Tag Archives: Black Lives Matter

Green Island Grrrl

Parlee parked in Rose’s space: Our America is fighting back!

Parlee and Athena 2
Parlee🌸💙, left, at a community event!

By Parlee Jones

Peace and Blessings InCity Times People!! It’s been a while since I have put pen to paper, so let me officially say … HAPPY 2017!!! We are two months in and there has been sooooo much stuff
happening in our country and our world!! Good, bad, pretty and ugly! I have so many thoughts running through my head that I don’t even know where to start!

On the homefront, here in Worcester, I’m concerned in the work I do at Abby’s House for Women because of the lack of affordable, decent housing and options for folks who are struggling – single folks and families – in our city. And the stressful conditions put on individuals and families trying to access shelter through the system.

Rents in Worcester have become unaffordable as absentee landlords seek out people with Section 8 and other subsidies so they can charge the highest rent allowed. Those without vouchers or other subsidies have no other options than to pay market rent. Usually more than 50% of their income.

In single income homes this is a lot of money when you have utilities and other day to day expenses. Wage slavery. All issues not even discussed in our presidential election. Homelessness and affordable housing.

So, America has a new president. I think I was in a state of shock when I woke up and Donald Trump was the President of the United States.

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I could list all the decisions he has made thus far that I feel are anti-human, but I know we all know what he
has done and is doing. It is all that we see on our social media and on television. I hope you are getting
some of your information from PBS programming!

Now I’m going to focus on the POSITIVE thing that has happened because of Trump’s decisions. Folks are waking up!!! They are protesting. They are
calling local and state and federal government officials to state their discontent. They are signing petitions.
They are showing up for their fellow man, woman and child. All for different issues or multiple issues ~ women’s health, Islamophobia, racism, homophobia, misogyny, immigration.

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Saying NO to classist, hate-mongering, racist bully Aidan Kearney, the Turtle Boy blogger (whom Worcester City Councilor Michael Gaffney financially$$$ supports), on the Worcester Common!

It’s all or nothing at this point.

We have to join forces for basic human needs.

If you are showing up for one or two events and not all, you may have to
rethink that. The Women’s Marches on Saturday, January 21, were AMAZING. All 52 states had protest marches. All 52 states had numerous cities that had marches! Fifty five other countries had protest marches in numerous cities in each country. Countries such as Antarctica, Belgium, Austria, Columbia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ghana, Iceland, India, Lithuania, Kenya, Netherlands, Nigeria, Peru,Portugal, South Korea, the list goes on. Over one million people world-wide!!! The show of support is remarkable! Now we just have to keep it going. Conversations have to be had on
how we have to show up for each and every injustice. Not just those that hit close to home. Each and every
one.

For some folks, showing up for the march was the limit of their activism. Others will continue the conversation.

Just keep an open mind through this particular conversation … Listen. … One way to get involved is to attend a SURJ meeting. Worcester is lucky to have a SURJ chapter. Showing up for Racial Justice, SURJ is a national network of groups (working in conjunction with Black Lives Matter) to organize White people for racial justice. https://www.facebook.com/SURJWorcester/

It is important to push for the understanding that racism is ‘prejudice plus power’ and therefore people of
color cannot be racist against whites in the United States. People of color can be prejudiced against whites but clearly do not have the power as a group to enforce that prejudice.

I know I have been actively protesting since the murder of Trayvon Martin on February 26, 2012. And have been protesting numerous murders and deaths and injustices since that time. We’ve been marching and protesting.


Go, Bill Maher💙💛💛💙💙, go📢💐📢!

I don’t say these things to belittle the March. It was amazing. But certain things that happened in Worcester, our fair city, extinguished my desire to “fight the good fight.” I was blessed to be a part of a conversation at the Collective GoGo with a group of people who were all up and down the east coast for protests and marches. They shared their experiences and I was rejuvenated. Their passion and desire for justice on ALL issues, not just certain ones, is what gives me hope. Their energy is
amazing. Amanda, Anne, Nori, Christopher, Drew and all the others who shared their experiences have me
hopeful for what is to come.

My sister Tracy, my daughter Sha-Asia and I were actually present at the first Million Woman March in October 1997 in Philadelphia. It was a beautiful event!

Did you know there was one?

