Rollingout.com article: Black Readers Say Rev. Jesse Jackson Is Correct CNN Reporter Soledad O Brien Is Not A Member Of The Black Race.
Rev. Jesse Jackson Questions Soledad O’Brien‘s Blackness, She
Says; O’Brien Misguided
CNN star correspondent Soledad O’Brien revealed in her new book that Rev. Jesse Jackson told her that she was not black enough. She also stated that African Americans are obsessed with race, which is a very misguided and dishonest statement in light of what her parents had to go through as an interracial couple to get married — and the hostilities she endured from her white peers growing up.
We are well aware that Jackson has made some politically incorrect remarks off the air — or when he thought he wasn’t being recorded. No one will ever forget how Jackson, believing his mic was off during a commercial break during a TV interview, told a fellow interviewee that he’d like to castrate then-presidential candidate Barack Obama in 2008 for “talking down” to black people. And many people still resent Jackson who called New York “Hymietown” — a slur against Jews — in 1984 when he thought he was talking in confidence to a Washington Post reporter. And there are probably many other imprudent statements that never bled out of Jackson’s inner circles into the public consciousness.
O’Brien gives us her own experience as being the target of Jackson‘s unedited tongue that she says set her brain on fire. One of the anecdotes O‘Brien shared in her book, The Next Big Story, is an encounter she had with Jesse Jackson, who questioned her blackness by stating “you don‘t count.” Here’s an excerpt:
Today [Jackson] is angry because CNN doesn’t have enough black anchors. It is political season. There are billboards up sporting Paula Zahn and Anderson Cooper. He asks after the black reporters. Why are they not up there? I share his concern and make a mental note to take it back to my bosses. But then he begins to rage that there are no black anchors on the network at all. Does he mean covering the campaign, I wonder to myself? The man has been a guest on my show. He knows me, even if he doesn’t recall how we met. I brought him on at ‘”MSNBC,” then again at ‘”Weekend Today.” I interrupt to remind him I’m the anchor of “American Morning.” He knows that. He looks me in the eye and reaches his fingers over to tap a spot of skin on my right hand. He shakes his head. ‘You don’t count,’ he says. I wasn’t sure what that meant. I don’t count — what? I’m not black? I’m not black enough? Or my show doesn’t count?
I was both angry and embarrassed, which rarely happens at the same time for me. Jesse Jackson managed to make me ashamed of my skin color which even white people had never been able to do. Not the kids in the hallways at Smithtown or the guys who wouldn’t date me in high school. I remember the marchers behind me at the trial about the black youth/kid who beat the Latino baby. The folks that chanted ‘biracial whore for the white man’s media,’ even they didn’t make me feel this way. I would just laugh. Biracial, sure, whore, not exactly, white man’s media, totally! Whatever. But Reverend Jesse Jackson says, ‘I don’t count?’
I am immediately upset and annoyed and the even more annoyed that I am upset and pissed off. If Reverend Jesse Jackson didn’t think I was black enough, then what was I?
If you read the rest of O’Brien’s thoughts on Jackson and race on CNN.com, pay particular attention to what she believes is the African American community’s obsession with race. I find it particularly offensive that O’Brien would dare say it’s our “obsession” as if this is our burden alone and that we invented the concept of race and racism.
Moreover, how could she possibly lay that garbage at the feet of black people in light of her lineage and childhood experiences? O’Brien’s parents, an Irish-Australian father and a black Cuban mother, were prohibited by law from marrying in Maryland so they got hitched in nearby Washington, D.C., where marriage laws were less restrictive. Also, you will read that O’Brien states that the white guys in her mostly white neighborhood and schools did not find her attractive and didn’t want to date her as she sported an Afro back in the day. And yet she has the audacity to state that race is a black American obsession instead of an American cancer? She not only lets white Americans off the hook, perhaps because she married a white man, she then turns the screws on Rev. Jackson. It’s from this context that you should view O’Brien’s excerpt in the book.
Until recently, white people were not obsessed with race because they were the direct beneficiaries of racist policies and legislation, except when their children dated one of us or more than one black family moved into their homogenous neighborhoods. Or, until, one black man had the intestinal fortitude to move into the White House. –terry shropshire
-
Fivrr!
