Dec. 26, 2011

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from GIN

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko might have cheered the movement of Occupiers now multiplying across the United States and abroad with the goal to obtain rights for the “99 percent”.

The Black Consciousness activist would have been 65 this week but his life was cut short at the age of 30 when he was murdered by apartheid-era police while in detention. Born on Dec. 18, 1946, he died on Sept. 12, 1977 in Pretoria.

By 1972, Biko had become one of the founders and later the first President of the Black Peoples Convention which retaliated against the Apartheid government using “black communism”, land restitution, and guerrilla warfare. 

In spite of government repression, Biko and the Black Consciousness Movement played a significant role in organizing the protests which culminated in the Soweto Uprising of June 16, 1976.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, created after the end of minority rule and the apartheid system, reported in 1997 that five former members of the South African security forces who had admitted to killing Biko were applying for amnesty. Their application was rejected.

Nkosinathi BIko, CEO of the Steve Biko foundation, said: “Black Consciousness taught people about a positive sense of self and then tried to link that positive sense of self to an emancipation program. We need programs that will rekindle the consciousness of the citizenry in this country. We need a reawakening of the national consciousness.”

President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle, and daughters Malia, 14, and Sasha, 10, posed for this Christmas portrait last week. The first couple had to find the time amidst dozens of seasonal parties and festivities at the White House. PHOTO/The White House

Dominique Whalen and his mother, Kimberly, share a happy moment as they, along with her 12-year-old son, pick up gifts from Families Forward. The family is just up from homelessness thanks to help from the D.C.-based organization. PHOTO: Barry Student

Dominique Whalen kept the faith through homelessness. 
PHOTO: Barry Student

The New Faces of Homelessness in America - the Family
By Hazel Trice Edney

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – At this time of the year, many 20-year-olds have their minds set on the latest I-Phone, a certain brand of jacket or perhaps shoes that they want. But, such things are not priority for Dominique Whalen. He is different than a lot of youth his age.

Dominique’s Christmas and New Year’s wishes are a unique blend of, well, he just wants a permanent home. He simply wants the certainty that he, his mother and his 12-year-old brother will never be homeless again.

“It’s a rough road,” says the tall, charismatic young man who has lived in the streets, even separated from his mother, so that she and his younger brother could more easily find a place to sleep at night.

“I’m just happy to get past what we’ve gone through…So we can progress from there,” he says in an interview.

Dominique recalls when his mother suddenly lost her job at a Maryland Safeway where she’d worked five years. He learned quickly that he could not lean on his friends. In fact, he could not even relate to them.

“One minute I was living an everyday life of a teen-ager. The next minute, I have to think on my own. Your mind is a 24-hour grind, you have to know where you’re going to lay your head, what you’re going to eat, who to trust, survival instincts,” he said. “There were times when I‘ve cried. There were times I felt like suicide. There were times I felt like, ‘Why me. I’m young, I’m young’.”

Dominique and his family, once among the thousands of homeless across America, is now living in a transitional home. But, they still need a safety net just like the other 146 million families living at or below the poverty line, according to recent numbers reported by the U. S. Census Bureau.

This family’s safety net, like thousands of others over the past 26 years, was a Washington, D.C.-based organization called Families Forward.

Dominique’s frustration represents the pain of a family going through an economic crisis. But, Ruby Gregory, executive director of Families Forward, has another kind of pain.

“It’s indescribable the feeling that you have when you are trying to work with a family to find resources that will keep them off the street and you’re doing everything that you can and the resources just aren’t there; not only in the surrounding areas, but within your organization,” Gregory says. “It’s very frustrating. I wake up in the morning thinking how am I going to help our families today? And I go to bed at night thinking the same thing. What did we do that made a difference today and how can we do it different tomorrow?”

Families Forward is federally funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). But, the $292,000  a year for 36 families that HUD grants the organization to help pay rent for transitional housing is just not enough when there’s a waiting list of more than 50 additional families and no anticipated openings until April 2012. And in the current economy with people suddenly finding themselves out of work, Gregory says, the needs are well beyond simply housing.

Families Forward also struggles to provide help with job search, job training, entrepreneurial assistance and a clothes closet. It also serves 150 families with various needs other than housing.

Charitable contributions typically decrease during economic crunches. Still, Gregory has launched a drive by letter and on www.familiesforward.org requesting financial help from people who are willing to give simply because they recognize the need.

“The interesting thing is how the face of the homeless has changed over the last couple of years. We are now getting families that actually do have a significant history of employment. And due to the economic situation, they’ve lost employment or their hours have been cut. And so they’re finding themselves unable to afford the market rent that they’ve been used to paying,” Gregory says. “What we find a lot of times is that the families - some of them - are caught in the middle. The families have just a little too much income to get the resources or they’re destitute. There’s nothing in place for the families a lot of time who just need a little more to make ends meet.”

