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REPORTERS
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COMPILED BY WI STAFF WRITER WILLIAM J. FORD AND WI SENIOR EDITOR D. KEVIN MCNEIR
Two Prince George’s Residents Seek State Delegate Seats
Prince Georgians LaTasha Ward and Marlin Jenkins have announced their plans to run for seats in the Maryland House of Delegates. Ward, who ran unsuccessfully in 2018 for one of the three District 24 seats, will try again to replace Del. Erek Baron, nominated by the White House to serve as a U.S. attorney for Maryland. Ward, a community activist and the former campaign manager for Prince George’s Circuit Court Judge Gladys Weatherspoon, received the most votes in last year’s election. Jenkins, who works as a community liaison for Del. Wanika Fisher (D-District 47B), will seek Fisher’s seat who plans to run for Prince George’s County Council’s District 2 seat. Jenkins, of Hyattsville, ran unsuccessfully in 2018 for a delegate seat when he resided in Montgomery County. His website at https://marlinformaryland. com highlights his background which includes former deputy for the Maryland Vaccine Equity Task Force. The second, four-year term for Prince George’s council vice chair Deni Taveras (D-District 2) of Adelphi expires in December 2022. Taveras plans to seek Fisher’s seat, according to an updated website at https://votedenitaveras. com/. The primary takes place June 28. WI
Maia Chaka made history on Sunday, Sept. 12, becoming the first Black woman to officiate an NFL game. She worked as a line judge for the Jets-Panthers game.
Chaka said on an official NFL Instagram post before the game, “it’s a privilege that I’ve been chosen to represent women and women of color in the most popular sport in America.” She added that “it's a proud moment for myself. It's a proud moment for my family. It's a proud moment for my community and my students and coworkers.” She counts as just the third on-field female NFL official, joining Sarah Thomas, the first female hired as a full-time NFL official and the first woman to officiate in the Super Bowl, and Shannon Eastin. She previously worked as an official on the college level for the Pac-12 Conference and Conference USA before joining the NFL’s Officiating Development Program in 2014. The program “identifies top collegiate officiating talent to expose them to some of the same experiences as NFL officials,” the NFL said. Chaka graduated from Norfolk State University with a bachelor’s in education in 2006. WI
5 LaTasha Ward and Marlin Jenkins. (Courtesy photos)
Comcast’s RISE Grants to Support Businesses Owned by People of Color
Comcast recently announced it will award $1 million in grants to 100 small businesses owned by people of color, including Black, Indigenous, Hispanic, and Asian American owners, among others, in the District, as well as technology and marketing resources to 93 businesses in the area. These recipients are part of nearly 4,700 entrepreneurs nationwide who have been selected as Comcast RISE awardees since November 2020. D.C. was one of six cities, including Houston, Miami, Oakland, Seattle and the Twin Cities, selected to award a $10,000 grant to 100 local businesses from the Comcast RISE Investment Fund, for a total of $6 million across 600 businesses.
Through Comcast RISE, the company will also support 13,000 small businesses, owned by people of color, with monetary grants; a TV campaign, production of a TV commercial or consulting services from Effectv; or computer equipment, internet, voice or cybersecurity from Comcast Business by the end of 2022. In addition, Comcast RISE invests in ongoing mentorship and resources to help businesses succeed over the long-term. The program has partnered with Ureeka, an online platform for entrepreneurs, to provide grant recipients with business coaching to help build skills in company foundation, growing customers and financial stability.
Comcast RISE was formed in late 2020 to give small businesses owned by people of color, from bakeries and barber shops to childcare centers and cleaning services, the tools needed to not just survive, but thrive. The 4,700 recipients are from 422 cities across 34 states.
More information and the applications to apply for either the grant program or marketing and technology services are available at www.ComcastRISE.com. WI
Maia Chaka Becomes First Black Woman to Officiate NFL Game
Norton Chairs D.C. Statehood Issue Forum for CBC Conference
James Wright WI Staff Writer
D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton served as the host for the “A New Majority for D.C. Statehood” virtual issue forum for the 50th Annual Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Annual Legislative Conference that took place on Sept. 13.