2 weeks agoI don’t know WHY folks are just getting this (memo)! I always knew to which side she REALLY related but played us, using her MOTHER’s (black by defaultness) to rise to the media top! When will black folk EVER learn?!? JUST BECAUSE she has an OUNCE of African blood–don’t make her BLACK! I always knew that Soledad related and embraced more of her Hispanic and whiteness than she EVER did her blackness. I never seen her as a black woman. Always as a white Hispanic. Bet you I know what (racial) box she checks off….lol! -
I have to agree with Jesse on this one since O’brien’s comments sound like the comments a white person would make. White people made race an issue with segregation and Jim Crow and trying disenfranchise Black people because of skin color. She is not in a position to fully appreciate the Black experience since lives in a biracial world that leans toward a white view of the world and Black people. She is projecting her own race consciousness about race on the rest of us. She really should stick to what is true about herself rather than criticizing people who appear foreign to her. Obviously we are people she can not and will not identify with. My heart goes out to her since she has gained the whole world but lost her own soul.
-
Ronnie 2 weeks agoRev. Jackson is correct about CNN and that is indictive of the other major cable news stations. Just look at your local channels. How many black anchors on the 10 p.m. news? You cannot count Roland Martin because he is classified as a CNN political contributor. It is certainly a slap in the face that Elliott Spitzer was given Campbell Brown’s old time slot. That would have been perfect for Roland Martin or another qualified African-American journalist like CJ Holmes or Don Lemon or Tamron Hall on MSNBC. Instead, we just watch Roland Martin on Washington Watch on TV One and Ed Gordon on BET now. No diss against both of their news programs. They are very good. Just would have liked to see them give the props they deserve. Thank you for this article as that is one book that I will not want to see under my Christmas tree.
-
Berry Hudson 2 weeks agoTo me black has always been more than skin color. It is how you live and identify yourself. I never really considered Soledad one of us. I am sure she has had some trails as a woman of color, but she is hispanic. Now if she feels she is black that is fine, but just because you think we family don’t make it so. I would know what Ms. O’brien who has a white name a white momma, white husband, lives in a white neighborhood and has white kids feels is so black about her.
-
Towg 2 weeks agoI have often wandered if she was black or white. I’ll bet Mrs. O’Brien does not check herself in the racebox as being a Black woman either. To me, she is no different than the Japanese and Chinese people who comes and set up local businesses selling black hair care products to get rich off black people, and to me she’s doing the same thing with her “being black in America” segments, which is making a living off the oppression of black people in America.
-
J_Jammer 2 weeks agoPerpetrator of a problem. Race is only a problem, in most cases, when you make it one. Blaming others for making it a problem is you making it a problem.
-
bebop 2 weeks agoI agree. Her journalism shows how she ‘thinks’ and Jesse was on the money with that one. He’s not perfect…and none of us are…but he will call it like he see it…whether you agree with him or not. Soledad’s Black in America Parts 1 & 2 were horrible. The series was not balanced at all and filled with all of the stereotypes instead of showing our many successes and accomplishments. She doesn’t love Black People…and it shows. She’s a colored woman who works her “blackness” for career purposes only.
-
Huh? You are making inflammatory statements and you don’t back up even one with an example. Especially those last two doozie statements. Jeebus! What do you mean? Have you done extensive research on Soledad? What do you mean by “love black people”? How would she meet your standards of loving black people? If she only fulfilled some of your criteria would she then fail “loving black people”? If I look up loving black people on the internet will your criteria come up, credited to you Bebop? Is there any debate going on about this criteria, or are you the definitive word? Ditto for Soledad working her blackness for career purposes only. Egads. Show some humanity and please(!) some humility! You may hate Soledad, and if you back it up, have your say as to why and make your “I hate Soledad” argument. But to make statements like you’re making and not even attempt to treat them as opinions, that is hateful! And we sure need more hate in this world; there just isn’t enough!
Canadian Press Article: Is The Canadian Government Racist Why Are A Record Number Of Immigrants Failing The Citizenship Tests?
More people flunking tougher Canadian citizenship tests
By Dean Beeby, The Canadian Press | The Canadian Press – Sun, 28 Nov 1:25 PM EST
The 63-page guide, Discover Canada, replaced a slimmer volume dating from 1995 that had fewer facts to memorize. The failure rate for the old citizenship test, with questions drawn from the smaller guide, ranged between four and eight per cent.
