The So-Called "Downside" of "Diversity"

Once folks know you pay a rather inordinate amount of attention to the socially-constructed political notion of race, you can run, but you can't hide. You can get rid of your television. You can refuse to read a newspaper. You can ignore the headlines on your rss feed page. And you can steer clear of blogs. But somebody at some point will find you and drop something on you they know you won't be able to ignore.

For those of you who are new to these parts, I made a major move six weeks ago to a different state, a different school, and a different culture. The move, as moves always are, was beyond exhausting, but the transition, while requiring tons of work, has been much, much easier than I could possibly have hoped. One can only assume that this was a move that was supposed to happen. But there was anxiety, I guess, on levels I wasn't prepared to entertain. And the upshot of it all is that I haven't really been in a blogging mode for two months or so. The blog stats bear this out in a pretty forlorn fashion.

In any case, right after I moved, one of my colleagues at my old school, a man with whom I'd had enough conversations that he had learned exactly how to rattle my cage or, if not that, at least what bait I'm most likely to rise to, emailed me a copy of an article from The Boston Globe. He wrote only: "You've probably seen this. It's all over the internet. But I wondered what you think about it."

I dodged the bullet for the moment, but printed out the article and started shuffling it around on my desk. This corner. That corner. Underneath a stack of other stuff. And into the "to do" basket (which was mostly just filled with things I didn't know what to do with yet).

Then, a few days ago, I was having trouble with my internet connection on my office computer and I was stuck in what academics call Office Hours, during which you are supposed to be readily available to see students without an appointment, and I became so bored, I finally read the piece. I knew the die was cast when I broke out a hot pink highlighter and as I loaded up my briefcase yesterday afternoon, the article jumped in and rode home with me.

It wasn't the kind of issue I wanted my first real post in two months to be about. There's much more flashy, emotional, and dramatic stuff to rant...er...write about currently. But that's exactly why the study described in the Globe article is so important. It's flying under the radar. Nobody screamed or even said the N-word on coast-to-coast television. Nobody shot an elderly or mentally-challenged person of color, accusing them of going for a gun. In fact, the study sounds so low-key as to be downright boring unless you happen to be in academe or it's your job to set public policy. But this study could fuel endless processes further entrenching what some of us call "neo-racism" for decades to come. No billy clubs. No nooses. Just Power smiling congenially in blue suits and relegating people of color to the back of the societal bus -- again -- by declaring the "downside of diversity."

The study was done by Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam, made famous by his book, "Bowling Alone," in 2000, about how people in the United States are becoming more and more isolated from each other. This later study, which examines this idea further, is large by social scientific standards. Detailed interviews of 30,000 Black, White, Hispanic and Asian people in 41 communities from coast-to-coast is an impressive sample of the population and certainly offers the ability to generalize from the data and draw conclusions with major implications.

What Putnam was trying to determine was does diversity make a community stronger? In other words, when a neighborhood is multi-cultural, that is, made up of individuals and groups representing a diverse range of cultures, are the results as positive as many liberals have suggested? I use the word "liberals" here the way many "liberals" use it, to mean "not conservatives." In point of fact, many, if not most, liberals are not at heart vastly different from many conservatives. That is to say, conservatives want to maintain the status quo. They want to keep the power in the hands of those who have so far always had it in this country. You don't need to have a Ph.D. in history to know that White men of means wrote the constitution, putting only themselves in it, and if raw statistics are any indicator, they still hold by far and away the predominance of the power. Conservatives have no problem with this. And when push comes to shove, many so-called liberals are pretty comfortable with this, as well. Using slightly different words or selecting women and people of color who can be included without really upsetting the apple cart doesn't necessarily represent a desire for change.

Nevertheless, while many conservatives are quick to cut minorities no slack (except during election years), liberals in general have tended to purport for some time to believe that "diversity" (also called "integration" or "multiculturalism") was a good thing. A warm fuzzy, if you will. One result has been what is sometimes perceived by people of color as appropriation of their traditions by White folks with no actual appreciation for the meaning of what they feel so entitled to adopt. Another result was the implementation of programs supposedly intended to expose diverse populations to each other, especially in work settings.

The principle, apparently, was that questions such as "Why can't we all just get along?" or "Why can't we be friends?" were only problematic because different cultures hadn't gotten to know each other, had never been able to "walk a mile in the other person's shoes," so they didn't understand each other. Exposure, it was thought, would bring about understanding and then, everything would be all right.

Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is that people of color in the Western Hemisphere have long since had a bellyful of understanding European-American cultural traditions, a number of which are predicated on the idea of their own supremacy and the reasonable nature of their dominance over everyone else. This idea, needless to say, is patently unappealing and even ridiculous to people of color, but when you don't have the power to change the norms (norms being the accepted beliefs and practices of a given society), you're stuck until you either get the power or those with the power decide voluntarily to give it up. Riiiiiight. It's White folks who lack the "understanding" about what they continue to put those they consider "others" through.

Workplace training went from being about "diversity" to being about "multiculturalism" to being about "cultural competency," but there was no change in the norms with which U.S. citizens are socialized. And understand this: not only are European-Americans taught that they are better, smarter, more beautiful, and more deserving of not only the power positions, but all the good things offered by the society. People of color are taught this, as well. From babyhood. So that even when Momma, Grandma, Uncle Junior or some teacher says, "You're as good as anybody. You can be whatever you want to be," they know when they say it that while the first statement is true, the second one may not be. And more importantly, the child will not be treated as if he or she is as good as anybody. At least, not by people in general in the United States, including other people of color. And anyway, people of color, with the most of the worst and the least of the best, inundated daily with reminders that they will be seen as less than their lighter-skinned counterparts, and feeling after five hundred years that it's always going to be this way, may understandably and often do give up trying to fight the power and either get sick, give up, or get mean.

So when the famous Robert Putnam marched his social scientific troops into 41 "diverse," "multicultural" communities, which he admits tend to be larger, have greater income ranges, higher crime rates, and more mobility among their residents, everything I've written here was already glued in place. Putnam admits that the factors I just named -- that he admits are typical characteristics of the communities involved in the study -- could, according to the Globe article, "depress social capital independent of any impact ethnic diversity might have." That is, a large, disproportionately poor and therefore crime-ridden neighborhood where the residents move often would tend to make people isolate, distrust each other more, and lack a sense that community involvement (such as voting) would make any difference. Still, they brushed all that aside, saying that the so-called "diversity" is The Problem in these communities.

Neo-conservatives are having a field day. What we need, they exult, is more gated communities where people of like-minds and similar interests can live in orderly fashion, without any of the difficulties attached to communities with those "other" people (not like them).

But liberals are off the hook, as well. They can stop feeling embarrassed that they secretly wonder why all that training never takes, why more than forty years after the Civil Rights Act of 1965 (which was supposed to fix everything, for goodness' sake), Black people are still poor, still going to jail, still depressed and angry and in our space with their problems.

I'm reminded of the results of a study I saw on a bulletin board years ago finding that young people are happier than old people, healthy people happier than sick people, and rich people happier than poor people. My thought as I walked away from the bulletin board was: "And they paid money to learn this?" To my mind, Putnam et al has "found" the same type of information. As long as people of color are kept disproportionately poor just because they are people of color (and this has been documented so resoundingly as to be hardly worthy of studying any further), then neighborhoods where they constitute a significant portion of the population will be marked by social problems and social unrest. I tell my students, "Wherever you find oppression, you will find social conflict." Putnam could have asked me and I'd have saved him all that work.

