Homeless Woman Faces 20 Years For Enrolling Son in Wrong District

The Daily Norwalk 

 

The Connecticut mother who enrolled her six year-old son into a Norwalk elementary school instead of a Bridgeport school, is now facing larceny charges.

Tanya McDowell, who is set to be arraigned today, is now being charged with larceny and conspiracy to commit larceny for allegedly stealing $15,686 from Norwalk schools. According to the Stamford Advocate, this is the first time Connecticut has prosecuted a parent for sending a child outside of their district. If convicted, McDowell faces up to 20 years in prison.

Despite hundreds of complaints and supporters of McDowell, Norwalk officials feel they are doing nothing wrong:

"This is not a poor, picked-upon homeless person," said Norwalk Mayor Richard Moccia on Monday. "This is an ex con, and somehow the city of Norwalk is made into the ogre in this. She has a checkered past at best... We're a very compassionate city. She knew how to post bond, she had a car — why didn't she send her kid to the Bridgeport school? This woman is not a victim and Norwalk is not an ogre. As far as I'm concerned, let them say what they want."

Ogre is an understatement, Moccia. Regardless of where this woman lived, she simply wanted her son to get a decent education. She may have violated county regulations, but to face 20 years for it is preposterous. Norwalk should be embarrassed and ashamed of itself. Whatever message they’re trying to send to future offenders has been drowned out by the cruel and unusual punishment they’re trying to inflict upon this woman.

Vy Higginsen Brings 'Mama, I Want to Sing' To A New Generation

It's no secret that New York radio personality and theater producer Vy Higginsen is on a mission to save today's teens. Not only is Higginsen concerned with educating America's youth, she is also determined to redeem the art and history of Gospel music through her Harlem organization 'Gospel for Teens.'

Each fall, Higginsen, who also serves as the Executive Director of The Mama Foundation for the Arts, recruits teens ranging from the ages of 13 to 19 to join her upbeat Gospel crew. In addition to the programs and many initiatives to formally train aspiring singers, Higginsen and her team are also adamant about developing mechanical skills in each student.

In the midst of a recent Saturday session, the seasoned theater vet noticed that many of her students were soft spoken and appeared self-doubting about where they were raised. Their behavior struck a cord with Higginsen, which led to an exercise featuring each student shouting their name along with the town that they resided in.

"They were mumbling and they were saying it under their breath," she explained during an episode of '60 Minutes' earlier this month. "And I was like, 'this is terrible' [It's like their saying] 'I'm ashamed of who I am and where I come from."

The demonstration was nothing new for Higginsen, who has broken down barriers throughout her career, including becoming the first woman in advertising sales at Ebony magazine and the first black female writer, producer, and director of the Off-Broadway musical 'Mama, I Want to Sing.'

Higginsen's track record has helped to fund 'Gospel for Teens' solely from grants, small donations, and ticket sales from 'Mama, I Want to Sing.' Implementing a non-profit business model for the organization allows the participating teens to focus on their talents and not worry about tuition.

"Any worry, any pain, any problem with your mother, your father, your sister, your brother, the dog, the boyfriend. I want that out now of your consciousness," Higginsen declared to the class later in the '60 Minutes' episode. "That's your baggage; leave the bags outside, because this time is for you."

Black Unemployment At Depression Level Highs In Some Cities

In the decade leading up to the Great Recession, Wanda Nolan grew accustomed to steady progress.

From an entry-level job as a fill-in bank teller, she forged a career as a commercial banking assistant, earning enough to become a homeowner. She finished college and then got an MBA. Even after the recession unfolded in late 2007, her degrees and her familiarity with the business world lent her a sense of immunity to the forces ravaging much of the American economy. Nolan was an exemplar of the African American middle class and the increasingly professional ranks of the so-called New South.

But in September 2008, everything changed.

A bank human resources officer called her into a private conference room. "All I heard was, 'Your position has been eliminated,'" says Nolan, 37, who, despite being one of the more than 13 million officially unemployed Americans, still spends most days in her self-styled banker's uniform of pearls and pants and practical flats. "My mind started racing."

