January 10, 2021
GREATER HOUSTON EDITION
Vol. 25, Issue 51
“Our vote and our money are the two most powerful things we have. Be careful who you give them to.” - Roy Douglas Malonson
“Addressing Current & Historical Realties Affecting Our Community”
JANUARY 6, 2021 A DAY OF HATE
By: Roy Douglas Malonson
If nobody ever understood what White Privilege is, just look at what happened at Capitol Hill. January 6, 2021 is a day that will go down in history. Chaos erupted in Washington D.C. as lawmakers attempted to count the Electoral College votes certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s win. An angry and defiant President Donald Trump, still spreading lies and conspiracy theories,
encouraged his supporters at a rally he was holding near the White House to storm the Capitol to object to the proceedings. He also tweeted that Vice President Mike Pence, who was presiding over the certification, “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.” And like the servants they are, the protesters did what they were told, and took it up a thousand notches.
Guns had to be drawn as hundreds of Trump supporters pushed through barriers set up along the perimeter of the Capitol. The protesters tussled with officers in full riot gear, with some calling the officers “traitors” for doing their jobs. Demonstrators actually got into the building, forcing security to lock the doors to the House and Senate. Lawmakers were told to duck under their chairs until they could be evacuated. Vice President
Mike Pence also had to be rushed to safety. What happened once the protesters got inside the building is one for the record books. Photos show White protesters standing on statues inside the building, one even placing a MAGA (Make America Great Again) hat on Gerald Ford’s statue, holding a Trump flag and posing for pictures. Others can be seen sitting
Hate cont’d page 3
CITY LEADERS PUBLICLY GET VACCINATED By: N.L. Preston
The City of Houston is encouraging its residents to protect their health during the global pandemic, with many of them leading the way in publicly receiving their COVID-19 vaccinations. A diverse group of city and community members, health care personnel, and essential frontline workers were on hand this week to support the initiative. The doses are available for those who are at least 65 and older, or age
18 and older with at least one chronic medical condition putting them at increased risk of severe illness and death. “I want everyone to know, especially people of color in this diverse community, that this is not the Tuskegee Project,” Mayor Sylvester Turner said as he received his shot. “This is not the time for people of color to stay away from the vaccine.”
Vaccine cont’d page 6
WASH YOUR HANDS FREQUENTLY • AVOID PUBLIC SPACES OR EVENTS WITH MORE THAN 10 PATRONS • SANITIZE AND STOCK UP • AVOID TOUCHING YOUR EYES, NOSE AND MOUTH • PRACTICE GOOD HYGIENE
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January 10, 2021
EDITORIAL
President/Chief Editor
Tristar
Griselda Ramirez: Production
Partin’ the Waters By Omowale Luthuli-Allen
Office: (713) 692-1892 Wednesday – Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Pardoning of Murderers: Collapse of the Rule of Law It is an accident of history that this child was not your son, brother or cousin. If you didn’t know the definition of unconscionable, you
will after you read this. Let me give a disclaimer to you, this article is not for the timid and fainthearted. The soon-to-be exPresident has been on a pardoning crusade and now has set free four convicted child murderers. Our tax dollars
employed armed contractors from the Blackwater firm to protect Americans in Iraq. After the tragedy of 9/11, our country invaded a country that had nothing to do with the attack. In order to protect our people and presence in Iraq, we hired armed contractors from the private Blackwater firm. They opened fire on civilians at a traffic stop near the Green Zone. In the end, 14 civilians were killed on that day in 2017. Ali was a 9-year-old child in a vehicle with his family. He was
shot through the head. When his father arrived, his skull was open, and his brain was pouring in the streets. His father gathered the separated brain and put it back in his skull and took him to the hospi-
Pardoning cont’d page 7
A Revival of God
Consciousness Bobby E. Mills, PhD
A Godly Response To ‘Letters To The Editor’ God gave every human being free will. However, every individual should be careful of who and what they choose to defend, because it could be the devil, the devil’s IMP, or even the ruination of a great nation-state. I would never say that 73+ million Americans were wrong in casting a Presidential vote for Donald Trump. However, we definitely want to know who are the Black individuals who were willing to vote against themselves for 30 pieces of silver or far less? Are some Blacks just simply confused about who Trump is? We all know why Whites voted for Trump. However, for spiritual-truthful clarification about
GREATER HOUSTON EDITION
who Trump is here are some empirical facts: (a) Trump is a pathological liar, (b) womanizer, (c) racist bigot (d) religious hypocrite and (e) an immoral justifier of wrongdoing the same as Christian Right Evangelicals, and GOP Loyalists. Sin is sin and judgment day is coming and that is an absolute certaintyempirical-fact! African American News&Issues would like to thank its readership for their thought-provoking letters to the editor concerning editorial commentaries. Keep the letters coming, because we begin life’s journey at different starting points/places/times, and it’s okay to have different opinions, because God is the final JUDGE. All opinions are welcomed, because America is a democratic society, and it’s okay to express different opinions. Thus, editorials are written to allow readership to rethink and re-evaluate empirical facts. This editorial is primarily addressed to the Black Readers who expressed their support for President Trump and the GOP money-train-program
(thirty pieces of silver). Thank God for a moral conscience in the world, because (80+) million Americans voted against Trump and his devilish ways, and this is why we know there is hope for the world. In my opinion, all of US should be Jesuscrats based upon Jesus’ spiritual teachings on “The Sermon On The Mount”; not Democrats or Republicans. The Trump presidency propelled the politics of grievance, victimization politics, and Jim Crow politics to an unprecedented ungodly level in modern times, because of the influence of Christian Right Evangelicals who want to feel like they are victims when they have been the victimizers against God and especially against minorities. Hence, when almost 1/3 of America’s voting population vote for an ungodly Presidential leader, something is spiritually and drastically wrong with our families, churches and educational institutions, because democracy is for a spiritually intelligent population.