Changes

After two solid weeks of living alone in a new state (not to mention a new state of being) with almost NO access to the internet (wotta nightmare), I finally came to a coffee house only to save my new credit union account from a very ill-timed overdraft and totally accidentally (I swear) wound up peeking over at Black Looks where, it turns out, Kym Platt posted yesterday about Emory Douglas and his work. Just what the doctor ordered! Douglas was the Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party from 1967-1979 and remains a revolutionary artist extraordinaire. When Leigh Raiford recently interviewed him for Code Z, she asked Douglas what revolutionary art is today. His response:

"Overcoming obstacles. I mean then, now, in the future. Once you achieve a certain success or establish a certain criteria as it relates to concerns, then you have to implement that thing. And once you implement it, it’s revolutionary. So it’s about overcoming obstacles, it’s dealing with change, the process of change. And giving people some insight into the issues that we’re dealing with. Racism. Racism is a rampant thing. In a way, it’s been almost mainstreamed now, to justify it. Apologists for it. These are things that perhaps can be thought out. How can you express that so people can see that? They may be thinking about it, but they don’t see it visually.

"But then again, what you had then, we had organizations. But now you got electronic media where you can access and reach millions of people in that way. But the actual out-there organization that we did during that period when the art was art of consciousness it was…You know, you were out there, you had that connection, actual physical connection. So it’s a great difference now than then in a lot of ways. Because lots of people put their stuff on electronic media for people to look at. They get inspired, they’re moved, they do something."

Change is tough. Transition is a mo-fo. Whether personal, political, or social. But it can. be. done.

*big inhale followed by big exhale*

Ahhhhhhh....

Key to the Highway

I'm mid-trip, loaded up, and ready to head for the high country at the crack of dawn. Since I'm on someone else's vastly unfamiliar computer, I'm not even going to try to respond to my recent comments, but know I'm seeing them and hungry to be back in more direct contact with you all again. The only key on my key ring now is my car key and, according to Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry, it's the key to the highway. The next time I post, I'll be there instead of here. And ready for a new adventure.

It's In There!

On a fairly regular basis, I'm asked - in or out of the classroom - what I have come to call "the question."

"I know," the European-American questioner will invariably begin, "that race relations in this country are far from what they should be..."

Here, though I have heard and responded to this question literally hundreds of times over the past three decades and am ready already to jump in with my rote answer once again, I zero in on the questioner's face attentively, waiting for them to finish, as if this is the most reasonable question in the world.

"...and I support completely the equality of all humans..." they continue, edging toward their point ever so carefully before they finally reach it, "but isn't the situation of Black people in the U.S. at least becoming better?"

By now, typically, the questioner's face is flushed. He or she is genuinely uncomfortable. And there is no doubt that they're speaking for many others present and not.

I then proceed to outline an abbreviated version of a presentation I drafted once for a "State of Black Affairs" panel I was on. It paints a pretty ugly picture of the way things really are instead of the way we think they are. It's not just White folks that don't get it. I often run into Black folks who are working hard to deny what might otherwise bring them to slap somebody. But the facts are the facts.

This is a depressing process for the listener(s). After an entire semester in one of my courses on Racial and Ethnic Relations, European-American students who truly absorbed the course content shake their heads as they say good-bye, telling me that they've been made sad by what they've learned, however committed to change things they have now become. It is sad. What has been and is being done to people of color in this country and this world is very, very sad indeed. Which makes it an appropriate feeling.

Then, I come across an article such as this and I'm reminded why it all stays the way it is. On the surface, in the face of the Don Imus' screw-up and the Michael Richards' meltdown, etc., ad infinitum, Ralph Papitto (long-time Roger Williams University Board Chairman) using the N-word during a Board meeting hardly seems notable. He is eighty-years-old, after all, and he did resign from the position he's had for nearly half his life after his little slip. But the reason I'm raising the issue is that he was so irritated by the dust he raised.

Apparently, what happened was that Papitto was feeling pressured about the lack of the Board's diversity. It currently has fourteen White men and two women (who were not identified in the article by race or ethnicity). Papitto's reaction was to whip out the N-word in frustration and then admit to the rest of those present at the meeting that he knew he couldn't say that because of what happened to Imus. Eventually, he claimed that he had never used the word before (uh-huh) and that he must have heard it in a rap song or on tv (really?). Then, when he was questioned about the incident during a radio interview, he blurted angrily, "I apologized about that. What else can I do - kill myself?"

In his book, "White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son," Tim Wise described how his anti-racist grandmother began to use viciously racist language after she developed Alzheimer's disease. While one could argue that she was no longer responsible for what she was saying, he makes a point very clearly that, in any case, the racism must have been "in there" (like the Prego Spaghetti Sauce ads say) for it to jump out like that after the controls of social acceptability were no longer on.

And that's where the rubber meets the road, if you will. I have written often about how White supremacy has always been the default position in the United States. If you're new to this party and cannot even imagine what I'm suggesting, then start at the top of the blog roll and read the first eleven posts you find listed there. Hopefully, you will come to see what I mean. It's in there, all right. Papitto knows it. And that's why he got pissed. Why, he's wondering, should he have to feel any genuine understanding or remorse for disrespecting African-Americans when everybody knows that's not the page this society is on.

Passin' It On and Seeing the Similarities

The more I read blogs from around the world, the more I see the connections and analogies between the way African-Americans are perceived and treated in the United States and the way issues having to do with other people of color play out, even in other geographical locations. For example, as Sokari at Black Looks describes the struggle of landless people in South Africa, I am caused to remember an Associated Press investigation that reported in 2001 a national pattern in the U.S. ever since emancipation and up to the present in which African-Americans were cheated out of their land or simply driven from it through intimidation, violence, and even murder. In some cases, local governmental officials approved the land-takings; in others, they actually took part. Over an eighteen-month period, the AP documented that property valued in the tens of millions of dollars was literally stolen from its original African-American owners without recourse since, naturally, the statute of limitations has run out on these cases by now.

Kyle de Beausset of Immigration Orange wrote a thought-provoking piece on the practice of importing and adopting children of color from poverty-stricken settings as if they were products on Ebay or something, while purporting arrogantly that it's an act of kindness. Similarly, U.S. slaveholders used to tell mothers and fathers of African-descent that the children snatched away from them and sold could be easily replaced by simply making another baby. And more recently, it's clear by the way African-American children are typically allowed to languish helpless and hungry in the poorest neighborhoods, pushed into the worst schools, and early routed into the criminal justice system that they are not as yet seen as fully human beings either.

At least partly because of this, young African-Americans are being increasingly actively recruited to "serve" in the military with offers they virtually cannot refuse, given the nature of their other opportunities. XicanoPwr at Para Justicia y Libertad! outlines how undocumented immigrants are also invited to "serve" (even though they're not citizens) with a green card hanging out in front of them for motivation. Assuming, of course, they don't die.

