As of today, the Vision Circle is now closed. This is not forever. It will return in some other form in the future. I think it has been a good run.
As a final post I would like to leave you with the Antoinette Pole research paper on blacks and blogging. Feel free to read it. When I come up with another good idea for the blogosphere that merits all kinds of attention, I'll certainly speak up. In the meantime I refer you all to the places where our primary authors have dispersed.
Dr. Lester Kenyatta Spence Will continue at Blacksmythe, a portal to all his work.Ed Brown
Will be spouting stuff at his new blog.Craig Nulan
Can generally be found over at Prometheus Six.Me, I'm at Cobb as usual..
Thanks for your Patronage.
Going around the 'net, or reading opinion pieces, or listening to talk shows, I often read/hear people say something like, "Despite what Blacks think, racism is NOT the number one problem facing Black America.
OK, for me that's a no brainer; it isn't Black America's number one problem. What I want to know is, what percentage of Blacks believe it IS Blacks number one problem?
I suspect that most Blacks will say that it's not, and if that's the case, it's another issue of critics of the Black community setting up a straw man for them to defeat.
Does anyone want to help me find such a poll of Black folk?
P6 is throwing down on the false hype of "acting white".
He quotes someone else:
Whites aren't quitting the schools because the schools are failing academically. Quite the contrary: Many white parents say they're leaving because the schools are too academically driven and too narrowly invested in subjects such as math and science at the expense of liberal arts and extracurriculars like sports and other personal interests.The two schools, put another way that parents rarely articulate so bluntly, are too Asian.
Ya'll go visit now. Ya here?
Right now, one of the things being discussed in the aftermath of Katrina is race.
Well, as usual, it's infantile if you ask me.
But, THIS is what should be watched. This is race in America, 2005: Old-line families plot the future. Note the class issues that are also involved.
The power elite of New Orleans -- whether they are still in the city or have moved temporarily to enclaves such as Destin, Fla., and Vail, Colo. -- insist the remade city won't simply restore the old order. New Orleans before the flood was burdened by a teeming underclass, substandard schools and a high crime rate. The city has few corporate headquarters.The new city must be something very different, Mr. Reiss says, with better services and fewer poor people. "Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely different way: demographically, geographically and politically," he says. "I'm not just speaking for myself here. The way we've been living is not going to happen again, or we're out."
...
Black politicians have controlled City Hall here since the late 1970s, but the wealthy white families of New Orleans have never been fully eclipsed. Stuffing campaign coffers with donations, these families dominate the city's professional and executive classes, including the white-shoe law firms, engineering offices, and local shipping companies. White voters often act as a swing bloc, propelling blacks or Creoles into the city's top political jobs. That was the case with Mr. Nagin, who defeated another African American to win the mayoral election in 2002.
Bear with me for a few minutes please.
Can someone tell me exactly what came out of "Black militancy" other than a lot of hot air?
This is asked in response to Booker Rising commentary and P6.
[ Update ]
lks said the question should be phrased a different way, so here is the question phrased a different way: What would we as individuals have today WITHOUT black militancy?
And now I guess I should ask, what do you define as "Black militancy"?
Again, bear with me. I'm going somewhere. Just hang on for the ride.
I must have missed this article because I was on vacation. I always thought those "crisis of the black male" joints were patriarchal and sexist. I still do. But the numbers don't lie. he question is what will commission hearings--which are largely symbolic events--actually do? Thanks to Terecico for the article. (As an aside I must be getting old as dirt...homeboy was on the yard the same time I was, but I have no recollection. Granted I was in grad school with a family but damn...)
Oh. Podcast interview with Craig Nulan coming up later.
Turns out the kingpin of this marijuana ring worked at the plant where my father and brother work. So in order to hide almost $200 million, homeboy maintains a $70,000 job? For people with resources, one of our biggest hurdles is maintaining an imagination large enough to contain our desires. It's clear to me that this guy's imagination simply wasn't big enough.
Do you know of a community organization dedicated to addressing issues in the Black community?
If so, let's hear about it right here.
If they have a website or just a snail-mail address or just a telephone number, let us know.
P6 started it up by pointing out problems with this article on an "Acting White" study.
Check out the comments section.
Urban League, state announce $127 million 'empowerment fund'
Seeking to foster the expansion of minority businesses, who often lack access to the capital, the National Urban League came to Baltimore on May 17 to announce a new "empowerment fund" designed to promote entrepreneurship among minority and urban-based businesses.
Standing with Sharon Pinder, director of the Maryland Office of Minority Affairs, executives from the National Urban League and Stonehenge Capital announced that $127 million in U.S. tax credits had been assembled and would be sold to raise money to capitalize existing businesses poised for growth and expansion.
"Small businesses are the largest creators of new jobs in America, and the Urban League Empowerment Fund will help minority-owned businesses find the technical assistance, financial investment and corporate relationship they need to grow, develop and create more jobs in those urban areas that need it most," said Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League. "Growing small businesses is one of the best ways to close the wealth gap in America."
The National Urban League, through partnerships with Stonehenge Capital, the Kauffman Foundation, the Business Roundtable and the Office of the President of the United States, will use the fund to purchase guaranteed loans made in low-income areas, directly fund minority-owned businesses and finance projects and increase minority employment.
I've made reference to a DVD titled "Stop Snitching".
Some things are just so out of bounds, that very little has to be said.
When people/companies decide to take advantage of something like the "Stop Snitching" DVD, an appropriate response must be made.
In shopping malls around the city, young people are buying T-shirts with statements that would make any parent, police officer or community leader cringe: "Criminal minded." "Let's get blown." "Ready to Die."
But one in particular has some city officials particularly stunned: A T-shirt that warns boldly across the front, "Stop Snitchin."
Coming on the heels of the Stop Snitching DVD that began circulating in Baltimore last year, the T-shirts are disheartening to those who say they aggravate an already chronic problem of witness intimidation. While shops that sell the shirts say the tees are not connected to the DVD, city officials say the message remains the same - and it's a damaging one.
...
But those who buy such T-shirts - and those who make or sell them - say the shirts are just fashion.
"I don't take it to heart," said Larry Smith, of Essex, who recently bought a "Stop Snitchin" T-shirt from Changes, a jeans and urban wear store in Eastpoint Mall. "I just like the shirt. It's just a figure of speech."
The shirts, some of which simply say "Stop Snitchin," and others that are more graphically embellished with shotgun targets or other images, sell for about $19 to $28.
This is obscene and that's being nice about it.
I shop at that store when giving gifts to younger family members. I have purchased a few items for myself as well.
No longer.
Not only that, but I've made it clear to my offspring that Changes is off limits. If something comes from that store, and I find out about it, My Wrath Will Be Felt.
[ Update ] The contact info.
This is for cnulan.
More than 2,000 friends and neighbors paid last respect to a mother and five children of a Baltimore family who were killed in a house fire believed set by vengeful drug dealers. A day earlier, a seventh family member died from injuries he received in the Oct. 16 fire. Funeral services were held for Angela Maria Dawson, 36; and her children, 9-year-old twins Keith and Kevin, Carnell Jr., 10, Juan Ortiz, 12, and LaWanda Ortiz, 14.
During a press conference, police commissioner Edward Norris, calling the day the saddest in his career, admitted that the reality of life in Baltimore�despite his zero tolerance for drug dealers�is that when a family like the Dawsons is threatened by drug dealers, there is little the police can do besides relocating them for their own protection.