Failure rates for the new test, however, rocketed to about 30 per cent when it was first introduced — prompting officials to revise the rules to avoid clogging the system with thousands of would-be Canadians who, because they had flunked, often had to plead their cases before busy citizenship judges.
A reworked test introduced Oct. 14 is helping to cut the national failure rate to about 20 per cent, still far higher than historic levels and making the exam-hall experience much more nerve-wracking for newcomers.
Hundred of documents outlining the bumpy introduction of the new tests were obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.
“This is the highest number of fails I have seen in my time here with CIC (Citizenship and Immigration Canada) doing the test,” said a harried official at a Mississauga, Ont., office on March 19 this year, where 15 of 43 people had failed that day.
The old and new tests both have 20 multiple-choice questions and a 30-minute time limit. Only those citizenship wannabes aged 18 to 54 years are required to write the test, which is available in French and English.
But the pass mark for the test introduced March 15 was set at 75 per cent, meaning at least 15 of the 20 answers had to be correct. That compares with just 60 per cent, or 12 right answers, for the old exam.
The impact of the tough new standards was dramatic: shocked officials at testing centres across the country reported massive failure rates in the first sittings.
“I couldn’t believe it, it’s the highest fail rate I have ever seen here,” one Toronto-area official reported by email to headquarters.
An internal survey of 35 testing centres across Canada, carried out between April 19 and June 24, showed an average of one in four people were flunking. At some centres — such as the busy Etobicoke office in Toronto — it was one in three.
And while many people under the previous regime finished the test within 15 minutes, the new exam had most people sweating for the full half hour.
People who failed the old test were automatically referred to a citizenship judge. In 2008-2009, for example, 9,500 applicants who blew the test had to spend up to an hour with a judge to argue they were still worthy of citizenship.
Worried that the tougher tests could swamp the system, officials decided that applicants who flunked would be allowed to rewrite. And in the revamped test introduced Oct. 14, the department further eased the rules by eliminating a long-standing policy requiring correct answers to a few mandatory questions.
“We anticipate that the pass rate will settle in the 80 per cent to 85 per cent range, which would indicate that the test is not too easy or too difficult,” said department spokeswoman Karen Shadd.
She added that the test questions are being shuffled more often to help end what the department believes was rampant cheating under the old system.
“In the past, with the old test, some people would buy the answers from unofficial sources,” Shadd said in an email.
“After paying for the answers, they would memorize them in order to pass the test. This accounted, in part, for a much higher pass rate.”
Shadd also said the option of rewriting the test is only a temporary measure implemented to deal with the transition to the new exam.
She declined to provide an example of the test but said typical questions are either fact-based — “Name two Canadian symbols” — or conceptual, such as “What is the meaning of the Remembrance Day poppy?” Sample questions are included in Discover Canada.
The internal survey of 35 testing centres in late spring found the Etobicoke office in Toronto had the highest failure rate at 34.9 per cent, followed closely by Surrey, B.C. (33.7), Winnipeg (31.5), Scarborough in eastern Toronto (31.3) and Niagara Falls, Ont. (30.4). Officials declined to speculate on why these were the worst performers, but said education levels rather than mother tongue appear to be a big factor.
Citizenship and Immigration administers about 150,000 citizenship tests each year. The current 75 per cent pass mark is the same as in Australia and the United Kingdom, but higher than the 60 per cent set by the United States.
Shadd would not say how the new tests have increased the department’s workload, only that “there were times of heavier than normal workloads during the most intensive monitoring phase when we initially implemented the new test.”