The families that Gregory describes are what she and others call “the working poor.” She stresses, “They are working … We have been struggling with this for so long.”

Dominique’s mother, Kimberly Whalen, lost her job at a Safeway grocery store four years ago where she had worked for five years. She struggled to keep her family living together, but resorted to staying in the homes of friends until about a month ago when she got help from Families Forward. The gregarious Whalen now works as a cook at the Washington, D.C. Convention Center as she strives to get back on her feet.

Her hopes are to now “become self-sufficient and to help other people who are homeless and get them on the right track like I did,” she said.

The Whalen family appears to be headed for a happy ending. But, Gregory reminds that there are thousands of other families out there who are still suffering. And even federally funded organizations like Families Forward will fall short unless they get the additional financial contributions they need.

“Whatever we go over our budget for subsidies, we have to raise,” she said. “Our challenge is finding rents that stay within our budget.”

Gregory knows well the needs of people and how those needs have changed over the years. She started as a bookkeeper with Families Forward 25 years ago when it was just a year old and called Consortium for Services to Homeless Families.

“I just loved what we do,” she said.

But as the needs increase, they are more and more difficult to meet. Having come up through the ranks, Gregory has acquired a unique and seasoned perspective on the issue of poverty in America.

“Everybody gives money and time to the shelters. I don’t think they recognize how important it is to put that money toward transitional housing because the families that we have in transitional housing are actually expected to pay utilities and to pay a portion of whatever they earn toward rent, so they’re just as needy – if not more – than the families that are in the shelters,” she explains.

Meanwhile, Dominique Whalen, one step up from homelessness, gives his remedy for holding on when there appears to be nothing to hold on to: “Faith. Faith,” says the 20-year-old. “Staying positive and just knowing to yourself it’s going to get better.”

Group Says Major Corporations are Funding Discriminatory Voting Laws
By Hazel Trice Edney

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - An online advocacy group, dedicated to strengthening the collective political voice of Black people and other historically disadvantaged, is calling for major corporations to stop funding a right-wing group that pushes for discriminatory voter identification laws.

“For years, the right wing has been trying to stop Black people, other people of color, young people, and the elderly from voting for partisan gain — and now some of America's biggest companies are helping them do it,” said a statement posted on the group’s website, colorofchange.org. “These companies have helped pass discriminatory voter ID legislation by funding a right wing policy group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Voter ID bills linked to ALEC have already passed in seven states, and similar voter ID bills have been introduced in 27 other states… ALEC's voter ID laws are undemocratic, unjust and part of a longstanding right wing agenda to weaken the Black vote.”

The statement continues, “Supporters of discriminatory voter ID laws claim they want to reduce voter fraud (individuals voting illegally, or voting twice). But such fraud almost never actually occurs, and never in amounts large enough to affect the result of elections. What is clear is that voter ID laws prevent large numbers of eligible voters from casting a ballot, and could disenfranchise up to 5 million people.”

Human and civil rights groups such as the NAACP and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law have concurred strongly with the fight against the growing voter identification laws.

In a recent commentary written by NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous, he states, “Over the last 12 months, 34 states have introduced voter suppression legislation, with laws passing in 14 of those states and bills pending in eight. These suppressive laws take many forms, but in each case they disproportionately impact people of color, working women, blue-collar workers, students, seniors, and immigrants.”

The statement says that ALEC is funded in part by the Koch Brothers, “the same family that funds the radically conservative tea party.” It describes many of its large corporate funders as having “household names.”

The statement on ColorofChange.org does not specifically name the companies, but says many of them may not be aware of the impact of their contributions to ALEC.

“Some of the companies supporting ALEC may simply be unaware that the group is involved in voter suppression. Others might think that voter suppression will benefit their political interests, and hope that they can get away with supporting it because so few people have even heard of ALEC,” the statement says. “We've started reaching out to these companies to make sure they know what they're supporting, and to demand that they stop. Adding your voice to this campaign will help us convince these companies that continuing to support ALEC will hurt their reputation with consumers.”

The statement offers an online letter written directly to the companies and asks supporters to sign it. The letter can be found at http://act.colorofchange.org/sign/alec.

“I presume your company does not want to support voter suppression, nor have your products or services associated with discrimination and large-scale voter disenfranchisement. I urge you to immediately stop funding ALEC and issue a public statement making it clear that your company does not support discriminatory voter ID laws and voter suppression,” the letter states in part.

Color of Change is clear about its intent: “We hope that many of them will simply do the right thing and stop supporting ALEC. If they don't, we'll be prepared to shine a spotlight on them and make sure the world understands what they're involved in,” the statement says. “Major companies that rely on business from Black folks shouldn't be involved in suppressing our vote.”