It’s Utterly Inhumane

A number of people have taken up the sisters’ cause, including Ben Jealous, the president of the N.A.A.C.P., who is trying to help secure a pardon from Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi. “It makes you sick to think that this sort of thing can happen,” he said. “That these women should be kept in prison until they die — well, that’s just so utterly inhumane.” Bob Herbert - New York Times

This quote is about a case in Mississippi were two young women were sentenced to life in prison for allegedly being involved in a robbery that involved $11.00 and no one was injured. Only in Mississippi could this happen according to the article and while I can sympathize with the plight of these two young women, one of whom has lost the function of her kidneys. There is an even greater inhumanity taking place in every state in this country.

The inhumanity that I am speaking of involves the systematic disenfranchising of young black and minority men. It takes place when these young men are arrested for oftentimes minor drug offenses and given felony convictions. These convictions then condemn these young men many of them before the age of 20 to a life of poverty. Think about that; for the next 40 to 50 years these young men will be discriminated against in employment, education, and housing. You see the only group in America that you can discriminate against with impunity is the convicted felon population.

You see we now have laws that prevent convicted felons regardless of the offense from receiving student loans and grants, housing assistance, and any other government assistance that they desperately need to change their lives and become reconnected to their community and our society. As if that were not enough most employers refuse to hire ex-offenders as a matter of policy except for menial low wage positions. No one challenges an employer for doing so, because we have the canard that most businesses have money and property on hand and the ex-offender cannot be trusted to be an honest person. After all, they are convicted felons. So we prevent them from receiving the support to change their lives and we won’t give them jobs to improve their lives, many of them for nothing more than having a bag of weed.

By condemning these young men to this fate of hardship we are also condemning the neighborhoods they live in to a future of violence and apathy. Once you remove the hope and the future of the young people in a community you suck the rejuvenating life blood out of that community. These young men now exist outside the system and the economy. They have been made invisible by a system designed to marginalize them and prevent them from competing successfully for their share of the American dream. These young men now have no reason to become involved in the improvement of their communities and often times their own lives. Many are not allowed or don’t vote. Many are unemployed. Many are not fathers to their own children and so the cycle continues.

What I think fails to get mentioned enough is that we are not only condemning these young men but entire communities to suffering. We set in motion the demolition of the underpinnings of these communities. Throughout history the fortunes of a culture or a community is driven by the fortunes of its young men and if you are able to somehow undermine those young men you in fact commence the destruction of that culture or community. You show me a vibrant community and I will show you one where the young men are intricately involved in the fabric of that community. Our community cannot afford to allow this destruction of our young men to go on unabated.

Just one galling statistic of many: in some states African Americans comprise 90 percent of the total drug prisoners and are 57 times more likely to be incarcerated for a drug offense than whites, even though whites use five times the amount of drugs as African Americans. - Michelle Alexander

The time has come for us to stand up and demand an end to this systematic destruction of our young men. We must begin to change a criminal justice system that routinely and selectively gives our young men felony convictions while at the same time giving whites diversion and other less punitive measures. We must begin to teach and train our young men to not participate in their own destruction. The training of our young men into responsible men is not being advocated and promoted as it should be in our community. There is this false assumption that boys just naturally grow into men, nothing could be further from the truth.

There will be racist elements who will seek to keep this pipeline in place. But in addition there will also be economic forces to contend with. Prisons now employ over 400,000 people throughout the country. Because many prisons are located in rural areas they have replaced other forms of employment such as manufacturing and farming. This source of jobs has kept many small towns afloat following the shrinking manufacturing and unskilled labor base. We now have a prison-industrial complex second only to the military in its size and scope. In order for prisons to be profitable they have to be filled. As a result of these policies we are pitting the employment and future of rural folks against the freedom and future of the urban folks.

As a society we cannot continue to operate on this level. The results of our inaction will be a permanent underclass in urban areas and a permanent siege mentality for those living there. It will also continue to foster and promote racial and geographical prejudice within our society. With two million of our fellow citizens incarcerated or on paper many for non-violent offences we must begin to seek and to promote alternative methods to incarceration and felony records. We should also support an atmosphere of support for second chances for these unfortunate people caught up in this “war” mentality. Businesses respond to customers and if customers were more receptive to second chances so would the business community. I ask you to begin speaking out in your communities for these young men. Become a part of the reentry movement where you live. You see condemning people before they are even 20 for a non-violent drug offense to a life of poverty is not just unfair or inhumane, it is immoral.

“Jails and prisons are designed to break human beings, to convert the population into specimens in a zoo-obedient to our keepers, but dangerous to each other.” - Angela Davis

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You’re Surprised

Hell and destruction are never full, so the eyes of man are never satisfied. – Proverbs 27:20

I find it amazing the degree of surprise so many people are feeling while witnessing the level vitriol being spewed at President Barack Obama the first non-white president in our nation’s history. Who thought that a country who only less than 50 years ago allowed black folks the right to participate in our democracy and still have not fully integrated non-whites into our society would quietly accept this change with open arms. It never fails to amaze me how dumbfounded white folks are when they have to face the racism of their fellow citizenry. I remember the horror of my white friends as they watched the dogs, water hoses, and bombings televised on their television sets as they were forced to accept the hatred that has permeated America for centuries.

The thing that surprises me is that racism is now being used to make a profit for those who are willing to traffic in it. At least in the old days the leaders were true believers and not hucksters marketing gold, books, and other trinkets. Unfortunately, today there are plenty of folks who are willing to exploit the true believers hatred for short-term political and personal gain. Not only do we have individuals willing to profit from the spewing of hatred but also major media outlets in which to disseminate it. My question is how do you win national elections if you continue to alienate persons of color? The demographics of this country do not lie. The days of white majorities controlling elections on a national scale are over and no matter how much the tea-party protests they are not coming back.

My guess is that the only way this strategy can work is by marginalizing the non-whites while you play up the fears of whites to the point that it becomes an us versus them scenario. This strategy may have worked 50 years ago, but today even the white population is too diverse to accept this obvious ploy. How many times have white supremists attempted to start the dreaded race war by providing provocative acts to rally whites only to not be able to find enough takers to materialize. It is difficult to find revolutionaries when you have all the money, systems and power. Despite the claims of the tea party and their ilk that white folks are being discriminated against in this country by this black president and his extremist white sidekicks there appears to be few outside the movement who are taking these claims seriously. And who could argue with the numbers. Nearly twice as many whites as non-whites graduate from college, 91% of the richest 1% of the population is white, and the average net worth of white families is 10 times higher than black families.

There is fear in this country today among whites that they are losing their wealth and it is not completely unfounded. The problem is not that non-whites are stealing wealth from whites. The problem is that rich whites have stolen wealth from middle-class whites. We have witnessed the greatest transfer of wealth in our nation’s history and that wealth has moved from the middle income brackets to the top income brackets. The wealth that middle-class families once had in their homes, stocks, and retirement plans has evaporated. The wealth was not taken by non-white home invasion robbers; no it was taken by greedy white men in suits. You have to admit though that they are good, they have turned attention away from their pillaging of the national treasury by putting the focus on folks who are barely making a living in this country.

Whether it is Arizona or Washington, DC the game is the same. Despite many volumes being written by white authors about the corporate and individual thefts of our economy by their white brethren we still have the racist rants of the tea-partiers and their corporate overlords distracting the debate from the real culprits to some “bogeymen” who are not like us. If we as a nation following this corporate theft of historic proportions cannot recognize once and for all that we are not each other’s enemy but are all at risk from the rich and powerful then we will surely deserve our fate.

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest -- but the myth -- persistent, persuasive and unrealistic - John F. Kennedy

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The Ugly American

In my class and place, I did not recognize myself as a racist because I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in invisible systems conferring unsought racial dominance on my group from birth. - Peggy McIntosh

As the flames of revolution are being stoked by the loyal opposition, the tea-partiers, and libertines everywhere I think it is interesting to note what issue is at the heart of this fervor. It seems odd to me that when George W. was spending money like a drunken sailor, dismantling the financial regulatory system, and expanding government that these angry mobs were nowhere to be found. So if we strip away the deficit spending, the expansion of government, socialism, radicalism and all of the other red herrings we are left with only a handful of possible issues. I think the largest and most dangerous is the issue that has always been simmering just below the surface in American history. This issue has never gone away but becomes more pronounced during periods of economic uncertainty and general fear by the majority population.