The Top 40 Albums In The World For The Week Of November 28th 2010!!
 |
 |
Take That – Progress Polydor – 519.000 – 1 week at No.1 – Hot Shot Debut |
 |
 |
1 / – week 2 |
Susan Boyle – The Gift Syco Music / Columbia – 448.000 |
|
 |
|
Rihanna – Loud Def Jam – 406.000 |
|
 |
|
Masaharu Fukuyama – The Best Bang!! Universal Music Japan – 381.000 |
|
 |
|
Jackie Evancho – O Holy Night Columbia – 245.000 |
|
 |
|
Josh Groban – Illuminations Reprise – 213.000 |
|
 |
|
Kid Rock – Born Free Atlantic – 211.000 |
|
 |
2 / 2 week 4 |
Taylor Swift – Speak Now  Big Machine – 202.000 |
|
 |
3 / 4 week 3 |
Bon Jovi – Greatest Hits Mercury / Island – 193.000 |
|
 |
|
Pink – Greatest Hits So Far LaFace / Zomba – 187.000 |
|
 |
|
Bruce Springsteen – The Promise (Darkness On The Edge) Columbia – 184.000 |
|
 |
|
Glee Cast – Christmas Album Columbia – 177.000 |
|
 |
|
Keith Urban – Get Closer Capitol Nashville – 173.000 |
|
 |
|
Rascal Flatts – Nothing Like This Big Machine – 169.000 |
|
 |
4 / 1 week 3 |
Ikimono Gakari – Members’ Best Selection Epic Records Japan – 93.000 |
|
 |
7 / 5 week 5 |
Kings Of Leon – Come Around Sundown RCA – 87.000 |
|
 |
10 / 13 week 13 |
Katy Perry – Teenage Dream Capitol – 83.000 |
|
 |
6 / – week 2 |
James Blunt – Some Kind Of Trouble Atlantic – 80.000 |
|
 |
|
Nelly – 5.0. Universal – 73.000 |
|
 |
9 / 9 week 5 |
Shakira – Sale El Sol Epic – 70.000 |
|
 |
11 / 10 week 22 |
Eminem – Recovery 2 Aftermath / Interscope – 68.000 |
|
 |
|
A Day To Remember – What Separates Me From You Victory – 65.000 |
|
 |
19 / 15 week 6 |
Robbie Williams – In & Out Of Consciousness (1990-2010) Virgin – 59.000 |
|
 |
8 / 3 week 3 |
Jason Aldean – My Kinda Party Broken Bow – 59.000 |
|
 |
|
Andre Rieu & Johann Strauß Orchestra – Moonlight Serenade Decca – 58.000 |
|
 |
18 / 16 week 52 |
Michael Bublé – Crazy Love 2 Reprise – 58.000 |
|
 |
|
Norah Jones – Featuring Blue Note – 56.000 |
|
 |
13 / 8 week 5 |
Rod Stewart – Fly Me To The Moon J Records – 54.000 |
|
 |
16 / 4 week 5 |
Sugarland – The Incredible Machine Mercury Nashville – 50.000 |
|
 |
33 / 17 week 3 |
Mariah Carey – Merry Christmas II You Island – 48.000 – Largest Sales Increase |
|
 |
15 / 7 week 3 |
Jamiroquai – Rock Dust Light Star Mercury – 47.000 |
|
 |
25 / 23 week 53 |
Justin Bieber – My Worlds (My World+My World 2.0) 2 Island – 46.000 |
|
 |
24 / 22 week 99 |
Lady GaGa – The Fame (Monster) 5 Interscope – 46.000 |
|
 |
|
Chris Tomlin – And If Our God Is For Us Six Steps Records – 45.000 |
|
 |
5 / – week 2 |
Kid Cudi – Man On The Moon 2: The Legend Of Mr. Rager Universal Motown – 43.000 |
|
 |
23 / 18 week 10 |
Linkin Park – A Thousand Suns Warner Bros. – 43.000 |
|
 |
21 / 6 week 3 |
Cheryl Cole – Messy Little Raindrops Polydor – 42.000 |
|
 |
12 / – week 2 |
Cee Lo Green – The Lady Killer Elektra / Warner Bros. – 40.000 |
|
 |
|
Mai Kuraki – Future Kiss J-Disc Records Japan – 40.000 |
|
 |
27 / – week 38 |
Lady Antebellum – Need You Now Capitol Nashville – 39.000 |
|
Boxofficemojo Top 20 Box Office For The Weeekend Of November 26th to 28th 2010.
 |
| November 26-28, 2010 Weekend Studio Estimates Actual grosses for all movies on Monday afternoon. |
> |
| <<Last Weekend <Last Year | View Index | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Toronto Star Article: Nigerian Mother Speaking Out Against Crime Might Be A Shady Con Woman!!!