In addition to Norton, panelists for the 27-minute issue forum included U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin (DMd.), Justin Vail, the special assistant to the president for Democracy & Civic Participation and Stasha Rhodes, the campaign manager for 51 for 51, an advocacy organization with the goal of getting a D.C. statehood bill on the Senate floor without the filibuster as an impediment.
Norton, who shepherded the passing of her own D.C. statehood bill for the second time in the U.S. House of Representatives in April, led the issue forum three months after the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee held its second ever hearing on D.C. statehood. Sen. Thomas Carper (D-Del.) serves as the author and primary sponsor of the Senate’s “The Washington, D.C. Admission Act of 2021.” Carper’s bill has 45 co-sponsors, with 44 Democrats and one independent. His bill has no Republican sponsors. One Democrat, Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), said he supports the District becoming a state but only through a constitutional amendment.
Democrats Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly of Arizona and independent Angus King of Maine have not publicly weighed in on D.C. statehood legislation. Without a change to the Senate’s filibuster rules, Carper’s bill would need 60 votes for consideration on the chamber’s floor.
CARDIN
Cardin said the District becoming the 51st state of the Union “will correct a great wrong.”
“There is no justification for the denial of the full rights for the 700,000 residents of the District of Columbia,” Cardin said. “Congresswoman Norton, your friends in Maryland and around the nation are with you on this. This is a basic denial of human rights.”
Cardin said that as the chairman of the Helsinki Commission, he let it be known that District residents could not fully participate in its national legislature, that being a violation of international human rights. Cardin said his fellow Democratic senators are with the residents of the District and “we are making progress in the Senate.”
VAIL
Vail said the Biden-Harris administration strongly supports D.C. statehood.
“We urge Congress to send the bill to the president’s desk so he can sign it,” he said. “It is an affront to the very democratic values that we stand for that the District is not a state.”
Vail said Congress has within its power to make the city a state and called for the Senate to move quickly so the orderly transition to statehood could take place.
RHODES
Rhodes said while she supports with enthusiasm such legislation such as For the People Act of 2021 and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2021, the D.C. statehood bill should be embraced by the voting rights movement, also.
“It shouldn’t just be H.R. 1 or H.R. 5 but H.R. 51, too,” she said.
Rhodes said 54 percent of Americans in a recent poll favored statehood for the District.
“Throughout our two-and-a-half year working for statehood, we have found the more people knew about D.C. residents not having their full rights despite paying federal taxes, the more they supported us,” she said. “What we need now is for D.C. residents to tell their story. We are a city of nurses and librarians who are disconnected from the lobbyists and the press the city is known for.”
WI @JamesDCWrighter
5 Eleanor Holmes Norton represents the District in the U.S. Congress. (Roy Lewis/The Washington Informer)
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black facts
SEPT. 9
1925 – Legendary blues singer and guitarist B.B. King is born in Itta Bena, Mississippi.
SEPT. 17
1973 – Illinois becomes the first state to honor Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday as a holiday. 1983 – Vanessa Williams (top) becomes the first African American to be crowned Miss America.
SEPT. 18
1850 – The Fugitive Slave Act, which required that all escaped slaves were to be returned to their masters upon capture, is passed by the U.S. Congress. 1895 – Booker T. Washington delivers the Atlanta Compromise speech. The compromise was a deal struck between Southern Blacks and whites that Blacks would work and submit to white political rule in exchange for basic education and due process in law. 1951 – Ben Carson, retired neurosurgeon and former presidential candidate, is born in Detroit. 1970 – Rock icon Jimi Hendrix is found dead in a London apartment at age 27. 1980 – Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez, a Cuban Air Force pilot, becomes the first Hispanic and first person of African ancestry to travel in outer space.
SEPT. 19
1893 – Black inventor
Elbert R. Robinson
receives patent for the electric highway trolley.
