The Daily Voice - Black America's Daily News Source

Freedom or Jail: An Interview with Michelle Alexander (Pt. I)

2010-06-04T05:11:40Z

Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, speaks on her new book, media misrepresentations of the criminal justice system, and the debt society owes to those disposed of, and abandoned, in the ongoing War on Drugs.

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Quite belatedly, I came to see that mass incarceration in the United States had, in fact, emerged as a stunningly comprehensive and well-disguised system of racialized social control that functions in a manner strikingly similar to Jim Crow.
--Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (New York: The New Press, 2010), p. 4.

It may be helpful, in attempting to understand the basic nature of the new caste
system, to think of the criminal justice system--the entire collection of
institutions and practices that comprise it--not as an independent system but
rather as a gateway into a much larger system of racial stigmatization and permanent marginalization.
--Ibid., p. 12.
As a society, our decision to heap shame and contempt upon those who struggle and fail in a system designed to keep them locked up and locked out says far more about ourselves than it does about them.
--Ibid., p. 171.

If news reports from the last three decades should check clean, Black and Brown males only number the Criminal Justice System today because they choose, of own free will, to turn the ways of crime and disorder; perhaps also because they seem to come from stock inherently deformed and defiled--unable to adapt to a civilized world where barbarism is unacceptable.

And if the renowned rants of Black butlers on the Right should be treasured, Black males only find their human rights violated constantly, only find their dignities criminalized, only fall in the crosshairs of this very real War on Drugs, because they've discarded phonetics, filled their iPods with N.W.A. records, altogether accepted academic success as a White Thing, and preferred to sag their khaki pants three inches below waist level.

Of course delusion is powerful, and legal scholar Michelle Alexander, in her
scathing text The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness, levels these reports and rants with rare clarity, depth, and candor."Mass incarceration, like Jim Crow, helps to define the meaning and significance of race in America," she writes. "Indeed, the stigma of criminality functions in much the same way that the stigma of race once did. It justifies a legal, social, and economic boundary between 'us' and 'them'."

The "them" have long found out their society lost faith in Redemption about the same time it sent into office a B-movie Hollywood actor/corporate salesman, who took on the causes of the rich and ruthless; pronouncing drug users Public Enemy No. 1, shelling out cold cash to any districts desperate enough to hook their tongues around the fishing rod. Since, sentencing rates have "quintupled," for-profit prison stocks have boomed, rehabilitation resources have dwindled, and a "collapse of resistance" has seized activists and concerned citizens once outraged enough to topple the system of incarceration entirely.

It's become increasingly easy to neglect those caged in and denied meaningful citizenship for the rest of their lives because for most, even before buying or selling those couple pounds of weed, even before lifting that crack pipe to their lips and inhaling with blissful pain, even before signing those flat checks amounting a few hundred dollars, society didn't consider them clean enough to warrant concern. So now that the stain has grown greatly, and spread through far and wide, it's more acceptable--even reasonable--to turn backs, eyes, and ears to millions crying out for help.

Now the wind has changed direction and I'll have to leave
Won't you please excuse my frankness but it's not my cup of tea

Communities of color can suffer immeasurably from unwarranted (often deadly) police presence, and no significant, mainstream outrage is raised. Families of color are dropped to their knees, with fathers and mothers saddled with lengthy sentences for harmless infractions, and news channels implore their cameramen and correspondents to keep seeking more sensational stuff. Increasingly, working-class Whites are bullied into prisons for sinking one or two pills into their throats, for digging into their arm veins with H-filled needles; but, even then, they're "not the real target"--they're mere collateral damage, alibi even: to assure the world no Race-specific agenda is at work. Michelle Alexander begs to differ.

A couple of days back, I spoke with her on the myth of colorblindness, on how media images frame public perceptions of prisoners and subsequent punitive policies, what mass incarceration means for ailing communities of color, and the struggle ahead for all sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Thanks for your time, Ms. Alexander. You begin the book with juxtaposed images of a Black man handcuffed and overshadowed by officers in some street gutter, and a Black man overshadowing a past of Jim Crow and segregation to make history happen. In the first, passersby ignore the Black man; in the second, hundreds of thousands are paying solemn attention to his every word. Can you take it from there?

Yes. With the election of Barack Obama, so many people have persuaded themselves that we've finally triumphed over Race, that we've moved beyond Race. Meanwhile, of course, there are millions of poor people of color who have been branded felons, relegated to a permanent second-class status, legally discriminated against. So, that young Black man kneeling in the gutter, at the same time the world is celebrating the election of Barack Obama, is, I think, a profound illustration of how our attention has been diverted, in recent years, away from those who've suffered from the emergence of this caste system, and how we've been enchanted by the election of a few African-Americans into positions of power.

You insist that forms of racism don't die out but adapt to the times--preservation-through-transformation, as you describe. "The rules and reasons the political system employs to enforce status relations of any kind, including racial hierarchy," you write, "evolve and change as they are challenged." Why have most civil rights groups failed to see this and take up critical action against it--preferring to lunge from courtroom to courtroom rather than attack the streets, where the real war is taking place? And you have some stern words for these groups--"adapt or die."

Yes. I wrote this book because I was so deeply alarmed by the relative quiet of the civil rights community and African-American leaders in the face of mass incarceration. And I admit, at the outset, that I, myself, failed to fully grasp the extent of the devastation caused to communities of color as a result of the Drug War. There was a time when I didn't fully get it.

I had a series of experiences representing victims of racial profiling, police brutality, and people who are struggling to "re-enter" a society--that never much wanted them in the first place--after being branded a felon. I had a series of experiences that affected me in profound ways; and now that I can see, with blinders off, the way it operates, the history, and how it functions to recreate a permanent second-class status for poor people of color (especially Black people in America), it is downright painful to watch so many of our African-American leaders, people who call themselves Progressives, including some in the civil rights community, standing by quietly as this Drug War rages on in our communities and mass incarceration continues at pace.

But my book isn't just about wagging fingers, because I was complicit in this system for quite a while. It's really an effort to inspire others, to wake people up.

What was the writing process like? I mean, what were you looking for, what did you find, and what weren't you prepared for--what blew your head off?

In the course of my research, there were a number of studies that did blow my mind. One is that today there are more African-Americans under correction or control, in prison or in jail, on probation or parole, than were enslaved in 1850. That's a decade before the Civil War began. The scale of this system is astonishing! And we're blind to it in part because prisons are out of sight and out of mind. During the Jim Crow era, there were "White Only" signs everywhere, Black people were supposed to sit on the back of the bus--there was no denying the caste system. But, today, if you're not in it, it's easy to deny. Prisons are typically located in White rural communities, far away from highways; and once former prisoners get out, they're typically dumped back into the same racially segregated communities from which they came.

Another fact was that as of 2004 there were more Blacks disenfranchised than in 1870--the year the 15^th amendment was ratified, prohibiting laws discriminating against the right to vote based on Race. And the Felony Disenfranchisement laws today have decimated the potential Black electorate.

And I read one study by the Urban League in Chicago--that was another study that completely blew my mind--showing that in Chicago nearly 80% of working-age African-American men have criminal records that legalize discrimination for the rest of their lives. Nearly 80%! Just the scope and scale of this system...

The book mostly details this new Jim Crow that marginalizes poor males of color. But is it not true that women, especially Black women, are fast becoming prime target, as well, even swelling up ranks just as swiftly as Black men did 20 years ago?

Oh, yes. It is true. And while my book focuses specifically on Black men, that is in no way to diminish the significance of women in the Criminal Justice System. In fact, one could argue that the harm caused by high rates of incarceration of Black women is greater than that of the incarceration of Black men, because our communities are so fragile. To remove mothers, who are just barely holding these families together, and put them in cages, relegates children to foster care--for relatively minor drug offences. And this threatens to unravel what's left of the Black family.

Can you talk a bit about Ronald Reagan, the pater familias of this enterprise? Right as he announced the War on Drugs three decades back, only 2% of Americans considered drugs the most pressing national crisis. Soon enough, as you write, through legalized and sanitized bribery of local officials, this War became established as a serious threat worth endless resources.

Yes. Most people think the War on Drugs was launched absolutely in response to a rise in drug crimes. But that's a big myth. Drug crime was actually on the decline when the War was declared. The War was part of a grand Republican strategy to issue racially coded political appeals--on crime and welfare: get-tough language--to poor White voters, especially in the South were many were disaffected from civil rights gains.

