January 2016 Activism FROM PAGE 5


unemployment are constant reminders of how race continues to have an undue influence on life in this country.”


especially


The optimism Black


Americans


many people, had


when Mr. Obama first took office has waned. When asked what changes or expectations folks can expect during the president’s last year in office, economist Dr. Julianne Malveaux was blunt.


“I think we should expect pretty much what we’ve been getting and again, people will have mixed feelings and ambivalence about this president and his legacy. His legacy is that he’s the first Black president, his legacy is that he did healthcare,” said Dr. Malveaux referring to the Affordable Care Act.


“I’m not so sure what else I would consider a part of his legacy. Again I would ask questions, has the material conditions of Black people in particular changed? And unfortunately the answer would have to be pretty much no,” she continued.


“Now he did get us out of


the recession and that means that everybody is better off. But have any of the gaps, the wealth gaps, income gaps, the unemployment gaps, have they narrowed? And the answer is no,” said Dr. Malveaux. However, it must be pointed out, she explained, that Mr. Obama had to deal with a very hostile Congress vehemently


opposed to


everything he tried to accomplish. As he heads into his final year as


president, Mr. Obama could utilize his power of Executive Order to help Black people, the noted author and president emerita of Bennett College for Women told The Final Call. It could be used to set up an investigative arm to examine and study the issue of reparations for Black descendants of slaves as laid out by H.R. 40 introduced by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) in 1997. It has never made it out of committee with some members of the Congressional Black Caucus even not supporting it.


“This president has the opportunity to do something. It’s mild but it might get us started in a direction of a conversation that we need to have about wealth gaps. I don’t expect that to happen, but what I have seen in this last year, there have been flashes of boldness from the president that we had not seen before,” she said.


But as Mr. Obama’s term winds down, the message of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has resonated with many White voters who feel their place at the top is being usurped. His racially coded language has not stopped thousands of mostly Whites who fill venues to hear his message.


“There is a fear that White people


are being left behind, and soon will be vanquished, or put into the third or fourth sphere where they have been used for the past few hundred years of


running the world,” said Khari


Enaharo, author of “Race Code War, The Power of Words, Images And Symbols on The Black Psyche.”


The widespread violence at the


hands of police is like a clarion call to White race warriors, he added. “All police


are not White Supremacists,


but there are White Supremacists who will disguise themselves as police, and they will engage in racial injustice,” Mr. Enaharo told The Final Call. The


www.hamptonroadsmessenger.com


clarion call sounds like, “Let’s take our country back,” “We’ve got to stop these savages, we got to stop these monsters,” and politicians are stoking that fear, he said.


“What they have done is created


a whole industry where they have criminalized through racial codes, symbols through racial code words, through racial coded images. They have criminalized a whole race of people,” he added.


The killings have purposefully shifted people’s focus from thousands


of things they should


but don’t pay any attention to, Mr. Enaharo said.


“That means we don’t have to


deal with HIV-AIDS anymore. We don’t have health problems. We don’t have an economic problem. … That is by design to get our attention off of the things that are being done to us and we are not paying attention to this war, this racial war that is being waged in education, economics, sex and sports. Everywhere we look we are being racially wiped out and we aren’t paying attention to it,” said the author.


Several efforts aimed at self-


determination and action, including “Buy Black” campaigns, calls to support Latino,


Native dollar American


and Indigenous businesses and withholding dollars from huge multi-billion


corporations


took root this year in response to injustices and a call to redistribute the pain.


Cecile Johnson, CEO and


founder of the African Development Plan, a solutions-oriented collaborative that looks at the needs of Black communities on a local, national


and international level,


said this year marked an increased awareness globally on what Black Americans have been faced with hundreds of years.


For the first time, said Ms.


Johnson, there seems to be more willingness by Black people to work across religious and ideological lines and build coalitions.


The


elders are helping behind the scenes but


an intergenerational healing


and atonement needs to take place and youth must continue moving forward, said Ms. Johnson, who holds a master’s degree in Inner City Studies Education. Black people have a right to self-determination and human rights which includes the right to education, culture and life, she said.


Moving forward Black people can continue doing things to invest in their collective future, including harnessing $1.2 trillion in spending power they have, she said.


