News — being black

Justin Volpe, the cop accused of beating and sodomizing Haitian immigrant, Abner Louima, in 1997, is asking for an early release after contracting COVID-19 in prison. Volpe sodomized Louima with a jagged wooden handle in August 1997 after claiming that Louima had punched him during a fight at East Flatbush, Brooklyn’s popular Club Rendez-Vous, Daily News reported.

Louima was arrested amid the fight that broke out, and reports said Volpe assaulted him while in the police car after the arrest. Volpe assaulted him again later that night at the police station. He then went ahead to sodomize a handcuffed Louima with the wood handle from either a broomstick or plunger, trial testimony and witnesses said. Authorities never found the instrument.

Louima, who claimed he was repeatedly called “n—-r” during the attack and was left bleeding on the floor of a cell, spent two months in a hospital after surgery for his injuries. Reports said he suffered a ruptured colon and bladder, and his teeth were destroyed in the attack. When news of the attack broke, mass protests were held in the U.S.

Volpe, who has since been at a federal prison in Texas for 21 years over the incident, now wants an early release. “I tested positive for COVID-19 and had several symptoms. No medical treatment of any kind was provided or offered,” Volpe wrote in a release filing on his own behalf.

“Please let me have the chance to meet any needs with private insurance and at home with my family’s love.”

Louima now lives in Miami. He said even though he has forgiven Volpe, he will never forget the attack. He believes that it is up to the justice system to decide whether or not to release Volpe. “It’s so many years after the crime. Twenty-one years is not 21 days. I think at least he’s spent enough time thinking about his actions,” Louima told Daily News.

Former Miss USA 2008 winner Crystle Stewart will become the national director of the Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageant system, making her the first Black person to ever hold the licensing rights to the pageants, Good Morning America reported Wednesday.

“I’m so thrilled and I’m so excited for the new things and new ideas that I want to bring to the Miss USA system,” Stewart said in an interview with Good Morning America.

The former titleholder, actress and entrepreneur said she will work assiduously to boost the brand, saying it would be like “UFC times America’s Next Top Model times the presidential elections. That’d be the new Miss USA.”

Since its founding in 1952, Miss Universe and Miss USA have always been run by the Miss Universe Organization. For the first time, the two have separated management, a report noted. “In this political climate, the racial injustice, I hope being this African American for this national company inspires and influences women like myself of different colors and races, and also men as well, to pursue your dreams without fault and with confidence and go for it and reach higher and larger,” Stewart said.

The first pageant that will take place under the former beauty queen’s leadership will be Miss USA 2021 and Miss Teen USA 2021.

Stewart became Miss USA in 2008 and went on to become an actress and model. She featured in various projects including Acrimony directed by Tyler Perry, For Better or Worse and Too Close to Home. She is also behind the Miss Academy, a pageant training school with her husband Max Sebrechts in Houston. The actress and entrepreneur is now set to take on her new leadership role for the Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageant system.

Miss Universe Organization president Paula Shugart said Stewart exemplifies the best qualities in a Miss USA. “…I am so excited for the women who will grow under her guidance and mentorship, and for our state directors, who will have a loyal partner in Crystle,” said Shugart in an Instagram post, further explaining Stewart’s role.

“Crystle will be a licensee just as we have licensees all around the world. We have been working on this for quite a while and I am excited it has become a reality.”

Sex starved female prisoners in Kenya are pleading with authorities to implement new laws that will allow them to have sexual intimacy with their spouses when they visit.

Sofia Swaleh who is serving a life sentence, speaking on behalf of her inmates said the time given to their visiting spouses and relatives is too short and does not give room for intimacy.

“The Government, through the leadership of Kenyan prisons, should introduce a law that allows women serving lengthy jail terms enjoy sexual intimacy with their visiting husbands,” Swaleh of the Mtangani GK Prison in Malindi, Kilfi County said.

Mtangani GK Prison senior administrator, Purity Nkatha Muthaura, spoke with K24 digital, saying the request from the female inmates or even their incarcerated male counterparts cannot be permitted.

He added that it will be impossible to allow for such conjugal rights to be enjoyed unless a new law is passed by Parliament.

The pursuit to have conjugal visits introduced into the country started years ago.

In 2014, similar requests were made but the country’s detention centers were unsuccessful as the Government was not in favour of inmates having conjugal relations because the Government was not ready for such arrangements in the detention facilities.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Republic of Congo is facing one of the worst humanitarian crises this year, which is affecting the prisons too, according to the International Rescue Committee.

The structures in the country are not conducive for the free man let alone those in prison. At least 17 prisoners have been reported dead over the past week in one of DRC’s biggest prisons, a charity says.

The causes of death, according to aid workers, were due to lack of food, medicine and poor hygiene.

The Makala Prison in the country’s capital, Kinshasa has been devoid of food supplies in the last two months, state officials confirmed.

