June 29, 2004
Browsing through Amazon
I came across
June 23, 2004
Recent Research on Race and Politics
A couple of abstracts in the most recent American Journal of Political Science caught my eye. I'll quote the abstracts, then give a "common sense" translation.
Race, Bureaucratic Discretion, and the Implementation of Welfare Reform
This article explores the impact of the race of individual clients and of the local racial context on the implementation of sanctions for recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) in a Midwestern state. We find that although nonwhites are sanctioned at lower rates than whites overall, nonwhites are sanctioned more compared to whites in each local area. This paradox occurs because nonwhites tend to live in areas with lower sanction rates. Consistent with the literature on race and policy, we find that sanction rates increase as the nonwhite population increases until a threshold is reached where nonwhites gain political power.
TANF is best loosely thought of as the thing that replaced AFDC. Strict time limits, and largely state-based (with some federal assistance). If you don't follow the rules you get sliced and diced. What these researchers are looking at is "slice and dice rates." Do non-whites get jacked more than whites? Looking at the entire state and averaging, the answer is no. But looking within each county, the answer is yes. And this rate increases until nonwhites attain political power.
June 22, 2004
Cut Throat Politics
I remember reading an interview with Albert Murray. Murray was going off on the victim approach to black politics, and he said something to the effect that if someone wronged him or his folks...if somehow someone tried to oppress or subjugate him...he wouldn't make much hay about it. No marches, protests, or boycotts. He'd just round up his people...and take care of it.
About a month or so ago it was revealed that Jack Ryan, Illinois senatorial candidate, paid a staffer to follow Barak Obama (his democratic competitor for the seat) 24 hours a day. Obama pisses...the kid is there with a videocamera. Obama goes to get a bite to eat...the kid is there in his rear view mirror. Obama picks up a Ludacris CD from Tower Records...you get the picture.
Drylongso sponsored a contest. Who could come up with most innovative response to Ryan's tactics.
I don't know who won that contest, but given recent revelations about Ryan, I'm thinking that someone's been reading Murray.
June 20, 2004
The Harlem Project
The one thing I haven't heard many candidates speak on is urban poverty. The proverbial elephant in the closet. I'm willing to bet that I can predict what the candidates would say if they DID say something. Bush would talk about individual initiative and empowering people to help themselves through faith-based initiatives. Kerry would talk about public/private partnerships and tax incentives, along with raising the minimum wage.
After welfare reform passed in 1996, the national debate on poverty seemed simply to shut down. Most conservatives explain poverty by looking to culture and behavior: bad parenting, high out-of-wedlock birth rates, teenagers who don't know the value of an honest day's work. To most liberals, the real problems are economic: underfinanced public schools and a dearth of well-paying semiskilled jobs, which make it nearly impossible for families to pull themselves out of poverty. Canada says he believes that both assumptions are true. He agrees that the economy is stacked against poor people no matter how hard they work, but he also thinks that poor parents aren't doing a good enough job of rearing their children. What makes Canada's project unique is that it addresses both problems at once. He keeps the liberals happy by pouring money into schools and day-care centers and after-school programs, and he satisfies the conservatives by directly taking on the problems of inadequate parenting and the cultural disadvantages of a ghetto home life. It's not just that he's trying to work both sides of the ideological street. It's that Canada has concluded that neither approach has a chance of working alone. Fix the schools without fixing the families and the community, and children will fail; but they will also fail if you improve the surrounding community without fixing the schools.
The article. While no one wants to say it, this idea--which I think we can all agree is worth trying--smacks of The Great Society. Definitely in a good way. I think I know what the data is going to show in a few years, when that first group comes out.
The HipHop Vote
I've been cruising the usenet ghetto and pit of despair SCAA hoping to rescue misguided souls and countering the occasional rabid propaganda when I came across the name Yvonne Bynoe.
She has been around the block with the Urban Think Tank, whose website looks dead, or perhaps static is a better term. There is this feature about UTT at BlackElectorate.com, which appears to be a good target for some of my political activities.
Another look at this crew comes from this NRO piece by Dan LeRoy
More to come...