And despite the way Naomi Shihab Nye (a poet and novelist who is a U.S. citizen, but whose father was Palestinian) reminds us that one-on-one, most of us know how to get along, this YouTube video featuring a Palestinian rap group to which I was first introduced by Sokari at Black Looks challenges our perceptions concerning who, exactly, the terrorists are. If it's not immediately apparent to you how this relates to the situation of African-Americans, I suggest that you look back over the past five hundred years, then ponder the last two or three stories you heard about African-Americans dying at the hands of law enforcement officers or others enforcing the norms that still hold sway in this country, recalling this post and this one and the one on the Jena Six. And then ask yourself what terrorism is.
__________________________________________________________
NOTE: The poster above is by Ricardo Levins Morales and is available from the Northland Poster Collective.

I'mahna Move Up To The Country, Baby

I'mahna paint my mailbox blue. Me and Taj gonna kick it on my porch with tall frosty glasses of sweet tea with mint. I'll wear my white straw Southern lady hat with the lavender ribbon. And he'll bring his guitar. Two weeks and counting...

The Uncivil War

One of the excellent ways the internet is serving humanity is to make what really happened in history much more likely to reach an ever-widening number of the reading population of the world. Case in point: most of us in the United States were taught in school to see the Civil War as a struggle between Bad People (largely portrayed as Southerners who wanted to keep African-Americans as slaves) and Good People (largely imagined to be Northerners who were willing to lay their lives on the line to rescue Black people and set them free). Actually, while there were undoubtedly many who fit into these two categories, they do not begin to cover everyone alive and active at the time.

In fact, as I have already mentioned in the past, even Abraham Lincoln told the Vice President of the Confederacy that emancipating the slaves in January of 1863 was just a necessary war move against only those states that had seceded so that the emancipated slaves could join the Union Army that was at that point probably going to lose without the fresh recruits. Lincoln's intention, he let it be known, was to reinstate slavery after the war, which needless to say, was impossible.

In any case, another move the federal government implemented later that same year for the same reason was the first ever war-time draft of young men to fight for this country. Irish immigrants (as you'll recall, if you saw Gangs of New York) were already being conscripted as they got off the boats from the old country. And 100,000 former slaves had stepped up without hesitation to put on a uniform, pick up a gun, and do their share. But it still wasn't enough. So Lincoln called for another 300,000 by using a draft, while giving those who could afford to pay $300 a pass not to participate.

Unfortunately, there were a huge number of White Northern men who did not have the $300 and did not want to either fight or run to Canada as many had already done. So on this date in 1863, a mob -- 50,000 strong -- ran through New York City burning down everything in their path (including an orphanage) and viciously murdering more than 1200 African-American people over a three-day period, as if they had caused the War...

Read the rest of the story here.

Passin' It On About "Whiteness"

Yesterday, I emailed someone at the new school at which I'll be teaching starting next month. My contract is for only one year, with the possibility of that being extended. But in spite of being a resident of the state I'm in now for eighteen years, I'm ready to move on, so I'm pulling up stakes completely. This means, of course, that I need a place to live in my new community, which happens to be in a state that has, shall we say, a less than stellar reputation where the socially-constructed, political notion of "race" is concerned. In fact, well, let me just leave it at that for now. Something tells me I'll be re-visiting this issue many times over the next year.

Anyway, I emailed this person, who is a friend of a friend, asking for help in locating a rental. She responded warmly and I was suitably pleased enough to be honest about what I was looking for. I started with the obvious stuff about my good credit and lack of pets and then added that I was looking for a small house to rent in a racially-mixed working class neighborhood, adding that I'm a sociologist and prefer to live in a diverse setting. There was no immediate response.

Now, I know she could have gotten busy. She was at work, after all. And I know that she might be looking around to help me out before she responds. But later, in the early evening, I made four phone calls to listings in the classified ads, none of which were returned. I didn't mention on the messages any of the details I told my friend's friend, needless to say, but as the evening wore on, I began to mull over the possibility that this situation may become problematic in various ways for me -- not to mention, problematic for others because of me.

This may seem like a no-brainer to you, but I've been trying to put a positive spin on this ball to prevent myself from running into the street with my hair on fire. Probably, I'll hear from my friend's friend today. Or not. I will, I know, find a place to live. And other people who are not horrified by me. But, in the meantime, I've decided to post links to a few internet offerings that are related to "Whiteness." Keep in mind that I don't see "Whiteness" as a heritage (where do "White" people come from anyway -- Whiteland?). I also don't see "Whiteness" as irrelevant (as long as White males have virtually every bit of the real power globally, how the hell could it be irrelevant?).

I'm going to open with this post by Tate Hill at Urban Knowledge. I was originally routed to Urban Knowledge by Rachel, who stays on top of this blackface stuff pretty well. Yes, I said blackface. You thought that was a thing of the past? Think again.

Next, we're going over to visit dna at Too Sense to read up on the way Rudy Guiliani has decided to swing the Southern votes by hiring rampant racists and having the media look the other way. Slick. But scary.

We'll follow this up by viewing an old Night Flight video from the eighties, but still SO apropos about what's important to White males invested in the current status quo, at least so far as we can tell. If it ain't so, puh-leeze show us something different!

Lest we imagine that White folks don't get opportunities to change the way things are, this article reports a "Unity Party" some people of color in Atlanta organized, but the guests of honor didn't show.

And finally, CNN recently called it funny that a White man tried to avoid jury duty by claiming to be a racist, homophobic liar. The judge asked the D.A. to look into criminal charges for the guy because he was obviously lying. My take: just because he admitted he was trying to go home does not mean that he's not all that stuff he claimed to be. I wouldn't want a racist, homophobic liar on my jury if I was on trial and I've known more than a few White folks who were all those things.

Sigh.

War Is Hell

This post began as a comment on one of dna's posts over at Too Sense. The issue under discussion was the shooting of 7-year-old Tajahnique Lee, who was trying to get home on her bike when she accidentally got caught in the crossfire between two gangs of drug dealers in Trenton, New Jersey, but which could have occurred in any major urban area and many not so major. The focus of the New York Times article about the incident was that, despite the fact that it happened last year and there were numerous witnesses, no one has come forward so that the specific individuals at fault can be held accountable. The Times and their sources attribute this blanket of silence to fear of the dealers. And certainly, I would not suggest that this doesn't play a monumental role. However, I would suggest that there are multiple layers related to this kind of issue that should not be forgotten, but are, needless to say, rarely mentioned, let alone addressed.

One of them involves the fact that street drugs are the basis of an industry the proceeds of which are estimated at upwards of $80 billion annually. Sociologists have found that most of the profits go to mainstream White male businessmen who have the ability to make massive investments in any arena – legitimate or otherwise – without suspicion because of their standing in the community and often with the knowledge of police, prosecutors, and even judges who are bought off as a business expense of sorts. Additionally, multiple sources have told us that four out of five cocaine abusers are also White.

Unfortunately, however, the many African-American men who are summarily blocked out of the employment arena find themselves relegated and, in fact, welcomed and encouraged to become foot soldiers in the army to line the pockets of their much lighter-skinned bosses by delivering the “product” to their much lighter-skinned customers, where the bulk of the risk is taken by the middle-man. The effects of the policy that prevents convicted felons (and most particularly Black male convicted felons) from being hired for other jobs further exacerbates their desperation and increases their willingness to “volunteer” for this role, however dangerous it may be.

To make matters worse, the law enforcement practice of rousting Black male children as young as eight-years-old for no reason and photographing them on the street with numbers across their chests to “build a file,” just in case they ever do cross the line can cause youth to accept their “master status” as “criminals” before they graduate from middle school, ensuring that the prisons will stay full and the Wall Street investment dividends flowing.

