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Jazz critic/scholar Stanley Crouch discusses Charlie Parker’s life with PBS interviewer Jeffrey Brown in regards to his book on the musician’s life. Kansa City Lightning: The Rise and Times Of Charlie Parker is the first of a two volume biography Crouch has written about one of the principal architects of Bebop. Crouch also reminds the audience of his disdain for hip-hop which is unfortunate because there are definite links between Parker’s work and the rhythmic sophistication of rap music.

Senator Mark Kirk’s Call to Incarcerate 18,000 Gangster Disciples
Suggests that he is Out of Touch with Inner-City Issues

By former high ranking member of the Gangster Disciples, Harold “Noonie G” Ward
Chicago, IL – Rather than sit down with community leaders to develop a strategy to educate, mentor and employ at-risk youth, Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL) recently came up with the idea to spend $30 million to arrest and jail 18,000 Gangster Disciples (GD) in an effort to alleviate the rampart violence in Chicago.

According a Chicago magazine article, Senator Kirk said, “My top priority is to arrest the Gangster Disciple gang, which is 18,000 people. I would like a mass pickup of them and put them all in the Thomson Correctional Facility.”

The full insanity of this assertion has already been addressed in the media, but as a former high ranking member of the GD’s, who is haunted every second by the escalating tragedy and violence in Chicago, I am compelled to speak. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that targeting and arresting one gang will not squash the many random acts of violence that are emanating from numerous sources.

Furthermore, Chicagoland is riddled with numerous gangs, and by far, the GD’s are not the most notorious. Interestingly though, a few months ago, they were rumored to have caused the cancellation of rapper Rick Ross’ multi-city tour. Not only does Rick Ross reinforce and instigate the madness in these streets with his lyrics and drug dealing bravado, he also makes millions for the corporate powers behind him. A tour cancellation can hit deep, far beyond the pockets of the mere rap act involved.

Senator Kirk, an inquiring mind might wonder if the targeting of one isolated gang, as opposed to the several that run rampant in these city streets, might be a political move that finds you pandering for financial favor from select entertainment industry elite versus any genuine concern for the welfare of your inner-city constituents.

Let’s keep this real, violence doesn’t just stem from just gangs. Violence is a product of frustration, lack of educational resources, unemployment, financial instability, and most of all fear.

Aren’t there more productive ways to spend $30 million? With a reported 2.7 million Chicago children parentless due to incarceration, how could a blind street sweep targeting one gang benefit the community? Mass incarceration contributes to the destruction of Black and Brown communities instead of building them up.

Where is the call for legislation to implement jobs for youth, build youth centers, facilitate after school programs and create and stimulate income for the parents of these youth? Where is the real concern to analyze the real conditions that have created an environment where over 40 people can be shot in one weekend and the senseless killing of babies and kids is a daily occurrence?

Senator Kirk, perhaps you missed the 2010 report from Illinois Department of Corrections saying the state’s prison system is at 150% of capacity; or the fact that the state spent $140 million to build the Thomson Correctional Center you speak of, but couldn’t open because they forgot to allow for the 50 million in annual operating costs. Maybe if some of those millions were spent on education and summer jobs, less young people would be lost to the gangs.

Instead of dumping 18,000 ‘faceless’ individuals into an overcrowded and dangerous prison system, Senator Kirk, my challenge is for you to sit down with grassroots community leaders to talk about a solution from the bottom up. As a true street soldier, I carry not only love and understanding for my former affiliates, but love and understanding for an entire community that is dangerously under siege right now. I invite you Senator Kirk, to come sit down and strategize to come up with some genuine solutions to these very real dilemmas.

Yes, I am a former member of the very gang you plan to target, the Gangster Disciples. But, thanks to education and mentoring, I’ve walked and worked with President Barack Obama as an activist in Altgeld Gardens where I grew up, organized Chicago’s first National Gang Summit for Peace, and even ran for political office.

Headlines like arresting 18,000 gang members may make for great media, but how about putting forth a real effort to create great communities to live, grow and prosper in? Instead of arresting people, how about arresting frustration, lacking educational resources, joblessness, hunger, financial instability and fear?

Yeah, how about that Senator Kirk? I’m down if you are.

