Tag Archives: black lives matter

Broward School Board Worries Over Racist School Names, But Silent On Ann Murray’s “N***er-Heaven” and “White Privilege” Comments

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On Saturday, the Sun-Sentinel reported the Broward County School Board will discuss, “Potentially racist school names” in the City of Plantation. Reporter Scott Travis wrote School Board Member requested the matter be discussed this week. Osgood stated “she’s open to reviewing any school names that have ‘any racial undertones or any type of connotation that causes hurt for a group of people.’”

In addition to the schools with “Plantation” in its name, Osgood wants to discuss schools with “Broward” in its title. According to the Sun-Sentinel, Osgood claimed Napoleon Bonaparte Broward was a “racist governor.” Are Broward public schools even teaching students about Florida Governors?

Osgood’s attacks come after media stories about one man starting a petition to change the name of the City of Plantation. While Plantation Mayor Lynn Stoner and the vast majority of residents oppose the name change, School Board Chair Donna Korn stated the school names could be changed. “Every city doesn’t necessarily have a school named after it,” Korn told the Sun-Sentinel. “Regardless of what the city does, we can determine what our community is looking for when it comes to naming schools.”

School Board Member Robin Bartleman, a candidate for the FL House of Representatives, welcomes the name change discussion. “We need to have a conversation with the community and stakeholders,” Bartleman said.

Funny, did Bartleman, Korn, and Bartleman ever have a conversation with a fellow Board Member about her racist comments?

ANN MURRAY: NOT HAPPY WITH “N***ER-HEAVEN” SEATS

In March 2011, Bob Norman broke the news regarding School Board Member Ann Murray’s admission to using the N word while working in the school transportation office. “But that didn’t stop her from letting racial slurs fly out of her mouth, according to complaints and testimony from several school district transportation employees, both black and white. Murray admitted to using the n word and was issued a written reprimand for ‘a serious breach of conduct that will not be tolerated’ that violated the board’s antidiscriminatory rules,” Norman wrote. The incident occurred in early 2007 near the Super Bowl at Hard Rock Stadium.

While working at the board’s base of operations at Calder Race Track for that game held between the Giants and Patriots, Murray — a white woman who speaks in a heavy accent from her native Boston — was speaking with fellow supervisor Lisa Spince, who is white, about going to a previous Dolphins football game at what is now called Sun Life Stadium. Nearby were three black school bus drivers.

Spince reported in a written statement to the board that Murray said: “Do you remember when a group of us from transportation came down to watch a Bills game? Yeah, they had us up in nigger heaven.”

Spince, who now works for a school district in Georgia, told me that she was “shocked and offended” at what she’d heard and that the black bus drivers appeared visibly upset. She asked Murray, “What did you say?”

According to Norman, Spince stated she tried to comfort a visibly upset black employee who overheard Murray. I

“I put my arm around her to comfort her,” Spince wrote in her statement to the board. “The [driver] told me that she was very mad because that was not the first time that Ms. Murray had used the ‘N’ word. She told me that she was going to report Ms. Murray.”

Following an investigation, the Transportation Department issued its findings.

“During the investigation, sufficient evidence existed, including your own admittance to corroborate that you did indeed use a derogatory term, ‘nigger,’ in the presence of subordinates,” wrote then-school district Transportation Director Lucille Green. “You have failed to meet the performance standards required of your position as Terminal Supervisor… Please be advised that any further failure on your part to perform to the standards… of your job duties will result in further disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment.”

One year later, Murray was elected to the School Board.

So what happened after Bob Norman revealed Ann Murray’s use of racial slurs?

Esteemed local reporter Michael Putney called on Murray to resign.

Then, a local member of the Democratic Black Caucus spoke to Murray. According to the New Times, Murray said, “You all do not know if I have black blood in my family. I cannot make up for what happened 400 years ago. I know that some of you all are just sensitive but I have been called names, whitey and honky. I just brushed it off.“

But the Democrat Party was silent.

Even worse, the members of the Broward School Board did nothing. In 2011, Robin Bartleman, Laurie Rich Levinson, Nora Rupert and Jennifer Gottlieb served with Ann Murray.

ANN MURRAY ENOYS “WHITE PRIVILEGE?”

Flash forward to June 2020. Last week, the Sun-Sentinel reported Ann Murray posted a “white privilege” meme on her personal Facebook page. According to Scott Travis, “About 5:30 p.m. Sunday, Murray’s Facebook page shared a post from another user with the meme, ‘When I was born, they must have ran out of white privilege because I had to work my ass off to get where I am.’” Murray made the incredulous claim that a “hacker” posted the meme on her Facebook account. Ok.

So what do Ann Murray’s fellow Board Members have to say this time?

Radio silence as usual. Except from Rosalind Osgood. She may think Plantation is racist, but Ann Murray is just swell in her book.

From the Sun-Sentinel:

Rosalind Osgood, the only Black member of the Broward School Board, said she didn’t know Murray back when she used the “n-word” but has found her to be supportive of Black children and community members.