1931 – Singer Brook
Benton of "Rainy Night in Georgia" fame is born in Camden, South Carolina.
SEPT. 20
1958 – Martin Luther King Jr. is stabbed during a Harlem book signing by Izola Ware Curry, an African American woman later diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
1984 – "The Cosby Show" debuts on NBC, beginning an eight-year run as one of television's all-time most beloved and successful shows.
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JIMI HENDRIX SEPT. 21
1872 – John H. Conyers becomes the first African American admitted to the
U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. 1891 – Inventor F.W. Leslie is issued a patent for the envelope seal. 1989 – Colin Powell (above) is confirmed by the Senate as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the first African American to hold the position.
SEPT. 22
1828 – Shaka Zulu, monarch of Africa's
Zulu Kingdom, is assassinated. 1862 – President Abraham Lincoln issues a preliminary Emancipation
Proclamation, which sets a date for the freedom of more than 3 million
Black slaves in the United States. 1950 – Civil rights icon Ralph
Bunche becomes the first African
American to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. WI
view P INT
BY SARAFINA WRIGHT
Rapper Nicki Minaj has been accused of spreading coronavirus misinformation after tweeting about an associate’s alleged bad reaction to the COVID-19 vaccine and urging her fans to not be “bullied” into getting it. What are your thoughts?
ALLISON ROGERS /
NEW YORK My opinion is that knowing how many minorities are contracting COVID and how many are dying, Nicki would be a better role model if she took the vaccine and encouraged her followers to do so for the good of public health. We can put an end to this distressing period in our history worldwide.
AYESHA J /
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS She sounds like a child — “my cousin’s friend in Trinidad...” Any story that starts like that is either a lie or is too far removed to be proven.
CHRISTINA F. MELVIN /
WASHINGTON, D.C. Yeah, I'm not getting my medical advice from Nicki Minaj.
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NIKKI MASSIE /
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND I mean, that’s her right.
SAMWEL PATERA /
WASHINGTON, D.C. But who listens to Nicki Minaj when it comes to such issues? Only madmen do.
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D. Kevin McNeir / WI Senior Editor
What I Learned When Tupac Shakur Met the Supremes
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Before I decided to commit myself to a career as a journalist, I worked in the trenches as a high school teacher in two departments: English and Religion. Later, I would become an adjunct professor at several colleges in Chicago and then in Atlanta.
Because the world was changing so rapidly in the 90s and the early 2000s, particularly due to a surge in technological advancements and with the rise in the popularity of rap and hip-hop, I often struggled to find more creative ways to maintain my students’ interests and ensure their participation.
I knew the power that one wields when they have full command of the English language and wanted my students to understand that the most effective way to secure change remained not with the sword but with the pen.
One evening, while listening to the radio, I heard a young rapper rattle off the lyrics to a song that made me stop in my tracks. Hiphop didn’t really appeal to me given my penchant for the kinds of music that I had grown up hearing, learning and loving out of Motown.
But there was one rising star in the hip-hop world who truly fascinated me. But what garnered my attention and caused me to begin focusing on his music was not his bravado, his youthful swag or his thug-like persona which I later learned was more by design than actual experience.
What made me a fan and follower of Tupac Shakur was his uncanny ability to dissect the changes occurring in society and provide his critique. His prowess as a lyricist made him a force to be reckoned with – then and now, 25 years after his tragic death.
I would use the lyrics from his mind-blowing, 1991 release, “Brenda’s Got a Baby” and compare them to the words from one of my favorite Supremes songs, “Love Child,” a No.1 single released by Diana Ross and her girls in 1968.
Both songs addressed the issue of teen pregnancy. But it was clear that how society viewed this challenge for young girls, especially Black girls, had undergone significant changes.
While I didn’t want to try to convince my students that one perspective was more appropriate than the other, I did want them to be able to analyze and share their views on the differences that had ensued over the years.