As we move forward under this new presidency, we have to remember a few things … We have forgotten that we belong to each other. Yes, I have said this before, and it is a motto that I try to remember daily. That we all belong to each other, and we are all just trying to make it home.

Our America is fighting back. As I sit here typing this article, there are, again, protests all over the United
States, in protest of Trump’s immigration policies and his ban on Muslims entering our country. We’ve got to fight to ensure that the statue standing in the middle of New York Harbor never comes down!

WE THE RESILIENT FINAL WITH TYPE !!!
By Ernesto Yerena

Shepard-GreaterThanFear
By Shepard Fairey

InCity Voices

A LETTER TO DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

TODAY! Be there! At Worcester State University …

mlk-youth-breakfast-20171

*********

editor’s note: I’m re-posting this column written by ICT contributing writer Parlee Jones … – R.T.

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Parlee, center, and family

By Parlee Jones

“In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

– MLK, Jr.

Dear Dr. King,

As we prepare to celebrate your 8[8]th birthday, and also, the 5[2]st Anniversary of the Selma marches, I thought I would write you a letter, to let you know what’s been going on.

I have been thinking a lot about the civil rights movement and the protests that have been happening since the no indictment verdicts came in Ferguson, Missouri, after the murder of Michael Brown and in the murder of Eric Garner at the hands of the NYPD.

Some people are asking, why are they protesting, what do they want? What do they think protesting and shutting down city streets will do?

My response: What did Dr. King and his supporters think a bus boycott would do? What did they think a 50-mile march would do?

The bus boycott lasted 381 days. For one year and 16 days Black people in Montgomery, Alabama, did not use public transportation! Needless to say, that hit the city in the pocket-book. City officials resisted a long time. Them good old boys did not want those Black folks in the front of their buses. Really!

“Initially, the demands did not include changing the segregation laws; rather, the group demanded courtesy, the hiring of black drivers, and a first-come, first-seated policy, with whites entering and filling seats from the front and African Americans from the rear.

Although African Americans represented at least 75 percent of Montgomery’s bus ridership, the city resisted complying with the demands. To ensure the boycott could be sustained, black leaders organized carpools, and the city’s African-American taxi drivers charged only 10 cents-the same price as bus fare-for African-American riders. Many black residents chose simply to walk to work and other destinations. Black leaders organized regular mass meetings to keep African-American residents mobilized around the boycott.”

This is so powerful!

And then Selma, 10 years later!

Even after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbade discrimination in voting on the basis of race, efforts to register black voters met with fierce resistance in southern states such as Alabama .

In early 1965, you and SCLC decided to make Selma, located in Dallas County, Alabama, the focus of a voter registration campaign.

As you well know, Alabama Governor George Wallace was a notorious opponent of desegregation, and the local county sheriff in Dallas County had led a steadfast opposition to black voter registration drives. As a result, only 2 percent of Selma’s eligible black voters (300 out of 15,000) had managed to register.

You won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, and you drew international attention to Selma during the eventful months that followed.

On February 18, white segregationists attacked a group of peaceful demonstrators in the nearby town of Marion. In the ensuing chaos, an Alabama state trooper fatally shot Jimmie Lee Jackson, a young African-American demonstrator. In response to Jackson’s death a massive protest march from Selma to the state capitol of Montgomery, 54 miles away was planned. A group of 600 people set out on Sunday, March 7, but didn’t get far before Alabama state troopers wielding whips, nightsticks and tear gas rushed the group at the Edmund Pettis Bridge and beat them back to Selma. The brutal scene was captured on television, enraging many Americans and drawing civil rights and religious leaders of all faiths to Selma in protest.

You also led another attempt to march on March 9, but turned the marchers around when state troopers again blocked the road.

That night, a group of segregationists beat another protester, the young white minister James Reeb, to death.

Alabama state officials (led by Walllace) tried to prevent the march from going forward, but a U.S. district court judge ordered them to permit it. President Lyndon Johnson also backed the marchers, going on national television to pledge his support and lobby for passage of new voting rights legislation he was introducing in Congress.

Some 2,000 people set out from Selma on March 21, protected by U.S. Army troops and Alabama National Guard forces that Johnson had ordered under federal control.