Osgood said she was surprised Sunday when she saw the post on Murray’s Facebook page.

“I called Ann and said I was not happy. She said she was hacked,” Osgood said. “I have to go by my interactions and dealings with her and have not found her to be racist, so that’s how I can accept she was hacked.”

And these are the leaders in charge of our children’s education?

But wait, there’s more. Lots more…

Stay tuned.

Defund The Police Organizers Want Fort Lauderdale To “Divest” $10 Million From Police Department

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What will Mayor Dean Trantalis do?

Organizers behind the “Defund The Police” movement want Broward County Commissioners and Fort Lauderdale City Commissioners to “divest” more than ten million dollars from local police budgets. On Monday, Broward Dream Defenders, one of the organizers of a recent Fort Lauderdale protest inspired by the murder of George Floyd, urged its supporters to “#Defund The Police Broward County!” In a Facebook post, the group told supporters to contact Broward County Commissioners ahead of Tuesday’s regularly scheduled meeting.

Broward Dream Defenders wrote, “We are in a moment where cities across the states are taking action and demanding the defunding of police and to reinvest into our communities. We have the chance here in Broward to do the same. Starting today call and tweet your commissioners and signup for public comments….To make the message clear DEFUND FROM POLICE AND FUND THE NEEDS OF OUR COMMUNITIES.”

Supporters were provided with access to a document containing the names and contact info for local elected officials as well as a script with talking points.

The document states the item of interest at Tuesday’s Broward County Commission meeting is a $500,000 grant to the Broward Sheriff’s Office for “racial equity” programs. The programs were announced two weeks ago by Mayor Dale Holness and his ally, the embattled Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony. The document tells supporters to say, “We demand they redirect those funds to people that may be under the threat of eviction when the current moratorium expires.” The group wants Commissioners to give a separate $500,000 to BSO racial equity programs.

Regarding Tuesday’s Fort Lauderdale City Commission meeting, Broward Dream Defenders wants Mayor Dean Trantalis, Commissioner Steven Glassman, Commissioner Ben Sorensen, Commissioner Robert McKinzie and Commissioner Heather Moraitis to “divest 10 million dollars from the police.”

On Wednesday, supporters demand City of Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper and Vice Mayor Sabrina Javellana “permanently disband” the City SWAT team and “reinvest their funds to Black-led community initiatives.” They are also demanding the City of Hallandale reopen the case involving Howard Bowe.

Here’s the phone script:

Hello I am calling because I support Defunding the Police. Police violence is a local and national public health crisis and epidemic. Our demands are:
For this commission to vote at your next meeting to never increase the police budget again.
For this commission to vote at your next meeting to divest money from the police budget and instead invest it in community-led initiatives
For the commission to educate themselves on community-led initiatives like CAHOOTS in Eugene, Oregon.
We want you to meet these demands at your next commission meeting. Thank you!

Here are talking points to be shared at meetings:

Talking Points for Public Comment:
San Francisco Mayor, London Breed, said in the coming month’s police will no longer respond to non-criminal calls. Instead, unarmed professionals will be dispatched citing recent protests for the shifts. We want that here in our local communities as well.


We are in the midst of a pandemic and our communities still need COVID-19 relief. This defunding needs to be reallocated to address emergency needs for our communities.


There is a program called CAHOOTS – Crisis Assistance Helping Out On the Streets in Eugene, Oregon that we want to be implemented locally. Such programs take police out of the equation when someone is going through a mental health crisis, struggling with substance abuse or homelessness. CAHOOTS is a free, 24/7 community service — funded by the city at a cost of around $2 million. Although locally we would need around $10 million dollars to run similar programs in each city in Broward County to account for our populations and the impacts of COVID-19. Under a CAHOOTS model, instead of police, a medic and a mental health worker are dispatched for calls such as welfare checks or potential overdoses. In 2017, such teams answered 17% of the Eugene Police Department’s overall call volume, saving the city on average 8.5 million each year from 2014-2017.


Minneapolis City Council obtained a “veto-proof majority” to dismantle it’s city’s police department and rebuild a new system of public safety. And New York’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, pledged to cut the budget of the largest police department in the US, the NYPDM, and reallocate the funds to social services. We know we can do the same thing here in Broward.


Policing in the South emerged from slave patrols in the 1700s and 1800s that caught and returned runaway slaves. In the North, the first municipal police departments in the mid-1800s helped squash riots against the rich.


When we say Defund the Police we are not abandoning our communities to violence we want to redirect and reallocate those funds to mental health support, health care, housing, making public transportation free, and jobs that pay a livable wage. This is what truly keeps a community safe.


What about robberies and murder?
A significant portion of what we call crime is poverty-related. We need to decriminalize poverty. We want safe communities, of course, however, police have not brought us that safety. There are so many solutions on how to intervene in violence (i.e. through curriculum and community education) however these solutions are usually underfunded and unable to get off the ground.

Will progressive officials like Mayor Dean Trantalis say no to demands to divest $10 million dollars from the Fort Lauderdale Police Department? Stay tuned.