Race, Politics, & Immigration

With the new law in Arizona which allows local police personnel to act as immigration agents many people fear that it will lead to widespread arrest and detention of Latinos legal or illegal. While this is a valid concern it really misses the whole point of the law. Except for some small town sheriffs seeking to use this for political or personal gain most local police have their hands full with the crimes they already enforce and will not have the inclination or desire to add this onerous duty to their already busy schedules. So if there is little chance of real enforcement of the law then why propose it and sign it into law?

What we are seeing in Arizona is similar to the sundown laws in the south during Jim Crow. The real purpose of these laws is not to be enforced but to intimidate. They are designed to say to all Latinos not just in Arizona but all over the southwest that we can mess with you anytime we want so don’t get comfortable. Historically whenever some whites have felt disenfranchised they have enacted these draconian and odorous laws to inflict psychological damage on those who they feel are the culprits. Do we really think that most local police will stop investigating crime and begin to focus on illegals? No, this law has broader implications and is a heavy-handed attempt to put Latinos back in their place. Don’t think for a minute that there won’t be some cowboy sheriff with a posse that won’t try to make some local political hay out of this, but overall police will continue to pursue local crimes.

I believe because this is an election year and the media can’t seem to get enough of the angry white voter, the politicians in Arizona decided to pander to the worst of our angels and send a message to that socialist in the White House that we have no intentions of just sitting back while our precious America is overrun with this brown tide of illegals that you seem incapable or unwilling to stop. I think everyone agrees that we need to secure our borders. Every country is entitled to know who comes in and who goes out of its borders, but let’s not use this as an excuse to marginalize a whole race of people. It seems important to some folks to be able to intimidate other folks but that solution has never been useful in bringing about positive change. It only seems to allow chaos and confusion to replace dialog and mutual understanding.

I find it interesting that there has been no major outcry from the libertarians or the tea-partiers concerning the fact that a government official can stop Americans and ask for their “papers”. Hell, I didn’t even know we had papers in America. I can’t imagine what I would do if a policeman stopped me on the street and asked for my papers. In my opinion the only way this could be even remotely constitutional is if we were all required to carry papers to verify our right to be in this country. Could you imagine the outcry from these patriotic white Americans if they were forced to carry papers to verify their being in America? You see it is ok for “those people” to have to prove their citizenship, but not those pure blooded Americans. When I heard about this law my first thought was did I accidentally be teleported back to an episode of “Hogan’s Heroes” and we now had Sgt. Schultz guarding our southern border?

I believe we must do more to secure our borders and for those who have to face this issue daily I sympathize with their frustration. I agree with those who are calling for a larger or even military presence on the border to stem the tide of undocumented. But the border is only one facet of the problem. We have millions of people who are residing in this country right now. What are we to do with them? What about the businesses that make it profitable for illegals to cross the border and work here? Do we ignore their role in this? Despite the decision of the folks in Arizona this is a complicated issue and one that requires more than a knee-jerk reaction. The time is overdue for real comprehensive immigration reform. We need reform that will recognize the complexities of this issue and balances the rights of current Americans with those of the immigrants. I hate to burst the bubble of the wing-nuts but you were once an immigrant in this country yourself.

It is vitally important that we implement immigration reform. We need a bill that strengthens our borders and protects this nation, but that also makes it simpler for good people to become Americans. - Dave Reichert

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Education – Kansas City Style

The plan will leave the district operating 33 schools, the fewest in 120 years. The district’s enrollment in 1889 was less than 18,000 — the same as its current enrollment. At its peak in the late 1960s, Kansas City was using more than 100 buildings and serving some 75,000 students. – Kansas City Star

As the school system in Kansas City, Missouri takes the national stage it is unfortunate that the reason is not because of better student achievement or more students graduating and going off to college. Instead it is because after decades of mismanagement and instability the current superintendent had to make some tough decisions. These decisions should have been made years ago as the board sit idly by while every school year more and more students left the district, but the school board chose to continue to kick the can down the road expecting some miracle to increase enrollment despite mounting evidence to the contrary.