Richard Nixon was the first to coin the term--War on Drugs. But Ronald Reagan was able to turn that rhetorical war into a literal one. This was before crack actually hit the streets. And the Reagan administration seized the [subsequent] rise of crack, and actually hired staff to publicize inner-city crack-babies, crack-whores, crack-abuse, and crack-violence, in hopes of persuading Congress to devote millions more dollars to the Drug War. And the plan worked like a charm.

The Reagan administration was giving out cash to districts and agencies that were willing to boost the volume--the number of drug arrests--which gave them an incentive to just go out and round up, shake down, frisk, toss as many people as possible in order to boost their arrest numbers. And these stop-and-frisk practices are most prevalent in communities of color, because of a Drug War that has almost nothing to do with drugs and everything to do with racial politics.

For more on Michelle Alexander and her work, visit: http://www.newjimcrow.com/

Watch an hour-long talk by Michelle Alexander, discussing The New Jim Crow:

Sportsman's Paradise Lost?

2010-05-30T16:54:19Z

Some have taken to calling the Gulf of Mexico oil spill Obama's Katrina. Daily Voice columnist and Louisiana native, Pamela D. Reed disagrees. It's potentially far worse, she writes.

]]> Trees and plants always look like the people they live with, somehow.
--Zora Neale Hurston in Seraph on the Sewanee (1948)

If someone had told me that there could be any ecological disaster that could dwarf the American tragedy called Hurricane Katrina--and the gross presidential mismanagement in its wake-- I would have been highly skeptical. Of course, that was before the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion of April 20 at the Macondo well, roughly 40 miles off the Louisiana coast--and before the Obama administration's handling of it.

And I know that there are those who will say that I'm being too hard on this President. "He's only one man" or "Give him a chance," they usually tell me. Moreover, Obama's defenders point out that this is a disaster that has been decades in the making. And who can deny the sleazy, greasy, incestuous relationship between "big oil" and the previous administration, which was headed by the two oil men, Bush and Cheney? Halliburton has even been cited as a player in this debacle.

But here's the thing: This unprecedented "accident" happened on the watch of President Barack Hussein Obama--and so far, his administration has performed abysmally. But, I'll come back to that.

For now, I want to try to convey the magnitude of what is being lost down on the Gulf Coast, perhaps forever.

"Sportsman's Paradise" Lived

As a young girl growing up in Louisiana, I often wondered what "Sportsman's Paradise" meant. After all, I read this appellation on our state license plates day-in and day-out. My juvenile mind wondered why we didn't have a more colorful, concrete nickname like, say, Florida's "The Sunshine State."

Sure, I knew "Sportsman's Paradise" had something to do with the outdoors. And although I am now a proponent of gun control, Lord knows, the menfolk in my family love the hunt (or at least they did). And, it was certainly not lost on me that Louisiana boasts some of the best fishing in the world. After all, my hometown is Lake Providence, where I resided on the Bayou Road.

Still, it never dawned on me back then that the "Sportsman's Paradise" moniker crystallized my entire way of life. Indeed, some of my fondest memories are of freshwater fishing in the Mississippi River, in the lake for which my hometown is named, or in one of the dozens of "fishing holes" that dot East Carroll Parish, which is in the northeastern part of the state, part of the tri-state region called the ArkLaMiss.

This is to say nothing of the speedboat racing and waterskiing on the lake, which were above my family's station in life; even so, it was sure fun watching the wealthy Whites do so during the sweltering summers. Since my parents wouldn't let us swim in the lake, the only time I was ever in the lake was when I was baptized therein, all of twelve years-old.

And even though I can count on one hand the times that I have been to the southern part of the state, the seafood harvested from the Gulf was a staple in my family, as it is for the entire seafood industry, providing an estimated 70 percent of America's oysters. Moreover, the Gulf of Mexico boasts one of the only sustainable wild shrimp habitats and fisheries in the world.

It is not hyperbole to suggest that this could all be lost, which is unimaginable, especially for one whose culture is irrevocably tied to this cuisine.

For instance, on special occasions, my mother would make the most delectable oyster po-boys, using loaves of melt-in-your mouth French bread, sometimes home-baked by my father. And I still remember how she would make what had to be the world's best shrimp-fried rice, using little bowls to mould the delicacy into uniform mounds. And don't even mention the seafood gumbo, loaded with crab legs, shrimp, and sometimes even crawfish.

Paradise Lost?

But sadly, it has taken a geyser, spewing millions of gallons of toxic oil into the Gulf of Mexico--and a transnational oil giant, with seemingly no governmental oversight, spraying and pumping gallons upon gallons of unspecified chemical "dispersants," both aerially and 5,000 feet below the surface of the water--to make me fully understand what the name "Sportsman's Paradise" means.

I never gave the wetlands and marshes a second thought. Really, until now, I never fully appreciated their beauty--or their sacred worth as an incubator for dozens of species of marine life--and birds.

And speaking of birds, the pictures of oil-drenched brown pelicans, the Louisiana state bird, are enough to make the blood boil. This is what made me think of Zora Neale Hurston's poignant observation about plants and trees being a reflection of the people they "live with." Obviously, the same is true of birds and animals--and the waters.

James Carville--staunch Democratic strategist, and New Orleans resident--has described the Obama administration's response to the Gulf Crisis as "lackadaisical," insisting that the President has displayed "political stupidity" and naiveté by relying so heavily on British Petroleum (BP) to manage the crisis.

Carville, the "Ragin' Cajun," called out the POTUS, urging him to take action--starting with coming to the scene of the crime--because "we're dying down here."

Bigger Than Katrina

Part of the problem, as I see it, is that Team Obama initially tried to avoid taking ownership of the crisis, opting to just badmouth BP (who deserves it) and promising to "keep its foot on the neck" of the oil giant, as Interior Secretary Ken Salazar infamously quipped.

But here's the rub, this is the United States of America. Barack Obama is the President and, as such, he--not BP-- is charged with protecting America's "bounty," as he eloquently stated during his tense news conference last week, 37 days into this cataclysm of biblical proportions.

Chris Matthews, MSNBC news analyst and host of "Hardball," observed similarly on the "Tonight Show." "The President scares me," Matthews said. "When is he actually going to do something? And I worry; I know he doesn't want to take ownership of it. I know politics. He said the minute he says, 'I'm in charge,' he takes the blame, but somebody has to. It's in our interest."

I have even begun to wonder if scriptwriters have been brought in to manage the crisis. Seriously. Staging and public relations, it seems, are the name of the game.

For example, Jefferson Parish City Councilman Chris Roberts is accusing BP of bussing in 300-400 people, reportedly offered $12 per hour, to act as props for the Obama visit. They allegedly donned hazmat suits and simulated a massive clean-up effort for Obama's fly-by photo-op in Grand Isle, departing shortly after the president left.

So far, BP denies this allegation--and no one has yet implicated the White House in this despicable, greasy scheme, although how could they not know about the alleged duplicity, assuming they are as "on top of things," as they would have us believe?

And to listen to some of the names like "Deepwater Horizon," "Operation Top Kill" and other action movie-type terminology, you half-way expect Will Smith or Sean Connery to ride to the rescue in a heart-stopping climax worthy of a 4th of July-released thriller. But alas, this is not fiction, although I'm sure multiple docu-dramas are already in the works.

As it were, some have taken to calling the oil spill, Obama's Katrina. Well, I disagree. This is far worse than Katrina--and Katrina was epic.

And this is not to minimize the fact that well over a thousand people died and the city of New Orleans was virtually destroyed, much of it still not rebuilt. With the BP oil spill, however, who knows what the long-term environmental and health effects of this spill and the "dispersants" will have on those exposed to them, as a recent Washington Post article reports.

At least you can rebuild a city--if you are inclined to do so, which the federal government does not seem to be in the case of New Orleans, but that's another story.

With this apocalyptic oil spill, however, there is no end in sight. BP announced today--surprise, surprise--that the much ballyhooed "Top Kill" method has failed and they are preparing for yet another likely futile attempt next week. Conceivably, the spillage could go on for months, until either a "relief" well is drilled or until the well runs dry, which could be up to 50 million barrels, according to BP spokesperson Jon Pack.