A message of death was sent to Angela and Carnell Dawson when they asked dealers selling drugs in front of their East Baltimore row house to move and set up business elsewhere. The heartless answer from these street thugs came Oct. 4 when they threw two Molotov cocktails into the family home.
As fire swept through their kitchen, and suffocating smoke filled the three-story house, the couple blindly grabbed their five children and stumbled outside into the darkness. They stood there trembling in terror. Mrs. Dawson, realizing the deadly danger posed by the attempted arsonist, wrote a hand-written note to police asking for help.
Two weeks later, on Oct. 16, shortly after midnight, the fear and retaliation the family had expected arrived in flames and death. One resident said the house looked like it �blew up, just burst into flames,� as if caused by �an incendiary device.�
The blaze erupted into a raging fire that swept through the sleeping family�s corner house at 1401 E. Preston St. The mother and her five children were burned to death. Carnell Dawson Sr., 43, jumped through a window, and was in critical condition at the Bay View Burn Center with burns over 80 percent of his body. He died last Wednesday, the day before his wife and children were buried.
Now, for Snitching...
In Boston, a witness to a shooting by a member of a street gang recently found copies of his grand jury testimony taped to all the doors in the housing project where he lives.
In Baltimore, Rickey Prince, a 17-year-old who witnessed a gang murder and agreed to testify against the killer, was shot in the back of the head a few days after a prosecutor read Mr. Prince's name aloud in a packed courtroom.
And in each city, CD's and DVD's titled "Stop Snitching" have surfaced, naming some people street gangs suspect of being witnesses against them and warning that those who cooperate with the police will be killed. To underscore its message, the Baltimore DVD shows what appears to be three dead bodies on its back cover above the words "snitch prevention."
These are only a few examples of what the police, prosecutors and judges say is a growing national problem of witness intimidation by youth gangs that in some cities is jeopardizing the legal system and that bears striking similarities to the way organized crime has often silenced witnesses.
"Witness intimidation has become so pervasive that it is ruining the public's faith in the criminal justice system to protect them," said Judge John M. Glynn of Baltimore City Circuit Court. "We are not much better off than the legal system in Mexico or Colombia or some other sad places."
Carmelo Anthony appeared in that DVD. That's why Cummings is in Anthony's behind.
Now you know.
Can someone who believes that "Black leaders" lead Blacks to think a certain way, give me concrete proof that this is the case?
You have to be able to demonstrate that Blacks, as a group, believed one way until a "Black leader" said differently.
Or, you have to be able to demonstrate that Blacks, as a group, had no concrete opinion on something until a "Black leader" "told Blacks how to think".
This has to go beyond ancedotes, please.
Russell Simmons and the Hip Hop Summit was in Baltimore this past week. Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, a Republican, took part in the all day series of events at Morgan State University.
This is one of the reasons why I say that Steele is a man to watch and why I have respect for the man. Steele is a Black Republican who spends time going to Black groups in the state and making his case.
Russell Simmons urges 'empowerment' at summitRap mogul, other music executives join Ehrlich, Steele at Morgan State University to encourage youth to 'take responsibility' for financial future
Old-school hip-hop artist Doug E. Fresh's signature song, "The Show," was blasting through the speakers as he shouted: "If you're making money in the 2006, say, make money money, make money money money!"
Audience members nodded to the beat and screamed back the response in true hip-hop concert form. But they didn't pack the Murphy Fine Arts Center at Morgan State University Thursday solely to be entertained. They were there, as the rapper reminded them, to learn the financial tools to "get their money right."
Sponsored by Russell Simmons' Hip-Hop Summit Action Network and Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele, the event consisted of such seminars as repairing damaged credit and buying a first home. It wrapped up with a town hall meeting that was part concert, part financial-literacy conference with panelists such as Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and the R&B group 112.
The Baltimore summit was the second of nine planned in cities nationwide, designed to harness the raw energy of hip-hop to teach young fans to build wealth.
"We're pushing to encourage young people to think broader about their future and take responsibility for their lives," said Simmons in an interview. "One way to do that is: Be financially literate."
A staff member at the summit helped Cassandra Hall, 39, of Baltimore obtain her credit score and create a plan to help her buy a first home.
"I'm really trying to open a business -- buying homes and fixing them up for low-income people," she said.
For the sake of argument, let's accept the premise that the "pro-life side" of the Schiavo mess is a result of "the religous right" being given their due because of their support of the Republican party.
Given that, what does it say about Black politicians who couldn't get Clinton to let the cocaine and crack sentencing disparity to sunset?
What does it say about Black politicians who couldn't get Clinton to pay more attention to the situation in Rwanda?
What does it say about Black politicians who tried, late in Clinton's last term, to address the slavery issue in Sudan and other countries?
What does it say about Black politicians tried but couldn't get Clinton to change the U.S. policy towards Haiti?
What does it say about the CBC?
What does it say about the Democratic party and it's core base?
So, if Republicans are trying to get 20% of the Black vote by going to Black preachers, good for them as long as Blacks get something out of it this time.
"If we had a brothel move into town, people would close it down instantly," said the Rev. Jon Pearce of the First Baptist Church here. "If we had an X-rated movie house come, it'd be gone within a week. But this has been here. It is a monster. We didn't know what kind of monster it was."
The right Reverend is referring to meth labs. The full story can be found here. (Thanks George!)
My last piece for Africana.com was published yesterday. It is an extension of some thought pieces I wrote here about the Algebra Project of Robert Moses. I wrote an earlier version of it that didn't read all that well, but then I added the Cosby Smackdown component and everything made much more sense. I will be moving to Black Voices very soon, depending on final negotiations about what my new column will look like. As an aside all of the other columnists are making the move, and in Jimi Izrael's case he's actually going weekly.
As an aside I haven't posted much lately because I've been travelling, doing this book thing, and ruminating. A lot of work to do. Not a lot of time to do it in.
So Lester sparked a slow burn on the subject of the Detroit mayoral race a week or so ago that caught fire on the other side of the world. Speaking of techmobiles, on an exploding thread over at P6, a particularly sage brother with the alias PTCruiser served up some substantive food for political thought that spoke volumes to the issue raised by Tootsie;
"The generic and historical approach toward addressing these issues in poor black urban communities has been to aim toward creating a critical building and infrastructure mass that would, provided the constituent elements were appropriately aligned, produce housing, job and commercial activities. Clearing a block or several blocks of land in the hope of luring one or two or more major retailers in the hope that these stores would attract shoppers into the area and that this in turn would persuade smaller retailers to open shops etc. The unemployed or underemployed resident of the community are expected to go to work in these new retail outlets.
These activities often begin with a great deal of fanfare and excitement. Politicians come out and cut ribbons, ministers offer the accustomed benedictions and leaders of uplift organizations are quick to tell the press that all of this hubbub represents a new day for the community. By and large, however very little of what is promised comes to pass. Developers promise more than can be delivered; major retailers grow leery either because of the economy or the project no longer quite fits into the company's strategic plans; lenders grow nervous. Within the community the agreed upon project is generally seen as an opportunity for every hustler, grifter and bourgeois nationalist to make a buck and woe to anyone who looks as though they intend to stand in their way. In short, to update an old line, even Stevie Wonder can see that this approach has not worked very well at all.
I believe there is a far simpler and more manageable approach to this process that can deliver affordable housing, provide real jobs and training to the residents and will result in the development of commercial activity in the community. This plan will not work in every city because it requires a unique set of circumstances that is not common to every city.