In spite of the great opportunity American presents to the world that people from different countries, races, and religions can live harmoniously together that opportunity has never truly been realized because at our core we are a very tribal nation. We have accepted the false dichotomy that in order for one tribe to prosper another has to decline so during times of economic uncertainty each tribe begins to protect what it perceives as its right to the remaining assets. The problem with this scenario is that it is based on the false premise that we are operating under a truly free market system and of course we are not. The system we are employing is akin to placing magnets on the roulette wheel in Vegas. It is slighted to one group over another already. I believe that a lot of the anger that is being displayed is legitimate. Hell, I’m angry. But I think it is being misplaced.

Instead of focusing on those who are using house money to make extravagant bets and when they win they keep their winnings, but when they lose their loses are being covered by the house. Imagine going to Vegas with 100,000 of someone else’s money and placing bets and if you win you keep all of the winnings, but if you lose the house pays your losses. We are the house and we are paying the winners and the losers. My problem with this round of protests is this. The majority of us are being screwed. The difference is that if you belong to the majority group you are getting lubricant while the rest of us are not, but make no mistake in the morning all of our butts are sore. My question is that if you wake up and your butt is sore and so is mine why would you blame me for what happened. It would seem to me that the logical thing to do would be to find those folks who do not have sore butts and ask them why not.

But the reason this is not happening is because of a little thing we have in this country called “white privilege”. To show how deep this runs in our society imagine if a group of Latinos would show up at an immigration rally armed or a group of blacks would show up at a affirmative action rally strapped what the reaction would be. You see the media and the talking heads debate the appropriateness of the venue of being armed but never that you have an angry mob of armed white folks talking revolution. White folks have an inherent right to be angry when their perceived privilege is threatened and this right goes without question, it is considered patriotic. However, when any other group replicates this behavior it is considered treason and a threat to our security.

What many of these protesters are angry about is not a real threat to America, but a perceived threat to their America”. What is “their America”? It is an America where their tribal right’s supersedes the rights of others. An example of this mentality would be when Pat Buchanan on MSNBC stated publicly that the white man single handedly built this country and that the only contribution of Blacks, Latinos, and Asians was the drag they put on the white man’s progress by living off of the system and abusing the kindness of white folks. Not to mention that the blacks were the cause of the “2nd American Revolution” when the Yankee aggressors took away the “states rights” from the peaceful southerners. To rewrite history in this way is akin to Japan stating that Pearl Harbor was a precursor to the Bush Doctrine of preemptive strikes to prevent the western aggressors from enslaving the peaceful Japanese people.

What we are seeing with these latest protests is that because they are really about maintaining white privilege there will not be a groundswell of support from those who are not white. This is just another example of “the ugly American” truth that we are not ready to put tribal differences aside for the sake of something larger like “country first”. Until we realize that we are all taking it on the chin for the sake of a few who are making out like bandits we will continue this tribal warfare against those whom we have the most in common with. All the while the real culprits will continue laughing all the way to the banks we bailed out in the cars we bought. Is this a great country or what?

Many of us believe that wrongs aren't wrong if it's done by nice people like ourselves. - Author Unknown

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The Angry Chimp And Other Lies

The problem I have with the cartoon that appeared in the New York Post newspaper drawn by Sean Delonas depicting the police shooting a chimpanzee with the caption that now they will have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill is not that it is racist and illogical, but that it illustrates the cowardice that new Attorney General Holder was speaking about in his recent remarks. Rather than acknowledging the intent of the cartoon the cartoonist wants to hide behind some phony pretext of the complexity of his illustration. Cartoons by their very nature are not designed to convey complex concepts. Cartoons are designed to illicit immediate responses based on their imagery.

While I do not believe like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson that the white man is the cause of all of the black man’s problems, it must be acknowledged that we do have a race history. Part of that race history is the depiction of blacks as monkey’s, apes, and gorillas so the cartoonist’s denial and subsequent refusal to accept that fact does not pass the smell test. I was watching the Chris Matthews show last night and my favorite Republican apologist and white defender Ron Christie was on and in rare form. If this was still during slavery times Mr. Christie would be a casualty not by white slave owners but by other blacks as a collaborator and house Negro. Everyone has the right to join whatever Party and support whatever agenda they choose to, but no one has the right to change or ignore facts. When asked by Chris Matthews about the history of blacks being depicted as apes being a historical fact Mr. Christie denied that it was an historical fact. It is this distortion of the facts that keeps us as Americans from proceeding with the necessary national conversation concerning race.

Mr. Christie represents the most despicable of blacks in America, while he is more palpable to whites he does not represent the true feelings and concerns of blacks and this makes him dangerous. He is dangerous in that he creates a false sense of security for white Americans. No matter how outrageous the behavior or how grave the slight Mr. Christie will just smile and pretend that no ill will was intended. Not only will he accept the behavior but will often times justify or excuse the behavior and will attack other blacks who may be outraged by the behavior as being racists. Mr. Christie reminds me of the black man who when the Klan came to his house to burn a cross remarked that the neighborhood welcome wagon had arrived and they were kind enough to bring their own lighting. Unless we are willing to discuss these types of events honestly and be able to express the historic significance of them we will remain a nation of cowards and our racial divisions will continue. Our fear is that by speaking openly and confronting these issues we will be ridiculed, labeled racists, or subject to hostility and the truth is initially there will be those who respond in these ways. However, our fears must not prevent us from having a conversation that is long overdue. We might be surprised at how many of us share similar views once the shouting subsides.

Mr. Christie made a statement that illustrates to me the crux of many of our misconceptions. He spoke of a racially blind society which on the surface may seem benevolent to the issue of race in America. The truth is that it is patently false and unrealistic. Race unlike religion or many other differences we hold is apparent upon seeing someone or in some cases upon reading someone’s name. So the idea of a colorblind society is ludicrous and not what most blacks want. We don’t want a colorblind society, we want a color-neutral society where we celebrate our differences but we do not allow those differences to color our judgment of one another. It should be ok to be different and not be penalized for it.

The problem with the cartoon is that it plays on the historical prejudices that still remain deep in the psyche of America. Also, it made no sense logically. A cartoon is not the type of media that should require an explanation and I believe the cartoonist knew that. It isn’t like Mr. Delonas[1] is a stranger to comic symbolism. He has previously been called to task for other drawings that depict prejudice against other groups and individuals. I have no problem with the cartoon myself because to those who view and accept the racial connotations of the cartoon I have no rational conversation with anyway. I am never going to be able to reach out to them in any substantive way. To those who recognize its racist depiction then it does not appeal to them as well.

While I understand sometimes the need for controversy to stimulate dialog this cartoon and its hidden meaning do not rise to the occasion. If the artist had been willing to acknowledge its true intent then we would have a basis for conversation, a starting point; albeit a sick one but one none the less. By continuing to couch our true feelings in innuendo and false metaphors we only persist in feeding our insecurities. Racism has always thrived in secrecy and until we remove the cloak that protects it we will never be able to uncover and eradicate it.

[1] http://www.glaad.org/action/write_now_detail.php?id=3924

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You Can Be Whatever You Want To Be?

With today’s historic inauguration of President Barack Obama as the nation’s first black President I wanted to try and put into words what it meant to me as a black man in America. I also wanted to try and put it into an historical content for myself and other black children who grew up during the civil rights era of this country. However, as I began to contemplate the enormity of the event and the history I realized that I was overcome with so many conflicting emotions that I would not be able to present them in any coherent manner and still stay within the constraints of this medium. So I decided to take one aspect and try to focus in on it.