And how's this for a visual? Each barrel holds 42 gallons. So, if the BP executive's approximation is accurate, that means roughly two billion one hundred million (2, 100,000,000) gallons of crude oil could make its way into the Gulf--almost 195 times the size of the Exxon Valdez spill into Prince William Sound, which was approximately 11 million gallons.

Just imagine that.

Time magazine reports that the spill threatens an "underwater 'rainforest,'" as the dispersed oil lurks beneath the surface of the Gulf. A group of marine scientists from the University of South Florida, lead by oceanographer David Holland, recently took their research vessel, the WeatherBird II, on a damage assessment expedition, primarily of the DeSoto Canyon, which is south of the Florida coast and about 20 miles north of the Deepwater Horizon gusher. What they found is heartbreaking--and chilling.

"The DeSoto is to the Gulf what a rainforest is to a land-based ecosystem: a densely fertile area where life forms fairly explode. It's the upwellings of nutrient-rich water that make the area so hospitable to fish, coral and other living things. On the surface, the waters of the region look clean, but just below the surface and down to about 3,300 ft. (1 km), Hollander and his team found a six-mi. (9.6 km) wide, 22-mi. (35.4 km) long oil bloom, broken into millions of bits and beads and moving with the current. It had not reached the canyon yet, but it was heading that way."

That is what is at stake here, folks; and no expense should be spared to stave off a complete disaster.

Mayday, Mayday...the Gulf of Mexico is Dying

In this instance, there are no sacred cows.

That is why I find Dr. Boyce Watkins' article "Four Ways Obama can stop Oil Spill from Consuming his Presidency" so utterly offensive and short-sighted. And, I'm sorry to say, greasy.

Watkins suggests, seriously, that Obama do four things: 1) find a fall guy, the more the better; 2) "become a certified tree hugger"; 3) use a wag-the-dog type strategy and create an international incident, perhaps the standoff in the Korean peninsula, to distract the media with a bit of "Houdini-like misdirection," Watkins cleverly suggests; and 4) seize the moment and levy a ginormous fine against BP.

Newsflash: No amount of money can replace the Louisiana coastal ecosystem--or that of any of the other states that might be affected eventually: Mississippi, Alabama, Texas and Florida. Ultimately, the Atlantic coast and the Caribbean could even be affected.

Into the bargain, hurricane season begins Tuesday--running through November--and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution serves up the following dire warning: "The predictions call for up to 23 storms of at least tropical storm strength. As many as seven are expected to be major hurricanes of at least Category 3 strength, with sustained winds of 111-130 mph. Five or more may threaten the U.S. coastline."

Granted, we are in unchartered waters here--no pun intended--and no one seems to know what to do, but the last thing we should be worried about is protecting President Obama who, so far, seems to be in way over his head, pun intended.

And we certainly don't need trickery, as Watkins advises. I must state here for the record that I am not trying to pick on Dr. Boyce, but surely, in this instance, we can put politics aside.

That is the only way this government can mobilize the army that is needed to clean-up all the oil. Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour says they are ready and waiting to protect their coastline.

But this raises the following questions: Why are they just waiting, as the Louisiana coastline is being defiled? Why don't they help their neighbors who are facing this ungodly ruination, reportedly already having had over 100 miles of the Louisiana coastline "oiled"?

And, mind you, I don't claim to have all the answers, but I would recommend the following action plan for the American government:

The use of all dispersants must be suspended until we know specifically what is being used and perhaps more importantly, whether they do more harm than good;

BP management must be totally removed from the effort. Totally.

Obama must assemble a team of industry "experts" from around the world and put them on the ground on the Gulf Coast. Then his administration should truly oversee their operation. Albeit true that the only people with the necessary expertise to plug the leak (if that is even possible) are petroleum engineers, they don't have to be from BP. The only things BP should do, from this point forward, is write checks--and answer questions;

And speaking of questions and answers, a criminal investigation should be launched immediately. People need to be subpoenaed and perhaps we can get to the root cause of this event and, hopefully, ensure that nothing like this will ever happen again;

If it can be done legally, all American oil leases held by BP should be revoked;

Of course, the ultimate goal is the cessation of the leak, but clean-up must be ongoing--and aggressive. Thus, there should be a literal army of workers blanketing the Louisiana Gulf Coast (and other areas as needed) around the clock. As I heard one local politician say, "We have got to treat this thing like a war." President Obama needs to ensure that every available suction device in the world is in use, sucking up as much of the poison as is humanly possible.

Additionally, wherever possible, there should be oil tankers very near the gusher sucking the oil into the ship's hold. The only limitations on this should be spatial and logistical. If it can be done, it must be done, last month.

Which Legacy, Obama?

Make no mistake, if this oil spill is not contained, President Obama will forever be known as the commander-in-chief under whose watch the Gulf of Mexico--and everything in it--died. Died. Not a good look...

Going forward, if President Obama wants to restore at least a modicum of confidence in his leadership in this area, he must form a governmental agency charged with research and development of renewable energy, as well as providing grants for promising inventors.

It is not enough to just say that we need to wean ourselves off fossil fuels, foreign and otherwise. This president should strive to place America at the forefront of this emerging technological arena, simultaneously resurrecting the American economy. This is a legacy that he could be proud of-- even if he serves only one term, which seems increasingly likely.

At the same time, the president must limit deepwater drilling. To the extent that it is utilized, he must ensure that industry best practices are in place. For instance, Canadian law requires that a "relief" well must be drilled simultaneously with the exploratory well. If this were already American law, we would not now face the prospect of waiting for months while relief wells are drilled--while millions of gallons of crude oil continue to flow unabated into the Gulf of Mexico.

Finally, I have a whole drawer full of Obama t-shirts. If all else fails, I'm willing to donate them for the Gulf clean-up effort.

Lena Horne dead at 92

2010-05-10T11:38:10Z

]]> Singer, actress and activist Lena Horne has died. She was 92 years old.

On Elena Kagan: Is the Supreme Court not a civil rights issue?

2010-05-10T06:02:18Z

]]> President Obama is reportedly going to nominate Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court (SCOTUS), without even interviewing a single Black jurist. For many in his largely progressive base, Kagan's appointment would be an unforgivable betrayal--yet another by this president.

For some, the most troublesome thing about Ms. Kagan is her sparse publication record. In other words, very little is known about her thinking on any of the issues that might be heard by the high court. Namely, they want to know how she feels about women's reproductive rights, gay marriage, immigration reform, the death penalty, separation of church and state, equal protection under the law, state's rights, and the list goes on and on.

But far more troubling, at least to this writer, is the profoundly disturbing news emerging of her dismal "minority" hiring record as Dean of Harvard Law School (HLS). Apparently while at the helm of that holy grail of legal training, Kagan hired 29 tenure-track faculty--and not one of them was Black, Latino or Native American. None. Nada. Zero.

Do I have your attention yet?

To be exact, Kagan hired 23 White men, 5 White women, and one Asian American woman. Not surprisingly, many legal scholars and journalists--although not the Black Press Corps-- have begun to publicly question the likely nominee's commitment to racial diversity--or lack thereof.

And what of affirmative action, which has been substantially weakened, barely surviving a barrage of legal challenges? And there are certainly more to come.

President Obama, though, is said to be high on Kagan's bona fides as a bridge-builder, one able to build consensus across party and ideological lines, as she famously did at HLS, where hiring had been at a virtual standstill, particularly that of conservative faculty. But is that really a solid basis upon which to make a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land, that Kagan is a proven right-wing accommodationist? (So much so, the conservative icon Bill Kristol has endorsed her publicly.)

And should this president just brush aside the fact that Kagan has not demonstrated any appreciation for racial and gender diversity in hiring. Guy-Uriel Charles, founding director of the Duke Law Center on Law, Race and Politics, thinks not. And he has said so, quite forcefully, in his article, "Some Questions about Elena Kagan," (first "expressed in a joint letter to the White House, on a blog").

"I will accept the point that one of Kagan's chief selling points is that she assured that Harvard did not discriminate ideologically...But what about people of color? How could she have brokered a deal that permitted the hiring of conservatives but resulted in the hiring of only white faculty?"

Charles goes on to write, "please do not tell me that there were not enough qualified women and people of color. That's a racist and sexist statement. It cannot be the case that there was not a single qualified [B]lack, Latino or Native-American legal academic that would qualify for tenure at Harvard Law School during Elena Kagan's tenure. To believe otherwise is to harbor troubling racist views."