I expect faith and looking for miracles from my religious leaders but not from elected members of the school board. There job was to evaluate the data and make planning decisions based on that data not continuing to placate a shrinking population. Each year parents in the district were voting by removing their kids from the district. I also expect stability in administration of the district’s curriculum and staff. Again we did not receive it. Instead we have had 26 superintendents in the last 39 years with a number of acting and interim folks at the helm of what can only be described as a troubled school district.

In a school district were only 30% of the students read at grade level and with a drop-out rate of 50% you would think that there would be some sense of urgency and commonality of purpose. Unfortunately in Kansas City you would be wrong. You see the school district problem is just a microcosm of the problems that have plagued Kansas City from the 60’s and 70’s. You see Kansas City is one of the most segregated cities in America. As a young man I recognized this fact and when I went away to college I promised myself that I would never return. At 17, I realized that no matter what I did at college I would be forever constricted in Kansas City. In Kansas City the racial lines are clearly defined and although few people talk about them we all know where they exist and to many they are stifling. You live in this area and you only socialize with these folks.

The Kansas City school district is 86% percent minority students and 80% of those students are receiving free or reduced lunches. What this means is that the school district is predominately minority and predominately poor. Since its peak enrollment of 75,000 the district has lost over 60,000 students. What that tells me is that those students who could have gotten out have left and what we are left with are the most difficult students to educate. But as with every issue in Kansas City it is cast in racial terms so the politics of race and division have trumped the welfare of the students. How many more students must the district lose before this becomes a priority for city leaders? Rather than developing a strategy to overcome these difficult challenges city officials and the school board are locked in this ninja death match where personal agendas and appealing to peoples worst angels are substituted for substantive discussion.

The unfortunate truth is that no matter how bad a system is if it is allow to continue it is because someone is profiting from it. Both sides of the racial divide in Kansas City are willing to sacrifice generation after generation of kids primarily minority kids for the sake of continuing this factionalism. The problem with a system like this is that both sides become very adept at framing issues in racial terms. One side states that there are no racial issues and the other that everything is a racial issue. It is very difficult to come together to solve major challenges when there is so much polarization. This was played out in the voting on the decision to close the schools which of course broke along racial lines. It took the courage of one African-American board member to enact this plan. My question to the other board members is this, “What is your plan to address a district that is operating at capacity when you have the student body at 40% capacity? Do you continue to ignore the reality like you have for years that your population is shrinking and your product is being rejected?

City Councilwoman Sharon Sanders Brooks, speaking to the board, lamented that the school closures will hurt the city’s central core. “Continuing the blighting of the urban core,” she said, “is scandalous and shameful.” – Kansas City Star

Instead of getting real answers to serious problems we get sound bites that play great to a certain constituency but adds nothing to the public discourse or to solving the problems. How anyone who has presided over this debacle can still remain at the head of this board is beyond me. This demonstrates the lack of priority that not only the city government puts on this issue but the public at large. We should realize that these aren’t their kids, they are all of our kids and act accordingly. Of course the answer will not be to replace those whose leadership is failing instead we will fire this superintendent and blame him for a dysfunctional system that he inherited and did not have the authority to change. How many more students, families, and jobs must we lose before someone takes this matter seriously? The three largest determinants to business development and relocation are public safety, schools, and a trained workforce. How are you doing Kansas City?

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A Nation Of Cowards?

Many of the pundit class in the media have been “appalled” by the comments of Attorney General Eric Holder, the first black Attorney General. In a speech that he gave at the Justice Department for Black History Month the AG stated that in effect when it comes to matters of race we have been a “nation of cowards”. As I observed the many black talking heads run for cover over the AG’s “controversial” remarks it reminded me of the “Jeremiah Wright” incident and many other times when a black person has spoken out in ways that were considered too confrontational. As a defense against the topic many focus on the tone of the speaker and not the message of the speaker. In this way we can continue to avoid the topic because we are so busy debating the messenger. What this allows us to do is to avoid the dreadful facts that in many ways our society and our social interactions have not changed much in the last fifty years.