June 18, 2004
Good News for Democracy
I didn't think I'd see this. For understandable reasons, the GOP has been against restoring voting rights to felons. The DNC has (also for understandable reasons) not really stepped up to the plate to fight for them. But no matter how understandable the reasons are, they are wrong. This is good news.
For the GOP to win black votes...
Ok. So my man Cobb weighs in on the black vote issue.
Here's the real deal.
Black political behavior has been shown to be tied closely to the "fate of the race." When African Americans enter the voting booth, what they're thinking to themselves is "Hm. Which of these candidates is best for black PEOPLE?" This being an effective shortcut (often anyway) to getting at which candidate is best for that INDIVIDUAL black person.
Assuming that there is significant support for vouchers among working class black folk in particular, we have a long road to hoe if we are to take this factoid and then cast it as an opportunity the GOP as it is now constituted can take advantage of.
There are a whole host of policy issues that blacks support that the GOP doesn't seem to. Whether we're talking about affirmative action, a minimum wage, getting out of Iraq...on average blacks support very liberal policy preferences. Remember that there are a long list of social policies the GOP supports that conservative blacks do as well (the death penalty for example), but this hasn't led to an appreciable shift.
There has been talk about a "generation shift." In as much as the country has moved to the right it shouldn't suprise anyone that blacks have moved also. But remember, African Americans are the furthest to the left of any identifiable voting constituency. Moving to the right to them means they give on an issue like vouchers, but that is about IT.
For the GOP to move black voters, the change has to come from the GOP...the GOP has to moderate its views.
(Folks tend to forget Florida, and their treatment by the GOP in places like Saint Louis. This suprises me...there is no way in hell black folk will forget. And while an argument could be made that the GOP wasn't to blame, I'm thinking this argument has as much likelihood being accepted as the argument that creationism is bunk has of being accepted at the Southern Baptist Convention.)
As an important aside, remember that we're talking about support for the GOP at the NATIONAL LEVEL. There has ALWAYS been a signicant amount of support (greater than 20%) for the GOP at the local level.
June 17, 2004
Upcoming Elections and Afrocentricity
La Shawn Barber links to an article by conservative Juan Williams telling the Democratic Party not to take the black vote for granted. As Kerry really hasn't given us a taste of what his domestic policies would be like it might be a bit early to make this critique. But on the other hand, given the DNC's history of igging the black vote it is never too early.
(as an aside, just because the dems shouldn't take the black vote for granted, doesn't mean the republicans have a shot in hell. unless they listen to my advice they can give that idea up!)
....
While checking out Barber's site I run into this article on Afrocentrism.
First things first. Mary Lefkowitz and D'Nesh D'Souza wouldn't know an argument from a hole in the wall. As far as I can tell D'Souza barely has a bachelor's degree, and I've never seen Lefkowtiz' name in any peer-reviewed journal. In comparison Asante (who has his own issues to be sure) has published more peer-reviewed articles than a little bit, and Martin Bernal's tomes were also peer-reviewed. Granted, this is an elitist stance, but I've defended it before.
Secondly, let's get rid of the red herrings. Here is the central Afrocentric argument, taken from Asante's own words:
On these facts we stand:*Ancient Egyptians were black people.
*Egyptian civilization precedes Greece by several thousand years
*The pyramids are completed (2500 BC) long before Homer appears (800 BC)
*Philosophy originates in Africa and the first Greek philosophers (Thales, Isocrates) studied in Egypt
* A discussion of the wise, wisdom, (sb) appears on tomb of Antef in 2052 BC
*Thales of Miletus is not a philosopher until 600 BC
Among Greek historians and others who wrote about what the Greeks learned from Egypt are Homer, Herodotus, Iamblicus, Aetius, Diodorous Siculus, Diogenes Laertius, Plutarch, and Plato. Who were some of the Greek students of Africans, according to the ancient records? They were Plato, Solon, Lycurgus, Democritus, Anaxamander, Anaxagoras, Herodotus, Homer, Thales, Pythagoras, Eudoxus, and Isocrates and many others. Some of these students even wrote of their studies in Egypt as well.
Barber is right to question whether an Afrocentric curriculum works. Social science will tell the tale, and I'm not familiar with the literature enough to even give anecdotes. I'm thinking we're better off going this route though than either the Creationist route, or the voucher route.