After walking some 12 hours a day and sleeping in fields along the way, they reached Montgomery on March 25.

Nearly 50,000 supporters-black and white-met the marchers in Montgomery, where they gathered in front of the state capitol to hear you and other speakers including Ralph Bunche (winner of the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize) address the crowd.

“No tide of racism can stop us,” you proclaimed from the building’s steps, as viewers from around the world watched the historic moment on television.

A movie based on the events of SELMA [was released last year]. Can’t wait to see it with my children, family, friends and their children. Because this is a piece of history from which we need to learn.

“We are faced with marches, protests and boycotts as we face the continued brutality of the police force against young people of color, who end up dead instead of in jail. Not only people of color, but the majority are.

We are developing a network of organizations and advocates to form a national policy specifically aimed at redressing the systemic pattern of anti-black law enforcement violence in the US. We are demanding, that the federal government discontinues it’s supply of military weaponry and equipment to local law enforcement. We are advocating for a decrease in law-enforcement spending at the local, state and federal levels and a reinvestment of that budgeted money into the black communities most devastated by poverty in order to create jobs, housing and schools. This money should be redirected to those federal departments charged with providing employment, housing and educational services.” www.BlackLivesMatter.com

Dr. King, the exposure of the injustices via the internet is world wide. It is so hurtful when these police officers are not found guilty of murder, when the murder took place in front of millions of people.

We are still striving to do this non-violently, but the blind are still so blind. We have our demands and are voting and trying to work through the system. A lot of our friends are still silent. We are trying to help our White allies understand their privilege. We are tired of burying our children. Things have improved since the 1950s and 1960s but, unfortunately, we still have a long way to go.

Happy Birthday, Dr. King! Your words still ring true in this day and time. We need your spirit with us, to help guide us, more than ever! Please stay near.

Peace and Blessings,

Parlee Jones

********

Animal Issues

Worcester Police Chief Sargent meets with Worcester NAACP

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Police Chief Sargent at the Worcester NAACP meeting. Photo by Bill Coleman

By Gordon Davis

In August 2016 Mayor Joseph Petty said there was no need for the Worcester City Council to have public hearings on Worcester Police policies, as Police Chief Steven Sargent was already meeting the public at crime watch meetings and other events.

One of these meetings was held last night, September 26, at the YWCA, when the NAACP hosted Police Chief Sargent. During the NAACP meeting there was some discussion about the crime watch meetings and other police events being hard to find. Even the chief couldn’t say exactly where on line we should look. Another problem with attending the crime watch meetings is that they are not necessarily public meetings.

There was a little dust up at the YWCA. A man claiming to be head of operations called the police when people holding signs for the NAACP meeting were told they could not hold the signs there. Chief Sargent came over and defused the situation.

The first thing we learned from our new police chief is that the Worcester City Council makes the decisions on the type of police policy. Chief Sargent said he could not respond on the issues of “Broken Windows” and “Stop and Frisk.” He said the policy for Worcester is “Community Policing.” There is evidence the so called arrest sweeps and quality of life” that at least a modified form of Broken Windows is a de facto policy.

The issue of body cameras on police officers was also raised. Police Chief Sargent said there were constitutional issues being reviewed by the city’s Legal Department. He gave no timeline on this issue, although the ACLU has established guidelines for the use of body cameras that the Boston police are using.

In regards to transparency, Police Chief Sargent said they are establishing a Civilian Academy where police procedures will be discussed. The Academy is expected to start February 2017.

The city’s Dirt Bike policy was clarified to some extent: A legal dirt bike on the street gets a citation and will likely be confiscated. The Chief said the bikes, if stolen, are returned to their owners and the stolen dirt-bike rider is arrested.

There was no clarification of when legal dirt bikes are confiscated from private property.

Affirmative Action was discussed, too. The Chief said more Latinos are accepting police positions than are African Americans. He said his department is working to ensure 25 percent of applicants are minorities.  
What he did not say was that almost all successful applicants are former military who have preferential treatment over other applicants. 

Some push back came over the issue of the school-to-jail pipeline and the use of uniformed police officers in the Worcester Public Schools. There are nine police officers assigned to the Worcester Public Schools. Seven officers are in our high schools and two officers are assigned to split-duty in our middle schools.

