He has served his time and is now playing football again in the NFL. He has had a stellar season as the starting quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles. Since leaving jail earlier this year, he has done all the right things and continues to speak out against animal cruelty on behalf of the Humane Society.

I was in attendance with 300 other people at the August Wilson Center when a respectable, nationally known Black man made a statement that I am in total disagreement with. He stated that Black communities and Black neighborhoods never existed. I have a perception of both, basically they are one and the same, and after checking the dictionary it was in agreement with me.

There were and still are Black communities and Black neighborhoods throughout Allegheny County, and God knows they have changed and generally for the worst. They were located throughout the Mon Valley, Rankin, Braddock, Homestead, Clairton, Duquesne, McKeesport, and other Allegheny County areas. In the city of Pittsburgh they are Manchester (North Side) Lawrenceville, Hill District, Garfield, and forgive me if I missed your community or neighborhood.

The election results from Nov, 2, while desultory, are hardly the end of the world. Anyone who lived through two terms of George W. Bush can certainly say that they have lived through worse.

But to hear many Americans—particularly African-Americans—talk, you would think that we are poised on the precipice of presidential paralysis, with a return to Jim Crow right around the comer.

You would especially think that if you listened to or watched President Barack Obama in the days following the election. The president went on television, shoulders hunched and countenance lowered and acknowledged—a “shellacking,” and then started blaming himself and talking about “cooperating” with the new Republican electoral might.

(NNPA)—All our lives we’ve heard stories about The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Now we can add to that two grinches—Rush Limbaugh and Mike Huckabee—who stole the Obama family’s Thanksgiving. Or, at least tried. While the rest of us were preparing last week to express gratitude for our blessings, those two spent the days leading up to Thanksgiving urging President Barack Obama to expose his wife, two daughters, and mother-in-law to airport security groping.