Hundreds of demonstrators hit the streets outside of a Scottsdale hotel that is temporarily housing asylum seekers and hopes the city steps in.
SCOTTSDALE, AZ (3TV/CBS 5 ) – Large protests continued in Scottsdale Friday afternoon over a temporary migrant facility at a hotel. Many of the nearby residents said not only do they not agree with that at all, but feel they were given no information that this would be happening before migrants were already being moved in.
Hundreds of protesters lined the crowded sidewalk for more than a block in front of the Scottsdale hotel. “Over the Memorial Day Weekend, we were notified about the hotel and the illegals that were moved in under the cover of darkness without any kind of consultation from the local community,” said Lisa Seger.
ICE says it would be using the hotel to house immigrant families on a short-term, emergency basis while they await processing.
Seger helped organize the protest both on Wednesday and Friday, and was pleasantly surprised at how many people showed up. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement informed the City of Scottsdale that starting on May 29, they’ll be using a Scottsdale hotel to house immigrant families on a short-term, emergency basis while they await processing.
The lodging plan is part of an $87 million contract with the faith-based nonprofit Endeavors. The contract will last through Sept. 30. For now, though, the hotel rooms are intended to house people for 72 hours or less.
Tamorah Trahant said she just wants things done legally. “I’m all for people coming in through the proper channels,” she said. “It’s not about being discriminatory in any way on any level. It’s purely about the Constitution from the start to finish.”
A New York City-based psychiatrist told an audience at the Yale School of Medicine in April that she had fantasies of “unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in my way.”
A Psychiatrist Invited to Yale Spoke of Fantasies of Shooting White People
The Yale School of Medicine said the tone and content of a lecture by Dr. Aruna Khilanani, who has a private practice in New York, were “antithetical to the values of the school.”
A psychiatrist said in a lecture at Yale University’s School of Medicine that she had fantasies of shooting white people, prompting the university to later restrict online access to her expletive-filled talk, which it said was “antithetical to the values of the school.”
The talk, titled “The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind,” had been presented by the School of Medicine’s Child Study Center as part of Grand Rounds, a weekly forum for faculty and staff members and others affiliated with Yale to learn about various aspects of mental health.
In the online lecture, on April 6, the psychiatrist, Dr. Aruna Khilanani, who has a private practice in New York and is not affiliated with Yale, described a “psychological dynamic that is on PTSD repeat,” in which people of color patiently explain racism to white people, who deny their attacks. When people of color then become angry, white people use that anger as “confirmation that we’re crazy or have emotional problems,” she said.
She recalled a white therapist telling her in psychoanalysis that she was “psychotic” whenever she expressed anger at racism, and said she had spent “years unpacking her racism to her,” even though she was the one being charged for the sessions.
This is the cost of talking to white people at all — the cost of your own life, as they suck you dry,” Dr. Khilanani said in the lecture, which drew widespread attention after Bari Weiss, a former writer and editor for the opinion department of The New York Times, posted an audio recording of it on Substack on Friday. “There are no good apples out there. White people make my blood boil.”
Dr. Khilanani added that around five years ago, “I took some actions.”
“I systematically white-ghosted most of my white friends, and I got rid of the couple white BIPOCs that snuck in my crew, too,” she said, using an acronym for Black and Indigenous people and people of color.
“I had fantasies of unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in my way, burying their body and wiping my bloody hands as I walked away relatively guiltless with a bounce in my step, like I did the world a favor,” she said, adding an expletive.
Later in the lecture, Dr. Khilanani, who said she is of Indian descent, described the futility of trying to talk directly to white people about race, calling it a “waste of our breath.”
“We are asking a demented, violent predator who thinks that they are a saint or a superhero to accept responsibility,” she said. “It ain’t going to happen. They have five holes in their brain.”
Reading the story below will bring sadness to your heart, it will give you a sinking feeling. How could something like this happen in America? Well it did. Race baiter provocateurs from both sides can inflame to such a degree that a burst of hate can rise to the point of anarchy. It is happening now.
Thousands lost everything in the Tulsa Race Massacre—including my family
Private memoirs reveal how my great great great grandfather helped build one of the most prosperous Black communities in the U.S.