The push back came in the form of four teachers, two of whom are still teaching. One teacher asked about the drug screening that is going on at Burncoat Middle School. Chief Sargent said he was not aware of the program. The program was initiated by Governor Charlie Baker via the recent Opioid Bill passed last January.

Another teacher indicated there was an implicit racism in having uniformed police officers in our schools. The background to this is the inability to have an honest discussion of the police killings in places like Tulsa, Baltimore or Ferguson. 

On the surface there is cordiality, but the real issue of race and power is hidden away.   

I have to say Chief Sargent is personable, knowledgeable and seemingly long-winded. He told us stories of the “old days” when he was mentored by Loman Rutherford, a Black officer. I did not hear much from him that was exceptional.

Events and time will tell if Chief Sargent will make a difference, or will be restricted by the material conditions and facts of his job.

Animal Issues

Today! Be there!

Worcester Screening of PROFILED

A Documentary about the Families of People Killed by Police

PROFILED is a documentary of the effect of the police killings in New York City and elsewhere on the families of the people killed by the police.

It is a very powerful and timely documentary.

It was awarded the Best Documentary at the Workers Unite Film Festival.

A trailer can be seen on the director, Kathleen Foster’s, website www.KathleenFoster.com.

There will be two screenings in Worcester. Both screenings will be on September 22 – today!

The first screening is scheduled to take place at 1 pm at the North-South Auditorium in the Student Center at Worcester State University.

There will be a panel discussion afterwards.

The second screening is scheduled for 7 pm in Suite A of the Hogan Campus Center Holy Cross College.

There will be questions and answers after the screening.

REVIEW:
“The film is a powerful presentation of the pain and disappointment felt by families that have been touched by police violence . . .and is another link in a chain that might be used to pull us from the abyss of inhumanity (represented by police violence) that we’ve been grappling with for soooo long.”
– Dr. Delores Jones-Brown, Professor, Department of Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration,
John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York.

InCity Yum Yums

Healing places and healing hearts

Parlee for Rosalie
ICT writer, Parlee! Go, Ms. Jones, go!!!

By Parlee Jones

It’s been a while since I have put pen to paper. I love to write. I have been busy with my own life. Things are happening. My children are preparing to leave for
college. I’m moving. I work daily with homeless women and families at Abby’s House.

And then, all of a sudden, you wake up and see a video that stops you in your tracks. You have no choice but to pause. You have no choice but to shed tears and tear at your hair as you watch another black man being executed, live and in living color.

On your phone, on television, on your computer.

Over and over again, you see this murder.

My heart is heavy. Aside from the two executions we saw over the week of July 4th, Philando Castille and Alton Sterling, there was the shooting of the Dallas Police Officers, the subsequent bombing of
the alleged shooter of the police officers.

There was a young Black man found hanging in a tree in Atlanta (atlantamagazine.com/news-culture-articles/what-really-happened-to-
the-man-found-hanging-in-piedmont-park).

There were six young Latino brothers who lost their lives to police violence (telesurtv.net/english/news/5-Latinos-Killed-by-US-
Cops-this-WeekAnd-Media-Ignored-It-20160708-0024).

The young brother who was
chased by a group of young white men and died from an asthma attack. (nydailynews.com/new-york/staten-island-teen-dies-asthma-fleeing-racist-crew-
article-1.2659272).

The Black man who was shot by an off-duty cop point blank during
a traffic dispute. (nytimes.com/2016/07/11/nyregion/video-of-fatal-shooting-
by-off-duty-officer-in-brooklyn-emerges).

Were you aware of these incidents of violence?

How my heart is crying for these lost lives. How my heart is mourning for these families who now must bury their people. How my heart is hurting because, instead
of dealing with the truth of systemic racism, and seeing the execution of these men live
and in living color, some folks still need to wait for the investigation.

Some folks say the police were doing their job.

All I have to say about that is: When did the police become judge and jury? Why do we allow men who seem to be afraid of people with
melanin or actually hate people of color, to supposedly protect our communities?

If you are okay with the way our police are policing, you may be part of the problem.

I had the humbling privilege of being a part of the Freedom Circles: Healing for Marginalized Communities Workshop. It was the first of a series of workshops. It is being hosted by BLM Worcester. The first workshop was facilitated by Julius Jones, founder of BLM Worcester. Future sessions will be led by others healers.