Clearer thinking is needed.
And again, while I'm not all that smart, it looks like Professor Kim came to the same conclusion. Maybe a Clear Thinker's Society would be in order.
June 16, 2004
Detroit Basketball
I'm a professor. I'm a parent of four. I'm a husband. Why the hell does Detroit's championship matter, above and beyond the fact that I'm from Detroit?
I've been reading ESPN's Page 2 while working on a paper about The Green Mile...trying to conjure Ralph Wiley up. And I run across a column by The Sports Guy.
While Wiley was my MAN (it still hurts like a bitch that he's gone, and I suspect it will for sometime), I don't really like Simmons that much for one reason--he can't stand Isiah Thomas. And if I'm a fan (short for fanatic) about any sports figure it's Zeke. But check it. While figuring out exactly why he missed the boat on the '04 Pistons, Simmons goes back to an interview Thomas had with Dan Patrick while checking out the '88 Lakers/Pistons series...the series Thomas put up 25 on a bum ankle, only to lose the series on a phantom call against Laimbeer. Thomas had never seen the game on tape, and while watching it damn near ten years later he starts to cry. Patrick gives him a second, then asks him what seeing thet tape brings up. This is a part of Thomas' response as written by Simmons:
"You know, like you said, to see Dennis, the way Dennis was, to see Vinny, to see Joe, to see Bill, to see Chuck, and to know what we all went through and what we were fighting for ... I mean, we weren't the Lakers, we weren't the Celtics, we were just, we were nobody. We were the Detroit Pistons, trying to make our way through the league, trying to fight and earn some turf, you know, and make people realize that we were a good team. We just weren't the thing that they had made us."
Patrick steps in: "You weren't Showtime, you weren't the Celts, you were the team that nobody gave credit to."
"Yeah," Isiah says, nodding. Now he knows. He knows what to say.
"And seeing that, and feeling that, and going through all that emotion, I mean, as a player, that's what you play for. That's the feeling you want to have. When 12 men come together like that, you know...
I think Simmons is channelling Wiley now because he's never written anything this poignant.
That feeling of being alone against the world, with only a few good men to stand against the hordes, is one of the things that drives me to do what I do. And to look for likeminded individuals. Often I turn back to my grandfather's example, my father's example, the example of my fraternity brothers. But often I turn back to Isiah...and to the Pistons. They represent the modern day spirit of Invictus. Detroit...WHAT!
That's why I care.
June 15, 2004
Norman Kelley's HNIC
I wrote earlier about The Head Negro In Charge Syndrome by Norman Kelley. I just picked it up from Borders. It's a bit pricey at 13.95, but fits within a much larger ouevre (including but not limited to The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, The Omni American, Class Notes, and We Have No Leaders, quite nicely. A snippet:
Essentially at this point in time and history black America is leaderless, drifting. This would not be an entirely unfortunate circumstance if it weren't for the development of a pernicious syndrome, the Head Negro in Charge (HNIC) Syndrome. This is a condition in which self-appointed 'leaders' hijack the political process by somehow appealing to blacks' sense of collectivity, while having an agenda that is mostly about themselves, making themselves the leader. This syndrome and black political demobilization have been aided, as I have suggested, by a black intelligentsia that has become more obsessed with pop culture and celebrity...
Hm. Suffice it to say that while homeboy is decidedly left of center, there is something in here for those on the left and the right sides of the aisle.
June 14, 2004
Ralph Wiley
Ralph Wiley died over the weekend.
Of heart failure. Of HEART FAILURE. He was only 52 years old, and according to his fiance "worked like a madman."
I'm going to Baltimore to study health disparities, as a number of foundations have not only recognized the severe disparities between men and women of color and their white counterparts, they have also recognized that in order to grapple with this issue we not only need MDs and Public Health specialists, but also political scientists, psychologists, sociologists, and economists on the case as well. But for Wiley this all comes too late.
This hits me pretty hard. As I've written here, here , and here, Wiley was a tremendous writer. Nope.