For many black children growing up during and immediately following the civil rights era in America our parents and grandparents began to tell us that we could grow up and be anything we wanted to be. We were told that for the first time in our history we would have opportunities to become engineers, doctors and business people. We were told that if we studied and worked hard we could better ourselves and no longer would we be relegated to being janitors, porters, and sanitation workers. We were told that the dream that was America was slowly unfolding for all of us. In retrospect I wonder how many of these parents and grandparents truly believed those words to be true?

Then we enter 2008, and the implausible and what many considered impossible happened. A majority of Americans were able to overcome our nation’s racist history and stereotypes and elect our first black President. But has the election of President Barack Obama suddenly made these words true? Has his election really taken these words from wishful thinking to reality? I think before we answer we must look at who and what Barack Obama is and what he represents. Unlike many black leaders who came before him Barack Obama did not come out of the civil rights movement or the black church. President Obama is not a child of slavery, but of immigration. President Obama was not raised in the traditional black family, but by whites. So we see that in every basic area of importance to traditional black leadership he is different. How do these differences translate to his ascendancy to power and what are the lessons to be learned for our black children today wanting to make a similar journey?

I think the most important lesson is we as black Americans have to move away from racial identity politics. We have to begin to build collaborations with others. For too long it has been no one can relate to our pain, that pain has become our identity. For too long our leaders have sold us and our children a false narrative. They have clung to an ideology and to tactics that no longer have relevancy or resonate with the people. While these tactics have managed to provide wealth and power to these men they have done little to raise the consciousness or the status of black people as a whole. While these leaders have stressed the responsibility of others they have done little to stress our own responsibility for our conditions. Instead of teaching that with opportunity there is responsibilities they have taught that responsibility owes opportunities. What this has resulted in is a loss of wealth between generations instead of a growth in wealth. Many black children today are in worse economic shape than their parents. Why is this? Why have black children in so many cases been unable to build on the successes of their parents?

What we see with President Obama is that he was raised with the true belief that if he worked hard he could be anything, not just the words. If a child does not see or hear the conviction behind the words that are spoken he will not believe them. If a child believes that even with hard work they cannot succeed then many will give up hope and not even try. And that is what is happening in the black community today, a child believes that they have a better chance to become a rapper or an athlete than to become a doctor or an engineer. In my opinion the most egregious insult to Dr. King’s legacy perpetrated by the so-called black leadership that followed him was that it lost the hope that was Dr. King. Dr. King always looked to tomorrow to be a better day than today and he offered this hope and belief to millions of others. It was this hope that allowed so many to ignore personal hardship and tragedy and to continue to push for equality and justice.

President Obama embodies that hope because when opportunity presented itself he worked hard to be able to take advantage of it. He didn’t believe that just because he was black it was owed to him. Instead of focusing on the past he looked to the future. For so many of us we can’t see tomorrow because we refuse to let go of yesterday. Everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. Everyone wants to be successful, but nobody wants to put in the hard work. In order for us to move forward we must begin to change our culture towards education, hard work, and responsibility.

You can be anything you want to be black child, but it is going to require hard work, discipline, and hope.

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Keep Their Heads Ringing

"This election is not about issues," said Davis. "This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates."[1]

So once again this election won’t be about the issues from the Republican standpoint. I’m shocked! I can’t understand why they wouldn’t want to run on the issues. We haven’t had a campaign debate about the issues in the last 20 years. The Republicans have gradually moved the electorate away from the issues and have made each election a referendum on some social issue beginning with the Nixon southern strategy. At that point it was a referendum on law and order and the civil rights movement. At which time the American voting public voted resoundingly against progress.

In each subsequent election since then they have sought to divide our nation. You see the only way the Republicans can win is if they are able to divide us because there aren’t a sufficient number of fringe elements to sustain their policies or issues. You see when you only cater to the top 5% of the population it is hard to get elected; a conundrum to say the least. So how can a Party that caters to the wealthiest of Americans get elected and sometimes even maintain a majority? They have done it through deception and the age old strategy that the wealthy have always relied upon divide the masses. Throughout the years the Republicans have developed ingenious methods to carry out their strategy.

The most successful and nefarious plan has been the false “American Dream” scenario, where anyone in America can become rich and thus be in need of the Republicans policies that protect the wealthy. They have managed to convince a significant number of Americans that they too can someday be in the top 5% if they continue to support the Republican “trickle down” and supply side economic policies. So you have Americans earning 30,000 dollars a year voting with those making millions as if their interests were identical. What do I have in common with Bill Gates? How are our interests compatible?

The second strategy has been the race card or “white privilege”. In this scenario the scheme is to convince a majority of white voters that no matter what a black or minority has the white will always be better. Not only will they always be better, but the Republicans will be the ones to protect the tribe. They will be the ones to keep the other tribes in their places and thus protect the centuries old doctrine of white male dominance. This plan is supported by false studies that link all of the white societies problems to blacks and immigrant populations. Affirmative action, loose immigration, and social programs are all viewed as attacks against whites. While the race card has lost some of its appeal make no mistake there are still many proponents and believers in this strategy.

The third strategy is the red state/blue state, rural versus city, north versus south, pro-life versus pro-choice, etc. What the Republicans have been successful at is turning elections into cultural wars. So instead of having a discussion about universal healthcare we get gay marriage. Instead of a discussion of how the Republicans have turned one of the largest surpluses into one of the largest deficits, we get hockey moms and pit bulls. Instead of debating why we have not made any progress towards energy independence in the last 30 years, we get the most liberal Senator ever.

According to McCain and the Republicans Barack and Michelle Obama are not “our kind of people”, they don’t represent our America values. They are elitist and represent “the selfish” Washington interest. The Republican strategy has become if you say something enough times on enough TV programs then it’s true. John McCain and Sarah Palin are reformers because we say so, they’re records are immaterial. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are supporters of terrorism and are unpatriotic because we say so, regardless of their records of service to their country. Publically they are calling them elitist, but behind closed doors and Republicans in the south are referring to them as uppity. Calling a black person uppity is tantamount to a racial slur because usually following it comes the N word. Again we must keep them ni__ers in their place and that doesn’t include the White House.

I am coming to the belief that for whatever reason people in America no longer care about the truth. It seems that the more of the truth about Governor Palin surfaces the more her appeal rises. It’s almost as if we are living in some bizarro world where everything works in reverse. Lies become truth and truth becomes lies. The more this woman is exposed as being a fraud the more popular she becomes. The more she repeats her spiel of five convention lines, the more McCain’s numbers rise. Why should the Republicans change now these same tactics have worked and been honed for the past 20 years, culminating in the rise of George W.

The frustration with this process is seen in the faces of many Americans, but I am not sure there are enough people to reverse this trend. We have entered into a very dangerous area in a democracy. We are being mocked by leaders and citizens of other countries for the soap opera that our elections have become. Many foreign journalists have discussed how instead of focusing on issues our candidates and campaigns are debating cosmetics and farm animals. We have allowed our campaigns to become a cacophony of sound bite politics. The difference between the Republicans and the Democrats is that the Republicans have figured out that the majority of the electorate are not political junkies who research platforms and white papers of the issues. The Democrats still believe that the majority of voters actually follow the details of campaigns. The Republicans know that the majority of voters rely on sound bites and pundits. Because of this knowledge they craft their campaigns to capitalize on the short attention span of these voters. They develop false catch phrases and repeat them incessantly relying on the electorate’s laziness to pull it off. If you hear something enough it has to be true; remember if they say it on TV it has to be true. And they have every politician, pundit, and Party official repeating the lines over and over. This repetition of falsehoods is enough to “keep their heads ringing”.

[1] http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/09/mccain_manager_this_election_i.html

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Drug Wars VIII

Sometimes writing these essays are a chore and seem demanding, then there are other times when they seem to write themselves, this is one of the latter. I have written extensively about America’s war on drugs and all the ills and problems that it has caused. First of all let me state that I am not a conspiracy theorist. I do not believe that racism is involved in every aspect of life in America, at least it hasn’t been in my life. However, there are times when it plays a major role in how we interact with one another. The war on drugs and the death penalty are probably two of the most egregious ways in which racism does play a role in America. The recent results of a couple of studies highlight the disparity in our criminal justice system that can not be explained by any other means.

