sylvan Simon, an 86-year-old White male; Daniel Stein, a 71-yearold White male; Melvin Wax, an 87-year-old White male, and Irving Younger, a 69-year-old White male, were all shot and killed at the Tree of Life synagogue on Wilkins Avenue in Squirrel Hill during an ethnically-motivated killing spree allegedly carried out by 46-year-old Robert Bowers.

He faces the death penalty on 35 state charges including homicide, attempted homicide, aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation. He also faces the death penalty for some of the 29 federal charges he also faces related to the massacre.

For reason they declined to disclose, federal authorities have moved Bowers to the Butler County prison where he will await trial.

September Homicides (6) SEPT. 3—Brashaun Green, a 21-year-old Black male from McKeesport, was found by police in a hallway at the Mifflin Estates housing complex in West Mifflin with multiple gunshot wounds. Allegheny County detectives are investigating. Anyone with information is asked to call the tip line at 1-833255-8477.

SEPT. 4—John Faulk, a 45-year-old Black male, was fatally shot multiple times outside Lady Di’s bar in East Hills. One of the bullets went into the bar and struck a woman in the leg. She is recovering. Pittsburgh police arrested 37-year-old Timothy Noel Jr. at his Wilkinsburg home, Sept. 7. He is in the Allegheny County Jail awaiting trial on homicide and gun-related charges.

SEPT. 10—Khalil Andrew Logan, an 18-year-old Black male, was found

by Wilkinsburg police fatally shot in an abandoned building at 1679 Laketon Road. Patrol officers had seen an individual leaving the building just before the department received a 911 call about shots fired at that location.

Penn Hills officers detained 18-yearold Deshere Davenport of Hazelwood not far from the scene. According to Allegheny County police, Davenport claimed he thought Logan was going to shoot him, so he shot first. He is now in the county jail awaiting trial on homicide and gun-related charges.

SEPT. 17—Loxley Johns, a 65-year-old White male, died as a result of injuries he sustained when he was beaten and bound during a Sept. 5 home invasion robbery in Penn Hills. Charles Pershing, 35, who had already faced multiple charges related to the attack, has now been charged with homicide. He remains in

the county jail.

SEPT. 18—Emannuel Boneza, a 32-year-old Black male, was shot multiple times near the intersection of South Star and West avenues in Bellevue. County police charged 20-year-old Musa Muya with the killing. His accomplice, Salimu Salim, also 20, was charged with gun violations and evidence tampering.

SEPT. 22—Bronson Szallar, a 22-year-old White male, was found by police with a gunshot wound to the head in a car in the 1100 block of Grant Avenue in Duquesne. Police said witnesses saw two men running from the scene toward a nearby baseball field. The investigation continues. Anyone with information is asked to call the tip line at 1-833255-8477.

August Homicides (9) AUG. 1—Richard Price, a 27-year-old Black male, was fatally shot during a brawl at the Hays Manor housing complex in McKees Rocks. Donta Nicotero, 17, was arrested, Aug. 24, and has been charged as an adult with the shooting. He is currently awaiting trial in the Allegheny County Jail.

AUG. 5—Robert Barnett, a 28-year-old Black male, died from a gunshot wound he received during a July 28 fight when Aamina Renee Woods, 36, and three friends went to Barnett’s Stowe Township home to retrieve a relative’s car. Woods was arrested fleeing the scene that evening and charged with attempted murder and assault.

She is now charged with homicide and is in the county Jail.

AUG. 6—Lanny Hutson, a 57-year-old Black male, was shot 17 times by his grandson, 22-yearold Jhalil Rakwon Brown, at his Abraham Street home in McKeesport. Hutson was pronounced dead at the scene. Police arrested Brown, who was standing outside the home when they arrived. He is now awaiting trial in the county jail.

AUG. 8—Tamon Hatchin, a 24-year-old Black male, was fatally shot in broad daylight near the intersection of Brownsville Road and Marland Street in Knoxville after an altercation with 32-year-old Earl Jackson.