Make that the best fucking writer I have encountered over the last five years. Not just on baseball, basketball, boxing, and football, but on issues of race and American life. Absolutely brilliant. Every day his column would come out on Page 2, I'd be on it like a fiend...just looking for snatches of text that I could jack use, or insight that I could apply here or to my scholarship.
I was just waiting to here him talk about the Lakers/Pistons series--he was one of the first writers I was aware of to get it right (he figured that if the Pistons brought their A game it'd be a full on series and very tough for the Lakers). And I figured that soon enough I'd blow up enough to be able to meet him personally and shoot the shit with him.
This hurts. Like a fucking punch to the stomach.
DAMN.
I cannot believe this.
If you are at all interested in the life of the mind, sports, writing, or general excellence, please check out his archive at ESPN's Page 2. Wiley was old school.
June 13, 2004
The Playoffs
So my man over at Prometheus6.org says Karl's the problem. He's only part right, and for the wrong reason. Karl is a problem not because he freezes, but because he's hurt. He can't check Wallace, which diminishes the amount of energy Wallace has to exert on D. And in a game like tonight, where Medvedenko (sp?) gets a lot of minutes, Rasheed will go to WORK.
No. The problem, and I don't really like saying this, is Kobe.
Shaq shoots 16-20. That's .800!!! Now I was doing the radio show thing with Cobb during the second quarter so I could only pay attention on ESPN Gamecast (ah! the joys of DSL! )...but from what I understand there was a 7 or 8 minute stretch where Shaq doesn't even TOUCH the rock but once. This is absurd.
Kobe's stats? He gets 20, BUT HAS TO TAKE 25 SHOTS!
Now if Jackson is right, the problem is that the refs are swallowing the whistle. So maybe some of those shots would've resulted in free throw attempts. But DAMN. If Shaq gets the rock it's a closer game. He should've had 50, easily.
I still say trade Shaq (Kobe's still got an upside, Shaq's got a lot of wear and tear), but if the Pistons pull this out (can Ward Bell verify that I called this at the beginning of the seas?) the blame will lie on Jackson and on Kobe.
June 12, 2004
Texas 10% Rule Under Scrutiny
In order to present an alternative to race/gender based Affirmative Action, both Texas and Florida instituted a plan that would allocate college spots to the top 10% of each state high school. This plan would lead not only to racial diversity, but also to class diversity. It was viewed by many as the solution to the sticky issue of college admissions.
But not any longer. Here's a snippet (because registration may be required to see the whole piece:)
Critics of the rule say that students from poor high schools without the resources of wealthier institutions are not ready for the work at an elite public university, and that too many graduates of high-powered high schools are leaving the state for college when they do not get into the University of Texas."Those kids are not prepared," said Douglas S. Craig, a lawyer in Houston whose son, Charles, was not accepted at the university. Charles Craig went to the University of Colorado at Boulder instead, Mr. Craig said, adding that getting into the top 10 percent at his son's selective private high school was very difficult. "His class was two-thirds National Merit scholars and semifinalists. Their scores are all very, very high."
I figured this would happen. Note that the same metaphors are coming into play--standards, preparation, etc. Here's the question for me. Why don't the not-so-elite students simply TRANSFER SCHOOLS?
But that would be too much like right. I'm thinking the plan will be gradually abolished. Too bad.
June 11, 2004
The 57
The Michigan State House recently passed legislation that ties state aid for universities to their rules on Affirmative Action. If you've GOT Affirmative Action, you don't get the aid. While on the one hand this is a nice trick, one you've got to give conservatives credit for, we should also be aware of the fact that Affirmative Action is the law of the land...recognized by every sane individual and institution as good for the country, good for business, good for citizens of whatever color or gender.
And we should take care to remember the names.
June 10, 2004
Conservative Blacks vs. Black Conservatives
My man Cobb's been talking about Republican Antipathy to Civil Rights. We've got a nice conversation going on that reminds me somewhat of the days when Bill Berry ran a spot called Gravity. In one of the comments LaShawn Barber (black and conservative) notes the following:
One of the best things that happened when I became conservative is that I actually began to use my brain, my criticial thinking skills, to examine controversial issues for myself.
Now a statement like this always gets my hackles up.
It assumes that black people, who are not politically conservative when it comes to the federal government, AREN'T using their brain. And of course, given that I'm from the old school that fish don't fly to me.
