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Monthly Archives: November 2011
Judge lectures Harlem families to take responsibility as he sentenced Drug Dealers. Did he go to far? Was he right on point?
Judge lectures Harlem families to take responsibility as he sentenced Drug Dealers. Did he go to far? Was he right on point?
Was Supreme Court Justice Edward McLaughlin calling a spade a spade, or did he go way too far as he urged parental responsibility at the sentencing of five violent Harlem drug dealers, including Jaquan Layne who is seen below.
This is regarding the so called 137th Street Crew. The gang was charged with drug, gun, and conspiracy crimes in Harlem. The name may sound familiar. It’s the same gang that recruited teens, including one time preppy school student Afrika Owes. She was just 15 years old when she carried guns for her then boyfriend, the leader of the group.
In the judge’s words:
“Gun violence in Harlem is the responsibility of that community.” Judge McLaughlin said as he sent the 21-year-old leader of the W. 137th St. gang, Jaquan “Jay Cash” Layne“ away for 20 years to life.
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I ask you Is it fair to paint the entire community with a broad brush? Or is this the type of tough love that the Harlem’s of America need?
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“If you do nothing, you are complicit.” The Judge said.
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I stop here to ask you to dig deep down in your soul in answering Judge McLaughlin statement. If you do nothing, you are complicit.”
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He urged families to do more to turn their kids from crime.
“If your relative is not doing homework, if you are not going to their school and talking with their teachers, then you contribute to your child’s and your community’s destruction,” the judge said.
“If your relative has money, jewelry and nice clothes but no job, your relative is in the drug business.”
There is “no gun genie” delivering weapons to kids, the judge continued.
Guns “are in your homes, whether you know it or not and whether you are blind to it or not.”
The judge’s words seemed to shock the families of the five gang members as they sat in the courtroom gallery waiting for their sons to be sentenced.
Several family members dismissed the judge’s words as racist.
“I can’t do this,” Layne’s sobbing grandmother said as she left court – mascara streaking her cheeks.
“With all these kids being sentence like this. I think he’s prejudice,” said the woman who would not give her name.
A second of her grandsons, Jahlyl Layne, 18, was sentenced to at least 7 ½ years behind bars and up to 23 ½ years.
Was the judge telling the truth? Or was he looking down at poor African American families? Would he lecture another community like this? But, are other groups killing themselves in the numbers that African Americans are? Was the judge doing the black community a favor? Does his comments perhaps reveal a contempt on his part that has been there for years? Would you want this judge hearing other cases involving African Americans or did he simply do the right thing speaking out this time? These are some serious questions to think about.
Judge lectures Harlem families to take responsibility as he sentenced Drug Dealers. Did he go to far? Was he right on point?
Dominic Carter
Wed, 30 Nov 2011 04:45:42 GMT
NY1 For You: Harlem Residents Grapple With Continuing Gas Outage
Residents of one building in Harlem have been without gas since August, leaving them particularly worried as the holidays approach.
