Former ‘Empire Star’ Jussie Smollett Found Guilty of Staging Attack Page A3
Holiday Travel Season: Cal Black Churches Offering COVID Testing, Vaccination Page A7
News Observer Bakersfield
Volume 48 Number 15
Serving Kern County for Over 48 Years
Observer Group Newspapers of Southern California
Parents Raise the Alarm About Violence in Schools Their Votes Depends on Improvement
Alarmingly, the poll released by the National Parents Union found that 59 percent of parents are very or extremely concerned about how schools are teaching race and diversity.
By Stacy M. Brown NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent A new poll revealed that parents continue to express “legitimate concerns” about violence in schools, increased bullying, and a lack of mental health resources. Alarmingly, the poll released by the National Parents Union found that 59 percent of parents are very or extremely concerned about how schools are teaching race and diversity. “Many Black parents are worried that schools are being harsher on students of color compared to white students,” researchers noted in the poll. The National Parents Union counts as a network of parent organizations and grassroots activists committed to improving the quality of life for children and families in the United States. Conducted from November 19 to November 23, the survey included 1,233 parents who also count as registered voters. Researchers found that 84 percent of parents are concerned about how schools address the threat of violence, and 59 percent identified increased bullying or violence in school as a significant issue. About 52 percent said student mental health after coping Continued on page A8
Weekly Unemployment Claims Hits More than 50-year Low By Stacy M. Brown NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent Weekly claims for unemployment benefits dropped to a new multi-decade low last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. At 184,000 claims, adjusted for seasonal swings, it was the lowest level of initial claims since September 1969, when the figure stood at 182,000. “In the week ending December 4, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 184,000, a decrease of 43,000 from the previous week’s revised level,” the labor department reported. The previous week’s level was revised up by 5,000 from 222,000 to 227,000, the report stated. The 4-week moving average was 218,750, a decrease of 21,250 from the previous week’s revised average. This is the lowest level for this average since March 7, 2020, when it was 215,250. The previous week’s average was revised up by 1,250 from 238,750 to 240,000. The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.5 percent for the week ending November 27, an increase of 0.1 percentage point from the previous week’s unrevised rate. The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending November 27 was 1,992,000, an increase of 38,000 from the previous week’s revised level. The previous week’s level was revised down by 2,000 from 1,956,000 to 1,954,000. The 4-week moving average was 2,027,500, a decrease of 54,250 from the previous week’s revised average. This is the lowest level for this average since March 14, 2020, when it was 1,730,750. The previous week’s average was revised down by 2,500 from 2,084,250 to 2,081,750. The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending November 20 were in Alaska (2.9), District of Columbia (2.8), New Jersey (2.3), Puerto Rico (2.3), California (2.1), Hawaii (1.8), Minnesota (1.8), Nevada (1.8), Illinois (1.7), and Massachusetts (1.7).
The 4-week moving average was 218,750, a decrease of 21,250 from the previous week’s revised average.
California Reparations Task Force Votes to Replace Economic Advisor Antonio Ray Harvey California Black Media One day after Darrick Hamilton testified before California’s Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans, the panel decided that it would not enter into a contractual agreement with the noted economist. Seven members of the nine-member panel voted to move forward without Hamilton. Two appointees, Loyola-Marymount psychology professor Dr. Cheryl Grills and UCLA law professor Lisa Holder, abstained. The group’s chair Kamilah Moore said Hamilton informed the task force that he would have to narrow the responsibilities of his role, from advising on both calculations and methodology, to a “renewed or narrower scope of work.” “I feel that the work is inseparable,” Moore said before the vote. Hamilton was expected to bring an economic perspective to the work the group is doing, helping to quantify past economic injustices African Americans faced in the state and elsewhere, and determining what or how much compensation should be for Black people living in California. California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the state’s historic reparations bill into law, Assembly Bill (AB) 3121, in 2020.
Former Assemblymember Dr. Shirley Weber (D-San Diego) authored the bill before she was appointed and sworn in as the state’s first African American Secretary of State in January 2021. AB 3121, titled “The Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans,” created a ninemember commission to investigate the history of slavery in the United States, the extent of California’s involvement in slavery, segregation, and the denial of Black citizens their constitutional rights. In October, the task force approved the appointment of Hamilton, who is an economics and urban policy professor at The New School in New York City. According to Section F of Article 2, 8301.1, of the legislation, Hamilton would have been charged with affixing “what form of compensation should be awarded, through what instrumentalities, and who should be eligible for such compensation.” The contract would have paid Hamilton $90,000 for the scope and term of his work, Moore said. But the reduced assignment the economist requested decreases his compensation to $45,000. “Fast forward to (Dec. 7), Dr. Hamilton essentially communicated to the task force that while he’s still able to deliver on Section F, he will no longer be able to deliver on Section E,”
Moore said. “That would be doing the actual calculations for what any compensation should be. He meant that there weren’t enough resources present in the given contract, he felt that he didn’t have enough time, and he also pointed out issues of clarity on how to tackle that part of the bill.” Hamilton told the task force that there was some misunderstanding about the work he could provide. “I don’t think we had complete clarity at the time the (Department of Justice) made its presentation in October or September,” Hamilton said. “With F, I have great clarity given the time constraints as well as the potential budgets that are available.” Michael Newman, the Senior Assistant Attorney General of the California Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Enforcement Section, said the DOJ was still in negotiation with Hamilton before the task force’s fifth meeting and no contracts had been signed. “To my knowledge, he has not done any reimbursable work under the contract. The contract has not been signed,” Newman said. “Other than sort of scoping out the project, doing the initial evaluation, or preparing for his testimony (Dec. 7), he hasn’t Continued on page A2
Take One!
