By Associated Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — More than 124,000 Tennesseans already have taken advantage of early voting or absentee voting for the Aug. 4 state primary and county general election.

According to the a news release from the Secretary of State’s Office, voters can find their early voting and Election Day polling locations, view and mark sample ballots, see their elected officials and find election results with the GoVoteTN app, available for free from the App Store or Google Play. Voter information is also available at GoVoteTN.com.

Early voting runs Mondays through Saturdays, ending on July 30.

Tennesseans should bring valid photo identification to the polls. Photo IDs issued by Tennessee state government or the federal government are accepted even if they are expired. College student IDs are not accepted.

By Bernal E. Smith, II

Best in Black Awards 2016 Interim Voting Results

From Bernal E. Smith II, CEO/Publisher of The New Tri-State Defender:

“First, let me say thanks to each of you for your participation. Whether you are a nominee or a voter/supporter of the various nominees, your effort and input is appreciated by our entire staff and volunteers.

Most of the competitions are extremely close and with eight (8) days left to vote it will simply come down to who can rally their customers, clients, friends and family to support them the most down the stretch!

As you will notice, not all categories are listed. We have chosen not to list categories in which one nominee had more than a 1,000 vote lead over the next closest competitor. This does not mean that competing nominees don’t have a great chance to win; only that one candidate has a commanding lead at this particular time. In past years, we’ve seen nominees make up deficits of this size and larger in less time. We encourage all nominees to get it in gear and promote the vote like never before!

Remember, you can only vote once per day. Any votes beyond this will be discounted and repeat violators will have all of their votes thrown out.

We are extremely excited about this year’s Best in Black Awards! It is clearly shaping up to be the BEST ever!! Keep voting and promoting and we will see you at the show!!!”

Sincerely,

Bernal

By Associated Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The first transgender person to be named to a Tennessee government board or commission has been named the official podium timekeeper at the Democratic National Convention.

Nashville Mayor Megan Barry appointed Marisa Richmond to the Metro Human Relations Commission in May. Richmond is a Nashville resident, a professor in the history department at Middle Tennessee State University and former president of the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition.

State Democratic Party Chair Mary Mancini said Monday that she was thrilled by Richmond’s selection for the timekeeping role. Mancini said Richmond has been “one of the strongest advocates for the LGBTQ community in Tennessee and across the country for many years.”

The 17-member commission in Nashville oversees the human relations department, which is tasked with resolving discrimination complaints and carrying out educational programs.

By Michael B. Hancock, The Root

As citizens, we deserve election seasons that are seesawing, back-and-forth spectacles of clashing ideas. Instead we find ourselves often immersed in the frantic pace of the horse race. Campaigns devolve into poll-watching parades, focused more on opposing personalities than on issues of great consequence. Issues get lost.

This is one of those elections. The general ignorance of important challenges that we face as Americans has become infectious. It’s especially a greater problem for those historically burdened and marginalized, still holding on at the seams for some hint of the American dream. To many, something in the air suggests it’s not all quite right: In the RealClearPolitics average of frequent “direction of country” tracking surveys, a clearly jaded 69 percent of the public believes that our nation is on “the wrong track.”

Maybe it’s not a feeling that we’re on a wrong track. Maybe it’s the absence of a great American conversation on what keeps societies glued together. We can easily focus—and how can we not?—on those tragedies and transgressions ripping us apart. Yet a deeper national dive reveals a need to revisit essential quality-of-life issues: from the fight to defeat poverty and homelessness to a concerted community effort for affordable housing and better schools. It’s about creating wages we can live on and maintaining robust infrastructure that provides us with clean water and safe bridges. It’s the transportation and energy grids that give us the fuel we need for economic growth.

We desperately need a return to that conversation, and we must do it now in a way that intersects with a compassionate and thoughtful debate on race, racism and our ability to help flourishing societies, particularly cities, adapt to dramatic population changes.