NY1 For You: Harlem Residents Grapple With Continuing Gas Outage
Tue, 29 Nov 2011 20:55:32 GMT
City Goes After "Ghetto" Harlem Liquor Store That Appalls The Neighbors
Yesterday a little Harlem liquor store was lambasted by members of the Mount Morris Park Historic District, which has been working hard to class up the neighborhood, and then along came this downmarket booze peddler to Lenox Avenue—their “Champs-Élysées”—with a garish neon sign and bulletproof glass. The sophisticated community improvers were hoping for a nice wine shop where they could enjoy nightly tastings, while others, like local handyman Rick Jones, were simply grateful to have a new “place to get drunk.” But now the city is stepping in to restore balance to the Force of Gentrification. [ more › ] 
City Goes After “Ghetto” Harlem Liquor Store That Appalls The Neighbors
John Del Signore
Tue, 29 Nov 2011 17:45:59 GMT
FINE ART IMAGES OF ANCIENT AFRICAN KINGDOMS, EMPIRES AND CIVILIZATIONS
| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 28, 2011 CONTACT: Lynn Wooten artistry3@live.com 888-503-7256 www.myamazinroots.com MYAMAZINROOTS.COM SHOWCASES FINE ART IMAGES OF ANCIENT AFRICAN KINGDOMS, EMPIRES AND CIVILIZATIONS
Nationwide (BlackNews.com) — New website, MyAmazinRoots.com, features fine art images of ancient Africa. The images debunk the stereotypical and racist views of Africa as a dark continent by showcasing Africa’s Ancient History through fine art. The various paintings, drawing and illustrations have all been meticulously restored and enhanced over the past few years. Much of it has never been seen by most present day Africans and African Americans – yet Africa’s fine art and depictions of Africans in fine art has occupied space in some of the world’s most prominent museums abroad for centuries. The owners of the web site describe their work as the result of the collaborative efforts of research and graphic art, but stress that it was born out of a prayer – A prayer for our children, a fervent prayer for all the ills that plague far too many of them. From the toxic effects of drug and gun infested communities, to the crumbling schools of low expectations to lead poisoning, the unprecedented phenomenon of black on black crime and homicide, and the prison industrial complex. Their looming concerns that the gains of the civil rights movement were being derailed with many of our youths lost and dying, with seemingly no public outrage and indignation. That prayer they contend, was answered with the call to “show my people who and whose they are – who they were created to be since the beginning of time – wonderfully and marvelously made, in my (God’s) image and that I LOVE them.” And that’s the genesis of MyAmazinRoots.com The web site’s objective is to vividly portray to Africans and the world, the truth of who they are – from the progenitor of humanity itself as the world’s true Adam and Eve to the progenitor of the world’s advanced civilizations. And it accomplishes that with vivid fine art depictions of Ancient African Kingdoms, Empires and Civilizations. It is often said that a picture is worth a thousand words. However, they also have a featured video and an accompanying fine art book. A portion of all sales will benefit HBCUs. For more details, visit www.myamazinroots.com |
AN AWARD FOR NATURAL BEAUTIES: AMERICA’S NEXT NATURAL MODEL 2012
| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 29, 2011 CONTACT: Mireille Liong-A-Kong Going Natural Inc 718-395-2537 info@going-natural.com AN AWARD FOR NATURAL BEAUTIES: AMERICA’S NEXT NATURAL MODEL 2012 |
Neon Liquor Store Sign Appalls Upscale Harlem Neighborhood
Neon Liquor Store Sign Appalls Upscale Harlem Neighborhood
The Mount Morris Park Historic District in East Central Harlem is supposed to be a classy place, where celebrities like Maya Angelou enjoy dainty cucumber sandwiches and intellectual discourse ensconced in their multi-million dollar brownstones. But a new liquor store on Lenox Avenue and 119th Street is threatening to turn the neighborhood into a garish, crime-ridden Pottersville—its flashy neon sign and bulletproof plexiglass has some appalled local residents rushing to condemn the establishment in the “pages” of DNAinfo. [ more › ]
Neon Liquor Store Sign Appalls Upscale Harlem Neighborhood
John Del Signore
Mon, 28 Nov 2011 18:07:09 GMT
Craisin Crisis! Dried Fruit Recalled Due To "Hair-Like Metal Fragments"
Craisin Crisis! Dried Fruit Recalled
Craisins, which for years have battled an inferiority complex against raisins, suffered another blow to their reputation this weekend, when manufacturer Ocean Spray announced a recall of thousands of bags due to “the possible presence of very small hair-like metal fragments.” The fragments, like the dried cranberries themselves, will do nothing to enhance your salad-eating experience. [ more › ]
Craisin Crisis! Dried Fruit Recalled Due To “Hair-Like Metal Fragments”
Jamie Feldmar
Mon, 28 Nov 2011 18:52:17 GMT
African-American – News
African-American – News November 28, 2011 Video: Rice: Race and poverty “a witch’s brew” (CBS News) Mass. Anti-slavery hub to reopen after restoration (York Dispatch) Pa. Exhibit showcases legendary black photographer (WTOP-FM Washington) Demographic shifts favor Obama in 2012, study says (Bangor Daily News) Why African Americans aren’tembracing Occupy Wall Street (Lucianne) |
Get Your Charity Together: Wyclef Put On Blast Once Again About What Yele Haiti Is Doing With Their Donors’ Money
Get Your Charity Together: Wyclef
The mayor of the city of North Miami may have thought Wyclef‘s do-gooder-ness was worthy of recognition last week, but people are stil giving him and his Yele Haiti foundation the side-eye.
