by Shannon Williams

Within the space of a week, this country, and the Black community in particular, lost two giants: Benjamin Hooks and Dorothy Height.

Hooks, the longtime leader of the NAACP, led a remarkable life that was filled with history-making initiatives, overcoming obstacles and courageously advocating for equal rights and fair treatment.

(NNPA)—Police brutality in Prince George’s County, Md. is legendary. There have been scandals after scandals for at least the last 50 years. Much of it has spread across the border into Washington, D.C. It is bad and wide scale and it is also tinged with Black and Hispanic inclusion.

Most of the abuses are targeted to these two national minorities and for good reason. The applicable prosecutors and court systems protect and shield the dirty cops who perpetrate brutality. They will defend the actions of the cops no matter how heinous their actions are.

The print media, radio and television, daily focus on negative incidents that too frequently involve Black people. This column is about being positive. And all the people are Black.

A couple of years ago, Brenda, who is known in the business community as “Big Mama,” opened a take-out restaurant in the Strip District. There were plenty of naysayers who said she was wasting her time. She had difficulty borrowing money, but constantly talked about her faith in God and His ability to sustain her and her ambitions. Today “Big Mama” has enlarged her business operation with a 100-seat restaurant on Liberty Avenue in Downtown Pittsburgh. She is a proud, talented, spirited and grounded Black female, who refused to accept “can’t.”

(REAL TIMES MEDIA)—A couple of years ago I was invited to be a guest on the Jesse Lee Peterson radio show to debate “The Passion of the Christ.” I had written a piece arguing that the movie was a fraud for using White Spanish actor Jim Kaviezel to depict Jesus when historical images show him to be a Black African or a dark-skinned Middle Eastern man. Peterson believed that Black folk should shut up, stop complaining and just enjoy the story, since race doesn’t matter in casting. I always found this to be a funny argument; everyone always says that race doesn’t matter in Hollywood casting, as long as the people who are benefitting are White. That’s one of the reasons why I won’t be supporting the upcoming flick “Avatar: the Last Airbender.”