“It’s terrible! People are dying almost every day,” a prison official, who did not want to be named, told the BBC.

The South African activist, Bantu Steven Biko, was born on December 18, 1946. Biko was an African nationalist and socialist at the forefront of the anti-apartheid campaign known as the Black Consciousness Movement in the 1960s and 1970s.

Influenced by Martinican revolutionary, Frantz Fanon, and the African American Black Power Movement, Biko developed and spread the idea of Black Consciousness, that espoused that “blacks had to overcome the feelings of inferiority instilled into them, the ‘oppression within’ before they could deal with whites as equals.” He also popularized the Black Is Beautiful movement which started in the U.S., in Africa.

Biko explains further in his book, I Write What I Like: “This is the first truth, bitter as it may seem, that we have to acknowledge before we can start on any programme designed to change the status quo. It becomes more necessary to see the truth as it is if you realise that the only vehicle for change is these people who have lost their personality. The first step, therefore, is to make the black man come to himself; to pump back life into his empty shell; to infuse him with pride and dignity, to remind him of his complicity in the crime of allowing himself to be misused and therefore letting evil reign supreme in the country of his birth. This is what we mean by an inward-looking process. This is the definition of ‘Black Consciousness’.”

Biko contributed significantly to the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa through his leadership and vision at a time when African National Congress and the Pan Africanist Congress, and its leaders such as Nelson Mandela, were jailed, exiled, or killed. He was highly influential in the grassroots campaigns and youth uprisings which were pivotal for turning the public/international support away from the apartheid government.

Biko was only 30 years old when he died. He was arrested at a police roadblock when he broke a ban restricting him to speak publicly or travel. He was severely beaten and died in a cell alone on 12 September 1977 after what has been reported to be a horrifying 25 days in police custody. More than 20,000 people from around the world attended his funeral.

The South African activist has been commemorated by many institutions, world leaders, including Nelson Mandela, and in song, movies – most prominently the 1987 film Cry Freedom -,  and by businesses such as Google. His work continues through the Steve Biko Foundation spearheaded by his family.

Many of today’s acclaimed cultural movement, including the #WokeMovement, AfricaRising, etc, on Black consciousness, Black pride, and Black awareness and activism, owe a great deal to this man.

We catch up with some members of the Public in London and ask them what they think of Black Parenting. Interview by Mathew Roache

As winter draws closer in Canada, many homeless citizens will have to find alternative means to mitigate the harsh weather conditions. More worrying is the fact that the coronavirus pandemic has compounded the homeless situation in Toronto, according to Khaleel Seivwright, a carpenter who is building mobile shelters for the homeless.

The wooden shelter, which costs about $1000 to make, has a door and a casement window. Seivwright, a carpenter by profession, builds and distributes the shelters to the homeless in Toronto for free. He tells Canada Broadcasting Corporation (CBS) that the shelter can serve a useful purpose to those who sleep in tents. “I’ve never seen so many people staying outside in parks, and this is something I could do to make sure people staying outside in the winter could survive,” he says.

Seivwright sees the shelter as a better alternative for people who would have been sleeping outside under tarpaulins or tents. However, Gord Tanner, director of homelessness initiatives and prevention at the Toronto Shelter, Support and Housing Administration says the mobile shelters “can pose ‘significant’ risks to occupants, including as potential fire hazards,” CBS reports.

Seivwright says threats from bylaw enforcement officers will not deter him from building and distributing the shelters to the homeless. So far, he has distributed two of the wooden shelters in out-of-way locations around Toronto.

The shelters are built with wooden beams and are insulated with fibreglass that a regular home usually has. Essentially, they can keep people warm in temperatures as low as -20 C, he said. “This isn’t a permanent solution. This is just making sure people don’t die in the cold this winter. At least some people.”

Last year, 128 people experiencing homelessness in Toronto died. Fifty-two of them died between October and January, as temperatures grew colder in the city, according to CTV news.

To address the shelter shortfall, the city plans to add 560 more spaces during the winter in addition to the 6,800 shelter beds it is already offering. But residents say the move is woefully inadequate to address the potential homelessness crisis.

Seivwright is determined to building more shelters for homeless people in the city. He believes his action will complement the city’s effort. He mostly funds the project through an online fundraising campaign. So far, he has raised about $95,000.

He writes on his gofundme page: “As shelters are usually at capacity at some point in the winter in Toronto and also because of this coronavirus, making space to allow for social distancing will put even more strain on Toronto’s capacity.”

Two small businesses, The Mitten Brewing Co. and Malamiah Juice Bar, are ready to start taking pre-orders for limited-run editions of locally printed Black Lives Matter merchandise, including garments and masks according to Grand Rapids Business Journal.

The two Grand Rapids, Michigan-based companies will donate 100% of the sales to the Black and Brown Cannabis Guild.

