Jerry Smith, leader of Operation BLACC at Friendship-West, got in contact with Ms. McCowan late Sunday night. True to the man of faith that he is, Jerry looked to share his blessing with someone else.

I applaud Jerry for helping this family fulfill a dream, as they were both portrayed on CBS 11 as fans of Jackson’s music.  The hope of the Jackson family was that fans like the McCowans are able to pay tribute to The King of Pop.  Great Job Jerry.

Thursday’s Bloggers Bunch on CNN was interesting to say the least.  One of the bloggers on the show was Lurita Doan of EyesOnGov.com.  Lurita went out of her way to criticize the President, and Black folks seemingly, during our discussion of race.  I wanted to follow up to a couple of her points during the show, but I had no such luck.  I like it better when there are three guests on instead of four because we get a little more time to establish our points.  Let me know what you think.

As we started getting closer to Jim Miller Road, I noticed Dallas County Constables parked at the off ramps and standing outside of their cars.  When I looked up and saw helicopters, I started putting two and two together and figured there must be a chase in progress.

It was about that time that I started hearing a police siren.  Looking in my rearview mirror, I saw that it wasn’t a law enforcement vehicle approaching from behind, but a grey colored Nissan that was followed by a lone squad car.  I really didn’t have much time to react as I drove in one of the center lanes, but both vehicles passed us to the right.

“They didn’t seem to be going very fast for a chase,” I told my son, as I estimated that they were traveling a little less than 70 miles per hour.  After seeing the video later I saw that that was the only time the suspect Shane Michael was driving less that 80. We started a conversation about why someone may be chased by police and followed by helicopters, when I started to hear more sirens.

This time when I glanced in my mirror I saw a slew of squad cars.  It seemed to me that there were about 9 cars barreling down on us.  “What do I do,” I thought in the 8 seconds or so that this second portion lasted.  “Should I move right?”  Because we were coming around a curve it was hard to judge exactly which lane they were in.  “Should I slow down?”  It felt like they would run right through me if I did.

I can’t say what I did, but I know that some cars went right and some went left as motorists around me seemed to struggle with the same questions.  After these cars passed I figured that the suspect was probably headed towards Rockwall County by now until I saw the helicopters headed north.

I started taking a deep breath (all while my son played Nintendo DS in the backseat) and replaying the situation in my head when Act III began.  By now we were just about to get onto 635 South in Mesquite when I looked back and saw three more cop cars headed in our direction.  I don’t even want to speculate how fast these guys were driving.

The problem at this point was that motorists were in the process of selecting one of the 635 exits there was no time to process where the squad cars were headed.  It seemed like the three cars were headed at us from every direction.  They all passed on the left and then made their way right to the 635 North exit.  One had to go all the way out to the far left lane and make his way back right in order to make the exit.

After they passed, a motorist next to me and I looked at one another like “What’s next?”  I sat still on the shoulder for about 10 seconds looking around before I continued on our trip.  I sent out a Tweet asking for help on the status of the chase my Facebook friends kept me up to speed, up until this final comment:

OMG! HE WRECKED!!!! OMG!!!! HE RAN THRU A RED LIGHT AND A INNOCENT DRIVER IN A TRUCK HIT HIM! PLANO RD AND WALNUT STREET IN GARLAND/RICHARDSON.

I may not have revisited this scenario were it not for a story filed by Rebecca Lopez on WFAA 8 a couple of nights ago regarding police chases.  She contrasted the Dallas Police Department’s current chase policy where they have stopped chasing nonviolent criminals to Dallas County Constables who do.

Lopez reports that this has resulted in a decrease from 354 police chases in 2005 to 39 police chases in 2008.  The number of people injured in DPD chases also went down from 77 in 2005 to 10 in 2008.  Dallas Police figured that the danger posed to motorists and officers by chasing nonviolent criminals was too great.

I can’t say what the correct call is for Dallas County Constables and State Troopers, but I can say that Monday’s chase presented a dangerous situation.  A panicked driver could have easily make a wrong move and caused a chain reaction, even miles behind the actual chase.  On the surface, it seems like adopting the Dallas Police Police -or something close- would be a no brainer for Dallas County.

Image from wfaa.com

Individuals may call 214-670-8416 to make an appointment on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays starting at 9 a.m.  The Social Services Program Staff will take calls until slots are filled for the day.  Those over 60 years of age may also call on Tuesdays (9AM).

The Martin Luther King Center is located at 2922 Martin Luther King Blvd.  Residents  in other parts of the City of Dallas, or hose in need of help with utilities and/or food can call the city’s Community Help Line - 211.