Let's use a city, for example, like Detroit, Michigan. Detroit has an enormous number of abandoned residential properties. The current mayor would like to see these properties seized by the city and turned over to developers to build market rate housing. The president of the city council, on the other hand, shares the mayor's enthusiam for seizing these properties but would prefer to see more housing built for poorer residents. This disagreement between two major political players (and, by implication, their supporters and others) virtually, if not absolutely, ensures that the city will spend more time debating about this and other related questions than in building housing or creating jobs in these neighborhoods.
Here is what Detroit should do:
1. Take 15 to 30 of the properties it has seized to date and build modular housing on these sites. Modular housing manufacturers have developed their products to such an advanced state that in many instances you cannot tell the difference between modular and stick built housing. Modular is less expensive than stick built and will last just as long. Buying 15 to 30 houses at one time from a manufacturer will significantly reduce the costs of these homes. (The costs of these homes can be reduced even more by using low income housing tax credits that can be sold to investors through various syndicates. The tax credit investors provide equity in the project while getting a tax write-off for the life of the credits, which is usually ten years. There are some additional requirements if this process is used but it is still doable.)
2. Recruit and train neigborhood residents to do the necessary construction and fitting work required to build these houses. Secure the involvement of the local building trades unions by brokering a deal with them in which the city (or a developer that the city hires) agrees to hire a certain number of journeymen if the union agrees to take these neighborhood residents into their unions as apprentices. The traditonal practice of having 6 to 8 journeymen for each apprentice is impractical here and will not work. One of the underlying principles here is to provide these apprentices with the type of training that wil give them both vertical skills - moving up the ladder to higher paying positions - and horizontal skills - the ability to take their skills and union cards and certificates and move to another region or state if circumstances require it. Members of the Laborers' Union, for example, can receive training and certificates in abestos and hazardous materials removal.
3. Create a non-profit organization or find an existing non-profit housing organization or a "for-real church" that will assume responsibility for identifying and training a pool of prospective homebuyers. These homebuyers could also include some of the apprentices. Pre-qualify these potential buyers by using Michigan's housing finance agency. The idea here is to purchase all 15 to 30 homes at one time from the developer. This will result in even more additional savings to the homebuyers because any developer who understands the game would be more than happy to sell 15 to 30 homes at a time rather than one at a time. The discount to the buyers would probably be somewhere between 10 to 15 percent if not a little more. Don't forget that this discount is also additional equity that accrues to the benefit of the homebuyer. This additional equity can be pooled by the homebuyers and used to fund a community center, childcare facility or an improvement district that can be utilized to assist in attracting small retailers, e.g., drycleaners, coffee shop, drug store etc. into the community
There are a lot of other details that I haven't listed here but I think what I have presented represents a practical and eminently doable departure from the past. The important thing is that it is not capital intensive and does not require an investment of millions of dollars from the city. In fact, if the city found a developer with a large enough balance sheet and a modicum of vision then the developer would assume the risks provided the developer is allowed to call the shots. In the end, the city would, among other things, have succeeded in putting properties back onto the tax rolls, reduced blight, created real jobs, revitalized a neighborhood and laid the groundwork for creating a middle class resurgence within the city. Detroit could replicate this process throughout its most run down, crime ridden communities."
I was asked what the most pressing issues were for Detroit given the upcoming mayoral election. The sparks have already begun to fly in that race. I expect it to get a lot worse. Mayoral campaigns are traditionally viewed as contact sports in the city. If you're from D.C., NYC, Philly (not Chicago so much, Daley has it on lock), San Fran, or L.A., you know what I'm talking about.
Booker T. Washington ain't a friend of mine. People jock him for the Tuskegee model, but here's the skinny. Besides the fact that it wasn't his model, whites worked with him to make absolutely sure there was no way that black tradesmen trained by Tuskegee wouldn't compete with whites. And there really isn't any excuse for selling black political rights short.
But a city like Detroit is 80% black. With a large need for tradesmen to rebuild the city.
In some critical ways Booker T. was a day late and a dollar short. But now would be the perfect time to rebuild the Detroit education system to train a new generation of pipefitters, carpenters, and electricians.
And this brings us back to Cosby.
Bill made his smackdown stop at Detroit the other day. Rochelle Riley gives us the normal spiel. "Cosby came and gave us the word, now we have to pick up the ball." This evangelical model (speaker comes, gives the word, changes psyches, people go out, spread the word, change psyches, the world changes) has no politics of importance. No substantive organizing model. We've been here before.
For some reason I'm reminded of Dennis Archer's speech at the Million Man March. Archer, then mayor of Detroit, is far from a nationalist. But Detroit had one of the largest contingents there and he felt he had to represent. What did he have to say? About as much as any of the rest of the speakers...but I remember him talking about trash pickup in the city. "We've got to take more responsibility in cities like Detroit," he said "what does that mean? If the trash isn't picked up in your neighborhood....PICK IT UP YOURSELF!!!"
The crowd resounded.
And here I was thinking...damn. We pay TAXES. You're telling us that if our taxes aren't giving us services, rather than fight for more resources, fight for increased service delivery, we should....just do what we're paying someone else to do?
Maybe wearing a black and green bandana on our heads while we're doing it would make it more radical.
My mother had a friend who was a grade school teacher. After talking with her friend, my mother and father brought me a blackboard, magnetic letters, and instruction books concerning reading, writing, and simple math. On the first day of school, I was placed into the class of students who were already reading and writing.
This was a private school. My mother was a nurse at a public hospital, my father was a policeman. Gasp! Government workers!
At the start of the second grade, because of a family situation change, I was now in a public school in Baltimore. I was considered "smart", most likely because I was ahead of my peers.
At another school, in the 5th grade, some people said I was "acting white." But I recognized, even as a kid, that the people saying it were the FEW who were not doing well in school, so I ignored it. With very little effort, my grades were fine.
In the 7th grade in junior high school, I was placed into the "fast track" section. It was in the 7th grade that I discovered girls were nice in a different way. ;-) By the 8th grade, I was still in the "fast track," still getting good grades, and still doing so with very little effort.
We played spades at lunch, tried to flurt with the girls, and took life for what it was. One day, I noticed Tank and Billy talking about going to Poly. I owe Tank and Billy a big thank you because they said I was "too stupid" to get into Poly. Well, I got in. We all applied for Poly's "advanced college prep" course. We all got in.
In high school, we were in the "higher section" of the A course 9th grade, which meant we had a high probablity of leaving the A course. I faced a Spanish teacher who, really, just chose me to make an example of. I faced a self-professed redneck pig farmer who threw me out of class for responding "yeah". I faced a counselor who insisted that I wasn't capable of doing the work and should "fall" to the B course, which was the college prep track. Billy and Tank dropped, but I refused.
We were already behind when we entered Poly. Some had already had alegbra and geometry in jr. high. We had "pre-algebra."
To get up to speed, which took 1 1/2 years, my mother enlisted the aid of family members who were engineers. There was also the help of the counselor, who hated the "pig farmer" because he didn't like her son, who was Jewish. There was the help of 2 Black teachers, one in math the other in history. Mrs. Wade, the history teacher, had her son, a Naval Acadamy attendee, tutor me.
I caught up and, in my senior year, was taking advanced calculus, electrical engineering, and thermodynamics.