J.B. Stradford, the author’s ancestor, built a fortune from very little.COURTESY JOHN W. ROGERS JR. BYTUCKER C. TOOLE
BYTUCKER C. TOOLE
PUBLISHED MAY 28, 2021• 12 MIN READ
When I was in elementary school, my grandfather, Theron C. Toole, pulled me aside at his house. He said he needed to talk to me about something important: our family history. He told me about my great-great-great grandfather, J.B. Stradford, and how he owned property, including a hotel, on Black Wall Street in Tulsa. I didn’t understand the significance of what he was saying then, but the words “Black Wall Street” stuck with me.
In addition to lives, Greenwood residents—and their descendants, like me—lost what would today total an estimated $610 million in accumulated wealth. We also lost a vibrant neighborhood created by successful Black business owners and entrepreneurs not even 50 years after the end of slavery. And at the heart of it was J.B, who did everything in his power to support and enhance the thriving community of Greenwood.
Before the massacre, Greenwood, later remembered as Black Wall Street, bustled with 41 grocery stores, 30 restaurants, 11 boarding houses, nine billiard parlors, five hotels, and many other businesses, including laundry services, movie theatres, and a dance club. One of the most prominent was my great-great-great grandfather’s Stradford Hotel.
The Stradford Hotel, one of the largest Black-owned hotels in the United States, opened in 1918 and was destroyed by a white mob three years later.GREENWOOD CULTURAL CENTER
“The most beautiful crystal chandeliers were hung in every banquet hall and lobby,” wrote J.B. in his unpublished memoir, which my cousin Nate Calloway shared with me recently. “The bright lights were flashing all over the place and the guest from afar and near were tripping the fantastic toe, enjoying the opening of the largest and finest hotel in the United States owned and operated and built by an African-American.”
J.B.’s memoir, which he wrote later in his life, recounts how he went from an impoverished childhood to a life of entrepreneurship and civic activism. His story starts in Versailles, Kentucky, where he was born on September 10, 1861. His father, Caesar, had been enslaved but worked hard to gain his freedom and to educate himself, even though it was at risk to his life.
Caesar was taught to read by the abolitionist daughter of the family that enslaved him. “After each lesson,” wrote J.B. of his father, “he would put the book in the top of his hat,” only taking it out when he could study unseen. “Early morning and evening were spent studying. This procedure continued long enough to enable him to read and write.”
His father’s enslavement and educational process led J.B. to hold high educational standards for himself. He earned his undergraduate degree at Oberlin College in Ohio during a time when most universities did not admit Black students and then received his law degree from the Indianapolis College of Law, which was later absorbed by Indiana University.
J.B. Stradford wrote his memoir in longhand late in life. A family member had it transcribed.COURTESY NATE CALLOWAY
He began his entrepreneurial journey at Oberlin, working at a barbershop 10 miles from the campus. “After the first month in Oberlin and liquidating my money, I rented two rooms, one for sleeping and the other for a barbershop,” he wrote. “Many of my classmates and citizens patronized me which enabled me to make my current expenses.”
In Ohio he met Bertie Wiley, the woman he would marry. After graduation, the two returned to Kentucky, where J.B. worked as a school principal and owned a barbershop.
In Kentucky, J.B. had an experience that shaped him for the rest of his life: He saw a man being lynched. A white woman had accused a Black man of rape but J.B. reported in his memoir that she was having an affair with the man and her husband caught them.
When the man was taken out of the jail to be lynched, the rest of the Black community ran and hid but J.B. decided to stay and watch. He vividly describes the man’s death: His neck didn’t snap, and his tongue hung from his mouth “as large as a beeff [sic] tongue.” From that moment, J.B. determined to do all he could to stop lynchings.
But he no longer felt safe in his home state. He and Bertie headed for Indiana with $15,000 in savings. He opened a bicycle store and another barbershop and earned his law degree in 1899. The couple then moved to Coffeyville, Kansas, where Bertie passed away.
On March 9, 1905, J.B. moved to Tulsa just as it was becoming a boom town with the discovery of the Glenn Pool Oil Reserve. People—Black and white—flooded the city, opening businesses and taking advantage of new job opportunities. J.B. flourished.
