Links:The Black Star Project's website:
Black Star Journal:
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Beaten, branded & abused:
(Black U.S. Teen Girls
Forced Into Prostitution)
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Lisa's pimp branded her with a tattoo on the inside of her lip. Photo provided by Sharee Sanders Gordon/Los Angeles Deputy City Attorney and Neighborhood School Safety Attorney
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BY CHARLENE MUHAMMAD - NATIONAL CORRESPONDENTJune 17, 2014
Editor's note: This is part one of a three-part series on sexual slavery and Black America. Sex trafficking plagues young Black girls and a growing legion of advocates is working to help rescue children who've been pimped out and to prevent others from being snatched off buses and streets.
LOS ANGELES (FinalCall.com) - Pimping, or sex trafficking, is a multi-billion dollar industry: Some say $64 billion worldwide and approximately $10 billion inside America. But at this moment, somewhere in your community, perhaps near your home, a predator is likely working to make $150,000 to $300,000 a year by selling the bodies of Black teenage girls.
The average pimp has four to six girls, according to statistics from the U.S. Justice Department and National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
While many 13- to 14-year-old girls are being groomed for academic decathlons, recruited for middle and high school sports or drama clubs, others that age are being groomed for sex work.
Girls are raped, beaten, branded, indoctrinated, and sold day in and day out in a lucrative sex trade.
Lt. Andre Dawson, officer-in-charge of the Los Angeles Police Department's Human Trafficking Division, which is responsible for getting pimps off the streets said society needs a major shift: Children involved aren't criminals, they're victims. The buyers aren't Johns, or sex purchasers, they're rapists.
Mary Howard, an officer and president of the Nu Alpha Delta Multicultural Sorority, a non-profit organization, agreed. The problem is real, Ms. Howard said. "We in the community need to embrace this (fight) and not wait until one of our youth or loved ones is a statistic," she said.
Johns and Pimps 101
Sharee Sanders Gordon, deputy city attorney and Neighborhood School safety attorney in Los Angeles, said talking with parents and teachers is the best way to deal with how girls are stalked by would-be pimps.
"I never thought about how students going to school would have to divert themselves so they could go to a safer route, or being propositioned by young ladies on the street who were just confused, or seeing used condoms as they went to school," Atty. Sanders Gordon said.
Five people in Moreno Valley, Calif., were arrested on suspicions of abducting a teenager from Compton allegedly for prostitution, she noted. The 18-year-old victim was able to escape, but not before allegedly being raped by two of the suspects. The four men and a female suspect were from the San Francisco Bay Area, according to Atty. Sanders Gordon.
"Now you ask why did they come down here? Because Los Angeles is now being known for the place to come when you want to get an underage prostitute from the bus stop. Grab her. And they look for young ladies who no one's watching," she said. "They look for girls who are at bus stops late at night or who are alone and they're taking them by gunpoint," she said.
Root causes and symptoms of active sex trafficking
Tattoos or branding?
Many frown at the sight of big, bright or deep, dark tattoos on youth, especially on young females. While some of the tattoos are by choice, others are by force.
According to Atty. Sanders Gordon, a pimp in San Diego County brands, or tattoos, his girls inside their mouths, as if they were property. Such pimps call themselves "entrepreneurs" poised to make $300,000 per girl, per year tax free, she said.
Pimps love to memorialize their conquests, observed Lt. Dawson. But in tattoo branding their victims, they're now providing material that can be used as court evidence, he added.
Lt. Dawson gave a slide presentation that shocked attendees into silence and prompted verbal outbursts. One photo depicted girls with the acronym C.R.EA.M. (Cash Rules Everything Around Me) tattooed across their cheeks, breasts, thighs and rear of their legs, extending from their buttocks.
Another slide showed a seated pimp, posing for the camera. Behind him was a young, nude girl face down on a counter in a planking position. Her hands were shackled behind her back. Her head was covered with a white plastic garbage bag.
"You do the math. They're making money. The girls are reusable every day. They're just a product to these guys and it's easier to sell a young lady than it is with drugs, because with drugs, once it's gone, you have to go out and buy new drugs. But when you have a young lady out there, you can use her over and over and over again," said Atty. Sanders Gordon.
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Chicago Housing Authority Protest
for Jobs, Contracts and Respect
BREAKING NEWS - CHA residents, community groups and others will stage protest Tuesday June 24, 2014 from 11:00 AM to 1:00 pm (press conference at 11:00 AM) in front of CHA Headquarters located at 60 East Van Buren to protest Walsh Construction Company being considered orawarded the General contract to redevelop the Altgeld development.
We are protesting Walsh's history of neglecting Black community contractors and workers and we are calling on CHA to meet with the community for more transparency and to enforce the compliance process on Section 3 enforcement for hundreds of millions of dollars in community contracts and jobs. We are STILL not reaching goal of the Section 3 federal mandate for community contractors, CHA residents, CHA resident owned businesses, etc.
For more details contact 312-371-2995. Join us in publicly standing up to Walsh and for empowerment of the local community in TAKING BACK the hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts and jobs taken from our Section 3 qualified businesses and residents and community jobs!
We will help stop the violence in our urban communities when we stop the economic violence that causes far too many of our urban residents to be caught up in gang, drug, and other illegal economies when they should be working legal jobs that should come through local development contracts like through CHA. They and our elected officials for far too long have been allowed to exclude local contractors and workers.