“There’s things that we can


do, churches, mosques, synagogues that are all Black, put your money in a Black bank. That only takes 15 minutes and now you’re beginning to


invest in us, that’s one step,”


said Ms. Johnson. Black faith-based institutions must be actively engaged and working in the community by investing in businesses, establishing mentoring programs and other services, she continued.


“I see a political climate and us pushing a Black agenda, pushing political


empowerment, pushing


self-determination as a way to begin waking Black people up. So I see 2016 as a year that people are going to have to get woke up,” said Ms. Johnson.


Fight Cancer Radiation


FROM PAGE 2 Oncologist. “Pencil Beam


Scanning is a very elegant, conformal treatment that features improvements in the delivery of proton therapy.”


PBS was used for the first time in 2008 at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston. Dr. Allen Thornton, a HUPTI Radiation Oncologist specializing in head, neck and brain tumors, served thousands of patients during his previous appointment with MGH and is in enthusiastic support of implementing PBS technology at HUPTI.


“We look forward to increasingly adopt this technology (PBS) in the treatment of our specialized patients for brain, head and neck, and pediatric,” said Thornton.


HUPTI's first patient to complete


PBS treatment, 73-year-old prostate cancer patient John L. Heiser, from Hampton, VA, hailed the breakthrough technology "a no brainer."


"If you have to have treatment for


prostate cancer, I can’t think of a better place. I’m very fortunate to live five minutes away, and very fortunate that this facility is here," said Heiser.


After his 44th treatment, Heiser proved stronger than ever before with


The Hampton Roads Messenger 11


weekly gym visits and sessions with a personal trainer, his daily routine remained unchanged.


"I still go five, six days a week


to the gym and do cardio and weight lifting. I didn’t feel any energy loss or tiredness," said Heiser. "Just the last day I was working out I set a personal best record on deadlifts, 195 pounds. And a personal record on bench press, 145 pounds. And that was within two or three days of my 44th treatment. I think it’s all a mindset and what kind of condition you’re in to begin with."


Heiser's message of advice to those researching cancer


treatment


options, "definitely, definitely look at proton therapy. I mean just the physics of it. The fact that you’re not being bombarded with radiation as it leaves the targeted area.”


“Because the dose is more


conformal to the tumor site, the beam is pinpointed to the exact area, enabling


clinicians to utilize In-


tensity-Modulated Proton Therapy (IMPT),” said Ping Wong, HUPTI Chief of Physics, whose team was responsible for commissioning the PBS equipment.


Three more patients have entered


PBS treatment at the Hampton University Proton Therapy Institute this month, with approximately 20 new additions scheduled treatment in January.


to Scholarship Watch


Fredrikson & Byron 2016 Minority Scholarship Award for Law School


First-year law students are encouraged


to apply to Fredrikson & Byron’s $15,000 Minority Scholarship program before the deadline of March 31, 2016. The scholarship is awarded based on law school performance, professional references, work and other activities, writing samples and personal interviews.


The scholarship program is part of


Fredrikson's commitment to the promotion of diversity among incoming law professionals. The purpose of the program is to promote the legal training of minority law school students and to encourage them to join and excel in the private practice of law within larger corporate law firms in the Upper Midwest. The program was established jointly by the Fredrikson & Byron Foundation and Fredrikson & Byron in 1990.


Minority Scholarship Application Instructions To apply, follow the list below: Submit the application in one of two ways:


1. Fill out the application form (PDF) and email it to cokerson@fredlaw. com; or


2. Download the application form, fill it out and mail it to the below address.


Submit two (2) written recommendations using one each of the following forms:


Applicant Appraisal Form for Law School Professor Applicant Appraisal Form for Employer or Other Reference


Please have a law school professor complete a recommendation on one form and your second recommendation should be completed by an employer. One (1) writing sample from your first-year legal writing course. Your current law school transcript. Your undergraduate transcript from all undergraduate institutions


attended. Résumé. Please note we cannot consider incomplete application materials.


However, documents can be sent individually. All required materials should be directed to:


Curt Okerson


Email : cokerson@fredlaw.com Fredrikson & Byron, P.A. 200 South Sixth Street Suite 4000


Minneapolis, MN 55402-1425 Apply Online at:


www.fredlaw.com/our_firm/di- versity/minority_scholarship/


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