His car was spotted in Elliott later, and after a two-hour standoff, SWAT team officers brought him out of the Steuben Street rowhouse where he’d been hiding in a basement garbage can.

He is now awaiting trial in the county jail.

AUG. 12—Elaine Pearson, a 63-year-old Black female, was found fatally shot as she sat in a silver SUV in the 1500 block of Lincoln Avenue in Lincoln-Lemington. Police have not yet identified a suspect and ask anyone with information to call city homicide detectives at 412-323-7800.

AUG. 13—Donnell Demery, a 54-year-old Black male, was fatally shot after an argument with another patron inside the 1313 Bar in Duquesne. Carl Jones, 27, left and returned to the bar with a gun and shot Demery multiple times. After a weeklong manhunt, Allegheny County Sheriff’s Deputies arrested Jones at a home on Dinwiddie Street in the Hill District after a K-9 found him hiding inside. He is awaiting trial in the county jail.

AUG. 16—Antwon Jones, a 36-year-old Black male from Atlanta, died a day after a foot-patrol officer witnessed 40-yearold Lamont Pendleton shoot him in the 2400 Block of Bedford Avenue in the Hill District.

The officer called for Pendleton to drop the gun, but he ran. After a brief chase, Pendleton was taken into custody, but by then had tossed the weapon. He is awaiting trial in the county jail.

AUG. 19—Dulane Cameron Jr., a 24-year-old Black male, was fatally stabbed in the neck on the North Shore. According to police and witnesses, a shirtless Joden Rocco—apparently motivated by his dislike for Blacks, confronted Cameron and a friend as they left a bar. Rocco then allegedly assaulted Cameron, stabbing him during the attack.

Rocco is in the Allegheny County Jail awaiting trial for homicide.

AUG. 31—Daniel Ling, an 18-year-old Asian male, was fatally shot during what Pittsburgh police said was an attempted home invasion on Monastery Avenue on the South Side Slopes.

Police said Ling, who was armed, apparently entered the house intent on robbery but was met by the resident. During the ensuing struggle, the resident gained control of Ling’s gun and shot him.

No charges have been filed.

July Homicides (5) JULY 7—Ricardo Tobia, a 71-year-old White male, was found dead in his Carrick home having suffered multiple stab wounds and a gunshot wound to the head. His dog had also been shot in the head and had its throat cut. On July 10, police charged his longtime companion, Joseph Martin, 35, with the killing.

Martin had been committed to the psychiatric ward at Jefferson Hospital, but is now in the county jail.

JULY 8—Zack Moore, a 28-yearold Black male, was shot in the head and dumped from a rented car along East Pittsburgh McKeesport Boulevard between Dixon and Port Perry avenues. The car, rented by Darrell Hardy, 29 of North Versailles, was found on fire about 40 minutes after police discovered Moore’s body. Hardy has been charged with Moore’s death and is in the county jail.

JULY 16—Tyrelle Bowyer, a 15-year-old Black male, was found shot in the back of the head by Wilkinsburg police on a heavily wooded part of North Dell Way near Penn Avenue. One week later, police arrested 17-year-old Brandon McFarland for the shooting. He is currently awaiting arraignment in the county jail and will be tried as an adult.

JULY 28—Vera Williams Butler, a 54-year-old Black Female, was found by police in the 200 Block of Luray Street on the North Side having been shot multiple times.

She died at the scene. Police have not yet identified a suspect and are asking anyone with information to call the homicide squad at 412323-7161.

JULY 28—Jassin Al-Maleky, an 18-year-old Black male, was fatally wounded while he and several other onlookers watched a fistfight between two people in Kennedy Township. At some point one onlooker pulled a gun and fired into the crowd, striking Al-Maleky.

He was treated at the scene and transported to Ohio Valley Hospital where he died of his wounds. The investigation continues. Anyone with information is asked to call the Allegheny County Police tip line at 1-833-255-8477.

June Homicides (10) JUNE 1—Kevin R. Thompson, a 46-year-old White male, was allegedly beaten, stabbed multiple times, then dismembered by 42-year-old John Robert Dickson, who had been staying in Thompson’s Carrick home. Pittsburgh police said Dickson admitted the killing to two witnesses and also wrote a confession in a notebook.