The end result, of course, is that many people in very poor neighborhoods have at least one member of the family in pushing “product.” These very poor neighborhoods are disproportionately marked for toxic dumps, sewer treatment plants, and a lack of decent schools or other services, and have been virtually abandoned by legitimate job-providing industries. It shouldn’t be a surprise that they wind up becoming the battlegrounds of the wars not on drugs but over drugs and law enforcement not only can’t, but doesn’t necessarily want to control it in any real sense. Police officers themselves have reported to me that some of them shakedown petty dealers for payoffs. And that’s barely the tip of the iceberg.

So why would the African-American community “cooperate” with law enforcement? It’s a set up. The law enforcement community knows it. The dealers know it. And little girls that catch an occasional bullet in the face are just collateral damage.

I Eight It!

TheFreeSlave has spoken and, being as he's got it like that, I respond accordingly with eight random facts about myself or habits (ahem!) to which I am attached.

First, the rules:

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Second, the "secrets":

1. I'm getting ready to move in three weeks to a state even more known for its "Southern-ness" than the one I've been in for the past eighteen years. This is a major move for me, as you can imagine, and I'm nervous about it on maaaaany levels.

2. I've only had a mind or mood-altering substance in my body three times in the past sixteen years -- twice right after major surgery and once six years ago when I lost my mind for a minute.

3. My only son died seven years ago (two weeks before his twenty-third birthday) as a result of his addiction to heroin. I suspect it was murder, but I'll never know.

4. My favorite form of physical exercise is swimming laps. It used to be sex, but that was before I got tired of all the drama. I don't do relationships well. Or maybe I just pick badly. It's been a while, so I really don't know. Maybe I've/it's changed. In any case, I haven't yet been willing to take a risk and find out.

5. An audience of nearly four hundred African-Americans gave me a standing ovation two years ago when I performed a spoken word piece entitled "You Called Me A What?!?" The word "what" stood for "nigger-lover." It was raw and I'll never do another spoken word performance because that was my first time and when you start at the top, you can only go down from there.

6. I decided this week to begin looking into the possibility of finishing my Ph.D. and publishing some things I've had in a file cabinet for-ever.

7. I've already written a book on race. A couple of authors who are highly published on the topic of race liked it very much, but it crosses genres and I don't know who would publish it. The working title is Reduced to Equality: My Odyssey to Renounce Racial Privilege ~ and Find Myself.

8. The last thing I bought hasn't even arrived yet. It's a collector's item: one of only three hundred copies of an epic poem published in 1964 and written by a man who eventually became my friend, Calvin Hernton. If I'm not mistaken, Calvin, who died a few years ago, once told me he was only nineteen when he wrote "The Coming of Chronos to the House of Nightsong," the story of a White woman thinking on her hundredth birthday about her Black once-lover for whom she bore a child. The lines that knock me out: "The double dying of she who rides in the middle of the wind will reign in the world like an idiot fire and every woman sees in whichever man she gives her sex the potentiality of her whorehood." Whew! I first read these lines more than twenty years ago and they still make me think.

Lastly, the eight bloggers I tag. This meme has been around to most of the bloggers I read, I think, so if I tag you and you've already done it, you can just let me know, pass on the tag, or do it again (you know you've thought of eight more things to tell us!). In no particular order, I'm tagging:

Charles at Kill Bigotry!, dna at Too Sense, Sokari at Black Looks, Stephen Bess at Morphological Confetti, M.Dot at Model Minority, Kyle de Beausset at Immigration Orange, Professor Zero, and The Angry Black Woman.

Passin' It On

While we're thinking about the courts and criminal justice (just-us?) in the good ole U.S. of A., I want to offer a few links to things I've come across recently that you might find interesting:

dna, whose blog, Too Sense, has become one of my hands-down favorites, does a bang-up job of responding to a George Will column about the new Supreme Court ruling on Brown v. Board of Education.

The Associated Press offers some veeeery interesting information about Georgia's Attorney General, who is almost single-handedly keeping Genarlow Wilson behind bars for having oral sex as a teenager with his teenaged girlfriend. The interesting thing: the AG is Black...?!?

Also in Georgia (why am I not surprised?), Troy Davis -- yet another railroaded African-American man -- remains on death row after fifteen years despite Amnesty International putting out a call to save his life.

In other mainstream news, the New York Times discusses the way the Justice Department is "reshaping" its civil rights mission. The focus is OFF racial issues now and ON the crucial rights of churches that want to benefit from special governmental protections. Be careful to read between the lines on this one and remember that the "civil rights" of African-Americans has always received short shrift from this body.

And finally, Kyle over at Immigration Orange tipped me to this YouTube film that would be hilariously clever if it wasn't so agonizingly true.

Free the Jena Six!

Read any or all of the following: this, this, this, this and this. Watch this. And then DO something!

To Mychal Bell, Robert Bailey Jr., Theo Shaw, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis, and the still unidentified member of the group, we say: Hold On! We won't rest until you're home where you belong.

And to their families, we say: You do not stand alone.

The Hate Artist

Recently, I wrote that I am caused increasingly to recognize how bound we are to the struggles of people within and outside of our immediate communities. In point of fact, we are not only bound, but similar, in that the monster we fight is the monster we all fight. This poem by Niran Okewole, which appears in the debut publication of African Writing Online, typifies this excellently and with great beauty. I have Sokari at Black Looks to thank for introducing us to this important new source of information and talent. I give you

~~The Hate Artist~~

by Niran Okewole

In the death camps there is a failed landscape

Artist with a meinkampf, brushstroke moustache

Mounting a collage of bones and hair on a canvas

Of Aryan pride.

His reincarnation in Alabama,
Worshipper of a black cross, cross upside down,

Cross burning, burning

He loves the texture of grief, like velvet,

Loves the feel of passion in heat

Waves, shock waves, the erotic melody of a

Bomb blast in Ulster or Beslan, shattering

Glass and crunching steel, the counterpoint.

Today he sculpts wood, leaving splinters in the eye

Of his imago, the other subculture.

He loves to sculpt the lean, lanky Tutsi frame,

Does Darfur bronze casts on the side.

(Nothing like molten ore for

drawing deathscapes on the skin.)

Brush strokes on tarmac, he paints with bombs,

Smouldering pastel, the soothsayer’s recompense,

Like de Chirico, wrought iron sticking out

Like ribs on the kerb, it could be blood or ketchup.

At a council flat in Leeds, munching a sandwich,

Plotting the mother of all intrigues, hate is the juice

That trickles down the chin when he

Chews on a red apple,

Libido rising at the thought of the crowd on the

Madrid metro, a baseball field in Nevada,

A market in Damascus, cinema house in Mogadishu.

Or Wimbledon. Or Kigali. Or Freetown.

Democracy or Despotism?

The sun is down. The fireworks are making much noise. But many of us are thinking tonight of what it would take for us to feel like celebrating. If you're one of them, here's something to watch while you're thinking.

Happy birthday, Thurgood Marshall!

On this date in 1908, Thurgood Marshall, the descendant of slaves, was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He eventually became, as most of us must surely know, the first African-American on the U.S. Supreme Court, having originally been the leader of the NAACP legal team that won the famous Brown v. Board of Education case calling for the desegregation of U.S. schools in 1954. One can only wonder what he would think of being "replaced" by Clarence Thomas who has helped, now, to begin the chipping away process to undo Marshall's work, especially since Marshall remained on the Court long after he wanted to step down, precisely because he was concerned about this very real possibility.

