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Editorials/Columns
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Ignoring Steve Harvey
lot of people love Steve Harvey. They love his stand-up routine, his radio show, his Hoodie Awards and his everyone's favorite, funny
uncle demeanor.
The admiration is under-
standable. Harvey comes off as the kind of person you'd make sure to invite to any house party because of his ability to keep things live. Unfortunately, when the lights go off and he's no longer performing, the popular comedian seems to have a hard time not continuously present- ing himself as a joke.
A prime example of this oc- curred two weeks ago when Harvey attempted to give T.I. and Bow Wow advice after the two rappers made unflattering remarks about Melania Trump.
Apparently, the unsavory comments were made about the first lady while the two enter- tainers were coming to the de- fense of their fellow emcee Snoop Dogg, who received a substantial amount of backlash for his video, Lavender, in which the west coast lyricist used a toy gun to shoot a clown character that resembled Pres- ident Donald Trump.
Following the episode, in what I can best describe as a typical "house negro" moment, Harvey went on his radio pro- gram and pleaded with the young artists to tone down the vitriol they had aimed at the first family. As Harvey put it, by going at the "all powerful Trump" and the establish- ment, they were placing, what Harvey believed to be, the most important thing in the world at risk... their finances.
"I'm just saying" Harvey ex- claimed. "Ya'll got money man. You got money and they know how to come after that money."
As I interpreted it, Harvey's scary-slave-talk message could have basically been translated as: "Ya'll better leave massa alone before he come getcha." I just wonder if Harvey tried to give Trump, a man who vi- ciously disparaged Senator Ted Cruz's wife a year ago, that same lesson on behavior when he visited Trump Plaza back in February?
I imagine it would have probably been pretty hard for him to engage in that kind of conversation during his tap- dancing routine.
In trying to play the role of
"wise elder," Harvey exposed himself as just another highly successful Black person who suffers from, what I like to call, MichaelJordanitis. The con- dition that cripples an individ- ual's ability to stand up for or say anything out of fear that the dominant society will place him back into poverty.
I guess I shouldn't be too sur- prised that someone like Har- vey champions, what equates to, a man choosing to sit down to urinate when it comes to ex- ercising his freedom of expres- sion and principles.
After all, this is the same person who once famously joked about his willingness to play a monkey in a movie for $4 million. For individuals like Harvey, who believe the dollar is the bottom line, selling their souls and staying in their as- signed places comes easy.
Of course, this self-emascu- lating disposition doesn't neces- sarily make Steve Harvey a bad person. But, during an era when sides are being chosen and people are risking their lives for change, it does make him a part of the background noise that we would be better off ignoring.
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C. Blythe Andrews 1901-1977 (1945)
C. Blythe Andrews, Jr. 1930-2010 (1977)
Is The GOP Trying To Hijack Democracy?
xcuse us for being blunt. But we detect a trend in the be-
haviors of certain Florida Republican legislators and in certain Republican 2016 United States Congress-people. Be- cause we continue to send the same Republicans back to Tal- lahassee and to Washington, they obviously are acting as if they possess a pass to do anything they please because voters obviously don’t read and believe anything they are told.
Moreover, certain Republicans behave as if “ethics” is no longer fashionable when reviewing some of their behaviors and legislative measures. Florida’s legislature has introduced legislation that removes the sovereignty of cities of counties by preventing them from enacting any ordinance that regu- lates businesses without seeking the Legislature’s approval.
Did some influential businessperson object to regulations a city or county required them to follow? Now they are trying to restrict the term limits of judges on the Florida Supreme Court and state appellate courts to 12 years, unlike any other state in America. Reportedly, the Republicans are upset (after spending over $250 million on outside attorneys over the past six years along with a $309 million annual budget for attorney General Pam Bondi’s office) because of rulings against actions of Rick Scott and other Republicans for drug testing welfare recipients, sunshine law/ public records vio- lations etc.