Dickson is in the Allegheny County Jail awaiting trial.

JUNE 2—Mujahid Hanif, a 28-year-old Black male, was allegedly shot three times by 29-year-old James Glenn following a dispute over a dirt bike, according to Pittsburgh Police who found Hanif’s body stuffed under the rear steps to his home in the 600 block of Hillsboro Street in Sheraden. Police said Glenn admitted to the killing during questioning and is now in the Allegheny County Jail.

JUNE 14—Major Troutman, a 3-year-old Black male who died at UPMC Children’s Hospital in February, was killed by blunt force trauma to the head, according to the county medical examiner. Jamal Williams, 21, who had been in jail on unrelated charges since Feb.22, has been charged with homicide.

JUNE 14—De’von Dozier, a 23-year-old Black male, was found with a gunshot wound to the leg at a home on Woodlow Street in Crafton Heights. He was hospitalized but died of his injury. Rashem Littleberry, 28, of Chartiers City was arrested and charged in the shooting, June 20.

JUNE 16—Daevion Raines, a 15-year-old Black male, was fatally shot when the stolen car he was driving was riddled with bullets near the intersection of Smoker and Newford alleys in Duquesne. A second, 17-year-old teen, who had been in the car and was wounded, was found nearby. Allegheny County detectives said the car was hit more than 15 times. The investigation is ongoing. Police urge anyone with information to call the police tipline at 833-255-8477.

JUNE 18—Travon Smart, a 21-year-old Black male who went by the stage name Jimmy Wopo, was shot multiple times in a daylight, drive-by shooting on Wylie Avenue in the Hill District. Another passenger in the car was also hit but survived. No arrest has been made. Pittsburgh Police ask anyone with information to contact them at 412-323-7800.

JUNE 19—Antwon Rose II, a 17-year-old Black male, was shot three times as he fled from a traffic stop in East Pittsburgh. East Pittsburgh police Officer Michael Rosfeld has been charged with criminal homicide in the case. Despite objections, Officer Rosfeld was granted bail and is under house arrest. Allegheny County Common Pleas Senior Judge Jeffrey Manning has been asked by multiple political and community members to revoke the bail.

JUNE 19—Deandre Bratcher, a 28-year-old Black male, was found suffering from a fatal gunshot wound in the passenger seat of a vehicle near the intersection of Hunter Street and Glenn Avenue in Wilkinsburg. He died later at the hospital. County police are looking for a silver SUV in connection with the shooting. Anyone with information is asked to call the police tipline at 833-255-8477.

JUNE 20—Leryal Matthews, a 21-year-old Black male, was found by police in a Braddock apartment in the 500 block of Talbot Street suffering from multiple fatal gunshot wounds.

No arrests have been made. The investigation continues. Anyone with

information is asked to call the police tipline at 833-255-8477.

JUNE 22—Jazmere Brianna Custis, a 19-year-old Black female, was killed in a drive-by shooting as she and three friends sat in a car in the 1300 block of Margaret Street in Munhall. Police say Custis had pulled over to drop off one of the passengers when another car pulled up and gunfire erupted.

County police are asking anyone with information to call the police tipline at 833-255-8477.

May Homicides (7) MAY 2—Dwayne Lamar Tolbert-McGhee, a 29-year-old Black male, was fatally wounded outside the Muhammad Mosque 22 in Wilkinsburg and died about three hours later at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital—but not before he and a witness who heard the shooting while in the mosque identified the shooter. Delvante Thompson, 30, of Penn Hills was arrested May 26 and charged with homicide. He awaits trial in the Allegheny County jail.

MAY 5—Stephen Drake Jr., a 47-year-old Black male, was fatally shot as he was driving his motorcycle on Fifth Avenue in Shadyside.

Drake was a veteran anti-violence advocate, working with Richard Garland at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health’s Violence Prevention Initiative. The investigation into his death continues. Anyone with information is urged to call Pittsburgh Homicide detectives at 412-323-7800.

