Daily Archives: February 2, 2020

Tanzania’s Paul Makonda barred from US for rights ‘violations’ – The Citizen Daily

Posted: February 2, 2020 at 6:43 pm

By AFP

A leading Tanzanian politician who launched a crackdown on homosexuality has been banned from visiting the United States, the US State Department said.

In a statement dated Friday, the US said the sanctions on Paul Christian Makonda, the Regional Commissioner of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania's economic capital, come amid Washington's growing concerns about basic freedoms in the East African nation.

"These actions against Paul Christian Makonda underscore our concern with human rights violations and abuses in Tanzania," the statement read.

Both Makonda and his wife, Mary Felix Massenge, are now barred from visiting the US.

"The Department of State is publicly designating Paul Christian Makonda... due to his involvement in gross violations of human rights, which include the flagrant denial of the right to life, liberty, or the security of persons," the statement read.

"He has also been implicated in oppression of the political opposition, crackdowns on freedom of expression and association, and the targeting of marginalised individuals."

In October 2018, Makonda announced a project to hunt down homosexuals.

President John Magufuli later distanced himself from this initiative, explaining that it did not reflect the views of his government.

But it comes amid rising criticism of Magufuli by watchdogs for his human rights record.

"The United States remains deeply concerned over deteriorating respect for human rights and rule of law in Tanzania," the statement read.

"We call on the Tanzanian government to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of expression, association, and the right of peaceful assembly," it added.

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Opinion: Sharjeel Imam Represents The Voice Of The Oppressed – Youth Ki Awaaz

Posted: at 6:43 pm

Much has been said to vilify Sharjeels speech at AMU, yet none really have legitimate and valid points to do so: their claims of vilification are substantiated and relied upon on those parts of the speech that have come out as a brow-raiser for the Indian conscience.

For the BJP-RSS affliated people, the proposition of so-called territorial disintegration from Assam have attacked their belief on the immutable sovereign unity of India, which they so sacrosanctly push forward. For the left-liberals and Congress believers, they are mostly affected by the parts where he calls the constitution and Gandhi fascist.

Yet, when you hear them as to what exact arguments Sharjeel proposes when he says constitution as fascist they are mostly silent. This shows that without having heard the proper context of the speech, arguments and propositions that Sharjeel stated, they clearly vilify him as hurting their ideological sentiments.

To start with, Sharjeel Imam is a PhD scholar at JNU, whose research is on the late colonial Muslim politics in India. He has worked on cow slaughter and communal riots in India. He has had his articles published in The Wire, Firstpost, TRT, Heritage Times and many other platforms and journals. So people saying that his speech was stupid on what basis?? They dont say so, or they wish to conceal it.

Sharjeel, in his hour-long speech at AMU, talked about many things. His arguments were stated with historical facts and data, followed by the condemnation of the particular policy/party/system. What I found problematic was the tone of his speech, which was irresponsible, aggressive, and perhaps aggravated the situation.

His stated propositions and historical facts were lost in the ramble of his intense tone of speech. A non-Muslim hearing his speech for the first time would have had vehemently strong and provocative reactions, and some even called him a deluded man and so on. Amongst the Muslim community, Sharjeels speech has upturned the tables of thought and have divided their stand on him.

Apart from this speech at AMU, Sharjeel had spoken on many other public platforms as well. In Jamia, where he came up with the idea of a chakka jam, at Shaheen Bagh, where he spoke of the times we live in. I am trying to collate his line of thought, what he thinks and how it can be interpreted. I am relying on my memory as to what I remember.

1. He proposed the idea of chakka jam first in the speech he had delivered in Jamia. The advancing policy of the CAA and NRC perhaps augmented his fear of leaving Muslims in a hapless condition. He believed Muslims during these dire times, should stand up and fight the regime dauntingly without moving back an inch.

Marches, candlelight protests at such times would prove to be futile thus, there is a need to intensify the mode of protest. He believed that a chakka jam (road, way, path blockade) is perhaps a good mode of protest in the sense that it will have a disruptive effect on the normalcy of urban centers in Delhi (and even outside it).

Blocking off the road or path is not something new and has been performed before during the 1980s in Assam and Telangana particularly. George Fernandes organised various strikes of railway blockades from trade unionists. Gandhi also followed the same suit of satyagraha, and civil disobedience in during the pre-independence period.