I could not have said it any better myself.

Alarmed by these revelations, the Obama White House, famous for "push-back," has reportedly begun circulating diversity "talking points" defending Kagan's disquieting hiring record at HLS, replete with "charts and lengthy quotes."

But Charles and several other law professors pushed right back, publishing the devastating article, "The White House's Kagan talking points are wrong."

"The White House does not dispute our basic facts," write the legal eagles. "When Kagan was dean of Harvard Law School, four-out-of-every five hires to its faculty were white men...Just [three] percent of her hires were non-white--a statistic that should raise eyebrows in the 21st Century. These are the facts that the White House does not try to defend because these facts are indefensible," they continued.

By way of comparison, during this same time period, Yale Law School reportedly hired 10 tenure-track faculty, 50 percent of whom were women and 10 percent were "minorities."

The White House has--so far--deflected such criticism "like the magician performing a trick...point[ing] our attention elsewhere," writes Charles and company.

Team Obama would have us believe that "the hiring numbers are misleading because they do not reflect the number of offers that Dean Kagan made to women and scholars of color." Unfortunately--or conveniently--citing privacy concerns, the White House maintains that they cannot reveal the numbers or names of persons of color extended such offers.

The White House does offer statistics substantiating offers made to visiting professors, which are often not permanent--unless convinced to stay on by the dean. And the Charles team wonders "what would it say of Dean Kagan's powers of persuasion that she could not attract more minorities and women with offers to join one of the most prestigious faculties in the world?"

So, there you have it. Considers this: Chances are, if this were a Republican president--particularly a White one--there would be charges of racial and gender discrimination.

Yet President Barack Obama, the nation's first African American president is unperturbed by Kagan's blind-eye to racial and gender diversity at HLS, in spite of the fact that the young Obama protested this very same issue during his time of matriculation there.

What are we to make of these jaw-dropping statistics, not to mention the White House's inexplicable defense of the indefensible? And there are so many more questions, many of which are heartbreaking for me, who walked the streets knocking doors, volunteered at Obama's local campaign headquarters, and wrote numerous pieces in support of candidate Obama.

But this is not the time for buyer's remorse.

What I want to know is this: Where is the Black press on this story? Furthermore, why are organizations like the NAACP, the National Urban League, the National Action Network, the National Organization of Women, the National Council of Negro Women, and the National Council de le Raza, and others, not in an uproar about what some consider the almost certain nomination of this person, who is no doubt nice enough?

But the question is this: Should she be granted a lifetime appointment to the high court?

And what about the Congressional Black and Hispanic Caucuses? Why should it be left to academicians like Guy-Uriel Charles, Anupam Chander, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer, Angela Onwauachi--and yours truly--to sound the alarm?

I even started a petition urging President Obama to nominate an African American to the Supreme Court, but most Black people do not want to do anything remotely perceived as being critical of "The One," alas.

And our anointed civil rights "leaders" seem more concerned with maintaining personal power--not to mention their seats in the "kitchen cabinet" and being invited to the White House--than about the good of our people.

There is a problem of historic proportion here. I mean, is the Supreme Court not a civil rights issue?

Perhaps they will wait until the SCOTUS has shifted to the right for at least a generation, as predicted by Salon.com lawyer/writer Glenn Greenwald--thanks to this Black president, in whom we placed so much hope and trust--before they spring into action. But by then, it will be all over, as they say, but the crying.

Sigh...

I'm all for Black/Brown coalitions...but what about the Supreme Court?

2010-05-09T04:02:26Z

Do Black (and Latino) politicians and activists even care about the Supreme Court?

]]> Joel Dreyfuss, editor at The Root.com recently penned the article, "Why Blacks Should Be Outraged at Arizona's Immigration Law?" Mr. Dreyfuss observes that "Black Americans have not turned out in large numbers at immigration rallies, despite the fact that many African-American politicians talk of the need for coalitions with Hispanics."

And his is only one of any number of similar articles by African American journalists and/or activists, making me quite reflective in recent days. Many, many questions are bubbling in my brain--competing alongside my fixation on the upcoming Supreme Court (SCOTUS) nomination. I'll just share some of them here.

For starters, have Latinos "turned out in large numbers" in support of African American causes? Ever? Moreover, do Latino politicians "talk of the need for coalitions" with African Americans? Ever?

And with regard to the SCOTUS, would Latinos support the petition urging President Obama to nominate a Black woman to the SCOTUS? Moreover, if an African American woman were to be tapped for the high court, would Latino organizations write to their memberships, urging them to contact their senators to ensure her confirmation, as my beloved Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. did in support of the Sotomayor nomination?

Returning, however, to the Arizona immigration law, I see the potential for racial profiling--if its application is abused.

Dr. Christopher J. Metzler, international human rights law expert and Associate Dean, Georgetown University School of Continuing Studies believes that "opponents of the law should express their opposition of the potential for abuse, not the law itself. While there are many things to challenge in the law, labeling it a racist law is not a winning argument."

And there's just no getting around the fact that securing the Mexican border is a very real problem. Few would argue this point. But some do, most notably Temple University author and professor of African American Studies, Dr. Ama Mazama.

"This is their land, to begin with, asserts Mazama, and it is quite ironic that Europeans would use humiliating and questionable techniques to dispossess them once again of their right to be here. If anything, they should receive an apology and reparations for the wrong that was done to them not so long ago, and for the wrong that is being done to them again today. Furthermore, one must question what is really going on here: are Europeans afraid that they are losing ground because of their low birth rates, and might be overwhelmed demographically by the indigenous people?"

No matter your perspective, clearly, there is a real conundrum here and hard decisions will have to be made.

Let me be absolutely clear here. It is absolutely wrong to randomly stop people in the streets based solely on their race or nationality. For example, if Arizona law enforcement officials were to set up checkpoints seeking documentation from all Latinos, this would be outright racial profiling, which is insidious and specious.

On the other hand, if there is a valid reason for a police stop, like a traffic violation, then I don't see a problem with Arizona police officers asking for proof of citizenship/residency, which is what the controversial new law actually allows.

Metzler reads the statute similarly. "There is nothing in the text of SB1070 (the Arizona immigration law) that gives law enforcement officials unfettered authority to stop, question, arrest, and detain any individual they suspect may be in the U.S. illegally."
"The law allows questions of citizenship to be raised by law enforcement only if a person has been detained because they are suspected of a crime or a violation of the law, such as a traffic violation. In other words, the stop must first be legal," adds Metzler.

Granted, there may still be valid issues with the law; however, we must find a way to address illegal immigration. And if one has proof of citizenship, why not just show it? Or, as Stanley Crouch colorfully asserts in a discussion on overcoming America's racial barriers, in the documentary Ralph Ellison: An American Journey, "If you got the grits, serve 'em."

It's not like requiring a literacy test to vote--as was routine in the disenfranchisement of African Americans during Jim Crow. Nor is it, like some have suggested, comparable to the "slave passes" that were required for enslaved Africans to "legally" go anywhere alone. After all, my enslaved African ancestors--brought here through forced immigration--would have loved nothing more than to return to our African homeland.

I mean, could somebody please tell me, how can there be any realistic resolution of the immigration dilemma if, at some point, IDs are not checked?

Personally, I think that the application of the Arizona law bears watching...however, I think most of the uproar is political. And please know that I'm not mad at my Latino brothers and sisters for exercising their political muscle. I'm just saying...

Finally, I wonder if there would be such an outcry if Florida were to suddenly pass a law requiring that all Haitian immigrants prove citizenship--or, say, all African immigrants in New York--as Mexicans must in Arizona. Would Latinos rush to form Black/Brown coalitions and take to the streets in solidarity with their darker brethren? (Disclaimer: And, Lord knows, I'm all for Black/Brown coalitions. I just want them to be reciprocal).

Moreover, would Latino organizations suddenly boycott the offending states, as the Alphas did by cancelling their national convention in Phoenix (reportedly forfeiting over $300,000 in fines and penalties)? And would the NY Knicks or Miami Heat even notice the situation, let alone wear special jerseys in solidarity, as did the Phoenix Suns on Cinco de Mayo?

