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COMMENTARY: Standing on the Right Side of History

NNPA NEWSWIRE — Blackballed NFL QB Colin Kaepernick Settles Major Grievance Claim against NFL

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By Jeffrey L. Boney, NNPA Newswire Contributor

One of the best skits that ever appeared on comedian Dave Chappelle’s hit television show, the Chappelle Show, was one called “When Keeping it Real Goes Wrong.” Each skit would highlight the outcome of what would happen to individuals who made the choice to ‘keep it real.’ In every skit, it showed how a person’s decision to ‘keep it real’ led to a negative outcome for them doing so. In other words, when you decide to ‘keep it real’ there are consequences for your actions, which could backfire on you.

Former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick decided to ‘keep it real’, but in his case, he came out on top.

In spite of receiving pushback from those who disagreed with his stance. In spite of being blackballed from playing the game he loved. In spite of being vilified by countless people, including NFL owners — and even the President of the United States. In spite of everything that was thrown his way, Kaepernick proved that when you stand up for what you believe in, even if you have to stand alone, you can win.

More importantly, Kaepernick showed that you can motivate and inspire at least one other person to stand with you when the odds are stacked against you and make a major statement and significant impact.

This past week, it was reported that Kaepernick, who filed a grievance against the National Football League (NFL) back in October of 2017, had reached a settlement with the NFL for a substantial amount of money. Kaepernick had not played a game in the NFL since early 2017. Kaepernick filed the grievance and accused NFL owners of working in collusion to deliberately keep him from playing quarterback in the league, because of his much-publicized stance of pointing out racial injustice and police brutality by protesting and taking a knee during the national anthem of each game during the 2016 NFL season

It was also reported that his former San Francisco 49ers teammate, safety Eric Reid, who was one of the only other players to consistently stand with Kaepernick from the beginning of his initial protest, has settled his collusion grievance against the NFL for a significant amount of money.

While the details of both settlement agreements are undisclosed due to a confidentially agreement between all parties, it has been reported that Kaepernick’s settlement amount alone is somewhere in the ballpark of $60 to $80 million. Reid’s settlement is reported to be significantly less, but he still received a settlement, which means that both he and Kaepernick proved, over these past two years, that the NFL was wrong and did not want the truth to come out.

If the NFL was innocent of these charges, and had the evidence to prove their innocence, they would have fought tooth and nail to crush Kaepernick and Reid. But Kaepernick and Reid stood together and came out victorious, not just because they received a financial settlement, but because they were able to stand up against the Goliath known as the NFL and show that you can’t silence the voice of Black people.

There were several NFL players who joined in with Kaepernick at the start of his protests in 2016, but the majority of those NFL players fell by the wayside. Reid, not only stood with Kaepernick when he was his 49ers teammate, he has also stood with Kaepernick after he got blackballed from the league. Reid could have abandoned Kaepernick and abandoned the cause, but he stood his ground and stayed true.

Things got so bad for Reid, that when he became a safety for the Carolina Panthers during the 2018 NFL season, he claimed that he was being targeted by the NFL via their performance-enhancing drug testing program. After his December 17 game against the New Orleans Saints, Reid claimed that he had been ‘randomly’ selected to take a drug test for the seventh time since joining the Panthers the year prior. Reid strongly argued that there was nothing ‘random’ about the drug tests he was being selected for and that he was being targeted simply because he joined in with Kaepernick to file a collusion grievance of his own against the league.

The NFL and the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) issued statements last month, stating that there was “no evidence of targeting or any other impropriety with respect to his selection for testing.”

Reid may not have proven that these drug tests were far from ‘random’, but he and Kaepernick were able to prove that the NFL was guilty of trying to bully them into submission, sought to silence their voices and make them compliant with their demands to stop their protests. It didn’t work and the NFL had to pay for it dearly.

This is a huge win for Kaepernick and Reid, and a prime example of how at least one person can influence others, as well as how a small number of people – in this case, Kaepernick and Reid – can change the game of football and change the game of life in a major way.