Because societies can’t flourish without clean, drinkable water. Flint, Mich., knows that, and we here in places such as Denver, deep in the arid West, understand that, because water is so precious and scarce. Societies can’t flourish without functional schools and K-12 classrooms that raise the next generation of scholars and innovators. Societies, obviously, can’t persist without paved roads, safe bridges and solid rail to move people and commerce from home to job to businesses that create more jobs.

Societies can’t expect to thrive if families are living from paycheck to paycheck barely able to make rent each month because housing prices skyrocket. There’s no access to what is now the essential utility known as the internet if there is no electricity. And cities, as we move into a future filled with digital wonder, won’t grow if large pockets of residents can’t get to work because of a lack of reliable mass-transit options.

As proud as I am to say that Denver has one of the hottest economies to watch in the country (with an unemployment rate that’s below 4 percent), I’m also realistic about the stagnating wages and unaffordable housing that hold back way too many of our good people. Rents in the Mile High City have risen 35 percent since 2010, and home values are rising at twice the national rate.

That’s not something to celebrate when people get left behind, especially black and brown people who are bombarded with a disproportionate barrage of social and economic displacement. Denver grows, “But for who?” we keep asking ourselves.

All cities are faced with this existential dilemma. We watch the rapid rise in pockets of poverty as neighborhoods continue to gentrify. We witness the rapid loss of neighborhoods where the racial composition changes overnight from majority minority to majority white. Displacement can’t be progress. Progress can’t be summed up by the disintegrating aspirations of those losing homes.

Unfortunately, we take these pillar issues for granted. Caught up in the routine of our lives, from the grind of daily commutes to the adventures of raising families, we pay little attention to the foundational building blocks of sustainable, healthy and growing communities. Yet these are the places where we live and co-exist. We can’t expect a cozy, habitable house if we let it crack into disrepair from neglect. We can’t expect the cities where we live to prosper if, for so many of our fellow neighbors, the benefits of a strong economy remain out of reach, and too many neighborhoods remain overlooked and underserved.

Nor can we expect to have meaningful conversations on race and the ugly manifestation of racism until we address the disparities holding us back. A conversation on race is not the full measure of racial progress—and it is not the measure of our progress as a nation. Conversations must transition quickly into frameworks for undoing rampant inequality in education, wealth, housing and mobility. Even as we work toward building better relationships between law enforcement and the communities it serves, it’s not enough if those communities are continually disrupted by crime, unemployment, low wages, bad schools and inaccessibility to reliable transportation options.

These pillar issues must be resolved because the very survival of where we live depends on it. We must understand that troubled communities don’t happen in vacuums—a loose thread in one part of the quilt can quickly become the hole in a dangerously unraveling fabric. As President Franklin Roosevelt once said, “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.” Our collective frustration at the brutality and violence inflicted on people of color should be channeled into a collective energy for social good and economic growth. We need a paradigm shift from systemic inequality to systematic equality.

Systematic equality is what helps communities, neighborhoods, cities and societies become engines of concentrated resources, talent and affirmation. That is the true “test of our progress”: When we become agents of shared prosperity. When we understand that jobs are just jobs unless people have an opportunity to grow. When we put an end to the stagnant wages and concentration of wealth that threaten our great republic. When we recognize that children can’t live without a home, and families can’t be strong without an affordable home. When we realize the virtue of a criminal-justice system that provides a second chance. When we finally embrace the indispensable need for mobility through mass transit. When we grasp the true meaning of a quality education for all rather than an exclusive education for some.

Opportunity is the right of everyone. Progress doesn’t leave anyone behind—its mission is to bring everyone along. When we show up for that, we keep our communities resilient. We keep our houses strong. We keep our people moving forward.

By Anslem Samuel Rocque, The Root

Black men are under attack. There may have been a time when that statement might have sounded like an exaggeration, but with headlines about men of color being shot, killed and falsely accused of crimes becoming almost daily occurrences, the reality of that declaration slowly begins to sink in. While women of color are not exempt from experiencing these same atrocities, brothers are becoming victims at a more alarming rate.

