thomas - Blogs - TheBlackList Pub2024-03-29T05:45:44Zhttps://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/thomasChicago Media Gives Obama Pass On Response To Chicago Crimehttps://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/chicago-media-gives-obama-pass2010-05-28T14:36:21.000Z2010-05-28T14:36:21.000ZMark S. Allenhttps://www.theblacklist.net/members/MarkSAllen<div><p align="center">Mark S. Allen, Associate Editor, The South Street Journal Newspaper</p><p align="center">Founder/President, The Black Leadership Development Institute, BLDI</p><p align="center">449 East 36th Street, 1st Floor</p><p align="center">Chicago, Illinois 60616</p><p align="center">312-624-8351 or 773-392-0165</p><p align="center">CHICAGO MEDIA GIVING PRESIDENT OBAMA PASS ON RESPONSE TO RISE IN CHICAGO VIOLENCE, INCLUDING DEATH OF CHICAGO POLICE OFFICER AND WAR TWO TIME IRAQ WAR VETERAN CHARLES WORTHAM IV</p><p align="center"><em>"The Chicago media has devoted most of its Chicago programming and interviews and analysis of Obama's current Chicago homecoming visit to his public commitment to the Gulf oil spill and it's threat to the lives of our seafood industry as if the battle for resources to save the lives of Chicago youth alarming street violence is not equally as important to Chicago's own President. Tragic and unfortunate, and heaven forbid that an act of violence would have to occur around the Hyde Park community to shift the media attention. The media have pressured Obama to the point of having to declare he is in control, but what about his control and being on top of so many urban youth who are dying in record numbers from urban violence, including his own hometown, where many youth have been shot and killed just blocks from his Hyde Park residence.!</em></p><p align="center">I just did a commentary last week where the Rev. Jesse Jackson held a major meeting of major media executives, reporters and producers and he spoke of the cultural divide that exists between leaders who identify certain issues as critical and in need of public response versus what the media assignment editor feel as important, and todays team media coverage of President Obama's current Chicago visit exemplifies today ! Rev. Jackson responded to local community leaders in Chicago by helping publicly declare Chicago was in an undeclared state of emergency and that Chicago's Cole Park was one area about to explode and needed immediate intervention, and yet there was team coverage reponse until after Officer Thomas Wortham IV was shot and kiiled at the exact same block where most media gave the state of emergency less than a damed of team coverage to get respposnes from fficials we demanded public response.</p><p align="center">In a Chicago Sun Times column on Tuesday May 4th, 2010, Rev. Jackson again, raised the questions, "In the emergency posed by the horrific oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the national government has mobilized in response. But in the urban emergency that is today's Chicago, Detroit, Los Angelas and Atlantaand more -- the situation is deteriorating without much response." Rev. Jackson also stated in that column that "Our country must decide if this in an enduring condition or a crisis. The U.S. will spend billions on securing Afghanistan, but not Chicago. Dr. King once wrote that A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. Surely a nation that ignores the emergency within its own cities is sowing the seeds of its own decline." The media executives heard Rev. Jackson, read his reports, finished their lunch and moved on with their day. And yet with todays team media coverage of Officer Wortham's death will ask the same symobolic question of what could have been done to Stop The Violence. How hyprocritical, but we also have seemd to adjust.</p><p align="center">Week after week, Chicago media receives regular reports from community organziers and leaders like Rev. Jackson on the lack of administration response to Chicago's state of emergency, including so many Chicago community organizers like myself who worked directly with Obama when he first came to Chicago and throughout his poltical career. But today, most of our public appeals to the President have fallen on deaf ears and now that he is finally back in Chicago, the media can raise the question they have raised about the Gulf oil spill and whether he is on top of dispatching resources to deal with urban crime as he is in dispatching resources to the Gulf.</p><p align="center">When the President arrives in Louisiana, their local press will be pressing the President on the most critical issue impacting their city, but when Obama is in Chicago, this city returning as The Murder Capital of The World is of no priority at all.