Showing posts with label black issues. Show all posts
Showing posts with label black issues. Show all posts

Friday, March 31, 2017

What every intelligent person should say when discussing Rachel Dolezal

With the release of a new book Rachel Dolezal has gotten another 15 minutes of infamy. With the many issues in the black community I don't believe that we should be paying a fraud like Rachel Dolezal any attention, but if you must here's what you should say.

Friday, January 29, 2016

Rand Paul's great answer to question about African Americans and policing?

I don't support any of the republican candidates but I found this interesting, especially since very few if any issues that affect African Americans have been discussed during the republican debates. Just as an aside I also found it interesting that a question about African Americans and policing was directed to Paul and not Ben Carson. (Yes he was on stage last night). George L. Cook III AfricanAmericanReports.com.

During Thursday night's republican debate Rand Paul was asked a question by YouTube star Mark Watson about African Americans and policing with regard to body cameras. Paul took the question as an opportunity to point out inequities in the American justice system.

RAND PAUL:

One thing I discovered in Ferguson was that a third of the budget for the city of Ferguson was being reaped by civil fines. People were just being fined to death. Now you and I and many of the people in this audience, if we get a $100 fine, we can survive it. If you're living on the edge of poverty and you get a $100 fine or your car towed, a lot of times you lose your job.

I also think the war on drugs has disproportionately affected our African-American community. What we need to do is make sure that the war on drugs is equal protection under the law and we don't unfairly incarcerate another generation of young African-American males. In Ferguson, for every 100 African-American women, there are only 60 African-American men. Drug use is about equal between white and black, but our prisons, three out of four people in prison are black or brown.

I think something has to change. I think it's a big thing that our party needs to be part of. And I've been a leader in Congress on trying to bring about criminal justice reform.

Monday, November 30, 2015

Caught in a lie: Trump cancels press conference with black pastors

While the meeting with several black pastors will still take place on Monday, the press conference in which Trump told everybody 100 black pastors will endorse him will not.

The endorsement claim prompted many of the pastors to issue angry denials from those involved who said they had agreed to listen Trump's positions on key issues. Others said they had declined the invitation altogether.

Getting the endorsement of the 100 black church leaders would have shown that he can reach beyond his his base . Unfortunately, he he lied to the pastors about his intentions. Several complained their names had been given to the media even though they declined the invitation.

On Sunday afternoon, Mr Trump announced on Twitter that Monday's meeting would not include a press conference.

Monday, July 13, 2015

Hey conservatives, black people can deal with more than one issue at a time.

George L. Cook III

Hey conservatives, black people can deal with more than one issue at a time. By George L. Cook III

This post is written about conservatives regardless of race. I have read post by African American conservatives and heard them on radio doing some of the very things mentioned is this post, so don't try to make this a race issue. It's an ideological one.

During the recent debate over whether the Confederate Flag should fly near the South Carolina capital or anywhere on government property conservatives turned to their tried and true method of debate.

They brought up other issues that yes are more important, but that had nothing to with the debate over the Confederate Flag.

Suddenly when confronted with the fact that there was no good reason to fly the flag on government grounds conservatives started to point out black unemployment, black dropout rates and black murder statistics as red herrings.

The one thing you will notice is that these are things that conservatives don’t talk or pretend to care about these issues until there is an incident involving race.

They don’t bring these things up because they care, they bring them up to divert focus from the situation at hand. If they cared, these issues would be part of their platform on a consistent basis.

But what really bugs me is that they seem to think that focusing on one issue somehow means that African Americans can’t focus on other issues in our community.

If they did some actual research, they would learn that there are groups and individuals fighting against many of the ills that face the Black Community. Many of these groups and people get no publicity from liberal or conservative media, but they continue to fight every day to make things better in their communities.

Many issues of employment, education, incarceration, voting rights, and crime are important and being focused on individually. Of course, someone or a group focusing on one of these issues alone doesn’t help with the other issues. Of course, these issues may be more important than a damned flag but maybe that flag was the low-hanging fruit at the moment.

Maybe taking down that flag and claiming a victory can be the momentum changer to drawing attention to other issues and those that are addressing them.

But best believe these issues are being addressed and were being addressed long before conservatives pretended to give a damn. If you want to make the argument that in some situations things could be done better that would be honest but saying that these issues are not is simply being dishonest and telling an outright lie.

George L. Cook III georgelcookiii@gmail.com

Thursday, May 29, 2014

Black Men Ask Obama to Include Women in Brothers Keeper Program

More than 200 African American men, ranging from a taxi driver to university professors, sent a letter to President Obama on Tuesday urging him to expand his Black male initiative to include Black girls and women, saying they were “surprised and disappointed” that the president had sought to include only half of the race to tackle community-wide issues.

After praising the president for saying that addressing the needs of those left behind is as important as anything else he is undertaking, authors of the letter wrote, “So we were surprised and disappointed that your commitments express empathy to only half of our community – men and boys of color. Simply put, as Black men we cannot afford to turn away from the very sense of a shared fate that has been vital to our quest for racial equality across the course of American history.”

The letter continued, “As African Americans, and as a nation, we have to be as concerned about the experiences of single Black women who raise their kids on sub-poverty wages as we are about the disproportionate number of Black men who are incarcerated. We must care as much about Black women who are the victims of gender violence as we do about Black boys caught up in the drug trade.”

Read more: Black Men Ask Obama to Include Women in Brothers Keeper Program