Class Action Lawsuit Filed After Hundreds of Black and Brown People Lost Homes, Can Move Forward
A federal court ruled three Brooklyn homeowners of color can move forward with a class action lawsuit to recover their wealth lost through New York’s Third Party Transfer (TPT) program.
The homeowners all lost their residences from alleged illegal seizures taken in “in rem” foreclosure proceedings under the TPT program. The city conducted the seizures under the Department of Housing, Preservation and Development (HPD), which confiscates the entire property value of a home from the owner, even if the owner only owed a few thousand dollars in water or sewer charges or taxes.
HPD would then give the property to development organizations of the administration’s choosing for free or a small fee. Two nonprofits, the Neighborhood Restore Housing Development Fund and BSDC Kings Covenant Housing Development Fund Company, are now defendants in the case according to the Brownstoner.
McConnell Dorce, Cecilia Jones and Sherlivia Thomas-Murchinson say their properties were stolen from them by the TPT program and given away.
“The TPT program has affected my family in many ways. My family and our neighbors who should have remained shareholders in the building have lost real, personal and future assets and value in the millions of dollars, not even measuring the value of having a home for the long term,” Thomas-Murchison told the BKReader. “My now deceased mother worked, for close to 25 years, to ensure that our family would have long-term residency in an already-existing affordable housing co-op. The City took that away with the stroke of a pen.”
The group wants to represent a class of minority property owners across the city who have lost their homes to the TPT program without compensation.
The plaintiffs already won one battle when the city challenged their right to file a class-action suit, arguing the case should be argued in state court. The group successfully argued the case is a federal issue that falls under the 5th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which requires just compensation for the taking of a person’s property.
When the suit was initially filed, the plaintiff’s homes were valued at $66 million combined. Today, they are worth significantly more as the neighborhoods and the city has largely been gentrified. The suit is also seeking the equity value of hundreds of properties dating back to the 1990s that have been taken under the TPT program.
Many of the homes, including the plaintiffs’ residences, were in the Crown Heights and Bed-Stuy neighborhoods of Brooklyn. Both are predominately communities of color with Black Americans and immigrants from Caribbean countries including Jamaica, Haiti, Trinidad, Barbados and others.
LeBron James Is Expected To Become a Billionaire by Year’s End
According to Forbes, Los Angeles Lakers’ centerpiece basketball player, LeBron James will likely claim the title of a billionaire by the end of the year.
The King, as he is referred to, is the NBA’s top-earning player for the seventh consecutive year, and that includes his off-court income, as the 2016-17 season was the only season of his professional basketball career, that James had the highest playing salary in the National Basketball Association.
The successful businessman is expected to earn $95.4 million. That includes an estimated $64 million from his endorsement deals, memorabilia, and media. This will be a record level that no other NBA player has ever accomplished and the highest ever in American team sports. With the expected income, at the end of this year, his career earnings will be at $1 billion, including $700 million off the court. With that total, James joins an exclusive club that includes Tiger Woods, Floyd Mayweather, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Lionel Messi in reaching the three-comma club while still an active athlete.
With that peak amount of money being earned, James’ salary with the Los Angeles Lakers for the current 2020-21 season was set to place $39.2 million in his coffers, but James and every other NBA player will have 20% of their scheduled pay placed into an escrow account that will help balance the 50-50 split in leaguewide revenue. Amazingly, he stands to lose out on about $8 million. This will nullify his chance to enter the very exclusive club of athletes who have earned $100 million or more in a single calendar year. Woods and Mayweather are the only Americans to have done so as active athletes.
Rounding out the top five basketball players to make the highest amount of money this year are Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry with $74.4 million, former Curry teammate and current Brooklyn Nets’ player Kevin Durant will take home $65.2 million. Washington Wizards’ Russell Westbrook comes in at number 4 with $58.1 million as his former teammate James Harden, who is now on the same team with Durant will add $50 million to his fortune.
Durant, Westbrook, and Harden were once teammates on the same Oklahoma City Thunder team before that trio was broken up.