</p></div>TRIBUTE AND RESOLUTION TO SLAIN CHICAGO POLICE OFFICER THOMAS WORTHAM IV "We Tried Not To Let You Down"https://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/tribute-and-resolution-to-12010-05-28T12:56:17.000Z2010-05-28T12:56:17.000ZMark S. Allenhttps://www.theblacklist.net/members/MarkSAllen<div><div align="center">The Black Leadership Development Insitute, BLDI</div><span style="border-bottom:#366388 2px dotted;background:transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%;" id="lw_1275050313_0" class="yshortcuts"></span><div align="center"><span style="border-bottom:#366388 2px dotted;background:transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%;" class="yshortcuts">449 East 35th Street, 1st Floor</span></div><div align="center"><span style="border-bottom:#366388 2px dotted;background:transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%;" class="yshortcuts">Chicago, Illinois 60616</span></div><div align="center"><span style="border-bottom:#366388 2px dotted;" id="lw_1275050313_1" class="yshortcuts">773-392-0165</span></div><div align="center">Mark S. Allen, Founder/President</div><div align="center"></div><div align="center"><span style="border-bottom:#366388 2px dotted;" id="lw_1275050313_2" class="yshortcuts">FRIDAY, MAY 28th, 2010</span></div><div align="center"></div><div align="center"><strong>TRIBUTE AND RESOLUTION TO OFFICER THOMAS WORTHAM IV</strong></div><div align="center"><em>"We Tried Not To Let You Down"</em></div><div align="center"></div><div align="center">Thomas, you were committed to your Chatham community in terms of crime intervention and prevention, and you had your ears to the ground, you sounded the alarm, we tried not to let you down. Two weeks before you died, community leaders, elected officials, along with the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr stood outside your family home in the park and we responded to your call that the community was part of a state of emergency and needed immediate intervention, and it absolutely hurts to have to come to your funeral service today and see the local and national team media coverage now that you are gone, but did not provide the same coverage that could have helped change the environment and maybe have actially saved your life. They will act as if they care about you and the environment that killed you, when they brushed you and our desperate calls for intervention that could have saved your in life, in addition to the offenders who like other at-risk youth let the desperate economic conditions and lack of intervention get them caught in the illegal street economies.</div><div align="center"></div><div align="center"><em>We tried not to let you down.</em> The community activists thought sure that once we got the national attention that Rev. Jackson would bring, would get us the response that we needed to help provide the resources to intervene in an area that you sounded the alarm was about to explode and needed immediate attention, but again my friend, the media team coverage we sought to respond to our State of Emergency declaration basically came and went as just another <span style="border-bottom:#366388 2px dotted;" id="lw_1275050313_3" class="yshortcuts">Jesse Jackson press</span> event, and just another day in the life of how we have just adjusted to violence, so again, its going to be a hard time to watch the local and national media coverage now that you have gone as if they really gave damn!</div><div align="center"></div><div align="center"><em>We tried not to let you down</em>. I spoke speficically about how these <span id="lw_1275050313_4" class="yshortcuts">desperate acts of violence</span> was increasing around your house and other areas by at-risk young people who have lost their sense of community conscioussness, no respect for their lives, and even nor respect for law enforcement as was proven by these young people still attemtping to carry through with their robbery of you even after your father clearly identified you both as Police officers. What would have happened if the security that is being dispatched around your house and park today was responded to two weeks ago prior to your death as Rev. Jackson and others stood right outside your family home publicly calling for desperate immediate intervention?</div><div align="center"></div><div align="center"><em>We tried not to let you down.</em> Your Alderman Fredrynna Lyle also stood there outside your family home at <span style="border-bottom:#366388 2px dotted;" id="lw_1275050313_5" class="yshortcuts">Cole Park</span> and strongly stated to the media there that despite her emergency appeals for security for the park area that officials repeatedly told her that there were just no funds available while you were alive, but I suspect that with your death and the request to respond proactively versus reactively, that the ability to provide increased security will now come, but why not in life versus death?</div><div align="center"></div><div align="center"><em>We tried not to let you down.</em> There is a quote that says "its when you are hardest hit is when you must not quit," and that my friend is what so many of will making public commitments to you today as we say goodbye, that while we are hard hit by your uneccessary death, that we are committed to seeing that your life and work will not be in vain, and we will certainly support the efforts announced today by <span style="border-bottom:#366388 2px dotted;" id="lw_1275050313_6" class="yshortcuts">Congressman Bobby Rush</span> to find the resources to build a fitting state of the art fieldhouse in your name that will be used in the future to continue the work that you were so committed to at the historic Nat King Cole Park and Chatham community.</div><div align="center"></div><div align="center">Rest In Peace my friend and you can rest knowing that we did respond to your call, and we tried not to let you down.</div><div align="center"></div><div align="center">Mark S. Allen</div><div align="center"></div></div>