From Mike Mayko, CT Post:
But one person whose absence was prominent was the Rev. Al Sharpton.
Just last Sunday his expected presence filled the excited conversation of several young minorities at McLevy Green. Sharpton has marched and lectured in Bridgeport several times before so his presence was expected.
However this time Sharpton had an “11 a.m. commitment to be at the National Action rally in New York,” the Rev. W. Franklyn Richardson, board chairman of the National Action Network told Hearst Connecticut Media Group Saturday.
He said Sharpton isolated himself as a result of the COVID19 guidelines and felt a need to be there.
But others like City Councilman Ernie Newton and the Rev. Mary McBride Lee, the Rev. Herron Gaston and Carolyn Nah and Lyle Hassan Jones, both community activists said Sharpton decided to stay away because of “deceptive lies,” threats to his well-being and a divide in the community.
Full story here.
Let’s face it, Sharpton “ decided to stay away” because the appearance fee was more at the New York rally..
It seems like there is a lot of stuff missing from this story because of the talk about why Rev. Al Sharpton was not there but “Sharpton had an “11 a.m. commitment to be at the National Action rally in New York,” the Rev. W. Franklyn Richardson, board chairman of the National Action Network, told Hearst Connecticut Media on Saturday. I still have questions about “Taking Back Our Village,” march, who were we taking our village back from? As for Rev. Al Sharpton, of all of the marches and protesting he has done for over 30 years and Bridgeport, CT is the one place that he feel in danger, PLEASE. Why were people wasting time on who said what to who about why Rev. Sharpton could not come, I would think that Rev. Gaston or who ever had poor contact with Rev Sharpton and he was left in the dark. The bigger question is why did Rev Gaston and Rev Lee feel the need to ask Rev Sharpton to a protest march 30 days after George Floyd was killed by a white police officers, Bridgeport has enough problems of its own to have been marching weeks ago. There was no outrage about the BPD, or the police chief or Mayor Joe Ganim , in fact Mayor Ganim and the speakers acted like Joe Ganim is not responsible for any of systemic racism and institutional racism in Bridgeport, blacks just can’t seems to blame anything on the golden boy. Bridgeport is a City Up North just like Mississippi in the 1950’s.
So, what person or organization is getting the bill for the police escort?
Busy last few days for shootings in Bridgeport.
Must be that institutional and systemic racism causing black people to kill each other.
Let’s see what the body count in Chicago is this weekend.
Black lives matter? Just a slogan.
I got this Day and Ron. There’s Tom White being White. (AKA a dick) Like the Port has poppy fields and are forging guns and ammunition. But to be fair it is a slogan, and they didn’t say how much they matter. There’s why you are a racist. It is what it is, just do give you a badge and a gun or some other profession where you racist tendency will harm someone you dislike for no other reason then the hate that resides in you. We are here because a cop knelt on a person’s neck for close to 9 minutes,who was on the ground and in handcuffs until he died.
That was not a stupid, reckless, action that put a cop’s life in danger like what happen to Jayson. Who should have been fired and found a new career? He was a week on the job. Or a man who told a cop he had a gun and as a license to carry it and still got shot dead. Or even a quick reaction by a cop that in hindsight could’ve ended differently. Especially with mental health issues, liberals are teaching these kids. To hate system, country, police. Or even the mental health issue the cops produce themselves to themselves.
So when your response how we got here is to express how there is gun violence in the streets shows you lack of concern about 8:46 minutes kneeling on a man’s neck while in handcuffs with four other officers, arrest him. There are people who have gotten arrest, processed, and released quicker than that. No, one is saying cop lives come last, or they don’t have the right to protect themselves. That’s why they have guns. Or that it’s not dangerous, we give the body armor. We even know they do some fuck up shit. So we give the body cameras. But 8:46 minutes watching a man call out to his mother for help. JS people
https://twitter.com/AmIshoBaraka/status/1271483570998124544
What does that response have to do with Tom White’s comments? What does that response have to do with him citing all the deaths in Chicago and all the shootings during the last several days in Bridgeport as I had similarly cited after last weekends bodycount?
