Shut ’em down! – Compton to shutter hotels over charges of prostitution
By Charlene Muhammad CHARLENEM COMPTON, Calif. (FinalCall.com) - The Compton City Council is poised to revoke the license of a motel that residents and community activists say has been a long-standing hub for sex trafficking of Black women and girls. Council members voted to issue a resolution to revoke the Hub Motel's conditional use permit and business license Dec. 3. “Once they...
Public, elite see U.S. power in decline
JIM.LOBE WASHINGTON - For the first time since the end of the Vietnam War, both the U.S. public and the foreign policy elite see Washington as playing a less important and powerful role in the world than it did a decade before, according to the latest quadrennial survey released here by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pew...
Winnie and Nelson: Forever linked to freedom struggle
By Charlene Muhammad CHARLENEM (FinalCall.com) - As Black female leaders celebrate the life and legacy of South African leader Madiba Nelson Mandela, they say it is imperative to also lift up Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, his former wife who helped hold the anti-apartheid movement together during his unjust imprisonment for 27 years. They refuse to let mainstream media write Winnie Mandela out...
‘Transgender’ bathrooms ignite controversy
By Charlene Muhammad CHARLENEM LOS ANGELES (FinalCall.com) - Local activists have joined a statewide effort to reverse a law allowing male students who identify themselves as transgender to use girl's restrooms in all California public schools for grades K-12. Governor Jerry Brown signed the School Success and Opportunity Act into law this summer. Authored by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, AB1266 specifically...
The Big Lie, Thanksgiving Day, and Consumer Spending
(FinalCall.com) - Americans celebrate Thanksgiving Day on the fourth Thursday of November largely because of successful lobbying by Fred Lazarus, Jr., the Jewish American founder of the Ohio-based Federated Department Stores in 1939. Mr. Lazarus convinced then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue a national proclamation and in 1941 the U.S. Congress passed a law that ensured Thanksgiving Day would be...
Celebrity accountability: Should it matter to Black America?
By Charlene Muhammad CHARLENEM (FinalCall.com) - Star power, social responsibility and controversy surfaced again over a partnership between hip hop entrepreneur Jay Z aka Shawn Carter and a high end store accused of racially profiling customers and rapper-businessman Kanye West's appropriation of the Confederate Stars and Bars flag for a clothing line. Jay Z issued a statement Nov. 15 defending his...
Big league problems: Ugly side of NFL exposed in Miami Dolphins scandal
(FinalCall.com) - Voicemail rants and e-mails directed at a Black player for the Miami Dolphins opened Pandora's Box on an ugly side of life inside the $35 billion industry known as the National Football League. Second-year offensive lineman Jonathan Martin left the team saying he could no longer tolerate bullying that included racial slurs handed out by a teammate. “Jonathan...
Family files suit after officer kills child carrying bb gun
By Charlene Muhammad CHARLENEM Attorneys for the parents of a Santa Rosa, Calif., teenager fatally shot after police saw him walking with a toy gun has filed three wrongful death claims against Sonoma County while supporters of the family are demanding the immediate arrest of the deputy who shot him. The legal claims for damages in unspecified amounts describe the shooting as...
An historic tour of Tuskegee University
By Charlene Muhammad CHARLENEM TUSKEGEE, Ala. (FinalCall.com) - Dozens of youth from the Nation of Islam and their parents flocked to Tuskegee University for a highly anticipated tour of the internationally recognized university founded by Booker T. Washington in 1881. The tour was a highlight of weekend activities commemorating the 18th anniversary of the historic 1995 Million Man March and Day of...
Beaten, abused, forced into sex slavery
By Charlene Muhammad CHARLENEM How and why Black girls are increasingly trapped in prostitution COMPTON, Calif. - When neighborhood, religious and city leaders hit streets to raise awareness about the need to end increasing sales of Black women and girls on Long Beach Boulevard, they found child sex exploitation and human trafficking that reached far beyond their community hub. “Basically, why we're...