Dr. Boyce Watkins, Syracuse University finance professor, has similar concerns, saying "what must also be noted is that all of the energy that the [Phoenix] Suns are willing to put behind this protest for the Latino community has never been shown for the African-American community. For some reason, the black men wearing athletic uniforms have almost no willingness to speak out in the name of their fellow African-Americans wearing prison uniforms."

And, moreover, while our anointed African American leaders are taking to the streets in Arizona, President Obama is about to nominate his second Supreme Court Justice--and so far, not one of the supposed African American contenders has even been granted an interview. But do Black (and Latino) politicians, activists and Greek letter organizations even care? And would they publicly support the petition urging President Obama to nominate an African American woman?

Based on their response so far--or lack thereof--not so much...

An earlier version of this article appeared at Diverse Issues in Higher education.com.

The Time is Ripe For an African American Woman on the American Supreme Court

2010-04-21T06:32:58Z

Reportedly there is not one African American among President Obama's Supreme Court finalists? Am I the only one who finds this troublesome?

]]> "If the time is not ripe, we have to ripen the time."
--Dr. Dorothy Irene Height

President Obama is scheduled to meet today with the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senators Leahy and McConnell. On the agenda is the pending vacancy on the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). Specifically, a timetable for the nomination, the confirmation hearings, and more importantly, the names of possible nominees will be the topic of discussion.

As it stands, if media reports are credible, the three or four people widely reported as likely finalists to replace Justice John Paul Steven are all White. Reportedly, there are two women, but there is not one African American among the contenders? Not one-just as was the case during President Obama's first SCOTUS nomination, when Justice Sotomayor was tapped.

Am I the only one who finds this troublesome?

This is hard to swallow, particularly since, as I wrote earlier, "never has there been a wider pool--and never will the time be riper--for the appointment of a progressive Black woman to the SCOTUS. Particularly since the Pew Research Center reports that 'overall, among all racial, ethnic and gender groups, [B]lack women had the highest voter turnout rate in November's [2008] election [68.8 percent]--a first.' This should yield real, bankable--and measurable-- capital for a loyal and stalwart constituency."

It is also hard to understand why the Black press, by-and-large, has not raised the question of the possibility of a SCOTUS nominee who relates to the plight of African Americans?

One exception is Hazel Trice Edney, National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) Washington Correspondent. In her article "Obama Should Consider First Black Woman for Supreme Court, Jurists Say," Edney cites Obama mentor, Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree, who feels that Black women should not be among the invisible.

Ogletree points out that "when you think about the success of Black women running universities, running corporations being involved as leaders in religion ... you see that we have talents in every conceivable place. It doesn't take rocket science to know that there are exceptionally qualified people."

This is no secret.

To be sure, there are numerous Black women who could bring a wealth of legal expertise, a sense of fairness, and an appreciation for the rule of law. In my article, "No (Black) Justice, No Peace?," I profiled, among others, The Honorable Ann Claire Williams, 60, United States Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and Dr. Phoebe A. Haddon, 59, Dean of the University of Maryland School of Law. And there are no doubt others.

Also, within the ideal forty-something age range, there is Cheryl D. Mills 45, Counselor and Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was reportedly set to nominate Mills for the High Court--had she been elected president. Of course, Hillary didn't become president, largely, thanks to the Black female vote for candidate Obama, including mine. Right now, I can't think of any more profound irony. Can you?

But I digress.

The BBC reported that--in her role as Associate Counsel to President Bill Clinton--Mills was "widely regarded as the shining star of the defense team" during the president's impeachment trial. Soon thereafter, she was promoted to Deputy White House Counsel and subsequently offered the White House Counsel post, which she declined. She went on to serve as Senior Vice President of Corporate Policy and Public Programming and General Counsel for Oprah Winfrey's Oxygen Media and, later, as Chief Operating Officer for NYU.

Of course, President Obama knows of these and many other imminently qualified Black female esquires worthy of elevation to the high court. The question is: Why are they being passed over, if one is to believe media reports? Is it because the re-shaping of the Supreme Court does not seem to be on the radar screen of Black America?

That is, could it be because Black advocacy groups have not made the High Court part of the "Black Agenda"? Apparently, they have forgotten the landmark Supreme Court case, Bush v. Gore, when the High Court--by a vote of 5-4--stopped the recount of the presidential votes in Florida, effectively handing George W. Bush the presidency.

This bit of history is presented here as a reminder for those who ask why I am making such a big deal about Obama's Supreme Court nominations. In the inimitable words of Vice President Joe Biden, " this is a big effing deal."

And this is not lost on the politically astute. That's why interest groups have historically lobbied the POTUS with regard to the make-up of the SCOTUS. Presidents expect it. And President Obama is no exception. Even Ogletree pointedly said--during the "Measuring the Movement" Conference convened by The Reverend Al Sharpton to hammer out a "Black Agenda"--that President Obama appreciates a challenge and that he "likes criticism."

This is reminiscent of Amy Goodman's rendering of an historical anecdote shared by candidate Obama during a campaign rally. As she writes in "Make Obama Keep his Promises," candidate Obama, while answering a question, recounted the story of A. Phillip Randolph's meeting with President FDR. Randolph reportedly asked Roosevelt what he planned to do to address the historic problems confronting the Black community, this during the Jim Crow era. That is to say, Randolph inquired about FDR's "Black Agenda."

FDR reportedly gave the following oft-quoted reply: "I've heard everything you've said tonight...and I agree with everything that you've said, including my capacity to be able to right many of these wrongs and to use my power and the bully pulpit... But I would ask one thing of you...and that is, go out and make me do it."

And I think we should take President Obama at his word.

Now, of course, no one can physically "make" the POTUS do anything; however, there are ways of persuading the Commander-in-Chief. As FDR and Obama have hinted, within the American body politic, it is the squeaky wheel that gets the oil. Frederick Douglass said it thus: "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."

In this spirit, I have started a petition urging President Obama and members of Congress to nominate and ultimately confirm the first African American woman to the SCOTUS. As I said in "It is High Time for a Black Woman on the High Court: Part II," "we must make our voices heard with regard to the changing composition of the Supreme Court, lest we emerge from the Obama era with Clarence Thomas still the lone Black face among the nine."

If you would like to participate in trying to shape the arc of American judicial history, then please click here and sign the petition, "It is High Time for a Black Woman on the High Court." Time is of the essence. We must, in the words of candidate Obama, recognize "the fierce urgency of now."

In closing, I must reiterate, never has the time been riper for the nomination of a Black woman to the "Highest Court in the Land."

Indeed, when I heard of the passing of our legendary Delta Sigma Theta soror, Dr. Dorothy Height, I immediately thought of all her tireless work during her four decades as president of the National Council of Negro Women. Initially, I was saddened, but then I smiled when I read her trademark credo, which I will close with here: "If the time is not ripe, we have to ripen the time."

Indeed.

Recycling the Angry White Male

2010-04-20T15:48:24Z

That race lurks perilously just beneath the surface with Tea Party activists is beyond dispute.

]]> A recent New York Time/CBS poll confirmed the obvious. Tea Party activists are overwhelmingly white, male, conservative, lower income, and GOP leaning. Nearly all passionately believe that President Obama is shoving the country to socialism. All lambaste the federal government for giving the company store away to the poor. The poor in this case are blacks. That race lurks perilously just beneath the surface with Tea Party activists is beyond dispute. To many the equation is government programs equal hand outs to undeserving blacks and the poor and that in turn equals money snatched from the pockets of hard working whites.

This is nothing new. It's just a recycle of the media buzz depiction of the angry white male. The term was coined by political analyst and then GOP strategist Kevin Phillips during Nixon's presidential campaign in 1968. Nixon stoked the fury of blue collar, white ethnics, rural voters with his slam of the Democrats for coddling criminals, welfare cheats, and fostering a culture of anything goes permissiveness, and of course, big government Great Society pandering to the poor. The crude thinly disguised code words and racial cues worked. Nixon eked out a narrow victory over Democratic presidential opponent Hubert Humphrey. The tag of law and order and permissiveness became a staple in the GOP attack play book for the next four decades. With tweaks and refinements, Reagan, Bush Sr. and W. Bush used it to ease their path to the White House. In the mid 1990s, Newt Gingrich and ultra conservatives recycled the strategy to seize Congress, and pound out an agenda that made big government, tax and spend Democrats, and soft on crime liberals the fall guys for everything wrong with America. It touched the familiar nerve with white males.