More than two decades after President Ronald Reagan escalated the war on drugs, arrests for drug sales or, more often, drug possession are still rising. And despite public debate and limited efforts to reduce them, large disparities persist in the rate at which blacks and whites are arrested and imprisoned for drug offenses, even though the two races use illegal drugs at roughly equal rates.

Two new reports, issued Monday by the Sentencing Project in Washington and by Human Rights Watch in New York, both say the racial disparities reflect, in large part, an overwhelming focus of law enforcement on drug use in low-income urban areas, with arrests and incarceration the main weapon.[1]

Ok, here is the short course of racism in America. Drug addiction has no respect of person, it affects blacks and whites in similar numbers. It is not a black issue or a white issue. The difference is in how it is prosecuted in both communities. The drug war has always been depicted by the politicians and the media as a black inner-city issue, as if there were no drug problems in white suburbia. So if we are using drugs at roughly the same numbers then how can one explain that more than 50% of all persons sent to prison for drug crimes are black? These are not traffickers and distributors, these are mostly possession cases.

Here is how you devastate a community and destroy its future. You begin by arresting its young men for minor drug offenses in a depressed economy. Once arrested you prosecute them for felony convictions. Once they have been convicted or have pled guilty then you have sentenced that young person to a life of hopelessness. That young person has forfeited all rights to achieve any semblance of legitimate success. Once they have received a felony conviction they are no longer eligible for education grants, most government programs that target the poor, or be able to participate in the most basic form of citizenship by voting. One simple arrest by outside observation has actually removed this young person from competing in our society in any meaningful way in the future.

Two-thirds of those arrested for drug violations in 2006 were white and 33 percent were black, although blacks made up 12.8 percent of the population, F.B.I. data show. National data are not collected on ethnicity, and arrests of Hispanics may be in either category.

“The race question is so entangled in the way the drug war was conceived,” said Jamie Fellner, a senior counsel at Human Rights Watch and the author of its report.

“If the drug issue is still seen as primarily a problem of the black inner city, then we’ll continue to see this enormously disparate impact,” Ms. Fellner said.

Her report cites federal data from 2003, the most recent available on this aspect, indicating that blacks constituted 53.5 percent of all who entered prison for a drug conviction.[2]

By prosecuting the drug war in the way we are doing it, we are providing cover for racism to continue. We are spending 70% of our resources targeting inner-city and rural white neighborhoods as if these are the people importing the drugs from the foreign capitals and making the billions in profits. The people we are targeting for the most part are such major players in the drug trade most can’t even afford attorneys at trial. So where are all these drug profits going? I can tell you they are not being spent in my neighborhood, the occasional new pair of Jordan sneakers or chrome rims can hardly be presented as some large criminal enterprise.

Are drugs devastating our inner-city neighborhoods? Of course they are, but the solution is not to destroy the village to save it. Many in the black community are tired of the drug trade with its inherent crime and violence, but the way it is being combated today only creates more strife. We must develop alternatives to incarceration and the ruining of lives. The drug war has decimated the black community and has created an atmosphere of fear and distrust of those who are paid to protect us. All of us make mistakes especially during our youth, we mustn’t compound those mistakes by ruining their lives with felony convictions. While whites are offered diversionary programs to avoid felony records blacks are continually being placed in the system. We want crime reduced, but not at the expense of our future.

Where does it all begin and how does the ball get rolling. I read a story recently on the numbers of street stops being made by the NY city police and the numbers are staggering. There are similar numbers for traffic stops in communities across America. If we continue to target only one community then naturally the crime statistics are going to be skewed towards that group. The war on drugs has allowed this country to choose what group to prosecute and what communities to devastate under the cover of law and order. No one can argue the legality of what is being done, but what about the morality of it?

Street stops have gradually increased, to 508,540 in 2006 from 97,296 in 2002, according to departmental statistics. Because more than half of those stopped were black, the increases led some police critics to suggest that minorities were being unfairly singled out, though the police reject such claims.

“The numbers are troubling both because of the number of people stopped and because blacks continue to be, overwhelmingly, the ones who are stopped,” Mr. Dunn said. “Someone outside the Police Department, like the mayor’s office, the City Council or the Justice Department has now got to step in and demand a public accounting of the department’s stop-and-frisk practices.”[3]

The issue isn’t that blacks are committing more crimes despite the constant images being displayed on the nightly local news. The issue is that blacks are more likely to be stopped and searched than whites. If the police were to use the same tactics in the suburbs as they use in the inner-city I guarantee you the number of whites arrested would increase. And if they were sentenced in the same manner as blacks there would be a national outcry. Imagine if 50% of young white males were given a felony conviction in their early teens and were rendered useless from that point on. The war on drugs has allowed those with racist attitudes to institute those beliefs under the cover of legitimate crime fighting.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/06/us/06disparities.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=drug+reports&st=nyt&oref=slogin
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/06/us/06disparities.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=drug+reports&st=nyt&oref=slogin
[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/06/nyregion/06frisk.html?scp=1&sq=police+stops&st=nyt

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The Man Who Cried Wolverine

The mayor of Detroit is in the midst of a crisis. A crisis that could eventually cost the mayor not only his job, his political future; a future that was looking very rosy prior to this crisis, but also his freedom. The mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick was elected the youngest mayor in Detroit history in 2001 at 31, promising to reinvigorate the troubled city. The young mayor received criticism from the outset primarily for his extravagant spending habits on the public dime. The current crisis involves the Mayor, his former chief of staff, Christine Beatty and 4 members of the Detroit Police Department. Normally I have become immune to political corruption cases because they have become so prevalent, but this one is important not because of the details of the case but the defense being employed by the defendant.

You see according to the Mayor this case is based on racism. He is being unfairly targeted by “The Man” to silence another up and coming black politician. As a black man I recognize the deep dark tentacles of racism in American society, but I am equally aware of the use of racism by blacks to cover their personal defects of character. I don’t know why but I always feel a deep sense of betrayal by black public officials who are caught in wrongdoing. I guess I want to believe that black politicians won’t succumb to the same temptations of their white counterparts, of course I am regularly disappointed because greed and the hunger for power have no color barriers. There are some sins that are older and stronger than racism, Mr. Mayor; pride, lust, and greed seem to come to mind.

For those who are unfamiliar with the case it is a multifaceted case that involves the Mayor’s sexual relationship with his former chief of staff, the police officers who were terminated for investigating complaints concerning the Mayors involvement in a wild party at the Mayor’s residence, and the possible use of public funds by the Mayor to subsidize his extra-marital trysts. The case began with a member of the Mayor’s security detail reporting an alleged wild party complete with a stripper at the Mayor’s residence. According to reports the stripper was assaulted by the Mayor’s wife and there was a big scene. The party has never been verified by a police investigation or by the State’s Attorney General. However, a few months after the allegations the stripper is killed in a drive-by shooting where the assailant fired multiple shots and according to witness turned around and proceeded to fire more shots. It appears someone wanted Tamara Greene dead.

Since that slaying there have been allegations of infidelity by the Mayor not just with his former chief of staff, but also other women. There have been lawsuits by the fired police officers as well as by the family of the slain stripper. The Mayor has repeatedly denied any wrong-doing and has characterized the investigations as a legal lynching and racially motivated. The Mayor even went so far as to invoke the N-word during his State of the City address. Why is it that whenever a black politician gets caught the first thing they utter is racism? It is cases like these that undermine the true cases of racism and allows those race apologists to announce that racism is dead and that it is now a false claim to cover criminal behavior by black athletes, entertainers, and elected officials.

The problem with deception and deceivers is that it often times appears as truth, it has to, in order to be believable. So, the man who deceives women says the same things that an honest man would say. Thus leaving the victim with not only a loss of dignity but also a loss of truth. So that any man that comes along afterwards has an almost insurmountable obstacle to overcome. Those who falsely use racism as an excuse for being caught at bad behavior cause the same loss of truth and integrity in the fact that racism exists. Often times racism isn’t the cause for their demise but actually pride, lust, and greed on their part. If the Mayor were in fact innocent then no amount of racism could fabricate the charges he is faced with. There is actually a trail of text messages from the Mayor, his chief of staff, and some high ranking police officials detailing the alleged dismissal, infidelities, and cover-up.