On the morning of June 1, 1921, crowds gather in Tulsa as Greenwood burns.DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, MCFARLIN LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF TULSA
“By the beginning of 1917,” he wrote, “I had amassed quite a fortune. I owned 15 rental houses, a sixteen-room brick apartment building. The rental value was $350 a month. The income from other sources were triple. I had a splendid bank account and was living on the Sunnyside of the street. I decided to realize my fondest hope… and that was to erect a large hotel in Tulsa, exclusively for my people.”
On June 1, 1918, three years before the massacre took place, the Stradford Hotel held its grand opening. Described as the crown jewel of Greenwood, the massive building contained 55 hotel rooms, a large lobby, a drug store, a pool hall, a barbershop, a restaurant, and a banquet hall. It was an instant success.
But J.B. wasn’t just interested in material gain. He also wanted to defend his people against brutal lynchings. He and A.J. Smitherman, the editor of the Tulsa Star, one of Greenwood’s two newspapers, would gather groups of men to face down lynch mobs in surrounding towns. But they couldn’t stop what happened in Greenwood.
On May 30, 1921, 19-year-old Dick Rowland entered an elevator in the Drexel Building in downtown Tulsa. The white elevator operator, 17-year-old Sarah Page, screamed for reasons unknown (the most common explanation is that the young Black man stepped on her foot or tripped). The Tulsa Tribune editor “went directly to his office,” wrote J.B., “and put a large headline on the first page saying NEGRO ASSAULTED A WHITE WOMAN IN ELEVATOR OF DREXEL BUILDING, which assured the wrath of the Ku Klux Klan.”
Left: A squad of National Guard troops arrives in Tulsa on June 1, 1921, with a machine gun loaded on the back of their truck.DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, MCFARLIN LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF TULSARight: Black Tulsans are marched into the Tulsa Convention Center where they were detained after the Tulsa Race Massacre.PHOTOGRAPH BY FRANCIS A. SCHMIDT, DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, MCFARLIN LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF TULSA
The Tulsa Race Massacre had been launched. By the time the angry white mob ended their two-day rampage, nearly 10,000 people were left homeless and 6,000 were forced into detainment camps. Martial law was imposed and the National Guard was deployed.
J.B. was arrested and charged with instigating the riot. As the National Guard marched him away, he saw eight of his tenants’ houses, as well as his own home, engulfed in flames. He was placed in an internment camp with his new wife, Augusta. The camp was nearly deadlier for him than Greenwood under attack.
“My son John was confined in the same place with me,” J.B. wrote. “He overheard a conversation between an ex-representative and state Senator etc. ‘We will get Stradford tonight’, spoke one of them. ‘He’s been here too long (fifteen years or longer) and taught the nigger that they are as good as white people. We will give him a necktie party tonight!’”
To avoid being lynched, J.B. moved quickly. Black detainees needed a white sponsor to leave the camp. J.B. recruited a white man he had good relations with to help him and his wife escape out a side door and drive them to the nearby town of Sand Spring. From there, they traveled to Independence, Kansas, where his brother lived. J.B. never returned to Greenwood.
In the days before the centennial commemoration, a man gazes at a mural in the historic Greenwood neighborhood that depicts the Tulsa Race Massacre.PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHN LOCHER, AP
There was more danger still to come. The Oklahoma adjutant general issued warrants for J.B. When authorities arrived in Kansas to arrest him, J.B.’s brother confronted them with a gun, advising that he would shoot and kill them to protect his brother. J.B. was eventually arrested but his son C. Francis Stradford, a lawyer in Chicago, bailed him out.
They boarded a train for Chicago, where J.B. eventually died at the age 74. He had lost his fortune, but he left a legacy of hard work and determination to his descendants, many of whom became lawyers and other professionals.
In 1996, at a ceremony in Tulsa attended by members of my family, J.B. was cleared of all charges that he had incited or started the massacre. ”I didn’t have any doubt in my mind that the grand jury that produced these indictments was charged emotionally and politically,” said Bill LaFortune, former Tulsa mayor and district attorney, at the time. ”Taking all of that as a whole, it appeared to me the best interests of justice would be served by dismissing the charge against him.”