Crime victim advocate wanted in Georgia
Kemi Olunloyo is working toward her certification as a pharmacist, but also acts as a publicist for the grieving parents of Toronto murder victims.
SARAH DEA/TORONTO STAR
Olukemi Olunloyo stands before reporters at a bus stop on Dundas St. W. near Scarlett Rd., where 18-year-old Jarvis St. Remy was gunned down May 1. The publicist, a 6-foot thunderbolt in a sleeveless dress, red lipstick and brown wig, takes the stage before her client, Clemee Joseph, a mother in mourning.
“Kemi” introduces herself. She is a community advocate, she says, and met Joseph just two months ago, after St. Remy’s death.
“What I really do is I give a voice to all the crime victims in the community, because we want to break the culture of silence,” says Olunloyo, who organized this news conference free of charge.
Since moving to Toronto two years ago, this multi-faceted woman has thrust herself into the spotlight. She works in a pharmacy, but spends her evenings and weekends working on her many blogs, and calling for justice for murder victims like St. Remy.
That was her on the cover of the Toronto Sun in May, wiping a tear from Joseph’s eye, and in front of the cameras in October with the father of murder victim William “Junior” Appiah. On her blog, hiphossip.com, there are photos of her with big stars like Ludacris and Whitney Houston, and in the press room at the 2009 MuchMusic Video Awards.
Olunloyo, 45, was born in Nigeria but lived in the U.S. for most of her adult life. As soon as she becomes a Canadian citizen, she says, she wants to run for office. “I want you to scare (Councillor Giorgio) Mammoliti, put it in your article,” she says during an interview in her one-bedroom apartment in what she calls the “troubled” Jane St. and Wilson Ave. area. “I want to represent Jane and Finch, all the way down to Wilson and Sheppard.”
Const. Scott Mills of Crime Stoppers raves about Olunloyo, who uses her web savvy and celebrity connections to appeal to the public for information about difficult cases. The two have grown so close that Mills has given Olunloyo the password to his YouTube account so she can post videos on her own.
“We need more Kemis in this world,” Mills says. “We really do.”
There is no doubt that Olunloyo is filling a void in this city, especially within the black community, by urging witnesses to speak up and criminals to face the law.
But what Mills and others do not know is that Olunloyo herself has an unresolved past.
The U.S. pharmacist, publicist and sometime-journalist is wanted in the state of Georgia, where there are seven outstanding warrants for her arrest.
OLUNLOYO TELLS her story, through tears, on her lunch break at a Toronto grocery store, where she is working on her Canadian pharmacy certification. Later, she and her oldest son, Enitan, fill in the details over the phone.
She says autism consumed her life and Georgia’s Division of Family and Children’s Services destroyed her family.
Olunloyo has three sons and has never been married. Enitan was born in Philadelphia in 1987 but raised mostly in Baltimore. He is autistic, and by the time he was 12 he was impossible for his mother to handle. He would kick, bite and beat her, she says. Enitan confirms this is true.
Olunloyo says her second son was taken from her when teachers noticed bite marks on his arm. He is now 17, and has lived with his father since 2000.
Things got worse when Olunloyo, Enitan and her youngest son moved to Covington, Ga. Once, she says, her face bloodied from Enitan’s punches, she pushed him out of the car and called police to pick him up. She says she was charged with child cruelty for leaving her son alone in the cold. That was in 2003, Enitan was 16.
Her youngest was taken away from her for three years.
Olunloyo’s troubles escalated in 2005, when she was charged with intimidation of a court officer for allegedly threatening a judge. After she was arrested, charged and released, she says she called a news conference at her house. Her story made the evening news.
On her lunch break, she shares her version of events: Enitan had “an incident,” so she called 911 and police officers came to the house. They were regular visitors. “They said, `Where’s the little boy?'” she recalls. She responded he’d been taken away. Her voice cracks.
Then, she says, she merely pointed out a conflict of interest: at the pharmacy where she worked, she happened to be filling a prescription for the daughter of the judge who took her son away from her.
“I’m trying to get her child well and she’s taken my child away,” she remembers saying.
Authorities accused her of saying she would “mess” up the judge.
Olunloyo says this case and others have been dropped, but clerks in the Newton County Sheriff’s Office in Georgia say otherwise.