The other problem I have with those caught in bad behavior is their almost instant transformation to religious zealots. If those who now confess an epiphany of religious conversion had been more sensitive to those religious tenets like maybe the ones concerning adultery, lying, and stealing they might have prevented them from being in a position to be nabbed. It is these types of believers that have brought much of the condemnation upon the Church. Those who only choose to invoke “The Almighty” when their bacon is about to be cooked bring denunciation upon those who struggle to live according to their faiths. While as a Christian I believe in the power of reconciliation through persecution and tribulation, I also know that this is a process and is not completed in the matter of hours so frequently displayed by these fallen people.

This my friends is not a case of a black leader being brought low by racism and I as a black man am offended that this man would try to insult my intelligence claiming otherwise. This is a case of a black politician who believed that he was above the laws that govern public officials and that he could do as he pleased with no repercussions. From the reports that I have read we have the “hip-hop” Mayor who ran Detroit like Shug Knight ran Deathrow records through intimidation and favors. For the sake of the city and your family Mr. Mayor it is time to close this ugly chapter and let the city get on with its business. It is time to step down for all concerned.

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New Orleans: Get Off Your Fat Asses

In what has to be one of the worse cases of kicking people when their down, Neal Boortz, the right-wing talk show host has stooped to a new low. This so-called Libertarian makes Rush Limbaugh seem like a true humanitarian with his rants concerning the Hurricane Katrina victims in New Orleans. While I support the First Amendment and everyone’s right to speak their minds some of this crap is just beyond the scope of dignity and is downright disrespectful. As if these people have not suffered enough with the trauma of going through a hurricane, being deserted by their government, unable to return home, and being labeled criminals by their relocated communities. Now they turn on the radio and hear this clown spewing his racist’s hate speak.

BOORTZ: I like this: "Edwards' campaign will end the way it began 13 months ago, with the candidate pitching in to rebuild lives in a city still ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. Edwards embraced New Orleans as a glaring symbol of what he described as a Washington that didn't hear the cries of the downtrodden." Cries of the downtrodden, my left butt cheek. That wasn't the cries of the downtrodden; that's the cries of the useless, the worthless. New Orleans was a welfare city, a city of parasites, a city of people who could not and had no desire to fend for themselves. You have a hurricane descending on them and they sit on their fat asses and wait for somebody else to come rescue them. "It's somebody else's job to get me out of here. It's somebody else's job to save my life. Not mine. Send me a bus, send me a limo, send me a boat, send me a helicopter, send me a taxi, send me something. But you certainly don't expect me to actually work to get myself out of this situation, do you?[1]

The unfortunate part about this is that it isn’t the first time Mr. Boortz has denigrated the Katrina survivors, he has on numerous occasions attempted to find humor in their despair. As I stated with the Imus affair I understand these people are so-called entertainers and their goal is to create controversy to increase their audiences, but too often under the guise of entertainment they appeal to the worse and most basest instinct in others. Whether these people actually believe the crap they spew is irrelevant, what is relevant is that there are those who listen to these clowns who do, thus they provide cover for the real bigots that they pander to. Mr. Boortz show is listened to by 3.75 million listeners weekly, that is a lot of people who subscribe to these racist views. Mr. Boortz couches his racist speak in code words that would have one believe that it is about class and not race, but anyone familiar with his type of humor quickly realizes that it isn’t about class.

One of the caller’s from his show demonstrates how this show and others like it plays to the racist audiences and once you open that door, there is no closing it.

CALLER: I used to walk for the post office. The people in New Orleans were waiting on their government checks. They weren't moving until they got them. That's what they were waiting on. You know, not only for somebody to do something for them, because they certainly weren't gonna do it for themselves; they were waiting on their checks. One other thing: I have a sister-in-law in Newport, Rhode Island.

CALLER: Yes, do that. They got 100 of the Katrina refugees in Newport. So the whole town goes crazy, oh, we've gotta help these people, we've gotta get jobs for them, we have to get them a place, we have to do this. So they put on a job fair. Do you want to take one guess how many showed up?

BOORTZ: I'll say two.
CALLER: Zero.
BOORTZ: Zero?[2]

Mr. Boortz is no stranger to controversy. On his shows he has referred to ex-Representative Cynthia McKinney as “looking like a ghetto slut”, he has referred to ex-Senator Max Cleland as a prostitute for John Kerry, and many other notable quotes concerning black leaders. Let’s face it Mr. Boortz is a racist hiding behind the façade of an entertainer. The thing that bothers me the most is not one little man trying to stand taller by stepping on other people who are down, it is that the size of his audience demonstrates the depth of racism in this country. I know that the race card gets played all too often in America and often times for political or other social gain, but that does not negate the fact that it does exist in the minds and hearts of many. Mr. Boortz panders to that segment of society and it is disgusting.

According to Mr. Boortz the relocation of the New Orleans evacuees was “a glorified putting out the garbage”. Unfortunately Mr. Boortz not all the garbage was taken out, it appears that you were missed in the collection process. It is a shame that once again it is a case of blame the victim. Using Mr. Boortz logic I guess if he were to arrive at a house fire and find out that one of the relatives was killed by the fire he would state that they should have moved their fat ass or blame the victims of a tornado. While there may be instances of people not taking responsibility for their actions, blaming hurricane victims I don’t think qualifies. I just hope that Mr. Boortz or any of his family members are never in the path of a natural disaster, of course maybe that would teach him some humility.

[1] http://mediamatters.org/items/200802010015
[2] http://mediamatters.org/items/200802010015

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Drug Wars VI

The politicians in this country have gone from the sublime to the ridiculous in the war on drugs. In an effort to cover the budgetary shortfalls in the State of New York, Democratic Governor Elliot Spitzer has included in his new budget a provision requiring taxes to be paid on illegal drugs sold in the state. Now while this tactic is nothing new and is currently being used by 29 states, it illustrates to me the bankruptcy of our political system and the true nature of the war on drugs. This war has never had anything to do with the health and safety of the public, but has always been a red herring for the politics of racism and for economic gain.

The bill sets a tax stamp rate for marihuana of $3.50 per gram, and of a controlled substance at $200 per gram or fraction thereof, whether pure or dilute. The tax is paid by the dealer, in advance of his or her receipt of the marihuana or controlled substance, through the purchase of tax stamps from the Department of Taxation and Finance (“Department”). Upon receipt of the product, the dealer must affix enough stamps to the packages of marihuana or the controlled substance in order to show the tax has been fully paid.

The Spitzer administration projects that the proposal would raise $13 million in the 2008-9 fiscal year and $17 million each year thereafter. According to the Spitzer administration, 29 other states have already passed laws imposing tax liability for controlled substances: Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming.[1]

The problem I have with this law and similar laws in general is that they penalize people for being poor. It’s like the idea of having inmates pay for their own incarceration, it is another way to make people who are already poor take the burden of society as their own. In the process they remove the burden from the society that is supposed to be offended by their behavior, another kick while they’re down. The majority of people caught selling or using drugs are not major distributors or kingpins usually it is someone in a poor neighborhood with few other opportunities trying to survive. While I don’t condone the selling or the taking of drugs, it is not and never has been a criminal issue.

Let’s face it the majority of drug users are adults and while we may not agree with their decision to take drugs, it is still their choice. There are many people who make bad decisions everyday that I don’t agree with, but I don’t consider putting them in jail for them. The problem is that in America everything has political connotations and many times racial as well. The war on drugs has given the law enforcement community unprecedented rights to override the constitutional rights of many Americans and like most laws in America they have been used in a uneven and biased fashion. The war on drugs has allowed the police to declare a war on whole communities with impunity.