Please share this information with anyone who may be helped by this service.

The unemployment rate for African-Americans was 14.7% last month compared to 12.2% for Hispanics and 8.7% for whites. The African-American unemployment rate is down for the second straight month after reaching 15% in April. Unemployment for Black men is at 16.4%, down from a high of 17.2% in April.

Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, June

This does not include 2.2 million people who were marginally attached to the labor force last month. And of that number 793,000 are considered “discouraged workers”, because they are not currently looking for work because they believe there are no jobs available. The other 1.4 million had not searched for work in the previous 4 weeks.

Could Black men be the first to start steering out of the recession?

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Pulitzer Prize nominated Witt says that he is moving in a new direction.  ”After a quarter-century run at the Chicago Tribune as a reporter, correspondent and editor,” Witt says, “I recently left the paper to take up a new challenge as the Senior Managing Editor at Stars and Stripes, the editorially-independent newspaper serving America’s military men and women and their families overseas.”

I have developed a good working relationship with Mr. Witt over the years after he became one of the first newspaper reporters to bring national attention to African-American activism online.  My family and I even met Howard out for dinner last fall.  

His reporting of ShaQuanda Cotton and the Jena 6 made the entire media industry reevaluate the way they were covering people of color.  He maintained a relationship with the black blogosphere after those stories, a lesson that black media members and outlets could learn from.

I’m sure Howard will do well in his future endeavors.  I pray that all goes well for he and his family in this transition.

• In the summer of 1996, the San Jose Mercury News broke the story of the connection between L.A. crack dealers and the U.S. funded Nicaraguan Contras. More than a month later, the Washington Post weighed in with a five-story, roughly 10,000-word broadside that ripped the series apart, debunking its central tenets and wondering aloud what it is about black people that makes them so paranoid.

• The Post’s editorial board explained that “the shock of the story for many was not simply the sheer monstrousness of the idea of an official agency contributing to a modern-day plague—and to a plague targeted on blacks. The shock was the credibility the story seems to have generated when it reached some parts of the black community.”But it wasn’t their fault they were so gullible, the Postassured in a separate piece, blaming a “history of victimization” that had led to “outright paranoia.”
• The Post’s longtime Central American correspondent, Douglas Farah, was in El Salvador when the story, written by the Mercury News’ Gary Webb, broke, revealing that the Contras, a confederation of paramilitary rebels sponsored by the CIA, had been funding some of their operations by importing cocaine into the United States. One of their best customers was a man named Freeway Rick—Ricky Donnell Ross—then a Southern California dealer who was running an operation that the Los Angeles Times dubbed “the Wal-Mart of crack dealing.”
• “My first thought was, ‘Holy shit!’ because there’d been so many rumors in the region of this going on,” Farah said when I interviewed him for a book on the history of drugs in America 12 years later. “There had always been these stories floating around about [the Contras and] cocaine. I knew [Contra leader] Adolfo Calero and some of the other folks there, and they were all sleazebags. You wouldn’t read the story and say, ‘Oh my god, these guys would never do that.’ It was more like, ‘Oh, one more dirty thing they were doing.’ So I took it seriously.”

Read the rest of Ryan’s Black, Paranoid and Absolutely Right at TheRoot.com

5. CHOOSE THIS: Low-fat or non-fat salad dressings
NOT THAT: Creamy salad dressings

The Allen Group has been asked to provide its position statement concerning the NCTCOG’S CONCEPT of a new S. Dallas County Master Planning Initiative as set forth in the NCTCOG’s PowerPoint Presentation below.  

North Central Texas Council of Governments PowerPoint Presentation.

The Allen Group SUPPORTS THE NCTCOG’S CONCEPT of the new S. Dallas County Master Planning Initiative as follows:    

Consistent with the NCTCOG’s PowerPoint Presentation below, TAG’s position is that the Planning Initiative should:

focus solely upon roads, water, sewer, and storm water;

be coordinated and directed by  representatives of ALL of the entities with land use development authority, and who have land impacted by the Plan, on all oversight committees or similar bodies that will make decisions that will impact the cities and/or land within their jurisdictions;

include, without change, previously adopted comprehensive plans whether initiated by Cities or landowners, developers, business owners, etc. (including Master Water Plans, Master Wastewater Plans, Master Thoroughfare Plans, Master Storm Water Drainage Plans, and Future Land Use Plans) and zoning of all of the cities; 

exclude model codes and zoning and development standards, which are or become, pre-qualifiers or conditions to receiving funding for infrastructure improvements from the NCTCOG or any other committee/body which might otherwise be created as a result of this initiative;