MAY 7—Chad Rock, a 34-yearold White male, was fatally shot during a home invasion at his house on Terrace Drive in McKees Rocks.

Allegheny County detectives said they are looking for three Black males who bound Rock’s two children and a female with zip ties and demanded money and drugs. A second male occupant was also shot in the robbery. Detectives hope Rock’s surveillance cameras will help identify the killers. Anyone with information is urged to call the Allegheny County tip line at 1-833-255-8477.

MAY 9—Taeshaun Caldwell, an 18-year-old Black male, was found fatally shot lying between two homes in the 500 block of Lowell Street near Shetland Avenue in Larimer. Police have not yet identified a suspect. The investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information is urged to call 412-323-7800.

MAY 9—Lawrence Brown, a 26-year-old Black male, was gunned down in an apparent driveby shooting on Bedford Avenue in the Hill District that left several cars riddled with bullet holes. He was pronounced dead at the scene. The investigation is ongoing. Police are asking anyone with information to call 412-323-7800.

MAY 25—Matthew Anthony Zinnermon, a 32-year-old Black male from Chesapeake, Va., was shot multiple times on Park Hill Drive in East Hills. Police have arrested and charged 24-year-old Leonard Bernard Hill of Sheraden with the shooting. He awaits trial in the Allegheny County Jail.

MAY 27—Darrell Williams, a 48-year-old Black male, was found shot multiple times inside his home in the 500 Block of Farnsworth Avenue in Clairton. He died later at Jefferson Memorial Hospital. Police have no motive and are asking anyone with information to call the county tip line at 1-833-255-8477.

April Homicides (7) APRIL 1—Meliek Rashad Hemmingway, a 22-year-old Black male, was found by Pittsburgh police lying in Conemaugh in East Hills Easter morning with a gunshot wound to the chest. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Police have since released surveillance video of a man riding a bicycle away from the scene and are asking for help identify the individual, who they are calling a person of interest. Anyone with information is asked to call homicide detectives at 412-323-7800.

APRIL 4—James Clayton Westover, a 56-year-old White male, was fatally shot in the driveway of his home by one-time friend, 62-year-old Lex Miller. Ohio Township police responding to call of shots fired, encountered Miller at the scene. After a brief exchange of gunfire, Miller shot himself in the head. The Allegheny County Coroner has ruled it a murder-suicide.

APRIL 7—Aaron David James, a 29-year-old Black male, was found fatally shot in an alley behind the 1300 block of Franklin Street in Wilkinsburg. As yet, police have not identified a suspect or motive.

Anyone with information is asked to all county detectives at 1-833-2558477.

APRIL 11—Dolores Williams, a 39-year-old Black female, was found fatally shot in the head in her Stowe Township home. Her teen daughter was also shot but was stabilized at a local hospital. Police immediately began searching for 42-year-old Jamar Allen, who was also wanted for the home-invasion assault of a minor in March. He was found later the same day in his car in Homewood, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot.

APRIL 11—The skeletal remains of Zackery Sheets, a 20-year-old White male missing for more than a year, were found by a hiker walking through the woods off

Milltown Road in Penn Hills. The coroner’s office ruled the death a homicide based on information gleaned from the investigation into his disappearance, but it has not released an official cause of death.

Anyone with information about Sheets’ death or disappearance is asked to call 1-833-255-8477.

APRIL 14—Shawn William Dillard, a 27-year-old Black male from Erie, was fatally shot in the head in the Hill District. City police found him in the 1800 block of Cliff Street. He was taken to Mercy Hospital where he was pronounced dead. Police have yet to identify a suspect. Anyone with information is asked to call 412-323-7800.

APRIL 26—Phillip Daniel Pryor, a 27-yeqr-old Black male, was gunned down after leaving his girlfriend’s house in Homestead en route to his grandmother’s house.

Police said, as yet, they have no motive or suspect. Anyone with information is asked to call 1-833255-8477.

March Homicides (6) MARCH 11—Brenda Kay Zelenski, a 59-year-old White female, died in a Pittsburgh hospital as the result of knife wounds she received during an altercation with her husband, also dead, in Indiana County, March 3.