The volatile mix of big government and economics that can whip frustrated, rebellious, angry whites (and more than a few non-whites) into a tizzy far better than crude race baiting, magnificently for a reason that goes beyond race alone. Many blue-collar white males were losing ground to minorities and women in the workplace, schools, and in society. The trend toward white male poverty and alienation became more evident in the early 1980s when nearly 10 million Americans were added to the poverty rolls, more than half from white, male-headed families. Two decades later, the number of white men in poverty has continued to expand.

Hate groups, anti-Obama Web sites and bloggers, and radio talk jocks can craft this as the prime reason for the anger and alienation that many white males feel toward health care and, by extension, Obama while convincing themselves and the public that this has nothing to do with race. This translates to even more fear, rage and distrust of big government. The vintage blends of anti-government politics and calls defending personal freedom were the neo-libertarian war cries heard at the Conservative Political Action Conference and the tea party convention. Protests over big government dwarfed the subtle and overt race-baiting appeals that were seen and heard at both conventions.

Tea party activists hammer Obama, the Democrats, big government, the elites, and Wall Street. Yet, they also grouse about abortion, family values, gay rights, and tax cuts -- not race.

Right-wing populism, with its mix of xenophobia, loath of government as too liberal, too tax-and-spend, and too permissive, and a killer of personal freedom has been the engine that powered Reagan and Bush White House wins. Scores of GOP governors, senators and members of congress have used wedge issues to win office and maintain political dominance. The GOP grassroots brand of populism has stirred millions operating outside the confines of the mainstream Republican Party. In 2008, many of these voters stayed home. Even Sarah Palin wasn't enough to budge them. Their defection was more a personal and visceral reaction to the bumbles of George W. Bush than a radical and permanent sea change in overall white voter sentiment. They were ripe for the tea party movement -- or any movement that keyed their anger and frustration into action.

The supposed proof that the tea party movement is loaded with bigots and driven by race frenzy is that tea party leaders won't denounce the racists in their ranks. That won't happen. One the movement would have to be structured, layered, and regimented with a unitary agenda and program for that to be the case. It's the disparate, disjointed and scrambled headless amoeba that makes the tea party movement potent, appealing and dangerous. But it won't happen because for more than four decade history of politics the dangerous blend of big government, undeserving, crime prone, poor and minorities, and put upon whites has been so deeply encoded in the political thinking of millions of whites, that it's the government not race that matters, true or not.

No (Black) Justice, No Peace?

2010-04-17T13:52:31Z

]]> Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation...want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.... Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."
--Frederick Douglass, 1857

This past weekend, the Reverend Al Sharpton and his National Action Network convened the "Measuring the Movement" confab to discuss the "Black Agenda." Incidentally, President Barack Obama is poised to make his second nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), in the wake of the announced resignation of Justice John Paul Stevens.

These might seem like two totally unrelated events, but they're not. At least they shouldn't be. In fact, in my mind, what better metric of Black progress is there for Black opinion leaders than a successful campaign for the nomination of one who shares our life experience to sit on the highest court in the land? I mean, this should be right near the top of any so-called Black Agenda. As Vice President Joe Biden would say, "this is a big effing deal!"

After all, many of us shout, "No Justice, No Peace" in the face of police brutality, and we rail and rally against unfair sentencing laws and America's shameful "prison industrial complex." Well, this writer thinks we need to modify this call to action and very respectfully--yet emphatically--send this same message to President Obama.

Now.

How about this version, lest we be taken for granted: "No Black Justice, No Black Vote," or a similar derivative.

Of course, I'm not suggesting that Black leaders issue an ultimatum to our beloved President Obama. Heaven forbid. What I am suggesting, however, is that we as a people take it "back to the old landmark," as our elders say. Meaning, we must return to our tradition of marching and rallying for justice.

It's ironic that many Black leaders--because we have an African American president-- are now eschewing the very same tactics that led to the historic civil rights gains of the 1960's and 70's. Meanwhile, Latinos, women, Jewish Americans, Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals and Transgenders--and even the Tea Baggers--have learned from our past victories and are now successfully waging campaigns to make their voices heard on the issues that matter most in their communities.

And we must do likewise. After all, this is the American way, is it not? Just as Latinos forcefully and pointedly lobbied and campaigned for a Latino on the Supreme Court, African Americans must mount a serious campaign to have an African American nominee, ideally, a woman.

And not just any Black woman will do. America needs an associate justice with the same philosophical leanings as Justice Stevens--or better still, the late Justice Thurgood Marshall, who was never really replaced.

Many names have been bandied about, most notably former Georgia Chief Justice, Leah Ward Sears, although many believe that the Washington Post article detailing her friendship with Clarence Thomas doomed her chances of being nominated by a Democratic American president.

The Honorable Ann Claire Williams, 60, a United States Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, has also been mentioned as a possible candidate in some recent reports. The internationally recognized jurist, first nominated by President Reagan to the U. S. District Court in 1985 and elevated by President Clinton to the Seventh Circuit in 1999, acted as a member of training delegations who traveled to International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania and also for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at the Hague.

Another prospect is the recently confirmed Judge Ojetta Rogeriee Thompson, 58, of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and a former Rhode Island Superior Court justice. When President Obama nominated her to the appellate court last year, a White House press release noted that "while on the bench, Judge Thompson chaired the Court's Ad Hoc Task Force on Limited English Speaking Litigants, which was instrumental in the Superior Court establishing an Office of Court Interpreters to ensure that all limited English-speaking litigants have a fuller understanding of judicial proceedings."

And if President Obama is looking for a non-jurist, as some have speculated, then there are numerous highly qualified African American women within the academy or among the ranks of the nation's public defenders and/or prosecutors.

One noteworthy and meritorious African American legal academician is Dr. Phoebe A. Haddon, 59, Dean of the University of Maryland School of Law, the first African American female to head the 186 year-old enclave. The U of Maryland Daily Record reports that "one of the first things Phoebe A. Haddon saw when she visited the University of Maryland School of Law during its dean search was 'Thurgood Marshall's Early Career in Maryland: 1933-1937,' an exhibit in the library that bears the name of the late Supreme Court justice."

Perhaps this was a harbinger of things to come for Haddon, a fourth-generation lawyer whose great-grandfather, A.W.E. Bassette, was also a lawyer/educator who is believed to have "founded the first school for freed slaves in Hampton, Virginia," where an elementary school bears his name, in recognition of his 39 years of teaching, beginning in 1876.

Granted, there may be something of a dearth of potential Black female nominees in what is considered the ideal age range, forty-something. There is however, at least one excellent exception: Cheryl D. Mills, 45, Counselor and Chief of Staff to Secretary of State HIllary Clinton, who is said to have planned to nominate Mills to the High Court--had she been elected president. (Of course, ironically HIllary didn't become president, largely, thanks to the Black female vote for candidate Obama, including mine.)

In her role as Associate Counsel to President Bill Clinton, Mills attained international prominence for her stellar defense of the president during his impeachment trial, after which she was promoted to Deputy White House Counsel and ultimately offered the job of White House Counsel, which she turned down to pursue corporate and academic opportunities. She has since served as Senior Vice President of Corporate Policy and Public Programming/General Counsel for Oprah Winfrey's Oxygen Media and Chief Operating Officer for NYU.

Indeed, it is clear that never has there been a wider pool--and never will the time be riper--for the appointment of a progressive Black woman to the SCOTUS. Particularly since the Pew Research Center reports that "overall, among all racial, ethnic and gender groups, [B]lack women had the highest voter turnout rate in November's [2008] election [68.8 percent]--a first." This should yield real, bankable--and measurable-- capital for a loyal and stalwart constituency.

I first wrote of this in "It is High Time for a Black Woman on the High Court." At that time-- just after the Sotomayor nomination--one reader correctly commented that I should have written before the nomination. Well, this time I am imploring Black leaders--and the Black Press--not to wait until after-the-fact to make our voices heard on this crucial matter.

One thing is certain, if we don't put it on the agenda by asking for it, it will never happen. The first step is to believe that we can do this. Naysayers must remember the sage words of then candidate Obama: "Yes, we can."

