Read the full article from Challenger Community News, here.
Prisoners Are People Too is hosting a Regional Conference in collaboration with the Alliance of Families for Justice on Friday, May 3, from 5:30-8 p.m. and Saturday, May 4 from 8:30a.m.-3:30p.m. at Mt. Olive Baptist Church, 701 East Delavan Avenue . The conference, whose theme is “Changing Criminal Injustice,” will highlight the strategies that we can use to improve the lives of the incarcerated, the formerly incarcerated, and the victims.
Activist-scholar Dr. Henry Louis Taylor, Jr. will be the keynote speaker on Saturday, May 4. Dr. Taylor is the Founding Director of the Center for Urban Studies at the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning. His research, focusing on issues of race and class has made him an expert in assessing systemic factors, fueled by racism, that frequently lead to criminal convictions.
Read the full article from Investigative Post, here.
The laws are making criminals out of tens of thousands of residents and straining court systems; yet in the case of debt-related suspensions, several experts said they provide little to no public safety benefit.
“We are taking people who are already on the economic edge, we are criminalizing them and increasing the burdens and hardships on their lives,” said Henry Louis Taylor Jr., a professor who studies race and class issues at the University at Buffalo.
Each year, a torrent of people with suspended license charges wind up in Buffalo City Court, clogging up judges’ dockets and bogging down public defenders.
Read the full article from Buffalo News, here.
A 2017 housing opportunity strategy study commissioned by the city found that most East Side housing units are moderately to severely distressed and located in underdeveloped neighborhoods with low market demand.
HouHou should be punished for his racketeering, but more important, Buffalo’s prime blighters should be exposed. The real predatory profiteers are the rental property owners who make hyper-profits by charging high rents for poorly maintained and distressed rental housing units, and the land speculators who purchase properties and hold onto them without making any improvements until more profitable opportunities can be found.
The City of Buffalo is also complicit in the East Side neighborhood blight. The city poorly maintains sidewalks, streets and vacant lots in those neighborhoods. And, their shamefully weak rental registration process makes possible the existence of a prosperous low-income rental market that exploits the poor and those on the economic margin.
Henry Louis Taylor Jr., Ph.D., is director of the UB Center for Urban Studies.
Read the full article from Buffalo News, here.
Twenty-five years ago I got the opportunity of a lifetime: a chance to go to medical school and become a doctor. I have been fortunate enough to serve the Buffalo community I grew up in ever since.
Like many young African-American men back then, I lacked the resources, the guidance and the preparation it took to get into medical school.
Today there are as few African-American men in medical schools across the country as there were 25 – and even 50 – years ago. We need to do more to help more young black men and women fulfill that dream.
Dr. Jonathan Daniels is a pediatrician at Main Pediatrics and associate director of admissions, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB.
Read the full article from The Buffalo News, here.
It seems a small thing, at first: a few words on a map. But Veronica Hemphill-Nichols still remembers the day in 2008 when she bought her first smartphone, opened Google Maps, and saw that her neighborhood, the Fruit Belt, was labeled “Medical Park” instead.
First, Hemphill-Nichols convened a meeting with city planners, who said they hadn’t requested the change. Then she complained to Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus officials, who said they hadn’t done it either. In the 11 years since, Fruit Belt residents and activists have waged a battle against a mysterious digital renaming they see as a potent symbol of gentrification.
Read the full article from Buffalo News, here.
Zandra Cunningham graduated from the University at Buffalo’s Minority and Women’s Emerging Entrepreneur program in the School of Management. The Center for Urban Studies was founded in partnership with the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership.
The story goes like this: Zandra Cunningham was obsessed with lip balm. When her dad stopped bankrolling her habit, the 9-year-old had to learn to make her own.
Nine years later, that’s turned into a $500,000 skin care company with products sold nationwide in such stores as Costco and Target.
Read the full article from UBNow, here.
Photographer: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
Henry Louis Taylor Jr. won the student vote and shows off his prize: a rowing oar. Taylor’s name will be added to the oar, joining those of the previous winners of the Life Raft Debate.
Imagine a worst-case parallel universe where climate change has taken an irreversible toll on the Earth. Instead of the typical weather that Buffalo has to offer, the city now suffers from 200-degree swings in temperature, forcing a small group of surviving UB students and faculty to start a new society elsewhere.
…
Taylor, a professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, said he could help in the creation of an all-inclusive and perfect society, especially after learning from what had derailed the old one. He acknowledged that it could be a pipe dream, but said humans should strive for that, regardless.
“The survivors can and must do better, but this will require imagining a different, but possible world: a society that is more just, equitable and inclusive than the old one. It will require having the capacity and the tools to design, plan and build that ultimate world,” he said.
“Urban planning is not only essential; it is indispensable” he added. “My discipline is pre-eminently positioned to play a leading role in building such a just society.”
On Tuesday May 23 Dr. Henry Louis Taylor Jr. visited the TR Site to continue our lecture series with his talk “The Evolution of U.S. Cuban Relations”. His discussion of Cuba is particularly relevant to the Site as, for better or worse, Theodore Roosevelt was as significant in the history of Cuba as Cuba was in the rise of Theodore Roosevelt.
Dr. Taylor began his talk by setting the stage for the audience. He said that much of the U.S relationship with Cuba was complicated by the Cold War narrative. He defined this as the perspective, even to this day, of Cuba as opposed to the United States in the battle between “good capitalist, and evil socialist.” He went on to say that, despite the policies of detente, the U.S. still views the Cuban government as one “that needs to be toppled, because it oppresses its own people.”
This was an important point, as he claimed that the Cold War narrative would continue to muddle any dealings we had with Cuba. It also helped to create the context for the question he spent a great deal of time on: “What is Cuba?” Dr. Taylor answered this in part by discussing Lenin and Trotsky’s thoughts on how a socialist country would fare in a world dominated by capitalism.
One very important point, was that, despite any success, Cuba would always be threatened by capitalist restoration for three reasons: (1) necessary market reforms, (2) the threat that those market reforms would generate internally, and (3) intrigue from capitalist countries. According to Dr. Taylor, Cuba is defined by this struggle as well as its multi-ethnic nature.
Dr. Taylor also explained the evolving relationship between these two neighbors including the recent “thaw”. From his perspective, the easing of tensions is a noticeable improvement, but Dr. Taylor cautioned the audience to “have absolutely no illusions as to what this detente means for the United States and Cuba.” He asserts that tensions will continue “as long as the United States continues to use a Cold War lens” to view Cuba and their relationship between the two nations.
**Follow this link to watch Dr. Taylor’s presentation on YouTube.**
