EXCLUSIVE
WILMINGTON PASTOR
STANDS
STRONG AGAINST RACIST
LETTER
By Cash Michaels
Staff writer
[WILMINGTON]
A Wilmington pastor has expressed concern about security at her church in the
aftermath of receiving a racist letter that referred to impoverished
African-American communities as “Nigger town…”
Rev. Dierdre Parker, pastor of
Speaks Temple AME Zion Church at 1120 Dawson Street in Wilmington, posted half
of the crude, and vile letter that was mailed to her church on her Facebook
page Sunday.
“There
is a part of me that wonders if I should get security at the church?” Pastor
Parker posted. “Will I need to keep my eyes on the door while I’m preaching?
But who would walk into a church and hurt someone, right?”
“That’s
what we all thought until 9 people were murdered in Charleston. So what do we
do now? All I know is that I will continue to trust God, and I will continue to
do what I’ve been called to do. Nobody said it would be easy.”
The letter is addressed to
“MINISTER, Head Pastor” with Speaks Temple AMEZ’s address, and was
postmarked “Charlotte, NC 282” on
“14FEB 2018 PM 4 L.” It reads:
Go to any city in the United States of
America, any city. Go to the area of the city where you see drug dealers
standing on the street corner, whores walking the street, metal bars or metal
grating over the shop windows, run down houses with dirt yards, seedy buildings
with windows shattered or broken out, creepy people (lazy bums) sitting on
porches (porch monkeys), beat up cars and trucks, fat ass women, big lipped ape
men, blue gummed people wandering around, a stench in the air, illegitimate
kids everywhere, etc…
Then
the letter rhetorically asks in bold letters, “WHERE ARE YOU? Answer: Nigger town, of course.”
That was the first, and only part
of the racist letter that Parker made public Sunday.
Monday
evening, during an exclusive interview, Pastor Parker revealed that she didn’t
post the second half of the letter because it was even worse:
Niggers
do not give a s—t about anything.
They’re
lazy. They stink. They’re uneducated. They riot. They loot. They will steal you
blind. They will not work for a living. They are the parasites of the land.
Niggers
suck off the white man. Niggers have always sucked off the white man.
Niggers
do nothing to contribute to the society in which we live.
Nothing…nothing
at all.
How
do you starve a nigger? Hide his food stamps under a pair of work boots.
The letter is not signed, and there
was no return address.
The Wilmington Police Dept. did
interview Pastor Parker about the letter Monday evening, and took it with them.
They are expected to increase patrols in the area of Speaks Temple, but
explained that’s the best they can do without knowing who sent it.
The state Attorney General’s Office
also contacted Pastor Parker about the letter.
Deborah Dicks Maxwell, president of
the New Hanover County NAACP, was outraged.
“This is unacceptable at anytime, but
especially in 2018,” Ms. Maxwell said in a statement. “We sincerely hope this
is the only correspondence that was sent, but it was one too many.”
Many on social media – black and white - have
also expressed shock and outrage at the letter, wondering if other black
churches across the state will get similar missives in the mail.
Pastor Parker has communicated with other
clergy in Wilmington, including her pastor, Rev. Dr. Cliff Barnett of Warner
Temple AME Zion Church, to whom she also gave a copy of the letter.
“I think more churches, or black
businesses might get it ,”Pastor Parker said. “I just think they started with
us.”
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EXCLUSIVE
HOW A FATAL NC POLICE
SHOOTING
WAS USE TO SUPPRESS
THE BLACK VOTE
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
On
Sept. 20, 2016, an African-American Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer
fatally shot Keith Lamont Scott, a 43-year black man. Officers say Scott
brandished a handgun getting out of a parked vehicle, but refused to drop it
when ordered.
The
fatal shooting sparked two nights of violent demonstrations as thousands of
people, predominately black, took to the streets of the Queen City in protest.
But
according to a young social activist named Conrad James, he was asked to come to
Charlotte and hold an angry rally protesting the shooting. The riots and the
heated controversy in the police aftermath, it turns out, was tailor-made for a
Russian-backed conspiracy to suppress the black vote in North Carolina in the 2016
presidential elections.
Thanks
to the recently released indictments by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s
investigation into alleged Russian interference into the 2016 elections to help
Republican candidate Donald Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton, it is now
known that Russian operatives, in an effort to sour black voters on the Clinton
campaign, sponsored “Down with Hillary” rallies, and would invite unwitting
American activists to take part.
But
while that was true in other parts of the nation, according to Conrad James in
an exclusive interview right after the Mueller indictments were revealed, that
was not the case in Charlotte, and in Greensboro. Instead of “Down with Hillary,”
anger at the police per the Keith Lamont fatal shooting was the vehicle used to
encourage specifically young black perspective voters to express their general
anger and frustration with “the system” and “police brutality,” by not voting
at all.
