Here Comes Another One: Miss Jada Williams!!

h/t New Black Man



You better do it girl!! Come on! - Blaque Swan

Jada Williams, Student, Allegedly Harassed For Award-Winning Essay Comparing School To Modern Slavery

(Strike-through mine.)

You Down with O4P?

Yeah, you know me!

You down with O4P?

Yeah, you know me!

Who's down with O4P?

Everybody!! [Updated to include a link to a fabulous story over at Racism Review.]

Sorry, I got caught up. But Occupy Wall Street has gained my respect. It's not just Wall St they're occupying anymore. No, they're now occupying prisons and jails, too. And the reason I've decided to give them a second thumb's up? They've come to realize that:

Mass incarceration is the new Jim Crow. Between 1970 and 1995, the incarceration of African Americans increased 7 times. Currently African Americans make up 12 % of the population in the U.S. but 53% of the nation’s prison population. There are more African Americans under correctional control today—in prison or jail, on probation or parole—than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.

The prison system is the most visible example of policies of punitive containment of the most marginalized and oppressed in our society. Prior to incarceration, 2/3 of all prisoners lived in conditions of economic hardship. While the perpetrators of white-collar crime largely go free.

Gov. Paterson Got This Right; Barbour Should Do Likewise

Personally, I don't think John Harris White should've been convicted in the first place. Perhaps NY Gov. David Paterson should've pardoned him, but at least he's free and out of prison. And rather than going around denying the experience of black Mississippians and campaigning for 2012, Gov Haley Barbour needs to pardon the Scott sisters.

And speaking of Barbour and his fond memories of his childhood - parched up on his upper-class white male privilege in Mississippi, I'm sure the Civil Rights era was anything but terrifying and violent. That doesn't mean that it wasn't hell for black folks, nor does it mean that he didn't contribute to problem of institutionalized racism.

The Opposite of Love Is Not Hate

Last week, I posted some thoughts on the Boston club that shut down because too many people on line were black. I've since updated it.

The guy who organized the private party shares his "[dismay] that after having spent the last few hours with the club owner, I do not believe him to be a racist." Of course, the guy is, but that nonetheless made ptcruiser over at Prometheus6 wonder why guy's "deeper feelings" was even an issue. To which I responded that:

@ ptc - Okay. Let's set aside his deeper feelings. Discrimination took place. If the white-US can't accept that at least 93% of them are racist, then they need to accept that fact that discrimination happens, it happens primarily to people of color, and it's perpetrated primarily by whites. I'm not sure how we're going to at least end discrimination, if not racism, if white US-Americans won't live in reality.

Did We Just Overcome a Little?: Sitcom The Game Returns via BET

I don't think I'll say anything that someone else isn't saying. But I hope that repetition helps drive the point home. The good news is that The Game is come back! January 2011 on BET! Check your local listings. Don't get me wrong. It's not my very, very favorite black sitcom of all time. But it's certainly in the top 5 of recent years, and when it comes out in January, it will immediately be No1 of regular black sitcoms.

Wow!

Racism in the Recent Forclosure Crisis? Eh, Duh

While other economic studies have concluded that leveraged refinancing, overbuilding, collapsing home prices and a poorly regulated mortgage market were primarily responsible for the rise in foreclosures, the authors of a new Princeton University study argue that the foreclosure crisis also had racial dimensions.

[. . .]

“While policy makers understand that the housing crisis affected minorities much more than others, they are quick to attribute this outcome to the personal failures of those losing their homes — poor credit and weaker economic position,” noted Douglas Massey, the study's other author and a professor at Woodrow Wilson.

“In fact, something more profound was taking place; institutional racism played a big part in this crisis.”The authors call on the federal government to take stronger steps to rid U.S. real estate and lending markets of discrimination via amendment of the Civil Rights Act with enforcement mechanisms to uncover discrimination and sanction those who discriminate. The pair recommends sending "testers" — black and white purchasers into the marketplace to test whether they are treated differently.

Another Example of Race(ism) in Sports Commentating? (Refined)

(Refinement) Today, Oct 15, Ritchie demonstrated what I like about him: truth-telling. The problem with the Dallas Cowboys lies with their head coach, who, if you haven't noticed, is white. But it's not just that he goes after a white coach, cause what he says would be true even if the head coach weren't white.

Like I say below, I normally wouldn't even have written about his commentary on Batch and Kolb had I not been working on a new page already. And yeah, you'd think Batch would be ahead of Kolb, but at the end of the day, they were both rusty. That's what kind of stuck in my craw about Ritchie's commentary. I do wanna be clear that I don't think of Ritchie as a "racist" as defined by the mainstream. Just as a former football player who may not be completely divorced of his white-identity and racial-frame, but is significantly better than the typical white guy.

Conservativism, Whiteness, Exploitation and More Ways to Help Haiti

I got two different thoughts and at the moment, neither is so long as to elicit its own post. But, share your thoughts and we'll see what happens.

I came across this:

THAT liberty is indivisible, and that political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom;

here.

Now I suppose by "economic freedom" they mean low taxes and little regulation. But it's those very policies that have gotten us to where we are now.

Stand Strong, Black Farmers!!

On the other hand, CNN also did this story:

Today in "What The . . .?!"

I mean, can black folks "do the Dew?" Is that okay? ~ No1KState

Police beat black teen after mistaking soda bottle for gun
Staff Reporter | Posted January 25, 2010 10:20 AM

Police in Pittsburgh are under fire after an unarmed black teenager was brutally beaten after officers mistook a soda bottle for a gun.

Jordan Miles was walking from his mother's home to his grandmother's house when three undercover white police officers jumped out of a car and approached him around 11 p.m. on January 12. Miles, 18, ran but the undercover officers caught him and punched him with closed fists, according to news reports.

The police say they suspected the shape underneath Miles's coat was a deadly weapon. It turned out to be a bottle of Mountain Dew soda.

Is the Dream a Reality, or Are We Waking to Reality

If you don't know my health situation, just ask. Or search, cause I really don't like talking about it.

I would love to do more regular posting of my own original thoughts. Love to!! But that's a little out of my reach right now. Still stretching towards the mark, though. Don't doubt that. And I may do something original later this week.