Barber points me to an article he wrote for Project 21 called Why Courting the Black Vote Won't Work. The central point is one I agree with--Republicans have to do more than show up at black churches to get black people to vote for them.
But the path there is a tortuous one.
Barber makes a few different errors:
1. The Republican Party of 2004 is NOT the party of 1954 which is NOT the party of 1864. There is a tendency among Republicans to hold fast to the Lincoln legacy as well as to the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement (the Republicans started as a pro-abolition party, and fought the democrats to get the civil rights bills passed). But the political/economic/cultural context in which the parties exist in significantly shifted. The best individual example of this is someone like Jesse Helms or Strom Thurmond. What party were they in 1940?
2. Barber argues that limited government is a core Republican principle, and that blacks don't support this because of the southern democrats. Technically this actually violates the central argument above....in that the hard core Republicans of 1865 believed that the federal government should directly intervene in protecting the lives of enslaved Africans, to the point of establishing a permanent Bureau to protect their interests. But that's another story. The more germane argument is that Barber doesn't seem to understand how white supremacy worked in both the south and the north, among Democrats AND Republicans. The concept of limited government gives groups of citizens absolutely NO redress against either private or state based subjugation. It ain't the Southern Democrats who've somehow "tricked" gullible blacks...it is the lived experience of white supremacy that gets them to recognize that the only way checks and balances work for them is if the federal government is directly involved.
3. The following statement is the one that does it for me: The U.S. Supreme Court most recently usurped the will of the people by finding a non-existent constitutional basis for continued race discrimination, although discrimination was legally abolished in 1964. I cannot be sure here, but it appears as if Barber is conflating Affirmative Action with racial discrimination.
If this article is the best example of "critical thinking" then we're in trouble.
I noted to Barber that what we don't need are black conservatives--people for whom black is an adjective, and conservative is a noun. What we need are conservative blacks like Michael--people for whom conservative is an adjective and black is a noun. Similarly we don't need anymore black Democrats OR black Republicans. What we need are democratic blacks...and republican blacks.
June 09, 2004
A White Man's Game?
One of my favorite players in NBA history is Isiah Thomas. He put Detroit back on the map. Not Yzerman, not Sanders (both of whom I like for similar reasons). Thomas. Hard as a rock...had more game than a little bit.
Thomas gets a bad rap because of a number of reasons. But I think it all stems from the time he bumped for Dennis Rodman...who uttered a phrase that will go down in history. HAS gone down in history.
"If Larry Bird were black, he'd be just another good player."
Ralph Wiley has gone that route, on ESPN2 and because i'm in a writing mood I don't have time to track down the link.
But in an interview that will appear soon Larry Bird ups the ante.
A lot of stuff jumps out about the interview. I'll hit on some of it later. But to me?
The greatest insult of all is that they held the interview in the gym depicted by the movie Hoosiers. I say insult because Hoosiers is to basketball movies what Mississippi Burning is to Civil Rights Movies. (Only the drama was a better.)
Oscar Robertson had a piece in Men's Health about piece of sh*t historical revisionism that was Hoosiers. About how the all black school that played Muncie in the semi-finals was the creation of segregation. About how the majority of the crowd supported the little team that could because they were all white. About how tattered their uniforms and equipment was in comparison to the little team that could because of segregation.
Again, there's interesting stuff in the interview and in Larry's assessment. But the layout is where the real message is.
Winning the Right Way
Detroit wins yesterday's game against the Lakers and the series is theirs to lose. No team has ever come back from an 0-2 deficit. They are winning by six with 40 seconds to go. Down by three, Kobe drains it with 2.1 seconds left.
Here is the question.
Before Kobe gets the rock, SHAQ HAS IT. Why not foul?
I have come to respect Larry Brown as a coach. I think he's much better than Jackson as far as Xs and Os go. But it APPEARS as if Brown is as interested in winning "the right way" as he is in winning. So even though it is legally within the rules for the Pistons to foul Shaq with 2.1 seconds left to go, it wouldn't be "the right way."
I think this relates to some of the wider themes we're trying to talk about here. Or maybe it doesn't.
What would you do?