I have a solution to many of the highly publicized unfortunate incidents where people have gotten killed by police. Police should no longer respond to complaints about trespassers or people selling things illegally in the streets or people looking or acting suspiciously, and police should not take any actions against people driving hazardously endangering the public at large. Etc etc…
Defund the police? By all means, get rid of police protection everywhere. Personally, I could deal with that. We could all take matters into our own hands. I’m good with that!!!
Oh, and while we’re at it, erase history…..so that it could be done all over again. It will end up being worse then before.
Cheers!!!!
What does Chicago have to do with a Port protest about police abuse? You were similarly wrong to deflect on police abuse and incompetence. A child losing their father because a cop overreacted when he told the cop he had a gun and permit to carry and was shot and killed when he tried to show it is more than an unfortunate incident. A cop chokes a man by kneeling in his neck for 9 minutes while in handcuffs is more than unfortunate. It’s criminal. A better solution is to get cops who are capable of doing their job accordingly. Would you call a person who when into a convenient store to rob it but the robbery didn’t go as plan and the clerk go shot and died an unfortunate incident? I would bet not. So why are arrests like a car being stopped that didn’t go to plan at the hands of the officer unfortunate? Cheer?
P.S I did say “But to be fair it is a slogan, and they didn’t say how much they matter.” So the question is what does your comment have to do with my comment regarding Tom’s comment? Saluti
You are right Floyd’s death was an unfortunate incident. The cop didn’t intend to kill him, only choke him out. This video shows how blacks are targeted and abused by racist cops who use their position to do so. Not only were the white kids talking shit the cop pushed passed a white kid to get to the black kid behind him and choked him out. He was no more a threat to the cops then the other kids. Now tell anyone what does Chicago shooting have to do with this targeted fortunate abuse by a cop? I say fortunate because the kid regained consciousness. It would’ve been unfortunate.
What I find unfortunate in the course of what’s taking place. People in our own government condemning the very government they part-take in. Why are America’s actions deserving of condemnation from the European conquest but all the countries that developed because of Columbus landing on the indigenous land, not?
Councilman Cruz loves his country of Puerto Rico. Mexico, Canada, all the other nations that were created because of Columbus and the European arrival. Man, even the European countries who how brought the slaves over for Africa to this land are less despised then America. A country formed from the dust that all men are created equal and fought and died to end it. But the white people waving the American Flag is the problem.
Well, ask yourself why Ameria has not lived up to its creed? Maybe because people are to busy trying to tear it down than living up to its creed. JS people.
So Rich tells me what Chicago has to do with this. Cheers.
https://www.facebook.com/OutFrontCNN/videos/262977424954837/UzpfSTEwMDAwMDUyMzg0NTk4MTozNDg1OTgyNjQxNDI5MTYz/
Rich, that’s the boilerplate response to police killings, blacks killing blacks in Chicago is related to gangs who can easily but guns across State borders, by the way the current President has done nothing and has said nothing on how the power of the federal government could help but in one day he signed an executive order about the taking down of statues of traitors of America and who took up arms to fight America, that he would take action against them. The original slave chasers who became the police system that America has now are still doing their job chasing blacks like before.
Eighty percent of police calls are nonviolent. Cops don’t like blacks questioning their actions like why did you stop them or what did I do wrong, what’s your badge number or what’s your name or could you call a supervisor, white cops can’t stand a man questioning their authority, right Rich?
Yawn
Geez Tom, 9 hours have passed and you were not attacked by the usual suspects for your racist comment yet!!!! Lol!!
Cheers!!!!
Whatever the reason for the Reverend Sharpton’s decision to avoid this Bridgeport action — beyond the lack of clarity and focus of the “march”/action, in regard to its mission/set of goals, as well its weak program and itinerary lacking in symbolism — it is clear that he wanted to avoid the political morass that is know as “Bridgeport.” He is too smart, and too important to the Biden Campaign, to risk stepping into smelly, Bridgeport political quicksand…
But: To those looking to get a fresh start for Bridgeport — in sync with the emergence of our city and the rest of the world from the VIRUS and TRUMP DEPRESSION — there will be plenty of opportunities, near- and long-term, to plan meaningful actions to which Rev. Sharpton, et al., can be invited for added meaning and momentum to our local change-movement as it seeks resonance with the world change movement…
Let’s start with a “Bridgeport, Ground-Zero” movement seeking a temporary state takeover of Bridgeport for the purpose of a political-economic fresh start for Bridgeport in which the current, FAILED CITY GOVERNMENT resigns, en masse, and a new government is elected and installed (per special election — via special GA act, if necessary), with a couple of years of active, follow-up state oversight, as we rebuild our system of governance and economy.