But until then, one thing I can do is find an article that captures my thoughts. What will follow is one. Economic and racial justice are inseparably entwined. Dr. King came to realize this towards in his last years. A lot of the poverty we see in black America today reaches back to post-WWII racism in handling the GI Bill and in FHA redlining. (Which gets to my case that reparations are due; and if white Americans can't stomach going back to 1865, going back to just 1945 is another option.) In his time, King didn't realize this until he came to notice that having the right to sit at the lunch counter didn't mean much if you couldn't afford to eat there. Moreover, the negative stereotypes used against all blacks, light-skinned and Negro-dialect included, that result in unemployment rates among blacks being nearly twice as high as that among whites are based on the social ills that exist among the black poor. As such, a good bit of these issues could be address just by alleviating financial pressures.

Wait. I don't think I'm being clear. I'm trying to point out the circular pattern of poverty and racism. Things that happen among the black poor are used to restrict opportunities for all blacks. Even though once socioeconomics is accounted for, gaps in crime disappear. Then, these restricted opportunities result in more disproportionate poverty.

So, anyway, I lost my train of thought and commented on another blog and couldn't recover my train of thought. But I really want to share this op-ed by Bob Herbert with you.

Lastly, please MA Dems, get out and vote!! Coakley ain't perfect, but she ain't a 'Publican, either!

Remembering the Mover and The Movement

First, I'll just share a some of my own thoughts, then I'll share some good stuff I found online this morning.

Always, my in initial thought is amazement. Even though we're two days away from the first full year of a sitting black president, I still surprised we have a holiday for a black person. Don't get me wrong, after Christmas and New Year's Eve, I'm winding down the holiday juices. And MLK Day usually sneaks up on me. So I can be a little shook that there's another holiday so soon. But that it's a holiday in remembrance of a black man is usually what keeps me shook until the day after. Just can't get over it.

And while I'm thinking about it, let's not forget today is a national day of service. But starting a tradition of having an MLK fish-fry or cook-out couldn't hurt, could it? (Now, for those who may not know, a cook-out is the same as a BBQ, as in "neighborhood BBQ" not pulled-pork. I don't know another word for fish-fry, but it's pretty much what it sounds like.) I mean, we eat on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the 4th of July. Why not MLK Day? True, I haven't had breakfast. I'm hungry!

Another thought is something I got in an argument about with my mom, but my history professor agreed with me: too much emphasis is put on Dr. King, Jr in terms of the Civil Rights Movement. He didn't start it. He didn't lead it. He was an incredible voice for it and gave his life for it.

But he wasn't the only participant. Not the only leader or speaker, or person to give his life. He made some great moves and used some great strategy; he made some bad moves and used some bad strategy. That's not to disrespect the youngest person of color to win the Nobel Peace Prize, as he was certainly a major voice for peace. The truth is, he was human. Just like the rest of us. As he said, all it takes to be great is to serve and anybody can be great cause anybody can serve. And he was a champion servant! Don't get me wrong, he did some prodigous serving. I just wish we paid more attention to other champion servants.

A very recent thought is irony of the Civil Rights Movement/Black Freedom Movement by comparison to the Tea Party Movement. The point of the CRM was to pull everybody into citizenship on equal status. What is it that the tea party hopes to accomplish that will lift up all of America? The CRM looked to the past and said, "It's damn time for black folks in particular finally to get the rights gauranteed to us nearly a hundred years ago!" What's the tea party hailing to history for? They reach to a time when only white men who owned a certain amount of property had say, in the little European settlers had say in, in colonial government, then completely misunderstand and revise the history of American Independence. Their heroes are racist and sexist nominally Christian men who dressed like Iroquois to sneak on a boat and overturn crates of tea in part to protect settler-owned "big" business. These men weren't fighting for freedom and liberty for anybody. Just money.

What's most disturbing in terms of history are the threats of violence coming from the tea party. Gotta water the tree of freedom with the blood of tyrants sometime. They come unarmed this time. As though true revolution involves blood.

And, well, maybe they have a point. The goals of The Movement haven't been accomplished yet. The eldest surviving child of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King prefers to observe the national holiday in honor of his father as opposed to celebrating it. Martin Luther King III said there is simply too much work to be done around what his father called the "triple evils." As MLK, III puts it,

"We can't celebrate when the triple evils of poverty, racism and militarism are still very much existing in our society. The holiday always gives us an opportunity to begin anew."

Read the entire article, a great article, here.

The last thing I want to address is the santaclausification of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. So much of what he said and did is forgotten in collective/white memory. The true MLK doesn't serve the purposes of white supremacy. Few whites, and no political conservative or libertarian of any race, would hold up MLK as an exceptional black all other blacks should aspire to. He supported affirmative action and reparations. Let's not forget that.

All right. The video that follows is a clip Dr. King giving a speech few people quote today. Yep, Dr. was "black and proud," not American and ambivalent.

But before that, if you can, help Martha Coakley (D-MA) beat her tea-party endorsed opponent Scott Brown. The dude coming strong with the stupid in the video in my previous post.

A'ight, Ladies and Gents. Hope to hear from ya soon. Holla.

Hellava Job Scott Brown(ie)

These are just my initial thoughts. Maybe I'll write more later.

3 - Sarah Palin is no feminist, and if it weren't for the feminist movement of the 60s and 70s that so many conservatives decry, she would still be in Alaska. Now, to be sure, feminism is about women's equality and ability to do and say anything they like. One thing it is not about is restricting women's reproductive rights. Moreover, from what I can tell, she hasn't reached national prominence based merit; but perhaps, the lack thereof.

2 - How dare he suggest Obama was born out of wedlock. Now, I'm not hating on folks who were and are. But inference he is making, for those who support him, is crude. Obama's mother was married. Or, is it that black or biracial child born to a teen is born out-of-wedlock?

1 - If Obama's mother wasn't married when he was born, then he's a natural citizen of the US, no question about it. Tea baggers/birthers/Republicans can't have it both ways.

Initially, I was ambivalent about making calls to Massachusetts about their intrastate politics. Now, well . . . I hope it's okay to call on a holiday.

Protecting the Right to Vote, Updated

Sorry I've been away. I just came across this a few minutes ago. I read the entire thing and will be looking into the whole New Black Panther case. ~ No1KState

Update: The New Black Panther Party is far, far more radical than the actual Black Panther Party, even stoking some indignation from the Black Panthers for using their name. I can't blame them and wonder if they would have a case in court.

