SIMPLY JUSTICE AT WORK

Cornell Lewis does not belong in jail.  He is an honest man who was caught in a web weaved by two dishonest people, one of whom has been sentenced to forty-one months  in federal prison.  U. S. District Court Judge Michael A. Ponser rejected the prosecutor's request for 41-to51-months imprisonment and gave Lewis six months home confinement, probation, restitution and a fine.  His explanation for the differences in sentencing: "(Lewis) was on the gravy train when it took off, but the ride that Lewis took was a lot shorter than the ride that Asselin and Mr. Krystofik took."  

In fact, from the abundant benefits they received, it appears more like Asselin and Krystofik were the engineer and conductor of that train and took it where they wanted it to go and that Lewis was merely a passenger with minimum benefits, less control and little knowledge of where the train was going.  That Judge Ponser discovered what most of us already knew about Cornell was simply a magnificent example of American justice at work.  

BLACK BUILT/BLACK OWNED!

Did you know that Boston’s newest hotel, Hampton Inn & Suites at Crosstown Center is mostly Black-owned and was designed by Black architect, Kirk Sykes?  Sykes, by the way, had developed preliminary designs for a shopping center on the site now occupied by the Early Childhood Center and had gotten preliminary commitments for occupancy, when Mayor Albano broke his promise to Mason Square residents to preserve the site for economic development.  POV does not begrudge Early Childhood for pursuing its own interests, but White politicians who ignore promises made to the Black community are too many to ignore.

TRUE COLORS OF DOMINIC SARNO

It is amazing how many people voted for Dominic Sarno’s soft smile and impeccable dress and forgot how he proposed to impose his will on the Black community by putting the police in charge of our anti-truancy program.  He spent forty thousand dollars in the primary (much more than any other council candidate) to encourage people to focus on his image and to ignore his Machiavellian inclinations.  Well, he’s at it again!  

Read the small print in the Senate version of legislation designed to bail the city of Springfield out of its financial woes.  Whereas the House version gave the City Council President a seat on the special state advisory board that will run the city, the Senate version names Dominic as the person who will serve on the committee, whether or not he is President of the Council and as long as he remains a councilor.  At the expense of others who might want a fair shot at the office, Dominic, and a cabal of his arrogant supporters are ignoring your right to freely elect a mayor of your choice by trying to unfairly position Dominic to be Springfield’s next mayor.  

HERE WE GO AGAIN RODNEY KING!

A White Los Angeles cop runs up and kicks a Black man who is being held down on his face by other officers and viciously beats him in the head eleven times with his flashlight.  All of the action was covered by national television and we still are left to wonder if the cop will be punished.  

“IT DEPENDS UPON WHAT YOU MEAN BY DISCOUNT”

President Bush could be in for an election-losing backlash from the elderly, when they learn that drug makers actually raised the price of drugs triple the rate of inflation and erased most of the savings from his “discount” Medicaid card program.  

RONALD REAGAN: A DIFFERENT POINT OF VIEW

Syndicated columnist Derrick Z. Jackson wrote in a Boston Globe opinion column, “Calling (Ronald) Reagan “all-American” insults millions of Americans whom he deprived of his sunlight.  Reagan far too often invited the nation to live down to its lowest common denominators.  Reagan tried to make America younger, all right.  He tried to return us to the days where we sat before black-and-white televisions, in separate black and white neighborhoods, where white people saw only white people and black people were represented by Buckwheat and the only time you saw lots of people of color were dead Indians in Westerns.”  

Call it what you may, but Black folks will never forget Reagan’s in-your-face rejection of racial harmony when he supported apartheid in South Africa, revived the southern racist “states’ rights” slogan and gave his first major speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi after receiving the nomination for president in 1980.  Black folks have no trouble recalling the deadly fate of the three slain civil rights workers, whose Philadelphia murderers were never charged by the state of Mississippi and subsequent events have made it clear that no person in the country, Black or White misunderstood Reagan’s message.

IT MAY BE BETTER BUT IT AIN’T THE BEST!

You can’t save Boston by simply saying it has gotten better.  The New York delegation’s reserve about the racial climate in South Boston and Barry Bond’s negative comments about the racial situation in Boston may be a little off the mark but not by that much.  Boston is a long way from being acquitted of its racist ways.

COSBY’S CANDOR CAUSES CONCERNS

Why are some people willing to argue about whether Bill Cosby should have been so public with his

comments about the behavior of the poor and uneducated within the Black community and so unwilling to be open about discussing the problems the behavior causes and openly debating the solutions?    

BLACK BARAK OBAMA POISED TO MAKE HISTORY

Barak Obama is about to be elected to the United States Senate from the state of Illinois.  You should read why Norm Scheiber of the New Republic magazine (May 31, 2004) says he is winning the race.  Obama’s mother is white, his father is Kenyan and his stepfather is Indonesian.  He embraces his Blackness while campaigning on the issues affecting all races.  Consequently, he is embraced by Black voters, who do not view him as a cop out, and by White voters, who are unthreatened by his ambiguous racial background and tend to focus on his message.  Essentially, Black voters like him because he is authentically Black, and White voters accept him because he is arguably not Black.  Obama has the best of both racial worlds.  He won the Democratic primary against a pretty impressive field of White candidates and is way in the lead in the polls against his Republican opponent for the final election.

PITTS WINS PULITZER PRIZE

How many know that Black syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts, Jr. won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary?  If you do not read his columns, you should.  He brings an unusual clarity to issues of race.  He writes as though he wants to enlighten and not necessarily please.  He is unashamedly pro-Black, not anti-White.  He is fearless in his candor and seemingly unaffected by the ideological restraints that limit the writings of many of those who feel a need to be defined by their “liberal” or “conservative” labels. n