It all boils down to fear. Since Reconstruction, the African-American man has been painted as the “big, black brute,” an excessively violent, strong and sexualized abomination that poses a threat to white America. This stereotype is at the root of many of the racial discords we see in the news today involving men of color.

I’d be hard-pressed to pinpoint exactly when I became aware of how my blackness could impact how I’m perceived by those outside of my community, but the fact that it does have an impact has shaped the way I move through the world. It’s sad, but I, like so many other black men, don’t want to become the next RIP hashtag.

While I’ll never let outside forces change the core of who I am, I have to admit that I’ve made both conscious and subconscious adjustments in my behavior just to try to ensure that I make it home to my family safely every night. Although there are countless stories of brothers like Philando Castile and Charles Kinsey who said and did the right things, to no avail, here are a few of my own personal mantras that, for better or for worse, have allowed me to appear less “dangerous” to white people as a black man.

I Dress My Age as Much as Possible

The only downside to “Black don’t crack” is that when dressed down, I could pass for someone almost half my 39 years (OK, maybe not 21, but 29-ish). That’s part of the reason I typically don’t shave off my beard often and wear button-up shirts and slacks most of the time. It’s just as much protective presentation as it is personal style. I feel most vulnerable when coming home from the gym because in basketball shorts, I can easily “fit the description” of any black male. While my white counterparts may not have to be as concerned with casual dress and being perceived as “presentable,” as a person of color, I don’t always have that luxury.

I Don’t Walk Behind (White) Women After Dark

This really isn’t necessarily race-specific because, as a rule, I try to avoid walking behind any woman after sunset. The reason is, I understand that just my being a man—black, white or other—can be intimidating to a woman. Add in a desolate sidewalk and I imagine her nervousness increasing tenfold. Whenever I find myself in this scenario, I make a concerted effort to walk in the street and try to get ahead of the woman so that she has the luxury of keeping me in sight as opposed to having a pair of footsteps looming behind her. This personal space is as much for her safety as it is my own, because the last thing I need is a scared white woman pointing the finger at me.

I Call Everyone “Sir” and “Ma’am”

My mother taught me to use these terms as a sign of respect. Whenever interacting with police, I deploy them just as I would with an elder. While I’m doubtful that simply saying “sir” or “ma’a”m will ultimately save me from being arrested, put in a choke hold or shot, my hope is that by addressing authority figures as such, I will at least set the tone for cooler heads to prevail. Plus, you have to give respect to try to get respect, right?

I Smile at Strangers in Tight Places

One place where I immediately become fully aware of my blackness is in a cramped space, like an elevator. There’s an unspoken tension that exists when a person of color enters and the occupant or occupants are white. While I don’t go out of my way to make eye contact, in the event that I do, I smile and give the person his or her space to signify that I’m no threat. I might even mindlessly look at my phone to illustrate that I’m not focused on anyone. If we happen to get off on the same floor, I maintain a safe distance so that the person doesn’t feel as if I’m following him or her.

I Use (Proper) Language as the Great Equalizer

While I don’t give much credence to the idea that people can talk “black” or talk “white,” I have no problem displaying my education through my words. I don’t make a habit of using the n-word, especially in mixed company, and I speak proper English in public for the most part. Ultimately, no matter how I look or what I’m wearing, I use my words to make the greatest impact on those who don’t know me so that they can get a glimpse of my worth and intelligence and why my life matters.

By The Undefeated

Michael Jordan, widely considered the greatest basketball player in NBA history and the lone African-American majority owner of a franchise, has decided to speak out on the country’s growing racial and social unrest.

“As a proud American, a father who lost his own dad in a senseless act of violence, and a black man, I have been deeply troubled by the deaths of African-Americans at the hands of law enforcement and angered by the cowardly and hateful targeting and killing of police officers,” Jordan writes in a one-page letter released exclusively to The Undefeated. “I grieve with the families who have lost loved ones, as I know their pain all too well.”