Now, as for "voter intimidation," I think I can summarize the whole hoopla fairly quickly. Two members of the New Party stood outside a Philadelphia precinct during the 2008 national election. One of them had a night stick.

That's the extinct of intimidation.

The case, which has has been dropped except for telling the one with the night stick not to ever bring a weapon near a polling place, seems to have been racially motivated in the beginning. The New Party was sued, rather than prosecuted, by BushCo's DoJ on behalf of Republican, white poll watchers just a couple of weeks before inauguration. Under Bush, the DOJ had only brought one other case of voter intimidation, which the won, and it was on behalf of white Americans, too. No one from the precinct in Philly stepped forward to publicly complain of intimidation.

In my opinion, case was rightly dropped. It should have never been brought. If whites were intimidated, it's because whites are irrationally afraid of black men anyway. The precinct itself is heavily black, and Obama probably would've won the precinct by the same margin without members of the New Party standing guard. I should inform you the the national committee of the New Party disavowed the two and doesn't condone having weapons at polling places. They had poll watchers at precincts all over the nation without incident. And poll watching isn't new or "black." So the issue speaks more about the racism of BushCo and the current whining conservatives (The link goes to a google search page. You know, or should be able to deduce, how I feel about linking to conservative sights.) than anything else. The US Commission on Civil Rights, which is dominated by conservatives, intervened and now there's an internal review about why the case was dropped. There should be one on why it was ever brought to begin with.
Now, to be sure, the New Party isn't a group of cub scouts, pun intended. In fact, the Southern Poverty and Law Center has them listed as a hate group. Their ideas aren't all that bad as just ideas for improving the lives of African Americans, and really aren't so different from the platform of the Black Panthers. They practically copied and pasted if you ask me. The problem is that they throw in all too many references to "the white man." And apparently, the rhetoric of the national spokesmen, as distinct from members of local chapters, include references to whites, Jews, and violence, not all in that order. I gotta give the credit for standing up against the KKK, but apparently, even black residents didn't want the New Party of Dallas to come in. For what it's worth, the New Party needs to stick to nonviolent community activism and leave hate towards whites and Jews for others. It's their anti-white and antisemitic rhetoric that turns me off. I'm just too tired right now to round up any strong indignation. For me, it says enough that the SPLC has them listed.

Now, as for my absence . . . I can't blame it entirely on my health. A great, great deal, just not entirely. What energy I could've used here went to a drawn out argument over at racismreview. I should apologize to any regular readers and myself for my lack of judgement. I've grown from the incident, though. I know why I visit that site so often and owe it to myself not to waste energy defending my integrity against people who don't acknowledge the reality of racism in this country. I'm not promising a post tomorrow, but hey . . .

The Battle for Voting Rights

Could reassignment of the Bush-era head of the Justice Department section charged with protection of voting rights mean real change?

Adam Serwer

Sometime during Christmas week, Christopher Coates, the chief of the Voting Rights Section of the Justice Department, was quietly reassigned to an 18-month detail in the U.S. attorney's office in Charleston, South Carolina. Coates, a longtime career attorney in the Civil Rights Division, became head of the Voting Section in 2007. The previous head, John Tanner, left in 2007 in the midst of an uproar over racially inflammatory remarks.
Outraged conservatives quickly accused the Obama administration of reassigning Coates in order to cover up its dismissal of a voter-intimidation case involving the New Black Panther Party that Coates supervised. Hans von Spakovsky, former counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights under the Bush administration with a history of pushing for voting restrictions that disproportionately harm minority voters, said it was another sign of the Obama administration enforcing civil-rights laws on an "ideologically and politically biased basis." The conservative Washington Times headline blared "Justice Dept. Moves Panthers Pursuer to S.C."

This was not the first time the Civil Rights Division, of which Voting Rights is a part, has hit the headlines -- the division was widely criticized under the Bush administration. A joint report filed by the Office of the Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility found that Brad Schlozman, who had been appointed to run the division, along with von Spakovsky and Tanner, regularly considered political affiliation when hiring career attorneys. According to the report, Tanner in particular complained that prior to the Bush appointees removing safeguards against politicized hiring, you had to be a "civil rights person" to work in the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. In 2007, then-Sen. Barack Obama blocked von Spakovsky's nomination to the Federal Election Commission saying von Spakovsky was "directly involved" in efforts to "disenfranchise voters" and "politicize" the Voting Rights Section.

A Government Accountability Office report released in December confirmed what veteran civil-rights lawyers who left the division over the past eight years had feared -- during the Bush administration, enforcement of civil-rights laws in employment discrimination, voting, and hate crimes fell across the board. It wasn't just about the cases: The racial atmosphere in the division was so hostile toward African Americans that by 2007, almost all the black lawyers in the division had left.

The New Black Panther voter intimidation case became an opportunity for conservatives to turn the tables on accusations of politicization. The battle for the soul of the Voting Rights Section didn't end with the new administration -- it continued, with conservatives in Congress and in the media waving the dismissal of the New Black Panther case as prima facie evidence that Democrats were politicizing the Justice Department.

Coates wanted to pursue the Black Panther Case, which became a rallying cry among conservatives. The Washington Times printed one-sided articles alleging politicization within the Voting Rights Section. Republican Reps. Lamar Smith of Texas and Frank Wolf of Virginia accused the administration of engaging in a "cover-up." In the Senate, Republicans used the New Black Panther case as an excuse to hold up Obama's nominee to head the Civil Rights Division, Thomas Perez. The now right-leaning U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR), dominated by Bush appointees who are ideologically opposed to the division's traditional role of protecting minority rights, began investigating the dismissal of the Black Panther case and subpoenaing Justice Department lawyers. At a December American Constitution Society event, Thomas Perez, now confirmed as head of the Civil Rights Division, seemed to fire back at conservative critics, saying, "Those who had been entrusted with the keys to the division treated it like a buffet line at the cafeteria, cherry-picking which laws to enforce."

At first glance, Coates' extensive experience with voting rights -- he first worked for the American Civil Liberties Union and later the Justice Department -- made him look like just another career attorney. But Coates' current and former colleagues at the Justice Department say Coates underwent an ideological conversion shortly after a black lawyer in the Voting Rights Section, Gilda Daniels, was promoted to deputy section chief over him in July of 2000. Outraged, Coates filed a complaint alleging he was passed up for the job because he is white. The matter was settled internally.

"He thought he should have been hired instead of her," said one former official in the Voting Section. "That had an impact on his views … he became more conservative over time."

Coates' star rose during the Bush administration, during which he was promoted to principal deputy section chief. While not mentioned by name, Coates has been identified by several current and former Justice Department officials as the anonymous Voting Section lawyer, referred to in the joint Inspector General/Office of Professional Responsibility report, that Schlozman recommended for an immigration judge position. Immigration judges have jurisdiction over whether or not foreign nationals are deported. In his letter to Monica Goodling, a former senior counsel to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales who was implicated in the scandal involving politicized hiring, Schlozman wrote of Coates:

Don't be dissuaded by his ACLU work on voting matters from years ago. This is a very different man, and particularly on immigration issues, he is a true member of the team.
At the heart of the New Black Panther case was Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act, which offers legal protections against voter intimidation. It had only been used once prior to the Bush administration -- in 1992 to prevent a statewide voter-suppression effort initiated in South Carolina by then-Sen. Jesse Helms. In this case, the Bush administration wanted to use Section 11(b) against several New Black Panthers who had stood in front of a polling place in a black neighborhood, one of whom wielded a baton.

"There was no pattern and practice, no concerted effort to cage thousands of voters like in the [1992] Jesse Helms case," said Gerry Hebert, a former senior Voting Rights Section attorney who has served under multiple administrations. "That strikes me as the kind of large-scale voter-suppression case that would be more appropriate for Justice Department resources to be spent on."

The Bush administration filed two Section 11(b) cases, both on behalf of white voters, both supervised by Coates: the Black Panther case and a separate case in Noxubee, Mississippi. The Voting Rights Section had gone from ensuring voting rights for all Americans to focusing on the conservative bugaboo of "reverse racism."

A December report from Ryan J. Reilly of the legal publication Main Justice revealed that the now conservative-dominated USCCR had subpoenaed Coates and another Voting Section attorney, J. Christian Adams, to testify before the commission regarding the New Black Panther case. Adams is a straightforward ideologue, hired during the Bush era of politicized hiring. Having previously worked as a volunteer for the Republican National Lawyers Association, Adams has written pieces praising "tea party" activists and compared President Obama to Nazi appeasers. He was one of the lawyers assigned to the New Black Panther case.

Shortly after the report in Main Justice, von Spakovsky, who was at the center of the politicized hiring scandal at the Bush Justice Department, took to the pages of National Review to defend Coates and Adams and attack Thomas Perez, for not honoring the USCCR's subpoena. Two members of the USCC, Peter Kirsanow and Abigail Thernstrom, have also written for National Review, where the New Black Panther case has become a frequent topic of conversation.

According to Voting Section employees, the racially hostile atmosphere -- and for the most part, the politicization of the section -- that had existed during the Bush administration dissipated with John Tanner's departure. For some in the section, the New Black Panther Case symbolizes a chapter in the section's history they would rather put behind them. Thomas Perez has declared the Civil Rights Division "open for business," slamming the Bush administration for its lax enforcement of civil-rights laws. Department veterans who left, like Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandez, are now trickling back. The atmosphere of "fear and retaliation" that once permeated the Voting Rights Section is gone. Last year saw the highest number of hate-crimes prosecutions since the last time a Democrat was in office. In many respects, the promises of change made by Obama as a candidate have fallen by the wayside. But not in the Civil Rights Division. Not in the Voting Rights Section.

On Tuesday, employees in the Voting Rights Section a held goodbye lunch for Coates. At the end of the lunch, employees went around the conference table expressing their appreciation to Coates. At the end, the attendees were startled when Coates pulled out a binder and began reciting a written defense of his decision to file the New Black Panther and Noxubee cases. Voting Section employees exchanged glances in disbelief.

"It felt like he was summing up to a jury," one attendee said.

Coates' replacement, Chris Herren, is a longtime career attorney with an encyclopedic knowledge of voting rights issues whom one Justice Department employee described as being "like Yoda with voting rights." Laughlin McDonald, head of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project, and someone who has worked with Herron on voting rights issues for years, said "I can't really think of a better [choice] in that division."

As one Justice Department official put it, "It just feels like things are finally being righted."

Sickening

I'm experiencing a sort of brain . . . I can't think of a good word to describe the heaviness I feel in my head and the effort it takes to do anything beyond the most shallow of thinking.

So, not having read this entire article, I forewarn you that I may take it down later. Until then, what I have read is important for everyone to know in the midst of the battles around healthcare reform. ~ No1KState


Health Study For Chicago: Health Gap Widens
Between Blacks, Whites
Problem is worse in Chicago than nationwide,
Sinai Urban Health Institute study says.
A new study finds a widening gulf in the health status
of blacks and whites in Chicago, even though
disparities between blacks and whites nationally
have remained static.
By Deborah L. Shelton
Chicago Tribune
December 18, 2009
http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/chi-chicago_health_gapdec18,0,628023.story

A widening gulf in the health status of blacks and
whites in Chicago comes even as disparities between the
two races nationally have remained relatively constant,
a new study has found.

The disparity is particularly jarring in five areas:
death from all causes, heart disease mortality, breast
cancer mortality, rates of tuberculosis and the
percentage of women who received no prenatal care during
the first trimester of pregnancy.

Nationally, the racial gap got worse from 1990 to 2005
for six of the 15 health indicators researchers studied.
However, in Chicago, disparities worsened for 11 of the
15 indicators, according to research by the Sinai Urban
Health Institute, published online Thursday in the
American Journal of Public Health.

Poverty, segregation and access to health care all
appear to play a role, researchers said. In Chicago
neighborhoods and medical offices, doctors and patients
see the same factors.

Dr. Charles Barron, medical director at Access Southwest
Family Health Center, said many of his patients struggle
to pay for health care.

"Access is definitely an issue, even at federally
qualified health centers such as Access Community Health
Network, which offers treatment on a sliding-scale
basis," he said.

Tonya Jackson, 39, of North Lawndale, takes seven
medications to treat heart failure. She is a patient at
Mount Sinai Hospital, which is widely known for its
initiatives to treat low-income and poor patients.

"Even with health insurance, a lot of medicines are very
expensive," she said. "When you're a single parent,
you're trying to pay rent, you have your child, and
you're trying to pay bills and buy food, so it's
difficult. A lot of people don't get the care they need
because they have to decide whether they want to eat
that day."

Dr. Niva Lubin-Johnson, an African-American physician,
has witnessed the disparities firsthand in her 20-year
solo practice in Chatham.

"Based on what I see," she said, "we have a greater
disease burden, and part of that comes from lifestyle,
part of it comes from income, part of it comes from
health literacy and people not understanding what they
need to do to live a healthy lifestyle."

An author of the study, institute director Steve
Whitman, previously has compared breast cancer
disparities in Chicago and New York. He said the health
of African-Americans in Chicago fares worse than blacks
elsewhere.

"The underlying issue here is racism and poverty,"
Whitman said. "In Chicago, it's exacerbated by
segregation. Black people in Chicago are forced to live
in neighborhoods where there are no stores to buy fresh
fruits and vegetables, where schools are failing, where
they don't have parks to exercise in and where they tend
to go to segregated health facilities that are poorly
funded and, in different ways, failing."

Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American
Public Health Association, cautioned about making
geographic comparisons.

"While it is important to measure an urban city like
Chicago against national numbers," Benjamin said, "the
national statistics include lots of places where some of
the challenges of racial disparity don't exist.

"When you average numbers out -- even though researchers
try statistically to correct for some of those things --
you have to be cautious."

But he agreed that racial disparities appear to be
worsening in Chicago.

"Despite Chicago's ... transit system, it still has
pockets of people where people have tremendous problems
accessing care, and that's a huge overlay," Benjamin
said. "Part of it is lack of insurance, and part of it
is access to care."

Ultimately, money might matter most when it comes to
good health, Benjamin said.

"If we were serious about doing something about
eliminating these disparities, we would pay attention to
the social determinants of health that put people in
these situations to begin with," he said. "At the end of
the day, there is very strong correlation between health
and wealth."

Sinai researchers analyzed the 15 measures using data
from city communicable disease records and Illinois
birth and death records.

The study builds on work published in 2004, believed to
be the first to examine the health of blacks and whites
in a major urban center over time and put findings in
the context of national trends.

Researchers reported that the African-American death
rate from breast cancer was 99 percent higher in Chicago
than for white women, a fivefold increase since 1990.

In 1990, blacks in Chicago were 8 percent more likely
than whites to die of heart disease.

In 2005, blacks were 24 percent more likely to die.

In 1990, black women were two times more likely to go
without prenatal care in the first trimester of
pregnancy. By 2005, they were three times more likely to
go without prenatal care.

Most of the measures showed improved health for both
blacks and whites nationally and locally, but whites'
health status improved much more, widening the gap.

If health indicators were equal, 3,200 fewer African-
Americans in Chicago would die every year, or about nine
a day, the study estimates.

Joseph M. Harrington, assistant commissioner for chronic
disease for the Chicago Department of Public Health,
agreed that the problem in Chicago is significant.

"But," he said, "what do we do about it? You can keep
talking about how bad the numbers are, but the real
question is, what do you plan to do?"

The city health department has initiated programs to
address the problem, including a federally funded
project focused on cardiovascular disease among blacks
and Hispanics living in North and South Lawndale,
Harrington said.

"These findings should provoke us to think about what
can be done, that's the call to action," Harrington
said.

"This should provoke us to do something."

College Football and African Americans

Hey, if you've ever said to someone, "A hundred pennies make a dollar!" then you can understand that 12 inches makes a foot, and 3 feet makes a yard. Football is a game of inches. Every little bit counts. And I think UVA and Louisville just picked up a first down. ~ No1KState

A Historic Week for Minority Coaches

By Richard Lapchick
Special to ESPN.com

One year ago this week, I wrote that we needed a civil rights movement in college football. As of Dec. 8, 2008, there were four African-American coaches left in the FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision), the lowest number in 15 years. African-American coaches at Kansas State, Washington and Mississippi State had just lost their jobs. Late in the 2008 hiring process, African-American coaches were hired at New Mexico, New Mexico State and Eastern Michigan -- but those additions hardly made up for the losses at Big 12, Pac-10 and SEC schools. Randy Shannon at Miami (Fla.) was the only African-American BCS conference coach left.

Now, with Florida defensive coordinator Charlie Strong being introduced as Louisville's new football coach on Wednesday afternoon, everything has changed. With several coaching positions remaining to be filled, there are 11 African-American head coaches, and 13 coaches of color among the 120 FBS schools. That is four more than the previous high in the history of college football. And, most importantly, there are again more coaches of color in the BCS conferences, with Strong in the Big East and Mike London in the ACC at Virginia. Plus, Turner Gill is a serious candidate for a job in the Big 12, at Kansas.
(Click post title for more after break.)

Back to the Drawing Board. Seriously.

According to an article in the New York Times, college degrees aren't helping black men find jobs. "Well, No1KState, everybody's struggling now." At a ratio of 8.4 to 4.4 for black men with college degrees to white men with college degrees?

The administrators at racismreview noted that the article failed to explicitly say white hiring managers had a problem with black job applicants. The closest Michael Luo came to blaming white people was quoting stories like this one:

Mr. Williams recently applied to a Dallas money management firm that had posted a position with top business schools. The hiring manager had seemed ecstatic to hear from him, telling him they had trouble getting people from prestigious business schools to move to the area. Mr. Williams had left New York and moved back in with his parents in Dallas to save money.

But when Mr. Williams later met two men from the firm for lunch, he said they appeared stunned when he strolled up to introduce himself.

“Their eyes kind of hit the ceiling a bit,” he said. “It was kind of quiet for about 45 seconds.”

The company’s interest in him quickly cooled, setting off the inevitable questions in his mind.

Mr. Johnny R Williams has JPMorgan Chase and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago on his résumé.

I'm not really surprised Luo fails to acknowledge that if companies were excited about a particular job applicant until they see him, then the problem is with the interviewers, not the applicant. After all, have you listened to the way people talk about slavery? Almost as though the country just had black slaves running around with no white slaveowners. As for today, this whole problem that black men with amazing resumes are having a harder time finding jobs than white men isn't white people's fault. After all,

The discrimination is rarely overt, according to interviews with more than two dozen college-educated black job seekers around the country, many of them out of work for months. Instead, those interviewed told subtler stories, referring to surprised looks and offhand comments, interviews that fell apart almost as soon as they began, and the sudden loss of interest from companies after meetings.

And plus,

There is also the matter of how many jobs, especially higher-level ones, are never even posted and depend on word-of-mouth and informal networks, in many cases leaving blacks at a disadvantage. A recent study published in the academic journal Social Problems found that white males receive substantially more job leads for high-level supervisory positions than women and members of minorities.

See? None of this alleged "discrimination" has anything at all to do with some supposed racist conspiracy white people have against black men with degrees from Yale and MBAs from the University of Chicago. No! White employers would love to hire more Morehouse me, but

. . . [they simply gravite] toward similar people, casting about for the right “cultural fit,” a buzzword often heard in corporate circles.

After all,

they conceded, there are times when their race can be beneficial, particularly with companies that have diversity programs. But many said they sensed that such opportunities had been cut back over the years and even more during the downturn. Others speculated there was now more of a tendency to deem diversity unnecessary after Mr. Obama’s triumph.

In fact, whether Mr. Obama’s election has been good or bad for their job prospects is hotly debated. Several interviewed went so far as to say that they believed there was only so much progress that many in the country could take, and that there was now a backlash against blacks.

Now that you've gotten the basic gist of the article, I can share my true feelings. Of course, I absolutely agree with the "blacklash" theory. Also, are we really gonna consider being black "beneficial" just because some company has realized they've already met the quota for white men? Cause actually, diversity improves performance and profits.

And what the hell is "cultural fit" and doesn't it already raise a red flag?

Essentially, the phrase refers to an employee or applicant who shares the employer's business attitudes, values, goals, and overall view of how the particular business should be run. Every workplace has a style that is reflected in the way its employees act and dress; how they deal with clients, customers, and each other; and how they comport themselves in the larger work world.

I found another definition/explanation here:

In the work setting, lack of fit between an employee and an organization can be described as culture clash. Culture encompasses the shared, taken-for-granted assumptions that a group has learned throughout its history -- values held in common that extend beyond the framed mission statement hanging in the lobby. It includes the following:

 Work style -- the way work is done.

• Team orientation -- hierarchical versus egalitarian.  
• Management style -- collaborative or commanding. 
• Customer orientation -- a nuisance as opposed to reason for being.  
• Political style -- the importance of what you know versus who you know.  
• Attitudes toward things like learning and risk taking.  

Lack of cultural fit is largely due to a misguided hiring process supported by ineffective execution. Even the best-intentioned organizations - those that focus on competencies and relevant behaviors, in addition to education and experience -- frequently don't assess the issue of cultural fit accurately. Failure to do this minimizes the likelihood of arriving at a successful match.

So how does this play out in real life terms? Let's take a look at one of Harvard's Baker Scholars (awarded only to the top students of the MBA graduate class), a black man named James who kept being rejected because he wasn't the white, oh, I mean, right cultural fit. His race wasn't necessarily the problem.

He mentioned, for instance, that he was extremely fastidious in his working style, and would stay long hours to ensure that he always produced work of the highest quality. Admirable within some companies, perhaps, but others might see it as being detrimental to team spirit if James were not able to prioritise, or to relax once in a while if the work he was doing at the time wasn’t critical.

He also mentioned that he liked to take initiative and present the people around him with highly-polished work. But if the organisation was used to getting everyone involved in the problem so that the solution was jointly developed, would James accommodate this or not?

So, although the recruiter could be more helpful to James in the feedback which is given to him, there is nothing underhand going on. In fact, the recruiter is working in James’s interests to ensure that he does not join a firm where he will not fit in and excel.

So black men, here's some job advice, based mostly on what I've laid out and in the spirit of this particular post (Which I hope you realize is mostly sarcasm . . . about the reasons for the disparity in employment between black male college grads and white male college grads, not the disparity itself.).Don't demonstrate initiative.

1. Don't be so committed to high-quality work that you stay extra hours on the job making sure you get things just right.
2. Send a white guy as a stand-in for your interviews and talk into his ear using blue-tooth.
3. Use initials if you have an ethnic name.
4. Don't mention any awards you've received or organizations you've joined as a high achieving minority.
5. And if all else fells, don't get a college degree. Particularly one from a prominent university.

James became neither an investment banker nor a consultant. The deeper he looked into those careers, the more he realised himself that he would not succeed. He is now a teacher just outside of Chicago where he is able to develop young minds. And Lord knows we need more black male teachers!

No, sarcasm aside, we really do need more black male teachers in our public schools. But I'm not sure I'm okay with black men going into teaching as a last resort. What are we supposed to tell our kids? You can be anything you want, just stay in your place? Cause no matter how much you accomplish, you can still be arrested in or protested against in your own home.

Hold the Presses!

Racism wasn't the motivating factor, or at least not the sole motivating factor, behind Chicagoan white flight. Watching C-Span today, I learned a lot!

It had always been my contention that what it meant, or at least what I mean, by institutional racism is that you have lots of little bits of racism that pile up and result in the disparities we see today. Also, I had always known the government had played some part in the disparity of housing and wealth accumulation; but, now it seems FHA red-lining was the catalyst behind several events that explain a lot of the disparities in outcomes we see today.

This isn't what I viewed on C-Span, and the sound isn't great, but it's as close as I could find.

President Barack Obama Is . . . Black?

It's kinda funny, actually. Now that Pres. Obama has characterized the policeman who arrested Henry Lois Gates as having acted "stupidly," all of a sudden mainstream media is confused. They wonder what happened to the post-racial Obama. Well, he was just a figment of white American imagination. An imagination that could lead news coverage to completely ignore his outlining of present day discrimination in a recent speech to the NAACP.

As a black person, I find the propensity of white Americans to narrowly focus on "exceptional" blacks quite vexing. Understand, I'm an "exceptional" black myself. Once in high school, a friend and I were pulled out of class for an interview with a local news channel on being high achieving black students. I can't remember everything that was said. I do remember talking about how instead of being "exceptions" to the rule, my friend and I were the rule; we were representative of a legacy of black love of learning.

After the interview, my friend and I talked about how exciting it would be to be on TV. We wondered if they would actually even show the interview. We wondered how it would be edited. Then we realized: it was possible to edit the piece as though we were chastising our black classmates! We panicked! We went back and talked to our principal about our concerns.

Cause Shelby Steele aside, most high achieving blacks don't wanna be portrayed as apart from our community. Shear statistics are that despite racism, you will have blacks who come to great success apart from athletics and entertainment. That doesn't mean that racism doesn't exist. It should only serve as a gauge of what black folks might accomplish if it didn't.

. . . Perhaps that's the cause for the mainstream misperception. And so, read this NY Times op-ed piece by Brent Staples:

July 24, 2009
Editorial Observer
President Obama, Professor Gates and the Cambridge Police
By BRENT STAPLES

The American obsession with people who are said to transcend race began long before Barack Obama moved into the White House — long before he even thought about running for president. Affluent, well-educated black people were being appropriated as symbols of racial progress — and held up as proof that racism no longer mattered — back when Mr. Obama was still a youth in short pants.

White Americans have little experience with this brand of appropriation. In general, their personal and professional triumphs are viewed as the product of individual fortitude and evidence that the founding ideals of the nation are alive and well.

Successful African-Americans — whether they are sports stars, entertainers or politicians — are often accorded a more tortured significance. In addition to being held up as proof that racism has been extinguished, they are often employed as weapons in the age-old campaign to discredit, and even demean, the disadvantaged.

“Don’t talk to us about discrimination,” the argument typically goes. “You made it. If the others got off their behinds and tried, they would, too.” In this rhetoric of race, there is no such thing as social disadvantage, only hard-working, morally upright people who succeed, and lazy, morally defective people who do not.

Black Americans who find this line of argument appealing, along with the celebrity it brings them, typically end up trumpeting exceptionalism, playing down the significance of discrimination, and lecturing black people (nearly always in front of white audiences) to stop whining about racism and get on with it.

Mr. Obama has refused to play this role, even though people have tried to thrust it upon him. He has made clear all along that the election of the first African-American president, while noteworthy in a nation built on the backs of slaves, did not signal a sudden, magical end to discrimination.

He underscored this point again this week when he commented on the arrest in Cambridge, Mass., of the Harvard African-American scholar (and my longtime friend) Henry Louis Gates Jr. and about the tendency of police officers to target blacks and Hispanics for traffic stops.

These remarks could change how the news media sees the president’s views on race. Up to now, he has been consistently and wrongly portrayed as a stern black exceptionalist who takes Negroes to task for not meeting his standard.

He is not happy with this characterization. That was clear in a recent Oval Office interview with the columnist Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post. Mr. Obama complained about the press coverage of his speeches and seemed especially miffed about the portrayal of the one he delivered before the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People this month.

He suggested that the news media had overemphasized his remarks about “personal responsibility” — a venerable theme in the African-American church — while disregarding “the whole other half of the speech,” which included a classic exercise in civil-rights oratory.

The president described disproportionate rates of unemployment, imprisonment and lack of health insurance in minority communities as barriers of the moment. He contrasted them with the clubs and police dogs that black marchers faced in the 1960s and said that solving present-day problems would require comparable determination.

And “make no mistake,” he continued, “the pain of discrimination is still felt in America. By African-American women paid less for doing the same work as colleagues of a different color and a different gender.”

This was no exceptionalist rant. Speaking to Mr. Robinson, the president used the first-person plural revealingly when he said: “I do think it is important for the African-American community, in its diversity, to stay true to one core aspect of the African-American experience, which is we know what it’s like to be on the outside.”

During the campaign, Mr. Obama tended to avoid direct engagement with racial issues until circumstances (a tempest over his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright) made further evasion impossible.

He reached a similar moment when he was asked to comment on Mr. Gates’s arrest at a White House news conference on Wednesday.

In a remark that became instantly famous, he responded that the police acted “stupidly” in arresting Mr. Gates when no crime had been committed and the professor was standing in his own home. Mr. Obama further noted that disproportionate attention from the police was an unwelcome fact of black life in America.

People who have heretofore viewed Mr. Obama as a “postracial” abstraction were no doubt surprised by these remarks. This could be because they were hearing him fully for the first time.

Who in Hell Left the Gates Open?! [Updated}

Update: This is the most recent info I could find. Now. There are several out there who feel the whole ordeal was Gates's fault, that had he just complied with the police and been polite, he wouldn't have been arrested - police don't like to be shown up no matter what the other person's race is. All that junk, you'll have to google on your own.


Smooth Criminal (Radio Edit) - Michael Jackson

Me? I hope this finally convinces those individuals who believe that it's not about race as much as class that race does indeed trump class. I personally don't believe the police account that Gates became combative and accused the police of racial bias - mostly because Gates doesn't believe in the overarching construct and impact of racism. But assuming Gates did become belligerent, do the cops really arrest every person who becomes belligerent. Are there no white people who became belligerent with cops and didn't get arrested? I know that's not the case because I've already read a few personal accounts to the contrary.

And it's widely documented that white people accept more disrespect or combativeness from other white people than from people of color. It's also widely known, amongst black people at least, that any sign of resistance will be met with a billy-club and handcuffs. Like I said, I can hardly imagine Gates being belligerent. And the plain truth is he could've done everything the police asked and been as perfectly polite as Emily Post instructs, that does not mean that a request for the cops name and badge would not be met with handcuffs. Or maybe, considering all the cases of police brutality that I've seen and heard, I just think a black person has to give 110% effort at demonstrating their cooperation and respect for the police. Including but not limited to keeping your hands visible at all times. I mean for real. I know of a 19-year-old black guy who was the passenger in a car driven by a white person, and the black guy ends up dead. I'm not even sure the white driver was arrested. I know of a situation where a woman was in some kind of state of medical emergency, I can't remember if she had overdosed on some drug or was in a diabetic shock, but she was shot several times by the police and killed even though, and the police say because, from start to finish she did not move.

The other issue that convinces me this was about race is the neighbor. I mean, why was it necessary to describe the possible thieves as "black?" Whatever it may be and whatever the race of the neighbor, there are racial implications and reason for describing a suspect as "black." Maybe you didn't know you had any black neighbors and you're using the descriptor to indicate the people you're calling about don't belong there. Or, maybe you know that saying "dangerous black male" will get a quicker response. And just who is this neighbor and how long has she been living there? Maybe it's because I've lived in the same neighborhood all my life, or because my eyes are wonderfully healthy, but I'd be able to recognize my neighbors across the street even if it were just by their silhouette.