The propaganda is that the dealers and users are holding the communities hostage, the truth is that it is the police that are holding the communities hostage by their heavy-handed tactics and selective enforcement of the laws. By using their militaristic tactics the communities have evolved into a siege mentality where the residents are caught in a viscous circle, they have the dealers on the one side threatening their lives and their families and the police on the other side treating everyone as a suspect no matter how ridiculous the circumstances. We need to step away from this war mentality and recognize this issue for what it really is; a public health issue. It should only be a criminal justice issue if the user commits another offence, just like how we treat other people who choose to do unsafe behavior. The war on drugs allows the already bias criminal justice system to target those they consider undesirable and sentence them to a life of almost hopelessness.

Rather than blaming the drug users and dealers for the budget shortfall, maybe the Governor should look a little closer to home. To my knowledge drug users and dealers are not allowed to make state policy or spend state funds, so to try and balance the state budget at their expense is punitive and unfair. I’ve got an idea, why don’t the politicians learn how to spend only as much money as they have in the State treasury then they won’t need to pander to the mob mentality. It amazes me how whenever these politicians run short of funds because they spent too much they attack the easy targets. The ones like smoking, alcohol, and drugs that no one complains about.

Until we take the money out of drugs we will never be able to deal responsibly with the issue. It is not just the illegal money from drug dealers that must be shutdown, but also the legal money that so many states and local communities have become addicted to. The war on drugs has never been about people and today the truth of that is self evident, this war is about money. It is about money to militarize the police forces, it is about money to provide rural communities jobs, and it is about money to fund the political ambitions of politicians. Let’s face it just as the illegal money is a scourge against our economy, so the legal money is a scourge against our citizenry. Instead of addressing this issue as the health issue it is it has been reduced to economics. The war on drugs makes money and as long as it continues to make money it will continue to go on. Laws like these only perpetuate the myths and continue to promote the lies. This isn’t about criminals; it’s about dollars, period.

UPDATE 1/24/08 - ALBANY — Gov. Eliot Spitzer has agreed to a pay raise for legislators, even as he has called for cuts elsewhere to help close a $4.4 billion deficit, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has told Assembly Democrats.[2]

[1] http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/23/a-200-a-gram-tax-on-cocaine/index.html?hp
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/nyregion/24raise.html

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Can Polls Be Trusted?

If there is one thing the New Hampshire primary should have taught us all is that polls are unreliable, especially this year. There are too many dynamics at play that cannot be gleaned from simple raw data. I have said from the outset that polls will be ineffective because by their nature they are ineffectual for determining what a person is really thinking. The trouble with America today is that we are having a crisis of honesty. Many of us want to pretend we are somebody we are not. How many of us are willing to admit what is going on in the deep recesses of our minds and hearts? Too many of us want to be judged on what we say and not on what we do. The bottom line will be which group polled will be true to their numbers. Will all the women who say they will vote for Hillary come through or will all the whites who say they can vote for a black man come through for Obama. It will be really interesting to watch the pollsters squirm from here on out, because how can they have faith in any of their numbers?

If the poll numbers continue to not be supported by the election results, what shall we do then? Will the truth about America be exposed once again? There will be those who will find excuses for the disparity or the lack of honesty, but to those who are able to see; the truth will be “self-evident”. Anyone relying on the polls to bolster their candidate’s position in this race is just spitting in the wind. Until this thing is over all bets are off. I have read that many bloggers have questioned the methodology of the pollsters in New Hampshire. I don’t think it’s the pollsters fault or the Republican results would also have shown an anomaly. You can’t blame the pollsters if they are right on the one side and wrong on the other. Some have blamed the news media for mischaracterizing the race out of some desire to see Obama win. While there may be those who would relish writing the story of our first black nominee, this does not explain the drastic difference in opinion and reality.

There are other forces at work and we would be foolish and naïve to ignore them. If this were not so how could the pollsters have predicted McCain as the Republican winner, but were so wrong picking the Democratic winner using the same polling methods? As much as I want to believe that Hillary’s sudden surge was based on her emotional outburst that turned the tide, I think that for many New Hampshire voters when finally alone in that booth they faced a moment of truth about who they were and what they truly believed about Obama and America. I believe that this phenomenon will be repeated throughout this election process and it bodes badly for Obama and his message of hope. Sure, there will be those who will say that Hillary’s experience argument is finally getting traction with voters, but I don’t believe it.

John Zogby, who does the Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll, said the 18 percent of New Hampshire voters who reported making up their minds on Tuesday "is just an unprecedented number."

Like most polls, the last Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby survey ahead of the primary was quite near the mark for the Republican race, predicting McCain would get 36 percent to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's 27. The final result was 37 to 31. But on the Democratic side, the survey predicted Obama would have 42 percent of the vote to Clinton's 29, when in fact she won narrowly.[1]

The thing that I find interesting is how everyone in the media including the pollsters is running away from the race issue. This could be a defining moment in American history and I believe it will go unreported and the reason is because America will not want to face itself in the mirror with the truth. The truth is that despite all the hype of the media, the blogosphere, and the progressives America will not vote for a black man for President. It will be reported that it was everything but that simple truth. It is the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about. It is easier to blame the pollsters than to look at what really happened. There will be those who say that was New Hampshire a rural white state, but so was Iowa. They will say that as we get to more populous states this will be a non-issue, but when it continues to happen what will you say then?

There will be those who point to Iowa as proof that I am wrong, but Iowa merely reinforces the rule by being the exception. Iowa was a caucus in which the dynamics are different than a primary. In a caucus you have a group of people in a room together, not the solitude of a voting booth which makes it a bit more difficult not to be swept up in the emotion. Iowa raised expectations to unrealistic levels and created hysteria heading into New Hampshire. The first thing I learned growing up as an athlete is never believe “the hype”. You are never as good or as bad as people say you are.

Poorer, less well-educated white people refuse surveys more often than affluent, better-educated whites. Polls generally adjust their samples for this tendency. But here’s the problem: these whites who do not respond to surveys tend to have more unfavorable views of blacks than respondents who do the interviews.

I’ve experienced this myself. In 1989, as a Gallup pollster, I overestimated the support for David Dinkins in his first race for New York City mayor against Rudolph Giuliani; Mr. Dinkins was elected, but with a two percentage point margin of victory, not the 15 I had predicted. I concluded, eventually, that I got it wrong not so much because respondents were lying to our interviewers but because poorer, less well-educated voters were less likely to agree to answer our questions. That was a decisive factor in my miscall.[2]

So let me get this straight, the reason for the poll error is that poor whites are not polled and so there is no way to gauge their effect on the election? This is incredible, when all else fails blame it on the poor, white folks. Everybody knows that most of them are racists anyway. By placing the blame on their doorstep, the more affluent and cosmopolitan liberals can deny their own biases. I love it. This is almost as good as the alien hacking the election essay. One of these days we will have to gain the courage to confront our fears, because until we do they will always be our nightmares.

The reason I think this is a watershed moment is because we have the opportunity for once in over 300 years to be honest with each other about race and America. We can once and for all remove the façade that has allowed so many to sleep at night content that progress is being made and that Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell prove it. Rather than run from this “inconvenient truth” we can learn from it and use it to open honest and frank discussions about those dark secrets that we hold cloaked in our liberalism. The time has come for us to recognize the truth that is America, we love our blacks so long as they are not running the free world. This isn’t about experience, it is about can we trust a black man to be the most powerful man in the world? Let’s see we can trust someone with Alzheimer’s, we can trust a “compassionate conservative”, and we can trust a crook. We can trust a womanizer, we can trust an alcoholic, and we can trust a sexual predator. But God forbid that we can trust a black man.

I know there will be those who will make the same argument for Hillary, but this isn’t that essay. This essay is about confronting the demon that so many have chosen to ignore or only comes out around like minded folks or in the solitude of a voting booth. Of course we will never know exactly who these people are and this anonymity will provide cover for all. New Hampshire is a wakeup call, I hope the rest of America is listening.

