A Day in Washington, D.C.

Anthony Robinson, Esq., President MBELDEF at NAM's Stimulus Fellowship Workshop, University of California Center, Washington, D.C.

New America Media Stimulus Fellowship - Day 1

I arrived in D.C. last night! Beautiful flight, great escorts, awesome dinner, even better hotel.  

New America's coming very strong to help introduce us to or fill in the blanks on the Stimulus and what it may or may not mean for you.

Aaron Glantz, NAM Stimulus Editor kicked off today's workshops with an update on the Stimulus and how to maneuver the many databases for our reporting.

Right now Atty. Anthony Robinson (Minority Business Enterprise Legal and Defense and Education Fund), Devere Kutshcher (United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce) are explaining what the recovery plan means in terms of demographics, contracts, and the real story behind the federal funding.

Khalil Abdullah (New America Media)

The words for today are INFORMATION and ACCOUNTABILITY.  

The discussion's very frank and they're making it plain, so I haven't gotten lost in the terms and numbers.  I like it.  Gotta go.

SCM

NAM Fellow Christina Fresquez-Pizzaro (El Seminario), Suzanne Manneh (Stimulus Coordinator, Arab and Latino Media Monitor, New America Media, Devere Kutshcher (United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce), Khalil Abdullah (New America Media), NAM Fellow Edwin Buggage (New Orleans Data News Weekly)

New America Media Fellow

All Praise Is Due To Allah!  This week brought a lot of professional good news, some if being that I won a fellowship from New America Media (NAM), the largest national collaboration and advocate of 2000 ethnic news organizations.  

I was selected with 13 out of 50 applicants from diverse publications across the country.  We will use the fellowships to document the impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on the ethnic communities served by our publications.  

More specifically, for the Final Call, I will investigate equity issues in the employment, education, and housing sections of the Recovery Act.

  

I've always considered it a privilege and a blessing from Allah to have a platform from which to produce news and information that educates, enlightens, informs, and uplifts our community.  I believe that winning this fellowship from New America Media will strongly enhance that work.  I am grateful to NAM for spearheading such an important project and for the opportunity to be a part of it. 

This is a time of struggle like our people have never experienced before.  Although the Stimulus Package doesn't hold all of the answers to the issues facing the Black community, it does hold some financial assistance and I look forward to finding out what that assistance is, how it has been used so far, and how it can be accessed.

As part of the fellowship, we will meet in Washington, D.C. next month for an extensive training on the stimulus. We'll meet national policy-makers, leading investigative and business journalists, policy advocates, and researchers.  NAM will disseminate the stories we produce to ethnic and mainstream media partners and non-profit collaborators through its news wire.

The other fellowship recipients are:  Linnie Bailey, Black Voice (Corona, CA), Marcony Almeida Barros, The Brazilian Journal (Boston, MA), Edwin Buggage, New Orleans Data News Weekly (New Orleans, LA), Maya Lolbe Corona, Rumbo (Houston, TX), Charles Ding, Sing Tao (Los Angeles, CA), Christina Fresquez-Pizzaro, El Seminario (Lakewood, CO), Khalil AlHajal, Arab American News (Dearborn, MI), Charles Hallman, The Spokesman-Recorder (Minneapolis, MN), Victor Merina, RezNet (Missoula, MT), Cristina Pastor, Philippine News (New York, NY), Eva Sanchis, El Dario/La Prensa (New York, NY), Mohsin Zaheer, Daily Khabrain (New York, NY). 

More about NAM's Stimulus Watch at www.newamericamedia.org.

At Day In L.A. at the Taste of Soul

Danny Bakewell, Sr., Publisher, Los Angeles Sentinel Newspaper and Taste of Soul creator.

The Los Angeles Sentinel Newspaper brought art, culture, business and family together again for the 4th Annual Taste of Soul 2009 Festival on October 17. Taste of Soul is considered the largest block party in L.A.

This year, finally, I was able to attend. Because it takes place usually on the same weekend I'm away for the commemoration of the Holy Day of Atonement, Million Man March.

It was scorching hot but that didn't keep people from coming out. What I liked best about Taste of Soul is seeing the joy on our people's faces. We know it's been rough! Home foreclosures, health issues, youth violence, this and that, but for one day in L.A. on Crenshaw Boulevard, people could forget their troubles and become one.

"A Taste of Soule is for you," said Danny Bakewell, Sr., Taste of Soul Creator and Executive Publisher of the LA Sentinel.

Freeway Ricky Ross - New Man on a New Mission

Sis. Charlene Muhammad interviews Ricky Ross during his homecoming celebration September 29 (photo Amin Ali Muhammad)

The Final Call Newspaper goes one on one with Freeway Ricky Ross

Several months ago I got a phone call - three in fact - informing that former 'crack cocaine kingpin' Freeway Ricky Ross was being released from prison. He was utilized as a pawn in the CIA's scheme to distribute crack cocaine throughout urban cities all across America and was sentenced to life in prison for his role.

I received a call inviting me to Ross' homecoming celebration just as my family and I were arriving at our mosque for an address by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan tonight. "We apologize. We meant to call you sooner, but we hope the Final Call can make it," his brother, David said. Hope! Please? This was the call.

After soaking in Min. Farrakhan's prophetic message we rushed to Ross' family's home. I thought we'd be driving far but who knew? It happens to be in the same neighborhood as mine / close walking distance. This gave us more time to talk. Today was a good day.

Ross shared a lot - lessons learned, whether he has any regrets, and why he feels he's on a God-given mission.


I'd never met Ricky Ross before - except through the countless news stories, articles and documentaries that have showcased his life. I tried to be unassuming. I didn't know what to expect.


