A Local State of Emergency has been declared to ensure the City of Mount Vernon can respond quickly, efficiently, and with all available resources. Residents are encouraged to stay safe, remain connected, and check in on neighbors—especially seniors and those who may be vulnerable.
🚨 CODE BLUE WINTER ALERT 🚨
The City of Mount Vernon has activated Code Blue due to dangerously cold weather conditions. Warming centers and emergency services are available. Please share this information to help keep everyone safe. ❄️💙
Emergency & City Services
📞 Emergency: 911
🚓 Mount Vernon Police Department: 914-665-2500
🚒 Mount Vernon Fire Department: 914-665-2626
🔥 Heat Complaints: 914-359-1452
Warming & Medical Facilities
🏠 Mount Vernon Adult Resource Center 📍 22 East 1st Street
🏥 Montefiore Mount Vernon Hospital – Emergency Room 📍 12 North 7th Avenue
CMVNY Notify – Stay Informed
📲 Sign up for emergency alerts: Text CMVNY to 888-777 to receive real-time emergency notifications, weather alerts, and public safety updates.
Please check on neighbors, seniors, and anyone who may need assistance. No one should be left outdoors in these conditions.
During the storm, residents are urged to remain indoors when conditions worsen and to use 911 for emergencies only. After the storm, use caution when walking or driving, watch for black ice, and stay away from downed power lines.
Snow Emergency Routes
Below is the current list of Snow Emergency Streets as designated by the Mount Vernon Police Department (MVPD). Vehicles parked on these streets during a snow emergency may be ticketed or towed to allow for snow removal and emergency access.
North & South Streets
Columbus Avenue — Bronxville to 3rd Avenue (East & West Sides)
Fulton Avenue — Parkway South to East 3rd Street (West Side)
Fourth Avenue — 1st Street to 4th Street (East & West Sides)
Fourth Street — 4th Street to Sanford Boulevard (West Side)
Eleventh Avenue — Bronx Line to Scott’s Bridge (East & West Sides)
Mount Vernon Avenue — Scott’s Bridge to Yonkers Avenue (East & West Sides)
North Fifth Avenue — West First Street to West Lincoln Avenue (East Side)
Gramatan Avenue — Center Street to First Street (East & West Sides)
East & West Streets
Devonia Avenue — Gramatan Avenue to Columbus Avenue (South Side)
Lincoln Avenue — Scott’s Bridge to Columbus Avenue (North Side)
Lincoln Avenue — Station Place to Pelham Line (North & South Sides)
Third Street — Complete: Warwick Avenue to New York City Line (North & South Sides)
First Street — Fulton Avenue to Bronx Line (North & South Sides)
Sanford Boulevard — Mundy Lane to Highland Avenue
Fulton Avenue — West to Bronx Line (North & South Sides)
Fulton Avenue — East to Pelham (North Side)
Oak Street — Lincoln Avenue to Yonkers Line (South Side)
Stevens Avenue — Lincoln Avenue to Gramatan Avenue (South Side)
Valentine Street — North 5th Avenue to West Lincoln Avenue (North Side)
Prospect Avenue — North 5th Avenue to North Columbus Avenue
Prospect Avenue — North 3rd Avenue to North 5th Avenue (North & South Sides)
Prospect Avenue — North 3rd Avenue to North Columbus Avenue (North Side)
Fiske Place — Gramatan Avenue to North 3rd Avenue (North & South Sides)
Grand Street — Fleetwood Avenue to Westchester Avenue (North & South Sides)
Broad Street — Locust Street to Westchester Avenue (North & South Sides)
Black History Month often celebrates courage in theory while punishing it in practice. We praise Black leaders of the past precisely because they are no longer here to challenge us. Barbara Jordan is a perfect example.
Barbara Jordan was a Democrat. A civil-rights icon. A constitutional scholar. A Black woman who broke barriers in Texas and in Congress long before diversity slogans were fashionable. Yet if she articulated her immigration views today—unchanged, documented, and grounded in data—she would not be celebrated. She would be condemned.