[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN0960368620080109?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=10003
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/opinion/10kohut.html

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They Don’t Feel Your Pain

In what I can only describe as just another indication of the subtle racism has become embedded in our modern society, a study was released that found that there is a large discrepancy in the dispensing of narcotic pain relievers between blacks and whites in our nations emergency rooms. Are we to understand that there are two types of pain, black pain and white pain? The sad part about this study is the majority of doctors if asked would say they prescribe medication equally between patients, however the study proves otherwise.

CHICAGO -- Emergency room doctors are prescribing strong narcotics more often to patients who complain of pain, but minorities are less likely to get them than whites, a new study finds. Even for the severe pain of kidney stones, minorities were prescribed narcotics such as oxycodone and morphine less frequently than whites.

Minorities were slightly more likely than whites to get aspirin, ibuprofen and similar drugs for pain.

In more than 2,000 visits for kidney stones, whites got narcotics 72 percent of the time, Hispanics 68 percent, Asians 67 percent and blacks 56 percent.[1]

The results of this study are frightening and insulting to me as a black man. What the study indicates is that doctors have an innate belief in some very biased ideas concerning black people and pain. All of these ideas are entrenched in racist attitudes of the worse kind. The worse type of racism is not the belligerent in your face type, because with that at least you know where it is coming from. The worse type of racism is the type that goes unnoticed, undetected even by its perpetrator. The type that knows no political or ideological boundaries, it affects liberals and conservatives; Republicans, Democrats, and Independents.

I think the thing that troubles me the most about the study is what it reveals about both blacks and whites and the stereotypical roles we are still cast in. On the one hand you have the white doctors who view the black patient more as a potential drug abuser or as being more capable of handling greater amounts of pain than whites. On the other you have the black patient who accepts the stereotypical role of bearing more pain and less willing to complain. The problem with racism in America is that because we don’t confront it unless it involves nooses, inequitable justice, or police brutality; many whites believe that it no longer exists, especially in them. Because we have not had a national conversation on this subject in decades the subtler forms of race and privilege continue to go unabated. Racism is like a cancer in the soul of America and ignoring it will not cause it to go away. Just like the cancer of the body, it requires aggressive treatment and confrontation.

Whenever the presence of racism, especially in its subtler forms is encountered it must be confronted and exposed for what it is. It is my hope that someday this country will be able to confront the truth about our racist heritage and our current racial ambiguities in a national conversation that will allow us to once and for all confront the prejudice that has for too long been just under the surface. This will never happen as long as we continue to deny its existence in each of us and pretend it only affects “other” people. Being a multi-racial and multi-cultural society doesn’t mean we ignore our differences, it means we celebrate and accept our differences. We will never be a color-blind society and I for one don’t want us to be. My hope is that equality of education and opportunity will be offered to all regardless of their race, creed, or national origin. This can never happen if we continue to ignore the beast that lives in all of us.

Those doctors prescribing the medication didn’t consider themselves racist; on the contrary many of them are probably involved in many worthwhile endeavors benefiting poor and minority patients. The issue arises when we refuse to expose and acknowledge our innate prejudices, by doing so we allow them to continue unchallenged and in the end we all suffer from them. It is like the teacher who in some misguided sense of guilt may hold minority students to lower standards, believing that they are innately incapable of attaining the higher standard or the millions of white Americans who are surprised by how “articulate” Senator Obama is. Then of course who could forget the infamous restaurant scene with Bill O’Reilly where black people actually ordered and ate their food like other races, Mr. O’Reilly spoke for a lot of whites if they would only be honest.

The thing that is sorely missing from our discussions about race and privilege is honesty, honesty with each other and with ourselves. We must be able to sit down together and discuss and debate the causes of our continued division and prejudice. Of course this will never happen because currently the one thing that America has in abundance is dishonesty. Why is it that after 300 years we still think this thing is just going to “work itself out”? Hell, we’re still getting aspirin for kidney stones. I’m just glad I don’t need surgery anytime soon, I can’t imagine what they give us for gall bladder or prostate surgery; maybe some Tylenol PM.

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/01/AR2008010101202_2.html?hpid=sec-health

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“I’m Going To Kill Them”

After reading about the following case, I know that it is going to elicit emotional responses from many different quarters with many different agendas. While I support the right of all citizens to protect their homes and their lives what occurred in this case does appear to support that doctrine. There were numerous forces at work that day in this neighborhood that all came to a head in the fatal shooting of two men. The case revolves around Joe Horn, a 61 year old retiree who happened to witness the burglary of a neighbor’s house. Mr. Horn did the neighborly thing and contacted 911 to report the crime in progress. So far so good, neighborhood watch is working. However, it is at this point where the story takes a tragic and bizarre twist.

“O.K.,” Mr. Horn said. “But I have a right to protect myself too, sir,” adding, “The laws have been changed in this country since September the first, and you know it.”

The operator said, “You’re going to get yourself shot.” But Mr. Horn replied, “You want to make a bet? I’m going to kill them.”

Moments later he said, “Well here it goes, buddy. You hear the shotgun clicking and I’m going.”[1]

This is part of the exchange between Mr. Horn and the 911 operator. During the call the operator continually instructed Mr. Horn to stay in the house and let the police who were enroute handle the situation. As you can see from the exchange Mr. Horn had gone and retrieved his shotgun and was dead set on confronting the would be burglars. Before expounding on the larger issues raised by this tragedy and yes it is a tragedy because two men lost their lives, I want to touch on the two things that trouble me the most about this incident. Were they illegal aliens? Yes. Were the criminals? Yes, but two men still lost their lives that day over some stuff and that is a tragedy.

The first thing that stands out to me is in the second line of the above exchange. Mr. Horn explicitly states that he is not going to stop them, he is not going to shoot them, but that he is going to “kill them”. To me this implies intent on the part of the “so-called” hero in this story. It appears that Mr. Horn had determined for whatever reason that he was going to not only have to intervene, but that he would have to slay the criminals. Based on his own words, he had come to the conclusion that these two men deserved to die by his hands. It is one thing to have to kill someone while defending one’s own life, family, or even property; but to leave the safety of your own home to confront criminals at a neighbor’s home, who were not home at the time nor in any danger, in my opinion crosses the line.

Captain Corbett said that a plainclothes officer had pulled up just in time to see Mr. Horn pointing his shotgun at both men across his front yard, that Mr. Ortiz had at one point started to run in a way that took him closer to Mr. Horn, and that both men “received gunfire from the rear.”

That fact, alone, however, was not necessarily conclusive, Captain Corbett said. “It tells an investigator something, but not everything,” he added. “They could still have been seen as a threat.”[2]

The second and most damaging to me against any argument of home owner’s rights is the report that the burglars were shot in the back. The case is being spun as a justifiable homicide case, but having the victims shot in the back has got to (pardon the pun) blow holes in that defense. I will be curious to see how it will be demonstrated that two suspects with their backs turned or maybe even fleeing from the shooter could have been a threat. If you put the two together it seems that Mr. Horn decided that he was going to go and kill a couple of ni**ers that day, legally. It should be noted that Mr. Horn was white and even though his victims were illegal immigrants from Columbia, he misidentified them during the 911 call as black. So, in his mind at the time he was confronting two black men.

This story encapsulates the current state of America on so many levels. There is the right to bear arms, the right of citizens to protect their homes, crime, fear, illegal immigrants, race, the role of the media, and the criminal justice system. Anyone searching for a case that has all the current hot button issues couldn’t find a better one than this if they had written it themselves. This one has something for everybody and I am sure it will bring out the fanatics on all sides. But the question now becomes what went wrong here and why? It would be easy to chalk it up to another frustrated white man who saw his chance to kill a couple of blacks and get away with it, but is it that simple?

