Unemployed African-Americans Need to Redefine the Game, Says 'Apprentice'-Winner Pinkett By AMACOM
With the latest Department of Labor statistics indicating 16.1 percent of the black population versus 8.7 percent of the white population face unemployment, "The Apprentice"-winner Randal Pinkett offers clear advice for business success -- stop playing the game and start redefining it.
"African-Americans who cling to strategies that worked in the past, without taking into account how the world is shifting, will likely feel frustrated as they progress at a snail's pace or, worse, lose ground in the future," Pinkett explains. "We must redefine the game now because while we have made tremendous progress, we still face tremendous challenges, and tremendous work remains to be done. Our communities and our country cannot afford to wait."
(1) Establish a strong identity. Leverage your culture and ethnicity as assets, not as liabilities. These characteristics give you a unique competitive advantage, so don't white-wash your resume.
(2) Network and build diverse relationships. Use your membership in professional black organizations to meet people and discover new opportunities.
(3) Seek the wisdom of others. We all know the power of a great mentor and now is the time to take advantage of everything they have to offer.
(4) Become an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship creates wealth, transforms communities, and boosts the wealth of African-Americans as a whole.
(5) Give back generously. As the recession attempts to tear us apart, now is the time for us to give back to one another. Whether with time, talent, or money, we can all make a difference.
As Pinkett asserts, "Black Americans should not focus on winning the game in any arena -- business, professional, social, or political. The ultimate goal is to redefine the game sufficiently to end the game itself."
Author Bios AMACOM is the book publishing division of the American Management Association, a world leader in professional development, advancing the skills of individuals, teams, organizations and government agencies.
Randal Pinkett, Ph.D., coauthor of Black Faces in White Places: 10 Game-Changing Strategies to Achieve Success and Find Greatness, was the winner of season four of The Apprentice and the show's first minority winner. He is the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of BCT Partners, an information technology and management consulting firm. Dr. Pinkett is based in Somerset, New Jersey. For more information please visit www.randalpinkett.com and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter.
Jeffrey Robinson, Ph.D., coauthor of Black Faces in White Places: 10 Game-Changing Strategies to Achieve Success and Find Greatness, is a leading business scholar at Rutgers Business School and lives in Piscataway, New Jersey.
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plez sez: full disclosure - plezWorld received a review copy of the book, "Black Faces in White Places" in exchange for publishing the feature above.
i did receive a complimentary review copy, but i plan to buy at 10 copies for people in my network who i mentor. it is chock full of suggestions and strategies for advancement as a person of color in the corporate arena. this book should be required reading for every black college graduate!
i really connected on a personal level with Randal Pinkett: grew up in a small, predominantly white town in upstate New York, attended a predominantly white university to study engineering, and go to work on a daily basis as one of the few Black faces in the office. his story and game-changing strategies definitely resonated with plezWorld.
Is it me, or does it seem like a fair portion of this homecoming court is not happy?
As my business partner would say, "Whoa, Nelly!" And plezWorld has exclaimed, "What the...!" when the situation warrants... well this is one such situation.
Hampton University, the alma mater of my oldest brother, has taken to a peculiar way of finding the winner of their homecoming queen, Miss HU, she is selected by a panel of judges. It appears that they don't the title to be a mere popularity contest (and judging from the article that follows, the winner participates in the Miss Virginia pageant, so that may play into how they pick the winner, as well).
Well, this year's winner attends a satellite campus of Hampton University in Virginia Beach... and she's not Black! GASP! You see, Hampton University used to be Hampton Institute, a historically Black university (HBCU) that was founded in 1868 for Blacks who had recently been freed from slavery. When the winner of the contest was announced, some people expressed their displeasure by walking out... and I'm sure there were some unsavory comments made as well.
To make matters worse, Nikole Churchill - Miss HU - wrote a letter to a fellow Hawaiian, President Obama, urging him to intervene on her behalf and help the student body learn to embrace diversity at her college. Well, after the letter was sent, she re-thought that approach and apologized to the school... you can't make this stuff up!
The entire Daily Press article about the controversy:
HAMPTON — Miss HU apologized one day after writing a letter to President Barack Obama that said her crowning was not widely accepted on the Hampton University campus because she is not black.
Nikole Churchill, 22, is a student from Hawaii who won the pageant Friday. On Sunday, she asked Obama to help her convince close-minded people on campus to support her title.
She issued a statement about 9 p.m. Monday that said she regrets writing the president and did not intend to bring negative attention to her school.
"I took the comments of a few and blew it out of proportion," Churchill wrote. "In reality, all comments that have been directed toward me and the reception I received at the (HU vs. Howard University football game on Saturday) were genuinely supportive."
Churchill competed against nine other contestants, who were all black, and was selected by a panel of five judges, including two certified by the Miss Virginia pageant, in which Churchill will compete next.
Her crowning was followed by complaints from some students that aside from not being black, she attends the university's 90-student satellite campus in Virginia Beach and doesn't know what real HU life is like.
Churchill issued the apology after meeting with student officials and leaders Monday afternoon to discuss her term as Miss HU, said school spokeswoman Yuri Milligan.
About 110 people attended the meeting, including business management senior Brandon Northington, who is in the student leadership program. He said Churchill, who transferred to HU from Virginia Commonwealth University, was genuinely apologetic.
Northington said she explained that as a newer student, she wasn't familiar with HU protocol and didn't initially realize she overstepped her boundaries by taking her complaint directly to Obama.
"I thought she should have contacted the student government president or even (HU President) Dr. (William) Harvey, not the president of the United States of America," he said. "If there's a problem in the house, a family problem, you keep it in the house. You don't display your dirty laundry for everyone to see."
Student Government Association President Matthew Washington said her approach made HU students seem intolerant, while they really are not. Churchill would easily have found the support she needed to feel more welcome if she contacted him or Harvey, Washington said.
"The feelings of 50 or 70 students don't reflect 5,700 students," he said. "I went to the pageant myself, and she did an excellent job. There may be some students unhappy about it, but she rightfully won her title."
Milligan said Churchill was not granting interviews to the media Tuesday.
Her win came just one week after HU held its 10th annual Mr. Pirate pageant, which is named after the school's mascot. The winner was Jonathan Lee, an accounting senior who is a third black, a third white and a third Asian, said Northington, who is his roommate.
Lee was also selected by a panel of judges.
Northington said Lee's race was not an issue when he won, and that his title was met with complete support because Lee is well-known on campus. He is a member of the Phi Beta Sigma fraternity and on the student leadership council.
The controversy following Churchill's win could have been avoided if she'd reached out to students instead of writing Obama, said Regina Powell, a 1975 HU graduate.
"I'm tired of people saying or doing things and then you come back to apologize," she said. "Think before you act. Barack cannot save everyone. The way she's going to get the students to accept her is to reach out to them."
Washington said Churchill pledged Monday to visit the Hampton campus as often as possible, including at community service and social events where she can connect with students.
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plez sez: i think this situation is referred to as a conundrum. what does an archaic institution (the hbcu in question) do when one of its archaic institutions (homecoming queen contest) is won by an outsider?
hampton university has been around all of 140 years! isn't it about time the school (and its students) embrace this diversity? shouldn't they be happy that a non-traditional student be embraced?
i was a student at georgia tech in the early 80's when its first Black homecoming queen was selected... back then, the student body voted on the winner. and i remember racist comments being made about her. but only two years ago, georgia tech picked another Black homecoming queen... and it wasn't a big deal. the crowd cheered as she was driven around the stadium in the ramblin' wreck.
now, i have to be honest, plezWorld isn't a big fan of hbcu's. not because i feel they are bad schools (because hampton university happens to be a very good college), but because i feel they have served their purpose. until the 1980's, most Black college graduates had matriculated through hbcu's. but i feel that today's college students have many more options and Black colleges and universities are doing themselves a gross disservice by clutching to the vestiges of a bygone era. has racism end? i would reply with a resounding, "HELL NO!" but i feel strongly that institutional racism has become so marginalized as to be largely ineffective.
and don't even get me started on the sexism associated with a homecoming queen contest! once again, this miss homecoming queen is a relic from a time when MOST women did not receive secondary education and the menfolk of the college wanted an attractive and sexy co-ed to parade campus. i would think in 2009, there would be a shortage of young women who would desire to be objectified in such a manner... i guess not! where's the women's lib movement when you need 'em?