He used the letter to also announce grants of $1 million each to two organizations working to build trust between law enforcement and the communities in which they work: the Institute for Community-Police Relations, which was launched in May by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, which was established in 1940 to work through the legal system to push for civil rights. It became a separate organization from the NAACP in 1957.

Michael Jordan’s full statement

“Although I know these contributions alone are not enough to solve the problem, I hope the resources will help both organizations make a positive difference,” Jordan wrote.

Both groups were informed of the donations Sunday night.

“We’re surprised and shocked, but obviously thrilled,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, the president and director of the Legal Defense Fund. “We’ve been working on these issues for some many years, and it’s great to hear that Michael Jordan and his people are aware of our work and are willing to make a contribution.”

Added Terrence Cunningham, the IACP president and chief of the Wellesley, Massachusetts, police department: “What an opportunity for Michael Jordan to do this and help raise the discussion between police and the members of the communities they serve. The IACP aims to provide a toolbox for departments and communities to come together to discuss implicit bias and police legitimacy, and this is an opportunity to help that along.”

Jordan’s statement comes amid a renaissance of social justice advocacy by prominent athletes nationwide, hearkening back to the ’60s when figures such as Jim Brown, Muhammad Ali and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar were outspoken on the country’s problems, particularly the status of African-Americans. Current NBA superstars LeBron James, Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade opened the recent ESPYS awards show by imploring their peers to take larger roles in issues of racial injustice, gun violence and police brutality. Anthony will host a town hall meeting in Los Angeles Monday featuring an open dialogue between police, citizens and politicians.

On July 22, the Washington Mystics became the fourth WNBA team to show solidarity over recent police shootings by wearing “Black Lives Matter” T-shirts when they took their home court at Verizon Center before a game against the Los Angeles Sparks. The league originally fined the New York Liberty, Indiana Fever and Phoenix Mercury $5,000 apiece and their players an additional $500 each for wearing black warmup shirts before games on Thursday, but has rescinded those fines amid growing outrage.

Today’s statement is something of a public milestone for Jordan, who has been criticized over the years for his low profile in political and social advocacy. For instance, Abdul-Jabbar, in a 2015 NPR interview, said, “He took commerce over conscious. That’s unfortunate for him, but he’s got to live with it.”

Jordan has donated to the presidential and senatorial campaigns of Barack Obama, former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley’s 2000 presidential campaign and, yes, despite numerous stories to the contrary, Harvey Gantt’s unsuccessful campaign against Sen. Jesse Helms in North Carolina.

For two decades, Jordan has been saddled with a quote attributed to him by an anonymous friend in former Chicago Tribune NBA writer Sam Smith’s 1995 book, The Second Coming, that he didn’t support Gantt because “Republicans buy sneakers, too.” In a later book, Smith said it was a joke, not a political statement and that he felt badly about the backlash Jordan received. But a spokeswoman for Jordan said he denies ever using those words. And a 1996 Charlotte Observer story lists a $4,000 campaign donation made from Jordan to Gantt for his second Senate race.

Friends and advisers have defended Jordan’s social conscience over the years. In an interview last year with TMZ, longtime teammate Ron Harper said, “Some of the stuff he [does] may not get on TV like some other athletes like to portray themselves as conscientious Americans, but my boy MJ … he knows what he’s doing in life. Michael Jordan is caring.”

Lately, he’s also been more publicly vocal about issues of race and discrimination adversely affecting the league.

In 2014, before Donald Sterling was forced to sell the Los Angeles Clippers in the wake of racist statements made over a taped phone recording, Jordan said, “As an owner, I’m obviously disgusted that a fellow team owner could hold such sickening and offensive views … As a former player, I’m completely outraged. There is no room in the NBA – or anywhere else – for the kind of racism and hatred that Mr. Sterling allegedly expressed … In a league where the majority of players are African-American, we cannot and must not tolerate discrimination at any level.”