U.S. Investigating American Ties To Assassination Of Haitian President Jovenel Moise
Reuters – U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies on Friday were probing American connections to this week’s assassination of Haiti President Jovenel Moise, three sources said, the day after two Haitian-American men were arrested on charges of participating in it.
Haitian police identified the two as James Solages, 35, and Joseph Vincent, 55, saying that they were part of a heavily armed commando unit, who sources in the Colombian army said entered Haiti from the neighboring Dominican Republic.
Two law enforcement sources, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss an active investigation, said that agencies were looking into U.S. connections to the killing, but declined to comment specifically on the two suspects.
The sources said U.S. agencies were not assisting in the investigation in Haiti because Haitian officials had not requested their help.
A third source confirmed that U.S. intelligence agencies were also looking into the matter.
Haitian authorities have said little to explain why Solages and Vincent, two Haitian-Americans from Florida, would have been motivated to join Colombian mercenaries to assassinate Haiti’s president.
Solages described himself online as a “certified diplomatic agent” and the former “chief commander of body-guards” for the Canadian embassy in Haiti. Those statements were made on the website of a charity he ran, which was modified on Thursday to remove them. Reuters reviewed an archived version that remains accessible.
The Miami Herald quoted an unnamed government official as saying that a decade ago, when Solages was in his mid-20s, he briefly worked for a company that provided security for the Canadian embassy in Haiti.
“We are aware of allegations implicating an individual who was briefly employed as a reserve bodyguard by a security company hired by Global Affairs Canada in 2010,” the newspaper quoted the official as saying.
Public records show Solages, a naturalized U.S. citizen, lived in Tamarac, Florida, near Fort Lauderdale, and does not have a criminal record.
Florida records show Solages has held security officer and firearm licenses.
Solages also ran a business called FWA SA A JACMEL AVAN INC, which has described itself on its website as a charity focused on ending childhood hunger and improving education in Haiti.
Few details had emerged about Vincent by Friday.
(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Tamarac, Florida, and Mark Hosenball in Washington, writing by Jan Wolfe; Editing by Scott Malone and Howard Goller)
Attorney General Wants Judge to Identify The ‘Trauma’ Black Child Witnesses Sustained in George Floyd Murder
Minnesota’s Attorney General Keith Ellison has sent out a request for the judge in Derek Chauvin’s murder trial to rewrite the disgraced officer’s sentencing to identify the “trauma” the child witnesses experienced when watching George Floyd get murdered.
On Wednesday, Ellison filed a letter asking Hennepin County Court Judge Peter Cahill to rewrite his sentencing order to delete suggestions that child witnesses did not suffer trauma, The Grioreports.
In the current 22-page sentencing memorandum for Chauvin, Cahill did not give any additional sentencing time to the convicted murderer because Cahill felt like the children who witnessed the crime did not appear to be traumatized.
“Although the State contends that all four of these young women were traumatized by witnessing this incident, the evidence at trial did not present any objective incident of trauma,” Cahill wrote.
One 9-year-old and two 17-year-old girls witnessed Chuavin kneeling on Floyd’s neck so long that he died. Darnella Frazier, Alyssa Furnari, and Kaylynn Gilbert were the eyewitnesses who saw Floyd take his last breath. Now, Ellison wants to make sure that the trauma the young girls suffered as eyewitnesses is identified in Chauvin’s sentence.
“The Court should remove or modify the identified portions of the opinion,” Ellison wrote in the letter as noted by the Star Tribune. “Doing so will not, in any way, affect Defendant’s 22.5 year sentence but will avoid the risk of sending the message that the pain these young women endured is not real or does not matter, or worse, that it’s a product of their own decisions and not a consequence of Defendant’s.”
Ellison brought attention to the bias that young Black girls often face where they’re viewed as adults and not the children they actually are. His letter request included a written statement of support from Dr. Sarah Vinson, an Atlanta-based child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist.
“As a Black girl, [Frazier] is at risk of having her actions interpreted through a lens that denies her vulnerability and attributes more advanced motives to her actions,” Vinson wrote.