They say they have four warrants for her arrest for failing to appear in court on charges including cruelty to children, simple battery, terroristic threats/intimidation of a juror or court officer and obstruction of an officer. They say they have a fifth warrant for bail jumping.
Olunloyo says her lawyer worked out a deal with the Newton County district attorney’s office: they would try the intimidation of a court officer charge and drop the others. Then one day, she says, before her court date had been set, Enitan beat her up so badly that she packed her bags and left for Nigeria, leaving him to finish high school.
Melanie Bell, an assistant district attorney in Newton County, says “there was never a deal to dismiss anything.” She says the intimidation charge, the most serious, was simply to be tried first.
There are two more warrants for Olunloyo from DeKalb County, Ga. The original charge was terroristic threats – Olunloyo says she was accused of threatening a hospital worker who she says dragged Enitan across a carpet. The warrants were issued in 2006 for probation violation and failing to turn herself in after indictment.
Bell says Olunloyo goes by both Olukemi Olunloyo and Ashley Olukemi Olunloyo. In Toronto, she signs her news releases “Kemi” Omololu-Olunloyo. The name on her Ontario driver’s licence is Olukemi Ajoke Olunloyo. In Atlanta, she sometimes used Kemi Lane.
“We have no idea how she got out of the country,” Bell says, explaining that Olunloyo had to turn in her passport to their clerk’s office as a condition of bond. Olunloyo, who is not a U.S. citizen, says her Nigerian passport being held in Newton County expired, so she was able to get a new one.
She says that when she and her two sons arrived at Pearson airport from Nigeria in 2007 she went through three days of interviews, telling authorities everything about her past. She was under the impression that any lingering charges against her had been dropped.
But Bell says the warrants still exist. “She failed to appear for court and obviously left the country in violation of her bond condition, so we never had that opportunity to resolve the factual dispute.”
She says now that the authorities in Newton County know Olunloyo is in Toronto they will have to decide whether or not to extradite her.
OLUNLOYO SAYS she brought her children here for a better life. And they seem to have found one.
Enitan, now 22, lives on his own and works at a movie theatre.
Olunloyo keeps busy networking and fighting for victims of crime.
But in her short time living here, she says she has seen troubling things. On Mother’s Day, she watched a shoot-out in the parking lot below her balcony. Another day, a 10-year-old in her building was offered $20 and a new PlayStation to walk a mysterious package to someone on the other side of a mall.
And then there are the homicides, and the silence that follows.
Unlike many homicide witnesses in this city, fleeing the scene with lips sealed, Olunloyo is more than willing to raise her voice. She is an impassioned orator.
“Black people in Toronto need to pick up the phone,” she says. “I’ve said it at Jarvis’s funeral. We (the community) do not trust police. We do not like Crime Stoppers. We … don’t want to be a snitch.”
Her work with Crime Stoppers and the families of murder victims began with the death of 18-year-old William “Junior” Appiah, shot in a playground near Jane and Finch in September. She contacted Appiah’s father, Nana, who she said was upset about media reports that his son was a drug dealer. She offered to help, took four days off work, and organized a news conference, where Nana read a speech asking the killers to turn themselves in.
After St. Remy’s death, Olunloyo approached Joseph through Facebook, offering similar services, free of charge. Joseph accepted. Now she says Olunloyo is like family to her; that she has helped keep her story in the public eye.
“Just to keep my son alive and send the word around, because I don’t want to let my son’s murder go in vain,” Joseph says.
Lana Tisi, the aunt of Adrian Johnston, the baby-faced 14-year-old killed near Scarlett Rd. and St. Clair Ave. W. in May, also praises Olunloyo. “She seems to be a pretty good voice for those who can’t speak,” she says.
“She was saying, `Don’t let the killer sleep. Let him see your face all over the news.'”
Johnston’s family has been quiet in the wake of his death, despite Olunloyo’s advice, but Tisi says Olunloyo has still helped them tremendously – by creating websites and Facebook groups in Johnston’s memory, and by calling the police and city hall in Welland, Ont., where Johnston was buried, to warn them that there would be a lot of traffic the day of the funeral.
Gilly Gadan, a Toronto rapper who says he used to be involved in “all the wrong things,” says Olunloyo has become like a guidance counsellor to him. Gadan volunteers as her assistant and says he has managed to stay out of trouble since meeting Olunloyo last year.