I took the SAT test. After the test, I noticed some people leaving the test shaking their heads, literally, in dispair. It turned out that I knew some of them from elementary or jr. high school.
One girl who I knew from jr. high was crying. She kept saying she was never taught most of the things on the math test, nor were the words on the verbal portion familiar to her. She was just getting into a harder form of algebra. She was just taking geometry. Meanwhile, I had had algebra and geometry in the 9th grade. I knew she was smart. She just was not educated as well as I was at that point. We had taken the PSAT. Before that, we were given practice PSAT and SAT tests. We. Were. Prepared.
Tank, Billy, and I all attended a major four year college. I don't know what happened to the girl who was crying.
Again, Tank and Billy, THANK YOU. My grades were good in jr. high school. I was in the "fast track". When my mother checked with other parents concerning what their public school children were doing, I was doing well. But Tank and Billy teased me to going to an engineering and science high school. At that time, I had no such desire to go that route. Your teasing made a difference.
During this time, I happened to attend a speech given by Jesse Jackson, Sr. It was during this time when he was famous for his "Keep hope alive!" speeches. During this speech, he told us to stay in school. He told us to do the best that we could do. He told us to study. He told us to stay away from drugs. He told us to not give into crime. He told us to stay away from drug users and dealers. He told us to not be sexually active until we are married. He should have took his own advice on that one. Well, he should have only been with his wife.
Next, the college years.
At last, an honest mayor!
D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams cited the "urgent need" to collect revenue in his recent request to continue the city's automated traffic-enforcement program, which added four new cameras yesterday, despite previous assurances that use of the technology is driven by concerns for safety, not profits. "There is an urgent need for the approval of this contract to ensure the continued processing of District tickets and the collection of District revenues," Mr. Williams wrote in a Dec. 16 letter to D.C. Council Chairman Linda W. Cropp. In the letter, Mr. Williams was seeking support for the District's $14.6 million contract with ACS State and Local Solutions, which the council later approved. ACS, a private company, handles fines for the city's automated traffic-enforcement program.
Wonderful...
Lately, I've been hearing more people refer to criminals in high crime areas as terrorists. I've been hearing more people refer to drug dealers who apply fear to the neighborhoods where they do their criminal activities as terrorists. I've been hearing people say that the dealers using intimidation is nothing more than terrorism.
I am not a wordsmith and I am guilty of loose use of the American version of English, but the use of terrorism and terrorist, as I have given it, is an abuse of the language that should not be allowed to stand.
I understand the seriousness of crime in some areas. I helped board up a dwelling that was being used as a drug den. A police officer saw what we were doing, parked his car, and watched. Later, the people who wanted to get into the dwelling undid our work and continued to do what they did. The only reason why we boarded up the dwelling is because complaints to the city about the problem resulted in nothing. About 2 years later, a 70-80 something year old woman was dragged into that dwelling and raped. The woman was kind to everyone in the neighborhood. One teenage girl heard what happened and told the police that some people in that dwelling had raped her as well. The city then tore down the building.
If the authorities did their jobs, from policing, to applying correct terms to those convicted, to keeping them locked up when they have committed violent crimes, more people would be willing to speak up and help out the authorities.
We don't need to call criminals terrorists. We need to call them criminals and deal with them as such.
I am sure that according to the Chinese New Year we aren't living in the Year of the Idiot. But if you read the news you wouldn't believe it.
So the black welfare queen meme starts with Reagan. Reagan's Republican Party is trying to figure out a way to neuter strong support for welfare policies in general. Charles Murray (who later argues that blacks are genetically inferior to whites in The Bell Curve) makes an argument in Losing Ground that poverty policies actually increase poverty rather than hurt it. The urban poor have more kids to actually increase their welfare checks. When this idea is attached specifically to images of black women, the deal is pretty much done. By the mid nineties, you could give two groups of white Americans the exact same story about welfare, manipulate the race of the victim, and the groups would exhibit support for two very different policy preferences.
Now back to Murray real quick. The central argument is that women are making a rational decision to have more kids in order to make more money. The logic here is straightforward....unless you are a parent. Or someone who studies birthing trends. Or someone who studies migration trends. Or someone who believes that the poor are not much different than the rest of us. Or someone who believes that black people aren't deviant.
You believe any one of those propositions...and the argument crumbles on its face.
Now what the hell does the decision to cut the NSF budget have to do with welfare?
Three words--reality based community.
The conservatives do not believe that knowledge can be gained by scientific endeavor.
No. This is not quite right.
By their DEEDS, the Republican conservatives running the government don't believe that knowledge can be gained by scientific endeavor. In as much as they were able to change the way that folks think about welfare without science the first, what is happening with NSF is part of a larger plan to make the US a third world state.
Booker Rising gets a big hat tip from me.
At some point Cosby's crusade either reaches the level of the street, of people like Kenny and Tate, or it will come to be seen as little more than sound and fury signifying nothing more than the power of an outspoken celebrity to get people talking.
What should Cosby do? He might try shoring up the work of those who have shown they can make a difference in the lives of inner-city youths. Marshall and Holland are splendid examples; but in any large city, there are heroes dedicated to helping young people make wise choices—one crisis at a time. Those who do such work are always chronically underfunded and tragically underrecognized. For Cosby to publicly join forces with them would surely help their cause—and his.
The comedian already has indicated that he would like this crusade to become something more than a one-man roadshow. He has aligned himself with Ras Baraka, the deputy mayor of Newark, N.J., to launch something called "Hip Hop for the PEOPLE" (Providing Education Opportunity, Prosperity and Life Eternally)—an entity that will urge rappers to focus on subjects other than sex and bling.
It's wonderful Cosby has involved himself in a war that has consumed so many young lives. But this war's most meaningful battles will not be fought from floodlit stages. They will be fought in inner-city streets, and in schools and clubs, where souls are saved one at a time, and where the applause of a star-struck crowd is rarely to be found.
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More at that link...
See, this is what I've been saying. Talking all the negative doesn't mean jack unless you show off the positive. He doesn't mean a damn thing unless you show what's being done.
I'm about to get real foul.
From my view, "Black conservatives" do nothing but say, essentially, "Look at the niggers, they ain't doing shit right!"
Why don't they show the groups doing positive things?
And the "Black liberals" do nothing but say, essentially, "Niggers can't get ahead because of the system!"
Why don't they show more of the people who are getting ahead? Why aren't they spotlighting more of the groups that help?
Two peas in the same pod, at the opposite ends of the same pod, talking smack and not doing much of a damn thing.
Why didn't I receive so much as a form letter from the NAACP when I sent this note?
Why didn't I receive so much as a form letter from Project 21 when I sent this note?
Someone with too much time on their hands, too concerned about other people's biznizz instead of their biznizz, decided to create a story and send it out on the internet to generate something. Maybe to make a social-racial-political statement.
I don't care who she dates/loves/sexes/whatever.
What I DO care about is how she is presenting herself.
It's bad enough that when you go to the mall, or walk down the street, you see young Black girls/women, dressed in a manner that says, "All I have to present to you is a nice rack and phat ass". (Of course, it's not just Black women/girls doing it).
And then you see Serena playing tennis in a Black "cat" outfit that had boys/men, of all races, drooling and breaking out the vasaline. Or, you see pictures of her on the internet, and she's in "evening wear" displaying "the twins" for all to see.
She doesn't have to do that. Frankly, only hookers "have" to do that. And even then, they don't have to do what they do.
