What's In A Dame

Not so sweet news for Taylor

I called Dale Charles, president of the Little Rock branch of the NAACP, last week to discuss a very pressing issue.

Candy.

The NAACP sponsored last Monday's Martin Luther King Jr. Day "Marade" -- the city's 31st annual event honoring the renowned civil rights leader. Its mission, Charles explains: "To recognize the life and the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King. ... To have a national holiday in his honor, hopefully we can get people to at least concentrate on what great, great, contributions, including giving his life, that he gave to America."

But WBC middleweight champion boxer Jermain Taylor who attended the parade concentrated on something else.

"The Martin Luther King Parade. Little kids didn't even have no candy," Taylor complained in the first of a bizarre series of self-produced Facebook videos posted before he turned himself in after bond was revoked for another case (involving the shooting of his cousin in August).

Call it a candy crush saga.

It would seem Taylor had "Mounds" of bigger matters at that time. After all, an altercation at the parade led to his being charged with five counts of aggravated assault, three counts of endangering the welfare of a minor and one count of marijuana possession.

But still his concern was on confections.

"Tell them to get it together. Had my little girl out there. Nobody had no candy," Taylor continued from his platform -- a bathtub. "I think y'all can do better with the parade. So if you're disappointed in me, I'm disappointed in you too, because that's Martin Luther King."

Taylor's candy rant could have left a bitter taste in the NAACP's mouth. After all, Taylor had been honored previously as a parade grand marshal.

Charles maintains that sugar was hardly in short supply at the festivities, describing the MLK parade as a veritable candyland.

"Mayor Stodola had candy that was being passed out," Charles says. "Probably 25 or 30 groups ... had boxes of candy that they were throwing out all along the route. The idea that there was no candy, that is not true. ... Where that idea came from, whoever started that has no idea what they're talking about."

Charles is entirely too professional to name names.

So I do it for him.

Jermain Taylor?

"No disrespect to Jermain, but the first thing he needs to do is get his life in order," Charles says, adding, "because the kind of example he's setting for our children and for this city and for this state, it's embarrassing, it's downright embarrassing. So we're going to pass on whatever Jermain Taylor was saying, OK? Because Jermain has some real issues that he has to get himself together with. Now we can talk about somebody else, but the information that Jermain had was [incorrect].

"Because there were a whole bunch of folks that had -- I saw it myself -- had boxes, I'm not talking about little bitty boxes, I'm talking about huge boxes of candy."

Did it surprise him when he heard Taylor's accusations?

"It did, but see ... I've been a part of every one of those 31 marades, I haven't missed one of them," Charles says. "You learn to hear stuff and don't hear it because I know what the truth is."

To close on a sweeter note, I ask Charles about the candy he ate at the parade.

"No, I've gotten a little too old to be chasing after candy," Charles says.

When he's not being disciplined does Charles have a favorite kind?

"If I had to say, my No. 1 candy bar would have been Almond Joy. No. 2 would have been a Baby Ruth and then a peanut patty."

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What's in a Dame is a weekly report from the woman 'hood.

Style on 01/27/2015

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