WHEN TOLD ABOUT the warrants, Joseph listens, asks a few questions, and sighs. “I don’t know what to say,” she eventually says. “I hope that’s not true, because she’s been such a nice person to me.”
Mills, too, is surprised. He says he had no idea Olunloyo was wanted. “I still think she’s doing good work with these families, and she’s trying to help people. … What her past is, this is all new to me.”
He says he is now obligated as a police officer to call the Newton County authorities and find out if they want to extradite her. If so, he will have to arrange for her arrest. If not, he will have to inform Canadian immigration that she has outstanding warrants.
“Would I continue to work with Kemi?” Mills asks. “Yes. Because I really feel that what she has been doing is a good thing.”
Toronto Sun Article: Why Isn’t The Black Community Speaking Out About Young Black Men Being Murdered In Toronto?
A terrible toll: Young, black and dead
By CHRIS DOUCETTE, Toronto Sun
Last Updated: November 25, 2010 10:25pm
Those who wield the guns in Toronto and the victims whose lives they’ve snuffed out both seem to be getting younger all the time.
And anyone who has been paying attention to the city’s latest wave of deadly shootings, which have left four dead and at least six wounded, will no doubt notice another obvious factor.
“The fact is, is that it’s young black males who are dying,” Kemi Omololu-Olunloyo, a crime victim advocate, said Thursday.
She knows there will be people within her community who will be angered by what she has to say.
But she’s hoping that anger will motivate people to get involved in helping to stop the bloodshed.
“Until we find a way to get our youth engaged, they’re just going to keep shooting each other,” Omololu-Olunloyo said bluntly.
So far this year, there have been 28 gun murders in Toronto. Shockingly, 25 of the victims are black males.
And just as troubling is the fact that 10 of the 28 victims were still teens.
The youngest victims were Sealand White, who was gunned down in a double murder in Regent Park last month, and Devonte Gonde-Prosper, who was fatally shot in May. Both boys were only 15.
It’s also worth noting that only five of this year’s gun killings have led to charges, Omololu-Olunloyo said.
There have been 12 arrests in those cases, all black males, many just teenage boys, she pointed out.
Part of the problem, Omololu-Olunloyo said, is that there are so-called role models within the black community telling kids not to snitch.
“But if you don’t use Crime Stoppers to get justice for your friends or your family, then your loved ones will be just another statistic,” she said.
Omololu-Olunloyo believes kids should be educated about Crime Stoppers, through seminars and social media, at a younger age.
“We should start at seven years old,” she said. “There are kids that young in Toronto who know the killers in some of these murders. We need to get them talking.”
Omololu-Olunloyo also believes parents have to get more involved.
“Many parents are not paying attention to what their kids are doing. Sometimes kids need tough love.”
“You have to set boundaries for your kids and you should know where they are at all times,” Omololu-Olunloyo said. “Nothing is 100%, but we have to do everything we can to keep our kids safe and out of trouble.”
She raised three kids on her own, including one with special needs.
“Being a single parent is no excuse. You do what you have to do,” she said.
“We need to mobilize the community.”
Omololu-Olunloyo said she urged Mayor-elect Rob Ford to invest more money into grassroots programs, but to first ensure those programs are working.
Toronto Police echoed her plea that citizens and cops have to work together.
“It’s your neighbourhood. Only a small percentage of people cause the problems,” Const. Tony Vella said.
“Take charge of your neighbourhood. If you suspect any wrongdoing, call the police or Crime Stoppers,”
While many of this year’s gun murders remain unsolved, Vella said that will eventually change.
“It takes time to solve a homicide, there’s a lot involved.”
Most killers will get caught eventually, he said.
“Any time a young person is killed in a violent attack it’s concerning to us. It’s also troubling that many of the accused lately are teenagers,” Vella said.
“Everybody has a responsibility here.”
Police have taken nearly 60 firearms off the city’s streets in the last five weeks alone, he pointed out.
Toronto councillor Michael Thompson said the number of gun deaths is “disturbing and disappointing.”
“It also has to be said, there are a lot of African-Canadian kids who are not killing anybody. That has to be buttressed with the problem and how we’re helping those kids.”
Gayblackcanada 
Showing 8 comments