(A parting thought: How many murders and shootings occurred in Bridgeport during the past seven days — up to 9:42 PM this Saturday evening, the 27 of June 2020?…)
(One more thought: How does Bridgeport compare with the rest of the state in COVID numbers/infection rate/hospitalization/death rate? Why?)
Jeff, The only municipality with more than 25 confirmed COVID-19 cases last week was Bridgeport, with 14 reporting between six and 24 new cases. The rest of the state saw less than five or no new cases. Be safe, wear masks, practice social distancing.
This sounds more and more bizarre by the moment.
The Reverend Al couldn’t make it because he was in NYC at the same time. Period.
Whether it was a scheduling conflict, a schedule that better dealt NYC over Bridgeport or whatever. It had nothing to do with Sharpton feeling in fear of his life. So let’s end that BS line.
That is just certain members of the African-American community trying to play divide and conquer.
And once again Bridgeport looks silly and petty in the eyes of the nation.
This is why Bridgeport can not fix its own problems.
Bob, things got so bad that article had comments from Mario and Joe’s second kiss fan, Little Stevie A, second to Rev. Gaston. This was a pro don’t blame Joe Ganim march, think about this, Bridgeport couldn’t put on a march with all of the problems of the BPD and funding the 21,000 plus school students on their own and they needed Rev. Al Sharpton to give Rev Lee and Rev. Gaston the courage to put together a protest march 30 days after the killing of George Floyd by a white police officer.
Rev. W. Franklyn Richardson, board chairman of the National Action Network, who replaced Rev. Sharpton said, “Sometimes in the process of the struggle there are miscues, in the process of the struggle there are sometimes misunderstandings … we sometimes find ourselves on different poles from each other even though our intentions are the same,” he preached. “So there must be room for us to make mistakes. There must be room for us to have disagreements. There must be room for us to arise out of whatever milieu that confuses the agenda and achieve that which is important to all of us.”
Richardson told the crowd that too often protests and demonstrations of the past 400 years ended with everything returning to the same thing.
Rev. W. Franklyn Richardson words were right on point about the history of black protest but those words were lost to the speakers who spoke. He said the world is seeing that “America talks justice and inclusion on one side, and exercises exclusion and racism on the other side. America is a hypocrisy. America has lost its way,” that’s what El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, better known as Malcolm X said and before his death he wanted to take these issues to the United Nation to put America from and center because America would not provide blacks with the same rights as whites even though Martin Luther King Jr was leading peaceful marches and sit-ins around the south for blacks to be equal. Martin Luther King Jr was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 1964 for telling blacks not to fight back against the police who were enforcing the government’s laws against blacks but that wasn’t good enough because MLK Jr was shot and killed in 1968. As Rev. Richardson said, “everything returning to the same thing.” As Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr said, “The More Things Change, The More They Remain The Same.”
Ron, Franklyn Richardson’s statement could be seen as boilerplate too.
Do his words ring true to whites and America or just Blacks who find themselves on “Sometimes in the process of the struggle there are miscues, in the process of the struggle there are sometimes misunderstandings … we sometimes find ourselves on different poles from each other even though our intentions are the same,” he preached. “So there must be room for us to make mistakes. There must be room for us to have disagreements. There must be room for us to arise out of whatever milieu that confuses the agenda and achieve that which is important to all of us.”
Can the struggle to form America have struggle, miscues, misunderstandings, even find itself on different poles even though the intention s are the same?
Can America have room to make mistakes, room to disagreement, room to arise out of whatever milieu the agenda and achieve that which is important to all of us?
Why’s the world seeing that “America talks justice and inclusion on one side, and exercises exclusion and racism on the other side. America is hypocrisy. When America fought the world for its exclusion of its own people of mistreatment and is the only nation on Earth made up of races around the world. I find it, hypocritical when the nations around the world including black African nations calling America inclusive yet not provide equal treatment human rights to their own people.