The second segment of Sunday's broadcast of NBC's "Meet the Press" was a discussion of race and how Obama's presidency will change the dynamics and dialogue around race in the U.S.
In other news: A woman has been selected to give the inaugural sermon... a first. The Rev. Sharon Watkins will deliver the sermon at the traditional National Prayer Service on January 21, the day after Barack Obama is sworn in as president, the Presidential Inaugural Committee announced Sunday. Watkins is the general minister and president of the 700,000-member church Disciples of Christ. The sermon will take place at the National Cathedral in northwest Washington.
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plez sez: this stimulus plan is a scary proposition... i'm glad that we'll have Obama at the helm while it is being worked out. we are looking at adding one to two trillion dollars to the deficit. this thing will not work if it is assembled and slammed down the throats of the US if done in a similar manner of
my oldest and dearest aunt passed away on sunday morning, my mother called alittle after 6:30 AM with the news. my mother's family grew up on a small 100-acre farm in the heart of tobacco country in north carolina. my aunt was the third oldest of 11 children, my mother was the youngest. my aunt was born in 1914 and made her way up to new york city in the early 1930's to get married. after her husband retired, they moved back down to north carolina and built a modest brick home on a tract of land on that same farm where she grew up.
she saw more than most people would like: depression, racism, despair, and loneliness (her husband departed this life back in the mid-1980's).
she was my favorite aunt. while growing up in new york, we would frequently go to her house in queens for dinner after attending church on sunday. she was at all of our birthday parties, family reunions, church events, and anything else that involved our family.
my last conversation with my aunt was just before the general election. i called her on the phone and we talked about voting for BARACK OBAMA. in her 90-plus years, she was still awe-struck that we could be so close to electing the first Black president. she couldn't get around too good, but she assured me that wild horses couldn't keep her from having her nurse take her down to the polls to vote (as she had done during the primaries).
the rest is history. sadly, a chapter in the colorful history of plezWorld closed on sunday morning... but we'll all look to the heavens on next tuesday and thank the Lord for the opportunity to witness the inauguration of our nation's promise.
Steven Teles of Maryland and Glenn Loury of Brown University discuss the dynamics of intellectualism now that Barack Obama has been elected the first Black President of the United States.
Steven Teles is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at the University of Maryland. He has taught or visited at Brandeis, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, University of London, Boston University, Holy Cross and Hamilton Colleges. Mr. Teles holds a B.A. from George Washington University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia.
Glenn C. Loury is the Merton P. Stoltz Professor of the Social Sciences and Professor of Economics at Brown University. He has taught previously at Boston, Harvard and Northwestern Universities, and the University of Michigan. Mr. Loury holds a B.A. in Mathematics (Northwestern University) and a Ph.D. in Economics (MIT). In addition to this scholarly work, Professor Loury is also a prominent social critic and public intellectual.
plez sez: another gem gleaned from the archives of Bloggingheads.tv!
these guys have more letters after their names than plezWorld, but it was a delight to be in the company of such an intellectual discussion about how the "prevailing thought" will be altered with rise of Barack Obama (an intellectual, himself).
on christmas day, i had occassion to carry on a similar discussion about the impact of Obama on the Black community and Black thought and Black mores, now that there will be a Black man sitting in the white house in a few weeks. it was a post-dinner talk with one of my brothers and two male cousins. although, no clear conclusions were drawn, we did agree that the Black community has reached a point of "moral bankruptcy" and Obama can stand as an "excellent example" for what the Black community and Black family should strive to emulate.
A few days ago was "Blog for Justice Day" in the AfroSpear; ever so often a group of Black bloggers will take up a cause and blog about it on a specific day. This week's Cause Celeb had to deal with the rash of deaths of Black men at the hands of police officers wielding Tasers. plezWorld happened to beat the rush by blogging about the Baron "Scooter" Pikes Taser Death a few days earlier.
While perusing the member sites, I came across a blog entry that was well-written, hard hitting, introspective... and just too damn good to pass up! After requesting and receiving permission from The Republic of T., I am pleased to present the latest in the long line a guest bloggers in plezWorld.
Held Suspect By Terrance of The Republic of T. July 31, 2008
I don’t remember how old I was the first time it happened. I couldn’t have been more than ten years old. We were in Philadelphia — my mother, my younger sister, and I — visiting my great grandfather on my mother’s side of the family. For my sister and me, it was our first time traveling that far from home, and our first time in a city like Philadelphia. Everything amazed us, from the size of the buildings, downtown to the narrow little houses on my great great-grandfather’s street, with no yards to speak of and no space between them; so different from our suburban home back in Augusta, GA.
Even going shopping was different. Instead of driving to the store, my mom pushed her grandfather’s folding cart a few blocks to a store a few blocks away, and we followed her. The store was a wonder unto itself; on the outside a rowhouse like the one my great grandfather lived in, but on the inside there were long, narrow shelves holding food, toys, and other items we’d never seen before.
Our mother had told us time and time again not to touch anything whenever we went shopping, but we couldn’t help it this time. We picked up toys and candy and other items, exclaiming to each other to “come look at this.” Until it happened.
I heard the shopkeeper before I saw her.
“Put that back!” a female voice shouted. “What are you doing in here?! You better not take anything, ’cause I’m watching you.” I looked up and into the anger-twisted face of a large, angry white woman.
We too much in shock and too frightened to say anything. I don’t remember what else she said, but I’m pretty sure she called us theives and threatened to call the police. I looked around for out mother, who hadn’t realized that we were no longer behind her. I didn’t see her for a moment, and then she appeared, no doubt drawn back to the front of the store by the commotion. She flashed us a look, and apologized to the shopkeeper (who was still giving us an angry look as we left the store with our purchases). It wasn’t until we ere out of the store that our mother explained.
The shopkeeper thought that we were stealing from her store. We didn’t understand until mom made it clear: the shopkeeper assumed because we were two black children we were going to steal from her store, and that’s why she treated us like criminals.
It was a lesson I never forgot, and one that’s been repeated throughout my life. I thought about that first time when I read this article from CNN’s Black in America series, about how being black automatically means being suspect.
For Anthony Williams, being black in America means being a suspect.
The 39-year-old former Marine said he’s never had any trouble with the law, other than a few traffic violations, and leads a middle-class life in the Atlanta, Georgia, area.
But the AT&T customer care representative said he still gets nervous when he hears that police are looking for a 6-foot-tall black man, “because I know I fit that description.”
“I worry I will get pulled over and some police officer decides to shoot first and ask questions later,” Williams wrote.
Police recently questioned him in his own driveway after getting complaints that a man was walking in neighbors’ yards, Williams said. iReport.com: Tell us what you thought of “Black in America.”
“You never know what to expect when you get pulled over by police, and that’s how it is when you’re black,” he said.
ii
I fit the description then, and I’ve fit the description since. The next time I can remember is when I was in college. I was walking back from class, on my way to the dining hall for dinner, dressed like most of my friends dressed on our predominantly white campus, in torn jean and a t-shirt. I was halfway across the parking lot of one of residence halls when it happened.
I’d seen the police car when I was waiting to cross the street. I didn’t give it much thought, because I wasn’t doing anything. But the officers had paid a lot more attention to me than I had to them. They turned into the parking lot, and stopped right in front of me as I walked across.