If someone wants to make a social-racial-political statement, start with that situation, not dating habits.
Or better yet, mind your own business and find something more worthwhile to get involved in.
To continue on Cobb's piece.
Cobb writes:
Black Conservatives don't play the 'Positive Black Images Game'.
I disagree with this one.
I can point to the examples of Black conservatives speaking out against the negative imagery of Black life put forth by rappers. If "Black conservatives" don't play the "positive Black images game," then why worry about the negative images put forth by rappers.
Woodson resigned from AEI over Dinesh D'Souza's, End of Racism. In a response to a press release, the president of AEI responded:
Loury and Woodson not only called the book racist but made the charge the headline of their press release (“Black Conservatives Resign From American Enterprise Institute in Response to ‘Racist’ Book by AEI Resident Scholar Dinesh D’Souza”). Mr. Woodson has several times, and with great relish, called Mr. D’Souza “the Mark Fuhrman of public policy.”
It seems the imagery in the book disturbed Woodson.
But that's on the macro level of Blacks as a whole. After re-reading the piece, and re-reading what I wrote, maybe I addressed what was written at too high of a level.
Maybe I need to go lower.
One day I saw Woodson on Tony Brown's Journal. On the show, along with other things, he addressed the view of many Black conservatives by the Black community. If I remember correctly, he said the negative imagery bothered him some. He then went on to attack "Black leaders". But, if I remember correctly, he did say that some of it is self inflicted. If Woodson is comfortable within himself, as Cobb wrote, then why say he was bothered and then why go on the attack against "Black leaders"?
There are many other "Black conservatives" who attack the negative imagery that they are tarred with. So, I can't agree that "Black conservatives" don't play the "Positive Black Images Game". They are trying to improve their image. They are trying to be seen as positives, not negatives. That's playing the "Positive Black Images Game."
But, then if the comment was intended to say that Black conservatives don't feel the need to point out positive Blacks because of "individualism" issues, then, again, I disagree. For example, Condi Rice and Clarence Thomas are regularly written about as being positive models for Blacks to follow.
The battles are fairly shallow and interminable. They go on and on about the same idiot things. It's a trap that liberals never seem to tire of baiting. Black Republicans take a measure of false pride in their embattled status and do a good deal of sniping back.
I agree that the battles are fairly shallow. I really don't like it, though I engage in it. But many comments being made, initially, from "Black conservatives" are simple minded. That's not to say that many comments initiated from "Black liberals" are not simple minded, because they are simple minded.
At this point, I want to say something about what was quoted. Black Republicans take a measure of false pride in their embattled status.
I'm sorry, I don't see why that is not "victimology" as expoused by "Black conservatives".
And there I go, on a tangent about the shallow "victimology" label thrown around.]
It's late, this is getting long. I've re-written it a number of times and still the thoughts flow. Let me finish this edition. These last paragraphs are intended for "Black conservatives" in general and not Cobb in particular.
If "Black conservatives" are about the business that is claimed, then doing the work that needs to be done will change the image. If there is seriousness in the drive to do it, then why not hook up with people who have the benefit of a doubt? Hence, why I bring up Earl Graves, Sr.
Read the man's bio. Then read about The Black Wealth Initiative. Then read a few issues of Black Enterprise.
There is a real need to get more Black businesses going. Would it be hard for "Black conservatives" to coordinate some activities with Earl Graves, Sr. and/or Black Enterprise to get some real work done?
Or is it really about the "Black conservative" image, just not within the Black community?
It's late.
Gotta digest this one by Cobb.
( Baldilocks tracks back to it, so I do the same for her)
I have much to do outside of cyberspace.
Much respect to Cobb. Much respect. I'm not feelin' it though.
You see, "Black conservatives" as well as "white conservatives" say that instead of looking up to Jesse Jackson, et. al., other role models should be followed: Larry Elder, Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas, etc.
Actually, I'd rather, and do, look up to my mother, my aunts, my cousins, and a few of my friends. I take bits and pieces and build on their strengths. Anyway...
If I'm told to look at American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault as an example, why should I not include Earl Graves, Sr.? Both, to me, are impressive people.
If you take a good look, Graves is in more control of things than is Ken Chenault. Or, at least that's how I look at it. Both control companies, but Graves owns his. Chenault, is "just" the steward. You feel me? It's not a slam, though.
Right is right. Wrong is wrong.
If you point out when people do wrong and then take the time to point out when people do "right" when they agree with you on a certain topic, then be consistent in pointing out when they do right, in general. So, hence my points about Mfume.
And let's be real. What I do, in part, is in no way different from many of the columns that Larry Elder does, when he points out the inconsistancies of "Black leaders" and/or the "left".
I've spent the past 18 years trying to build up the self-image, self-reliance, drive, and confidence of my daughter. I just spent the last 20 minutes trying to pump her up over a rough patch of her first semester in college. It's cool, and rewarding to me, that she's exploring ways to help herself out after getting a little down.
Yeah. We get knocked down. But we g.t.f. up and battle again.
Yeah, let me brag a little more...
She was in the 10th grade, encouraging others in her class to do well. She was in the 11th grade, doing the same, even for the 12th graders. She was in the 12 grade, still encouraging others in her class, and below, to do their best.
EVEN THOSE IN COLLEGE WHO SHE KEPT IN TOUCH.
It's about self image.
And I don't do it out of some liberal self-image blather, I do it because of what I've seen growing up and learning that the people who pumped me up, helped me when people, of all races, tried to knock me down.
<Flashback>
Self image.
I quickly noticed in the 5th and 6th grades, that those who slammed me for trying to do well in school, were those who weren't doing well. They had more issues with themselves than with me. They didn't view themselves as being "good enough."
That's how I looked at it then. I ignored them. In Jr. High, I was put into the "fast track". Everyone in that class tried to do our best. Meanwhile, others in the "regular track" tried to get into our track.
I attended a college prep high school. I was in the "advanced college prep" track, the "A Course". I had friends in the "college prep" track, the "B Course".
The teachers pumped both tracks up.
"Those of you in the A Course will be the leaders of industry, thought, and innovation." Meanwhile the same teachers were telling the B Course, "Look. Most of the A Course are way over their heads. They will get low grades and get into lower level schools. On the other hand, you will get the good grades, get into the top schools, and are still well prepared. You will be the bosses of the A course!"
There was also a vocational-technical track, the "T Course."
I witnessed as teachers said that they just want them to finish high school, with a trade, because that's all they can do. I witnessed as some of them appeared to settle for the lower ring instead of going for the ring hanging off of the stars.
You can't tell me that low expectations had nothing to do with that! And if anyone says I'm biting G. W. Bush, Imma pimp smack you to the womb because "Black leaders" and Blacks of all stripes have been complaining about low expectations for years. Anyway...
Self image.
I tutored in D.C. for a bit. I tutored one on one for kids I knew. It disturbed and continues to disturb me that kids place limitations on themselves because people around them put limitations on them.
"You from the hood and gonna stay here in the hood. That's just how it be."
Bull.
</Flashback>
So, here we have "Black conservatives" who are saying they are positive about Blacks. They are saying that all Blacks can achieve if they follow the basic rules and don't let racism get them down. (I've heard that from "Black liberals" too, but never mind that for now).
But yet some of the more damning self-images of Blacks comes from "Black conservatives" themselves!