Julius is a love-centered activist. He is trained in Family Constellations, a popular healing
modality that explores the ancestral origins of our power, our persistent and “unsolvable” problems and their solutions.

We broke out into groups of two and practiced a technique called “Resonating” where we learn to listen and hold space for each other without projecting our own “stuff” onto them. Then we took a deep dive into internalized oppression. We talked about beginning to undo the harmful messages we receive from others and ourselves.

It was amazing.

After being so assaulted by the
coverage of the murders, I was feeling hopeless. Helpless. This was a space for me to be with like-minded people. People who want to understand true history. Something
that is not taught in schools. Part of the freeing of my own mind was learning Our Story.

If you do not know your true history – the history of your people, regardless of where you are from because unless you are a Native American your people are not from this land we call
home – if you do not learn the TRUE history of America, its founding Fathers and how this systemic racism was born, you truly cannot free your mind.

We have been conditioned to accept whatever is given by the powers that be.

We all belong to each other.

How can I help you understand that?

InCity Yum Yums

First ever Black Lives Matter agenda …

… released today!

A coalition affiliated with BLM issued the following:

CLICK HERE to read entire document!

“We demand an end to the war against Black people. Since this country’s inception there have been named and unnamed wars on our communities. We demand an end to the criminalization, incarceration, and killing of our people. This includes:

“An immediate end to the criminalization and dehumanization of Black youth across all areas of society including, but not limited to; our nation’s justice and education systems, social service agencies, and media and pop culture. This includes an end to zero-tolerance school policies and arrests of students, the removal of police from schools, and the reallocation of funds from police and punitive school discipline practices to restorative services.

“An end to capital punishment.
An end to money bail, mandatory fines, fees, court surcharges and “defendant funded” court proceedings.

“An end to the use of past criminal history to determine eligibility for housing, education, licenses, voting, loans, employment, and other services and needs.

“An end to the war on Black immigrants including the repeal of the 1996 crime and immigration bills, an end to all deportations, immigrant detention, and Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) raids, and mandated legal representation in immigration court.

“An end to the war on Black trans, queer and gender nonconforming people including their addition to anti-discrimination civil rights protections to ensure they have full access to employment, health, housing and education. …  .”

CLICK HERE to read entire document!

InCity Yum Yums

(Tweaked! Again! Sorry!) … Just one question for Worcester’s city council and city manager …

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There’s plenty of room on our Common for Worcester’s planned memorial to our city’s fallen African American W W II soldiers. Right here, for instance – the Franklin Street side of City Hall.        pics: R.T.

By Rosalie Tirella

… Why is Worcester’s planned memorial to our fallen African American W W II soldiers being erected at the Worcester Police Station?

Why not put the statue honoring our Black soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice right where it belongs? On the Worcester Common, along with all the other statues honoring Worcester’s fallen heroes?

There’s a slew of them on our Common –  in the middle of our soon-to-be revitalized downtown! Around and behind Worcester City Hall … they adorn the grass and trees that surround them even as we try (at least on holidays) to adorn them – lay wreaths braided with flowers or pine at their feet. We walk or drive by the stone and iron soldiers if we work in or visit the heart of our city. They make you think … put aside your work, dining, shopping obsessions for a few fleeting seconds to see something greater – a person’s life story, a city’s story, world history. The stone and iron soldiers come alive!

You can even build the new memorial to our Black WW II soldiers next to our John Power WW II monument that stands right outside our City Hall. The monument to our Black WW II heroes –  it was called the “Colored Citizens World War II Honor Roll Memorial” –  was once located in our African American Laurel-Clayton neighborhood but disappeared, along with the neighborhood!, when the interstate highway was built.  John Power is STILL with us – standing guard by Worcester City Hall (see my photo, above). So, truth be told, we will be building a new monument because we lost, destroyed, the old one! How can you “lose” a monument? What does that “loss” say about our city a few decades ago? Back then, how sacred to our city fathers were the memories of these dead African American soldiers – Black men from Laurel-Clayton, from Worcester?

Not very sacred at all.