MARCH 16—Juan Green, a 31-year-old Black male, was fatally shot after getting into an argument outside Becker’s Café on Olivia Street in the McKees Rocks Bottoms. Police arrested 33-year-old Tyree Davis less than a day later at a home in Sheraden. Davis is awaiting trial in the Allegheny County Jail.

MARCH 18—Tyrone Noaks, a 28-year-old Black male, died as a result of wounds he received when he was shot in McKees Rocks, Feb. 3. The investigation is ongoing.

Anyone with information is asked to call Allegheny County Homicide Detectives at 412-473-1300.

MARCH 19—Shawn Brandon, a 22-year-old White male, was fatally shot at the corner of Eccles Street and Marengo Street on the South Side Slopes. Witnesses said he was leaning into the driver’s side window of a car when he was shot. He identified his killer as 21-year-old Amasa Camp. Police arrested Camp three days later. He is awaiting trial in the Allegheny County Jail.

MARCH 24—Walter Smith, an 83-year-old White male, died after a tenant he was trying to evict from his West Homestead property struck him in the head and shoved him down a flight of stairs. Dominic Anicola, 57, was arrested and awaits trial in the Allegheny County Jail.

MARCH 26—Hasan Ishmael Abdul-Rabb, a 24-year-old Black male, was fatally shot in the 3200 block of Ward Street in Oakland in an apparent drug deal turned robbery. Shayne Craighead, 22, and Velmon Dowling, 21, were arrested after leading police on a chase in the victim’s rented car. Both are in the Allegheny County Jail.

February Homicides (8) FEB. 4—Joseph Secora, a 39-year-old White male who allegedly had mental health issues, was fatally shot while trying to break into his sister’s house in Springdale. The victim’s nephew, 21-year-old James Cain, shot Secora once. He fled across Butler Road and collapsed between some houses. He was pronounced dead at the scene. No charges will be filed.

FEB. 7—Lewis Dunning, a 64-year-old Black male from Uniontown, was found by Pittsburgh police lying in the middle of Paulsen Street in Lincoln-Larimer. He had been shot once in the head and was pronounced dead at the scene.

A second individual, who police have not identified, was also found at the scene suffering multiple gunshot wounds. He was taken to the hospital and last listed in stable condition. The investigation continues. Police are asking anyone with information to call 412-323-7800.

Callers may remain anonymous.

FEB. 10—Denard A. Burton, a 29-year-old Black male, was discovered by Pittsburgh police lying on the snow-covered sidewalk of the 7200 block of Stranahan Street in Homewood shot multiple times. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police have not yet identified a suspect. The investigation is ongoing.

Police are asking anyone with information to call 412-323-7800. Callers may remain anonymous.

FEB. 11—Mark Daniels, a 39-year-old Black male, was fatally shot by Pittsburgh police Gino A. Macioce and an unnamed recruit during a foot chase in which the officers said he fired at them twice.

Allegheny County police said a .40 caliber handgun was recovered at the scene and is being tested.

Daniels’ family said he didn’t own or carry a gun. They have called for the release of surveillance video and Shotspotter records that police said shows some of the pursuit.

Neither officer was wearing a body camera.

FEB. 16—Andre Lee, a 20-yearold Black male, was found by McKees Rocks police after they received a call about a shooting on Ella Street. He was taken to Allegheny General Hospital, where he

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died from multiple gunshot wounds.

Allegheny County police are investigating. Anyone with information may anonymously call the toll-free Police Tipline at 833-255-8477.

FEB. 22—Keiauna Lynette Davis, a 27-year-old Black female, was fatally shot while walking home along Laketon Road in Wilkinsburg when a co-worker and two accomplices robbed her for her tax refund. Dane James Taylor and Laya Alana Whitley, both 21, and Kaijin Xavier Scott, 23, are in custody awaiting trial.

