Friday, January 14, 2011

Coffee Party Cincinnati brings in New Year with good times

Thanks to everyone that came to the Northside Tavern last night. It was nice to have some casual free flowing conversations about a number of subjects at a great bar with good people. Thanks to Sheli and Fariba we had some snacks.

I’m not sure if Channel 5 aired the clip of us there, but it was nice of them to show up. We think it’s important that people know that there are many of us that don’t support the Tea Party’s goals and we are real Americans too.

We had at least ten people show up, but unfortunately only half of us were there when Channel 5 showed up. Though our group was small we know that we are not alone and that many other people that couldn’t make it share our values.

I was pleased that we had a special guest. We have been focusing lately on the Prison Industrial Complex and over-crowding in our jails so we decided to invite former City Councilman and current NAACP President Christopher Smitherman. He and his wife Pam joined us and we had a very positive exchange.

Mr. Smitherman invited the Coffee Party to send a representative to the NAACP’s membership meeting to let their membership know about Coffee Party Cincinnati, our values, our goals and figure out how our groups can work together on common ground issues. We look forward to taking him up on that invitation.

One positive announcement we had was that council repealed the anti-marijuana ordinance which disproportionately locked up African Americans. We alone can’t take credit for that, but contacting our officials does have an effect, especially at the local level.

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