Below is video of the December 18, 2015 Board of Aldermen session that voted 17 to 10 to approve stadium financing. The actual vote process begins at 2:16:50 in the timeline. See how your alderperson voted.
The law making body of the City of St. Louis is the Board of Aldermen. There are twenty-eight aldermen, one from each ward in the City and a President. The Board of Aldermen meet every Friday except during summer recess and on holidays. At these sessions, the Aldermen present the First Readings of a resolutionor new board bill and discuss issues raised in these pending bills.
On December 10th, in reaction to proposed stadium financing, St. Louis Alderwoman Megan Green made the following statement:
“The deal cutting, bribery, and [corruption] at City Hall will never cease to amaze me", she later referred to the situation as “legalized bribery,” and stated, “And just because something is legal in MO doesn’t mean it’s ethical”.
I was not very familiar with Megan Green, so I did some light research; including searching news reports about her, reading her personal website, Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter accounts. Some news articles about Ms. Green are listed below:
Below is a video of her explaining her background, last year, when she was a running for office.
Below is another video of Ms. Green responding last year to crime and the Ferguson protests.
My research didn't reveal any thing I could cite as negative. Megan Green appears to be intelligent, committed and open minded. So far, I like what I see and Ms. Green seems sincere and genuine.
The Post article mentions that neither the St. Louis Police or FBI have substantiated the allegations. Unsubstantiated allegations do not mean that corruption did not occur. One of the primary reason for the existence of Court.rchp.com is St. Louis' Culture of Corruption.
Reed reportedly stated, "She clearly has lied about this," …. "Something needs to happen. The board, universally, is really upset about it". However, without proof that she lied, statements about her lying are equally unsubstantiated. The irony is that Lewis Reed endorsed Megan Green during her candidacy.
Is it really unreasonable to believe that corruption surrounds a billion dollar project? Unless this alderwoman has a history of lying; which I find no evidence of, I see no reason not to take her at her word.
I don't personally know Mr. Reed, he seems to have integrity and I have mostly liked what I have seen and heard about him publicly and I have voted for him in the past. Although, he may honestly believe everything is being done ethically and legally, I'm not ready to totally dismiss Ms. Green's statements.
Corruption may not always be obvious and can come in many forms including:
Outright monetary bribes
Campaign financial support
Employment opportunities
Travel or other perks
Book deals with large advances
Hugh public speaking fees
Appointment to higher office or corporate boards
The list could go on and on
Maybe I'm biased, I don't believe it is smart or in the public interest to spend hundreds of millions of dollars of public money on a private stadium, especially when a perfectly good stadium already exists. St. Louis has infrastructure in disrepair, crime, homelessness, and variety of other issues public money would be better be spent on.
A husband and wife couple, who happened to be Muslim, killed 14 people and wound 22 during a mass shooting in San Bernardino, California on December 2, 2015, the deadliest such tragedy in three years.
Donald Trump has suggested banning Muslims from our country by spewing vicious propaganda in reaction to the shooting tragedy. Surprisingly 25% of surveyed Americans and 38% of GOP primary voters agree with him. Trump's rhetoric and ideology is reminiscent of "slavery back in effect".
One of this country's founding principles is freedom of religion, which is enshrined in the first amendment. Even if you dismiss that principal, the logic of Trump's proposal and those that agree with him is flawed.
Are all white people the same? Are all black people the same? Are all Christians the same? Are all Muslims the same?
The answer to all of those questions is NO!
People are individuals with individual characteristics. Even my two sons who live within the same household, raised by the same parents are as different as night and day. One is religious, the other not so much, one is athletic, the other not so much, one is small the other large, one is very social and outgoing, the other more reserved and quiet, one is silly the other one more serious and the list could go on and on. Of course, as I have mentioned before, they also have many similar traits such as intelligence, kindness, likability, being respectful, love of music, travel, family and friends and again the list could go on and on.
As of December 2nd, 353 mass shootings have killed 462 and wounded 1,317 people in 220 cities, according to the website shootingtracker.com. The majority of the shooters were Young White Christian Males rather than Muslim.
However, no one would dare suggest banning Christians or even profiling young White males. White privilege prevents most people from even considering the profiling of white males. But as soon as the perpetrator is someone other than White, the discussion changes and stereotypes and prejudices are introduced.
Whenever I hear a person make racist or derogatory statements against a whole group of people based on stereotypes, I realize that person probably expresses similar sentiments about the group I belong too. A person making generalized negative comments to me about one group is probably making negative comments about my group to others.