In “Love Child” the prevailing attitude was clear: sexual intercourse before marriage, and the possibility of pregnancy, should be avoided at all costs. The changes that came from being a young, unwed mothers, were far too great.
But as Tupac later illustrated, those “costs” had become even greater – even life-threatening – just a few decades later.
It would be one of those teachable moments that led to provocative conversations which continued even after our time in the classroom was over.
But my students weren’t the only ones who learned something during our classroom encounter.
I grew as well.
Judge for yourself as you look at just an excerpt of the lyrics below.
We need more Tupacs today. May he rest in peace.
TUPAC Page 32
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Adofo Challenges Prestwood for Leadership of Ward 8 Democrats
James Wright WI Staff Writer
Troy Donte Prestwood will seek re-election as the president of the Ward 8 Democrats but he faces a challenge from the club’s second vice president, Salim Adofo.
The showdown will occur at the club’s 2021 biennial convention slated for Sept. 18 at the Temple of Praise Church. All Ward 8 registered Democrats will be allowed to cast their ballot for the office of president and other positions including first and second vice president and recording and corresponding secretary and corresponding secretary. While the convention kicks off at 11 a.m. and ends at 2 p.m., the voting begins at noon and concludes at 2 p.m.
Whoever emerges as the president will take over one of the District’s most active political clubs among the city’s eight wards. With 48,760 registered Democrats, according to recent data from the D.C. Board of Elections, the Ward 8 Democrats has the sixth greatest number of Democratic members in the city. With 82% of the ward’s registered voters as Democrats, it trails only neighboring Ward 7 as having the highest percentage of the party’s members in the District.
The Ward 8 Democrats have historically defined trends in mayoral contests. In 2010, though D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty received the most votes out of the Ward 8 Democrats during a public poll, the momentum in the race shifted to then D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray who defeated Fenty in the Democratic primary.
Four years later, Ward 4 Councilmember Muriel Bowser’s campaign for mayor received a crucial boost when she defeated Gray in a straw poll of Ward 8 Democrats. Past presidents of the Ward 8 Democrats include D.C. Democratic State Committee Chairman Charles Wilson and At-Large D.C. State Board of Education member Jacque Patterson.
PRESTWOOD WANTS TO CONTINUE THE MOMENTUM
Prestwood has served as an adviso-
5 Troy Prestwood (left), who serves as the president of the Ward 8 Democrats and is a former advisory neighborhood commissioner, faces a challenge by Salim Adofo, (right) the club’s second vice president. (WI file photo)
– TROY PRESTWOOD
ry neighborhood commissioner for the 8A commission based in Anacostia. First elected president of the Ward 8 Democrats in 2019, he said he wants to continue the progress the club has made under his leadership.
“We still have more work to do,” he said. “We have a strong record to run on.”
Prestwood noted club events dealing with the census, the District government budget, the push to get more ward residents on the city’s boards and commissions, establishing the Ward 8 Democrats Lifetime Achievement Award and setting up a celebration of the LGBTQ community, among his several accomplishments.
“In regard to the LGBTQ celebration, we wanted to make sure all of the voices in the community are heard,” he said.
If re-elected, Prestwood wants to continue to educate ward residents on the new voting technologies, testify before the D.C. Council on policies and legislation, reach out to young people in the ward with better engagement and continue to help more residents register to vote.
ADOFO SHARES MULTI-TIERED PLATFORM
Adofo has served as an advisory neighborhood commissioner for 8C since 2018, defeating longtime commissioner Mary Cuthbert for the position. He currently chairs the 8C Commission and has consistently supported policy changes for liquor licenses of retail establishments and proposed strategies for curtailing the ward’s deadly gun violence.
He has also worked extensively with the District’s chapter of the National Black United Front in their efforts to host food drives and clothing giveaways.
If elected, Adofo said he will work to better prepare those who have an interest in representing Ward 8, increase the ward’s engagement on legislation on the D.C. Council and provide an avenue for residents to gain greater understanding of the political process while allowing more opportunities for civic engagement among students.