More than two years later, Nolan is still looking for a job and feeling increasingly anxious about a future that once felt assured. Her life has devolved from a model of middle class African American upward mobility into an example of a disturbing trend: She is among the 15.5 percent of African Americans out of work and still looking for a job.

For economists, that number may sound awful, but it's not surprising. The nation's overall unemployment rate sits at 8.8 percent and the rate among white Americans is at 7.9 percent. For a variety of reasons -- ranging from levels of education and continuing discrimination to the relatively young age of black workers -- black unemployment tends to run twice the rate for whites. Yet since the Great Recession, joblessness has remained so critically elevated among African Americans that it is challenging longstanding ideas about what it takes to find work in the modern-day economy.

Millions of people like Nolan, who have precisely followed the oft-dictated recipe for economic success -- work hard, get an education, seek advancement -- are slipping backward. Even as they apply for jobs and accept the prospect of a future with less job security and lower pay, they remain stalled in unemployment.

Trading down has become a painful truth for much of working America, but this truth becomes particularly stark when seen through the prism of race. Only 12 percent of all Americans are black, but working-age black Americans comprise nearly 21 percent of the nation's unemployed, according to federal data. The growing contrast between prospects for white and black job-seekers challenges a cherished American notion: the availability of opportunity and upward mobility for all.

"Over the course of the recession, the unemployment disparity between college educated blacks and whites actually widened," says economist Algernon Austin, director of the Race, Ethnicity, and Economy program at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. "If black workers who are the most prepared to compete and work in the new economy can't find jobs, that's something that we as a country have to take seriously."

Bishop Long Delivers Ballsy Speech Targeting Accusers

While the media has moved on to to other matters and most of the cameras have been put away, Bishop Eddie Long has returned to a relatively routine life as the pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church.

Bishop Long delivered a rousing sermon on Easter Sunday, even targeting the four men who alleged that he sexually abused them. Seemingly emboldened by the news that a settlement, regarding the allegations, will be reached soon, Bishop Long proclaimed:

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"You ain't messin' with me. I shall rise again and I ain't going through this. You have to go down there and let the devil know that what they thought was gonna kill you, didn't kill you. What they thought was gonna bring terror to you, didn't bring terror to you and you made the enemies public spectacle."

Local news channel WSBTV2 of Atlanta even went so far as asking a few attendees how they felt now that it seems Bishop Long is out of the woods:

Reporter: "Are you now relieved that this settlement is now going to be over?"

Church Congregant: "Yes, I am."

Second Congregant: "I love my church, I love my pastor and I love the service."

And it gets better.

The judge, Johnny Panos, overseeing the settlement had this to say about the closing of the case:

"Why wait till the summer? Why wait to the fall? Get it done now, and what better time to do it but holy week."

Are they serious?

I really hope that for everyone's sake, Bishop Long is innocent, innocent of every allegation that has been laid at his feet, because the thought of him being guilty and actually taking part in raping any one of these accusers while they were minors and then getting off scott-free is horrifying.

It is horrifying because that would mean that his family, his congregation and even the named judge who was so eager to get Long off before the end of Easter weekend were all complicit in protecting and delivering a pedophile.

Maurice Robinson, Anthony Flagg, Jamal Parris and Spencer LeGrande each accused Long of abusing his position as an esteemed father figure and sexually assaulting them repeatedly.

According to the lawsuit, Long alleged:

"Long shared a bedroom and engaged in intimate sexual contact with plaintiff Flagg, including kissing, massaging, masturbating of plaintiff Flagg by defendant Long and oral sexual contact."

But Parris said the most publicly when he spoke with MyFox5, saying:

"This man turned his back on us when he had no more need for us," Parris said. "That's not a father, that's a predator.

"We would have to be the craziest kids in the world to want to come out and admit to another man touching on us publicly. To really believe this is about money would be absolutely ludicrous.

"But that man cannot look me in my eye and tell me we did not live this pain. Why you can sit in front of the church and tell them that you categorically deny it. You can't say that to our face. And you know this. You are not a man, you are a monster."

The black church needs to take a look at itself. Our pastors are not God; they are human just like everyone else. Our desire, though, to see them as holier than the rest surely blurs the truth and could mean that we have allowed a ruthless abuser to have his way with our children, making us the only ones to blame.

Watch part of the sermon here.