In Washington, the Republicans’ first acts were to intro- duce legislation that would close the federal Election Assis- tance Commission and the independent Office of Government Ethics, an office that was established as a result of previous conflicts of interest and corruption. Given the level of widespread lying about contacts with Russia by Trump’s appointees, transition committee members and staff, Americans are just beginning to see the tip of the Rus- siangate iceberg . . . maybe.
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TUESDAY, APRIL 4, 2017 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY PAGE 5
1863 Reconstruction And 2016 Deconstruction Parallels
I
s there anyone else out
there who sees parallels be- tween the 1863 – 1877 Recon- struction era and the 2015 “Deconstruction” era in which Republicans seem bent on eras- ing every semblance of legisla- tion and Executive Orders enacted by President Barack Obama in much the same way Democrats erased President Abraham Lincoln’s emanci- pation and enfranchisement leg- islation and policies? The irony of the parallels is that Presi- dent Obama often said he felt a ‘kinship” with President Lincoln and he used Lin- coln’s Bible to take his oath of office.
Just like President Lin- coln’s Reconstruction oppo- nents after his death, Obama’s opponents stirred up racist and ethnic hate and committed acts of violence against Blacks, Indi- ans, Middle Easterners, Mus- lims, and gays before he left office.
White supremacists in- creased their attacks on newly freed slaves, abolitionists, and poor whites by intimidation, discrimination, lynchings, and burning throughout the South during Reconstruction.
Strategically, Radical Re- publicans used Congress to block any extreme and moder- ate approaches used to block the
emancipation and enfranchise- ment of freedmen by the De- mocrats.
Today, Democrats are al- most futilely fighting to block Republicans from dismantling programs and legislation that helped lift the economic, politi- cal and social status of Blacks, Hispanics, the poor, and other minorities – the stances have been reversed.
Indeed, Democratic south- erners disenfranchised most Blacks and many poor whites through the use of constitutional amendments and electoral laws after removing Republicans from leadership positions and elected offices.
Today, Republicans are using budget cuts, legislation re- peals, legislative amendments and executive orders to undo programs and policies enacted by President Obama that benefitted Blacks, Hispanics, the elderly, poor, unemployed as well as the middle income citi- zens. (TO BE CONTINUED)
David Nunez By Way Of James Brown
o make some kind of sense about what’s been happening
on Capitol Hill, we take an excerpt from author James McBride’s fascinating book on the life of soul-singer James Brown. The name of McBride’s book is Kill’em and Leave’em.
McBride’s book supplies a possible reason for the unbe- lievable mayhem caused by Brown’s left-behind multi-million dollar estate.
McBride explains, “The short answer is greed (but) the long answer is boring, which is how lawyers . . . and modern day gangsters want it to be . . . They don’t pull out a gun and stick it in your face, but they paper you to death . . . they bore the public, hoping you’ll turn the page, change the channel, surf the Internet, watch the football game, mutter about how shameful the whole bit is . . . say the hell with it, and move on.”
Now, even though McBride is commiserating on Soul
T
Brother Number One’s living will, if the author’s words don’t sound like an explanation for what is going on in the Trump Oval Office, we’ll buy you a Brooklyn Bridge (or a Mexican wall). So, will we ever know why David Nunez ran (because he could not fly?) to the White House to share information before sharing that same information with his intelligence committee
(or his psychoanalyst)? Probably not.
But at least it gives us something else to talk about . . . another alternative fact, so-to-speak
wherein this planet of adults gets further snowed in by a game that every juvenile learns to play from puberty. It’s called “ WHEN IN TROUBLE, CHANGE THE SUBJECT!”
Ask Hitler, Stalin, or a mile-long list of hucksters who have made a game out of peeing on a rock then blaming the other guy.
Meanwhile, once again, at America’s gravest hour, Soul Brother Number One comes to the rescue, to warn us not to be confused by words that seem to change their focus every day.