FEB. 26—Steven Pariser, a 71-year-old White male, and John Robert Van Dyke, a 54-year-old White male, were both allegedly killed by 58-year-old Vincent Smith after an argument over marijuana led to a fight. Smith then set fire to the Swissvale building where the killings took place. He was rescued by firefighters and arrested. He awaits trial in the Allegheny County jail.

FEB. 28—Mia Green, a 27-yearold Black female, was found by Pittsburgh police behind a home in the 7300 block of Hamilton Avenue in Homewood shot multiple times. She was pronounced dead at UPMC Presbyterian a short time later. Green had no children and no criminal record. Police are asking anyone with information to call 412-323-7800. Callers may remain anonymous.

January Homicides (11) JAN. 9—Diron Lamonn Hopwood, a 25-year-old Black male, was found fatally shot by police after they received multiple 911 calls, lying in the 1400 block of N. Murtland Street in Homewood. He had been struck several times. Police have not identified a suspect. The investigation continues.

JAN. 12—Shevall Davidson, a 24-year-old Black male, was fatally shot multiple times shortly after he left the J & S Food Mart on Seventh Street in Duquesne.

Pittsburgh Crime Stoppers has offered a reward of up to $1,000 for information leading to an arrest.

Callers may remain anonymous, 412-255-8477.

JAN. 17—Louise Lewis, a 73-year-old White female, was found fatally shot on the porch of her Clairton home in what Allegheny County detectives said was a murder-suicide. Her 72-year-old husband Robert was found inside the home with a self-inflicted gunshot to the head.

JAN. 17—Tiffany Korbelic, a 36-year-old White female, was found fatally shot in a home in on West Elizabeth Street in Hazelwood along with 55-year-old Raymond Furlong, in what county detective also said was also a murder-suicide. Furlong, they said shot her then turned the gun on himself.

JAN. 18—Anthony Bullock-Fields, a 29-year-old Black male, was shot and then run over at the intersection of Jucunda and Amanda Streets in Pittsburgh’s Knoxville neighborhood. Pittsburgh police have not yet identified a suspect. The investigation continues.

JAN. 20—Albert Boxley, a 30-year-old Black male, was found shot multiple times at the intersection of Mullins and Dickson Streets on Pittsburgh’s North Side. The shooting was captured on surveillance video, and with the help of an eye-witness, police arrested and charged 27-year-old Louis Campbell with the killing. He is currently in the Allegheny County Jail.

JAN. 22—Shayne Henderson, a 21-year-old Black male, was found fatally shot in the basement of an apartment building on Everton Street in Pittsburgh’s Lincoln-Lemington neighborhood. Henderson’s was the third fatal shooting on Everton in as many months. Police have not named a suspect. The investigation continues JAN. 28—Craig Rhodes-Mitchell, a 24-year-old Black male, was found with multiple gunshot wounds in a home in the 1300 block of Centennial Street in McKeesport. County detectives have yet to identify a suspect and are asking anyone with information to call the toll-free county Tipline at 833-255-8477.

JAN. 28—Robert Monti, a 42-year-old White male, was found by police shot multiple in the 1200 block of Broadway Avenue in Stowe Township. He died a short time later at Ohio Valley Hospital. County detectives have yet to identify a suspect and are asking anyone with information to call the toll-free county Tipline at 833-255-8477.

JAN. 28—Devlen Prosdocimo, a 24-year-old White male, was shot multiple times, after being lured into a drug deal robbery on Wilner Drive in East Hills. Video shows, 17-yearold Malik “Lil Chief Keif” Johnson shooting Prosdocimo several times after he attempted to flee the robbery. Johnson is in the Allegheny County Jail.

JAN. 29—Tyqueon Goins, a 20-year-old Black male, was found shot multiple times in a car on Meadows Street in Larimer. Though Pittsburgh police spokeswoman Alicia George said initial reports indicated the shooting “may be gang related.” police have not yet identified a suspect.

Anyone with information is asked to call homicide detectives at 412323-7800.