But there's another issue to address, and this no matter how racism-deniers (You know, like holocaust-deniers? My term, my term.) respond to this, is what it says to black kids and maybe even all kids of color. White people don't know it, but within the black community, adults do stress the importance of education. Work hard, go to college, be the best "you" you can be. We tell our young people that the sky is the limit, they can become whatever they want to become, racism is an obstacle but it has been, can and will be, overcome. In fact, I go as far as to say one of the many strategies of assault on racism is to use education to learn how the "system" works and be able to manipulate it, whether from the inside as a lawmaker criminalizing racial profiling or from the outside as a community activist. But here's the hard-hitting truth, the part of Pres. Obama recent speech to the NAACP that mainstream media ignores: at the end of the day, no amount of education or success can shield you from racism. And especially if it's coming from US senators during your confirmation hearing on your nomination to the Supreme Court and you're a wise Latina woman.
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I just heard about this. Just heard about this. Here's what racismreview has to say . . . my thoughts, and a Michael Jackson song, later.

Racism in Cambridge: Harvard Prof. Gates Arrested
Posted by admin on Jul 21st, 2009 2009
Jul 21Arriving home after a recent trip to China and struggling to get into his own home in Cambridge because of a jammed door, esteemed scholar of African American Studies and Harvard Professor, Henry Louis (”Skip”) Gates, Jr., was arrested by police. According to one report (h/t @BlackInformant for a couple of these links), this incident began when someone alerted police:

A witness, 40-year-old Lucia Whalen of Malden, had alerted the cops that a man was “wedging his shoulder into the front door” at Gates’ house “as to pry the door open,” police reported.

None of the reports I’ve read online describe Ms. Whalen’s race, or why someone from Malden was doing calling the cops about a man entering his own home in Cambridge, but apparently it was her call that began this series of events. Here’s what happened next, according to several reports, this one from HuffingtonPost:

By the time police arrived, Gates was already inside. Police say he refused to come outside to speak with an officer, who told him he was investigating a report of a break-in.

“Why, because I’m a black man in America?” Gates said, according to a police report written by Sgt. James Crowley. The Cambridge police refused to comment on the arrest Monday.

Gates continued to yell at me, accusing me of racial bias and continued to tell me that I had not heard the last of him,” the officer wrote.

Gates said he turned over his driver’s license and Harvard ID – both with his photos – and repeatedly asked for the name and badge number of the officer, who refused. He said he then followed the officer as he left his house onto his front porch, where he was handcuffed in front of other officers, Gates said in a statement released by his attorney, fellow Harvard scholar Charles Ogletree, on a Web site Gates oversees, TheRoot.com.

As this story has begun to get out on the web in the last 12-24 hours, it seems to be touching off a tsunami of outrage at the persistence of racial inequality in the U.S., even for one of the most well-known and accomplished scholars. If this could happen to Skip Gates, at his home in Cambridge, Mass., it does not speak well for the state of racial progress in the country as a whole. As Rev. Al Sharpton said, “If this can happen at Harvard, what does it say about the rest of the country?”

But, make no mistake, this outrage is not universally shared. Almost as soon as this story broke, the undertow of white backlash to the reality of racism began to counter the outrage. For example, Bruce Maiman, writing at The Examiner, contends that the Cambridge police were just doing their job, responding to a call about a break-in to a home, and that Prof. Gates escalated the situation. Here’s Maiman:

So I ask you: Who’s the person who caused this encounter? Professor Gates is now being represented by another distinguished law professor from Harvard, Charles Ogletree, and they’re going to claim that this cop was racist and mishandled this situation because the fact that a black male was involved.

I don’t see any racism, do you? Tell me where? No names were called. Nobody was hassled or pushed around. Legitimate requests were made and cooperation was not forthcoming from a man, Henry Louis Gates, who know better than most people on this planet what happens when you escalate a confrontation with the police. But he does it anyway.

Is there racial profiling in America? Sure there is. But if you justify the behavior of Henry Louis Gates because other black men have been hassled by other police officers unfairly and thus you assume every black man has a right to a chip on his shoulder every time he meets a cop, you are asking for trouble.

This doesn’t appear to be racism. It sounds to me like a colossal case of extraordinarily bad judgment on the part of a distinguished African American historian who happens to teach at Harvard, and who certainly should’ve known better.

Here, Maiman’s interpretation of these events is completely steeped in the white racial frame. He says, “I don’t see any racism” and, of course, he can’t from the WRF. He only sees a black man “with a chip on his shoulder,” not the racist behavior of the cop. Maiman further diminishes Gates by referring to him as someone “who happens to teach at Harvard” and questions his judgment because he “certainly should’ve known better.” Known better than to what, try and enter his own home? Maiman is simply wrong on the facts here, and wrong on his interpretation of the events. Maiman is like other whites, as philosopher Charles W. Mills writes, “unable to see the world he has created,” unable to see how his not-seeing-racism contributes to the problem of racial inequality.

The research on the racial inequality in policing, arrest, and incarceration in the U.S. is starkly clear (as we’ve recounted on this blog hundreds of times): those who are black or brown, particularly men, are much more likely to be stopped, frisked, harrassed, arrested and convicted than whites. And, this inequality in criminal ‘justice’ is part of a larger pattern of racial inequality that operates systematically throughout U.S. institutions. The irony, for those that have followed Gates’ scholarship closely, is that he has tended to downplay the significance of institutional racism in the contemporary U.S. Reports are that Gates’ is “shaken” by this experience, as anyone would be. This is a horrifying, and yet all too common, experience for black men in this country. Perhaps Gates’ next volume will be called “Harvard Professor, Still a Suspect.”

More good sociological analysis on this case (and others) from City College Prof. Dumi Lewis, here.
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As a history student, and nerd, I know Gates and hold him in fairly high regard. However, I've always been disappointed in his views, or maybe his lack of outspokenness, on systemic racism. I wonder if this will do anything to change his thinking. Though, regardless, whatever it matters and to the extent that I can, I got his back like black.