“With adultification bias, there is a risk of minimizing the emotional and developmental vulnerability of [Frazier] and [Reynolds]. … Furthermore, [Frazier’s] ostensibly mature actions can be understood as an empathetically driven response to a tragic situation in which the youth should never have been placed.”
In June, Chauvin was sentenced to 22 1/2- years in prison for the murder of George Floyd.
Founder of Black-Owned Watch Brand Set To Raise $1M on a Private Investing Platform
Marcel Benson—the founder of The Benson Watch Co.—announced that his company is gearing up to raise over $1M on an investment crowdfunding site called Republic, according to BlackNews.com.
Republic allows “community investors” to get involved with supporting startups. The Benson Watch Co. came to life because Benson is pretty fond of timepieces. Benson hasn’t raised $1M yet, but is seeking more investors to reach his goal.
Photo credit- Ron Hill
“I started my company sheerly out of my passion for watches. My vision was to create a brand that inspired people to move in the direction of their passions, hence our slogan “Time Should Be Spent Doing What You Love,” Benson wrote on Facebook in 2020.
Colorful, high-quality-looking steel watches are prominently featured on the Benson Watch Co.’s website.
In an exclusive interview with BLACK ENTERPRISE, Benson shares why he took a leap of faith and left his job to start a watch company. A Morehouse College alumnus who was working in the finance and consulting industry before starting his watch company, he experienced an awakening.
“There are so many people that have so many gifts and talents to offer the world,” Benson said, mentioning that they should be utilized. “I took the risk. I left my job, and then I came up with the slogan “Time Should Be Spent Doing What You Love,” so that’s the theme around the brand. All of the products have some sort of metaphorical meaning, but it’s all contributing to the mission of freeing people. Getting people to understand that they have the ability to get out there and do what they want to do with their life.”
Gaining traction and garnering support
Benson stated that a team of four currently works along with him. The Benson Watch Co. has been around for a few years and is within the top two Black watch companies. Although it is on track to do $1 million in revenue this year, having raised more than $200,000 so far, more capital must be raised to enable infrastructure to be built for a Black-owned watch alternative. Thus, the entrepreneur opted to take the crowdfunding route to push forward. Benson shared that the barrier for supporters to get involved in the company is also very low.
“A person can invest $250 and get involved in the race, and that number can go all the way up to $100,000 per investor,” Benson told BLACK ENTERPRISE on Friday.
Money that is being raised will be used for strategic hires, diversifying product offerings, and meeting marketing needs. One of Benson’s long-term goals is to help his company’s investors to build wealth. If a larger investor buys them out, this is one way to accomplish it. Benson is also open to his watch company being acquired by a larger watch brand, although it could still be “Black run.”
“So the strategy we’re taking to make people who invest in us money is the acquisition route,” Benson said.
Click here to learn more about investment opportunities. Please click here to visit The Benson Watch Co.’s website.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect that the Benson Watch Company is seeking more investors but hasn’t reached its $1M goal yet.
BLM Utah Chapter Declares U.S. Flag ‘A Symbol of Hatred’
The Black Lives Matter (BLM) Utah chapter declared the American Flag a hate symbol in a July 4 Facebook post.
In the post the group said the flag is a symbol the BLM organization and those who waive and support the flag see the country differently than the Utah BLM chapter does.
“When we Black Americans see this flag we know the person flying it is not safe to be around. When we see this flag we know the person flying it is a racist. When we see this flag we know that the person flying it lives in a different America than we do. When we see this flag, we question your intelligence. We know to avoid you. It is a symbol of hatred,” the statement read.
Lex Scott, the founder of the BLM Utah told the Salt Lake Tribune, the post was meant to generate a reaction and show how the flag has become a symbol co-opted by extremist groups. Scott was angered by the far-right organization, the Patriot Front, marching and carrying the flag through Philadelphia last week.