The
logical calculation, according to James, who was asked by an allegedly
Russian-backed group called “BlackMattersUSA” to come to Charlotte and lead an
angry rally designed to further stirrup community tensions, was that because
Hillary Clinton, not Donald Trump, depended on the black vote, and young
people, to win the presidency, her electoral effort in North Carolina would
almost exclusively suffer.
James,
25, says he was a member of a multi-racial demonstration group called “Living
Ultra-violet,” best known in July 2016 for taking to the streets in Raleigh and
peacefully protesting the fatal police shootings of Alton Sterling in Baton
Rouge, La. and Philando Castile in Minnesota, as well as the murders of five
police officers in Dallas, Texas.
James
was interviewed by Raleigh TV station WTVD during that demonstration, where he
stated that his group “…rallies around the Black Lives Matters movement to
uplift [people of color]”. James also noted that the group had no hatred
towards law enforcement or white people.
James
says a woman saw him on television, and contacted him three days later about
coming to Charlotte and speaking at a protest rally there. Because he didn’t
know much about “Black MattersUSA,” but was impressed with their apolitical
factual rhetoric and online following, However, they had no framework for the
rally.
James countered that he’d come, but
only if he could coordinate the rally himself (James saw it as a golden
opportunity to promote is own nonprofit group). The woman agreed.
But
when the young Raleigh activist arrived in Charlotte in October 2016, based on
who he met (two “black kids with a white dude behind them…who didn’t say
anything”), and what he heard and saw, it was clear that BlackMattersUSA had an
agenda far different from his own. James was committed to peace and
constructive engagement, but what he was seeing were attempts “…to add fuel to
the fire,” designed to increase anti-police tensions, frustrations and distrust,
and ultimately cause those attending the rally to socially and civically
disengage.
James
told ABC News recently that people with “BlackMattersUSA” “…were definitely
trying to stir up trouble.”
In
Oct. 2017, a Russian investigative journalist named “Andre,” tracking Russian
connections, contacted James through Facebook, and informed him of the group’s
Russian ties and funding.
“He
completely blew my mind,” James recalls.
James was eventually asked to testify
before a Congressional committee, but declined. If subpoenaed by Special
Counsel Robert Mueller, James says he would have no choice but to testify, but
wouldn’t be happy about it. Based on what he saw and heard, there’s little
doubt in his mind now that what he witnessed was a Russian attempt during the
2016 campaign at black voter suppression.
Conrad
James says given his experience, he looks over his shoulder now, not knowing
whether friend or foe is lurking near. And yes, he does believe that the Trump
campaign was well aware that the Russians were doing something to help the
businessman get elected.
And
as for Hillary Clinton, she lost North Carolina – a state that Barack Obama won
in 2008 by just 14,000 votes– by 177,000 to Trump.
According
to NPR, the black vote for Clinton was six points less for her than Pres.
Obama’s black support in 2012. If it had been the same, she would have won the
state by 191,000 votes, and secured North Carolina’s 15 electoral college
votes.
-30-
STATE NEWS BRIEFS
NC REPUBLICANS FEEL
THEY CAN WEATHER 2018 MIDTERMS
[RALEIGH]
According to conservative columnist John Hood, North Carolina Republican
leaders are “…feeling cautiously optimistic about the 2018 midterms,” despite
the constant drumbeat of negative press about the Trump Administration in
Washington, and the low approval ratings the GOP-led NC legislature is
currently getting in public polling. Hood points to three factors for optimism
– “Money, maps and momentum.”
First, the Republicans have a fundraising edge over Democrats going into
the fall, in addition to outside groups also spending money to keep Republicans
in power. In terms of maps, two negative decisions against the Republicans
regarding their unconstitutional redistricting maps are currently tied up in
the courts, and are not likely to be resolved anytime soon given the appeals
process.
And
finally, thank rising poll numbers for the Trump tax reform law that polls show
is becoming more and more popular, as some Americans are seeing slightly bigger
paychecks. Add to that an improved economy, and Republicans feel that they can
hold on to their supermajority this fall.
Democrats,
on the other hand, are counting on mounting dissatisfaction with the Trump
Administration, and NC Republican policies, like eliminating judicial
elections.
STATE ELECTIONS
DIRECTOR WANTS ELECTION SECUTRITY TIGHTENED
[RALEIGH]
Kim Strach, state director of the NC Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement,
has asked state lawmakers, in a letter,
to strengthen various current election laws in order to provide more
ballot security to North Carolina’s voting process. "Much has transpired since the
Department of Homeland Security designated the elections sector as critical
infrastructure in January 2017," Strach wrote. "We, along with the
nation, have gained a disturbing but more accurate understanding of the threats
confronting systems that administer elections." Strach is recommending
that no voting system be connected to any wired or wireless networks; only
certified electronic voter check-in systems be used; a secure electronic
transmission system be created for receiving absentee and overseas military
ballots ; make it a misdemeanor
for anyone no a county elections employee to copy voter records; Allow criminal
background checks for all full-time or temporary elections workers.
-30-
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