Hell! There’s room for a tank or a couple of Jeeps to the right of the John Power statue. There John stands as the hip students walk by to get to their recently built dorms on Franklin Street …

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Soldier Power doesnt look hip at all! He looks like your average WW II grunt – ditch digger, mucking around in stinking trenches with penecillin pills, canned spam in his knap sack  –  but a KILLER too. Make no mistake! See the rifle slung over Power’s right shoulder and the long dagger in his left hand? He’s clutching the dagger ready for the fight – hand to hand combat – to the death probably. How can any city deprive a Black soldier, who fought the same fight, the honor we’ve bestowed on John Power? Power’s helmet is on askew cuz he’s in battle. He looks Irish – and a little cockey. Why can’t we humanize our dead African American soldiers this lovingly?

Why can’t Worcester’s Black community have the same thing? A touching yet tough depiction of men in war in stone?

Why stick our Black soldiers at the bottom of Bell Hill, at the Worcester police station, in the middle of a 20-way intersection, surrounded by ugly concrete (we’re talking the police station, too!) – a place where few will visit, stop to honor these men, think about them? A place where drug dealers, robbers, rapists and killers are flung?

Yes, the police station is a stone’s throw from the old Laurel-Clayton neighborhood, razed and replaced by the Plumley Village low-income public housing complex, home to many people of color – Blacks, included. Why not – I’m certain residents would be honored -put the monument there? It would be back at its real home. Placed before the entrance way to the buildings and high rise, lots of folks would stop and pay their respects.

Or is that the point? The intention (maybe subconscious) of Worcester City Leaders? To keep the monument to our fallen Black WW II Soldiers out of the public eye –  especially out of reach of the African American community?

And something else…to stop it from being a focal point, a symbol, a place for Blacks to gather, to remember, to rally, to teach … to protest. So often people come to their city or town common to express views, speech-ify … Protest! It’s been happening as long as there have been places where people chose to live together. A kind of gathering at the communal fire place! In America we’ve been doing it ever since our forefathers and mothers sailed into Plymouth Rock!

It’s happening still. All over. Especially with Black Lives Matter and, before that, Occupy Wall Street. It’s happening in Worcester. Worcester City Manager Ed Augustus has come down brutally hard on the BLM movement/rallies here, just as his predecessor City Manager I HATE ALL POOR RESIDENTS Mike O’Brien was hard with Occupy Wall Street protesters – refusing to meet with them, making sure they were off THEIR Worcester Common!

Would city leaders want a Black Lives Matter march to end at the “Colored Citizens World War II Honor Roll Memorial” on the Worcester Common? Would they want to see anyone give witness to pain, anger, racial discrimination in Worcester, “a city on the move”? Would they want a large crowd of folks agitating for change? In the middle of downtown?

Nope.

Is this what John Power died for?

*******

(P.S. Don’t let this happen, Bill Coleman and James Bonds!)

InCity Yum Yums

Worcester City Manager Ed Augustus and the “minority” community

Augustus
Worcester City Manager Ed Augustus

Let us start with City Manager Ed Augustus’ great plus: the development of downtown Worcester. He certainly has taken credit for it, and yet the evaluation of its success for Worcester has not been made. Many others had the foresight to see that the Galleria would be a failure when the Wrentham Outlets opened. Other city leaders wanted to reopen Front Street.

The issue of the development of our downtown and other areas of Worcester has led to the city’s Affirmative Action goals for construction jobs for city projects. No one in the public really knows how successful this effort has been. The City Manager’s office is not releasing significant or timely data. Also missing is: Where do people apply and what types of jobs are available?

The City Manager has taken credit for Affirmative Action through the hiring of Chief Diversity Officer, Dr. Carter. The success of this office and the number of jobs going to unemployed Worcester residents has yet to be evaluated.

The City Manager, unlike some other officials in the state, has maliciously prosecuted Worcester’s Black Lives Matter protestors. The judge in the case said that the very premise of the complaint filed by Augustus was wrong. The judge ruled that there was NO criminal action. At least one of the protesters was found not responsible of even the civil complaint. The City Manager failed in this area of race relations. He also failed by immediately selling the Mosaic Center building,  which has a long history in the Black community. This action was perceived as racist, as other unused and essentially abandoned City properties, such as the corner lot at Sunderland Road and Lake Ave. which are a hazard and an eyesore, lie fallow.