“They’re flying American flags. The Ku Klux Klan is flying American flags. The Proud Boys are flying American flags. They climbed the Capitol for their failed insurrection and were beating police officers with American flags. I have not heard any outrage from Republicans or the right about the use of the American flag as a hate symbol,” Scott said, according to The National Review.
American Flag Under Fire
“We are seeing that symbol used in every racist hate group’s messaging across this nation. The problem that I have is no one is addressing the people who are using it for hate. I am telling you when I see an American flag, I begin to feel fear for the simple fact that every time I am faced with hatred, it is at the hands of someone carrying an American flag.”
Utah Sen. Todd Weiler, a Republican, disagreed with Scott’s messaging, calling the U.S. Flag a symbol of unity and perseverance.
“The vast majority of Utahns, regardless of their race or politics, continue to look to the U.S. flag as a symbol of unity and perseverance for our nation’s past —and hope for our nation’s future,” Weiler said according to The Hill.
Scott isn’t the only one who feels this way however. A New York Timesreport from last week detailed how some who still embrace the flag have been viewed and judged as White supremacists or far-right supporters. Peter Treiber Jr., who owns a potato truck with the flag painted on the side in Long Island, NY, told the times trouble selling produce to a customer until he let her know about his liberal political views.
“She said, ‘Oh, whew. You know, I wasn’t so sure about you, I thought you were some flag-waving something-or-other,’” Treiber, 32, told the Times. “That’s why she was apprehensive of interacting with me.”
Treiber said after the interaction, he began to reconsider keeping the painting on his truck.
Meet the Black Teens Awarded the Princeton Prize In Race Relations
Princeton University recently awarded 29 high school students with $1,000 and a symposium invitation for their community work in race relations.
The Princeton Prize in Race Relations is awarded to specially selected high school students across the country who have gotten an early start at community work as it relates to diversity and inclusion. Each prize recipient receives $1,000 and an invitation to the Symposium on Race where they get to meet and learn from other recipients across the country about their social justice work.
Here’s a look at the Black teens who were among this year’s Princeton prize winners.
Queen Balina
Princeton
Queen Balina is a junior at Winston Churchill High School in Potomac, Md. She was only a freshman when she teamed up with two other students to co-found her school’s Restorative Justice Student Coalition (RJSC). The group was created in response to a 2019 scandal the school faced after students were caught handing out n-word passed. Now the RJSC hosts school-wide Study Circle discussions where students, staff members and other community stakeholders can discuss the effects of race and culture.
Emanuel Barrett
Princeton
Emanuel Barrett is a senior at Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville, Tenn. He co-founded and serves as the president of Tearing Down the Walls (TDW) club at his high school. The club works to host constructive conversations around race relations, inclusion for all sexual orientations, and social justice.
Christopher Butcher
Christopher Butcher is a senior at the Academies at Englewood in Englewood, N.J. He serves his high school community as the president of both the Black Student Union of Englewood and the NAACP Youth and College Division in Englewood.
Jordyn Hudson
Jordyn Hudson is a recent graduate from Indian Springs high school in Birmingham, Alabama. Her political and philanthropy work includes serving in leadership roles with Youth Serve Birmingham, Youth Philanthropy Council, Alabama Youth Legislature, Indian Springs Student Government and Student Ambassador Program, Mock Trial, Heritage Panel and Black Student Caucus.
Kellsie Lewis
Kellsie Lewis is a sophomore at the Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore, Maryland who serves as a contributor to “Black at the Trischools” social media platform. The page works to amplify Black voices by sharing stories of the Black experience for those attending predominantly white institutions. @BlackattheTrischools is an Instagram page where Black alumni, parents, and students get to reclaim their voices through storytelling.
Yamira Patterson
Yamira Patterson is a junior at Saint Petersburg High School in Tampa, Florida. She serves as the co-president and co-founder of the Black Students Association at Saint Petersburg High School where she advocates for racial justice and Black awareness in her school community.
Machayla Randall
Machayla Randall is a senior at Cherry Hill High School East in Cherry Hill, N.J. where she serves as one of the leaders of the African American Culture Club. Her work has included leading a student-led protest and march dubbed “The Learning Begins Now; Stop the Ignorance”. She also pushed for educational reforms in the school district that included mandating an African American Studies Course as a graduation requirement for all high school students.