Presidential Obama's historic perch on Pennsylvania Avenue bears out his prophetic proclamation--thanks, in large part, to record Black voter turnout. Now, thoughtful Black folks are wondering just what, long-term, an Obama presidency means for African Americans, beyond the symbolic, as I wrote in my "Guest Editorial" to a special issue of the Journal of Black Studies>, "Barack Obama's Improbable Election &The Question of Race and Racism in Contemporary America."

So, let's give President Obama the political cover that he will need to make what would no doubt be an historic and courageous nomination. And, mind you, I know that we have, in large part, taken our activism from the streets, into...more respectable corridors, but let us not forget Frederick Douglass' storied mantra: "Power concedes nothing without a demand." Or put another way, "No Justice, No Peace."

If you agree, please click here to sign a petition asking President Obama and members of Congress to nominate the first African American Woman to the SCOTUS. Make your voice heard and let's seize "the fierce urgency of now"!

Updated Sunday, 18 April 2009, 8:00 PM.

The Daily Voice On Hiatus

2010-04-02T23:22:20Z

The Daily Voice will be on hiatus during the summer. Click on this link to find out more.

]]> Effective Monday, April 5, The Daily Voice will be on hiatus. During this time we will not publish daily articles or updates, although we may publish some weekly content from regular contributors or relevant breaking news as events warrant.

Our original hiatus was scheduled to last until June 1 but has been extended throughout the summer until we determine plans for the future operation. We apologize for the inconvenience.

The Daily Voice was launched more than two years ago, in February 2008, in part, to provide coverage of the historic presidential campaign of Barack Obama from an African American perspective. Since that time, the economy has changed dramatically and the economic climate in newsrooms and publishing has been seriously affected.

We plan to spend the next 60 days reviewing our business model, our content, and our audience to determine whether and how to proceed from here. We are also willing to accept any serious ideas about financing, advertisement, management or content. If you have suggestions or would like to be of assistance in some way, please contact us at: editor@thedailyvoice.com.

In the meantime, you can keep track of our progress by signing up for our Facebook page or Twitter page where we will report any new developments about our return.

We appreciate your patronage over the past two years and thank you for your continued support.

Chris Rock's controversial new/old video hits YouTube

2010-04-02T15:06:04Z

]]>

Chris Rock has a new film coming out. And a very old video too.

Rock is raising eyebrows after a 6-year-old video surfaced this week showing the comedian doing a parody of the OutKast song "Hey Ya."

"Crackers" was written by Rock and writers from the Chris Rock show in 2004, according to AOL Black Voices, But the video was not released until now.

"What the hell is going on here?" New York magazine asks. The magazine calls the content "really unsettling" and "plenty strange," and cites controversial lyrics like "My father's light-skinned/he hates you cracker bastards 'cause his dick is so small" and "You raped my grandma."

Some critics call the new-old Rock video racist, but the magazine questions the timing of the release, openly wondering if it was "secretive marketing for Rock's new movie Death at a Funeral." Meanwhile, IFC.com called it "a reminder of a time when people really cared what he had to say."

Rock's new film is a remake of a 2007 film and stars Martin Lawrence, Tracy Morgan, Zoe Saldana, James Marsden, Danny Glover, Loretta Devine and Luke Wilson.

The 2004 video spoof can be seen below, but be warned. It includes graphic language, including the use of the N word.

Minorities' 5 stages of interracial dating

2010-04-02T13:57:22Z

What's a black Muslim guy doing with a white Jewish guy? Explaining his own suspicions about interracial dating.

]]> I'm a black, Muslim man dating a white, Jewish guy. Yes, I'm in an interracial relationship, but as a general principle I'm deeply suspicious of them.

Interracial relationships are too often whitewashed as a step in the right direction: members of two different races transcending their tribal affiliations to form intimate connections with "the other" and in the process discovering that "the other" is not so different after all. That's all well and good, but that sort of Disney-esque narrative mischaracterizes most interracial relationships and allows those minorities who have deep self-hatred issues to pat themselves on the back for being racially enlightened.

The way I see it, there are 5 evolutionary dating stages for racial minorities:

Stage 1: In this stage, we have consumed all the messages we've received on a daily basis about our race being inferior. We have digested and processed these ideas unconsciously, but they manifest in our dating selections. We seek out "the other" and avoid dating people who look like us. When we're in this stage we will overlook someone in our own race that is a solid 8 out of 10 for someone of another race that's a 4 out of 10. We come to see features that are inherent to our race as unattractive: i.e. Blacks that don't like nappy hair or broader noses; Asians that don't find "smaller eyes" attractive. Because of this and general notions of racial inferiority that are so pervasive, "the other" becomes coveted and desired and eventually required. One of the many problems with this phase is that no one knows they're in it until they're out of it. Most minorities I know who are in interracial relationships are in this stage but they confuse it for the more flattering Stage 5.

Stage 2: In this stage you date people in your race, but you seek out those who have features that are atypical for your race: i.e. black folks who constantly find themselves attracted to blacks with the lightest skin, or lighter eyes or straighter hair. Again, people in this category are often afflicted with both self-hatred and deep denial.

Stage 3: In this stage, you only date people of your own race. You find beauty in those that look like you, and you love the common points of cultural identification that normally accompany same-race relationships. This is a healthy stage to find yourself in, but it's not the most evolved because often times you're willing to overlook too many flaws in a potential partner just because they're of the same race: maybe your partner doesn't have the level of education you'd like in a mate, or maybe he doesn't treat you the way you think you deserve to be treated, or he doesn't share your same spiritual values--but because your skin tones match you're willing to overlook all that.

Stage 4: You're usually only attracted to people of your race, but every once a while someone of a different race comes around and tickles your fancy. While you hope to be in a relationship and eventually settle down with someone of your race, if some stellar "other" comes-a-knockin', you won't be closed off to the opportunity. But still, being of the same race gets a potential suitor a lot of points in your book, and so again, you find yourself overlooking potentially major flaws.

Stage 5: In this ever-elusive stage, you're equally open to any and every race. You find beauty in all races, including your own. Your exes look like a model UN. None of your friends know who you're going to end up with, and neither do you. But you're not just obsessed with "tasting the rainbow" and keeping up the appearance of being counter-culture. Rather, you genuinely connect with people of all races. However, very few people ever get to this stage, but those who do are much more likely to find happiness because they have so many more options for mates and can choose them based on authentic connections.

The problem with minorities that date interracially is that almost all of us assume we're in Stage 5 when most are in Stage 1. So here are some signs that you might be stuck in Stage 1*:

1. None of the last 5 people you dated or had a crush on were of your race.

2. The people you check out on the streets are usually of different races.

3. You have few friends of your race.

4. ?In school, you refused to join your race's affinity group (i.e. The Latino Student Association, The Black Student Association, The Asian Student Association, etc.)

While none of these are dispositive, I've found that people in Stage 1 usually have at least one of these characteristics.

The final problem with being in either of the first two stages is that because you're so often more attracted to the idea of what "the other" represents, than you are to the actual person (granted, the two can become conflated), you run a big risk of attracting a partner that is also more attracted to the idea of you, than they are to you (see: The Secret--"Like Attracts Like"). So you get the guy with an Asian fetish, or the woman who's looking for a Mandingo, or a Latino Lover. But you can only be attracted to an idea for so long; eventually, you'll need someone who sees and loves who you really are and not the culturally prescribed role that you're supposed to play.

The key sign that your mate has some kind of racial fetish, and this goes for whites as well as minorities: They have rarely been in same-race relationships, and:

1. If almost all of their exes are of the same race (i.e. a white guy who has almost exclusively dated Asian women), then they probably have a fetish for your race and you need to pack up your bags and go.

2. If their exes are of many different races but never their own (i.e. a black guy who doesn't date black women but dates Whites, Asians, Native Americans, Latinos, etc), then they're probably just looking for something "exotic," and you need to not let yourself be their walk on the wild side.

As for me, when I was just a young buck I found myself in Stage 2, but that was pretty short lived. For most of my life, I've been in Stage 3. But within the last few years I've lived in a number of countries where blacks were few and far between so out of necessity I was pushed to Stage 4, and I'm glad I was. Now, I've been able to form a genuine connection with someone from a completely different walk of life. But instead of being mired in dysfunctional racial complexes, we've been able to connect in a way that transcends the confines of race and religion. Now, if we were to call it quits today, I'd almost certainly find myself trolling black gay bars just as he'd probably find himself searching profiles on JDate, so I'm not saying Stage 4 is my permanent stage, but it's the one I find myself in today.