Mitten Brewing co-owner Chris Andrus, and Malamiah Juice Bar owner, Jermale Eddie, have partnered and contracted local custom design and screen printing business Ambrose at WMCAT, and its fundraising platform, Bound As One, to launch the project.

“Malamiah Juice Bar is rooted in West Michigan, and we are proud to give back to our community through the Bound As One initiative in support of BBCG,” Eddie said. “And we are all just that — bound as one in a community that cares deeply but one that is in need of greater social equity and justice.”

“The work that the Black and Brown Cannabis Guild is doing is vital for individuals in our community who have barriers to opportunity because of a drug record — many of which are eligible for expungement. When you buy a T-shirt or mask, every penny goes directly to support communities of color that are benefiting from BBCG’s advocacy, network, and guidance; an incredible mission that The Mitten Brewing Co. fully supports” said Andrus.

“We believe that this work is not charity, it is justice,” Black and Brown Cannabis Guild’s founder and Executive Director Denavvia Mojet said. “We know that our government disproportionately harmed communities of color as a byproduct of a racist political agenda, and we work to help those harmed communities thrive in spite of those convictions. We believe this is what equity looks like, and we are grateful to be supported in these efforts.”

The back of each shirt also has the names of victims of police brutality, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Philando Castile, and more individuals. Pre-orders will be taken on ambrose-print-shop.printavo.com until Oct. 30.

Two white farmers, who forced a terrified black man they caught on their land into a coffin and threatened to throw in a snake and burn him alive, were sent to prison today for attempted murder.

Willem Oosthuizen and Theo Jackson were also sentenced for kidnapping, assault with GBH and intimidation in a trial that highlighted the deep racial divisions in South Africa.

The pair were sentenced to a combined 35 years after a court was shown a horrific two-minute long video of them threatening their victim, trapped inside a coffin, as he pleaded for his life.

Dozens of extra armed police officers were drafted in to keep law and order both inside and outside the court, after fears of violence breaking out if the sentence had not been a long prison term for them both.

The two farmers who pleaded not guilty were given two months bail to put their affairs in order after being found guilty by Judge Segopotje Mphahlele at Middelburg High Court sitting in the Magistrates Court.

The court is in Mpumalanga Province in the east of South Africa where the farm was based.

Mr Mlotshwa appeared before Judge Mphahlele and said he thought the farmers should be jailed for 15 years.

While the victim also said he was due compensation for his ordeal of R400,000 (£22,750). 

The attackers' defence lawyers requested the judge show mercy and give them non-custodial sentences.

But prosecutor Robert Molokoane said the whole country was watching adding: 'They had no respect for the law as they took the law into their own hands. They took the video to show what they do with the black man.'

He said that the offences opened old wounds as they were racially motivated.

In August both were convicted after Mr Mlotshwa's ordeal in the coffin was shown to the court on a big screen. 

They were also caught on video of threatening to throw a snake in the coffin with their terrified prisoner.

When the footage went viral on social media last year it triggered national outrage and near rioting. Ultimately leading to the arrest of the two accused, who were remanded in custody for their own safety after getting death threats.

Mr Mlotshwa wept in court when the video was shown and his mother was so distressed she left the courtroom.

'Please don't kill me,' Mlotshwa is heard begging the two white men while being forced into the coffin

'Why shouldn't we, when you are killing our farm?' one replied.

The two claimed that they had caught Mr Mlotshwa with stolen copper cables trespassing on private property. They said he threatened to return at night and burn down their crops and murder their wives and children.

To scare him from carrying out his threat they said they put him in the coffin and threatened to burn him alive in the hope that he would be too frightened to return.

Mr Mlotshwa did not report the incident and only went to police when the video went viral months later.

The footage caused shock in the court with many in the public gallery in tears, with some forced to leave in distress.  

Activists from political parties, including the ruling African National Congress and the main opposition Democratic Alliance and the EEF rallied outside court and attended each day of the trial in force.

Mr Mlotshwa broke down in tears many times during his evidence claiming he was kidnapped as he took a short cut across their farm into town to by provisions for his mother to sell at her shop.

The farmers claimed he was a thief and trespasser.

Mr Mlotshwa claimed he was beaten and then driven to a barn where he was put in a coffin.

The victim describing the coffin attack told the packed courtroom: 'Accused Number 2 (Jackson) opened the coffin and told me to get into it. Accused Number 1 (Oosthuizen) told me he would shoot me if I ran away.

'I refused to get into the coffin and they both assaulted me with their fists all over my body.

'I was so scared and I kept asking them what was happening but none of them answered me. I then thought it better to get into the coffin as I could no longer endure the pain' he said.

Mr Mlotshwa denied making any threats to the two farmers. 

@jasminenicholeofficial talks to us about being a black woman and her journey within the black community. Presented by @christinacarmel