One of the officers got out of the car and began asking me questions. Was I a student? Where was I going? Where was I coming from? Could I show him my student I.D.? I did, and he told me that there had been some cars broken into in that lot, and some break-ins at the nearby dorms, and that I fit the description of someone seen in the area around the time of the earlier crimes. And then more questions. Did I know anything about the robberies? Did I know who might be responsible? Did I walk through that lot every day? (Not after that day, I didn’t.)
Eventually, the officer finished his questions and let me walk away. They sat parked in the car as I went on. Keeping an eye on me, I’m sure. I thought about how differently that situation might have ended, because I knew even then the truth in what Anthony Williams said: “You never know what to expect when you get pulled over by the police, and that’s how it is when you’re black.” This was before the Amadou Diallo shooting, before Malice Green, and before Abner Louima. But being from the south, I heard stories, and I knew that I couldn’t completely trust the police, even if I’d done nothing wrong; not so much because of the police a whole, but because I didn’t know who — what kind of person — was behind the uniform, and what they might project upon me as a black man. I’d been trained without even know it on how to respond to the police; saying “Yes, officer,” and “No, officer,” and offering only the information that was requested, and then only if they had a right to ask for it and I didn’t have a right refuse. Ask the questions I had a right to ask, but never show anger or disrespect, even if they do.
iii
I knew even though it was years before my father tried to tell me what law enforcement might both projected upon me and then respond to whether I reflected it back to them or not.
I was in college at the time. I’d been home for a weekend visit, and was heading back to school — at the University of Georgia, in Athens, GA. As I made several trips back and forth, loading up the car, my dad sat on the couch, watching television. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I caught my dad looking at me with what appeared to be concern, as though he was trying to decide whether to say something to me about it.
Finally, I finished loading the car, and said my goodbyes. But my dad stopped me before I could make it out the door and finally spoke his concern.
“Son,” he asked, “is that what you’re wearing to drive back to Athens?”
I was wearing my basic school “uniform” at that time: a ripped pair of old, faded jeans, and a old t-shirt.
“Um, yeah,” I said.
My dad then breathed a sigh that seemed a mix of resignation, exasperation, and trepidation over what he was about to tell me — what he had to tell me, really.
“Son,” he said, “You are going to be driving through a lot of southern counties. Now, I’m not saying you’re going to do anything wrong. But you are a young black man, and if you get pulled over by one of these southern sheriffs or policemen, they are going to take one look at you and get the wrong idea. They’re not going to treat you like they would a white boy dressed like that.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to argue with him, and say that stuff like that may have happened when he was my age, but it certainly didn’t happen anymore. Instead, I unpacked some clothes, and changed into a pair of khakis and a buttoned-down oxford, which met with dad’s approval.
I was still thinking about my dad’s words when I got back to UGA. After unloading the car and carrying everything up to my room, I turned on the television. At some point, the news came on and I saw this.
“This” was the Rodney King beating.
Since then there has been Sean Bell. There has been Kathryn Johnston. There has been Robert Davis.
There has been Jessie Lee Williams. There has been Albert Mosley. There has been Anthony Carty. There has been the Jena Six.There have been many.
And now, half a year after his death, there is Baron Pikes.
Baron “Scooter” Pikes, a 21-year-old sawmill worker, had tried to run from police in Winnfield, Louisiana, when they tried to arrest him on an outstanding warrant for cocaine possession.
But a coroner’s report found Pikes had been handcuffed and on the ground when first hit with the Taser and might have been dead before the last two shocks from the 50,000-volt device were delivered.
...In the year since Winnfield police received Tasers, officers have used them 14 times, according to police records — with 12 of the instances involving black suspects. Ten of the 14 incidents involved Nugent, who had no public disciplinary record.
Police said Pikes told officers he suffered from asthma and had been using PCP and crack cocaine.
But Dr. Randolph Williams, the Winn Parish medical examiner, said he found no sign of drug use in the autopsy and no record of asthma in Pikes’ medical history.
And for every Baron Pikes there are hundreds, even thousand of men like Michael Tillman.
Michael Tillman was 20, with a 3-year-old daughter and an infant son, when he was brought into the Area 2 police station on Chicago’s South Side for questioning. His mother, Jean Tillman, says that although he had gotten into some trouble with the law as a youngster, he had been on the straight-and-narrow, working as a janitor and paying his bills, since he and his girlfriend had their first child. That was July 22, 1986.
He hasn’t been home since.
Tillman is one of at least 24 African-American men that the People’s Law Office in Chicago claims are still serving sentences for crimes they say they confessed to only after enduring hours of torture at the hands of Chicago police officers under Commander Jon Burge between 1972 and 1992. Although 10 of Burge’s victims have been pardoned or given new trials after their illegally obtained confessions were exposed, the vast majority of the 100-plus cases have yet to be reviewed by the state of Illinois. Those men have either served out their sentences, died in custody or, like Tillman, continue to live their lives behind bars, hoping that one day they will have a fair trial.
According to Tillman’s 1986 trial testimony, when he arrived at the Area 2 police station in the predawn hours of July 21, 1986, Detectives Ronald Boffo and Peter Dignan took him to a second-floor interrogation room and pressed him for information about the murder of 42-year-old Betty Howard, whose body was found the day prior in the apartment building Tillman oversaw. When he told the detectives that he knew nothing about the murder, he says that Boffo and Dignan, along with three other officers, became abusive. Without ever reading him his Miranda rights, he says they handcuffed him to the wall, hit him in the face and punched him in the stomach until he vomited blood. During the course of what appeared to be three days, rotating pairs of officers brought him to the railroad tracks behind the station and held a gun to his head, suffocated him repeatedly with thick plastic bags, poured soda up his nose and forced him into Dumpsters outside of the apartment building, ordering him to search through the rubbish for a murder weapon until, according to Detective John Yucaitis, Tillman confessed to the crime.
According to Tillman’s mother, she, her husband and an attorney they called for counsel were all denied access to her son during his three days of interrogation.
There will be more.
How can there not be? A black man reporting on crime is held suspect.
THE police officer had not asked my name or my business before grabbing my wrists, jerking my hands high behind my back and slamming my head into the hood of his cruiser.
“You have no right to put your hands on me!” I shouted lamely.
“This is a high-crime area,” said the officer as he expertly handcuffed me. “You were loitering. We have ordinances against loitering.”
Last month, while talking to a group of young black men standing on a sidewalk in Salisbury, N.C., about harsh antigang law enforcement tactics some states are using, I had discovered the main challenge to such measures: the police have great difficulty determining who is, and who is not, a gangster.
My reporting, however, was going well. I had gone to Salisbury to find someone who had firsthand experience with North Carolina’s tough antigang stance, and I had found that someone: me.
A black woman with a big purse can’t even go shopping. (Or, to quote EnVogue, “can’t look without being watched.”)
About ten minutes into my search for the perfect boot my sister comes to me and says that she has to go to the restroom. I told her okay and that I’d watch Erica. By then I had zoned in on a pair of 9 ½ red Kenneth Cole boots and was searching for an employee to get the left shoe so I could try them both on. I told Erica that “Big TT” needed her fashion advice while “Little TT” handled her business.
So while Erica and I weighing the pros and cons of the red Kenneth Cole boot my sister comes running up to me looking both very frantic, frustrated, and upset. She says that we need to go and that I shouldn’t spend my money here.
Now my sister Jorjanna is the sweetest person, aside from my Grandmother that I know, maybe almost to a fault. She’s always cheerful and happy, yeah, nothing like her big sister, lol. So for me to see her so upset I wanted to know why.