Asukulu Songolo
Asukulu Songolo is a senior at Central Catholic High School in Portland, Oregon. As the child of refugees of war from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and an immigrant from Zambia, Asukulu works as the founder and co-director of the Congo Peace Project and was the former founder and lead organizer with Fridays 4 Freedom. As part of Working with the Congo Peace Project, Asukulu aims to push the Portland community to be global citizens and resource supplies for the women and youth in the Congo. Asukulu also founded Fridays 4 Freedom where a youth collective that advocates for Black Liberation throughout the state of Oregon.
Samantha Taylor
Samantha Taylor is a senior at Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy where she served as the president of the Black Student Union and co-president of Peer Multicultural Educators. Her work included leading conversations and town halls on topics like colorism, police brutality, and what racism looks like in higher education. As co-president of Peer Multicultural Educators, Taylor founded Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy’s first annual diversity conference, Chasing Equity, where students from around the country came out to learn and discuss how they can make their campuses more equitable. Taylor also worked alongside the Great Lakes Equity center to collect and analyze institutional data and equity policies to make her campus more inclusive.
Mikayla Tillery
As an incoming freshman at Stanford University, Mikayla Tillery has already received experience working as an activist and organizer. After witnessing countless victims of Black maternal mortality and morbidity, Mikayla founded Students for Black Maternal Health. The online group is led by Black students who advocate for legislation that addresses the disproportionate rate of Black women dying from pregnancy-related complications.
Briana Williams
Briana Williams is a sophomore at School of the Arts in Rochester, N.Y. She serves as a Teen Empowerment Youth History Ambassador where she led a project to explore Rochester’s Black history through the eyes of the African American elders who lived it. Through the view of Clarissa Street, Briana created the documentary “Clarissa Uprooted.” She also worked to get the Clarissa Street Corridor legacy landmark designation and is co-creating an intergenerational exhibit “to allow all ages to learn the knowledge of our city in an unforgettable way anyone could visit.”
Hats off to these teen as they continue on at being leaders of today and tomorrow.
CDC Emphasizes In Person Learning For Upcoming 2021-22 School Year
Reuters – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday updated its guidance to help reopen U.S. schools in the fall, including recommending masking indoors for everyone who is not fully vaccinated and three feet of distance within classrooms.
The CDC said school administrators may opt to require indoor mask use even for students and educators who are vaccinated, depending on the needs of the community. Reasons would include schools with children under age 12, who are not currently authorized to receive COVID-19 vaccines, or high rates of COVID-19 transmission in the region.
The National Education Association, the largest U.S. teachers union, said the CDC’s updated guidance offers a roadmap for students to return to school.
“Everyone who is eligible to be vaccinated should get their COVID-19 vaccination… Schools should be consistently and rigorously employing all the recommended mitigation strategies,” NEA President Becky Pringle said in a statement.
Schools throughout the United States began to close in March of 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread, and many students were shifted to online learning at home. Critics had accused teacher unions of slowing reopenings by demanding virus mitigation practices, such as universal masking, fewer kids in classrooms and social distancing.
The American Federation of Teachers, the second-largest U.S. teachers’ union, said the new CDC guidance makes sense and will help students return to the classroom.
“The guidance confirms two truths: that students learn better in the classroom, and that vaccines remain our best bet to stop the spread of this virus,” AFT President Randi Weingarten said in a statement.
The CDC said localities should rely on local health data when deciding to relax or tighten prevention strategies, including mask wearing and physical distancing.
“Because of the importance of in-person learning, schools where not everyone is fully vaccinated should implement physical distancing to the extent possible within their structures, but should not exclude students from in-person learning to keep a minimum distance requirement,” the new guidance said.
The agency said the new guidance is appropriate even with the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus.
A study by the CDC released on Friday showed that half of unvaccinated adolescents and parents of unvaccinated adolescents reported being uncertain about getting a COVID-19 vaccine, or did not intend to get one at all.