And just this April, after the anti-LGBT bill in North Carolina began to draw intense criticism and boycotts, Jordan issued a statement from his team that read the “Hornets are opposed to discrimination in any form, and we have always sought to provide an inclusive environment.”

“I applaud Michael Jordan for these donations,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver told The Undefeated Monday. “His championing of important social issues including fundamental civil and human rights carries enormous impact in communities everywhere.”

His defenders over the years have argued that Jordan did not have to wage the fight for civil rights and mutual respect that many of his socially conscious predecessors did in the 1960s and early 1970s. They said that Jordan’s ability to amass wealth and power after his playing days was the next rung of activism for the black athlete: the development of an economic blueprint that featured actual majority ownership in an NBA franchise. And with that wealth and power came the ability to not just advocate, but take action.

Today, the Hornets have more people in color holding top front office positions than any other organization in any major sport in North America. Since its inception, the Jordan Brand, valued recently at $2.8 billion by Nike, has always had an African-American CEO.

Jordan’s commitment to diversity, his spokeswoman said, has been long established. “But he’s always been very private and personal about many of these things.”

The decision to go public with his statement and donation was made about two weeks ago, the spokeswoman said. But they delayed an announcement after learning that the NBA would relocate the 2017 All-Star Game from Charlotte because of North Carolina’s bathroom bill, which doesn’t afford protections to those in the LGBT community. Jordan did not want his announcement to take away from the focus on the LGBT community, she said.

Ifill, from the Legal Defense Fund, is hopeful that a contribution from someone of Jordan’s stature will help bring more awareness to a very important topic that has dominated the headlines this month.

“We’re at a critical moment in our country where people do need to step up,” Ifill said. “It’s important for people who have a profile of a Michael Jordan to step forward and identify this as a critical issue.”

Since the death of Michael Brown two years ago in Ferguson, Missouri, the defense fund has stepped up efforts to help remove bias from policing. The organization has worked closely with the U.S. Department of Justice, which in February help set up a pilot program for procedural justice training in six cities (Minneapolis; Birmingham, Alabama; Gary, Indiana; Pittsburgh; and Stockton, California). Those departments began training to help strengthen the relationship between those departments and the communities they serve.

“The success stories are important because we’ve seen in graphic display recently what’s not working,” Ifill said. “Dallas was making tremendous efforts in initiatives to transform their police department, and we believe those efforts will remain despite the recent tragedy. Every time community and law enforcement groups are willing to step forward and collaborate is important.”

Cunningham’s office was so stunned by the donation that it vetted the source to see if it was indeed Jordan. “What an interesting piece: police, race relations and athletics,” the Wellesley police chief said. “I’m thinking many of the 800,000 police officers were at some point athletes. I’m a white guy from suburbia, and I remember that when I played football it was all about the sport, and racism melted away.”

Writes Jordan in the statement, “Over the past three decades I have seen up close the dedication of the law enforcement officers who protect me and my family. I have the greatest respect for their sacrifice and service. I also recognize that for many people of color their experiences with law enforcement have been different than mine. I have decided to speak out in the hope that we can come together as Americans, and through peaceful dialogue and education, achieve constructive change.”

He added, “I was raised by parents who taught me to love and respect people regardless of their race or background, so I am saddened and frustrated by the divisive rhetoric and racial tensions that seem to be getting worse as of late,” he added. “I know this country is better than that, and I can no longer stay silent. We need to find solutions that ensure people of color receive fair and equal treatment AND that police officers – who put their lives on the line every day to protect us all – are respected and supported.”

Jordan’s father, James Jordan, was murdered in 1993 during a roadside robbery in North Carolina by two men. One of the men convicted in the killing is eligible for parole this year.

Jordan ends his letter with a plea to bridge the divide between law enforcement and the African-American communities they police.

“We are privileged to live in the world’s greatest country – a country that has provided my family and me the greatest of opportunities. The problems we face didn’t happen overnight and they won’t be solved tomorrow, but if we all work together, we can foster greater understanding, positive change and create a more peaceful world for ourselves, our children, our families and our communities.”