I've listened to Jesse Lee Peterson's 'net show. I had to stop because it raised my pressure and at the same time, left me wanting to shoot myself just because I'm Black!
I've listened to Ken Hamblin. Lawd... That's a Black man who said it's right for companies to ignore Black media, no matter what the demographics, because Blacks are undesirable clientile. OK, tell that to the cruise line Tom Joyner uses for his cruise. Tell that to the travel agencies and island businesses that made bucoup money off of Sinbad's old school parties. Or tell that to New Orleans who makes money, during the summer(!), off of the Essence Festival!
I mean, for goodness sake! How can Black conservatives, on one hand, point to the growth of the Black middle class, then on the other hand, say that Blacks aren't achieving?
Or that most Blacks are lock step behind "Black leaders" all of the time, yet it's also pointed out that Blacks diverge from "Black leaders" when it comes to vouchers or homosexual marriage?
And somehow what's being said from "the right" is better than those on "the left" giving the image of all Blacks being poor and down?
For the likes of me, I can't see how!
Really.
From Cobb:
But I believe that even when we say what we are all about and try to exemplify, we're never going to win the images battle. Nevertheless, we have the reality of individuality and truth on our side. That's good enough for me.
I'm in this for the image battle. I have a young relative that I have to help look out for. I have kids of friends and godchildren I have to help look out for.
If the image is rotten and coming from "Black liberals" or if the image is rotten and coming from "Black conservative" or if the image is rotten and coming from whites, or if the image is rotten and coming from rappers, ... I'm going to do my best to fight it with facts and positive imagery.
That's behind my "jabs in the ribs" of Cobb and others.
Cobb, in a previous incarnation, you called me a vanguard of Blacks of sorts. Well, I guess it can fit.
Damn.
I gotta go to sleep.
More later.....
I'm not done.
Nope.
Not. One. Bit.
Done with respect.
We all are familiar with the figures that Prometheus presents. White prison populations are significantly decreasing while black and Latino populations are skyrocketing--Latinos for what appears to be immigration related violations, blacks for drug-related problems.
Now pundits on the left have argued clearly that black and white drug consumption patterns are similar. If anything blacks use drugs less than their white counterparts--and it isn't simply a matter that blacks are poor and don't have the loot to get high. What is going on--and the research here (conducted by John Wallace now at Pittsburgh among others) is that blacks have a number of community oriented checks against drug use, while whites don't have those checks.
BUT.
Blacks aren't put in jail because of drug use--they are put in jail because of drug SALES. I am fairly positive that the same type of gap exists between black and white drug sellers--with whites selling more than their black counterparts. These are the questions I don't have definite answers to:
*What percentage of DEA and local police enforcement resources are spent towards dealing with drugs in urban areas as opposed to suburban or rural areas?
*What percentage of drug sales in urban spaces are public, as opposed to drug sales in rural and suburban areas?
*What percentage of LOW LEVEL drug sales are in urban spaces as opposed to rural and suburban areas?
The reason blacks are put in prison on drug related crimes is not simply "racism." We have to interrogate what that term means in this specific space and time. It is more likely that the same forces which have led to hypersegregation have led to a dynamic in which drug sales in places like Detroit are more likely to be low level, highly visible and easy to prosecute...whereas drug sales in places like Southfield or in Podunk, Iowa are more likely to be either low level and have low levels of visibility, high level and have low levels of visibility or have the active aid of the police department.
From The Washington Post (Registration required):
Over the years, there have been lots of explanations for this relative lack of entrepreneurial success -- a shortage of capital within the black community, outright discrimination by banks and franchisers, finding more models of success in government, the professions and sports. Others point to the fact that other minority groups are made up largely of immigrants who, by definition, are a self-selected group of risk-takers.
But a recent study, also funded by Kauffman, puts the lie to the notion that blacks don't even think of starting their own businesses. At any given time, a significantly greater percentage of blacks than either whites or Hispanics is attempting to start a business. And this difference widens further among those in middle age, in upper-income brackets or with advanced degrees. Among black males with graduate degrees, for example, the "nascent entrepreneur" rate was 25 percent, compared with 11 percent for whites.
OK, so now this article has set off a round of posts by people. I'll say it's about damn time.
I've been arguing for some time now, that based on some readings I've made, the "acting white" charge may be over blown. Note, I'm not saying it doesn't happen. And, to be sure, one charge is one charge too much. But from my experience, when it happened to me, it came from someone who was not performing well. I saw it as an obvious case of envy. That's a lot different from it being a "Black culture thang."
LaShawn, Booker Rising, LKSpence, and Ambra make comments on this report about "Acting White". Not that anyone cares, but I've been talking about this for a bit. I've done it on email lists and on USENET.
Here's a sample of my USENET efforts. I'm quoting a study:
Most important, the study found that black students who belonged in academic honor societies were more likely than other black students to perceive themselves as "popular." At predominantly black schools, students in honor societies were more popular than students who had not been so honored. Cook and Ludwig conclude that the evidence "is not compelling" that nationwide black students who aspire to educational pursuits are ridiculed by their peers.
If there are stronger antiacademic norms among black adults, black parents would be expected to have reduced involvement with their children's schools relative to white parents. Our analysis of the NELS data finds that, on average, African American parents are at least as involved in their children's educations as white parents of similar means.The NELS 10th graders reported the frequency of different interactions
between their parents and school. As seen in Table 5, African American
parents are more likely to telephone their child's teacher, a
difference that increases once family socioeconomic status is
controlled. A greater propensity for African American parents to
contact school staff by telephone would, of course, be of limited
vallue if phone calls were a substitute for, rather than a complements
to, other forms of involvement in their child's schooling. But
analysis of the NELS datasuggests that African American parents are at
least as involved as white parents in other ways, as well. The results
shown in Talbe 5 indicated that almost 65 percent of African American
parents were reported by their children as having attended at least
one schoo meeting in the 1990 fall semester, vs about 56 percent for
white parents. Once family SES is controlled, this difference
increases to almost 14 percentage-point advantage in favor of African
American parents. Similar results are found in Table 5 for aprental
attendance at school events.
Again, I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I am saying that before people jump on the bash Black culture band wagon, get an idea of what you're speaking about. Is it "culture" or one on one envy?
And why doesn't the "sterotype threat" idea get more examination? After all, people swooned when George W. Bush used "bigotry of low expectations" and it's the same thing under a different name.
Dr. Robert Brown sent me this.
The kicker:
Race-related pressure to avoid or disparage academic challenges did not exist at the elementary grades, the research showed. Rather, researchers found that adolescents in North Carolina harbor a general sentiment against high academic achievement, regardless of race. Researchers documented race-related oppositional attitudes at only one of 11 schools where they interviewed students."Our explanation for this finding centers on the extent to which 'rich' white students were overrepresented in rigorous courses and programs, a situation that breeds animosity and resentment among the many toward the privileged few," Darity said.
The research suggests that animosity toward high-achieving students - regardless of race - grows over time and develops from a general concern among elementary-age students about arrogance to a more focused concern among adolescents about academic inequities between status groups.
Recently, I was involved in a mini-discussion with some members of The Conservative Brotherhood concerning "Black leaders" and what they have said vs. what the mainstream media reports they have said.
One of the things I mentioned was, despite the claims, Al Sharpton and some other "Black leaders" had spoken out against the filth in rap.
To that end, I quote Something by Al Sharpton as it appeared in Davey D's website.