What I think AG Holder was trying to do was to not allow many of us to fall into the trap that is Obamania. Now that Obama has been elected President many have begin to declare that our racial problems are over, that his election is evidence that we now live in a post-racial society. We are constantly being told that now we have nothing left to complain about – we elected a black man didn’t we? Let’s be clear electing Obama President is a historical and monumental achievement in America and is worthy of praise, but are any of us so naïve to believe that a black man that had to run by not discussing the problems and plight of black people suddenly removed the racial disparity that has for so long divided this nation? Think about this as an example; how many of us took part in the election by doing voter registration, attending rallies, and other volunteer activities and when they were over went back to our insulated enclaves feeling good that we had “made a difference”? For those of you who believe that we live in a transformed America let me present to you some facts that may alter those beliefs.

· In 2004, a typical black family had an income that was 58 percent of a typical white family's. In 1974, median black incomes were 63 percent of those of whites.

[1]

· Unemployment among blacks is more than double that for whites, 10.8 percent versus 5.2 percent in 2003 -- a wider gap than in 1972.[2]

· In 2000, the median net worth of a household headed by a non-Hispanic white adult was $79,400. The median net worth of a household run by a black adult was $7,500.[3]

· According to the 2000 U.S. census, an estimated 14.3% of the Black/African American population 25 years and older has a baccalaureate degree, 42.5% has some college education, and 72.3% completed high school. In contrast, 26.1% of the White population 25 years and older has a baccalaureate degree, 54.1% has some college education, and 83.6% completed high school (Bauman & Graf, 2003)[4]

· Only about 5 percent of the nation's churches are racially integrated[5]

So as one can easily deduce from the statistics electing one man to one office does not dramatically change what is happening on the ground with blacks. As I listened to the white pundits I couldn’t help but notice that their take – like so many other whites – was markedly different than the black pundits. They tend to believe that things are better for blacks than the blacks believe. Whether we like it or not at some point we have to begin to address and confront our racial history. For too long we have brushed it under the rug thinking it will just go away and granted that may happen, but at the rate we are going that could take a couple of centuries. In the mean time we continue to live in fear and mistrust of each other choosing to live in separate worlds that only collide when we are forced to by circumstance or emergency. The statistic that sticks out the most to me is the church integration, how are we going to live together when the one place where all are suppose to be equal under God remains so divided?

What many whites don’t understand is that in order for any minority to be successful they have to become experts in the culture of whites. They have to learn the music, the art, and the history of the white society. They have to learn and understand the psychology of whites. So minorities know whites, they have to. By the same token whites can be successful and don’t have to learn about any culture other than their own unless they choose to. You see integration has always been a bottom up proposition minorities integrating up into white schools, white neighborhoods, and white social circles. Rarely do whites integrate into black neighborhoods, black schools, or black social circles. Whites for the most part can still go through their daily lives without any significant interaction with a black person other than service personnel. In the meaningful areas of our lives many of us are still very segregated with the near future looking bleak.

Until we are able to have a free and open exchange of ideas we can never expect to overcome the centuries of mistrust that continue to plague us. Until whites are able to express their concerns about black societal ills without fear of hostility and calls of racism and until blacks are able to confront whites about their role in slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation without whites becoming defensive and blaming past generations we will be unable to bridge the divide that separates us. Are we a nation of cowards? Maybe, but in the past we have been and unless we overcome our fears instead of denying them we will remain stuck in the quagmire that has become race in America.

[1] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16293332
[2] http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=116
[3] http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2008/jan/22/john-edwards/black-and-white-family-net-worth-disparity-true/
[4] http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0JAX/is_3_55/ai_n18791411
[5] http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/08/04/segregated.sundays/index.html?eref=ib_topstories

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If He Wasn’t Black

For the first time in American history being a black man is now an asset? Ok, for the first time outside of an athletic event being a black man is a plus. I have been black a long time and I have witnessed countless instances when being a black man has been a handicap of epic proportions. I can even attest to the fact that just having a “black sounding” name has been a detriment. Now, I am suppose to believe that being a black man is somehow the reason Barack Obama is leading the nomination for President of America? I wonder if the people who are saying this line even hear themselves. I would like for them to go and tell this to the many young black men that are incarcerated in our nations jails and prisons who won’t even get the opportunity to vote in this historic election or tell it to the many young black men who are unemployed standing around the corners of our inner cities.