Yele Haiti’s coffers swelled to $16 million in 2010, the most the charity had ever received. But less than a third of that went to emergency efforts, and $1 million was paid to a Florida firm that doesn’t seem to exist, The Post has learned.
Jean’s charity, which he founded in 2005 with his cousin Jerry Duplessis, was already troubled when the earthquake struck Haiti on Jan. 12, 2010. The Post reported in 2008 that it had never filed a required tax form detailing its spending with the IRS.
The group lost $244,000 in 2009. But hours after the earthquake hit, Jean took to Twitter to beg for $5 donations. An avalanche of donations poured in.
Almost immediately, allegations surfaced that the former Fugees singer had used the charity’s cash for his own benefit. Critics found that four years earlier Yele Haiti had steered $250,000 to a Haitian TV station controlled by Jean and Duplessis.
Jean held a Jan. 18, 2010, press conference to tearfully defend Yele Haiti’s reputation.
“Have we made mistakes before? Yes,” Jean said. “Did I ever use Yele money for personal benefits? Absolutely not. Yele’s books are open and transparent.”
The earthquake killed between 200,000 and 300,000 Haitians and left a million homeless. The country is still in the grip of a cholera epidemic.
For all the desperation, records show that Yele Haiti spent just $5.1 million for emergency relief efforts, including food and water delivery to makeshift survivor camps, according to a review of the charity’s 2010 tax filings, which were obtained by The Post.
Yele Haiti paid five contractors to accomplish its goals, including P&A Construction — which received $353,983 and is run by Warnel Pierre, the brother of Jean’s wife, Claudinette.
A purported Miami business called Amisphere Farm Labor Inc. received a whopping $1,008,000 as a “food distributor.”
No trace of the company could be found last week in the Sunshine State, but records show the company’s head, Amsterly Pierre, bought three properties in Florida last year, including a condo in an upscale waterfront community.
The firm incorporated in August 2008 but never filed any of the subsequent financial paperwork required to do business in Florida, according to the Florida Department of State.
The address listed for the business is an auto-repair shop in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood, where a worker said he had never heard of Pierre or Amisphere. Pierre did not return a call for comment.
Yele Haiti also paid $577,185 to a company called Samosa SA, based in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, as a “bulk water supplier.” But some of that money went to rent a house for Yele Haiti volunteers on Samosa’s property at the inflated price of $35,000 a month.
“Given the fact that Yele Haiti was involved in a swirl of controversy after the earthquake in Haiti, it’s all the more reason to be more transparent to ensure donors that their funds are going to help people,” said the Better Business Bureau’s Bennett Weiner.
In Clef’s defense, a lot of charities’ hands have been tied by red tape and political BS in Haiti following the earthquake, due to the fact that the outbound government at the time wasn’t necessarily all that interested in seeing the country move forward. Yele also wouldn’t be the first American-based charity to partner with people who didn’t necessarily have the best intentions when it came to actually helping Haiti.
But you would think, at this point, Wyclef would do a better job of covering his a$$ and making sure everything he and Yele did was on the money…
Get Your Charity Together: Wyclef Put On Blast Once Again About What Yele Haiti Is Doing With Their Donors’ Money
EditorialGrrl
Sun, 27 Nov 2011 17:36:33 GMT