My great-great-great grandfather was absolved for the crime of which he was a victim, but he was never compensated for the fortune he worked so hard to build. I wonder how his story—and my family’s story—would have gone if the massacre never happened, if the perpetrators hadn’t been so full of hate, if he and his Greenwood neighbors had continued to flourish. I have no doubt that there would be Stradford hotels across the country, if not the world.
This guy was arrested in 1997 at the age of 23; then over the next 10 years he was an and off border in the big house eight times, mostly for larceny and drugs. In 2007, age 34, he moved up to armed robbery home invasion. He had no trouble pushing a pistol into a belly of a women. Did a nickel in the iron bar hotel. Was out in a year or two, by 2013 he was on the streets. In 2020 he was picked up for driving a truck without a license after being involved in an accident. This hood was a drug addict, taking his trade to star in porn movies; had five kids, but never married.
An advisory board member to the World Health Organization told Fox News, Monday, that China’s “massive cover-up” on COVID-19 is still happening today as the Wuhan lab-leak origin theory gains credibility.
Even before the BIG ONE hit the island, Puerto Rico was in on the road to disaster; a living example of the walking dead, a corpse in the making. Yes, truth be told, the island and all its beauty was drifting along in the sea of Big Government Liars, thieves and pillagers. In fact no one worked, 41% of those employed pushed papers from one side of the desk to the other; government workers; would you expect anything less? Now that is what we call “a hard day’s night.” I’ve been working like a dog was the call from the wilderness. Never really seen a dog work, have you? Seen them sleep, eat and play, but work? Especially in the likes of the Caribbean, not many dogs would take up the sport – too hot, they barked – “give me air conditioning.”
But for AOC’s Abuela, living in God’s heaven on earth, to live in squalor is another falsehood from the purveyor of “fire in the theater.” Check AOC’s pad for the Rich and Famous. Guess she doesn’t care about her Abuela! And Abuela’s casa grande is the envy of all American’s.
A replica of Abuela’s digs
(SEE PREVIOUS POSTS BELOW)
HOW MANY PEOPLE DIED IN PUERTO RICO? – DEPENDS ON WHO YOU ASK – WHO WAS ULTIMATELY RESPONSIBLE
Did 65 die or was it 3000? And where are the bodies? Who is to blame for this? First of all Puerto Rico is a welfare sanctuary run to the ground by Democrats – a failed state. Their infrastructure was was comparable to those of third world countries – think South Africa, Iran and Iraq. Electricity was dole out by the hour, water systems in many cases were inoperable. But the failed state, 41% of the employed worked for the government, was an accident waiting to happen; and it did.
Most deaths after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico are blamed on interruptions in medical care due to power outages and blocked or washed out roads, said the report published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
“Approximately one-third of post-hurricane deaths were reported by household members as being caused by delayed or prevented access to medical care,” said the report.”
The bottom line is two fold; Of those responsible for the majority of deaths were Puerto Rico’s the elected government officials; their obligation was to prepare and warn the people of the coming disaster; this they did not do.
Secondly, to blame Trump for his lack of empathy is insinuating that the President of the United States caused the problem. He did not. But we must remind those who place blame of the FACT that those who live in a Welfare State always depend on others to do their bidding. And so it was with Puerto Rico when hurricane Mariahit. The citizens waited for the Government to step in and lend a helping hand while they sat idly by, waiting for disaster to hit.
THEY TAKE AND TAKE AND TAKE – PUERTO RICO CORRUPTION AND WELFARE GONE WILD
The entire island of Puerto Rico is without power, after Hurricane Maria slammed into the U.S. territory. Officials estimate that it could take months for the island to be restored. Check out these incredible images of the storm and its aftermath.
Six months after Hurricane Maria slammed into Puerto Rico, many leaders there are pointing the finger at Washington, but the scandal, corruption and waste that now plague the U.S. territory were around long before last summer’s storm.