June 08, 2004
Thoughts on Reagan
I wrote a piece on Reagan today that captures some of my thoughts about what I think he meant for African Americans in general, and for working class folks as well. I'm not half as hard on him as I probably should've been. During the eighties for example, the most visibly identifiable group of potential criminals in America weren't black men, they were Reagan appointees. At the time I think he had more appointees indicted or convicted than any other President before him, including Nixon.
But there is one thing that I take from him.
It's hard to believe now, but during the sixties when Reagan came to power in California, conservatives were all planning as if the left would win. As if it were a done deal. They acted like losers...largely because they were losers.
Everyone except Reagan.
When people say Reagan brought morning back to America, they should more accurately be saying that Reagan brought morning back to CONSERVATIVES. Alone among his peers, Reagan believed victory was not only possible, it was PROBABLE. And he worked to make that happen through a series of PR interventions that were brilliant in their execution. Especially because even now most Americans don't support conservative policy proposals (with the probable exception of gutting Affirmative Action), this is something that the more progressive folks among us should take to heart.
From my standpoint, victory is assured.
Sustainable Black Culture
The other day, I was listening to some old comedy routines. One of them is entitled 'Boot to the Head', in which a mystical martial arts instructor teaches urban wise-asses a lesson in patience. One of the urchins, challenging the ancient Chinese secrets of the master quotes the character Mel from the old TV show Alice. For his insolence he gets a boot to the head. This illustrates a theme in my writing, or something that should be a theme in my writing, which is the sustainability of black culture.
Simply stated, one hundred years from now, people will forget Nelly, but they will still be playing Thelonius Monk. In the words of Stanley Crouch, there is some music which seeks to 'elevate with elegance', and then there is music to shake your ass to. Seeing as men and women will always have reason to shake their asses, it won't really matter if it's Nelly or someone who has yet to be born, rise to pop stardom and then fall into obscurity. The asses will be shook, the tune forgotten. But for those cultural productions which are part and parcel of the will to reach excellence and perfection, for those which sustain the spirit, the memories will be strong.
Yet one could argue that the baser and more vulgar instincts will also be with us forever and arts appopriate to those should be remembered as well. Perhaps that is true, but as I look to culture in regards to the strength of a nation, there are clearly things that build us up and those that tear us down. There is nothing I find redeeming in such bling hiphop as Nelly's, no matter how clever and artful he may be. We should remember that our churches are hundreds of years old, and songs of faith are known by heart and will be sung through generations. Try singing "Its Getting Hot in Here" in church. You won't be there long.
This underscores my point. Black culture which is sustainable is so because it is superior. Those things which lead in the paths of righteousness will be clung to and revered. They give us strength to carry on, they bring us through the pain, they remind us of our value. These are the things that deserve to be called black culture. But the cult of the sagging pants, aping the ways of the jailhouse, do not deserve to be called black, no matter how many African Americans are living that nightmare. We are not sustained by the life on the inside. That is the way of death.
I hold out a great deal of hope that America can and will sustain a variety of classes. We already do with much success. And in that context there will always be some contest of authenticity over which whose preferences will mark African American culture. It might be the sonservative suburban black of Atlanta's Cascade Road. It might be the urban blue collar of Detroit's Belle Isle picnicers. It might be the hip cool mix of Brooklyn's bohos. America will help those who help themselves. But it cannot and will not be the culture of hate, despair, thuggery, and other social dysfunctions that are often called 'black' today.
There are many legitimate reasons why African Americans suffer in this nation. We are right to give our aid and comfort to those who have fallen off track. But we cannot afford the luxury of cosigning with those who settle for diminished and degenerate expectations of themselves. That is not a black thing. It is a thing of despair. Chuck D said it many years ago "You're headed for self-destruction". And we who have enough family to know ourselves should wave those people goodbye and not let them appropriate black culture. Let our warning be clear.
There will come days, when we are called to instruct, that we will be challenged by our students. They will try to take shortcuts and they will bring all types of ghetto philosophy to bear. Remember what your mother said when you got fresh. "Who do you think you're talking to? I'm not one of your little friends."
Boot to the head.