As expressed in an earlier post, "First They Came", once we allow the unreasonable exclusion or discrimination of one group, it makes it much more easier to discriminate against the next group. Eventually, the discrimination may reach you or one of your family members or friends. And if you don't speak up for others, you can't expect others to speak up for you.
As I watched the August 6, 2015, episode of DonnyBrook, the phrase, "white middle-class fatigue" was mentioned at about 2:30 in the timeline. Evidently, many people are tired of hearing about injustices, discrimination, and oppression endured by people of color. A quote by Barbara Smith – "For those of you who are tired of hearing about racism, imagine how much more tired we are constantly experiencing it", which summarizes how I felt when I heard the then unfamiliar phrase, white middle-class fatigue.
It's foolish to let your oppressor tell you that you should forget about the oppression that they inflicted upon you. I am not indicting people for the sins or acts of their ancestors, but many people today benefit from those sins. Land that was stolen and wealth that was accumulated was passed down and provided advantages to succeeding generations of European Americans; while decimating native, enslaved and oppressed populations. See The Unequal Opportunity Race.
I assume white middle-class fatigue is one of the contributing factors why comments from Donald Trump stating he doesn't have the time to be politically correct resonates with so many people. White privilege allows Trump to make statements such as, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best.….They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” Many of the Mexicans crossing the borders are actually crossing land that had previous been stolen by the U.S. during the Mexican Session of 1848.
So when Trump calls Mexicans crossing the border are mostly criminals, he should take a closer look at U.S. history and consider one of history's greatest land thefts of First Nation Peoples. This country was built on the theft of human lives, resources, and land. The success that our country enjoys today is based upon that theft. Trump's statements reminded me of an ad campaign about discrimination of another people native to their land which was stolen by new settlers. The subject of the ad campaign was discrimination of Australia's indigenous population, however, the theme could just as easily be applied to any group that is discriminated against.
Political correctness is a term used to criticize language, actions, or policies seen as being excessively calculated to not offend or disadvantage any particular group of people in society. When objectionable language is directed toward you, it is considered offensive, but when it's directed toward others, I guess that's when it's considered an issue of political correctness.
Many people seem to think that the past has no effect upon the present or the future. The past is foundational and effects people and communities just as the quality of a building's foundation effects how well it endures over time. If a person's grandfather was relatively well off, not rich, but firmly part of the middle class, he most likely provided a decent education for his son and the son stood a good chance of going to college. That son would then most likely surpass his father in economic status and the grandchild would possibly get an even better education than both the parent and grandparent. In addition, when the grandparents and parents die, their accumulation of property passes down, enriching the grandson even more. Multiply this by 350 years of slavery, then by another 90 years of Jim Crow plus factor in the destruction of black wealth and discriminatory legislation and it's easy to see how white families are worth 20 times that of black families. A cartoon, "The Unequal Opportunity Race" does an excellent job of expressing this point.
Dr. Claud Anderson discusses the sentiments expressed by The Unequal Opportunity Race cartoon in his lecture, The Truth About Slavery.
It's unfortunate that when people who have been oppressed both socially and within statutory codes of law, that others feel fatigue by their efforts to secure better circumstances for themselves.
President Obama gave a remarkable eulogy which honored not only Pastor Pinchney, but the other eight killed along side him in his church. President touches on gun violence, history and many of the important issues of the day.
President Obama delivered the following eulogy at the funeral of the Rev. Clementa Pinckney at the College of Charleston’s campus.
OBAMA: Giving all praise and honor to God.
(APPLAUSE)
The Bible calls us to hope, to persevere and have faith in things not seen. They were still living by faith when they died, the scripture tells us.
(APPLAUSE)
They did not receive the things promised. They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.
We are here today to remember a man of God who lived by faith, a man who believed in things not seen, a man who believed there were better days ahead off in the distance, a man of service, who persevered knowing full-well he would not receive all those things he was promised, because he believed his efforts would deliver a better life for those who followed, to Jennifer, his beloved wife, Eliana and Malana, his beautiful, wonderful daughters, to the Mother Emanuel family and the people of Charleston, the people of South Carolina.
I cannot claim to have had the good fortune to know Reverend Pinckney well, but I did have the pleasure of knowing him and meeting him here in South Carolina back when we were both a little bit younger…
(LAUGHTER)
… back when I didn’t have visible gray hair.
(LAUGHTER)
The first thing I noticed was his graciousness, his smile, his reassuring baritone, his deceptive sense of humor, all qualities that helped him wear so effortlessly a heavy burden of expectation.
Friends of his remarked this week that when Clementa Pinckney entered a room, it was like the future arrived, that even from a young age, folks knew he was special, anointed. He was the progeny of a long line of the faithful, a family of preachers who spread God’s words, a family of protesters who so changed to expand voting rights and desegregate the South.
Clem heard their instruction, and he did not forsake their teaching. He was in the pulpit by 13, pastor by 18, public servant by 23. He did not exhibit any of the cockiness of youth nor youth’s insecurities. Instead, he set an example worthy of his position, wise beyond his years in his speech, in his conduct, in his love, faith and purity.
As a senator, he represented a sprawling swathe of low country, a place that has long been one of the most neglected in America, a place still racked by poverty and inadequate schools, a place where children can still go hungry and the sick can go without treatment — a place that needed somebody like Clem.
(APPLAUSE)
His position in the minority party meant the odds of winning more resources for his constituents were often long. His calls for greater equity were too-often unheeded. The votes he cast were sometimes lonely.
But he never gave up. He stayed true to his convictions. He would not grow discouraged. After a full day at the Capitol, he’d climb into his car and head to the church to draw sustenance from his family, from his ministry, from the community that loved and needed him. There, he would fortify his faith and imagine what might be.
Reverend Pinckney embodied a politics that was neither mean nor small. He conducted himself quietly and kindly and diligently. He encouraged progress not by pushing his ideas alone but by seeking out your ideas, partnering with you to make things happen. He was full of empathy and fellow feeling, able to walk in somebody else’s shoes and see through their eyes.
No wonder one of his Senate colleagues remembered Senator Pinckney as “the most gentle of the 46 of us, the best of the 46 of us.”
Clem was often asked why he chose to be a pastor and a public servant. But the person who asked probably didn’t know the history of AME Church.
(APPLAUSE)
As our brothers and sisters in the AME Church, we don’t make those distinctions. “Our calling,” Clem once said, “is not just within the walls of the congregation but the life and community in which our congregation resides.”
(APPLAUSE)
He embodied the idea that our Christian faith demands deeds and not just words, that the sweet hour of prayer actually lasts the whole week long, that to put our faith in action is more than just individual salvation, it’s about our collective salvation, that to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and house the homeless is not just a call for isolated charity but the imperative of a just society.
What a good man. Sometimes I think that’s the best thing to hope for when you’re eulogized, after all the words and recitations and resumes are read, to just say somebody was a good man.
(APPLAUSE)
You don’t have to be of high distinction to be a good man.
Preacher by 13, pastor by 18, public servant by 23. What a life Clementa Pinckney lived. What an example he set. What a model for his faith.
And then to lose him at 41, slain in his sanctuary with eight wonderful members of his flock, each at different stages in life but bound together by a common commitment to God — Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lance, DePayne Middleton Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Daniel L. Simmons, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Myra Thompson.
Good people. Decent people. God-fearing people.
(APPLAUSE)
People so full of life and so full of kindness, people who ran the race, who persevered, people of great faith.
To the families of the fallen, the nation shares in your grief. Our pain cuts that much deeper because it happened in a church.
The church is and always has been the center of African American life…
(APPLAUSE)
… a place to call our own in a too-often hostile world, a sanctuary from so many hardships.
Over the course of centuries, black churches served as hush harbors, where slaves could worship in safety, praise houses, where their free descendants could gather and shout “Hallelujah…”
(APPLAUSE)
… rest stops for the weary along the Underground Railroad, bunkers for the foot soldiers of the civil-rights movement.
They have been and continue to community centers, where we organize for jobs and justice, places of scholarship and network, places where children are loved and fed and kept out of harms way and told that they are beautiful and smart and taught that they matter.
(APPLAUSE)
That’s what happens in church. That’s what the black church means — our beating heart, the place where our dignity as a people in inviolate.
There’s no better example of this tradition than Mother Emanuel, a church…
(APPLAUSE)
… a church built by blacks seeking liberty, burned to the ground because its founders sought to end slavery only to rise up again, a phoenix from these ashes. (APPLAUSE)
When there were laws banning all-black church gatherers, services happened here anyway in defiance of unjust laws. When there was a righteous movement to dismantle Jim Crow, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached from its pulpit, and marches began from its steps.
A sacred place, this church, not just for blacks, not just for Christians but for every American who cares about the steady expansion…
(APPLAUSE)
… of human rights and human dignity in this country, a foundation stone for liberty and justice for all.
That’s what the church meant.
(APPLAUSE)
We do not know whether the killer of Reverend Pinckney and eight others knew all of this history, but he surely sensed the meaning of his violent act. It was an act that drew on a long history of bombs and arson and shots fired at churches, not random but as a means of control, a way to terrorize and oppress…
(APPLAUSE)
… an act that he imagined would incite fear and recrimination, violence and suspicion, an act that he presumed would deepen divisions that trace back to our nation’s original sin.
Oh, but God works in mysterious ways.
(APPLAUSE)
God has different ideas.
(APPLAUSE)
He didn’t know he was being used by God.
(APPLAUSE)
Blinded by hatred, the alleged killer would not see the grace surrounding Reverend Pinckney and that Bible study group, the light of love that shown as they opened the church doors and invited a stranger to join in their prayer circle.
The alleged killer could have never anticipated the way the families of the fallen would respond when they saw him in court in the midst of unspeakable grief, with words of forgiveness. He couldn’t imagine that.
(APPLAUSE)
The alleged killer could not imagine how the city of Charleston under the good and wise leadership of Mayor Riley, how the state of South Carolina, how the United States of America would respond not merely with revulsion at his evil acts, but with (inaudible) generosity. And more importantly, with a thoughtful introspection and self-examination that we so rarely see in public life. Blinded by hatred, he failed to comprehend what Reverend Pinckney so well understood — the power of God’s grace.
(APPLAUSE)
This whole week, I’ve been reflecting on this idea of grace.
(APPLAUSE)
The grace of the families who lost loved ones; the grace that Reverend Pinckney would preach about in his sermons; the grace described in one of my favorite hymnals, the one we all know — Amazing Grace.
(APPLAUSE)
How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.
(APPLAUSE)
I once was lost, but now I’m found, was blind but now I see.
(APPLAUSE)
According to the Christian tradition, grace is not earned. Grace is not merited. It’s not something we deserve. Rather, grace is the free and benevolent favor of God.
(APPLAUSE)
As manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings. Grace — as a nation out of this terrible tragedy, God has visited grace upon us for he has allowed us to see where we’ve been blind.
(APPLAUSE)
He’s given us the chance where we’ve been lost to find out best selves. We may not have earned this grace with our rancor and complacency and short-sightedness and fear of each other, but we got it all the same. He gave it to us anyway. He’s once more given us grace.
But it is up to us now to make the most of it, to receive it with gratitude and to prove ourselves worthy of this gift.
For too long, we were blind to the pain that the Confederate Flag stirred into many of our citizens.
(APPLAUSE)
It’s true a flag did not cause these murders. But as people from all walks of life, Republicans and Democrats, now acknowledge, including Governor Haley, whose recent eloquence on the subject is worthy of praise…
(APPLAUSE)
… as we all have to acknowledge, the flag has always represented more than just ancestral pride.
(APPLAUSE)
For many, black and white, that flag was a reminder of systemic oppression…
(APPLAUSE)
… and racial subjugation.
(APPLAUSE)
We see that now.
Removing the flag from this state’s capital would not be an act of political correctness. It would not an insult to the valor of Confederate soldiers. It would simply be acknowledgement that the cause for which they fought, the cause of slavery, was wrong.
(APPLAUSE)
The imposition of Jim Crow after the Civil War, the resistance to civil rights for all people was wrong.
(APPLAUSE)
It would be one step in an honest accounting of America’s history, a modest but meaningful balm for so many unhealed wounds.
It would be an expression of the amazing changes that have transformed this state and this country for the better because of the work of so many people of goodwill, people of all races, striving to form a more perfect union.
By taking down that flag, we express adds grace God’s grace.
(APPLAUSE)
But I don’t think God wants us to stop there.
(APPLAUSE)
For too long, we’ve been blind to be way past injustices continue to shape the present.
(APPLAUSE)
Perhaps we see that now. Perhaps this tragedy causes us to ask some tough questions about how we can permit so many of our children to languish in poverty…
(APPLAUSE)
… or attend dilapidated schools or grow up without prospects for a job or for a career.
Perhaps it causes us to examine what we’re doing to cause some of our children to hate.
(APPLAUSE)
Perhaps it softens hearts towards those lost young men, tens and tens of thousands caught up in the criminal-justice system and lead us to make sure that that system’s not infected with bias.
(APPLAUSE)
… that we embrace changes in how we train and equip our police so that the bonds of trust between law enforcement…
(APPLAUSE)
… and the communities they serve make us all safer and more secure.
(APPLAUSE)
Maybe we now realize the way a racial bias can infect us even when we don’t realize it so that we’re guarding against not just racial slurs but we’re also guarding against the subtle impulse to call Johnny back for a job interview but not Jamal…
(APPLAUSE)
… so that we search our hearts when we consider laws to make it harder for some of our fellow citizens to vote…
(APPLAUSE)
… by recognizing our common humanity, by treating every child as important, regardless of the color of their skin…
(APPLAUSE)
… or the station into which they were born and to do what’s necessary to make opportunity real for every American. By doing that, we express God’s grace.
(APPLAUSE)
For too long…
(APPLAUSE)
For too long, we’ve been blind to the unique mayhem that gun violence inflicts upon this nation.
(APPLAUSE)
Sporadically, our eyes are open when eight of our brothers and sisters are cut down in a church basement, 12 in a movie theater, 26 in an elementary school. But I hope we also see the 30 precious lives cut short by gun violence in this country every single day…
(APPLAUSE)
… the countless more whose lives are forever changed, the survivors crippled, the children traumatized and fearful every day as they walk to school, the husband who will never feel his wife’s warm touch, the entire communities whose grief overflows every time they have to watch what happened to them happening to some other place.
The vast majority of Americans, the majority of gun owners want to do something about this. We see that now.
(APPLAUSE)
And I’m convinced that by acknowledging the pain and loss of others, even as we respect the traditions, ways of life that make up this beloved country, by making the moral choice to change, we express God’s grace.
(APPLAUSE)
We don’t earn grace. We’re all sinners. We don’t deserve it.
(APPLAUSE)
But God gives it to us anyway.
(APPLAUSE)
And we choose how to receive it. It’s our decision how to honor it.
None of us can or should expect a transformation in race relations overnight. Every time something like this happens, somebody says, “We have to have a conversation about race.” We talk a lot about race.
(APPLAUSE)
There’s no shortcut. We don’t need more talk.
(APPLAUSE)
None of us should believe that a handful of gun safety measures will prevent every tragedy.
It will not. People of good will will continue to debate the merits of various policies as our democracy requires — the big, raucous place, America is. And there are good people on both sides of these debates.
Whatever solutions we find will necessarily be incomplete. But it would be a betrayal of everything Reverend Pinckney stood for, I believe, if we allow ourselves to slip into a comfortable silence again.
(APPLAUSE)
Once the eulogies have been delivered, once the TV cameras move on, to go back to business as usual. That’s what we so often do to avoid uncomfortable truths about the prejudice that still infects our society.
(APPLAUSE)
To settle for symbolic gestures without following up with the hard work of more lasting change, that’s how we lose our way again. It would be a refutation of the forgiveness expressed by those families if we merely slipped into old habits whereby those who disagree with us are not merely wrong, but bad; where we shout instead of listen; where we barricade ourselves behind preconceived notions or well-practiced cynicism.
Reverend Pinckney once said, “Across the south, we have a deep appreciation of history. We haven’t always had a deep appreciation of each other’s history.”
(APPLAUSE)
What is true in the south is true for America. Clem understood that justice grows out of recognition of ourselves in each other; that my liberty depends on you being free, too.
(APPLAUSE)
That — that history can’t be a sword to justify injustice or a shield against progress. It must be a manual for how to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, how to break the cycle, a roadway toward a better world. He knew that the path of grace involves an open mind. But more importantly, an open heart.
That’s what I felt this week — an open heart. That more than any particular policy or analysis is what’s called upon right now, I think. It’s what a friend of mine, the writer Marilyn Robinson, calls “that reservoir of goodness beyond and of another kind, that we are able to do each other in the ordinary cause of things.”
That reservoir of goodness. If we can find that grace, anything is possible.
(APPLAUSE)
If we can tap that grace, everything can change. Amazing grace, amazing grace.
Amazing grace…
(SINGING)
(APPLAUSE)
… how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I’m found, was blind, but now, I see.
(APPLAUSE)
Clementa Pinckney found that grace…
(APPLAUSE)
… Cynthia Hurd found that grace…
(APPLAUSE)
… Susie Jackson found that grace…
(APPLAUSE)
… Ethel Lance found that grace…
(APPLAUSE)
… DePayne Middleton Doctor found that grace…
(APPLAUSE)
… Tywanza Sanders found that grace…
(APPLAUSE)
… Daniel L. Simmons, Sr. found that grace…
(APPLAUSE) … Sharonda Coleman-Singleton found that grace…
(APPLAUSE)
… Myra Thompson found that grace…
(APPLAUSE)
… through the example of their lives. They’ve now passed it onto us. May we find ourselves worthy of that precious and extraordinary gift as long as our lives endure.
May grace now lead them home. May God continue to shed His Grace on the United States of America.