The Initiative should also: 

include the entire 234,000 acre ULI study area, including ALL of the cities south of I-20 to the East, West, and S. Dallas County line and include representatives of ALL of these cities in the coordination and direction referenced in Item 2 in the preceding paragraph; 

be adopted through the standard NCTCOG process, (i.e., it comes before the STTC and the RTC, and then the Interlocal agreements are sent to the city councils allowing each city with land in the jurisdiction of the Plan to be a party to the process so that the process is open and transparent); and

be adopted under circumstances where there are several town hall meetings PRIOR to final consideration of the Planning Initiative by the RTC so that the public has continuous input.

Any committee created should solely function in an advisory capacity, and should have no power or authority over any of the participants’ jurisdictions.

This position is compatible with the North Central Texas Council of Governments S. Dallas County Master Plan proposal which was presented to the S. Dallas County cities on June 16, 2009 at a meeting hosted by the City of Lancaster (please see below), and TAG supports the concept of the proposal presented by the NCTCOG to the cities consistent with the bullet points above.

Watching movies and barbecuing is how my family spends most Sunday afternoons. This past Sunday, I broke a cardinal rule and watched the BET Awards for the first time. My kids convinced me that it would be great since it was billed as a tribute to Michael Jackson and his humanitarian endeavors. However, the show that was promoted was not the show I watched. The BET Awards was a chaotic three hour black-a-thon fiasco.

How things begin is an indication of where things will end. Watching CNN’s anchorman Don Lemon giving shouts out on the red carpet was the start of the calamity that went downhill fast. To add to the circus atmosphere that was forming outside, Joe Jackson, MJ’s father and belt wielding former manager, was on the red carpet promoting his new record label. Huh?

I know grief is expressed in different ways but this was a drastic departure from tears and sadness that is normally shown. He sounded more like an old school promoter for Denise LaSalle than a father who had lost a son two days prior.

But what do I know. I never watched the show and I did not know if this was the norm. Arsenio Hall was raised from the dead and Chaka Khan said something. As for the rest of the folks, I had no idea if they were artists or clowns that were paid to keep us distracted.

Once the “show” started, I cursed myself for partaking in foolishness. I was tweeting throughout the night because my kids could not stand me shouting at them and the TV. New Edition was cute and Jamie Fox was comic relief. The O’Jays, in their yesteryear prom suits, had me dancing. Sugary Ne-yo and Jamie’s collaboration was touching. The duet with Monica and Keisha Cole was sassy and had vocal harmony. I loved Keke Palmer throw down. And Maxwell could have sung all night.

But what was up with Queen B’s ballerina-wedding night-wingless angel outfit? Did she sing a song that is the theme for dog rescuers? It was not proper for a MJ tribute. But the pandemonium kept coming; Ray J and the Atlanta vixens, Lil Wayne gold dipped teeth (ew), Ving Rhames, and various characters that had no talent only added to the bizarre profanity laced evening. Don Cornelius rambling intro, which made time stand still, had me praying for the torturous show to end. And let’s not forget the commercials for upcoming BET reality shows that I confused with promos for a support group for incarcerated women.

After the rappers destroyed the English language as we know it and perplexity that would have been right at home at the Hoodie Awards, Mary Mary blessed the show with a gospel song straight from a juke joint. Don’t hate, I blog like I see it.

Recognizing Alicia Keys and Wyclef was nice, but, seriously, where was the tribute to MJ? I felt Janet’s pain who sounded broken as she reminded the audience that MJ was her brother.

Why the ring mistress of BET, Debra Lee, could not have waited and worked on a show that would have been truly entertaining and befitting to MJ’s memory and his work is beyond me. MJ gave $300 million to charities which is rarely mentioned. Focusing on his charitable contributions during his lifetime and how his musical brilliance created an entire genre of music/videos would have rocked the house and lifted spirits. Instead, we were reminded why he lived in a place called “Neverland”.

You would have to live in a world of make believe to call the show a tribute. The responses on Twitter and in the blogosphere have been horrific. The poorly orchestrated show did not reflect MJ’s musical influence and minimized the gifts of many talented individuals. I am wondering if the folks at the Stellar Awards would have done a better job. On second thought, never mind, that spaceship will never land.

Genma Holmes publishes the blog Genma Speaks, which is about “all things that speak to Genma Holmes’ heart.” She is owner of a pest control owner business, based in Nashville, a writer, publisher, and work in the fashion industry. She also works with non-profits that help young people be the leaders of tomorrow.