Barbara Jordan’s credentials were unimpeachable. She was a constitutional scholar, a graduate of Boston University Law School, and the first Black woman elected to the Texas Senate since Reconstruction. She later became the first Black woman from the South elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where she gained national respect during the Watergate hearings for her clear, principled defense of the Constitution. A lifelong Democrat and civil rights leader, Jordan’s integrity and intellect led President Bill Clinton to appoint her as chair of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform in 1994. Her authority on immigration policy came from law, data, and public service at the highest level, inspiring admiration for her principled leadership.
In today’s political culture, Barbara Jordan would be labeled “MAGA,” revealing how current narratives distort or dismiss principled figures like her, which should concern us all and motivate a sense of responsibility to uphold honest policy debates.
Not because she embraced conservatism, but because she refused to abandon logic. Not because she opposed immigrants, but because she believed laws grounded in data and law matter. Not because she lacked compassion, but because she understood outcomes and the importance of evidence-based policy.
And tragically, much of the Black community—conditioned to treat emotion as morality and disagreement as betrayal—would likely turn on her, illustrating why data-driven policy is essential for genuine social justice.
That is not speculation. That is the current political reality.
Recognize that Jordan’s immigration work was rooted in a Democratic commission, appointed by President Bill Clinton and led by a Black woman with undeniable civil rights credentials, emphasizing the importance of evidence-based leadership.
The commission’s conclusions were clear—and uncomfortable.
Jordan argued that a nation that fails to enforce its immigration laws undermines the rule of law itself. She supported legal immigration, but rejected illegal immigration as destructive—not morally, but economically and socially. She warned that unchecked immigration depresses wages at the bottom of the labor market, strains public services, and disproportionately harms Black and low-income American workers.
In plain terms, she recognized what today’s politics often refuses to say out loud: when labor supply increases at the bottom without enforcement, wages fall. When housing demand rises without matching supply, rents rise. When public systems are stressed, service quality declines. Elites or policymakers do not absorb these costs. They are absorbed by working-class communities—disproportionately Black ones.
The Jordan Commission, therefore, recommended enforcing existing immigration laws before expanding immigration programs, imposing real penalties on employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers, strengthening border enforcement, reducing overall legal immigration to match economic capacity better, ending the diversity visa lottery, narrowing family-based immigration to immediate family members, and rejecting blanket amnesty because it incentivizes future violations.
These were not right-wing positions. They were Democratic conclusions based on evidence.
Jordan understood something today’s politics often denies: compassion without limits is not compassion—it is negligence. When policy ignores incentives, reality does not disappear. It simply shows up later, more concentrated, and more painful.
What makes Jordan’s legacy especially relevant today is how current attitudes toward immigration and Black leadership undermine her principles, shifting from evidence-based policy to moral posturing that weakens social progress.
In effect, we are being asked to accept policies that weaken Black economic standing while being told that objecting is immoral. We are told to sacrifice wages, jobs, housing stability, and bargaining power in the name of virtue. That is not solidarity. That is replacement—replacing the material interests of Black Americans with political symbolism that offers no protection when the consequences arrive.
Barbara Jordan would not have complied with that silence.
She believed citizenship meant something. She felt the law mattered. And she thought that ignoring who pays the price for bad policy is itself a form of injustice. She never confused empathy with surrender, or activism with analysis.
Black History Month should not be about rehearsing safe narratives. It should be about intellectual honesty. Barbara Jordan reminds us that authentic Black leadership has always included the courage to say what is unpopular when it is true—even when it costs applause, allies, or acceptance.
If Barbara Jordan were alive today, she would not change her conclusions to fit the moment. The moment would be forced to confront her findings.
And the fact that such a woman—Democrat, civil-rights icon, Black constitutionalist—would now be dismissed as “MAGA” tells us far more about today’s political culture than it ever could about her.
I walked into the Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins’ Annual Open House at 28 Wells Avenue, Building #3, on Thursday, January 22nd, and felt it before I fully saw it: this wasn’t an event, it was a gathering. For two hours, from 5 to 7 p.m., people moved in and out of the space like they belonged there.