She said that she didn’t think anything of it at first but that when we separated and were looking at shoes on our own, that she was asked more than four times by various employees if she needed help, to which she politely replied no. However, when she went to the back of the store to use the public restroom, one of the employees came in after her and my sister overheard the tail end of a conversation on a walkie-talking wherein the employee said “Who? The Black girl that just went into the restroom,” before realizing that my sister heard her. When my sister finished in the restroom, she came out and realized that she forgot to put on her lipgloss and as she reached in her purse and turned around to go back into the restroom the same employee who just asked if she needed any help accosted her yet again. By then, my sister said she got it and she quickly made her way back to where my niece and I were.
While my sister is telling me what happened three of the employees were standing a few feet away watching her. This angered her and so my sister said, “Yeah, I’m talking about you.”
To media figures like Ann Coulter, Toby Keith and Bill O’Reilly, even lynching is a joke. And for all of the above and more, cotton-picking black folks should be grateful.
Meanwhile, the KKK distributes fliers in Virginia, claiming residents requested information; students at a New Jersey middle school are assigned a project defending slavery; the vice president relaxes at a hunting lodge that flies the confederate battle flag; nooses start appearing at various college campuses, and even re-appear in Jena, LA, and the discussion ends up being about whether hanging nooses is just a prank; an all-white panel of journalists debates whether Barrack Obama is black enough.
Is it any wonder that racism literally makes us sick? (And when it does, we get substandard treatment?)
iv
Years after that conversation with my dad, I was held suspect again, in another police encounter that could easily have gone south.
Several years later, I was living in Washington, D.C., and found myself driving home late one night. I was giving a fraternity brother of mine, also a black male, a ride home after a late night fraternity event. My car wasn’t in the greatest shape. I’d been in a traffic accident just a few days before, and hadn’t taken it to be repaired because I needed to drive it that weekend.
We were driving past the Capitol when we got pulled over. I saw the flashing lights, and as soon as I heard the siren I pulled over. By then, I knew the drill. Don’t argue with the officers. Don’t get out of the car unless they tell you to. Get out of the car if they tell you to. Answer any questions with “Yes, officer,” or “No, officer,” give them any information they ask for, and maybe — just maybe — you won’t have any trouble. Still, what happened then was a bit surreal.
As the officer came up to my window, I said a silent prayer that my fraternity brother — Neal, who was known for having a sharp tongue and a willingness let it loose — would keep cool. The officer asked for my license and registration. She asked if I knew why she stopped me, and I said no. She said it was because one of my tail lights wasn’t working, and agreed with me when I said it was probably a result of the accident I had a few days earlier. She seemed to believe me when I told her I didn’t know about the tail light.
I thought maybe she’d give me a ticket or a warning, and give my documents back to me. Instead, she walked back to her car and got on her radio. I wasn’t worried, because it wasn’t like I had an outstanding warrant or anything more than a couple of unpaid parking tickets. But while she was in her car, another police car pulled up, and two more officers got out.
In my rear view mirror, I saw the officer who stopped us get back out of her car, at the same time that I saw yet another police car pull up. At this point, I started to get nervous — after all there we were, two black males, driving through D.C. at 4 a.m., in a banged up car, with the police units and six police officers now at the scene. Depending on any number of factors, including what we said or did, it might not matter if we’d done anything wrong.
“Is this your vehicle?” the officer asked me when she arrived back at my window. “We’ve had some car thefts reported in this area.”
I assured her that it was my car, and she stepped away for a moment to confer with one of the other officers now milling about the scene. At that moment, a police van showed up, and stopped alongside the passenger side of the car. Neal, who hadn’t said a word up to this point, looked at the van, looked at me and just said “What the…”
I finished his sentence silently, in my mind.
The officer, at this point, was back at my window. “Sir,” she asked me, “do you have the title to the vehicle.”
How many people keep the title to their car in the car itself? I didn’t know, but I knew that I did have the title in the car. I knew just where it was. It was in my briefcase, which was in the trunk of the car. I knew that in order to retrieve the title, I’d have to get out of the car — and with at least eight officers now pretty much surrounding us — walk over to the back of the car, open the trunk, open the briefcase, and retrieve the title.
What if, I thought, just one of these officers thought I was reaching for a gun at any point in that series of steps? That I had no gun — had never even owned one, in fact — was and would have been meaningless in that moment. It wouldn’t have mattered.
...I told the officer that I had the title, and that it was in my briefcase, in the trunk of the car. I told her I’d have to get out of the car, open the trunk, and open the briefcase to get the title out and show it to her. She gave me the go ahead, and I walked around to the back of the car, opened the trunk, opened the briefcase, and got the title. I don’t remember if the officer followed me, and I didn’t look to see if any of the officers had their hands on their weapons. I couldn’t.
I showed the officer the title. She looked it over, handed it back to me, and told me to get back in the car. The van drove away, and one of other police cars drove away. Finally, the officer came back to my window.
“I’m giving you a warning,” she said. “You take him home, get yourself home, and then I don’t want to see you driving this car again in this condition.”
I assured her that she wouldn’t.
“Alright,” she said. “Have a good one.”
I rolled up my window, and started the engine. To this day, I am eternally grateful that Neal waited until the windows were rolled up and we were driving away from the police officers to exclaim — well out of their earshot — “Have a good one? F___ you!”
I laughed, out of sheer relief, but I understood that there was a moment back there when we could have been “another Rodney King.” We could have been “another Malice Green.” We could have been Amadou Diallo, or even Abner Louima.
v
Almost thirty years after that trip to Philadelphia, and my first experience of being held suspect because of my race, I am a father to two sons, who will grow up to be black men in the same world that I did; a world that has changed very much, and very little since then. The youngest is seven months, and it will be a few years before he knows anything about the notion of — or the implications of — race. My oldest on the other hand, is five (or five-and-three-quarters, as he tells anyone who asks), and the day is approaching faster than I’d like to think when I will have to find a way to tell him what I’ve experience, in a way that may help him avoid some of what I’ve experience, but that doesn’t chip away the confidence that makes me smile with a fatherly pride I understand better now than I did when I saw the same in my dad.
Part of me must learn to see them — however much it pains me — not with a father’s eyes, but as my father saw me in that moment before I drove back to school, with the eyes of the rest of the world. It’s necessary, in order to spare them pain, to somehow let them know that there are people in the world who will not see them as I see them. There are people who will see them and not see their intelligence, the loving home and family they came from, their potential or their personhood. There are people who will project upon them what they believe about black men, and about black people, and respond to that even if that’s not who my sons are, even though I will teach them that they do not need to reflect back all that’s projected upon them. And some of those people will be in uniform.
I will have to teach them something else that my parents taught me, which Michael Eric Dyson articulated commentary written for the CNN series, about himself and his brother.
And he is not alone. There are thousands of black men who are rotting in jail cells who have done nothing to merit incarceration. And even when they get in trouble, a great number of black men go to prison for nonviolent drug offenses. Often, crippling racial profiling and suspicion of black men put them on a path to prison, while white males who commit similar offenses are arrested and convicted in far smaller numbers.
The point is not affirmative action for black thugs. The point is that white males often get second, third and fourth chances for reform — either because they weren’t suspected to begin with, or they are given far lighter sentences and far more favorable treatment — while black males are severely punished for even relatively small infractions.
Even though I grew up in an integrated neighborhood, went to an integrated school, my parents made sure I understood that I couldn’t do everything some of my friends might do, and expect the same treatment if I got into trouble. It’s a knowledge that probably kept me out of trouble, because it made me think twice about going along on what might be considered a “youthful prank” for my friends, but would be treated much differently in my case.
In college, I had a white roommate who had what you might call an “all-American” look (which meant, and often still means white, preferably blond and blue-eyed). His father was a bank president back in his hometown, so he came from a well-off, well-connected family. He drove around in a 1968 red Mustang convertible, dressed fashionably, and always had money. We became friends, but I was selective about where I went and what I did with him.