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SPORTS

Allderdice goes

NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER

Back-to-Back

THE ALLDERDICE DRAGONS celebrate their second consecutive City League football championship, Oct. 30, at Cupples Stadium, defeating Westinghouse, 18-8. (Photos

by Courier photographer Will McBride)

With heavy hearts, Dragons win City League title, 18-8, three days after Squirrel Hill shooting

by Smokin’ Jim Frazier For New Pittsburgh Courier

The City League football championship scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 27, at Cupples Stadium was postponed because of the mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Squirrel Hill.

The game, featuring Allderdice and Westinghouse, was rescheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 30, at 7 p.m.

“We gave the team off on Saturday and we got together on Sunday and had a meal and had a long conversation about the things that happened and tried to put it in perspective because as adults our coaches have a broader perspective than the kids do,” said Allderdice coach Jerry DALEN DUGGER of Allderdice, left, attempts to elude Willie Knight of Westinghouse.

RASHAWN HARVEY, ALLDERDICE

Haslett. “We had a couple team meals together and we tried to just bring everybody together because it was a serious, serious tragedy.”

The defending City League champion Dragons got off to a slow start and only had a 6-0 halftime lead over the Bulldogs of Westinghouse. Rashawn Harvey’s 34-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Dalen Dugger in the second quarter were the only points in the first half for

ERYK KANE BURGESS, WESTINGHOUSE

TIMOTHY WHITFIELD, right, of Allderdice, breaks away from a Westinghouse defender.

DALEN DUGGER, ALLDERDICE

ALLDERDICE COACH JERRY HASLETT

‘Dice. “Offensively we really didn’t change too much but defensively we lined up in some different formations and things that they never saw before and I think it confused them,” said Haslett. “Our kids really played hard and by lining up in a different defense than we played all year and it worked.”

Westinghouse took the opening kickoff of the second half and drove the football all the way down to the Allderdice 5, but on fourthand-3, they were stopped short of the first down.

That seemed to spark the Dragons as they scored the next 12 points to pull away.

First came a methodical 96-yard drive that ended with a Rashaun Caldwell 23-yard touchdown run.

Dugger’s early fourth quarter run put the Dragons up 18-0.

Westinghouse was led by sophomore quarterback Cameron “Super Cam” Jones, who ran for 155 yards on 27 carries. Jones’ 5-yard touchdown run and a Mike Massey 2-point conversion cut the lead to 18-8.

The game ended with the 18-8 score and Allderdice was able to celebrate backto-back championships.

“This game was very important to us because of the community in Squirrel Hill and hopefully our victory will help in the healing process a little bit,” said Haslett. “However, when I coached at Oliver we won a City League championship and the one thing I figured out as a coach is how important a kicker can be and our kicker got hurt, outside of football, last week. Because we lost our kicker we were 0-for-3 on extra points.”

Westinghouse High School has struggled mightily in City League football for nearly two decades and has not won a championship since 1996.

Bulldogs football player, Khalil Andrews Logan, was shot and killed in September and the football team dedicated the season to him.

“I give a lot of credit to coach Monte Robinson and his staff for guiding the Bulldogs to the championship game,” said Luther Dupree, host of Steel City Sports World. “Allderdice just had too much size and Dalen Dugger, 6-feet6 and winner of the Jeron Grayson Player of the Game trophy, was too much.”

SPORTS New Pittsburgh Courier

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NOVEMBER 7-13, 2018

www.newpittsburghcourier.com

The Pageantry of Pitt Football Homecoming 2018 Photos by Courier Photographer Streets

Tobi Ajimoko was named Homecoming Queen, and Davis Weaver was named Homecoming King before the Pitt homecoming game against Syracuse, Oct. 6.

They were selected by student voting.

Pitt won the game, 44-37, in overtime.

Today’s generation doesn’t remember Dan Marino, Tony Dorsett, Johnny Majors, Mike Ditka, and other famous players and coaches that graced the Pitt uniform. Pitt has won nine national championships, the last coming in 1976. It’s a proud university, a proud football program, one that students and fans alike still enjoy coming to Heinz Field to watch. To experience The Pageantry of Pitt Football, there is one home game remaining this season — Nov. 10, Senior Day, vs. Virginia Tech.

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NOVEMBER 7-13, 2018

NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER