Farewell to The Voice
Commentary by Chitown Kev
James Earl Jones, who passed yesterday at the age of 93, was one of the most famous voices in the entire entertainment industry.
Certainly, his is the best remembered voice in what some have said is the most famous scene in movie history.
To this day, I still remember stunned, shuffling, mumbling voices in the movie theater when Vader announced that he was the father of Luke Skywalker in Star Wars.
My favorite scene of the voice of James Earl Jones as Vader is actually in Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.
I didn’t realize it at the time but Anakin Skywalker reappeared the moment his son called him “Father.” You can hear it in The Voice (and in the moves of David Prowse).
Still, though, my favorite movie featuring James Earl Jones is one of the earliest movies that I remember seeing at the drive-in theater.
What is your favorite James Earl Jones movie or play? (I would have loved to see him play King Lear!)
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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Bruce Pearl, the head basketball coach at Auburn University, recently disparaged Vice President Kamala Harris by reposting a dishonest social media post claiming she is in favor of eliminating private health insurance. And it wasn’t the first time Pearl was on this type of time.
His X/Twitter feed is replete with support for former President Donald Trump and opposition to all things “woke...” whatever he thinks that overused moniker means. The coach absolutely has a right to express himself however he chooses.
However, why do so many Black athletes continue to allow white coaches to use Black talent to build generational wealth while disparaging Black leaders and opposing policies Black Americans support?
Pearl is not alone. The list of white coaches who made millions off Black athletic talent while simultaneously opposing policies Black Americans back is long. There was Lou Holtz, former football coach at Notre Dame University, and Tommy Tuberville, former football coach at Auburn and now a U.S. senator from Alabama. Both are enthusiastic Trumpers.
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Gun violence is yet again at the forefront of the national consciousness following Wednesday’s deadly high school shooting in Winder, Georgia. The tragedy that struck Apalachee High School, where four people were killed and nine others injured, has renewed calls for stricter gun laws from Democrats and gun safety advocates.
“We have to end this epidemic of gun violence in our country once and for all,” Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, said hours after Wednesday’s shooting at a campaign event in New Hampshire. She added, “It doesn’t have to be this way. It doesn’t have to be this way.”
Advocates see Harris as the only and best candidate to build on progress in reducing gun violence, particularly in Black communities. Tackling the issue is a top concern for Black Americans, who are nearly three times more likely than white Americans to die by a gun.
According to a study conducted by the gun safety advocacy group GIFFORDS, 74% of Black voters want to see stronger gun laws. The survey, part of a $15 million campaign to highlight the issue of gun violence leading up to the Nov. 5 general election, also found that half of all Black voters are “extremely concerned” about the prevalence of gun violence in their communities compared to 24% of the overall voting population.
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In November 2016, people living in Otodo-Gbame, a fishing shantytown on Nigeria’s Lagos coastline, saw their community partially destroyed by fire. Attempts to get the police to stop the destruction were futile, according to an Amnesty International report. Instead of helping, “the police and a demolition team returned overnight with a bulldozer”.
Much of the blame fell on the Lagos state government, which had publicised plans to remove waterside slums around the city. Still, the government denied responsibility for demolishing the shantytown, even as it noted that it would “prefer to have better development, befitting of a prime area in a mega city” on the land occupied by the community.
The destruction led to protests and violence, but halfway through 2017, despite a court order demanding that the government compensate those affected and halt evictions, Otodo-Gbame had been mostly reduced to rubble.
Seven years later, the demolition of Otodo-Gbame forms the real-life backdrop to the fictional story told in The Legend of the Vagabond Queen of Lagos, a film made by the Agbajowo Collective – a group of five Nigerians (two of whom were born and raised in Otodo-Gbame) and two foreigners.
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Judith Maureen Henry, now 74, was held five years ago at the Essex County jail and at two jails in Pennsylvania, on a decades-old parole violation, according to a federal lawsuit Henry filed in 2020.
The warrant, which included Henry’s home address and driver’s license photo, was forwarded to officials in New Jersey and she was arrested at her Newark home on Aug. 22, 2019, by local officers and members of the U.S. Marshals Service.
The arrest was intended for a different woman with the same name as Henry, who skipped parole on drug convictions in Pennsylvania in 1993, according to court documents. Despite her repeated protests of innocence, Henry was detained for over two weeks before being released from a prison in Muncy, Pennsylvania, according to court documents.
Henry insisted to arresting officers and jailers at both facilities they had the wrong person and repeatedly asked them to check her fingerprints.
But her identity was not confirmed until she had been transferred to Pennsylvania and more than two weeks had passed, according to the lawsuit. It also took a few more days for jailers to release her, according to court papers.
Henry sued multiple federal and state officials, including six deputy U.S. Marshals for their roles in her wrongful detention. In all, 30 defendants were named in the lawsuit. The lawsuit stated Essex County Sheriff’s Officers entered Henry’s home with guns drawn about 7 a.m. on Aug. 22, 2019, took her into custody and placed her in the back of one of 12 police cars parked outside her home
“Henry was fingerprinted approximately four times while she was in custody at the various correctional facilities. Henry was held in custody without the benefit of her three prescribed medicines for blood pressure,” the original lawsuit stated.
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WELCOME TO THE TUESDAY PORCH
IF YOU ARE NEW TO THE BLACK KOS COMMUNITY, GRAB A SEAT, SOME CYBER EATS, RELAX, AND INTRODUCE YOURSELF.