It snowed at the beginning of winter semester that year, and in Georgia that meant that classes were canceled for as long as the snow remained on the ground. By the second day, my roommate was board and decided to visit friends in Atlanta. He invited me to go along, but I declined, deciding that I’d probably end up over-extended financially if I made that trip, and if I ended up not having a good time I’d be stuck until he decided to head back.
The next day, I got a phone call from someone looking for him. It was from a bonding agency. It took a moment for me to realize what that meant, and I asked if he was in any trouble. The woman on the phone just said, “I’m sure he’ll tell you when you see him.”
He did.
Apparently, while in Atlanta my roommate had attempted to shoplift over $1000 in clothing from a major department store. Through tears he told me about being arrested, handcuffed, and locked in a cell with some “awful people,” until his parents bailed him out. While I listened to him, I quietly considered that those “awful people” who were his cell-mates for a few hours probably looked a lot more like me than like him, and if I’d gone along for the trip and gotten arrested with him my folks could not have bailed me out quite so easily or quickly, if at all.
Fast-forward a bit, and his parents hired the best, and most well-connected lawyer their money and could buy — and their connections could get them access to — to deal with my roommates impending court date. The court date came, and the sentence was community service. I don’t remember what the community service was, but at some point my roommate felt like venting and complained to me about it. I listened quietly, again, but with a bit more anger, because I knew that if I were in his shoes not only would I not have been bailed out, but there would be no well-connected lawyer, and almost certainly no sentence of community service.
I knew what my parents had taught me, that I can’t do everything my friends do and get away with it. Or, more bluntly, I can’t do what a white boy like my roommate might do, and expected to get treated as a white boy like my roommate got treated. If I got caught, my story would have quite a different ending. I had to know that, I guess, in order to have the future my parents wanted for me.
vi
I took my five-year-old to see a movie a few weeks ago; one he’d been asking to see for weeks prior. As we were settling into our seats, the previews began, and one of them was the preview for The Express about Ernie Davis — the first African American to win the Heisman trophy — and his experience with racism during a trip south to play in the Cotton Bowl. I squirmed in my seat, realizing that up to that point, the history of segregation and the struggle against it had not yet been part of my son’s education, which focused more on basic things like learning the alphabet, learning to count, etc. As we watched the preview, which spelled out the central conflict in the movie, without making it too explicit, I wondered how much he absorbed, and what he thought about it. Yet, I couldn’t bring myself to discuss it with him afterwards. Not yet, I thought, let him be a child a little longer.
And later, at home, we watched “Barney,” a show he has since declared himself to have outgrown. The episode explored the roles of various people in the community — teachers, doctors, fire fighters, and police officers — and the refrain sung for each job was “the (fill in the blank) is a friend of mine.”
When he asked us what the police officer’s job is, we answered that the police officers are there to keep people safe. And they are. But I know that at some point both he and our youngest son will have to understand that there are some people who will hold them suspect because of their race, and that some of those people will wear police uniforms, and will be armed with batons, guns, tasers, and more. And they will have to know — and know at a young age, as I learned on that trip to Philadelphia long ago – how to carry themselves in a way that that may be less likely to cause an encounter to end badly, or tragically, when or if they are held suspect.
Perhaps they will have to learn to hold others suspect, and potentially guilty of holding them suspect, until proven innocent. Part of me knows they will, and the part of me that is their father dreads it. Because it will mean the death of at least a small part of the innocence they have a right to hold on to for a bit longer, though they really can’t afford to.
On January 12th, Baron "Scooter" Pikes, a 21-year-old sawmill worker, tried to run from police in Winnfield, Louisiana, when they attempted to arrest him on an outstanding warrant for cocaine possession. Winnfield police officer Scott Nugent ran Scooter down. Nugent fired his Taser at Pikes six times in less than three minutes -- shots recorded by a computer chip in the weapon's handle -- in an effort to subdue him. He was handcuffed and then officers put Pikes in the back of a cruiser and drove him to their police station -- where Nugent fired a seventh shot, directly against Pikes' chest.
After the seventh shot, he was dragged out of the car onto the concrete, where he was shocked two more times. When Officer Nugent was finished with him, Scooter was dead... after being Tasered nine times.
A coroner's report found that Scooter had been handcuffed and on the ground when he was first hit with the Taser and might have been dead after the seventh shock from the 50,000-volt device was delivered. The coroner believes that he was shocked two more times after he was dead.
On August 12th, a Louisiana grand jury will convene to decide whether fired Officer Nugent should face criminal charges in the January death of Scooter Pikes, who was Tasered nine times while handcuffed, the parish's district attorney announced Monday.
Winnfield police officers have had Tasers for one year and officers have used them 14 times, according to police records - with 12 of the instances involving black suspects. Ten of the 14 incidents involved Officer Nugent. Officer Nugent is white; Scooter Pikes was black.
How Tasers Work:
The Taser is a conducted electrical weapon developed and manufactured by Taser International, Inc. (Scottsdale, AZ) since the 1970's. Conducted electrical weapons are less than lethal weapons used by thousands of law enforcement agencies in the US. More than 120,000 private US citizens carry a Taser for personal protection. The Taser delivers an electrical pulse, resulting in tetanus like muscle contractions, and sudden death has been associated with its use.
How does it work? The Taser is a weapon powered by 8 AA nickel metal hydride batteries. When the operator fires the device from a distance of as much as 7 meters (21 feet), 2 9-mm barbs (#8 fishhook), attached to the Taser gun by copper wires are discharged. The barbs may hook the skin, but more often the clothing and the electrical impulse can be delivered through 2 inches of clothing. Once contact is made, an electrical pulse (up to 50,000 volts) is discharged for 5 seconds which incapacitates the subject. More electricity is released as the trigger is pulled again.
Voltage is energy potential, but it isn't voltage that poses danger - it is electrical current expressed in amps (amperes). The average current of the Taser is 2 amps (maximum US household current is 240 amps and the threshold for ventricular arrythmias is 50-100 amps).
Estimates of 170 deaths since 1999 have been attributed to Taser use, and while intuitively the thinking may be that the cause is cardiac arrythmias, that does not pan out. While Tasers have been tested on volunteer subjects, those subjects are "healthy workers" and are subjected to one 5 second electrical pulse. The population being subdued by the police may be intoxicated or in a stated of excited delirium - i.e. violent and aggressive.
The American College of Physicians (ACEP) recommends that agitated subjects be brought to the ED for medical evaluation and supportive care. If subjects are intoxicated (alcohol, cocaine, PCP, methamphetamine) or agitated due to psychosis or other unknown reasons, they may be hyperthermic, tachycardic and dehydrated. Supportive medical care - with sedation and intravenous fluids -may prevent death in police custody in these cases. Laboratory studies for drug and alcohol levels and other abnormalities can be done and treated.
Read the CNN.com article on Taser death of Baron "Scooter" Pikes here and here.
plez sez: hopefully, justice will be served. nothing can be done to bring Scotter back to his family, but it is every hope that mr. nugent pays for the torture and murder of mr. pikes.
by all accounts, the taser is effective in disabling a person with one or two shocks. if mr. pikes was already handcuffed and on the ground prior to the first shock, this case borders on calls for charges of torture, indifference to life, first degree murder, hate crime, and any other fancy legal term that can be culled. this may be premature and i'm usually not one to ask for harm to come to people, but this sounds like a capital offense by a racist and sadistic individual who obviously enjoyed the thrill of shocking Black people.
i wouldn't be opposed if the DA went for the death penalty... of course, in the electric chair!
Over the past six months, race relations and attitudes towards race in the US has been front and center with the candidacy of the presumptive Democratic Party nominee Sen. Barack H. Obama, the first Black American to head a major party's ticket in the country's 232 year history. From comfortable wins in states like Iowa, North Dakota, and Montana that have few Black voters; to close losses in states like Indiana, Pennsylvania, and California that have sizable Black numbers; to big wins in states that have large numbers of Blacks; to apparent race-based losses in states like Kentucky and West Virginia, this country has run the gamut in support (and lack in support) of Sen. Obama.
