Page 4 - Florida Sentinel 10-21-22

Please Get Ready, It Is Time To Vote!!
I have a major concern with the way we turned out to vote on our primary, elec- tion day. Our turn out was extremely low, as a result we lost seats that we should have won. We cannot sit back and allow the Republicans to win the majority of the seats in the White House. Our President fought a hard race and he won it fair and square; however, if we don’t go to the polls and get our Democrats in seats in Wash- ington, D. C., we are in for a major back
slide.
Healthcare is very important to those
of us that don’t have insurance. We need to get out there and vote to give the Presi- dent the strength to hold on to our health care.
There are many reasons why voting is important, even locally. Here in Tampa alone, we have 44,000 registered voters and only 22,000 voted in the primary.
Do you know if your name has been dropped from the voter registration books? In this last election, there were over 8,000 people purged from those books, are you one of them? Vote Early and find out. VOTING is a very important tool.
What is the difference in aborting a child, or bringing one into the world then at the age of fifteen on up he or she gets shot down and killed by someone using a gun? Which one hurts the worse? Let’s get rid of guns, guns, guns the way we want to get rid of abortion. Why? Is it because it’s a man thing? Let’s put getting rid of guns on the ballot and vote on that.
When I hear my brothers and sisters using negative statements about voting such as: “they are going to do what they want anyway, so why bother,” or “it really won’t make a difference.” That just burns me up. Comments of this nature are not only ignorant, but, deadly.
You tell that to Ida B. Wells, Mary Ter- rell, The Moss Brothers, W. E. B. Dubois, Harriet Tubman, Nate Turner, Denmark Vesey, and millions of slaves that lost their lives in order for us to have the free- dom and the right to vote.
Vote because it was fought for you to have this privilege, remember Medgar Evers, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.?
The right to vote is a special privilege that every American is given the opportu- nity to take part in; however, for Black Americans this hasn’t always been a lux- ury.
A bit of history: Blacks have been dis- criminated against for 400 years, in the worst ways possible. Might I remind you that our ancestors were stolen or taken from our homeland “Africa” and the “Caribbean” by the Europeans, enslaved by the white man, to work in a land that couldn’t help itself (for free), lynched by the white man, murdered by the white man, who wanted to eliminate our race.
Every civil right that African-Ameri- cans now possess, including the right to vote, was brought into existence by many years of lost lives, struggles, pain and heartache.
Voting could influence who sits on the Supreme Court, influence the future of Social Security, health care, education,
economic opportunity, gun control, fair- ness for Africa as well as who controls Congress.
A very good example is the recent elec- tion in Selma, Alabama, when our people got off their butts and went to the polls to vote and removed a white man who held the position as Mayor for 37 years, and was beaten and replaced with a Black Mayor. VOTING WORKS.
Many of our young Blacks today have yet to realize that we live in a different world. A world ran mostly by older, prej- udiced, whites who still could care less about Black people and our struggle. But, I can’t blame our young, because our past has been kept away from them, just as it has been kept away from me and you, too.
I say to you, VOTING IS A RIGHT NOT TO BE WASTED.
Here are a few facts for you:
Did you know:
1. That Blacks/African Americans are
the only group of people who still require “permission” under the United States Constitution to vote?
2. That the Voter Rights Act signed in 1965 by Lyndon B. Johnson was JUST AN ACT?
3. That it was not made law. In 1982, Ronald Regan amended the Voters Rights Act for only 25 years, which means that in the year 2007, we could lose the right to vote.
4. In the year 2007, Congress will once again convene to decide whether or not Blacks should retain the right to vote. In order for this to be passed, 38 states will have to approve an extension, and they did.
The Act should be made law; our right to vote should no longer be up for discus- sion, review and/or evaluation.
Now, I have given you what we call “Voter Education,” so here’s what I need you to do:
1. Go out in your community, organiza- tions, news media, and educate them on the importance of going to the polls and vote.
2. Arrange transportation to and from the polls to vote.
3. Educate them on selecting the best candidate for the job; remembering that the most important issue is Economic De- velopment and Healthcare.
If each of you go out and talk to ten vot- ers and get them to go to the polls and early vote October 29th thru November 5th, or on November 8, 2022 and vote, you would have made a difference in society once again. President Biden needs De- mocrats in those seats in Washington.
We cannot tell you who to vote for; however, if you don’t know who to vote for, remember that the Florida Sentinel posts a slate of candidates that they have taken the time and interviewed each can- didate locally and statewide and they are sharing the candidate they think would do a good job for us locally and in Washing- ton, D. C.
PLEASE GO TO THE POLLS DURING EARLY VOTING OR ON NOVEMBER 8, 2022, AND VOTE.
ANN JENKINS, (USAF, Retired)
‘Like Minds And Actions’ In Federal Law Enforcement
Now, everyone knows why the mob that attacked the na- tion’s Capitol on January 6, 2021, did not get shot with rubber bullets, tear gassed or beaten the way the Black Lives Matter protestors were when they protested WITHOUT vio-
lence.
A recently released email revealed that a “sizeable per-
centage of FBI employees felt sympathy towards the January 6th insurrectionists and considered the riot at the U. S. Capi- tol “no different than the Black Lives Matter protests.”
News sources state that “the email was sent to a top FBI official by someone with apparent connections to the bu- reau.” In recently released files by the Bureau, the sender’s name was not revealed, but the message was sent by some- one with an email address outside the Bureau.
The email included a warning about attitudes toward the insurrection within the Bureau. The writer explained that he/she “had to explain to an employee the difference be- tween opportunists burning and looting because of legiti- mate grievances for police brutality and an insurgent mob attempting to prevent the execution of democratic processes at the behest of a sitting president.” One is a smattering of criminals; the other is an organized group of domestic ter- rorists.”
The most chilling statement was that the person stated, “I’ve spoken to multiple (FBI) African-American agents who have turned down asks to join SWAT, because they do not trust every member of their office’s SWAT team would pro- tect them in an armed conflict.”
To support the reality, a former FBI agent said he was not surprised and “it was important to substantiate the suspi- cions he and many other people had. “One FBI agent was sus- pended because he refused to participate in prosecutions of January 6 protestors.” And even less surprising, Republican lawmakers called him “patriotic.”
One co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Ex- tremism reminded us that the FBI has been warning us for at least 20 years that there is danger in the recruitment of ex- tremists into the military and law enforcement. A 2019 study found that hundreds of active-duty military and active-duty law enforcement were actively engaged in Islamophobic and anti-government groups.
Another study found hundreds of hateful and racist posts made by police officers. Therefore, both the military and law enforcement need to be transparent as to its efforts to weed out racist and extremist members among its ranks to ‘serve and protect.’
Editorial/Column Letter To The Editor
PAGE 4-A FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2022