2. He wanted to organise a chakka jam in other parts of the country, as the government takes attention of the intensity of the protest. In AMU, he was talking about how such protests can be organised in different parts of the country. He proposed that Kanhaiya and other prominent leaders who had good public reach could mobilise the protest and lead this forward.

3. He sincerely believed that these policies severely affected the Muslim community at large, and they must act upon it. An assertive identity protest is a way forward. This is not to be mistaken as communal one.

In the contemporary scenario, politics that legitimises ones identity is emerging. One is born with a certain identity, and dies with it. One cannot abnegate ones identity, as a flippant card trick. Identity of one gives the legitimacy and rationalises the violence of oppression.

Ambedkarite and Dalit politics in India is result of excoriating oppression by Brahmanical forces for ages. Hannah Arendt, a German-Jewish Philosopher during the Nazi era (which sponsored the persecution of Jewish people), had varied reactions from the radical self-denial to extreme self-affirmation of ones identity.

She says in her 1964 interview, As a child I did not know that I was Jewish The word Jew was never mentioned at home when I was a child. I first met up with it through anti-Semitic remarks from children on the street. After that I was, so to speak, enlightened.'

Sharjeel believed that the identity of a Muslim is rooted in ones theology. A Muslim is a theological being, and should assert their identity as such. The onslaught of the secular and liberal framework has demonized Muslims as conservative, dangerous and unruly.

4. The part where he says that the everyone should come at their own terms to protest with us has been misinterpreted. Sharjeels assertive Muslim politics is not exclusive to itself. He has supported the minorities in the campus before and have always assertively come out to protest with them.

However, ones politics of identity should not pitted against each other and not homogenous in one framework. A Muslim should speak for themselves, since they are experientially and historically equipped to do so. The voice of assertion should come from the marginalised.

When he says that everyone should come on their terms is misinterpreted. It does not mean forced conversion, or forcibly chanting slogans. To give a reference, the history and the discourse of the Dalit community have long been appropriated by savarna thinkers and historians, which did not allow an authentic Dalit voice to emerge.

When he says coming in terms, it means that the non-Muslims when talking for Muslims should empathise with the histories and experiences of the Muslims, then one can produce an authentic solidarity with them.

Sharjeel Imams language comes from the voice of the oppressed, and not the oppressor: an oppressed Muslim, like other voices silenced the by Islamophobic government of the Congress, the left and the BJP for the past 60 years (as Sharjeel says in his speech). The language may be angry and aggressive which have angered the non-Muslims, specially the Hindu left, liberals and sanghis equivocally in their own terms.

In a letter dated December 12, 1935, Jat-Pat Todak Mandal (Society for the Abolition of Caste System) , a reformist society invited Dr BR Ambedkar to deliver a speech on the caste system in India. He wrote a speech titled Annihilation Of Caste and sent it to the organisers in advance ,who found his language so objectionable towards the orthodox Hindu religion, so controversial endangering the Brahmanical community that they demanded the deletion of a large section, to which he said he would not change a comma of his text. The event was cancelled.

Will the left, liberal and the tolerant India let an assertive Muslim voice speak?

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Remarginalizing the Jews; Regression to the Mean | Eric Rozenman – The Times of Israel

Posted: at 6:43 pm

Americas status as home to the largest, freest, most prosperous Jewish diaspora has not closed. But it may be closing.

Another Holocaust is not about to begin, not so long as the United States and Israelthe only two countries able and willing to do socontain the current Iranian regime. That regimes position, certainly regarding the nearly seven million Jews who live in Israel, is the Holocaust never happened, and we intend to finish it.

The position of its key surrogate, Hezbollah in Lebanon, as expressed by its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, is if all Jews gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.

The United States and Israel are home to roughly 12 million of the worlds 14 million Jews. Nevertheless, social-cultural conditions underlying the status of American Jewry have been unraveling, the percentage of people in countries of the democratic West who, while neither neo-Nazis or jihadis, are tired, even dismissive of Jews and their concerns, continues to grow.

A 2017 survey by the Anti-Defamation League showed 14 percent of Americans held anti-Jewish beliefs. A 2019 ADL poll in 14 European countries found 25 percent harbored strongly antisemitic attitudes.

Upheavals and revolutions are attempted by determined minorities; the question is whether they can draw fence-sitters to their sides.