On the way in, the hallway told its own quiet story. I passed Nicole Toro, Deputy Director of Constituent Services & Minority Affairs, then Mayor Mike Spano, then Melvina Lathan, Chair of Yonkers Mayor’s Women’s Advisory Board, the kind of unplanned crossings that only happen when everyone in the room actually belongs to the same ecosystem. As I hung up my coat, I saw Yonkers City Council President Lakisha Collins-Bellamy exiting, our greetings overlapping for just a moment. In that single exchange alone, you could feel Yonkers moving, past, present, still-working, through the same narrow space.
Inside, the room carried the unmistakable energy of a school reunion you didn’t know you needed. People embraced each other, arms wrapping tight, laughter breaking through mid-hug as they realized they hadn’t seen one another since before the new year. That kind of laugh, the one that says life has been heavy, but here you are. The kind that only shows up when time moves faster than intention.
And still, there was heaviness in the room. Not loud. Not disruptive. Just present. The kind that comes from something unresolved, something carried in quietly. It sat beneath the hugs and familiar laughter, reminding everyone that community spaces don’t pause for tension; they hold it.
Even so, people stayed. The room didn’t fracture. The work continued.
And moving gently through it all, without hovering, without centering herself, was Andrea Stewart-Cousins, New York State Senate Majority Leader and President Pro Tempore. She moved through the room like everybody’s auntie who never really leaves the work and still makes it to everything important.
You know the auntie.
The one who doesn’t announce herself.
The one who remembers faces even when names pause for a second.
The one who already knows whose building caught fire, whose child just graduated, and who’s been quietly holding a whole block together with duct tape and prayer.
That auntie.
She didn’t posture. She didn’t anchor herself near a podium waiting to be acknowledged. She moved with ease, checking in, listening more than speaking, smiling like someone who understands the long memory of a community and treats it with care. Not performative presence. Relational presence.
This Open House could have easily been a clean, ceremonial “Happy New Year, thanks for coming” moment. Instead, it was rooted in the now. In the real. In the tender.
In the aftermath of the School Street and Spruce Street fires in Yonkers, real families displaced, real lives interrupted, the gathering doubled as a donation drive in partnership with Yonkers PAL. Not symbolic gestures. Not general appeals. Specific needs were named plainly: feminine products, diapers in every size, bedding, towels, toiletries, and pet food. The unglamorous essentials that make tomorrow feel possible when yesterday burned.
That choice mattered.
Because too often, crisis response becomes language instead of action. A quote. A statement. A carefully worded post. This wasn’t that. This was a governance meeting riddled with logistics.
What lingered was how natural it all felt. Neighbors, advocates, organizers, and longtime community members moved through the office not as visitors but as stakeholders, because that’s exactly what they are. This didn’t feel like government behind glass. It felt like governance with the doors open.
And that’s the part people miss when they only count attendance or scan headlines: the way rooms like this tell you who a city really is when no one is performing for applause. Being there mattered, not just to document it, but to understand what the room was holding.
Andrea Stewart-Cousins has been at everything.
The rallies.
The school events.
The “can you just stop by for five minutes” meetings that stretch into hours because someone needs to be heard.
Not because she needs visibility, but because she understands continuity. Because she understands that democracy isn’t just built.
It’s maintained.
This Open House didn’t sell a fantasy of politics. It didn’t pretend everything is fine. What it offered instead was something quieter and far more convincing: a glimpse of what leadership looks like when it is grounded, consistent, and human.
I walked in expecting an Open House.
I walked out, reminded of something deeper:
Some people campaign.
Others maintain the community.
And honestly,
if you weren’t there, you missed something worth holding onto.
I don’t just cover events. I listen to rooms and write from what they reveal.
A powerful winter storm will spread snow and dangerous ice across a vast expanse of the United States this weekend, with New York City and the Tri-State area facing down snow, heavy at times, for much of Sunday and lingering into early Monday. A Winter Storm Watch has been issued for the Hudson Valley area from late Saturday night through Monday afternoon, in addition to a Cold Weather Advisory that goes into effect Friday night, causing many event cancellations.
The African American Advisory Board Asthma Committee was scheduled to host an important community forum on Monday, January 26, 2026, from 6:00 to 7:30 PM at the Yonkers Riverfront Library located at 1 Larkin Center, but due to inclement weather, the event has been cancelled. Check back with Black Westhester for the new time and date.