Decades of dysfunction, mismanagement and embarrassing abuses of power left Puerto Rico reeling well before the storm delivered a knockout blow, say obervers. Enormous debt, absurd infrastructure projects and a tradition of corruption have hampered the commonwealth’s ability to get off the canvas.
“There’ve been so many problems that have built up year after year,” Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., told Fox News. “It’s a tough situation.”
“All these mayors were using borrowed money to build things that were underutilized.”– Emilio Pantojas-Garcia, University of Puerto Rico
Reckless spending sprees by a revolving door of politicians have turned the commonwealth into a bloated bureaucracy that can’t pay its bills and yet enjoys the benefits of a welfare society without any of the responsibilities attached to it.
Before Maria hit in September, Puerto Rico was already navigating the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. government history at a whopping $120 billion in combined bond and pension debt.
For years, the island blew through billions of dollars in borrowed money.
Pricey and impractical infrastructure projects almost always got the go-ahead.
“Every town in Puerto Rico has a new baseball park,” Emilio Pantojas-Garcia, a sociology professor at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, told Bloomberg News. “All these mayors were using borrowed money to build things that were underutilized.”
One such project was a 1,000-seat performing-arts center in the small city of Humacao. The building was designed for big-budget Broadway-style performances. Instead, it was rarely used and ended up being the place where the occasional stand-up comic performs.
The territory’s towering debt and mismanagement also led to less money being available for schools and hospitals.
Then Maria hit and things on the island went from bad to catastrophic in the blink of an eye.
Multiple cases of corruption and greed by local leaders, government officials and inexperienced contractors surfaced, shedding light on the toxicity that is still very much a part of everyday life in Puerto Rico.
Those who can leave, often do.
The government of Puerto Rico now estimates that by the end of the year, another 200,000 residents will have moved to the mainland.
But for residents stuck in Puerto Rico, the future looks grim.
“We’re used to it by now but that doesn’t make it right or fair,” Sunita Howell, a waitress in Old San Juan, told Fox News. Howell’s family, who lives in the Hato Rey neighborhood of the city, struggles daily.
Howell says after Maria hit, her family was approached by someone offering to restore power to their home for $3,000.
“I don’t have that kind of money,” she said. “Who has that here? You are supposed to be helping us not taking our money.”Video
The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority – PREPA- has already suspended three employees without pay and says it is looking into another 25 reported cases of possible bribery in the days and weeks after Maria.
PREPA confirmed to PBS that all of the cases involve field employees responsible for restoring power.
El Vocero, a San Juan-based newspaper, said that some employees demanded up to $5,000 to reconnect power.
PREPA’s director was forced out in November after the utility, the commonwealth’s sole electricity provider, failed to call for help from its mainland counterparts after the storm.
Instead, PREPA granted a power-restoration contract to Whitefish Energy Holdings. It was a disaster of a deal and PREPA was forced to rescind the contract after public pressure.Video
PREPA was also accused of stockpiling supplies badly needed to help with rebuilding after Maria.
“The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority has become a heavy burden on our people, who are now hostage to its poor service and high cost,” Governor Ricardo Rossello, who is planning to sell PREPA to the private sector, said in a statement. “What we know today as the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority does not work and cannot continue to operate like this.”
PREPA’s problems are just one of several crises slowing down recovery on the island.
The federal government recently awarded a $156 million contract to a one-person Atlanta-based company that was supposed to deliver 30 million meals to Puerto Rico. Owner Tiffany Brown, who had no disaster relief experience, got the gig but managed to deliver only 50,000 meals to the storm-ravaged island.
There have been problems with the housing situation too and now, the island’s largest restoration contractor says it will pull out of Puerto Rico in the next few weeks after maxing out its $746 million contract.
“It never ends,” Howell said. “Tomorrow I’ll wake up and there will be another scandal, another Whitefish.”
Who’s to Blame for the Mess in Puerto Rico?
Alex Witoslawski, American Renaissance, October 4, 2017 Not Donald Trump.
Puerto Ricans are blaming President Trump for the fact that two weeks after Hurricane Maria, their island is still a mess: power outages, flooding, fuel shortages, spotty cell service, washed out bridges, roads blocked by fallen trees. But who is really to blame for the island’s paralysis?