When Marshall spoke with the dean at the University of Maryland School of Law in 1930 about his applying there, he was instructed that he would not be accepted because he was African-American and the school was established on the principle of racial segregation. So he went to Howard University instead, graduated, and returned to Maryland where he represented another deserving young Black would-be law student -- Donald Gaines Murray -- and won (see photo above). As sweet as that must have been, it only applied to Maryland, which is why Marshall went on to press for the subsequent ruling in Kansas that gave the legal precedent national scope.

Blessings on all legal teams all over the world this day who are struggling against power to bring justice to all!

Don't Quit

Yesterday, I got caught in a downpour. Instead of fighting it, I surrendered to the rain, standing with my face to the sky while rivulets ran down my cheeks and into my clothing and -- maybe -- healed my soul just a bit. In a world where people I love and respect are locked into cells, where people are being blown up only because they are on one piece of ground instead of another, where children are terrorized into killing other children, where parents despair and babies starve, I sometimes forget that there is reason to wake and celebrate and even dream. This planet, including the faces of its people (as are so deliciously presented in this film), is truly most beautiful. And my heart rushes out this morning to each and every one of you, singing a new world into existence, exhorting each of us to be our fullest, most joyful selves. Don't quit five minutes before the miracle.

The Color of Change

"We, the undersigned, vow to step up in the aftermath of Katrina, to ensure that no one is left behind again.

We commit to doing our part to ensure that all people are regarded as full humans, not as second-class citizens, and that our government is responsive to their needs. We commit to helping those who have been continually ignored gain a powerful political voice.

We will insist that those who have been pushed to the margins become a priority in this country, and that the federal government take responsibility for people in crisis. We will hold the government, and ourselves, accountable.

Together, we will be a powerful force for change."

This is the pledge people are being offered the opportunity to sign at Color of Change. Julian Bond and Michael Eric Dyson are down. I'm down. What about you?
__________________________________________________________

As ridiculous as it may sound, the photo I was originally using for this post keeps vaporizing. Sigh. It's called "Fourth World" and you can see it here.

Yes, I'll Have No Bananas!

Several years ago, I came across this upbeat, clever little use of film that suggests we are all One. Certainly a lofty concept, huh? And one that calls up visions of people standing in a circle holding hands around a campfire or swaying back and forth, singing Kum-ba-ya. But I keep revisiting the spot and finding new ways to use it because this lofty concept is, in fact, the Truth.

"The Truth?" you wince.

Yes, the Truth. But what does that mean -- especially in a world where we're haggling incessantly and with good reason over the politics related to issues as basic and inescapable as our skin tone, the make up of our genitals, or the nation of our birth? For the past eighteen months, I've been blogging on the socially-constructed, political notion of "race," but lately, I've been sliding over the line, as it were, increasingly including issues that may not for some of my faithful readers appear on the surface to be about "race." The fact is that Africa and immigration and other topics I've visited of late are not only related to the concept of "race," but are deeply couched in the ideology that produced the concept of race (and gender and nationalism, etc.) in the first place.

Case in point: this post by Sokari at Black Looks. When I first read it, I could feel the gloom of disappointed sorrow descending over my memory of Nelson Mandela being released from prison and my hope at that time for the future of the peoples of southern Africa. "Welcome to the world of the African-American," I thought to myself as I read. Oddly enough, I had just come across this video of Malcolm X in Africa in 1964 calling for the leaders of then newly independent African states to bring pressure to bear on the U.S. government and the power structure it represented to recognize and honor the citizenship of African-American people. He mentioned the U.N. He talked about the similarities between the struggle of Black people in the U.S. and the struggle of people of color around the world. I remember African-American men in prison in the 1970's talking about a petition to the U.N. for redress of their legitimate grievances -- as a people -- against the U.S. government.

Yet here we are, nearly fifty years later, and there have been changes, but seemingly only in the faces of those in power. And most people still do not seem to grasp the connection between the pain of the poor and the disenfranchised in one nation with that of those in another. Oppression against African-Americans in the United States is not more reasonable or less horrendous than oppression against people in Darfur or Mexico or Tibet -- in 1964 or now. In fact, I would argue that the oppressors are the same people, no matter what they look like.

Another crystal clear example of the global connectedness of issues related to race, ethnicity, money, and power is outlined by Kyle de Beausset in this post at Immigration Orange. Apparently, and this is pretty much all over the internet at this point, Chiquita Brands International pled guilty in a U.S. court in March to bestowing $1.7 million between 1996 and 2004 on United Self-Defense Forces of Columbia (UAC), a right-wing paramilitary fighting force famous for its attacks on indigenous people who fight against their own economic exploitation and political repression. Chiquita's version is that they were extorted for the funds to keep their workers safe, but UAC leader Carlos Castano has said flatly that “We kill trade unionists because they interfere with people working.” And for eight years, at least, they killed them on Chiquita's nickel. And ours, since we bought those bananas.

This is not new news concerning the corporation earlier identified in its history as the United Fruit Company. United Fruit lost its shirt in Cuba when Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, et al, threw Batista and his collection of corporate and mafioso thugs onto the first plane out. The level of exploitation in Cuba at the time was not remarkable. In fact, it was typical of most Latin American and Caribbean nations and many in other parts of the world, as well. The corporations and governmental elites made out like...well...bandits, if you will, and the people suffered, but then it isn't the fault of the rich that so many are born poor (right?). And United Fruit was just doing what corporations do, after all. But when the dust settled, United Fruit had taken a heavy hit where it hurt them most -- in the pocketbook -- and before it was over, Che, who was going for a repeat performance in Bolivia, lay dead, largely thanks to CIA intelligence and United Fruit funding.

You don't have to be a very rigorous student of the history or political economy of the region to know that the reason Latin American countries have been called "Banana Republics" is that the United Fruit Company/Chiquita Brands International and its other assorted buddies, including Dole and others, have maintained an on-going reign of terror throughout the southern hemisphere since the 1800's. It's hardly difficult -- especially with a modicum of elementary assistance from google -- to connect the dots between the corporations and other U.S. economic interests, the economic elites of the various countries in question, right-wing government repression, and the brutalization of men, women, and children pressed into serving those who have the power to force them to do so and the willingness to murder them if they don't.

But here we have a public trial and guilty plea directly connecting these realities and practices to our daily lives in the United States. The buying and eating of bananas is not just a HUGE business. It's been growing so much every year that they're having to chop down more and more rain forests annually to provide the additional bananas for which we apparently lust.

Now, boycotts always seem a little unrealistic to many of us. I mean, the sense most of us have is: "Heck! What's the difference whether I buy Product X or not? Other people are still gonna buy it anyway and the company is going to go right on making millions. My little $2 isn't going to mean a hill of beans (or bananas)." Nevertheless, I was barely twenty when Cesar Chavez first called for a boycott of table grapes. It seemed like little enough to me to just forego a few grapes. So I did. Then, I lost track of the process and by the time the United Farm Workers had successfully formed and won their battle, I was caught up in the prison movement and missed the memo. So I just lived without grapes. I was into my thirties before it occurred to me that it would be all right now. Boy! Those grapes were tasty!