Letters cont’d page 3
GREATER HOUSTON EDITION
Letters cont’d The vast number of Americans who voted for Trump is spiritually/physically frightening because that is just too many spiritually confused individuals in the most highly claimed Christian nation in the world. Thus, the 2020 Presidential
Hate cont’d at the elected officials’ desks, smoking E-cigarettes, feet propped up and making phone calls. More photos show armed guards barricaded with lawmakers on the Senate floor, with a desk against the door trying to keep protesters outside, while pointing guns – but not shooting. Imagine if they were Black. Like the Notorious B.I.G. said in one of his songs, “There’s gonna be a lot of slow singing and flower bringing,” because there would have been many funerals to attend. In the streets outside the building, tear gas and pepper spray were deployed in an effort to bring the crowd under control. Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser initiated a citywide curfew overnight, but that still didn’t make the defiant group back down. Federal and local law
January 10, 2021
election has spiritually revealed that we are not who we say we are. America is a White Privilege oriented nation-state structured against minority citizens, and not a multicultural nation-state based upon the Preamble to the U. S. Constitution: “We hold these truths to
be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” JOE, YOU CAN SAY IT AIN’T SO!” Selah.
enforcement were also investigating reports of possible pipe bombs in multiple locations in the area. Slowly, a few Republicans finally spoke up, but most remain silent in fear of Trump retaliation. Rep. Mike Gallagher, a veteran and supporter of President Trump, said the pro-Trump rioters storming the Capitol was “insane.” He also sent a message to Trump saying....”Call it off. It’s over. The election’s over. And the objectors need to stop meddling with the primal forces of our democracy here.” The president did send out a Tweet asking for everyone to remain peaceful, to which Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer sent a response Tweet back saying, “It’s a little late for that. Don’t you think?” Sources say even when Trump’s own staff begged him to call off his protest-
ers, he was reluctant, but eventually gave a backhanded speech, that really praised the supporters for their bad deeds. “This was a fraudulent election, but we can’t play into the hands of these people,” Trump said in a released video. “We have to have peace. So, go home, we love you, you’re very special, you’ve seen what happens, you’ve seen the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel but go home and go home in peace.” We ask you again, what if Trump was Black? And more so, what if the protesters were Black? If hundreds of Black folks would have stormed the Capitol Building, then hundreds of body bags and toe tags would have been on the scene. Black people should clearly see that we can’t do what white folks do. If President Barack Obama would
AFRAMNEWS.COM 3
- AANI
have done half of what President Donald Trump is doing daily, he would have been up under the jail house. What’s the difference? Trump is RICH and WHITE, and many Black people haven’t realized what BLACK
POWER REALLY MEANS! The president has been doing every disgraceful thing imaginable on his way out of the White House, and with less than two weeks to go to Inaugu-
ration Day, we haven’t seen anything yet! And chances are, he will get away with it. Look at everything else he’s been doing. At the beginning of
Hate cont’d page 4
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Hate cont’d the month, the “untouchable” president was caught on tape - once again -saying things that many say should never be uttered from the mouth of the leader of the free world. He refuses to stop, it’s engrained in him and as a self-entitled White man, he and other whites like him are not playing by the textbook they wrote themselves; they are adding chapters to fit their own narratives. Excerpts from a stunning one-hour phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger showed what appears to be the president bullying and threatening the elected official to “find” enough votes to tilt the 2020 election results. “The people of Georgia are angry, the people in the country are angry. And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated,” Trump could be heard saying in the call, to which Raffensperger responded, “Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong.” Trump continued, saying, “So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state. You should want
January 10, 2021 to have an accurate election. And you’re a Republican.” “We believe that we do have an accurate election,” Raffensperger said in response, to which Trump replied, “No, no you don’t. Not even close. You’re off by hundreds of thousands of votes.” Trump even indicated to Raffensperger that he could get in legal trouble if he did not overturn the results. But like many of his other statements, that is false as no fraud has been found. This bullying, while not surprising to anyone who has gotten to understand Trump and his tactics, has finally been publicized for his base of supporters to see – even if they still choose to deny it. “This is the Emperor has no clothes,” said Margaret Hoover, Republican strategist and host of PBS’ Firing Line. “This is the moment where you see that the man who has been telling us that there are irregularities in the system that have created a false outcome of the election, caught on tape trying to create irregularities in the system to lead to his own re-election. There are no two sides of this story. This is the president of the United States undermining Democracy and this is the first time, thanks to modern technology, it was caught on tape.” Texas Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee also
spoke to CNN about the shocking audio. “I’m talking to constituents who are calling in between oxygen breaths in hospitals who are trying to stay alive during COVID-19, yet the president of the United States in the midst of this pandemic and swearing in of a new Congress to begin work on behalf of American people, made a call that is not only daunting, but frightening,” Jackson Lee said. The Congresswoman went on to add, “It is frightening because the one thing we have to hold on to as Americans is this precious set of principles in the Constitution called Democracy. That’s
what we have based our survival, our leadership, our presence in the world and what the president did was to badger and intimidate a state elected official to do something wrong.” Political Analyst John Avlon likened the president to a gangster. “He is a pathetic thug. He’s a mob boss attempting a shakedown caught on tape who elevates conspiracy theories over facts and tries to bully election officials,” Avlon said. “What he was caught doing was trying to deprive the voters of Georgia and the United States of a free and fair election, I believe our legal friends will say that is illegal under federal and state law.”