The Washington Post released the results of a new Washington Post-ABC News poll (published June 18, 2008) that shows the attitudes towards on race in the United States. The poll shows that 3 in 10 of all Americans admit to at least some racial bias. Overall, 51 percent call the current state of race relations "excellent" or "good." More than six in 10 African Americans now rate race relations as "not so good" or "poor," while 53 percent of whites hold more positive views. Opinions are also divided along racial lines, though less so, on whether blacks face discrimination. There is more similarity on feelings of personal racial prejudice: 30 percent of whites and 34 percent of blacks admit such sentiments.
At the same time, there is an overwhelming public openness to the idea of electing an African American to the presidency. In a Washington Post-ABC News poll last month, nearly nine in 10 whites said they would be comfortable with a black president. While fewer whites, about two-thirds, said they would be "entirely comfortable" with it, that was more than double the percentage of all adults who said they would be so at ease with someone entering office for the first time at age 72, which McCain (R-Ariz.) would do should he prevail in November.
Read the entire Washington Post article about race here.
plez sez: in this past, i recently wrote about what i saw as the unintended consequences of an Obama presidency in terms of its affect on affirmative action in america. another unintended consequence may be the eventual post-racialism in this country. John McWhorter writes eloquently of how little racism affects america on a day-to-day basis, could it be that a President Obama will finally throw that last shovels full of dirt on the casket of racism?
there will always be those who see black and brown skin as inferior - hell, there are those in the Black community who view darker skin as inferior - but this election may give america its first opportunity to see past race. the poll results show that 30 percent of all americans have some racial bias, but more than 50 percent are comfortable with a Black president. when this country doesn't slide into a moral abyss after Obama's inauguration and when he begins to actually accomplish something during his presidency, we may see these numbers improve dramatically. racism is a sickness of ignorance (demographically, Obama does better with better educated white folk). maybe even a sizable portion of whites who only know Black people from what they see on the evening news will come to see the folly of their racial bias.
on the flip side, i'm in Michelle Obama's camp on this one: this election cycle has for the first time in my adult life given me reason to be truly proud of this country! Barack Obama's candidacy has completely re-written my thoughts on race relations in this country. plezWorld has an Obama '08 bumper sticker on the SUV, i received it from two white Obama campaigners who were eating in a restaurant in my neighborhood; they were returning to Atlanta from the South Carolina primaries that weekend. when i went canvassing on Super Tuesday, my riding partner was an older white lady, Dreaming Bear, from the north georgia mountains who had made the two hour drive to South DeKalb to canvass for Obama!
There was a frenzy of activity as the results of the South Dakota primary rolled across the big screen television. WHOOPS & CHEERS were heard throughout.
At approximately 10:00 PM EST on Tuesday, June 3, 2008, Senator Barack Obama became the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. Forty-something years after the Civil Rights Movement limped into obscurity following the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., a Black man stands at the cusp of acquiring the highest office in the land: President of the United States.
Along with the nomination and hopeful win in November, the nation's Black and brown and underrepresented masses look wishfully to a Washington, DC that will wipe away three centuries of second class status, fifty years of hard fought civil rights, and sixteen months of raucous (and at times, acrimonious) campaigning for the presidency. But what changes can Black America expect?
The United States is structured such that the Chief Executive of the US has NO dominion over the state courts that imprison Black men at alarming rates, the President has no province over state and local school boards who consistently provide substandard education to the those who live in urban and depressed public school systems, the Commander in Chief has no control over the state and local police that will suppress the rights of those without a voice. The war on drugs has been a dismal failure since first uttered by Ronald Reagan those twenty-something years ago, so drug-infested, economically depressed Black neighborhoods can expect few changes to their condition.
Many Black people have expressed the joy in seeing a Black man ascend to such a lofty mantle in their lifetimes, but also see it as a signal that times are quickly changing. Blacks will no longer be able to use being Black as an excuse for their condition. Kwabena Sam-Brew of Minnesota was interviewed after the Obama win, "We as black people now have hope that we have never, ever had. I have new goals for my little girl. She can't give me any excuses because she's black."
This joy and hope of Black also carries with it an unintended consequence of an Obama presidency: the end of affirmative action as we know it!
Affirmative action foes are licking their chops in anticipation: how can this country continue to offer preferential treatment to a minority group who has one of its members sitting in the Oval Office? Ward Connerly, a conservative crusader against affirmative action - policies that favor specific groups - and chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute, tipped his hand when interviewed after Obama received the necessary delegate votes to become the Democratic party's presidential nominee:
"[...watched a replay of Obama's victory] and I choked up. He did it by his own achievement. Nobody gave it to him. The entire argument for race preferences is that society is institutionally racist and institutionally sexist, and you need affirmative action to level the playing field. The historic success of Senator Obama, as well as Senator Clinton, dismantles that argument."
Connerly expressed hope that Obama's rise would help his own efforts to end affirmative action on the basis of race.
One step further, John McWhorter, of the New York Sun believes that Obama's win shows that racism in this country is in retreat. Although, racism does exist, he opines that its practitioners are few and the effects on Blacks is minuscule. Excerpts of his New York Sun article "Racism in Retreat" follows:
Well, here we are. Are there some bigots? Of course. Did they, or any purported instance of "racism" during the campaign, keep Barack Obama from the nomination?
His victory demonstrates the main platform of my race writing. The guiding question in everything I have ever written on race is: Why do so many people exaggerate about racism?
This exaggeration is a nasty hangover from the sixties, and the place it has taken as a purported badge of intellectual and moral gravitas is a tire-block on coherent, constructive sociopolitical discussion.
Note that I did not say that there was no racism. There seems to be an assumption that when discussing racism, it is a sign of higher wisdom to neglect the issue of its degree. This assumption is neither logical nor productive. I reject it, and am pleased to see increasing numbers of black people doing same.
Of course there is racism. The question is whether there is enough to matter. All evidence shows that there is not. No, the number of black men in prison is not counterevidence: black legislators were solidly behind the laws penalizing possession of crack more heavily than powder.
In any case, to insist that we are hamstrung until every vestige of racism, bias, or inequity is gone indicates a grievous lack of confidence, which I hope any person of any history would reject.
Yet every time some stupid thing happens — some comedian says a word, some sniggering blockhead hangs a little noose, some study shows that white people tend to get slightly better car loans — we are taught that racism is still mother's milk in the U.S. of A. "Always just beneath the surface."
Barack Obama's success is the most powerful argument against this way of thinking in the entire four decades since recreational underdoggism was mistaken as deep thought. A black man clinching the Democratic presidential nomination — and rather easily at that — indicates that racism is a lot further "beneath the surface" than it used to be.
And if Mr. Obama ends up in the White House, then it might be time to admit that racism is less beneath the surface than all but fossilized.
Lastly, one need look no farther than Barack Obama to see hints of how he sees a significant shift in affirmative action in the US. When asked about how his daughters should be viewed when they are seeking admission to college, he said that his daughters, "...should probably be treated by any admissions officer as folks who are pretty advantaged. I think that we should take into account white kids who have been disadvantaged and have grown up in poverty and shown themselves to have what it takes to succeed."
Obama goes on to clarify his position on the matter, saying that affirmative action should combine both race-based and class-based preferences. He said, "I don't think those concepts are mutually exclusive. I think what one can say is that in our society race and class still intersect, and there are a lot of African American kids who are struggling, that even those who are in the middle class may be first generation as opposed to fifth or sixth generation college attendees, and that we all have an interest in bringing as many people together to help build this country."
Read the International Herald Tribune about the Obama victory here.
Read the entire New York Sun article by John McWhorter on race in America here.