(Reporting by Mrinalika Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Dan Grebler)
White NC State Trooper Accused of Selling Guns to A Convicted Felon With Prior Weapons Charges
A North Carolina Trooper is being accused of illegally selling guns to a felon, according to the news release from the U.S. Department of Justice.
Timothy Jay Norman has been charged with unlawful transfer of a firearm to a prohibited person, which under North Carolina law prohibits a private sale of firearms or ammunition to a person known to violate the law. Such action is a Class F felony.
The reports from News and Recordshows that Norman, 47, tried to transfer firearms to 33-year-old Tommy Lee Hudson, who Norman knew was a convicted felon.
The police were tipped off that Hudson, whose felony charges in 2016 were related to assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury, was using Norman to get guns and ammunition.
The sale of guns can be tracked in a text exchange on Jan. 27 between Norman and Hudson, who were friends before Norman became a trooper—the trooper allegedly sold the felon at least four Sig Sauer pistols.
An informant known by the two men, both of whom are white men, revealed in a recorded call on March 26 that Norman helped Hudson avoid paying a traffic ticket.
According to the affidavit, the informant had a conversation with Hudson on April 16, where Hudson said that he and Norman were friends, having partied and used marijuana and cocaine together.
The two men were former co-workers at a private security company after they attended a basic law enforcement training session.
The informant was introduced to Norman by Hudson and confirmed, using FBI-issued money, sales of illegal firearms were taking place, News and Record reported.
The informant bought $3,200 worth of weapons and ammunition on June 8.
It is also reported that Norman, who was in uniform and driving his state trooper vehicle, sold the informant a semiautomatic pistol from the trunk of his patrol car at a gas station on June 24.
Hudson was later arrested and charged with possession of a firearm by a felon.
In a Greensboro federal court appearance on Wednesday, both men were present and later scheduled to reappear on on July 14.
If Norman and Hudson are convicted, both independently faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
Norman has been a state trooper since 2012 but resigned the same day he was arrested.
NYC Surgeons Remove Cantaloupe-Sized Tumor From 6-Year-Old Girl’s Neck
A group of surgeons in New York City helped to save a young girl’s life by removing a very large tumor that was on her neck.
Six-year-old Negalem Alafa lives in a small village in Ethiopia. But the young girl was flown out to Lenox Hill Hospital in NYC last month to undergo life-changing surgery to remove the giant-sized lethal tumor that was spreading on her neck and face, ABC7 NYreports.
The June 23rd procedure took around 12 hours and doctors said it was very complicated to perform.
Alafa was born with a benign growth, referred to as a vascular malformation, that started to spread rapidly as she grew. The growth not only kept her out of school and prevented her from socializing with kids her own age, but if the tumor was not removed, Alafa could suffocate or starve due to her inability to swallow, Web MD reports.
Alafa had no access to advanced medical care. But a U.S. official was moved by the girl’s condition while he was out on a mission in Africa. The official’s research landed him Dr. Teresa O and Dr. Milton Waner, a married couple who specialized in removing tumors of this scale.
“This is why I became a doctor,” Dr. Waner said. “Clearly we help people every day, but this was on such a grand scale.”
The doctors were nervous about taking on such a serious procedure and noted all the risks involved.
“Prior to surgery, we were extremely nervous about this, wondering how we would get around this,” Dr. Waner said. “This is no walk in the park.”
Dr. O shared the good news that “everything worked out.” Now Alafa will have to undergo a second procedure to a small amount of the mass that is still under her tongue.
Alafa’s father dropped to his knees in prayer after seeing his daughter post-surgery, NY Postreports.
“I was crying before, now I’m smiling and praising God and the doctors,” her father Matios Alafa Haile said through his translator Kalkidan Alemayehu Gebremariam.
“He’s very thankful and grateful for the doctors. He has been looking everywhere for a cure for this cute girl,” Gebremariam added.
Doctors say the swelling will go down in the coming weeks. The family is slated to return to Ethiopia on July 14.