I have heard and read that blacks and specifically Obama supporters are too sensitive and are reacting to everything in racial terms. It appears that any criticism of Obama is cast in terms of racist intent. The race card is being played in reverse. Everyone that criticizes Senator Obama is a racist regardless of their previous record or support for civil rights. I agree there is a hypersensitivity on the part of Senator Obama’s campaign, but I do not think that it extends to the candidate himself. One of the main reasons for this I believe is that we are at a place as a nation that we have never been before. And please don’t talk to me about Jesse Jackson, Shirley Chisholm, or Al Sharpton. Due to our refusal in the past to honestly confront the issue of race in this country, no one really knows how to proceed in this area. This is especially true for most whites, particularly whites who have previously stood with blacks on civil rights issues. Talk that use to go on behind closed doors in liberal parlors are finally now being aired and I for one am thankful.

The latest “racial attack” was perpetrated by none other than Geraldine Ferraro, the first women ever nominated for the Vice-Presidency by a major Party. Ms. Ferraro basically stated that if it were not for Barack Obama being black he would not be leading in the nomination for the Democrats. Now many took this to be another hidden reference to race being perpetrated by another Clinton supporter. I do not believe that Ms. Ferraro is racist and I would consider anyone who did to be either foolishly carried away by the campaign or deliberately using comments to further their agenda and both have no place in a serious discussion about the comment. So, if you fall into one of those categories you should probably not read any further.

She specifically accused David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, of using race as a tactical weapon and of implying that her remarks were racist.

Mr. Axelrod, responding in an e-mail message Wednesday night, said, “I never suggested that. I’ve known Gerry for a long time, and I don’t believe that. But what she said was plainly wrong and divisive.”

The same, she said, is true of the Obama candidacy. “Why is his candidacy historic? Can you give me another reason why it is an historic campaign? Why are we afraid to say this? I am absolutely stunned by this whole thing. I’m not saying he isn’t qualified, never did I say that. He is very smart. He has experience issues, but if George Bush can learn to run the country, so can this guy.”[1]

I do not believe that Ms. Ferraro is a racist, however I do take issue with her statements. I take issue with them not because of their racial tone, but something more insidious that she probably never considered. As a black man who has broken many social and employment barriers, the one constant has been the “affirmative action” defense used by whites who felt they could not have been bested by a more qualified black person. Their egos will only allow them to believe that it was because of an unfair advantage that a black man could be better in any given area outside of entertainment or sports. The comments by Ms. Ferraro echo those sentiments. Sure Barack Obama is intelligent, gifted, and qualified, but still if he wasn’t black he would just be another also ran.

Her comments are not racist, but they are in fact divisive. They smack of the affirmative action argument and there are only a few issues that are more divisive in America than affirmative action. So, I guess the only way that a black man could be elected President is through affirmative action? So the American electorate is trying to carry out the ultimate in affirmative action hiring by electing Barack Obama. Imagine how this sounds to the many blacks who have gained positions of power and prestige through hard work to be told once again that the only reason is because you are black.

Ms. Ferraro has the right to express this opinion the problem for me though is that to give her statements credibility she should have also said the same thing about Hillary. That the reason Hillary is in this position is because she is a woman, because the truth be told the leading candidate should have been a white man like it has been for 400 years. So it is unfair to say Obama is in this position because of his race, but not also say the reason Hillary is in this position is because she is a woman. By not including what makes Hillary’s candidacy historical Ms. Ferraro’s comments can be construed as those from a sore loser. Why does the issue of gender in Hillary’s case not apply, but the issue of race does apply for Obama? Is it because she feels that Hillary is so supremely qualified that it doesn’t matter or is it that Obama is so under qualified that this is all he has going for him? If he wasn’t black.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/us/politics/13ferraro.html