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Join
The Black Star Project
to help commemorate
the 30th Anniversary of
Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr.'s
running for President of
the United States of America in 1984
Saturday, June 28, 2014
At Rainbow PUSH
9:45 am
950 East 50th Street
Chicago, Illinois
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Improving Conditions --
Unless You're Black
By Michael Holzman
Guest Columnist for Eric Cooper
June 19, 2012
Guest Blogger
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| Michael Holzman |
The U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics has published its annual report, the "The Condition of Education." While much of the news is encouraging, other results portend devastating outcomes for black families and in particular, black men.
For society in general, things aren't all that bad. The percentage of young adults (age 25 to 29) completing high school or higher degrees of study is at a record 89.9 percent. More than one-third of that group (33.5 percent) have a bachelor's degree or higher degree -- also a record. And 7.4 percent -- another record -- have a Master's or other advanced degree.
Interestingly, those trends will not be shared by all because young women are driving these educational achievements. Women leave men in the dust when it comes to more advanced degrees. The overall progress of women is a good thing and bodes well for the future. Better-educated women are more likely to join the workforce and are more adept at handling their family's health care issues, among other things (Business Week, March 7, 2013.)
While this is all to the good, the statistics -- and the reality -- are quite different for the descendants of enslaved Africans, especially young black men. When it comes to getting a high school diploma, they lag behind their white male peers by nearly 6 percentage points.
More than double the number of young white men receive bachelor's degrees (37.1 percent) than young black men (17.4 percent,) and only 1.5 percent of black men receive a Master's or higher-level degree -- an alarming number that is only one-quarter that of white men. Awards of higher-level degrees also have been dropping for black men since 2007.
This ought to be a grave concern for this country, given the relationship between lack of education and higher incarceration rates. Incarceration has become a central factor for too many black families. As it is, 1 in 9 African-American children (11.4 percent) have a parent in prison, compared with 1 in 28 Hispanic children and 1 in 57 whites (Pew Charitable Trust, 2010.)
When we fail to educate young black men, we too often consign them to a life of prison and low-paying jobs, and too frequently set their families on a course of poverty and unrealized potential. When we fail to educate our children, we all lose.
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An Open Letter of Apology to Black Men in Hopes of Reconciliation
By Nojma Muhammad
November 23, 2011
 Dear Black Man,
I have become a woman that you no longer recognize. I have allowed our enemy to impregnate me with his ideas and thoughts.
I have allowed an illusion of independence to keep us separated. I have fooled myself into believing that my degrees places me degrees above you.
I humbly come to you asking forgiveness. I come to you asking you to forgive me for not supporting you. I come to you asking you to forgive me for not truly loving you. I was taught to hate myself, then hate you. My desire to reproduce you was killed by our enemy.
I apologize for teaching my daughters that you will fail them, and continuing the cycle of an illusion of independence with them. I apologize for not encouraging you, for not being more patient with you, for not understanding your plight, your trials and your tribulations.
I apologize for thinking in order to gain strength I had to weaken you. I apologize for disturbing your peace, in order to have peace within myself, or what I thought was peace. My life has been in peril without you.
I tried to convince myself that I don't need you, but you are a necessity. I can't even continue the cycle of life without you. I apologize for my harsh tone, for using my tongue as a sword, for telling you that you are nothing, when in fact you are everything.
I apologize for mistreating you, disrespecting you, neglecting you and belittling you. I know that I have aided in breaking you, and I am beneficial in rebuilding you. I am acknowledging the wrongs that I have committed against you,and I am confessing my faults. By acknowledging my wrongs, doesn't mean I am absolving you of your duty, but rather I am re-committing myself to my duty to you.
I have relinquished my womb from our enemy and I am returning it to it's rightful owner; you.
I tried to walk this journey of life without you, but I realized that I should be walking this journey with you, and beside you.I pray that you accept my sincere apology, and that we can start the process of reconciliation, so we can love each other and have productive and successful relationships that will set the standard for our children.
Black Man..........I love you.....
Signed,
A Black Woman |
Bring Back Our Girls
300 Nigerian Girls Kidnapped!
Join the international effort to save them?
to Help "Bring Back Our Girls"!!!
Dear Phillip,
As Secretary Kerry said, we will continue to provide counterterrorism assistance to help Nigerian authorities, during this terrible tragedy, to develop a comprehensive approach to combating Boko Haram. We continue to stand firmly with the people of Nigeria in their efforts to bring the terrorist violence perpetrated by Boko Haram to an end while ensuring civilian protection and respect for human rights.
Thank you for contacting the U.S. Department of State.
Bureau of Public Affairs
Office of Public Liaison
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Girls Need Mentoring Too!!!
The Black Star Project
Begins Mentoring Girls
Bring Your Girls 9 to 14 Years Old
Thursdays, 6:30 pm, FREE!
The Black Star Project
3509 South King Drive
Chicago, Illinois
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Parents should call 773.285.9600 to enroll their daughters, granddaughters or nieces into this program.
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Saturday University Is Hiring
Tutoring on Saturday Mornings in Chicago (15 sites)
The Black Star Project is looking for 30 tutors for our Summer session of The Saturday University. SaturdayUniversity focuses on reading, writing and math for students in kindergarten to the 8th grade. Ideal candidates will be able to work every Saturdays for 6 straight weeks and will have at least two years of college. Preference will be given to tutors with previous experience. Tutors will work for at least two hours per Saturday, usually between9:00 am and 1:00 pm. Please email resumes to:blackstar1000@ameritech.net. Compensation is $30.00 per hour, part-time, non-profit organization.
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