Mayor Ed Gainey welcome’s 1000 black men (Pittsburgh, Akron: credit, home)

[wpipkins2]

Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey welcomes 1000 black men to the city.

https://triblive.com/local/gainey-to...k-men-to-city/

[Reggiezz]

Hopefully, they don't get shot.

[erieguy]

Great to hear he did a thing

[BUILD PENN SQUARE]

"Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey is slated to headline the opening of a large Omega Psi Phi Fraternity conference that this week is expected to bring more than 1,000 Black men into the city.

Iota Phi, Pittsburgh’s graduate chapter of the historically Black fraternity, is hosting Omega Psi Phi Fraternity’s 75th Second District Conference in the city from Thursday through Sunday."

Branding bonds fraternity’s brothers

https://www.redandblack.com/variety/...94a9a8cf4.html

“Blood Thirsty” is their nickname — and it may have some merit.

The members of the Beta Zeta chapter of Omega Psi Phi, one of eight black fraternities and sororities on campus, are about the bond of brotherhood, pride and a tenacity of spirit.

And some are willing to go to any length for it, sacrificing blood and flesh to brand their skin.

“I’ll go through any pain for them,” said Chris Claudius, the basileus, or president, of the chapter who has an “Omega” brand on his left arm. “And it is painful to get a brand … it’s basically like a third-degree burn.”

Brand Identities

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-sr...ures/brand.htm

"Imagine a carefully fashioned coat hanger, slow-roasted over the blue-green flame of a Magic Chef range, heading for the fleshy expanse of your upper arm, your chest or the side of your behind.

For a fraction of a second, you can feel the heat before it touches your skin. Your heart races and instinctively you want to draw back. But you don't. Because you want your brand to be sweet. Or if you think you'll move, you brace yourself, holding onto a sink or table; or perhaps you get somebody else to hold you down.

Imagine being branded.

Sherman, 19, has been a "Que," a member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity, since spring of last year, and he's got three brands – double, interlocking Omegas on his chest, and a large Omega with a small Greek A inside, for Alpha chapter, in the middle of his left arm. Of his initiation class of nine men, all chose to get branded.

It was the second time an organization had made a permanent impression on him.

Sherman is reluctant to show the three-inch, five-point star that rides high on his left hip. He got that one at 13 to mark his membership in the Black Gangster Disciple Nation, a gang in his Akron, Ohio, home town. "The way our sect ran, you could get prayed in or beat in. I got beat in. Then there's celebrating with drink and I was branded the day after with thick paper clips."

Sherman credits the pre-college program Upward Bound and rites of passage activities in high school with turning him from his gangster ways. He entered the University of Akron at 16 and transferred to Howard a year later.

After joining the fraternity at Howard, he says, "initially, I wasn't going to get a brand, but I thought about it and equated the whole fraternity life as another rite of passage. This was more ritualistic and traditional than the juvenile self-mutilation. This brand wouldn't be like it was in a gang. It had deeper meaning, more history."

In the last 10 years, branding has become a typical form of gang "tagging," says Michael Borrero, a professor and director of the Institute for Violence Reduction at the University of Connecticut who has worked in gang outreach for more than 30 years. "It's a ritual to say we are brothers, we are sisters, you are officially part of us," Borrero says."

[BUILD PENN SQUARE]

that's exactly what this country needs - more men and women who are willing to be branded like cattle

[wpipkins2]

Originally Posted by BUILD PENN SQUARE

that's exactly what this country needs - more men and women who are willing to be branded like cattle

That’s all you have to say? We need more selfless men helping the lass fortunate. How can you spin a positive into a negative? That says so much about you.

[erieguy]

Originally Posted by BUILD PENN SQUARE

that's exactly what this country needs - more men and women who are willing to be branded like cattle

No doubt the fireside chat with Big Ed should be stellar. Hearing more about his plan/s that he’s been touting for over a year

[wpipkins2]

Originally Posted by erieguy

No doubt the fireside chat with Big Ed should be stellar. Hearing more about his plan/s that he’s been touting for over a year

It’s not a political event.

[erieguy]

Originally Posted by wpipkins2

It’s not a political event.

Didn’t say it was, yet you specifically said “1000 black men”, making it political, lol

[wpipkins2]

Originally Posted by erieguy

Didn’t say it was, yet you specifically said “1000 black men”, making it political, lol

You out of your mind. There are literally 1000 black men attending the convention. There are 1000s of basketball players in downtown as well. Where are the politics in that?