In any case, it's only by looking back at the historical accounts now that I can see how effective that helpless little effort by a very committed man turned out to be. And I had a part in that. A very tiny, but relevant part.

So I'm calling for a boycott of all Chiquita products across the board from now until hell freezes over. It's not like there aren't other options because there are. And it's not like those other options aren't just as wicked as Chiquita in their principles and their practices, I'm sure. But it's time to make a statement to the corporate world about how it's treating workers. And it's time to give up things, if necessary, not for Lent, but permanently -- in solidarity with those who suffer around the world to provide the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the coffee we drink, the chocolate we dip our hand-picked and pesticide-laden strawberries into.

How is this about "race"? Because there are FAR more people of color than so-called "White" people in this world and they are FAR more likely to be the ones exploited, oppressed and even murdered, to enrich the coffers of European and European-American corporations and individuals who are getting little, if any, indication that anyone not in their fields, not in their sweatshops, not under their guns (literally) either notices or cares. I care! Whatever anybody else does, whatever is or is not part of a mass effort, I for one am done with Chiquita bananas. And it's about damn time.

__________________________________________________________

NOTE: The poster above is by Ricardo Levins Morales and is available from the Northland Poster Collective.

I Can Say Love

When I first saw this video, I was moved to my heart. "Love will overcome"? "Evil will fail"? I don't just hope so.

I'm. counting. on. it.

It's Saturday! Time To Exhale!

Thanks to The Black Commentator for this cartoon. And kudos to dnA at Too Sense for posting this hilarious video on how we might regulate the use of the "race card"! That's right...check it out now. It's the week-end! Doncha need a laugh?

Passin' It On

One of the truly wonderful things about spending serious time visiting my neighbors in the blogospshere is coming across extraordinary posts by writers to which I may or may not have been exposed before. I've been surfing and reading a lot this week and here is a partial list of some posts I just must share:

1. The Free Slave asks some strong questions about racial identity, while Macha at Double Consciousness mirrors The Free Slave's thoughts with some deeeeep introspection.

2. dnA at Too Sense presents some very interesting information about how famous religious leaders helped to lay the groundwork for physical (as well as mental) slavery here.

3. Charles Modiano, whose recently launched blog, Kill Bigotry!, promises some well-researched and interesting considerations, outlines how we can save hip hop music. Even if you're short on time today, his list of links to twenty superb hip hop videos without gyrating, half-naked women is more than worth the trip! See this one about life on the reservation for an example.

4. And finally, Carlos Castillo at ChaTo addresses some of the overarching issues related to immigration internationally, declaring "We Are Not Criminals".

5. The illustration above is from the Northland Poster Collective. They have a WIDE selection of some of the strongest and most beautiful peace, justice, and union materials out there -- a number of them by the highly talented and original Ricardo Levins Morales -- and the latest word is that they are struggling financially. Check them out and if you can buy something or make a donation, now's the time.

The 14th Erase Racism Blog Carnival is up!

White Anti-Racist Parent is hosting the 14th Erase Racism Blog Carnival and, to whet your appetite, this brilliant cartoon by Barry Deutsch ("Ampersand") represents just one of a whole barrage of featured posts. These carnivals get better and better.

History Lesson?

On this day in 1964, after an 83-day filibuster, the United States Senate finally passed the Civil Rights Act, when Senate leader Everett Dirksen said, "We dare not temporize with the issue which is before us. It is essentially moral in character. It must be resolved. It will not go away. It's time has come." Still, when it comes to the rights of people of color, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

While you watch, by the way, don't forget to consider the bull-headed commitment required to keep the Senate frozen for 83 days in an attempt to prevent the vote from happening at all. They read dictionaries, recipes, anything they could get their hands on. Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia alone gave a speech more than fourteen hours long! These days, we go to war with less thought. But that’s how intensely they felt about not recognizing the rights of African-Americans as U.S. citizens. And people of color may sometimes feel that the filibuster, in many ways, has gone on and on and on…

Oppression, I Won't Let You Near Me

I intended to leave my castigation of Billy B. Cook up another day, but when I saw this video on The Unapologetic Mexican's myspace page, I knew immediately that it would be a much better use of the space. Thanks again, Nezua. You teach. I learn.

Amandla!

"Africa I guard your memory Africa.

You are in me as the shaft is in the wound."

~~Roman

On this day in 1976, more than 150 school children were shot to death and many more wounded in Soweto, South Africa, when they had the audacity to protest against having to learn Afrikaans (the language of their oppressors) while being summarily brutalized on a daily basis and forced to live in abject poverty with the apparent blessing of the West.

We will honor the example of those valiant youth by visiting Black Looks again today to read Rethabile's post on the Soweto Massacre as well as Sokari's challenge to us concerning the bizarre state of our support for our African brothers and sisters still suffering because of our shared history and their on-going economic exploitation. If Bono is "the African spokesman," does that mean that the children who were murdered in the Soweto Massacre died to set him free?

I Am Descended From Immigrants, Too

I am posting this link* today in solidarity with all who come to this nation in search of a better way of life. May they come freely and find all they seek in safety. And may I be a good neighbor to them all.

Incidentally, I can't resist pointing out that the photo early on in the video showing a straight line of young women in Gibson Girl get-up, the middle one of which looks as if she's been pretty badly abused in some way, was taken in the Kentucky mountain county where I was born. See what I'm sayin'?

*The author of this video chose not to allow it to be embedded, so I'm posting the link. Enjoy!

Getting Back in the Flow

I've been cruising my old blogosphere stomping grounds today. Veeeeery satisfying. I've missed my "homies" (called that because surely those of us who are thrashing out issues related to the socially-constructed, political notion of "race" are, in fact, neighbors in our hearts and minds just as much as if we were living down the block from each other).

Tim Wise holds forth on the psychopathology of racist thinking over at Ally Work.

Sokari at Black Looks offers a comprehensive and harrowing description of how fences and walls are going up all over the world to keep us all apart (as if!).

Rachel at Rachel's Tavern has a post on the continuing saga of black face that, while a few days old, I haven't been able to get out of my mind.

And finally, Kevin (the Thin Black Duke) at Slant Truth has an excellent discussion about what is and is not cultural appropriation.

Get a cup of coffee, kick back, and join the party.

Time for a New Profile Symbol

It's taken me all night to find this. I think it's going to be my new blog profile symbol and appear wherever I comment on a blogspot blog. But first, I have to upload it and see how it looks in a comment thread somewhere.

An Iranian Woman Speaks

I just finished Marjane Satrapi's first two graphic memoir books, Persepolis and Persepolis 2, the latter having been cleverly bestowed on me as a late birthday present by a marvelously savvy woman I know, who is a voracious reader and helps me not to be an oaf.

These books (and there are others now, I understand) are about her life as a girl and then a woman during the cultural revolution in Iran. She's smart and funny and talented and totally unapologetic (which as my faithful readers know, is my favorite characteristic a human can have in this terrified and terrifying world).

I hadn't fully decided to post about her and her work, in spite of the fact that I loved her books, but in traipsing about the internet behind her name, I came across an interview by Michelle Goldman at Salon.com (April 25, 2005) that absolutely made up my mind. In fact, contrary to my usual style, I am quoting a huge hunk of the interview here since she's talking about Iran at a time when we need more rational input about this country and culture. The whole interview, needless to say, is utterly worth reading (not to mention the books, which are MUST-READS), but here's a bit to get you started.