The U.S. State Department has something it did not possess before 2004. That is a special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism. The current envoy, Elan Carr, felt it necessary to say last summer that every American synagogue and Jewish community center should have armed guards.

If a fairly senior U.S. government official had made such a statement 10 years ago, he or she would have been deemed unstable.

Last Decembers murderous attack on a kosher market in Jersey City, N.J.the primary target may have been an adjacent Jewish schoolthe butcher knife attack on a rabbis Chanukah celebration in Monsey, New York, and Novembers nearly-fatal stabbing of a congregant walking to a synagogue in the same area stunned, but perhaps should not have surprised.

Antisemitism is a euphemism for hatred of Judaism, Jews, andsince 1948increasingly hatred of the Jewish state. Nineteenth century German bigots introduced it to make their ancient prejudice sound scientific. It worked.

Old wine, new bottles

Hatred of Jews, veiled as national or racial antisemitism, would become common even as medieval church-based demonization of Jews declined. Karl Marx channeled Martin Luther, the former basically substituting his parasitical capitalist Jew for the latters demonic, anti-Christian one. Adolf Hitler would discover the simultaneously inferior yet dangerously cunning Jew leading oxymoronic capitalist-Bolsheviks in a war to the death against his imagined Aryan race.

The visible excesses of Nazi Jew-hatred that victorious Allied troops found as they liberated concentration camps in 1945 made open antisemitism disreputable in the West. For a generation or two. But no matter how many times Jews and non-Jews insisted Never again! no matter how many memorials and museums they erected, such actions did not establish a permanent new norm.

Robert Wistrich, one of the leading historians of antisemitism, observed in 2015 that [W]e must recognize much more clearly than before than since 1975 (with the passage of the scandalous U.N. resolution condemning Zionism as racism) hatred of Israel has increasingly mutated into the chief vector for the new antisemitism.

Central to anti-Zionist antisemitism is the false Palestinian narrative of Zionist displacement and Israeli oppression. False in that, as Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt both noted, migrationmuch of it illegalby Arabs to Jewish-developed areas of Mandatory Palestine, outpaced British-limited legal Jewish immigration. Also false in that Palestinian Arabs under Israeli control, according to a 2005 report by the U.N., of all sources, enjoyed higher living standards than Arabs in many Middle Eastern countries.

Regardless, the Palestinian narrative hasthrough incessant reiteration and eventual widespread acceptanceproved a gateway drug. By fomenting anti-Zionism, it helped renormalize antisemitism.

Shortly before murdering 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in October, 2018 the accused posted that Jews were the spawn of Satan, the Trump administration part of the Z.O.G.Zionist Occupied Governmentand that the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, which brought many Jews to the United States around the turn of the 20th century, now supported immigration to undermine his people, white nationalists.

Six months later, a similar white supremacist killed one and wounded others at a synagogue in Poway, California. The death toll might have been higher, but several members not only were armed but also trained, and the congregation itself had received security trainingwhat to do, who to heed, where to goin case of attack.

Contrary to the belief of many liberal American Jews, the threat did not originate with the 2016 election of Donald Trump as president. A few weeks after al-Qaedas Sept. 11, 2001 destruction of New Yorks World Trade Center and attack on the Pentagon, journalist Jonathan Rosen, writing in The New York Times Magazine, confessed:

I had somehow believed that the Jewish Question, which so obsessed both Jews and antisemites in the 19th and 20th centuries, had been solvedmost horribly by Hitlers final solution, most hopefully by Zionism. But more and more I feel Jews being turned into a question mark once again. How is it, the world still asksabout Israel, about Jews, about methat you are still here?

The next year, 2002, a mob at San Francisco State University surrounded pro-Israel students and shouted, Hitler didnt finish the job! Go back to Russia! and Get out or well kill you! Prof. Laurie Zoloth, director of Jewish studies at the school, recalled:

I turned to the police and to every administrator I could find and asked them to remove the counter-demonstrators. The police told me that they had been told not to arrest anyone, and that if they did, it would start a riot. I told them that it already was a riot. Eventually, police marched the pro-Israel students to the Hillel House and posted a guard.

In 2017, conditions at San Francisco State only having deteriorated during the intervening 15 years, Jewish students filed a federal civil rights suit against the university for enabling creation of a hostile learning environment. That is, an environment of aggressive anti-Zionist antisemitism.