June 04, 2004
Psychological Operations
What would our leaders look like if they ALL had to take psychological exams? My cousin came to town yesterday...a "frustrated Republican" as he refers to himself. He's a small business owner, and when we began talking about the election, he noted that we don't choose a CEO by the same method we go about choosing the President.
There's no way in hell anyone would go for it.
Instead he proposed a simple add on. Instead of all this campaigning and sloganeering, have the candidates take a psychological exam.
I don't like comparing elected office to business positions. We don't HIRE folks, we ELECT them. Very different conceptions of accountability, and governance going on in these two ideas. But my cousin's idea really stuck with me.
On the positive side, I haven't ever taken a psychological profile for a job. I didn't need one to paint pipes in the late eighties. I didn't need one to be an Assistant Professor. But I'm thinking many professionals do (you ever taken one Mike?). Being a social scientist I can say that if the surveys are drawn up right, you can hit the nail on the head with a great degree of accuracy. Maybe you mess up 5 times out of 100.
And on the presidential level, we've only HAD 43 Presidents.
So this could work. Would you vote for someone who was typed as "prone to conflict?" Or someone who "had a preference for being secretive"? My cousin noted that most of us pin our choices on two or three hot button issues. I'd say that this is accurate, though I don't think most of us make choices based on concrete issues. The President (or even the local mayor) has to make decisions on a whole host of issues that are totally unrelated to those issues we care about. Why not base a choice on a holistic conception of how the President deals with crisis, and life, either opposed to (or for me, ALONG WITH) pure policy preferences?
There are some negatives...but it's something for me to think about. I'll kick it around some more and come back to it maybe.
June 03, 2004
Black Admissions Down at Berkeley
Black admissions drop 30 percent at Berkeley
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/05/29/state1556EDT0052.DTL
MICHELLE LOCKE, Associated Press Writer
Saturday, May 29, 2004
Sometimes, Adia Harrison looks around her classes at the University of California, Berkeley and is slightly surprised at the reminder: Just about no one else in the room looks like her.
This fall, being black at Berkeley is likely to become even more of an anomaly. As of late spring, 98 black students had registered for fall enrollment out of an expected class of 3,821.
"This is supposed to be a public university and it's not really representing the public," says Harrison.
Campus officials aren't sure what lies behind a nearly 30 percent decrease in admissions this year.
Part of the explanation may go beyond Berkeley. Applications from black students were down about 10 percent here, and decreases in minority applications were also reported at the University of Michigan and Ohio State University.
Gary Orfield, co-director of The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, says possible explanations include higher tuitions across the nation as well as publicity over a U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that tempered Michigan's affirmative action programs.
Berkeley recruiting efforts were further hurt, campus officials say, by new restrictions on their practice of flying students from predominantly minority high schools to campus for pre-application visits.
Lawyers for UC's central office advised that targeting minority schools could violate Proposition 209, the 1996 voter-approved law banning use of race in California college admissions, said Berkeley spokesman George Strait.
Berkeley officials don't agree with that interpretation and they are looking at ways to revive the visits as well as pursuing other recruitment strategies. A long-planned multicultural center also is set to open on campus this year.
"Virtually every part of the campus is extremely concerned about the low numbers of underrepresented minorities and, in particular, the appallingly low numbers of African-Americans," said Strait.
The fall enrollment figures came about six months after John Moores, chairman of UC's governing Board of Regents, issued a report saying Berkeley turned away thousands of students who aced the SAT but accepted hundreds -- many of whom were black or Hispanic -- with low scores.
After Moores wrote an opinion column in April saying UC policies victimized students, his fellow regents slapped him with a rare public censure. Regents also reaffirmed their commitment to UC's "comprehensive review" admissions, which don't consider race but do look at social factors, such as overcoming poverty, as well as grades and scores.
Still, the affair left some Berkeley students feeling undermined.
"The way a lot of the students feel is that the UC system and the administration has this rhetoric of celebrating diversity but they're not really following through with it," says Peter Tadeo Gee, a Berkeley student who works with a campus multicultural resources center.
Some black students at Berkeley say they have encountered outright hostility -- racist taunts as they walk down the street -- as well as prejudice of a quieter kind.