The NFLPA released a statement regarding the news of the settlement, stating:

“We continuously supported Colin and Eric from the start of their protests, participated with their lawyers throughout their legal proceedings and were prepared to participate in the upcoming trial in pursuit of both truth and justice for what we believe the NFL and its clubs did to them. We are glad that Eric has earned a job and a new contract, and we continue to hope that Colin gets his opportunity as well.”

If we look at the course of American history, we see that grassroots advocacy, like protests, have been around for a long time and have been used to bring about significant change in this country.

If you look at Black historical figures like Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Muhammad Ali and several others who have led protests to speak out against injustice, it is clear that those civil rights champions used their platforms and influence to address the myriad issues that have negatively impacted Black people in America during their time. And sadly, those civil rights advocates who we highlight and talk about every year during Black History Month did not have the type of support we are afforded today. As a matter of fact, many of them had just a handful of supporters getting behind their cause during their era, with some of them having little to no support at all, even from those that looked like them.

Kaepernick isn’t the first Black person to have been vilified in this country for going against the grain, challenging the status quo or taking a controversial stance on issues.

Both, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Muhammad Ali, spoke out against the Vietnam War and were deemed traitors to their country and were even called communists while they were alive.

After Dr. King’s speech in New York, criticizing the Vietnam War, other civil rights leaders who once stood with him, began to distance themselves from him and he was heavily castigated in local and national newspapers. Very few people stood with him.

Ali was stripped of his heavyweight boxing title and sent to jail after refusing to join the U.S. Army to go fight in the Vietnam War. He ignored the request to be inducted into the military at the Armed Forces Induction Center in Houston, Texas, and was eventually arrested, convicted of draft evasion, sentenced to five years in prison, fined $10,000 and banned from boxing for three years.

Interestingly enough, Dr. King has a federal holiday in his honor and the legacy of Ali is revered today.

As it has been with Dr. King and Ali, time will also be good to Kaepernick, and the history books will be even better to him for his bold and courageous act.

Many publications that are a part of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), a trade group that represents over 200 Black-owned media companies across the U.S., have chronicled Kaepernick’s story and have been a part of ensuring he will be forever remembered for his legacy defining act of strength and courage.

Throughout this entire ordeal, Kaepernick has served as a master teacher, who has taught the nation how to use the power of the platform they possess, be prepared to pay the price for the sacrifices they make and learn to endure the criticism they receive, because in due time, they will go down in the history books as a true catalyst for change.

Now, the real question becomes, will the NFL allow Kaepernick to come back and play the game he loves without further collusion? Time will tell and the nation will be watching.

Jeffrey Boney is an NNPA Newswire and BlackPressUSA.com contributor and the associate editor for the Houston Forward Times newspaper. Jeffrey is an award-winning journalist, dynamic, international speaker, experienced entrepreneur, business development strategist and founder and CEO of the Texas Business Alliance Follow Jeffrey on Twitter @realtalkjunkies.

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Activism

Oakland Post: Week of October 30 – November 5, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of October 30 – November 5, 2024

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Activism

“Two things can be true at once.” An Afro-Latina Voter Weighs in on Identity and Politics

“As a Puerto Rican I do not feel spoken to in discussions about Latino voters… which is ironic because we are one of the few Latino communities who are also simultaneously American,” Ortiz-Cedeño says. Puerto Ricans born in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, have American citizenship by birth but they do not have the right to vote for president if they live on the island. “I think that we miss out on a really interesting opportunity to have a nuanced conversation by ignoring this huge Latino population that is indigenously American.”

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Keyanna Ortiz-Cedeño at her graduation from UC Berkeley after receiving her master’s degree in City Regional Planning. Alongside her, are her parents holding a Puerto Rican flag. Courtesy photo.
Keyanna Ortiz-Cedeño at her graduation from UC Berkeley after receiving her master’s degree in City Regional Planning. Alongside her, are her parents holding a Puerto Rican flag. Courtesy photo.

By Magaly Muñoz

On a sunny afternoon at Los Cilantros Restaurant in Berkeley, California, Keyanna Ortiz-Cedeño, a 27-year-old Afro-Latina with tight curly hair and deep brown skin, stares down at her carne asada tacos, “I’ve definitely eaten more tortillas than plantains over the course of my life,” says Cedeño, who spent her childhood in South Texas, among predominantly Mexican-American Latinos. As she eats, she reflects on the views that American politicians have of Latino voters.