GREATER HOUSTON EDITION Avlon said Republicans who stand by the president and his illegal tactics should realize they are potentially destroying their reputations. “Is this the man? Is this the man they are willing to trash the Constitution or our Democratic norms to support? Why?” Avlon asked. It is a question many may never be able to answer. The countdown is on until Joe Biden is sworn in as the 46th President of the United States. We will
wait, like the rest of America, to see what Trump will do next. Bowing out gracefully is not a skill he was taught. And by looking at what unfolded this week when White people took siege of the Capitol – and one woman being shot and killed - Trump is willing to risk lives for the sake of his bruised ego.
- AANI
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6 AFRAMNEWS.COM Ramos said she wanted to publicly get the vaccine to send a message to the Police Chief Art Hispanic commuAcevedo, Fire Chief nity. “I am asking all Sam Pena, Council my people to take the Members Amy Peck, Michael Kubosh, Letitia Plummer, David Robinson and Judge R.K. Sandhill, Mary Ramos, William A. Lawson, Susannah Wong, Zhengyi Wu, and several frontline city workers also received the vaccine.
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January 10, 2021 vaccine. I just took it, and it does not hurt,” said Ramos. “You have a better chance of surviving this pandemic if you take the vaccine. If you care
Rev. William “Bill” Lawson of Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church among those receiving COVID-19 vaccine.
about your family, do it.” Darryl Flood, a Houston Public Works maintenance employee, also got the vaccine Monday. “I feel good, and I encourage everyone eligible to get vaccinated.”
GREATER HOUSTON EDITION Also on Monday, the Houston Health Department launched an online registration portal allowing Houstonians at the highest risk of coronavirus disease to schedule appointments to receive free COVID-19 vaccinations. While appointments are full for the rest of the month, officials said a vaccination mega-site
will be open soon. The larger site would allow the health department to increase the number of daily vaccinations. “We know there are people reluctant to get the vaccine in certain communities,” said Mayor Turner. “But there is a lot of demand. Our goal is to open more sites as we get increased vaccine supply.” - AANI
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Pardoning cont’d tal. Tragically, the hospital was overwhelmed with victims and could not address the little boy’s fatal wounds. According to Brown University, over 200,000 innocent civilians have been killed in Iraq from 2003-2011. President- elect Joe Biden was seduced to vote for this war. Of course, he regrets his affirmative vote. Ali’s father and family believed that after the despised former ruler and dictator - Saddam Hussein - was overthrown that the United States would bring the rule of law. Because of this crime, underwritten by our tax dollars, 12 contractors were convicted of murder, manslaughter, weapons charges and sentenced to 12-15 years in prison. Two weeks ago, President Trump gave them a get out of jail free card. Trump was described by Dr. Mary Trump, his niece, as the most dangerous man in the world. She says that he was created by a toxic family culture. As American citizens and as global citizens, all of us share in the sin and shame of the massacre and Ali’s death. The presidential pardon process was understood as a method to correct wrongs of the judicial system. Now we have a moral and ethical
dilemma. Why not pardon Ed Snowden of Wiki-Leaks who exposed US war crimes and other secrets? Maybe Trump needs to become a king and pardon himself and his family for crimes that they have not been charged with? This is about more than pointing fingers regarding the death of Ali. This is all about our national character. This is about how America gets a new heart and spirit within the citizens of the nation. Yes, a revival that will lead to sanctification for the whole nation because our national sins are breaking the restraints. Our moral constitution is suspect because the dishonorable behavior never pauses. During the Biden Harris reign, we need to send a peace and justice message to war criminals. Let’s bracket the message on both ends with “NOT IN MY NAME.” As we begin 2021, remember the words of Mohamed, Ali’s father, who has moved to America to fight for justice. “I don’t know how this is allowed. I don’t think that America is built on such principles,” he said in an interview, “but there must be a way. If not in the earthly courts, then with God. God will not let them go.” - AANI
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