Satrapi: "[T]he world is very fearful, because we don't know who the enemy is. The world is at war, but at war against who? Bin Laden turns into Saddam and Saddam turns into someone else. They all the time talk about security. Security, security, security. But when you talk about security, then everything is about being safe. And being safe also means having less freedom.

"It makes a society much more conservative, looking for security. If you have freedom, then you have more risks. It goes together…My grandmother always said the saddest life is to be born a cow and to die a donkey. That means you are born stupid, and you're going to die even more stupid…What is the interest of life if you're always scared…? What is the point in living? Just eating and shitting and making money?"

Goldberg: Some conservatives here think that secular young Iranians would be happy if America would come and liberate them. What would you say to them?

Satrapi: "Democracy, contrary to what they try to tell us, it's not a paper that you hang on the wall and then you have a democracy…

"...They [America] talk about the human rights in Iran…[H]ow is it that the United States makes the biggest deals with China, and China is far from respecting human rights? What about Saudi Arabia? If you want to talk about an inquisition, the Iranian regime is far from being an inquisition. We have almost a free press, people leave, women have the right to study, they drive, they work. Saudi Arabia, they don't have anything like that! Talk about human rights in Saudi Arabia! Why doesn't anyone go and put a bomb in Saudi Arabia and kill the king?

"…[W]hen the Iranians wanted to become democratic in 1953 with [Mohammad] Mosaddeq and to nationalize our oil, the CIA came and made a coup d'état in my country. Why do you want me to believe that they want to come and make a democracy? We have to make our democracy!

"…For the people who think that America will come and liberate them, I invite them to read the history and see what America has done. I'm not talking about American people...I love going to the United States...I've been for several book tours; I've come for vacation with my husband. For me it's an amazing country. I love the enthusiasm of Americans…I love the pop art, I love the American cinema, there are so many things that I love about America! I love Coca-Cola, you know?

"My criticism is not towards America -- it's towards the American government, which to me are two different things. The America that I know is not represented by George W. Bush."

Goldberg: Do you see similarities between the Christian fundamentalists in our government and the mullahs in Iran?

Satrapi: "They're the same! George Bush and the mullahs of Iran, they use the same words! The mullahs of Iran say we have God on our side; he has God on his side, too. Both of them are convinced that they are going to eradicate evil in the world. But when these words come out of the mouth of a mullah, it's normal. It's a shame that the president of the biggest secular democracy in the world talks with the same words as the mullahs. It's extremely scary."

Goldberg: Do you have any advice for secular Americans who are faced with living in a country that's increasingly governed by religious fundamentalists?

Satrapi: "If I have any advice, it's that every day that you wake up, don't say, 'This is normal.' Every day, wake up with this idea that you have to defend your freedom. Nobody has the right to take from women the right to abortion, nobody has the right to take from homosexuals the right to be homosexual, nobody has the right to stop people laughing, to stop people thinking, to stop people talking.

"If I have one message to give to the…American people, it's that the world is not divided into countries. The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian. We don't know each other, but we talk together and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same."

Carlos Andres Gomez

Black Amazon tipped me to this man recently, causing me to order his cd, "Live From New York," winner of the 2006 L.A. Music Award for Spoken Word Album of the Year. Receiving that cd, while I wait to purchase the upcoming dvd of his one-man show, "Man Up!", is now causing me to post this example of his work. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Carlos Andres Gomez performing "All We Have."

Why Can't We Live Together?

This post is dedicated to Nezua Limon Xolagrafik-Jonez, The Unapologetic Mexican, as well as Sami Al-Arian and his family, and all other humans of color in a world full of people who just don't get it. Blessings.

Remembering the Middle Passage

A little more than 500 years ago, the Portuguese brought Africans as slaves to the island that is now Haiti. For the last ten years, the second Saturday in June (which was yesterday) has been marked around the world to remember those who died (possibly as many as thirty million) on slaveships from Africa to the Western Hemisphere over the centuries that followed. Since the first leg of the trip was always from Europe to Africa and the last leg was from the "New World" back to Europe (loaded down with money and products, such as tobacco, coffee, sugar, and cotton), the voyage across the Atlantic was called "The Middle Passage."

I know I'm a day late, but I've decided to participate anyway by posting a poem I wrote some years ago to honor a Haitian woman revolutionary I once knew. I am thinking today of those who were stolen from their families and those who died crossing the Atlantic and those in Haiti and elsewhere who suffer still because the godless practice of slavery was ever implemented in the Western Hemisphere in the first place.

~~A Woman of Haiti~~

A woman of Haiti: black and beautiful as the night, enshadowed as only night can be, slipping through bushes against a house that is all houses, sliding across dark water to tease the eyelids of restless sleepers.

A woman of Haiti: of pain and empty stomachs, of ancient religiousity, of refusal to give in to despair, even in the face of a thoughtless and laughing universe.

A woman of Haiti: music coming out of ears and nostrils, hips and legs dancing, dancing, dancing from planet to planet while old men hunger and young men weep.

A woman of Haiti: singing in Creole, laughing to music, dancing in bright skirts into a future made of glass.

A woman of Haiti: learning, growing, demanding, knowing, asking, yearning, grabbing, pushing away, expanding her mind to meet her potential without knowing where her potential leads.

A woman of Haiti: making revolution with her body, shooting poem bullets and lobbing pen-and-ink grenades to blow up lies and ugliness, to waken death and make it run away.

A woman of Haiti: standing on legs like pillars, legs made of sea salt, legs like a statue, legs like trees, growing out of the earth of Haiti and reaching deep into her soil, deep into her hidden recesses, deep into the secret places of her history.

A woman of Haiti: screaming in the marketplace that her man is dead and she has no children.

A woman of Haiti: with feet scattering flames before her, leaving bloodprints on the ground of a continent that doesn't speak any of her languages.

A woman of Haiti: whose body passed over from Africa in ship bellies, but whose soul sneaked across on the ocean floor carrying an old knife with which to set her people free.

Paris in the...er...Summer

I was doing a really good job of sneaking around privately on the internet, studying the recent photos of Paris Hilton in the international mass media (how will she ever move on from this, one wonders?), and frankly, embarrassed that I was even paying attention, when I came across The Angry Black Woman's post on the situation. And then I realized why I was so mesmerized.

It's not just sour grapes. I don't wish Paris Hilton ill. Hell, I don't even know the woman. And I try not to wish anybody ill because I honestly do believe it rolls back on ya. And I most certainly do not think this is an indicator of "justice" being served. There is no justice that I can see in this world at this time outside of the justice I already mentioned (which some people call "karma" and which is plenty enough justice for many of us in the end, but does not release us from the responsibility of trying to treat others the way we would want to be treated). Whether or not Paris does the time for doing the crime is not in any way going to affect the balance of power in the U.S. or in the world and certainly not in the courts.

However (and you must have seen this coming, right?), there is something about seeing a rich, young, White woman in handcuffs freaking out in the back seat of a cop car that illustrates most graphically the chasm between her and the rest of us, most particularly those of us who happen to be of color. In contrast, in her post, The Angry Black Woman offers the example of what happened to Jonathan Magbie of Washington, D.C. I would offer what happened to 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson, who was killed by a group of "officers" on his first day in a youth "facility" here in Florida, where he was placed for the heinous crime of trespassing on a school yard he'd been told not to visit. (Talk about the punishment fitting the crime.)

