Editorial by Rosetta Miller Perry Many decades ago Fannie Lou Hamer, American voting and women’s rights activist, community organizer, and a leader in the civil rights movement, said “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.” Today The Tribune paraphrases that by saying we are incredibly disgusted, as well as being sick and tired, of seeing Nashville mayors overlook and ignore qualified Black males for positions in their administration. It makes things even worse when they personally claim to be concerned about this issue, then turn around and do the exact opposite when it is time for…
Author: Rosetta Miller Perry
By Rosetta Miller Perry NASHVILLE, TN. May 9, 2019 — House Speaker Glen Casada is such an embarrassment and disgrace to the state of Tennessee that he should not be allowed to hold this esteemed office. It’s is a fact that House Speaker Glen Casada received many racist texts from his former aide and best friend Cade Cothren. This disgraced aide finally resigned under pressure Monday when evidence of sexist texts he sent were uncovered. House Speaker Glen Casada initially tried to deny the existence of the racist texts, then made the claim the sexist texts were “just locker room…
By Rosetta Miller Perry, FTNNPAF NASHVILLE, TN — Karen Carter Richards, CEO and Publisher of the Houston Forward Times, is running for the chairmanship of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), the country’s largest Black Press advocacy group with more than 200 newspapers. Richards has a long and distinguished journalistic career, and is last year’s winner of the NNPA Publisher of the Year award. Under her leadership since 2010, the Forward Times is able to compete with two other mainstream Houston dailies. She has also maintained a family tradition dating back to 1960, when her father, Julius P. Carter, founded…
By Rosetta Miller Perry The Tennessee Tribune, Nashville’s Black community, and people concerned about equality and social justice across this state are losing a good friend and conscientious educator and person with the news that Vanderbilt Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos is stepping down from his position on Aug. 15 after more than a decade of exemplary service. He plans to take a year’s sabbatical, then return to Vanderbilt as a law professor. Dr. Zeppos initially joined Vanderbilt’s faculty in 1987 as an assistant law professor. He became the chief academic officer in 2002 replaceing Gordon Gee in an interim role in…
By Rosetta Miller Perry A wasted vote is as worthless as no vote, something the white power structure definitely understands. When they can’t suppress the Black vote, the next strategy is to render it useless by diluting or negating its strength. The best way to do that is by picking candidates with no chance at victory, but whose mere presence grabs enough of the African-American vote to essentially render it meaningless. Nashville’s Black community must be especially wary of this with yet another Mayoral election coming up in August. It is now very easy for folks to be fatigued over…
By Rosetta Miller Perry The calendar may say it’s 2019, but for some white folks and stupid black folks, it will never be the right time for a Black man to be in charge of anything. Especially if that man is smart, confident, experienced, and unwilling to act as though it’s a privilege and honor to be around and in charge of an institution with whites working under and for him. Dr. Shawn Joseph is a super intelligent, accomplished educator. He’s also a Black man who’s unafraid to be assertive and forceful in his presentation and personality. That apparently doesn’t…
By Rosetta Miller Perry NASHVILLE, TN — America is a nation obsessed with youth. So much of what is shown on television, in films and aired on radio caters to young folks. Once a person hits 50, let alone 60, many jobs decide that they’ve become a liability despite the fact in many instances they have experience and knowledge that is gained only through being around long enough to learn valuable lessons and work through problems and mistakes. Demetria Kalodimos has been a valuable and popular part of the Nashville journalistic and filmmaking scenes for over 30 years. During that…
By Rosetta Miller Perry By all accounts James Shaw is a fine fellow, and no one disputes his courage or heroism. What he did this past April at the Waffle House saved several lives and stopped a vile, vicious murderer from killing more people than the four killed. Shaw has also rightly continued to insist that the public focus more on Taurean C. Sanderlin, Joe R. Perez, DeEbony Groves and Akilah DaSilva, the four innocents victims, than on him. It is a wonderful thing that his heroism has earned him national acclaim, and no one can or should take that…
By Rosetta Miller Perry America has had its share of awful Attorney Generals, but few have been as dismal as Jeff Sessions. Last Wednesday his dreadful tenure in office ended when his even worse boss President Donald Tump fired him. The fact that someone as totally unsuitable for office as Trump is even in the White House remains a major disgrace. But Sessions managed to rival Trump in making his position a national embarrassment. He also was turning the Department of Justice, one of the few usually reliable allies of Civil Rights and social justice, into an obstacle of equality.…
By Rosetta Miller Perry America has historically had a problem with racism and bigotry of all types. religious and ethnic. Sadly, this is a time when hate-filled bigots often aren’t content to just spew their venom verbally or on social media. Last Saturday’s despicable mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue that left 11 people dead and six others wounded has been called “the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the history of the United States” according to the Anti-Defamation League. They’ve been monitoring anti-Semitic violence in this nation over 100 years. It is the latest example of what is…