Consider this: Puerto Rico has a population of only 3.4 million but their elected government has run up a debt of over $70 billion and pension obligations of $50 billion. That’s more than $35,294 per resident and over 100 percent of GDP. Puerto Rico has already defaultedon a $58 million bond payment in 2016, due to its already-high taxes and unwillingness to cut government spending. It fell into crushing debt despite the $21 billion annually the island receives in aid from the United States, much of it spent on welfare programs such as Head Start, public housing, and food stamps. That’s over $6,000 per capita in federal welfare that the islanders consume. And due to the special status of the island, Puerto Ricans do not even pay federal income tax.
Borrowing and US handouts sustained the welfare habits of the people, but Puerto Rico left its infrastructure embarrassingly outdated. According to the Los Angeles Times, Puerto Rico’s electrical grid is so starved of physical and human capital that it suffers from power outages four-to-five times the average—even in good weather. Puerto Rico also failed to invest in infrastructure to protect against flooding. The island has few floodwalls and dangerously weak dams—a dam on the island cracked following the hurricane, forcing the evacuation of more than 70,000 people.
These problems were foreseeable and preventable, but liberals and Puerto Rican officials are blaming Donald Trump. Perhaps he is being too nice. Puerto Rico created its own problems; why should we be on the hook for them?
After acquisition by the United States following the Spanish-American War in 1898, the island’s residents never integrated with Americans culturally, linguistically, or racially. Puerto Ricans are culturally Hispanic, racially a mix of Spanish colonists, African slaves and Taino natives, and most of them don’t speak any English. They may technically be United States citizens but they share little common history or ancestry with Americans and are clearly a nation that developed separately from our own. And what could indicate a clearer sense of alienation from the United States than the fact that Puerto Rico has its own Olympic team?
Puerto Ricans, meanwhile, have many gripes with what they perceive as their American overlords. For example, even before this latest hurricane-induced crisis, a major problem for Puerto Rico was their inability to conduct trade independently. According to U.S. law, goods must travel between Puerto Rican and mainland American ports on American-made vessels before they are exported or imported. This weakens Puerto Rico’s economy.
The best solution would be to let Puerto Rico become an independent country, free to make its own decisions and responsible for its own problems. This could be done amicably and generously. Since we pay the island tens of billions of dollars every year in welfare payments, we could easily pay off their debt and give them post-hurricane humanitarian aid as incentives to independence.
We could also offer remigration cash incentives for Puerto Ricans living in America who are willing to give up their U.S. citizenship and move to the island. This would not only be an opportunity for the Puerto Rican diaspora in the United States to reunite with their people, but also a great way to reverse the brain-drain. Over the past century, many of the more intelligent and hard-working Puerto Ricans moved to the mainland for better opportunities. The 2010 U.S. Census counted the number of Puerto Ricans living in America at 4.6 million, making it America’s second-largest Hispanic group after Mexicans. This represents a tremendous loss in cultural, economic, and human capital for the island.
Finally, we could offer military protection and economic advice for a couple decades. Chile took economic advice from free-market economists from the University of Chicago and the economy boomed. With the right advice and incentives, Puerto Rico could experience a similar economic rebound.
Separation would come with an expensive up-front price tag for us, but it would save Americans money in the long run and would give Puerto Rico full control over its culture and destiny.
Nigeria has indefinitely suspended the operations of Twitter, the government said on Friday, two days after the social media giant suspended the account of the nation’s president for a tweet warning of a return to violence in a civil war that cost millions of lives in the 1960s.
Information minister Lai Mohammed cited “the persistent use of the platform for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence.” In his statement, he didn’t explain that reference, nor was it immediately clear what the minister meant by a suspension of operations or how the government would enforce it.
Twitter said the Nigerian government’s statement was deeply concerning. “We’re investigating and will provide updates when we know more,” the company said.
On Wednesday, Twitter removed a tweet from President Muhammadu Buhari, a former general and military junta leader, that appeared to threaten violent reprisals for separatists from the Independent Peoples’ Republic of Biafra in the nation’s southeast that the government has blamed for attacks on property and assassinations.