The Asthma Information Community Forum aims to raise awareness about the growing impact of asthma within Black and Brown communities across Westchester County. The event will bring together residents, health professionals, and local leaders to discuss prevention strategies, treatment access, and environmental factors contributing to high asthma rates among families and children.
The 2026 Communities Not Cages (CNC) Advocacy Day was also scheduled for Monday, January 26, in Albany, NY, bringing together advocates, families, and formerly incarcerated people to demand an overhaul of New York’s sentencing laws. The event features rallies, press conferences, and legislative meetings to urge investments in community resources over incarceration. The Capitol will be closed on Monday so this event will also be postponed, but will be rescheduled shortly. They are in the process of looking at February 9th and 10th, we will let you know when the date(s) are confirmed.
Gov. Kathy Hochul has declared a state of emergency across New York as a major snowstorm and plummeting temperatures barrel toward the area, making it “a very dangerous weather event,” she said. The state of emergency, Hochul said, will allow resources to be expeditiously sent to communities to keep New Yorkers safe.
News 12 reports, We are expecting “a massive winter storm to come into the Hudson Valley that could bring around a foot of snow or more. The system arrives Sunday morning, around daybreak and leaves Monday afternoon. There is a chance of some mixed precipitation closer to the city, around south Westchester County on Sunday evening. A winter storm watch is in effect across the entire region. Extremely cold air will rush in before the storm arrives. There are cold weather alerts in effect across the region for tonight into Saturday morning. Temperatures could feel as cold as 25 below zero by Saturday sunrise. After the storm leaves, frigid air will remain. Temperatures do not warm up at all this entire upcoming week. Be prepared for highs struggling to get out of the mid-20s with morning temperatures trending in the single digits. This will keep the upcoming snowpack around for quite some time. Which will only reinforce a chill in the air.”
Due to the storm, many school districts and local offices are likely to announce closures or delays for Monday, January 26th, following the Sunday storm.
We will be updating this page as more cancellations are announced. It is recommended to check specific Black Westchester, event websites, or social media, particularly for events, as they may cancel for extreme conditions.
Political systems rarely weaken because of an unlikely event. They weaken when alternatives become thinkable — especially when those alternatives involve control over strategic resources. In geopolitics, energy is not merely an economic sector. It is power. And Alberta’s oil places the current debate well beyond symbolic politics.
Alberta is presently the only region in Canada with an active, organized effort toward a referendum on separation. Other independence movements, most notably in Quebec, have existed historically but are not currently mobilizing toward an imminent vote. That distinction matters. Yet Alberta’s significance lies not in the number of regions dissatisfied, but in the resource it controls.
Alberta is the center of Canada’s oil and gas production. Its energy sector underwrites national revenues, trade balances, and employment far beyond provincial borders. When such a region openly questions its place within a federation, the issue is no longer abstract unity. It is leverage.
Canada’s federal arrangement rests on a political bargain: resource-producing regions accept centralized regulation and redistribution in exchange for stability and market access. That bargain only holds when producers believe the costs imposed on them are justified by the benefits they receive. When energy policy is driven by political priorities insulated from production realities, the bargain frays.
This is where Donald Trump’s Energy Dominance doctrine becomes relevant.
Trump did not treat energy as a climate symbol or a moral gesture. He treated it as a strategic asset. His Energy Dominance framework emphasized maximizing domestic production, accelerating permitting, expanding pipeline and export capacity, and using energy abundance as a tool of economic growth and geopolitical leverage. The objective was not simply cheap fuel. It was independence from hostile suppliers and influence over allies who lacked comparable capacity.
Under this framework, Alberta oil is not controversial — it is complementary.
An Alberta constrained by Ottawa’s regulatory posture is an inefficiency in the North American energy system. An Alberta seeking alternatives — whether through greater autonomy, independence, or regulatory realignment — becomes a strategic opportunity. Not because the United States seeks annexation, but because energy dominance does not require ownership. It requires alignment.