We arrived and were greeted by a very humble, kind, grounded person, fully at peace with himself and his mission, which he told the Final Call is to save as many young lives as he can.


Check in with the Final Call Newspaper soon to find out how Rick Ross is doing this. (http://www.finalcall.com/).

A Day In L.A...

at the Ebony Repertory Theatre


I received an email invitation to An Evening With Dr. Keith Black from Bro. Wren T. Brown, Founder/Producer of the Ebony Repertory Theatre. The evening was one of the best that I've ever experienced. Thank you Bro Wren! and co-sponsor, the National Black MBA Association, Inc., Los Angeles Chapter.






Dr. Black, a renowned neurosurgeon, recently released his new book, Brain Surgeon: A Doctor's Inspiring Encounters with Mortality and Miracles.

He spoke at length with the audience about what inspired him to be a brain surgeon and how good parenting made a difference in his life. Despite his tight schedule, Dr. Black took questions and greeted as many people as he could during the post reception in his honor. I enjoyed a lot about tonight, but what warmed my heart was his humility and the time he made for the community. I mean, a top expert in his field was here and accessible. And get this: general admission was just $20 and that included his book!






Dr. Black answered my Three Point Probe during his reception - see below - and look for more on why he wrote the book, his perspective on the health care debate, and his passion for the brain in the Final Call Newspaper soon!

Three Point Probe with Dr. Keith Black

Sis. Charlene: You talked about how on your journey, you persevered by turning negative energy that came your way into a positive for you. What has been your biggest challenge on your journey?


Dr. Black: When my research when I moved to UCLA (the University of California at Los Angeles) wasn't working and I really had to understand why, and thinking that basically my career in research would be over. But the persistence of trying to understand that answer actually led to another discovery which opened up another door, which led now to our ability to another discovery, which opened up another door which led now to our ability to improve delivery of chemotherapeutic drugs to patients with brain tumors.

Sis Charlene: What do you make of recent news reports that some 45,000 people die annually because they don't have health insurance?

Dr. Black: I'm not really familiar with those statistics, but I the problem in this country is not really a lack of health care, it's really a lack of health insurance. If someone has an emergency and they go to the emergency room, then the emergency room will treat you. But it's really the chronic disorders, making sure that one has good control of the high blood pressure, the diabetes, getting screening for prostate cancer, getting screening for breast cancer, those are the other areas where I think we can do a better job and improve the quality of care.

Sis Charlene: What do you love most about your career?

Dr. Black: There are a number of things I really like about it. One is I wake up every day and I know that I have the potential of helping someone. That is very gratifying. I have the potential of making a new discovery, which can improve the lives of people. And I work in an area, that I think is extremely fascinating and with the most incredible organ in the universe and that's the human brain. I just feel very blessed and very lucky.

Sis. Charlene: Thank you.

Van Jones "Green Czar" Resigns

Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. Van Jones resigned from his post as President Obama's environmental advisor last night. What would make a man with years of experience in renewable energy, and a staunch advocate for green jobs quit when the country's most in need of this expertise?

Well, he co-founded ColorOfChange.org, the Bay Area-based activist organization that launched an online campaign against right wing Fox talk show host Glenn Beck, immediately after he called Pres. Obama a racist.

Immediately after the petition hit the web, Beck's sponsors started distancing themselves from his show and divisive rhetoric.

Van Jones had been inactive with ColorOfChange.org for some time as (before his job as the White House "Green Czar") he had founded and headed up Green For All, a national organization that strives to build a green economy and lift people out of poverty.

But Beck and the right wing went after Jones (not ColorofChange.org - because the real target is Pres. Obama and Jones' position allowed them to hit two birds with one stone), pulled up some of his past protest activities and lectures that addressed Bush's role in 911 and the Republican Party, and linked Jones' independent views to the President's. Well, the rest is history.

This issue is not just about Barack, Beck and Jones. The American people - especially the poor - stand to lose. Jones possesses the expertise needed to move the country from a wasteful economy to one that both provides the renewable resources it needs and put its people to work developing them.

All in all, Glenn Beck lost dozens of advertisers, but with Van Jones' resignation, the country, in the middle of one of the biggest recessions and unemployment eras in history, loses green jobs and much more.

Glenn Beck's "Obama racist" charge costs more advertisers

  

Glenn Beck, the over-the-top talk show host on Fox News Channel, who called President Barack Obama a racist, is losing advertisers for his Glenn Beck 

Show at this very moment.

But instead of apologizing and repenting, he is attacking ColorOfChange.org, the organization that swiftly and strategically launched an online petition asking advertisers to pull the plug. But he's not going at them head-on.

Beck is instead running negative profiles of Van Jones, the President's "Green Czar."  Remember him?  The Final Call actually featured Mr. Jones and his organization Green For All earlier this year.  Currently he is the special advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.  Mr. Jones co-founded the San Francisco Bay-Area ColorOfChange.org with James Rucker.

At the time of this posting, ColorOfChange.org has yet to hear from Red Lobster and Vonage, but the advertisers that have kicked Beck to the curb so far, or pledged to, are:

Clorox, Lowe's, Sprint, Airware Inc., Ancestry.com, AT&T, Blaine Labs Inc., Campbell Soup, Ditech, The Elations Company, Experian, Farmers Insurance Group, Johnson & Johnson, NutriSystem, UPS Store, Proctor & Gamble, Wal-Mart, and Verizon Wireless.

At least two of the companies said that they didn't advertise on Beck's show but their products were tagged to other items that did and they've taken action to have their ID's removed from the show's commercials.

I'll keep watching...(and not the Glenn Beck Show).

(Photos:  Top/Glenn Beck...Bottom/Van Jones)