Click the link for On The Issues to see where Barack Obama stands on affirmative action.
plez sez: this was a tough entry to write, i spent over a week going over notes and composing my thoughts. plezWorld grew up in the 60's and 70's, i was a beneficiary, to a small degree, of affirmative action: i participated in a number of programs geared toward encouraging minority students to study engineering and my cooperative education assignment with NASA was a program for minority engineering students. i got into college on my merits, since i had stellar grades in high school and my SAT scores were superb (i was accepted to study electrical engineering via early admissions)!
i'm the same age as Barack Obama and have an outlook on life that is similar to his, even though i was raised by my Black parents, my formative years were spent in a predominantly white enclave in the suburbs of new york city (also known as westchester county). i went to predominantly white schools, a predominantly white university (GO TECH!), and i have been in the minority at every job i've held since high school.
i've always had mixed feelings about affirmative action and have never been a proponent of quotas or set asides based on race. i understand that there is a likelihood of the taint of one's accomplishments when there is a perception that your race (or sex) was the main reason for your success. even though the perception may be grounded in falsehoods, your hard work and determination may be compromised if others have the perception that you did not make it on your merits.
i believe that admissions to state universities and contracts for government work should be awarded to ensure minority representation that is reflective of the community (or state), but i also feel that students and contractors should meet the minimum requirements that are set for everyone else. just as the children of alumni and big donors to universities get some preferences (see George W. Bush), there should be mechanisms in place to ensure that qualified minority students are able to secure slots at these universities. just as lobbyists and government insiders can "grease the skids" for government contracts for their friends and network, the government has an obligation to ensure that qualified minority contractors (and workers) are given ample opportunity to bid and win government contracts.
i have no doubt that affirmative action foes, like ward connerly, won't wait for long after Obama's election to begin the work of dismantling affirmative action as we know it. connerly and his ilk will trumpet the call for a color-blind system that will undoubtedly leave poor and unprepared Black communities in their wake. any chance for affirmative action's survival will hinge on its proponents' ability to quickly institute hybrid race- & class-based system to replace the soon-to-be antiquated race-based system, as advocated by Obama.
i'm afraid that time is running out and those communities who have not heeded the call to provide quality education will be left further behind, since affirmative action was only a boost to those who had the where with all to take advantage of its opportunities. things will undoubtedly get worse before they get better: look at the low minority rates at california universities after connerly did away with affirmative action there (none have more than 4% Black enrollment with UC-San Diego with a Black enrollment of 1.2%).
on january 20, 2009, while we're cheering the inauguration of President Barack Obama, a stalwart institution - maybe the only successful institution - of the civil rights movement will begin to be dismantled.
John McWhorter, left, of the Manhattan Institute and Glenn Loury of Brown University discuss the issue of race for Barack Obama:
John H. McWhorter, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, writes and comments extensively on race, ethnicity and cultural issues for the Institute's Center for Race and Ethnicity. He also writes a regular column in the New York Sun. McWhorter's new book, Winning the Race: Beyond the Crisis in Black America (Gotham Books) was released in early 2006 and has already generated widespread acclaim. He was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Non-Fiction and has appeared numerous national TV and radio shows, such as Meet the Press, John McLaughlin's One on One, the O'Reilly Factor and NPR's Fresh Air. McWhorter is also a well-known and widely published linguistics scholar.
Glenn C. Loury is the Merton P. Stoltz Professor of the Social Sciences and Professor of Economics at Brown University. He has taught previously at Boston, Harvard and Northwestern Universities, and the University of Michigan. He holds a B.A. in Mathematics (Northwestern University) and a Ph.D. in Economics (MIT). In addition to this scholarly work, Professor Loury is also a prominent social critic and public intellectual. His over 200 essays and reviews on racial inequality and social policy have appeared in dozens of influential journals of public affairs in the U.S. and abroad. He is a frequent commentator on national radio and television, a much soughtafter public speaker, and an advisor on social issues to business and political leaders throughout the country. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, was for many years a contributing editor at The New Republic, and currently serves on the editorial advisory boards of The American Interest.
plez sez: i find it a delight to listen to two academics debate and intelligently discuss issues that affect us today. i can't think of two better Bloggingheads than John McWhorter and Glenn Loury to discuss the issue of race and racism in politics.
i deplore calling anyone a racist (don't get me wrong, there are racist people), because we all see race... and we've all formed our own prejudices and preferences for the types of people we choose to deal with. i'm no more a racist for choosing to live in a very nice predominantly Black neighborhood, anymore than the white person who chooses to live in a neighborhood populated by mainly white folk.
plezWorld agrees with McWhorter about the good folk in west virginia and indiana who came out in droves for hillary clinton, they weren't racists, but they were voting race... just like the droves of Black folk who supported Barack Obama down here in georgia and south carolina!
i just found this to be a particularly enlightening Bloggingheads episode. i invite you to check out other episodes with McWhorter and Loury.
"I'm going to tell you something: That boy's finger does not need to be on the button. He could not make a decision in that simulation that related to a nuclear threat to this country." - Congressman Geoff Davis (R-KY) recounting an alleged interaction with Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) at the Northern Kentucky's 4th Congressional District Lincoln Day Dinner on Saturday night, April 12, 2008!
The Republican Congressman from Kentucky does not dispute the accuracy of the quote. Rep. Davis hand-delivered a written apology to Obama's office when he returned to Washington, DC today.
plez sez: wait a goddamn minute... who the heck is he calling boy?!? this *ish* is getting out of hand! first that uppity Negro stuff from billary and now this f*ckin' yahoo from kentucky is calling Barack Obama - a United States Senator and quite possibly the next President of the United States - a boy!!!
i'm about to lose my freakin' mind in here.
calling a Black man boy has long been the racist's way of treating Black men like children in the most demeaning way... it is vulgar, it is condescending, it is unbecoming, it is racist, and its only usage is to minimize and denigrate the standing of the Black man. my father grew up in North Carolina in the 30's and 40's... back then, white people would use the term "boy" and "nigger" interchangeably when referring to Black men. calling a Black man a "boy" is WORSE (and i mean it... it is WORSE) than calling him a nigger! how dare you just up and call a grown ass man a boy? i am seeing RED!!!
apology my eye! i don't want to hear an apology from congressman jeff davis... i don't wanna hear *ish* from congressman jeff davis... congress should be moving to censor him.
congressman jeff davis needs to apologize to every Black man who he has ever referred to as "boy"... and i KNOW that Barack Obama wasn't the first!
breath, plezWorld, breath... nice slow, deep breaths...
"Rest assured that men like Senator McCain will be the goal and the men that my two young boys will emulate and admire. You can have your Tiger Woods, we've got Senator McCain." - Army Staff Sergeant David Bellavia introducing John McCain at a rally on Tuesday, February 8, 2008
The Hotline asks "What's with the Tiger Woods Comparisons?"
plez sez: i'm wondering how Tiger Woods comes up in a political comparison involving Barack Obama, unless all bellavia (and the other hacks who got a good laugh out of his cheap one-liner) consider Tiger Woods (and by extension, Barack Obama) to be little more than the "black guys" in their respective areas of expertise.
On April 4,1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated while he visited Memphis, Tennessee to lead a march for sanitation workers. On the evening before, in his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech, he had the foresight to mention that he would not get to see the society that he so eloquently described in his "I Have a Dream" speech.
America's greatest citizen holds a special place in plezWorld's heart. Unfortunately, we continue to look at his speeches, marches, and accomplishments through the prism of the Jim Crow South from which he rose. We continue to make the mistake of seeing his Dream as one of white vs. Black; I don't see it that way. What made Martin Luther King, Jr. so great is that his vision transcended race and socioeconomic condition - he spoke with moral authority for all Americans.
plezWorld decries the fact that Dr. King's dream has been deferred for so long. This year, we finally have the opportunity with this presidential election cycle to look beyond race and gender to rate the merits of those who want to lead this country.