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No to Billary and the Politics of Division

There has been a lot of ink and paper used up to explain the South Carolina primary and what it means to the candidates and the electoral process. The two facts that I think South Carolina makes abundantly clear are that the voters are rejecting the politics of divisiveness and the idea of a co-Presidency. Now while much will be made of the fact that the majority of Democratic voters in South Carolina are black, I believe that there is still data that can be gleaned from the results and despite the fact Bill Clinton made absolutely clear that Jesse Jackson carried South Carolina the electorate today was different than when Jesse ran.

Despite protestations to the contrary by Clinton supporters many Democrats both black and white were uncomfortable with the tone the campaign had taken the last few weeks in South Carolina, led by Bill Clinton. The thing one must remember is that in politics perception is reality. So while many of his comments may have been misconstrued, the fact that a number of prominent Democrats were complaining should have been a clue to tone it down. I received many comments that Bill Clinton was only doing what the spouses of other candidates were doing, which of course is ridiculous. No matter how hard they try the other candidate’s spouses can never speak with the authority or the perceived expertise of a Bill Clinton. Many people thought that Bill had elevated himself to candidate Bill Clinton and not just husband-advocate Bill Clinton. The problem for Hillary is that having Bill Clinton out front detracts from her and her message of independence and experience.

Whether you believe the comments made by Bill and campaign surrogates were divisive or racially motivated is really unimportant, what is important is what the voters believed. In South Carolina, the voters believed that they were. Now it can be argued that the voters were swayed by the coverage and the responses of other Democrats, but that misses the point and sounds condescending. Are we to believe that the voters, the majority of who are black in South Carolina cannot determine for themselves what is divisive and racially charged? The thing that the Clinton campaign misread was the psyche of black people which is strange since Bill was the “first black” President. Blacks may have questions about another black person, but when that black person is attacked it is as if all black people are attacked and the wagons are circled. I find it hard to believe that the major events of last year would not have made this very clear to any outside observers.

The way you campaign in the black community is not with a white man attacking a black man, this will automatically raise the communal defenses. For examples of this phenomenon in action one merely has to review the history of black elected officials in America. From Adam Clayton Powell to Mayor Marion Berry, the black community will more often than not rally around a black man being attacked by whites even if those attacks are justified. Bill Clinton falsely believed that he had the juice to cross the race line; he found out sadly that he did not. He listened to the old blacks on the payroll who were chanting, you were “the first black” President, you can do it. Billary! Billary! Billary! What he didn’t recognize was that those blacks had lost any juice they had in the black community years ago and they were just as clueless as he was.

The other issue that the voters in South Carolina and I think may be played out across the country is this idea of a co-Presidency. While many Clinton supporters find the idea appealing, the two for the price of one argument has lost its luster. The idea of a co-Presidency congers up too many images of divisiveness and past battles. To give an example after the defeat in South Carolina, the first Clinton on the airwaves was not Hillary, it was Bill. And even after the primary Bill is still making more headlines than Hillary. This does not bode well for an independent female candidate running on her own experience and strength. It is too early to tell if the co-Presidency is dead, but for many it is a past they do not want recycled. Many people believe that if Bill is taking such a large role in the campaign will he also be taking a similar role in the White House? Also, if Hillary was co-President in the last Clinton administration it only stands to reason that Bill would occupy that same position in the new administration.

South Carolina is one state and too often people try to draw too many conclusions from one primary, remember Iowa? The one thing the Clintons are is smart and once again Hillary will reinvent herself and continue to fight. This election will not play out like past ones there are just too many dynamics at play, dynamics that have never been in play on such a large scale before. Anyone who claims to know the outcome is a fool. This electorate is too volatile and the issues too explosive to be able to predict or to rely on polls. Hillary will have to rein Bill in and once again become the focal point. This election is hers to win or lose. Relying on Bill’s popularity as we have seen in South Carolina is a two-edged sword; if I were Hillary I would use that sword sparingly.

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