With all the stuff going on in this world, all they're worried about is being able to call a woman out of her name?! That's their cause? First of all, it's wrong. But second, it is insulting. These rappers and "hip-hop impresarios" weren't worried about unemployment or the financial conditions of those who support their records and made them stars. They weren't worried about the education system that keeps too many of their fans and families in poverty. They weren't worried about voting rights. They didn't have any conferences on any of that. There wasn't one seminar entitled "Economic Empowerment" or "Jobs for the 21st Century."
No, they want the right to call somebody a ho or a bitch - somebody who brought them into this world. As far as I'm concerned, they are low-down devious things who aren't worth the millions of dollars young people spend t o make them stars.
What's in a name? To me, other than the means to address a person, not much.
If parents decide to attribute more to the means of addressing their child, that's fine.
This piece by The Black Informant provides his insight into giving Black children a "Black sounding name".
In the end, since all names are made up, all names are legitimate, even if they do seem silly.
Booker Rising gets right to the point. One that seems to be untouchable.
The NAACP is not getting the younger Blacks to join their organization. That's the reason why they chose Ben Chavis to head their organization. He was said to have the ability to cross the generational divide. He couldn't do it, plus he drove the NAACP further into the red.
Skip to today and the NAACP still has the same problem. This, along with some of their own actions, is causing the NAACP membership to fall.
So I still wonder why "Black conservatives" feel the need to target the organization as the enemy. Let the "natural order of events" do them in.
Or is it something else that is feared?
Today's edition of The Black Slate deals with the myth of "Down Low" activity being a significant cause of HIV/AIDS. I read yet another piece about JL King (author of the first DL book I believe--he isn't worth linking to), and got pissed. As I told someone, it is always an easy thing to make a buck off of black pathology. And while we're blaming DL black men, the administration is cutting HIV/AIDS funds on the one hand, and telling people condom's supposedly don't work on the other.
I've said before that success is a matter of falling down seven times and getting up eight. Yesterday I left a message with someone, I forgot who, that try as I might I can't evade my seven. But again, networks come into play.
My car died on me. If I had a job that actually required my physical presence I'd be SOL. And as I don't have the money to pay--which is why the car is dead rather than on life support--it isn't like I've got the loot to get a new ride. But what I do have is a fraternity brother with a car lying fallow. So he's more than willing to let me borrow Betsy as long as I can take good care of her (Thanks GABE!!).
In as much as I try to be a good Brother, my network WORKS because of what I put into it. BUT if I were in different circumstances, my personal character wouldn't mean squat, because I wouldn't have acccess to those folks who could loan me something based on my personal credit. I could, using the Cosby framework, speak perfect English, go straight home from school, do my homework, wear pants that fit me, and still be SOL when my car breaks down.
Come to think of it, I've got a better story. My sister needed a car badly. She was at a business seminar, and the facilitator asked the participants to get up and state their needs. I don't know why...I don't really do those types of events.
Anyway, my sister gets up and says "I need a car." And then proceeds to explain why.
After the seminar an older woman comes up to her. "I heard your story, and you know what? I've got a car lying around that I NEVER use. You can have it."
You remember that Eddie Murphy skit? What would the world be like if he were white? That's what that story (and my own as I think about it) reminds me of.
Though life for me ain't been no crystal stair, I've had a number of successes. And often even when it looks like things will come crashing down, something falls through.
I'm moving to Baltimore for example. I am simultaneously juggling three major research projects, selling a house, and buying a house. And I've been trying to do almost all of it within a couple of months. For a number of reasons, getting a house in the Baltimore/DC area hasn't been easy at all. We've gotten turned down more times than we can count.
But I figured if we stayed still and were calm about it something would come through. For us, for ME, it usually does.
In this case what happened was simple. We sent out feelers to our folks. To my fraternity, and to members of Delta Sigma Theta (not quite a sister sorority but close). To my friends here at Wash. U.
Yesterday we got a call from a sister in Baltimore. Turns out that a church has a home that needs a family--their new pastor already has a home. Because we're good with the contact (through one of OUR contacts) things like a credit check, an interview, etc. don't appear to be needed. The house is only a few minutes away from where I'll be working, and we should be able to get our kids into one of the better schools in the area.
How does this relate to Jonathan? To equilibria? To knuckleheads?
What is the role of networks in African American life? What type of networks do we have access to, compared to the working poor...or the non-working poor?
I know somewhere I've written about my encounter with the law here in Missouri related to a couple of tickets I had. I made a call to one of my fraternity brothers who happens to be a partner in a prestigious law firm and next thing I know the record has been expunged. Though Jonathan indirectly had access to us, he'd cut himself off from us sometime ago. Networks serve as a buoy on the one hand, and as a weight on the other. They can either keep us afloat (serving as the Hand of God) or they can drag us down quicker than Uncle Pussy from the Sopranos.
This is the reason why Affirmative Action--a very very conservative policy--is important. THE reason.
Someone I've known for the last 13 years was sentenced to jail today for 1st degree criminal sexual assault. Allegedly he sodomized an 8 year old.
The young child wasn't believed by any of the adults that cared for her. But this is par for the course. . . the mother of the child was seeing the accused.
Here is the kicker. There was no evidence of penetration. No evidence of contact at all. The pro-bono lawyer didn't want Jonathan (not his real name) to take the plea, but when faced with the prospect of 25-life Jonathan was scared. I've known him since he was around 13 or so. He's been in and out of minor trouble, and hustling pretty much since then. Last we heard (before this) he'd been living with some woman or another, in a small shack in Detroit, "looking for work."
So of course when we FIRST heard the story, we just assumed that he did it. All of us. He wasn't a particularly bad person, but he was shaky enough that none of us put it past him. And when we heard a fuller version of the story, we just assumed that the pro-bono lawyer just looked at the case without looking at the evidence and threw him to the wolves. Both of our assumptions were wrong.
Now? He's still looking at life. Not life in prison mind you. But he can't be around kids without supervision--EVER. He has to be registered as a known sex offender. He was never eminently employable, but there are now certain jobs he can never get. And in the likely case he gets out and has to start all over relationship wise, I don't know how he can overcome the issues that will arise. Because most prisoners aren't guilty of what they are accused of right? That and a dollar will get you. . . absolutely nowhere (gas is too high).
Damn.
I got this story about the improper use of data in Texas criminal cases from Prometheus. Thanks.
So what we have here is a clear instance of significant malfeasance (or rather what looks to be a clear instance of malfeasance). States like Texas present a clear case for why taxes and good government go hand in hand. To a certain extent though it also points to the way that equilibria are created, a recent topic of discussion both at Cobb and here.
I imagine that the finding that Texans have wrongfully imprisoned (and in some cases murdered) citizens is nothing new. I am not surprised at all. And folks on the left have been waging this battle for a while now--using different rhetoric perhaps but definitely arguing for the same goal, a saner criminal justice system. But those cries until now have fallen on deaf ears. The system changed not a whit.
Was it simply data that caused the equilibria to shift to a point where progress and reform were possible and likely? Such an account might give more weight to individual decision makers than warranted, but perhaps combined with institutional scrutiny (the media), this is what was needed. But we aren't quite done here yet. Just as there are institutional forces that would like to see a better more rational application of justice, there are institutional forces that would prefer the status quo (or worse). And we have yet to begin talking about the various rules and regulations which structure political opportunities even as they themselves are the creation of political processes.