To be clear: I do think that the willingness to be in an interracial relationship can be indicative of a couple being racially enlightened, but for minorities it can't be ignored that these relationships can also be a sign that we've become so psychologically damaged by living in a society with pervasive racism that we can no longer see our own beauty and worth. Sadly, all too often the former becomes confused for the latter and so we don't do the work necessary to pull ourselves out of this muck. But none of these stages are immutable: someone in Stage 1 can find themselves in Stage 5 if they do the sort of difficult, introspective work required. Although the end result--being in an interracial relationship--is the same, it's faulty to measure progress solely by looking at the destination. When it comes to love and race, the path you take really does matter.

162,000 new jobs added to economy in March

2010-04-02T13:08:08Z

]]> The nation's unemployment rate remained steady at 9.7 percent in March, as black unemployment climbed a bit to 16.5 percent.

And for the first time in years, the U.S. economy added a significant number of jobs, the Labor Department reported on Monday.

162,000 new jobs were added to the economy in March, breaking a nearly two-year trend of job losses that reached nearly 800,000 a month when President Obama took office in January 2009 (see chart below). The numbers also reflect the government's hiring of 48,000 temporary Census workers.

The new numbers come as a newly emboldened President Obama and the White House try to focus on jobs. After inheriting an economy in recession, the president can now point to more positive economic numbers. The "underlying prognosis for the labor market," according to economists interviewed by the New York Times, is that the economy "has reached a turning point and will begin adding jobs at a slow, but steady, pace."

The official unemployment rate at 16.5 percent, however, does not include those who have left the workforce and are no longer looking for jobs. The total number of officially unemployed persons is 15.0 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The government also reported that 6.5 million people are considered long-term employed because they have been jobless for 27 weeks or more.

The official unemployment rate for blacks (16.5 percent) was nearly twice as high as that for whites (8.8 percent) and significantly higher than that for Hispanics (12.6 percent).

2010-04-01T19:44:41Z

'Stop the Sag' campaign hits New York

2010-04-01T13:33:53Z

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Pull your pants up. That's the message behind New York state senator Eric Adams's new "stop the sag" campaign that aims to encourage black youth to stop wearing saggy pants.

Adams, an African American retired police captain elected to the New York state senate in 2006, took to the Internet last week with a YouTube video designed to discourage saggy pants. Today he's out with the second wave of his campaign, a billboard spread throughout Brooklyn, according to the New York Times.

The ''Stop the Sag'' billboards, paid for by Adams, reportedly show two men in jeans low enough to display their underwear.

"If we raise our pants, we raise our image," Adams argues in his related video message, where he advises young people "don't surrender control over your own image."

The video adds:

Throughout history, in every society cultures have had to endure negative caricatures and stereotypes imposed on them. Even in this country, images of ridicule portraying certain groups in a negative way have been forced on minorities, and it has taken activists and united communities to confront and reject these misrepresentations.
It is disturbing that today we still see similarly negative and degrading imagery, but this time it is self imposed. We see this insidious spectacle among some of our young people whenever they walk down the street with their pants sagging. This is not a fashion trend; it is un-kept and unnecessary. Sagging pants have become a degrading and self imposed icon.

They follow in a long tradition of negative stereotyping that results in groups being seen in a negative light. Particularly since the origin of this style comes from a prison culture. Our young people should not promote it.

The campaign follows the popularity of YouTube video featuring 2010 American Idol contestant Larry Platt singing a song called "Pants On The Ground," which has received more than 2.5 million hits as of this week.

Adams isn't trying to pass any new laws to criminalize sagging pants. He says he just wants young people to reject the stereotypes and start improving their image. ''You can raise your level of respect if you raise your pants," he says.

Sarah Palin's own brand of "March Madness"

2010-03-29T11:59:07Z

Does Sarah Palin really believe liberals and Democrats are the "enemy?"

]]> I'm as bored of Sarah Palin's ongoing idiocy as much as anyone, but underestimating her ability to inflict blunt force trauma upon the American body politic is a mistake. Her talent for leading the Angry White Men of the Tea Party by the nose provides the Republican Party with energy even if they lack any new ideas beyond variations of recycled Ronald Reagan riffs.

A new phenomenon is emerging: The Angry White Woman embodied by Palin, the failed ex- governor who quit on the people of Alaska so she could relocate to the lower 48, peddle a politically empty book, become a Fox News contributor, and pocket thousands of dollars speaking to her fans at Tea Party rallies. Palin hopes riding a wave of White resentment against the nation's first Black president will make her his replacement.

Palin's policies, such as they are, are articulated on her Facebook page. She took to it Sunday to author a post about the NCAA basketball tournament, but did so by drawing some provocative and troubling comparisons that seem to have nothing at all to do with sports.

Unless you consider politics a blood sport. The usage of emphasis and italics are all by Palin and are reproduced verbatim:

Warning: Subject to New Politically Correct Language Police Censorship

Today at 4:59pm

March Madness battles rage! My family and I join millions of Americans enjoying college basketball's finest through March Madness. Underdogs always get my vote as we watch intense competition bring out the best in these accomplished teams.

The Final Four is an intense, contested series (kind of like a heated, competitive primary election), so best of luck to all teams, and watch for this principle lived out: the team that wins is the team that wants it more.

To the teams that desire making it this far next year: Gear up! In the battle, set your sights on next season's targets! From the shot across the bow - the first second's tip-off - your leaders will be in the enemy's crosshairs, so you must execute strong defensive tactics. You won't win only playing defense, so get on offense! The crossfire is intense, so penetrate through enemy territory by bombing through the press, and use your strong weapons - your Big Guns - to drive to the hole. Shoot with accuracy; aim high and remember it takes blood, sweat and tears to win.

Focus on the goal and fight for it. If the gate is closed, go over the fence. If the fence is too high, pole vault in. If that doesn't work, parachute in. If the other side tries to push back, your attitude should be "go for it." Get in their faces and argue with them. (Sound familiar?!) Every possession is a battle; you'll only win the war if you've picked your battles wisely. No matter how tough it gets, never retreat, instead RELOAD!

- Sarah Palin

There's enough ambiguity in Mrs. Palin's post for her to say, "Oh for goodness sake, lighten up folks. You libs have no sense of humor."

What I wonder is does everyone who reads what Palin says see the clever usage of metaphor and ambiguity? Someone posted on Facebook they thought it was a little too slick and sophisticated to come from Sarah Palin. Perhaps, and perhaps she's a quicker study that she let's on. The last time the Left "mis-underestimated" a Republican governor with a skimpy national profile and mangled syntax, George W. Bush had the last laugh for eight years.

Palin loves to skewer the out-of-touch elites for mocking her plain speaking persona. Even if someone ghost-wrote this post, it's her name associated to it, so either she wrote it or approved it being written for her to put her name to it. Whether or not she claims authorship or not, she owns these words and the responsibility that comes from how they are construed.

In politics there are opposing viewpoints and opponents. We can hold differing opinions about an issue and defend our position with great passion, but that doesn't mean we come to blows to "win." We express our differences, we disagree, we move on. Nobody has to lose for the other side to win.

"Enemy" is a stronger word. A much stronger word. Does Sarah Palin believe liberals and Democrats are the "enemy?" It is not enough they be defeated at the polls, but removed as a possible threat as well? That term just seems more than a little intemperate. It seems ominous.

I don't see Michigan State, West Virginia, Butler and Duke waging "war" next Saturday. I doubt these coaches and teams view each other as implacable enemies to be vanquished and requiring the spilling of "blood, sweat and tears."

If Palin was channeling her inner Winston Churchill, she should know the correct quotation is "blood, toil, tears and sweat." Perhaps those lessons haven't covered historical accuracy yet?

I do hope it's just me and I'm not finding the funny in this post by Palin. Someone with the obvious ambitions of Palin who aspires to the highest elected office in the land must guard against these languid lapses into troubling language. Veiled calls to inciting violence against one's perceived "enemies" are like taking a frothing-mad pit bull off its leash. One moment it may rip out the throat of the enemy and turn on it's own master's neck in the next.

Sarah Palin may always be considered something of a political lightweight and a bad joke being played upon the American electorate. But this joke is getting a lot less funny and a bit scary as she inches ever closer to the fringes of American extremism.