"It's usually the black student who ends up without a partner," says Renita Chaney, a junior and executive director of the campus Black Recruitment and Retention Center.
Black student admissions have been low for some years.
In 1997, the last year affirmative action was allowed at UC's nine campuses, Berkeley admitted 562 black students. That number fell to 191 as the new race-blind policies took effect, but had risen to 338 by 2000.
But this fall, only 211 black students were admitted.
Fewer black students mean fewer people to call on for help on community issues, says Chaney. Still, she'd be reluctant to encourage black freshmen to attend this fall unless they're looking for a challenging environment.
"If it's activism or some kind of fight they're looking for, then come here. But if education is what they're looking for, then don't come here," she said.
Does it matter if the black presence at Berkeley is dwindling?
Yes, says Toff Peabody, a Berkeley molecular biology major, who was so struck by the new Berkeley numbers he joined a loosely organized group this spring that has been campaigning for a more diverse campus under the banner, "White Males for Diversity."
"If the purpose of school was to just go to lectures we could all stay home and watch them on the Internet," says Peabody. "It's the actual interaction you have with other students that make my education better at Berkeley than somewhere else."
As of fall 2003, whites accounted for about 30 percent of undergraduates, with Asian Americans, who also did not benefit under the old affirmative action programs, comprising about 40 percent. (Berkeley's definition of Asian American is broad, including people with ties to the Pacific Islands and countries such as India.
Proposition 209 supporters say it's a mistake to focus on race or ethnicity -- that keeping a close tally of demographics only serves to create barriers.
"Don't go there thinking, 'I'm going to be looking around for other black kids,"' says Ward Connerly, a part-black UC regent who led the fight to drop race-based admissions. "Go there and recognize that it's going to be one of the greatest experiences of your life. You're there to meet new people. You're there to learn. You're not there to engage in this racial, 'Mirror, mirror on the wall' kind of thing."
Harrison was admitted to Berkeley after participating in a privately funded outreach program run by the campus' Haas School of Business -- Young Entrepreneurs at Haas -- which connects middle and high school students with mentors who involve them in programs such as drawing up business plans or studying the stock market.
"We're a business-based program, but really if I had to look at the core of what we do, it's, one, telling kids that they can go to college; two, exposing them to college," says Oscar Wolters-Duran, program executive director.
For Harrison, knowing there'll be fewer black students on campus next year is a little unsettling.
"People are going to notice even more that there's not very many African-American people. Not only the African-American students will notice it," she says.
Still, she doesn't regret coming to Berkeley. "It's a good school," she says, "and I know eventually, no matter how difficult it is, I'll be able to get through.")
This article reprinted in full without permission for the purposes of discussion and review, as permitted by Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976.
June 02, 2004
Burning Down the Log Cabin
This article reiterates both the necessity of integrating the GOP, and the pitfalls associated with it at an individual level. Though obviously the African American/gay comparison isn't totally apt, we've got a long road ahead of us. The key is maintaining integrity to move the party to a position that is favorable to black interests, or even select black interests, rather than going into the party and changing in order to meet their needs and advance within the ranks. Ever since the Fairmont Conference, this has been the road most have travelled by.
I wonder if there was ever an lgbt version (probably more like lgb) version of the Fairmont Conference?
Ellis Cose on Brown
Ellis Cose has put together a remarkable report on the state of American eduction in the post-Brown years which includes some very important survey information as well as.. well everything.
From the report:
Brown was so much more than just another lawsuit. “Brown led to the sit-ins, the freedom marches … the Civil Rights Act of 1964. … If you look at Brown as … the icebreaker that broke up the sea, that frozen sea, then you will see it was an unequivocal success,” declared Jack Greenberg, former head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and one of the lawyers who litigated Brown. Clearly Brown altered forever, and for the better, the political and social landscape of an insufficiently conscience stricken nation. It succeeded, as Greenberg attests, in dramatically shaking things up and, in the process, of transforming a reluctant America. Yet, measured purely by its effects on the poor schoolchildren of color at its center, Brown is a disappointment—in many respects, a failure. Between past hopes and current results lies an abyss filled with forsaken dreams. So this commemoration, this toasting of the heroes of who slew Jim Crow, is muted by the realization that Brown was not nearly enough.