“As a Puerto Rican I do not feel spoken to in discussions about Latino voters… which is ironic because we are one of the few Latino communities who are also simultaneously American,” Ortiz-Cedeño says. Puerto Ricans born in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, have American citizenship by birth but they do not have the right to vote for president if they live on the island. “I think that we miss out on a really interesting opportunity to have a nuanced conversation by ignoring this huge Latino population that is indigenously American.”

Ortiz-Cedeño, an urban planner who is focused on disaster resilience, homelessness and economic prosperity for people of color, says that political conversations around Latinos tend to shift towards immigration, “I think this ties back into the ways that our perception of ‘Latino’ tends to be Mexican and Central American because so much of our conversation about Latinos is deeply rooted in what’s happening on the border,” she says. “I don’t think that the Afro-Latino vote is frequently considered when we’re talking about the Latino vote in the United States.”

Primarily surrounded by Mexican-Americans while growing up in South Texas, Keyanna participated in many Chicano cultured events, such as being a dama in several quinceñeras. Courtesy photo.

Primarily surrounded by Mexican-Americans while growing up in South Texas, Keyanna participated in many Chicano cultured events, such as being a dama in several quinceñeras. Courtesy photo.

As Ortiz-Cedeño sifts through childhood photos of her as a happy teen dancing with the Mexican ballet folklorico group in high school and as a dama in quinceñeras, she reflects on growing up in South Texas, an area with a large population of white and Mexican-Americans. The Black population was small, and within it, the Afro-Latino population was practically nonexistent.

“It was interesting to try to have conversations with other Latinos in the community because I think that there was a combination of both willful ignorance and a sort of ill intent and effort to try and deny my experience as a Latino,” she says. “There are a lot of folks in Latin America who experience a lot of cognitive dissonance when they think about the existence of Black Latinos in Latin America.

Ortiz-Cedeño comments on the long history of anti-Blackness in Latin America. “Throughout Latin America, we have a really insidious history with erasing Blackness and I think that that has been carried into the Latino American culture and experience,” she says. “People will tell you, race doesn’t exist in Latin America, like we’re all Dominicans, we’re all Puerto Ricans, we’re all Cubans, we’re all Mexicans. If you were to go to the spaces with where people are from and look at who is experiencing the most acute violence, the most acute poverty, the most acute political oppression and marginalization, those people are usually darker. And that’s not by accident, it’s by design.”

Because of the lack of diversity in her Gulf Coast town, as a teenager, despite being the only Spanish-speaker at her job in Walmart, Latinos refused to ask for her help in Spanish.

“Even if monolingual [Spanish-speaking] people would have to speak with me, then they were trying to speak English, even though they could not speak English, versus engaging with me as a Latina,” she says.

“I think that the perception of Latinos in the United States is of a light brown person with long, wavy or straight hair. The perfect amount of curves and the perfect combination of Indigenous and white genes. And very rarely will people also consider that maybe they also have a sprinkle of Blackness in them as well,” she says. “Over 90% of the slave trade went to the Caribbean and Latin America.”

Keyanna as a toddler, holding a whiteboard up with her last name, Ortiz-Cedeño, on it. Courtesy photo.

Keyanna as a toddler, holding a whiteboard up with her last name, Ortiz-Cedeño, on it. Courtesy photo.

Ortiz-Cedeño remembers when a Cuban family moved in next door to her in Texas. The teen daughter had blue-eyes, blonde hair and only spoke Spanish, which caused neighboring Latinos to take pause because she didn’t fit the Latino “look” they were used to.

“People didn’t have an option to try and negate her [Latino] identity because they had to acknowledge her for everything that she was,” Ortiz-Cedeño says.

Later on, the girl’s cousins, a Black, Spanish-speaking Cuban family, came into town and again locals were forced to reckon with the fact that not all Latinos fit a certain criteria.

“I think it forced everybody to have to confront a reality that they knew in the back of their mind but didn’t want to acknowledge at the forefront,” Ortiz-Cedeño says.