Chronic and acute

The year before, in 2016, Prof. Alvin Rosenfeld, a specialist in the study of antisemitism at the University of Indiana, acknowledged that hed been wrong for many years to believe that after the Holocaust hatred of Jews would not reappear as a major trend throughout the West.

Examples, on-campus and off, since 9/11 are virtually endless. Just a few, from 2019 and early 2020:

Last August, Jewish and pro-Israel representatives criticized a proposed model ethnic studies curriculum for California high schools not only for its shocking omission of any mention of Jewish Americans or antisemitism or its blatant anti-Israel bias but also for its clear attempt to politically indoctrinate students to adopt the view that Israel and its Jewish supporters are part of interlocking systems of oppression and privilege that must be fought with direct action and resistance.

Halted by the legislature, the question remained: How did California teachers, administrators and educational consultants draft such a plan in the first place?

In September, Columbia Universitys Global Leaders Forum hosted Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. Mohamad is a self-proclaimed antisemite and Israel-hater. Hes also a Holocaust denier and believes the United States, not Muslims, staged the 9/11 attacks. Columbia hosted Mohamad, but we can be sure it will not feature any anti-black, anti-Hispanic, anti-women, or anti-LGBTQ global leaders. A certain people, a particular stripe, is being removed from the rainbow coalition.

In December, a Jersey City school board member called local Jews brutes attempting to intimidate blacks into selling their homes and expressed sympathy for the kosher market killers. Are we brave enough to stop the assault on black communities of America? she asked. The mayor and governor called for her resignation.

But a New Jersey congressional candidate urged empathy for the board member. The county Democratic Black Caucus said shed rightly drawn attention to important issues. At a subsequent board meeting, one of several supporters called her the Rosa Parks of this era. The antisemitic label is a bunch of crap, throw it away, and shes not resigning.

As for empathy, The Washington Post, in its print editions, did not cover the January 5 New York City march against Jew-hatred in which an estimated 25,000 people participated. Marchers included many from the Washington area. Marginalization proceeds by omission as well as commission.

A 2019 American Jewish Committee survey showed nearly one-third of U.S. Jews avoid wearing clothing or displaying items that would publicly identify them as Jews.

How did Jew-hatred re-emerge, vampire-like, in Western Europe and North America, moving from the fringes of the left and right toward the center?

The woke vampire

Generational turnover helped. This was the passing of World War II veterans who fought the Nazis. For them, domestic antisemites sounded like Nazis.

An ideological shift also contributed. The erosion of traditional understanding of right and wrong by post-modern relativism permitted a non-judgmentalism that blurred identification of and judgment against enemies of the West. It supported the noxious claim that one persons terrorist could become another persons freedom fighter. Especially if those being terrorized were Israelis, were Jews.

While Jew-hatred from the anti-democratic right in America is sometimes homicidal, it does not shape the culture. That happens through the influence of the illiberal left. The avatar of the movement was Columbia University Professor of Literature Edward Said.

A member of the Palestine Liberation Organizations national council, Said wrote the tremendously influential 1979 work, Orientalism. This paved the way for the terrorist-freedom fighter equation and helped found an entire discipline, post-colonial studies. Through it, Israel was delegitimized and the West tarred as racist and imperialist. Those who benefitted greatly in a liberal democratic, capitalist Westamong them the Jews as a groupincreasingly are tarred by woke progressives in the United States.

Propagated for nearly two generations now in academia and secondarily through communications media and recurrently even the entertainment industry, this ideology brings us the Jersey City school board member, her defenders and more articulate bigots like Linda Sarsour.

Sarsour has been one of the leaders of the Womens March movement. A Palestinian American, she believes nothing is creepier than Zionismthe Jewish peoples national liberation movementthat Israel is a country based on Judaisms white supremacist outlook, and that a feminist cannot be a Zionist.

Something of a hijab-wearing fashion plate and a progressive in good standing, Sarsour was one of Glamour magazines 2017 women of the year. She also has served as an official campaign surrogate for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) run for the Democratic Partys presidential nomination.

In addition to generational and ideological shifts has come a demographic-religious one. In 1960, Americas population was 180 million, a large majority of whom were Protestants and Catholics who went to church at least occasionally. Six millionthree percentwere Jews. Jews who did not need armed guards at synagogues and JCCs.