An independent Alberta would immediately confront practical realities: pipeline routes, export terminals, capital markets, currency stability, and defense arrangements. In each case, the United States already provides the gravitational center. Trump does not need Alberta to become American for U.S. interests to benefit. He only needs Alberta’s oil to operate in a policy environment that prioritizes production over constraints.
The mere plausibility of Alberta repositioning itself weakens Ottawa’s leverage over national energy policy. It signals to markets and producers that Canada’s internal consensus on energy is unstable. That uncertainty alone advantages the United States, whose energy posture under Trump is explicit, predictable, and production-oriented.
Strong nations do not need to annex energy producers. They need energy to flow through favorable legal and commercial systems. Pipelines, contracts, and regulatory regimes matter more than borders. Energy dominance is achieved not through flags on maps, but through outcomes that reward output.
Canada’s problem, then, is not Trump’s rhetoric nor Alberta’s separatist ambition in isolation. It is the contradiction at the heart of its energy strategy: relying on resource wealth while politically discouraging its development. Federations do not fracture because regions become selfish. They fracture when productive regions conclude they are being managed by those insulated from the costs of poor policy.
The lesson here is not that Alberta will leave Canada or that it will become American. The lesson is more restrained and more serious. Political arrangements endure only when they respect economic reality. When they do not, energy reorders power quietly — long before borders ever change.
Trump’s Energy Dominance doctrine understands this. It does not require annexation, slogans, or force. It requires only that energy be allowed to do what it has always done: flow toward incentives, reshape leverage, and reward those who understand that production, not posture, ultimately governs power.
to our first issue of 2026. We couldn’t think of a better way to kick off the year than by celebrating the historic appointment of Wade Hardy as the City of White Plains First African American Commissioner of Public Safety. For decades, Mount Vernon was the only municipality in Westchester County with a Black Police Commissioner. In 2026, you have four and a Black County Executive. In June 2022, Terrance Raynor became the first Black Commissioner of the Westchester County Department of Public Safety, appointed by County Executive George Latimer (initially acting, then confirmed) after a distinguished career, including serving as Police Commissioner for Mount Vernon, fulfilling a goal of serving his community from within. Two months later, in August 2022, the Greenburgh Town Board unanimously voted to appoint GPD Captain Kobie Powell to assume the critical position of Chief of Police of the Greenburgh Police Department. Then, on June 30, 2025, Neil K. Reynolds was sworn in as the City of New Rochelle’s first Black Commissioner. And on Tuesday, January 6, 2026, White Plains Mayor Justin C. Brasch officially swore in Wade Hardy as the City’s new Public Safety Commissioner at City Hall.
As always, we would like to take this time to thank all the readers, listeners, supporters, sponsors, contributors, and advertisers for their support in our effort to deliver the “News With The Black Point Of View” since 2014. We are always looking for writers, photographers, and interns.
Email BlackWestchesterMag@gmail.com to inquire. Send us your feedback, let us know what you think of this issue. Let us know subjects/topics you would like to see us cover in the future, and send your letters to the editor to BlackWestchesterMag@gmail.com.
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Wilson Terrero officially launched his campaign for Westchester County Legislator for the 17th District on the evening of January 22, 2026, at Castle Royale. The announcement follows the current legislator, Jose Alvarado’s, decision not to seek re-election after 17 years in office. Mr. Terrero announced his candidacy on Thursday, January 15th.
“I am deeply honored and grateful for the trust and confidence shown by the Yonkers Democratic Party and our elected leaders,” said Terrero. “Their support strengthens our campaign and reinforces our shared commitment to delivering real results for working families and neighborhoods throughout the 17th District.”
Terrero’s social media touts support from local Democratic leaders, including the Yonkers Democratic Party, Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins, and Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano. He has also received an endorsement from Teamsters Local 456.
Although she hasn’t officially announced yet, Black Westchester has been told that Leslye Oquendo-Thomas will also be running in the Democratic Primary for District 17. The 17th District covers an area in Yonkers, NY. The Democratic Primary election is scheduled for Tuesday, June 23, 2026, with the General Election on Tuesday, November 3, 2026.