Having gone through these experiences as an Afro-Latina, Ortiz-Cedeño says it’s easy for her to understand Kamala Harris’ mixed Indian and Jamaican heritage, “It comes really naturally to accept that she is both Indian and Black. Two things can exist at the same time,” she says. “I had a long term partner for about seven years who was South Indian, from the same state as Kamala Harris, so if we had had a kid, they would look like [Harris],” Ortiz-Cedeño jokingly shares.

She says she can relate to having to walk the road of people only wanting to see Harris as a Black American. The talking point about [Harris] not being Indian or not being Black, just deciding to be Black, is really disingenuous and cheap,” she says.

Ortiz-Cedeño believes that the Harris campaign has not capitalized on the vice president’s mixed identity, which could be vital in bringing together different communities to understand each other on a new level and allow for improvements on America’s racial dynamics.

Keyanna co-managed a recovery center with her mother after Hurricane Harvey. They packed essentials, such as diapers, food, and water for families in need. Courtesy photo.

Keyanna co-managed a recovery center with her mother after Hurricane Harvey. They packed essentials, such as diapers, food, and water for families in need. Courtesy photo.

As she rushes into a Berkeley Urban Planning Commission meeting straight out of Ashby BART station, Ortiz-Cedeño explains her love for talking about all things infrastructure, homelessness, and healthcare access. The topics can be dry for many, she admits, but in the end, she gets to address long-standing systemic issues that often hinder opportunities for growth for people of color.

Having lived through the effects of Hurricane Katrina as a child, with the flooding and mass migration of Louisiana residents into Texas, Ortiz-Cedeño was radicalized into issues of displacement, emergency mitigation, and housing at nine years old.

“I remember my principal had to carry her students on her shoulders and swim us home because so many parents were trying to drive in and get their kids from school [due to] the flooding that was pushing their cars away,” she recalls.

Her family relocated to Houston soon after Katrina, only to be met with a deadly Hurricane Rita. They wound up in a mega-shelter, where Ortiz-Cedeño says she heard survivors stories of the unstable conditions in New Orleans and beyond, which got her wondering about urban planning, a term she wasn’t familiar with at the time.

“I think that when you put people in the context of the things that were happening in this country around [these hurricanes], a lot of us started to really think seriously about who gets to make decisions about the urban environment,” she adds.

Watching the heavy displacement of disaster survivors, hearing stories of her Navy veteran father’s chronic homelessness, and her own mother’s work and activism with homeless communities in the non–profit sector put her on the path to progressive politics and solutions, she says. After attending college on the East Coast- where she says she was finally recognized as a Puerto Rican- and working in housing, economic development, and public policy, she returned to California to earn a Master’s in City Regional Planning from UC Berkeley.

Young Keyanna volunteering at a beach clean up. Activism and giving back to her community has always been a key part of her upbringing. Courtesy photo.

Young Keyanna volunteering at a beach clean up. Activism and giving back to her community has always been a key part of her upbringing. Courtesy photo.

Her vast interest in the urban success of underserved communities even took her abroad to Israel and Palestine when she was an undergraduate college student. “I’ve seen the border with Gaza, I’ve had homestays with farmers in the West Bank,” she says. “For me personally, Palestine is an issue that is really close to the heart.”

“I have a very intimate understanding of the conflict and I’m very disturbed by the way in which the [Democratic] party has not been willing to engage in what I would perceive to be a thoughtful enough conversation about the conflict,” Ortiz-Cedeño says. “The issue of Palestine is going to be one of those that is a make or break issue for her. It has not been one that has been taken seriously enough by the party.”

Ortiz-Cedeño is not under the illusion that one candidate will address every policy issue she wants to see tackled by the president. But she believes it’s better than what former President Donald Trump has to offer.

“Trump has made it very clear what his intentions are with Palestine, and what his relationship is with [Benjamin] Netanyahu,” Ortiz-Cedeño says. “I understand the political strategy that many people are trying to engage in by withholding their vote, but I would also encourage them to re-engage in the political process.”