Harold “Noonie G” Ward is the author of the book and DVD “Gangster with a Heart of Gold: The Noonie G Story” narrated by Chicago natives Grammy Award winner Kanye West and celebrated hip hop artist and actor Common. Twitter: @TheRealNoonieG Facebook: The-Real-Noonie-G.

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Ice-T’s documentary about street scholar and pulp fiction icon Iceberg Slim will be in theaters July 19th. The film will explore Robert Beck’s transition from a pimp into the author of seven books that made him the father of street lit. Slim’s methodical tales about the Black ghetto underworld has influenced the machismo of several rappers and helped Ice-T decide on his stage name. If you don’t see a theater showing it will also be available as an On Demand selection July 12th.

Philadelphia – When former Black Mafia widow Thelma Wright released her book, “With Eyes From Both Sides – Living My Live In and Out of the Game,” co-penned with C. Alease, she divulged the tumultuous ups and downs of her life as a real life ‘mob wife.’ Now readers and television viewers alike will have the opportunity to see Wright tell her story on Tuesday night, June 25 at 10:00 p.m. EST, when the episode “Philly’s Gangster Queen: Thelma Wright” airs on the Biography Channel hit series, “Gangsters: America’s Most Evil.”

Thelma Wright was legendary as reputedly the most dangerously powerful Black woman in Philadelpha. As the wife of Jackie Wright, a top heroin dealer in the city, she was intricately connected with the Black Mafia, a gang that operated Philly’s drug trade throughout 1970 and into the 1980’s. Once widowed, and left as the young mother of a toddler son, she discreetly took over his business, running a bi-coastal drug empire, unbeknownst to family and friends around her.

Recognized by her distinguished, sparkling green eyes, Wright ruled the streets with incredible savvy and disarming charm. Yet, very few knew the real sadness and confusion in her heavy heart. While “With Eyes From Both Sides – Living My Life In and Out of the Game,” reveals Wright’s more intimate memories and angst as a women torn between two worlds, “Gangsters: America’s Most Evil” is a documentary styled presentation connecting the details of her criminal enterprise. During the show, Wright, alongside family, friends and law enforcement experts lend credence to her rule over a criminal enterprise normally dominated by men.

Wright’s street reign was notorious. She grossed top dollars and lavishly lived the high life. Championship fights via private jets, European shopping sprees, customized Mercedes Benz cars, cruises to the Bahamas and even speed boating in Miami were mere footnotes in a lifestyle many envied. But everything that glitters is not gold and Wright is open and honest when revealing the dark side.

Wright’s background sets her apart from the typical tales of abuse and abandonment. In fact, she is quick to acknowledge that it was the strength of good parenting and strong family ties that laid her solid foundation and saw her through her darkest days. The product of a middle working class Black family, she attended Catholic school, was a star athlete as a child and was well provided for. It was romance and love that entangled her with one of the Black underworld’s most notorious gangs.

Today she is far removed from her former lifestyle and dedicated to keeping young women off the path she trekked. Her memoir is a source of motivation and encouragement and she spends her time touring and speaking before women’s groups, non-profit organizations and at book signings. Wright has presented as the keynote speaker at the Riverside Correctional Facility, a female prison in Philadelphia, lectured for criminal justice classes at various Penn State College campuses, encouraged audiences at The FFAWN Mary J. Blige Center in Yonkers, New York, as well as made motivational appearances at several schools and communities throughout her city.

“Most are not fortunate enough to survive the wicked lure of the streets, but fast money and fast living is not a comparable trade off for jail or being murdered. I am blessed beyond measure to have survived both and live to tell about it. My passion and fury now is to keep our young people, particularly women, away from the insanity, turmoil and desperation that awaits them when they take that route. Education not incarceration is the key. I can’t say it enough times, and it might sound like a cliché but crime does not pay, only living a righteous life does.”

For more information on “With Eyes From Both Sides – Living My Life In and Out of the Game,” go to http://www.ThelmaBWright.com.

To see a promo for the Biography Channel’s “Philly’s Gangster Queen: Thelma Wright” on “Gangsters: America’s Most Evil” go to http://www.biography.com/tv/gangsters-americas-most-evil/videos/phillys-gangster-queen-thelma-wright-preview-30970435510 .