The arrest of civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong should end any remaining confusion about what occurred when political activists disrupted worship services under the banner of protest. This is no longer a debate about immigration policy, ICE, or partisan grievance. It is about whether political ideology now permits the violation of fundamental civil liberties—specifically, the right to worship without intimidation or obstruction.
On our radio show and in our articles, we have repeatedly—and without hesitation—said that this is not our fight. Black America has no historical, legal, or moral obligation to insert itself into every political battle simply because it is emotionally framed as a civil-rights issue. The Don Lemon church incident was one such example. The Armstrong arrest is another, more consequential one.
In the Don Lemon case, much of the media attempted to frame the disruption of religious services as protected speech. That framing was false then, and it is unsustainable now.
As of now, Don Lemon has not been charged. A federal magistrate judge declined to sign an initial criminal complaint against him based on the evidence presented at that stage of the investigation. That decision, however, does not constitute a finding of innocence, nor does it close the door on future charges. Federal prosecutors retain the authority to pursue charges if additional evidence emerges, including video, communications, or proof of coordination beyond journalistic observation. Prosecutors may also bypass the complaint process entirely by presenting evidence to a federal grand jury, which can issue an indictment regardless of the judge’s earlier refusal. In short, Lemon is not charged—but he is not legally cleared. His exposure depends on what further evidence reveals about his role, if any, in planning, coordinating, or participating in the disruption of worship services.
The law is unambiguous. Houses of worship are protected spaces. Federal statutes and long-standing civil-rights law do not treat churches, synagogues, or mosques as public forums for political confrontation. They are explicitly shielded from interference, coercion, and organized disruption. The First Amendment protects the free exercise of religion just as firmly as it protects speech—and when the two collide, the law does not default to whichever side is louder.
What happened in Minnesota made that collision unavoidable.
Federal authorities have confirmed that Homeland Security Investigators and FBI agents arrested Armstrong in connection with a coordinated disruption of a church worship service in St. Paul, Minnesota. According to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Armstrong “played a key role in orchestrating the Church riots” and is being charged with a federal crime under 18 U.S.C. § 241. This action aligns with legal standards because it demonstrates that disrupting religious services inside a sanctuary violates federal law, reinforcing the importance of protecting sacred spaces.
That statute—commonly known as conspiracy against rights—makes it a felony for two or more people to conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate individuals in the free exercise of rights protected by the Constitution or federal law. In this case, the right at issue is the free exercise of religion.
Secretary Noem was explicit: “Religious freedom is the bedrock of the United States — there is no First Amendment right to obstruct someone from practicing their religion.”
That clarity matters.
The protest targeted a pastor because of his separate role with ICE, but the conduct at issue occurred inside a sanctuary, during worship. This was not a sidewalk demonstration. It was not a protected expressive activity outside a religious institution. It was an intentional disruption of religious services.
That fact is not disputed.
What also matters is who Armstrong is.
She is not a lay activist unfamiliar with civil rights law. She is a trained civil rights attorney. She has built a career invoking federal statutes designed to protect people from intimidation, coercion, and interference with fundamental freedoms. Those same statutes clearly establish that religious worship is a protected activity—and that intentionally obstructing it is unlawful.
This is not a case of ignorance. It is a case of disregard.
Armstrong’s arrest also exposes a more profound and uncomfortable truth that is often ignored in political commentary: civil rights credentials do not immunize anyone from violating civil rights. A Black civil rights lawyer can still be charged with depriving others of their constitutional protections. The law does not adjust itself based on race, ideology, or résumé. It enforces conduct equally, ensuring that civil liberties are protected for all, regardless of background or activism.
Civil rights law has always drawn a firm line between protest and persecution. The same statute now being invoked—18 U.S.C. § 241—was historically used to protect Black Americans and Black churches from intimidation and mob interference. It applies equally when the roles are reversed.
The law does not ask whether the cause feels righteous. It asks whether protected rights were violated.
This is where modern protest culture has lost its bearings.
In earlier eras, civil-rights leaders understood that moral authority was inseparable from restraint. They understood that violating core liberties—even in the service of a cause—undermined legitimacy. Today’s activism often operates on a different assumption: that emotional urgency suspends legal boundaries.