City Manager Augustus gets failing grades for snow removal. As a pedestrian in the city I ask: How is it possible that anyone can give Augustus an “exceeds expectations” when he cannot keep Worcester streets open and safe during a snow storm? Any competent executive can do this.

The issue of lack of transparency has been around for decades in Worcester city government.  Augustus has again failed the City and its residents when he refused to release the report on the racist hate speech by a high ranking City of Worcester employee, Mr. Traynor. This is a reflection of the institutional racism in City of Worcester government. Traynor is one of the people who is supposed to accomplish the City’s Affirmative Action goals.

The lack of transparency continues into the Worcester Police Department where Chief Sargent has indicated that he has a policy for the City based on the “Broken Windows” theory. This policy used in other cities has resulted in racist practices such as “Stop, Question  and Frisk” in New York City. When will our Police Chief and City Manager make known the details of this policy?

City Manager Augustus is quite ordinary in his bending to disparate impacts on Worcester’s “minority” community.

Fashion

Worcester City Councilor Mike Gaffney – never in fashion!

By Rosalie Tirella

… But wait! YES! OF COURSE the Gaffer is in style in 2016! All the way, baby!

He is super cool! Super bad! Super in control! Just look at the big fake potted plants in his Route 9, mostly empty, law office!

One week ago I was sitting in Gaffney’s sterile law digs and he told me this:

Rosalie, I WON’T SUE YOU FOR $1 MILLION  DOLLARS IF YOU NEVER EVER WRITE ABOUT CITY COUNCILOR MICHAEL GAFFNEY in your paper – or on your website –  again. Ever.

And…IF YOU SUSPEND InCity Times WRITER GORDON DAVIS FOR 1 YEAR

Ha! What was this deluded dunghead snorting?!

I basically told Worcester City Councilor Michael Gaffney to go fuck himself and stormed out of his ugly law office.

Is this pretend-man not the most deluded, arrogant asshole? Especially in light of what was written about him in the daily, by a local columnist who reminded the entire city that Gaffney is racist…is a demagogue who’ll jump on an issue like a nymphomaniac on a whore’s bony butt?

City Councilor MICHAEL GAFFNEY, a scion of the mighty town of Webster …

City Councilor Mike Gaffney, a guy sporting five different shades of bleached blonde hair and riding any Worcester issue that he feels will get him votes and a chance to grandstand – never illuminate an issue, make bright …

Gaffney, a weird, dark guy – a guy who bizarrely speaks about himself in the third person as in “City Councilor Michael Gaffney” this and “Councilor Gaffney” that seems to be in fashion …

Even though he seems a bit “off” …

It’s his time!

A la whack-doodly presidential candidate Donald Trump!

A la hate-spewers Fox News!

A la Ann Coulter!

A la the Tea Party clowns!

A la the Freedom of the Press-haters!

Like those vitriolic losers, Worcester City Councilor Mike Gaffney has made himself the crooked vessel to hold  lots of Worcesterites’ crooked fears. Their fears about: immigrants, people of color, poor people, the Black Lives Matter civil rights movement, a Worcester that is a majority-minority city once you cross Park Ave and head in the direction of my neighborhood, a Worcester where minorities – shut out of city jobs/power-hubs for so long – are looking for a significant piece of the Worcester pie. A Worcester where FINALLY people are coming out to say – sometimes shout – in public how it really feels to be black or brown or poor in America, in Worcester …

Gaffney and his deniers do not want to hear the truth that is  bubbling up here, in Worcester …

So it really should have come as no surprise to anyone that Gaffney would seek to destroy me and InCity Times. We’ve been on the right side – his wrong side – for almost 15 years! We’ve been speaking truth to power since day 1. Gaffney destroyed the Mosaic complex, its director Brenda Jenkins, the building in which it was housed, its TRUE history –  one of the few WOO African American social service agencies… And now he wants to destroy one of the few TRUE WOO alternative newspapers.

Well, Gaffer, Gordon Davis ain’t going away and you’ve already been called a racist by a columnist at the city’s biggest paper. Of course, you won’t sue them for a million bucks cuz you’re a coward and a kiss-ass. But you’ll go after InCity Times.

Give it your best shot,  Donald. I mean Michael!