I only pray that America decides to live up to its creed.
Excerpts of Dr. Martin Luther King's "I've Been to the Mountaintop" Speech, delivered on April 3, 1968, the evening before his death:
And they were telling me, now it doesn't matter now. It really doesn't matter what happens now. I left Atlanta this morning, and as we got started on the plane, there were six of us, the pilot said over the public address system, "We are sorry for the delay, but we have Dr. Martin Luther King on the plane. And to be sure that all of the bags were checked, and to be sure that nothing would be wrong with the plane, we had to check out everything carefully. And we've had the plane protected and guarded all night."
And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?
Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
March 18, 2008. Barack Obama speaks in Philadelphia, PA at Constitution Center, on matters not just of race and recent remarks about his association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, but of the fundamental path by which America can work together to pursue a better future.
plez sez: finally!
i know that he could never win the democratic nomination by running as the "black candidate," so he had to run as just another us senator, but the undertones of his blackness have followed Obama nonetheless.
i love the fact that it is BARACK OBAMA who has taken the lead on discussing the "racial divide" in america... and what can be done to heal this thing that divides this nation along racial lines. i appreciate the fact that he is no longer running from being Black and in this speech has turned to face the ugliness that is racism in america.
thank you, BARACK OBAMA ... i pray that this country exhibits the wisdom to make this man our next PRESIDENT!
“I don’t want to rehash that. I think that Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton have historically and consistently been on the right side of civil rights issues. I think they care about the African-American community and that they care about all Americans and they want to see equal rights and justice in this country.” - Senator Barack Obama responding to allegations about the Clinton campaign's racial insensitivity in recent days
The New York Times reports that Obama is seemingly taking the high road and trying to rise above the "silliness" that has been bubbling forth from the Clinton campaign since the New Hampshire primary. He called a number of press conferences to get the Democratic front-runners back on track to talking about issues that affect all Americans (ex. the economy and how to fix it as we descend into recession) and abstain from the racially-charged rhetoric that has become de rigor over the past week.
Read the entire New York Times article & comments here.
Read the Booman Tribune blog & comments about Obama's tact here.
plez sez: i applaud Obama's maturity and statesmanlike approach to the frontal, guns-a-blazing attack by the clintonistas! being a Black candidate in a traditionally white male contest, he cannot strike back (for fear of driving away white voters), he must acquiesce and live to fight another day. he must go forward, head held high, as though the nasty tone from The Clintons can wash off like sand from the beach. he has to check his seething rage and compliment his attackers, so as not to be seen as another angry Black man. hillary gets to cry, shed a few crocodile tears, but Obama must man up and turn the other cheek, even when the efforts of our most cherished Martin Luther King, Jr. are denigrated and sullied by the power-hungry Clinton Machine!
you see, Barack Obama has to take the high road... plezWorld doesn't!
the clinton hold on the Black community is slowly slipping through hill & bill's fingers, like that sand from beach. i heard bill clinton called the Tom Joyner Morning Show trying to salvage his dwindling popularity and trying to make Black people love him again, but Black folk are going back and looking at the record: what in the HELL did bill really do for you people?!? and what can you expect from hillary? were the clintons this patronizing all along? were they taking all the love (and all those votes) from Black people for granted back in 1992 and 1996? do they think it's cool to turn a ghetto-pimp like bob johnson against his own people for their political gain? what other "tricks" will they play in an effort to get back into the white house? has bill referred to barack obama with the "n-word" in private? hey! i'm just asking the questions!
two or three weeks ago, hillary clinton could've counted on the plezWife vote in the event she got the nomination... guess what? that bet's off! this is one n-word (and his family) who won't be wasting any more votes on hillary, bill, or heaven forbid, chelsea clinton. i cannot and will not forget their actions of the past few weeks... and i'll welcome a (gasp!) republican in the white house before watching hillary clinton's scrawny ass sashaying into the oval office next january!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that earlier today (in another 5-4 ruling), the Supreme Court rejected integration plans at public school districts in Louisville, Kentucky and Seattle, Washington. The decision restricted how public school systems may attain racial diversity.
The AJC article contains the following excerpts from select Justices:
The court split, 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts announcing the court's judgment, "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."
Yet Justice Anthony Kennedy left the door ajar for the use of race and would not go as far as the other four conservative justices, saying in a concurring opinion that race may be a component of school plans designed to achieve diversity. He said, "A district may consider it a compelling interest to achieve a diverse student population. Race may be one component of that diversity."
Justice Clarence Thomas, the court's only black member, wrote a separate opinion endorsing the ruling and taking issue with the dissenters' view of the Brown case. Thomas said, "What was wrong in 1954 cannot be right today. The plans before us base school assignment decisions on students' race. Because 'our Constitution is colorblind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens,' such race-based decisionmaking is unconstitutional."
Justice Stephen Breyer, in a dissent joined by the other liberals on the court, said Roberts' opinion undermined the promise of integrated schools that the court laid out 53 years ago in its landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education. "To invalidate the plans under review is to threaten the promise of Brown," Breyer said.
plez sez: it's not like i didn't expect such a ruling from this Court, but it still hit me like a blow to the gut! talking about turning back the clock on race relations in this country... well, this does it!
and now it's time to start making some lemonade with all these lemons that the SCOTUS has been tossing from the ivory tower! in one week, the Supreme Court has given big business unfettered access to the election process (campaign ad funding), restricted first amendment rights of students (bong hits 4 jesus), and restricted the use of race for student diversity in public schools.
on its face Brown v. Board of Education was what this country needed to get past its racist past, but what that ruling left out was equal access to quality education for all students. busing brought about racial diversity (in some cases), but never brought the funds necessary to lift those communities which were left behind. i will contend that i did not need to sit beside white students to learn, what i needed was the same educational resources (books, equipment, teachers) that was readily available in the white communities.
after 50-something years, i guess it is time to move on from application of Brown and take responsibility for the spirit of Brown in our children's education and our public schools. instead of busing our children to majority white districts, let's lobby our school boards to incent better and more established teachers to come teach in our communities, let's ensure that our curriculum enhances our children's education, let's get our Black boys out of these special ed classes, and let's make sure that dollar-for-dollar, our kids are getting the quality education that our taxes are paying for.
after today's ruling, the rules have changed and they're not changing back. today's Supreme Court consists of right-wing activists who will consistently push a conservative agenda for the next 20 years! i am sure that Roe v. Wade will fall during the next session which begins in October.
now, i do have some choice words for some of the opinions that were rendered:
Roberts implies that the spirit of Brown v. Board of Education was not for integration of public schools; so if not, what was the spirit of the 1954 ruling?
Thomas is ALL WRONG to imply that Brown v. Board of Education was wrong in 1954; what planet was this dude living on in 1954 when his BLACK ASS couldn't go to a good school where he was raised in segregated Georgia?!? and since when was the Constitution colorblind? since when was this country colorblind?
why did Kennedy vote with the majority when he believes that race can be a component used for racial diversity? doesn't that contradict the ruling?
lastly, i can pray that this ruling is a catalyst for self-reliance and self-motivation to demand quality public school education in the Black community.
~ husband ~ father ~ son ~ brother ~ mentor ~ subdivision dweller ~ northern by birth ~ southern by choice ~ raised a black baptist, now guided by the spiritual ~ raised a kennedy democrat, now politically dead center (moderate) ~ raised in a Cadillac Coupe Deville, now hooked on an SUV ~ college educated and still a student of life ~ wild college frat boy and now a settled alumnus ~ intellectual yet fun-loving geek ~ technical and leading edge ~ corporate cog ~ consultant ~ college football saturday devotee ~ and a ramblin' gamblin' helluva engineer (GO JACKETS!) ~
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