History says otherwise.
The same legal framework that once shielded Black congregations from harassment now shields churches whose theology, leadership, or affiliations displease political activists. Civil-rights law is neutral by design. It does not sort defendants by ideology, profession, or intent.
The Don Lemon church incident was a warning sign. The Armstrong arrest is the legal consequence.
This is not the criminalization of dissent. It is the enforcement of boundaries that dissent requires to remain lawful. Protest outside a church is speech. Disrupting worship inside a church is coercion. The difference is not semantic—it is constitutional.
There is also a deeper cost that activist-friendly media coverage continues to ignore.
When political movements normalize the invasion of sacred spaces, they erode the very concept of civil society. If churches are treated as fair game today, schools, funerals, and private assemblies follow tomorrow. A society that cannot distinguish between public protest and private conscience is not moving toward justice—it is moving toward permanent conflict.
The irony is difficult to ignore.
Many of the same voices who once warned against state overreach now excuse mob-enforced ideological conformity. Many who invoke civil rights history now disregard the legal architecture that history produced.
Rights are not preserved by passion alone. Limits preserve them.
This was not about ICE.
This was not about immigration.
This was not our fight.
This was about whether worship is still protected in America.
Eastchester District Leader Maritza Fasack, who is the CEO of Women United of Westchester Social Club, Inc., and a member of the Hispanic Democratic of Westchester Committee, wrote a strongly worded letter with her concerns regarding conduct at the Wednesday, January 21st, Westchester County Democratic Committee (WCDC) Meeting. Fasack expressed deep concern about the aggressive conduct of the Chair of the Yonkers Democratic Committee, Thomas Meier, toward candidate Kisha Skipper and WCDC Chair Suzanne M. Berger at the WCDC meeting.
Fasack noted WCDC Vice Chair Louis Sanchez was the only person who pushed back against what she characterized as “disrespectful behavior,” in her letter to Berger. Fasack also strongly requested acknowledgement and action to ensure this bullying conduct is not repeated. (see letter in its entirety below).
Dear Madam Chair Suzanne M. Berger,
I am writing to express my deep disappointment and concern regarding what I witnessed today at the Westchester County Democratic Committee meeting.
I was shocked by the conduct of Thomas G. Meier, Chair of the Yonkers Democratic Committee, particularly his behavior toward candidate Kisha Skipper and toward you as Madam Chair. His yelling, aggressive tone, and dismissive posture created an environment that felt hostile, bullying, and entirely inconsistent with the values we claim to uphold as Democrats.
What troubled me most was the clear sense of entitlement demonstrated—an expectation that endorsements should be automatic and unquestioned, and that dissent or independent voices should be silenced through intimidation. Watching a Black woman candidate be spoken to in that manner, in a public forum, without immediate intervention, was especially upsetting. Silence in moments like that is complicit.
I want to acknowledge that Louis Sanchez was the only individual who stood up and pushed back when he, too, was disrespected. However, it should not fall on one person to respond to behavior that undermines the dignity of the room, the candidates, and the leadership of this committee.
Bullying, intimidation, and public disrespect—especially toward women and candidates of color—should never be tolerated within our party. If we expect voters to trust us with leadership, we must first model it ourselves.
I strongly believe that this incident warrants acknowledgement and action. Whether through a formal conversation, clear behavioral expectations, or other appropriate steps, something must be done to ensure that this type of conduct is not repeated and that all candidates and leaders are treated with respect.
Thank you for your time and for your continued leadership. I share this not lightly, but because I care deeply about the integrity of our party and the inclusive values we stand for.
Respectfully, Maritza Fasack CEO of Women United of Westchester Social Club, Inc. Eastchester District Leader Member of the Hispanic Democratic of Westchester Committee
Yonkers Democrats Kisha Skipper and Anthony Nicodemo have both announced their candidacy to challenge Republican James Nolon for his seat in the Westchester County Board of Legislators’ 15th District thats serves Bronxville, Eastchester, and Yonkers.
We reached out to Tommy Meier for comment but have not heard back from him yet.
We reached out to Kisha Skipper and she told Black Westchester she has “No Comment.”