WI @JamesDCWrighter
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Howard University Gradually Bounces Back from Ransomware Attack
Students, Staff Address Ongoing Cyberspace Situation
Sam P.K. Collins WI Staff Writer
Howard University (HU) resumed online and in-person instruction in the third week of September after a ransomware cyber attack brought most activity to a halt for several days.
For the time being, students, faculty, and staff have access to some of the university’s most common applications.
As administrators explained on Sept. 12, recovery will happen in phases and in a manner that ensures continuity of operations.
In the aftermath of service disruptions and the compromise of important data, some students, like Kaya Freeman, relished the gradual return to normalcy.
“Some people clicked a link and gave their passwords to the hackers,” said Freeman, a freshman from West Bloomfield, Mich.
“It’s been hard in terms of watching television, using your computer and writing papers. Teachers postponed deadlines because you can’t go online unless you have a hotspot. It’s affecting our schoolwork but you do what you can on campus.”
A GROWING THREAT
In ransomware attacks, hackers use phishing emails to steal user credentials and access to IT networks.
They then block institutions’ access to networks and leverage stolen information to demand their target pays a hefty sum. Over the last couple of years, tactics have included threats to sell stolen information on the darkweb if demands aren’t met.
In 2020, the average ransom demand totaled more than $312,000, a report by Unit 42/Palo Alto Networks determined.
Since its detection of unusual activity on Sept. 3, HU has collaborated with external forensic experts and law enforcement officials to fully investigate the cause of the ransomware attack and its impact.
HU told The Informer that its response team, composed of in-person and remote personnel, has used its resources to add new secure systems.
Such tools build upon security updates the university has implemented over the years with the aid of what officials described as expert cybersecurity partners.
Over the last few days, much of HU’s focus has been on protecting data and strengthening its network, all while keeping HU community members abreast of the ongoing situation.
“Faculty, staff, and students should soon expect audits concerning devices and access credentials associated with university work and operations,” Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer Tashni-Ann Dubroy and Provost & Chief Academic Officer Anthony K. Wutoh said in a Sept. 10 statement.
“These audits will require sweeping of phones, laptops, and other digital work tools, which may be susceptible to data breaching. All university usernames, email addresses and other login credentials will be verified for authenticity, access privileges, and activity.
PREVENTING FUTURE RANSOMWARE ATTACKS
Throughout the pandemic, and in the months leading up to the full return to in-person learning in the U.S., threats of ransomware attacks, phishing emails, identity theft against K-12 and collegiate institutions have increased.
In July, cybersecurity group Check Point Security recorded an average of 1,700 cyberattacks per week, an increase of nearly 30 percent from the first half of the year.
That’s why experts encourage institutions to tighten access to critical documents and utilize encryption to deter hackers. Additional safeguards include multi-factor authentication, software updates, and training employees to detect phishing attempts.
An HU employee who spoke to The Informer suggested that, in the spirit of preventing future ransomware attacks, HU provides more support for an IT department they described as overworked and underpaid.
The longtime employee, who requested anonymity, said the university has gradually outsourced IT personnel over the years as a cost-saving measure, all while passing on the work of employees who leave the university to their colleagues already juggling responsibilities of their own.
“It’s a lot of work and you’re in multiple roles,” the employee said. “Howard saves money and the people who do that type of management get bonuses. They do a great job [saving money] but the workers should be given that money if anything.”
FINDING COMMUNITY IN ALL THE CONFUSION
On Monday, HU freshman Kayla Austin attempted to jump back into the rhythm of academic life, but found doing that a bit difficult.
ATTACK Page 44
5 A student uses a computer. (Photo courtesy Howard University News Service)
WELCOME BACK TO RECESS!
DC is making it easy for everyone ages 12 and up to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Get vaccinated and be even more confident heading back to school.
Go to backtoschool.dc.gov to learn more about childhood immunizations and the COVID-19 vaccine.