Wednesday, December 15, 2021
DUI Suspected in Southern California Crash that Killed 2 BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (AP) – A 10-year-old girl and a 19-year-old man were hit and killed by a car driven by a Southern California woman arrested on suspicion of DUI, authorities said. It is the fourth time the 46-year-old woman has been arrested for driving under the influence, Bakersfield police said in a statement. The driver was hospitalized in unknown condition after the crash Wednesday afternoon in Bakersfield. She could face multiple charges including two counts of murder and driving with a suspended license, the police statement said. The woman drove off the road and hit the pair as they were walking in a residential neighborhood, officials said. Authorities didn’t immediately identify the victims but an online fundraising page set up later Wednesday says they were siblings, KBAK-TV reported. The teen was walking his little sister home from school when the crash happened, it says on the GoFundMe page.
Rev. C. Herbert Oliver, Civil Rights Activist, Dies at 96 NEW YORK (AP) – The Rev. C. Herbert Oliver, a civil rights activist who documented police brutality against African Americans in Alabama in the early 1960s and later fought for public school reform in New York City, has died. He was 96. Oliver died Nov. 30 in New York City after struggling with several health problems, his daughter, Patrice Oliver, said at his funeral in Brooklyn on Wednesday, according to an online video of the service. Oliver’s relatives could not be reached Saturday. Oliver was born in Birmingham, Alabama, on Feb. 28, 1925. From 1960 to 1965, he was the executive secretary of the Inter-Citizens Committee in Birmingham and worked with other clergy members to fight discriminatory policing led by Public Safety Commissioner T. Eugene “Bull” Connor, according to a profile of Oliver published in 2018 by his alma mater, Wheaton College, near Chicago. The committee documented more than 100 cases of alleged brutality and civil rights violations by Birmingham police. “I would keep my eyes on the newspapers, and the newspaper would carry stories about people who had been beaten and arrested by policemen,” Oliver told the Wheaton Magazine. “I would find the victim and ask them to tell us their story. Invariably, the stories the victims would tell us were different from the stories the newspaper would put out.” By 1965, police brutality cases had dropped off and Oliver moved to Brooklyn, where he was pastor of the Westminster Bethany Presbyterian Church from 1967 to 1992. Oliver led a new local school board in Brooklyn in the predominantly Black area Ocean Hill-Brownsville from 1967 until it was disbanded in 1970 amid controversy. The board’s transfer of teachers, many of them white and Jewish, out of the school district led to a citywide, 36-day teachers’ strike in 1968, and eventually the board’s disbanding, The New York Times reported. “There was a lack of good education, and the teachers and principals were not from the community or invested in the students,” Oliver told the Wheaton Magazine. “We were trying to settle the unrest of the community centered in schools.”
Suit filed Over Inmate Death Alleges Racism and Negligence MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) – The estate of a Black man who died in custody at a Vermont prison is suing, alleging racism and negligence. The lawsuit, reported by VTDigger, was filed this week in Washington County Superior Court, alleging that the Vermont Department of Corrections and its agents negligently failed to diagnose and treat a tumor that led to Kenneth Johnson’s December 2019 death by asphyxiation at the Northern State Correctional Facility in Newport. The wrongful death and medical malpractice lawsuit further alleges that the department and its thenmedical contractor, Virginia-based Centurion Health, discriminated against Johnson, 60, due to his race. Rachel Feldman, a spokesperson for the corrections department, said in a statement to VTDigger that the department is “committed to the humane and equal treatment of all individuals in our care.” The department had no comment on the specifics of the suit, she said. Centurion officials did not reply to an email message seeking comment. A report released by a law firm in November found that DOC staff should have done more to help Johnson, who complained repeatedly that he could not breathe, and their response was insufficient to keep him from dying from a breathing obstruction caused by a tumor. It also said the department should train staff in implicit bias, while noting that it was impossible to determine if racial bias played a role in Johnson’s death. The department had asked the firm Downs Rachlin Martin to investigate the death of Johnson. A separate personnel review is being done by the state. In July, the Vermont defender general’s office released a report that said staff at the Newport prison ignored Johnson’s pleas that he could not breathe and threatened him instead of providing lifesaving care.