In 2020, there are close to 330 million people in America. And while Christians remain by far the largest religious group, their percentage of the whole declines. Meanwhile, according to presidential exit polling, the fastest growing denominational group, now nearly 20 percent, is the Nones, those who identify with no established church.

An estimated 5.5 millionabout 1.6 percentare Jews. They represent a declining percentage of the population in which blacks comprise more than 12 percent, Hispanics 17 percent.

Selling the ideas of Judeo-Christian ethics as the backbone of American civic culture, of a special relationship between a United States and Israel of shared, democratic values, and of Jews as members of an historically oppressed minority group rather than as a conspicuous part of the purported oppressive, capitalist, white patriarchy could become increasingly difficult. Especially when an ADL survey indicates 29 percent of African Americans hold antisemitic attitudes and another poll shows a majority of millennials dont know what Auschwitz means.

A news photograph from singer Aretha Franklins 2018 funeral showed four men sitting on the altar, facing the 4,000 mourner-celebrants. They were the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Al Sharpton, Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan, and former President Bill Clinton.

Sharpton helped incite the deadly anti-Jewish 1991 Crown Heights riots and 1995 Freddys Fashion Mart killings, never apologized but went on to host an MSNBC program and advise President Barack Obama on civil rights. Farrakhan is perhaps the countrys highest profile Jew-hater and one who, like the Pittsburgh shooter, remains obsessed with satanic Jews. Tolerance of these men, confirmed by Clintons presence, also speaks to marginalization of Jews and their concerns.

Historian Wistrich observed that there is an illusory belief that more Holocaust education and memorialization can serve as an effective antidote to contemporary antisemitism. This notion is quite unfounded. On the contrary, today Holocaust inversion (the perverse transformation of Jews into Nazis and Muslims into victimized Jews) all-too-often becomes a weapon with which to pillory Israel and denigrate the Jewish people.

Instead, said Wistrich, Jews can and must first clarify for ourselves our vocation, raison detre, moral priorities and the deeper meaning of our near-miraculous return to the historic homeland. This is the other side of the coin in our essential and relentless fight against antisemitism. [L]et us be worthy of the scriptural promise that the Torah will come forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

A U.S. Jewish community that embraces its historic mission, that refuses to tolerate its adversaries or those who do, that makes growth in knowledge and numbers priorities and asserts both its American citizenship and Jewish peoplehood, will be a more desirable coalition partner and less likely to be marginalized.

Eric Rozenman is communications consultant for the Jewish Policy Center. This article draws on his book, Jews Make the Best Demons: Palestine and the Jewish Question (2018, New English Review Press). Any opinions expressed above are his own.

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Remarginalizing the Jews; Regression to the Mean | Eric Rozenman - The Times of Israel

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Pakistani doctors praised for strengthening US-Pak ties and their charitable work – Associated Press of Pakistan

Posted: at 6:43 pm

PHILADELPHIA, Feb 02 (APP):Pakistans Ambassador to the United States, Asad Majeed Khan, has lauded the role played by Pakistani-American doctors in strengthening Islamabad-Washington ties as well for their contribution to charitable and capacity-building work in Pakistan and the U.S.

He was speaking at a largely-attended strategy meeting of the Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of North America (APPNA) in Philadelphia on Friday, according to a press release issued by the Pakistani embassy.

In his remarks, the Pakistani envoy also gave an overview of the recent developments in the US-Pakistan relations, including the recent summit-level meetings between Prime Minister Imran Khan and President Donald Trump, saying that the ties were on a positive trajectory.

He also highlighted the significance of Kashmir Solidarity Day on February five and the positive developments viz-a-viz Pakistans economy and security situation.

Speaking on the improved security environment in Pakistan, Ambassador Khan apprised the audience regarding the recent travel advisory for Pakistan issued by the U.S. State Department that acknowledges the improved security situation in Pakistans major cities, particularly Islamabad. This, he noted, follows the similar revisions made by a number of other important capitals including UK, Canada, Portugal, Norway, France, among others. The Pakistan government was committed to building a favourable environment to promote tourism sector and to attract foreign investments, he added.

The Ambassador also drew the attention of the audience to the serious humanitarian crisis in Indian occupied Jammu & Kashmir (IOJK). Inside occupied Kashmir, people remained prisoner in their own homes, without access to internet or basic amenities for the last six months.