When the United States organizes the world, it rarely does so through charters or ceremonial rooms. It organizes through leverage — economic, military, and consumer power — and then builds institutions around that leverage. That is not conjecture. That is how world orders actually form.
Declarations do not create world orders. They emerge when enough nations choose to coordinate their interests around a leading power because doing so produces tangible outcomes. After World War II, the United States built an international framework — including the United Nations, NATO, and the Bretton Woods institutions — not because it sought world government, but because cooperation under U.S. leadership was cheaper than conflict. Alignment offered access to markets, security guarantees, and stability. Resistance offered isolation.
Trump’s Board of Peace must be understood in that lineage.
This is not an attempt to replace the United Nations. It is a response to the reality that the postwar institutional architecture no longer functions as designed. Today’s global landscape is fragmented. Veto politics reward paralysis. Legacy structures issue moral statements but struggle to produce results. In that vacuum, powerful states do what they have always done: they organize around issues instead of within fixed institutions.
If countries choose to manage wars, mediations, ceasefires, and reconstruction through U.S.-led frameworks — formal or informal — then an order already exists, regardless of whether it has an acronym or a charter.
That is what makes the list of participating countries significant.
The nations that have agreed to join the Board of Peace are not random or symbolic. They include energy powers such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates; manufacturing and trade hubs such as Turkey and Vietnam; strategic middle states such as Pakistan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan; and politically independent actors such as Hungary, Morocco, and Argentina. These are countries accustomed to operating between power blocs rather than subordinating themselves to ideological consensus.
This matters because global power is not consolidated through unanimity. It is consolidated through coalitions that control resources, trade routes, labor markets, and consumption flows. Western Europe’s hesitation does not halt this alignment because Europe’s influence today is primarily regulatory, not productive. The participating countries understand leverage. That is why they matter.
If this initiative points to a “new world order,” it is not one of centralized authority or global bureaucracy. It is about transactional alignment and pragmatic coalitions, where effectiveness matters more than tradition, and outcomes matter more than process. Those who can deliver results — not merely craft declarations — will set the terms.
For Black Americans, this international shift is not just about diplomacy or geopolitics in the abstract. It is about how our collective power is deployed and who benefits from its outcomes. Recognizing this can inspire a sense of agency and responsibility.
The same American power that organizes peace coalitions abroad has too often failed to deliver economic justice, safety, and opportunity at home. Understanding this connection can motivate a sense of control and possibility.
The Board of Peace may succeed or fail. It may expand or stagnate. But none of that will materially matter to Black America unless we absorb the central lesson being demonstrated in real time: power is defined by results, not rhetoric.
Trump is not influencing foreign policy solely through speeches. He is leveraging American consumption and access— markets, energy demand, security guarantees, reconstruction dollars — to shape behavior abroad. Nations align because exclusion is costly.
Black America possesses a similar form of power, yet rarely organizes it.
Black consumers represent over $1.6 trillion in annual spending, but that spending is fragmented, undisciplined, and detached from policy outcomes. It flows into municipalities and corporations that return poor schools, weak infrastructure, predatory zoning, and political neglect. The spending exists. The leverage our collective economic influence. does not. Understanding this connection is crucial for Black Americans seeking tangible change.
Imagine if Black America applied the same logic domestically that the United States applies internationally.
Imagine if Black America applied the same logic domestically that the United States applies internationally. Not symbolic boycotts, but coordinated purchasing coalitions tied to precise local policy demands. Not emotional appeals, but organized economic pressure — zoning approvals, minority contracting, school funding priorities, public safety accountability. Cities respond when revenue is organized. Corporations comply when demand is disciplined. These are concrete strategies for building economic influence.
Power does not begin with outrage. It starts with withholding access.
The sharp warning is this: the world is moving away from moral appeals and toward transactional alignment. Those who cannot organize their economic behavior will be managed by those who can. Internationally, the United States understands this. Domestically, Black leadership too often does not.
Black America should pay attention — not out of fear, but out of clarity. The real question is not whether the world is being reorganized, but whether we understand how power actually operates and whether we intend to build it at home.