It's true that the "facility" and others like it in Florida have been subsequently shut down. And it's true that the state of Florida recently agreed to pay Martin's parents five million dollars in apology. Both of these actions, by the way, were made in direct response to a video tape that turned up showing the whole horrifying episode, which could bring us to ask how many people of color -- men, women, and children -- have been and are being similarly brutalized on an on-going basis because there is or was no video.

But my point is, as it often is on this blog, that neither Paris' story, nor Jonathan's, nor Martin's will change, I fear, the use of the justice system in the U.S. and the world as a tool of oppression against people of color, the poor, and those who are their allies. In fact, I'm having trouble understanding how Paris Hilton wound up there at all.

And the Baton Is Passed

A couple of posts ago, I wrote about the fact that, when understood, statistics can only bear out the facts, that is, that they really can't "prove" what is not true, they can only appear to do so. Another difficulty with statistics and, therefore, studies, in general, is how they are interpreted and then presented to others, particularly for use in policy-setting. A case in point is the "Black Males Left Behind" study conducted by Dr. Ronald Mincy, formerly of the Ford Foundation and now a professor of social policy at Columbia University. Dr. Mincy was called to testify on his findings before a Joint Economic Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., this spring and, while I haven't seen a copy of the study report, the way Dr. Mincy was quoted in the media, it sounds as if he's missed some crucial considerations and made some rather typical and even stereotypical assumptions.

Now, on the surface, this would appear to be a silly statement. I mean, who am I to call into question the conclusions of a Ph.D. at Columbia who has clearly put enough work into his project and his career that he has wound up in front of the U.S. Congress, right? But my concerns are fairly simple and straight-forward.

I first started doing this kind of analysis fifteen years ago when I was neck-deep in a dissertation I didn't ultimately finish. The dissertation had to do with the way sociological writings about race can purport to be saying something fresh and even radical, but that the words and sentence structures chosen can actually deliver the same old message anyway. For example, if I write, "There are 365 churches in Cholula, Mexico," the statement reads without particular moral or historical impact. It reads as if the people of Cholula must surely be very religious people, especially if you understand that Cholula is not that big of a city. If, on the other hand, I write, "Spanish conquerors forced the indigenous people of the city to build a Catholic church on the site of each of 365 pyramids present when the Spaniards arrived," the reader is more likely to arrive at an entirely different understanding of the matter.

Dr. Mincy, at least according to the article I read, is making a number of problematic mistakes in interpreting the available data that will lead policy-setters awry, if allowed, in reference to a situation about which he is right to be massively passionate.

Census data is telling us that half of all young African-American men are unemployed and that roughly 30% of them will do time in prison. Further, these same statistics tell us that, of the 40% of African-American men who drop out of high school, 72% are jobless and they are twice as likely to go to prison as their high school graduate counterparts. These statements, as horrible as they sound, border on "ho-hum" for anybody who lives in a low income neighborhood. Driving down the street where I live, it seems as if there are more young Black men standing around every day and with an ever-increasing law enforcement presence accordingly. This is not new news.

So why is Dr. Mincy in Washington? Because of how he's interpreting the data, that's why. In other words, he is saying what the administration, leaders, academics, and social policy pundits want to hear. He's blaming the situation on single parent families, which are primarily headed by women.

"Living with a single mother increases the likelihood of dropping out of school," he is quoted as saying. "The effects of single parenting on dropping out of school are larger, the longer a child is in a single-parent home, and larger for boys than girls."

Let's see if I can write this loudly enough for Dr. Mincy to hear it all the way inside his ivy-covered office at Columbia: "It's not the single-parenting...er...Doc-tor! It's the lack of income!!!" I'd like to see Dr. Mincy raise a child (or several) on the minimum wage -- or less -- in the year 2007 in the U.S.A. All the corroborating statistical data is available for this perspective, as well. Women make about 75 cents on the dollar as compared to men. In fact, if an African-American man can get a job, Census data tells us that he's going to make more, on average, against what White men make, than women do -- even European-American women. Additionally, the single-parent woman who receives anything, averages very little more in child support than $300 per month (not per child, but at all). About a quarter receive nothing. And the unemployment ocean in which Black men are drowning is certainly not helping this much.

Let's make this as clear as possible. If women -- all women, and most particularly all women of color -- were paid a living wage for the work they do and supported with the practical necessities of life (such as affordable housing, transportation, and day care); if all fathers were held fully responsible for their participation in the economic lives of their children -- and helped to accomplish that (regardless of whether or not they are presently "tapping that"); and if all children, and most particularly children of color, were supported with universal physical and mental health care, a fully-funded educational process, and a rich and enriching selection of activities outside of school, then Black men would not be flocking into jail, starting in their early teens. This is NOT -- hear me, now -- a function of their mothers being SINGLE. (He-llo!) If it was, we could just line folks up in two's, marry 'em off, and solve the problem.

Dr. Mincy does throw in the "secondary" issues of bad schools, institutionalized oppression in the form of racism, and the disappearance of millions of jobs as a result of a manufacturing economy that has been steadily shriveling since the 1970's, but ultimately he points to the "experience of welfare reform" as the light at the end of the tunnel. And there we have it: the reason he's the one who's testifying.

When Clinton shoved through his promised decimation of the welfare system in the U.S. on his way out the door, everybody in the field of social service knew the new policies were going to be disastrous in their repercussions. The so-called "principle" sounded good. Women -- who had become "dependent on the system," it was said -- would be "helped" and "encouraged" to get off welfare by having their assistance pulled. It was the equivalent of throwing a five-year-old in a pond and telling her to swim or die. Forget racism (which discriminates against her and has taught her to see herself as incapable and unworthy, in any case). Forget the lack of jobs and the fact that more -- at every level -- are exported daily. Forget the fact that we can afford billions of dollars a month to kill babies all over the world, but we can't afford to feed and educate them in our own communities. And forget that she cannot do anything about any of these things. Just throw her in the water and ignore the cries of the babies hanging on -- for dear life -- around her neck.

So, Dr. Ronald Mincy appears to be the new Dr. William Julius Wilson (the African-American academic who received a major Ford Foundation research grant and became in the early nineties the President of the American Sociological Association for holding that the destruction of the inner city was the fault of middle class African-Americans who moved out). Shame on you, Mincy. Enjoy the rarified atmosphere up there in Washington, but don't ever forget that, when the dust settled on the plantation, regardless of where he was living, even the House-Man was Black.

Aunt Jemima or The Souls of Black Folks Revisited

There's a new listing on my blog roll: Beautiful, also, are the souls of my Black sisters, which I've listed as Black Sisters Souls. Ann, who writes this blog, did an incredible job of outlining the history and relevance of the development of Aunt Jemima, of pancake flour fame.

If you can read what Ann has to say and then not sign her petition to lay Aunt Jemima to rest (finally), you need to re-read it. This is not about warm, syrupy breakfasts. But I'll let Ann make the argument. (And much thanks to Rachel for tipping us to this.)

By the way, if you can, locate and watch "Ethnic Notions", an hour-long video on how Aunt Jemima and other images of African-American people were developed for the express purpose of stereotyping them so that they could be exploited. It's depressing, but excellent and underscores even more broadly Ann's points about Aunt Jemima specifically. Larger libraries would probably have a copy or might be willing to get it, if you suggest that they do.