I for one don’t think so. Of course Mr. Horn’s prejudice played a role in this and anyone who says it didn’t is either a liar or a fool and both are dangerous. But there are larger forces at work and these to me are more sinister. These are the forces that allow Mr. Horn’s prejudice to be played out in this scenario. What usually fails to get mentioned in the right to bear arms argument is that fact that this “so-called” right comes with responsibility. Just because a person can purchase a gun doesn’t mean they should have a gun. I am not talking about the certifiable nut that shoots up malls or schools, I am also talking about the average Joe who watches too much “COPS”, local news broadcasts, or 24. All of which are designed to heighten the fear of the public and increase the level of paranoia and bravado. But of course any talk about responsible gun ownership is immediately shouted down by the gun lobby and the NRA, because to them any concession to complete freedom of guns is considered sacrosanct. This man had no reason to be doing what he did, he was not a trained professional. If he were a policeman who shot two suspects in the back he would still have to answer for his crime. How anyone can justify an armed citizenry performing police work without training is beyond me.

Then there is the media that feeds the fear and paranoia of its viewers, the worst of which is local news. In their drive to get ratings these broadcasts are filled with either murder and mayhem or misleading stories. If one were to watch and believe the local news broadcasts one would believe the home invasions are happening on every block almost every hour, carjacking is rampant, and all violent criminals are minorities, preferably black. These broadcasts cater to the most sleazy and lowest common denominator. They seemed designed to only reinforce already engrained prejudices and stereotypes.

Then of course, there is the tone of political discourse today. With potential candidates for the highest office discussing torture, locking down the borders, and the mass expulsion of immigrants it is no wonder the public is frustrated and wanting to take matters into their own hands. Rather than providing leadership, today’s candidates are merely pandering to the worst elements of our society. For some reason those who harbor the fanatical views are more politically active and therefore receive the bulk of the attention.

Whenever you have an atmosphere charged by racism, guns, and vigilantly justice, incidents like these are bound to happen. I am very interested in seeing how this one plays out in the criminal justice system. The political agendas are being served; I only hope that justice is served. Regardless of what you think of those two men, none deserves to be gunned down in the back for a burglary. Mr. Horn seems to have come to the conclusion that in this case he was the “decider” of guilt, sentence, and execution.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/13/us/13texas.html
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/13/us/13texas.html

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Black Wealth; Non-Transferable

In what can surely be called unusual and frightening, it appears that black wealth cannot be transferred between generations. In a recent study done by the Economic Mobility Project, which was funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, a non-partisan think-tank; a staggering 45% of children whose parents were solidly middle-class have fallen completely to the bottom rung of the economic ladder. These were children who were raised middle-class; they went to the better schools and enjoyed the trappings of middle-America. So what happened?

A startling 45 percent of black children whose parents were solidly middle income end up falling to the bottom income quintile, while only 16 percent of white children born to parents in the middle make this descent. Similar trends are found in other income groups as well. In another disturbing example, 48 percent of black children and 20 percent of white children descend from the second-to-bottom income group to the bottom income group. In addition, black children who start at the bottom are more likely to remain there than white children (54 percent compared to 31 percent).[1]

Here is what is disturbing about this study, whatever gains blacks are making they are unable to sustain them from generation to generation. Why is this disturbing? It is disturbing because wealth is built over generations with each generation building on the previous one. The parents acting as building blocks for their children to build increasing wealth, for some reason this does not seem to be happening for blacks. In fact not only is it not happening, but blacks are actually losing wealth between generations. Children who should be moving from middle-class to upper middle-class are instead falling to the bottom rung and being forced to start all over.

Here in America, we pride ourselves on certain myths; that hard work equals success, that we live in a mobile society, and that anyone can achieve the American Dream. The unfortunate truth is that these are not true and that they are just myths. Where one ends up in this society is based a great deal on where one starts. The myth of the poor child that grows up to be wealthy, a self-made millionaire is next to impossible. Only 6% of children who start at the bottom ever makes it to the top, those are not very good odds. I use to frown on poor people who played the lottery, but with these odds they may have a better chance at the lottery. What the study suggests is that no matter what decisions a poor child makes its impact will only be marginal at best. The most he can hope for is middle-class and that appears to be fleeting.

The question then becomes why are blacks not able to maintain or build on their middle-class status? Is that the glass ceiling for most black families in America? While the study provides the data it provides little in the way of conclusions, I guess leaving those for the pundits on both sides of the issues. You know the true experts.

I have a few theories that I would like to submit for discussion and deliberation. The first involves the nature of labor in America, there was a time when a person could get a manufacturing or labor intensive job with little or no education that would pay the person a wage that would allow them to live a middle-class lifestyle. A man could with or without a high school diploma with a strong back and a good work ethic earn enough to escape the bottom rungs of the economic ladder and place his family in middle-class status. Before our high-tech and service oriented economy, many men black and white were able to provide their families a decent life with little more than basic skills. Those days are gone along with our manufacturing industries to off-shore sites where their people will be able to provide their families a step up the economic ladder.

Somewhere there was a disconnect in the black family, instead of using their middle-class status to pursue higher education and career goals than their parents, something else happened to the children. Many black children are now doing worse than their middle-class parents, their incomes have dropped as all male income has flattened out and without the technical skills they are unable to gain access to the new middle-class jobs. This can only be due to two reasons, either the children of middle-class blacks did not adequately prepare themselves for the future or even with preparation they were not able to secure the jobs that provided the income to eclipse their parents. In either case, the question is why?

Another theory is that because the blacks in the 60’s were already at the bottom of the economic ladder due to Jim Crow and segregation which had just been outlawed, their rise would have been meteoric and not necessarily indicative of true progress. Their children could not be expected to replicate their success. I disagree with this, if the purpose of gaining economic status is to improve the opportunities of one’s children then these children should have been exposed to greater opportunities for advancement. Here is the problem, because many of the black middle-class of that time were uneducated and often unskilled many did not promote higher education. Their livelihoods had not been created by education, but by labor so many did not understand the value of education. Many black parents instead promoted hard work over educational achievement. While intelligence is not hereditary, the pursuit of it is. If a parent does not teach the child or express to the child the value of education, the child will not view it as important. Hoping that they too would follow the path of their parents many children have been hard hit by the lost of these labor intensive jobs.

The other issue is that while the parents were middle-class by incomes, they were not middle-class in wealth. Income is what you make, wealth is what you keep. Many of the parents were either unwilling or unable to save money and create wealth which could have been transferred to their children through paying for college, providing startup costs for a business, or a down-payment for a home. These are the three most common ways that wealth is generated in the middle-class. Without these fail-safes it is inevitable that the children would lose any gains made by the parents. Due to a lack of savings and wealth, the black family is not insulated against the costs of living that can plunge a family back down the economic ladder. This fact is true throughout all strata of the economic ladder, there is a large discrepancy between the wealth of whites and the wealth of blacks. Even whites in the lower fifth of the economic ladder still have more wealth than their black counterparts. Where did they accumulate this wealth?

Finally, the biggest gain for white families versus black families has not occurred due to white men earning more, the truth is that wages for all men have been flat-lining for decades, it is due to white women joining the work force. Their entry into the workforce has provided the white family with another income source and as women’s wages have continued to rise and so has the family’s income. White women and black women in the middle income brackets make comparably the same wages, the difference is that the black woman is often times the sole wage earner in her home whereas the white woman is just half of the income producer. In other words the recent increase or separation in white family incomes versus black family incomes is in the makeup of the families. Because whites tend to marry more than blacks they have two incomes versus the single income for blacks. In the past, both groups married at comparable rates, today that is no longer the case and it is showing up in the disparity of income and wealth.

So, there are many causes that have prevented blacks from benefitting from the middle-class boom of the 60’s and 70’s. Some have been the result of racism, some have been the result of a changing economy, and some have been the result of a lack of planning. The truth is we really don’t know exactly what has prevented the transfer or growth of the black middle-class. I would be interested in any ideas or results from studies that I am not familiar with. There is a growing chasm in America, it is not only between rich and poor, but it is also between rich and middle-class blacks and poor blacks. The results of this study demonstrate that we have a long way to go and maybe we weren’t as far along as we thought we were. Until blacks are able to transfer and build their wealth across generations each generation will have to start from the bottom and work their way up and we all know what the chances of that is.

[1] http://www.economicmobility.org/assets/pdfs/EMP_Key_Findings_11-13-07.pdf

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