He praised the Pakistani community for raising their voices for the Kashmiris against the oppression and urged them to use their influence on the upcoming Kashmir Solidarity day in conveying their concerns to their legislators to take note of the gross human rights violations committed by the Indian security forces and urging India to lift the siege from IOJK.

The event was attended by a number of APPNA members from across the United States, senior officials from the city government and Congressmen from Philadelphia.

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The Future of Black Families in Baltimore: The Legacy Alliance – Afro American

Posted: at 6:43 pm

By Richard NormanSpecial to the AFRO

Black families across the country are an amazing resource for a greater understanding of resilience and perseverance in the face of centuries of racially motivated violence, structural inequality and marginalization. And still I rise, the words of our bright and ever shining star Dr. Maya Angelou extend directly to the black families everywhere, and hold so true for those Black Families who call Baltimore home. My experiences in Baltimore City over a 40-year career have made the reality of existing strengths of Baltimores Black Families undeniable. Acknowledgement and active support for the full manifestation of these strengths and the ultimate sustainable wellbeing of our Baltimore Black Families is a central reason for being the Legacy Alliance of Child Welfare Agencies.

Members of the Legacy Alliance are Michael Sinclair PhD, MSSW, Zack Dingle LCSW-C, Al Laws BS, Dermell Brunson PhD, Dianne Nelson MS, Delores Ford-Edwards LCSW-C, Patricia Cobb-Richardson MS and Richard L. Norman LCSW-C. The Legacy Alliance started as an alliance of community based Licensed Child Welfare (foster care) Agencies. It was founded to serve children and families who have been historically rejected, neglected and poorly served by the past and current discriminatory and paternalistic systems of care.

In 2005 the Legacy Alliance was formed. During this time they sought a special relationship with Morgan State University (MSU) School of Social Work. The Legacy Alliance was welcomed with open arms by Dean Anna McPhatter PhD and her faculty. It is important to note that in 2017 MSU was re-designated by the Maryland General Assembly as Marylands Preeminent Public Research University conferring a unique mission to serve the states urban population including instruction, research and service. Dr. McPhatter was assigned as staff liaison to the Legacy Alliance. Dr. Michael Sinclair, Chair of Urban Youth and Families Specialization at the MSU School of Social Work, trained and worked in intense urban communities.

Even after a decade of our influence the sad events surrounding the death of Mr. Freddie Gray in 2015 served to shatter any lingering illusions of a good enough system to service the Black Families in Baltimore and the Region. To be clear the intent was present, and the problem is not the system of funding in the large government agencies. These large systems must be seen for what they are; blunt instruments, that organize their approaches to service in a bureaucratic manner that perpetuate at best competition, siloed efforts and inefficiency. The Legacy Alliance members has experienced years of what appeared to be an attrition approach to the preservation and enhancement of African American led resources in Baltimore City and throughout the region. We concluded our sustainability as legitimate, fully qualified and proven service resource with unique affinity. The black and brown families and children especially in Baltimore required a collective action response. The Alliance envisioned a systematic response that would address bringing fundamental shifts in power relationships between those served and those serving. Innovative catalytic service relationships and solutions are possible, and required to meet the needs of both functioning and fragile families, children and their communities.

To catalytic we must first change the way we work together to achieve and model mutuality, concrete support and sustained growth by bringing positive change to all. The collective impact strategy of the Legacy Alliance prioritized developing the relationship with a key institution like MSU School of Social Work. Our vision called for partnering as a training ground for MSU MSW and BSW social work students. Many of these students are the products of urban socio-economically oppression in Baltimore City. The Alliance believes these students form a vanguard of a new breed of social work students who are committed to return to these neglected and oppressed communities as true change agents. We have found these students are no longer content with the status quo office-based treatment models. These Students, in concert with the Legacy Alliance, are intent on rigorous development as professionals, strength-based prevention and early intervention work in these communities.

The Alliance is committed to approaches that maximize community engagement and their expression of needs in order to direct and inform professional efforts in a collaborative process. The Alliance has transcended its original agency-based identity. It is now a growing collection of individuals with a unique mix of experience and skills who stand supported and connected to but not controlled by agencies or institutions. We feel the Urban orientation of the MSU School of Social Work together with the Alliances commitment to action can unleash the power of student citizens of Baltimore. It will facilitate a joining to secure the future of the Black communities of Urban Baltimore.

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The Future of Black Families in Baltimore: The Legacy Alliance - Afro American

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