America has never lost its way regardless of what the Rev. said. America provides the same rights to blacks and white. When it decreed that all men are created equal. But when you find yourself on different poles even though the intention s are the same. You must find room to make mistakes, room to disagreement, room to arise out of whatever milieu the agenda and achieve that which is important to all of us. Right, Rev. Franklyn Richardson. The Last time I checked America’s constitutional rights apply to every American. If Ameican’s is not providing those rights don’t blame the country to blame the people in the government.
George Bush-ish said, I’m in government and I don’t trust the government..You don’t have to believe in your government.. you just have to believe in your country.”
P.S I will not tell you his view on hypocrites. 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBYCmYAubUY
New Haven’s protesters came out in numbers to demand changes while in Bridgeport it’s business as usual.
The swearing-in comes a month after 5,000 people marched in New Haven to protest racial injustice in policing, calling for, among other things, defunding the police. It was one of many protests in New Haven, and across the world, sparked by the killing of Goerge Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
“18 Cop Recruits Sworn In” New / Independent
by Ko Lyn Cheang | Jun 29, 2020 4:47 pm
Officials prevented the press from interviewing the recruits.
In a bid to increase recruitment of police officers from the New Haven community, applicants were given additional points in their applications if they came from the city.
Of the 18 sworn in Monday, four live in New Haven. Six are African-American; two are Latino. Two are female (including one of the African-American cadets).
When asked how the recruits are screened for racial biases, Reyes said, “These are people that we pick from society. They’re going to come with their biases and preconceived notions — we vet that out. For us, it’s less about making sure people don’t have racial biases and it’s more making sure we have people who understand the standard here, who are good people, who want to do the service.”
In response to the nationwide reckoning with the purpose of policing, Chief Reyes said that police training will become more community-centric with a greater emphasis on deescalation training.
I would like to take this time to apologize for a comment that I have made a number of times on OIB and again, I’m sorry for saying that Bridgeport is a city Up North like Mississippi because I was so wrong about Mississippi because Mississippi has just made history by changing its flag isn’t the end of Confederate symbols in state flags. New Haven’s protesters came out in numbers to demand changes that had 5,000 people marched in New Haven to protest racial injustice in policing, calling for, among other things, defunding the police. It was one of many protests in New Haven, and across the world, sparked by the killing of George Floyd by a white Minneapolis police officer and Bridgeport’s one protest march had 250 people while New Haven had 5,000 marchers with no announcement or flyers with a guest speaker like Rev. Al Sharpton, no, they had 5,000 people in the streets making demands and the fight against systemic racism but with Bridgeport there’s nothing. The only real protest in Bridgeport were the family, friends and supporters of Jason Negron and they were an afterthought in Re. Mary Lee and Dr., Rev. Gaston’s “Taking Back Our Village” peace march. Systemic racism is alive and doing well in Bridgeport just like in the deep South in the 1950’s.
Mississippi changing its flag isn’t the end of Confederate symbols in state flags
By AJ Willingham, CNN
Updated 11:24 AM ET, Wed July 1, 2020
(CNN)Mississippi has made it official: The state’s flag, which bears the familiar cross of the Confederate battle flag, will officially be changed. The state’s Republican Governor signed the decision into law, solidifying yet another response to ongoing racial reckonings around the country.
C’mon Ron Mackey, Herron Gaston can’t say anything about systematic racism oib Bridgeport because his boss is Mayor Ganim who perpetuates systematic racism in Bridgeport. You know he’ll sue you as well, it’s just a matter of adding your name to my lawsuit for slander and libel!
Don, Herron Gaston has an issue with Stephanie Thompson chasing him, I thought Only In Bridgeport had become the new season of ABC The Bachelor because I saw were they were having their first ever black bachelor and the way Stephanie Thompson was talking about Herron Gaston and always coming Herron Gaston defense whenever someone said something that she didn’t like, there was Stephanie Thompson, she talked about in such a way and she express such admiration for Herron Gaston in such a personal way that it was embarrassing reading it. Between former OIB Super star, little Stevie A (Steven Auerbach) and Stephanie Thompson no one gave Herron Gaston more glowing compliment than those two.
Don, I kind of heard somewhere about a man and No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. So I wonder which master No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other, so I wonder which one Mary Lee and Herron Gaston serve, I do know that they did a good job Saturday for Mayor Ganim and Mario Testa with Ms Lee being a elected City Council member and Mr. Gaston being a paid member of Mayor Ganim’s staff, they did their job.