Casting her vote for Harris is a decision grounded in calculation rather than outright support. “I think I can vote in this election in order to have harm reduction… because I have deep care and concern for other communities that are going to be impacted by a Trump presidency,” Ortiz-Cedeño says.

She also hopes that American politicians will consider the nuance and perspective that Afro-Latinos bring to the table when it comes to politics, policy, and race in America, “When we don’t think expansively about who is Latino in the United States, the breadth of Latino experiences in the United States, we miss an opportunity to capture how diverse Latinos interests are politically.”

This story was reported in collaboration with PBS VOCES: Latino Vote 2024.

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Bay Area

In the City Attorney Race, Ryan Richardson Is Better for Oakland

It’s been two years since negotiations broke down between the City of Oakland and a developer who wants to build a coal terminal here, and the issue has reappeared, quietly, in the upcoming race for Oakland City attorney. Two candidates are running for the position of Oakland City Attorney in November: current Assistant Chief City Attorney Ryan Richardson and retired judge Brenda Harbin-Forte.

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Members of Oaklanders Defending Democracy political action committee with Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, center. Courtesy photo.
Members of Oaklanders Defending Democracy political action committee with Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, center. Courtesy photo.

By Margaret Rossoff

Special to The Post

OPINION

It’s been two years since negotiations broke down between the City of Oakland and a developer who wants to build a coal terminal here, and the issue has reappeared, quietly, in the upcoming race for Oakland City attorney.

Two candidates are running for the position of Oakland City Attorney in November: current Assistant Chief City Attorney Ryan Richardson and retired judge Brenda Harbin-Forte.

Richardson has worked in the Office of the City Attorney since 2014 and is likely to continue current City Attorney Barbara Parker’s policies managing the department. He has committed not to accept campaign contributions from developers who want to store and handle coal at a proposed marine terminal in Oakland.

Retired Judge Harbin-Forte launched and has played a leading role in the campaign to recall Mayor Sheng Thao, which is also on the November ballot.  She has stepped back from the recall campaign to focus on her candidacy. The East Bay Times noted, “Harbin-Forte’s decision to lead the recall campaign against a potential future client is … troubling — and is likely to undermine her ability, if she were to win, to work effectively.”

Harbin-Forte has refused to rule out accepting campaign support from coal terminal interests or their agents. Coal terminal lobbyist Greg McConnell’s Independent Expenditure Committee “SOS Oakland” is backing her campaign.

In the 2022 mayor’s race, parties hoping to build a coal terminal made $600,000 in contributions to another of McConnell’s Independent Expenditure Committees.

In a recent interview, Harbin-Forte said she is open to “listening to both sides” and will be “fair.” However, the City Attorney’s job is not to judge fairly between the City and its legal opponents – it is to represent the City against its opponents.

She thought that the 2022 settlement negotiations ended because the City “rejected a ‘no coal’ settlement.” This is lobbyist McConnell’s narrative, in contrast to the report by City Attorney Barbara Parker. Parker has explained that the City continued to negotiate in good faith for a settlement with no “loopholes” that could have allowed coal to ship through Oakland – until would-be coal developer Phil Tagami broke off negotiations.

One of Harbin-Forte’s main priorities, listed on her website, is “reducing reliance on outside law firms,” and instead use the lawyers working in the City Attorney’s office.

However, sometimes this office doesn’t have the extensive expertise available that outside firms can provide in major litigation. In the ongoing, high stakes coal litigation, the City has benefited from collaborating with experienced, specialized attorneys who could take on the nationally prominent firms representing the City’s opponents.

The City will continue to need this expertise as it pursues an appeal of the judge’s decision that restored the developer’s lease and defends against a billion-dollar lawsuit brought by the hedge fund operator who holds the sublease on the property.

Harbin-Forte’s unwillingness to refuse campaign contributions from coal terminal interests, her opposition to using outside resources when needed, as well as her uncritical repetition of coal lobbyist McConnell’s claim that the City sabotaged the settlement talks of 2022 all raise serious concerns about how well she would represent the best interests of Oakland and Oaklanders if she is elected City Attorney.

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Oakland Post: Week of October 30 – November 5, 2024

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