Rustbelt cities like Detroit drained off thousands of folk like river water. Detroit used to hold 2 million people at its height. Now it has a population half that. What to do with the empty space?
A suggestion. With all of the talk about cities needing to bring "the creative class" to their centers, this approach sounds healthier, more sustainable, and closer in line with the future of cities.
Several years ago I had a brief correspondance with Monster Kody Scott aka Sanyika Shakur. He had spent a great deal of time in jail writing about his theories of cohesion - essentially rediscovering something that great military leaders have known through the ages: boys need men and will do anything for them.
Every once in a while I get tossed a question for a link to Scott/Shakur, but I have no idea where he is. I heard that he has been baited a number of times since his last release - shades of 90 day detentions in SA. However one place he and Donald Bakeer might be found is over at a new site pitched my way this morning: Streetgangs.com.
Sooner or later urban policy gets to this matter. We all know the investment is in cops and that's never going to be disinvested. The question is whether we are signed on to permanent low-level warfare. Of course this begs a question of racial solidarity, what do we care that body bags goet filled with brown bodies. It's still bodies, and we needn't pollute our great country with this kind of internal chaos & drama. It's no good having cops coming home from a long day shooting Crips. Its no good having boys think they're soldiers because they taunt cops and beat up civilians.
The only kind of draft that would be fair, is an unfair draft. I think someday I may come to advocate that position, because I can't think of a good reasons to have a prison population which is bigger than any branch of the Armed Services. Just another reason to crank up the Empire.
Meanwhile, thanks to Y for the link.
On All Things Considered it was reported that foreclosures are rising in Austin. I've got a few friends there now and from what I understand the housing is abundant and affordable. It seems to me that if you've been preparing, and have some money stowed away, that now would be an excellent time to purchase real estate in places like Austin. In fact, now would be an excellent time for black investors to jump into the fray en masse. But aren't there ethics involved? Listening to the woman talk about how she's got her eye on a house but she didn't check it out on the inside "because there's people living there now" was poignant.
The controversy over the construction of a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Inglewood has been brought to my attention once again. I am all for Wal-Mart for a number of reasons. Let me add more.
Wal-Mart, in my estimation, will inevitably drive other local businesses out of business. But I also am convinced that they will grow the amount of net business conducted in the area. But what of the downside, and specifically, what of black consumers and businesses? Is this mainstreaming not wanted?
It is still an open question as to what efficiencies black owned businesses provide operating in a black community. Lower marketing costs perhaps? Will these necessarily be passed on to the consumer? Or will it be that black consumers are willing to pay higher prices from black merchants?
We can take it for granted that Walmart's 'capital force projection' is sufficient to deliver low prices irrespective of their location. So even beyond the question of Ujamaa vs Black Capitalism vs Blackface Capitalism, we have the question of price. Assuming that Wal-Mart gets the green light in Inglewood, there will exist some overlap with regard to products and services available to the community. I for one, would love to see these premises tested head to head.
I made just such a request to someone I met at Earl Ofari Hutchinson's joint who said they represented the local Inglewood merchants, and said such data would be forthcoming. But he is just as likely to have lost my business card as I have his. Hopefully we'll hear him squawk again after the election.
My point again is that I don't believe there is sufficiently effective gravity in the current Democratic black politics to resist the material benefits of mainstream American life and those irrational arguments presented (e.g. contra Wal-Mart) which attempt to justify a racial exceptionalism are reactionary & theoretical, taking very little of blackfolks real lives into account. There is no reason to expect that African Americans themselves are any more or less resistant to the very idea of Wal-Mart than anyone else, yet since there is a preponderance of people who claim to represent blackfolks with anti-corporate and socialist labor philosophies, they assume that doing their work is 'black' work. The effect of blocking the expansion of Wal-mart into Inglewood is thus highly symbolic of what would be considered 'good' for blackfolks and if successful, can energize a lot of people. But while this could be considered a political victory for the left, it comes in direct contradiction to the broad calls for investment by mainstream corporations into heretofore neglected communities.
What is specifically ironic about this opposition to Wal-Mart's investment is that the most commonly used framework for arguing against capital infusions, gentrification, has not been employed. Wal-Mart is nothing if it is not downscale and of great benefit to those people with low incomes. I continue to shake my head.
A few years back Mel Farr, a former Detroit Lion running back, was run out of the car dealership business. Farr took a gamble on those who were credit risks, and their inability to pay, along with his own shady business practices eventually caught up with him. Reading this story reminds me a bit of Farr, but also makes me think about some of the hurdles folk have to jump through in order to fight racism. Note that the possibility that the dealer is shady AND that his superiors are racist isn't being considered. It's a zero sum game.
When I was younger and living in the Detroit area, there was a mall on the outskirts of the city (EVERY mall was on the outskirts of the city). Northland. For those of us unable to get to Northland by bus, it represented sort of a young black paradise. Because we'd heard that most of the young girls who hung out there on the weekend were fine. Given that my wife lived around the block from it and hung out there herself, we weren't that far off the mark.
But what we didn't know was that Northland signified a much larger dynamic in the creation, and eventual destruction of the twentieth century city. While folks blame black power and Coleman Young for white flight, places like Northland had a lot to do with it.
Back when I finally got to college, I read Paul Fussell's 'Class' and I have been rather fascinated ever since. The funny thing about Fussell was that he put himself in a new bucket, the 'X' class. Class restraint was all somebody else's problem, he didn't fit in the traditional definitions.
I think the traditional breakout of class has always been too clumpy to work. Upper Class, Middle Class, Lower Class doesn't cover 300 million American people well. So I've improvised. For the most part in my writing I have concentrated on the class differences between African Americans and I've done so from the point of view that geography is destiny in a post Jim Crow society. For African Americans I have used five classes.
{Hill,Hood,Ghetto,Projects,Sticks}
Much of my guidance in these matters comes from Weiss and Garreau, but also Fussell, David Brooks, Cornel West and (of all people) PJ O'Rourke. (off the top of my head)
As pertains to African America, I've been particularly curious about the fate of the Talented Tenth, what integration has done both positively and negatively for that group and those who looked up to them. Thus my interest in creating things like The Neighborhood Project.
As I look around, I wonder how well black politics is prepared to deal with the consequences of the expressed desires of African America not to be percieved as a monolith. Now that the monolith is smashed, who is going to pick of the biggest pieces and which direction are they heading with those fragments?
Taking responsibility for the Old School and Talented Tenth, I percieve our fault to be assuming that the kind of respect we got in the 'hood would translate, or that we would be always able to take it back to the 'hood. Everybody knows, or pretends to know, that we don't respect Jessie Jackson. So who do we respect? And who do we tell about it? Or does that not matter any longer? In other words was politics too much with us for the sake of that one time transition from Negro to Black to African American and now we need to recognize this is the promised land and get back to {home, church, business} and out of the public sphere.
As a Republican (and I'm fairly sure I'm in the mainstream of moderate Republicans, as few as there may be remaining), I advocate for a pro-business, commonsense, pro-family, pro-civil libertarian kind of politics of social power. This is quite distinct from the politics of liberation. So this brings me to the serious question of what to do with gap that makes (real of percieved) between the 'watchdogs / liberators' (often misnamed 'progressives') and those pushing the envelope of black politics.
You see I'm operating on the assumption that Black Culture (which I will no longer put in lower case) is the responsibility of those who surpass ordinary boundaries. As integration and emergence proceed, more and more African Americans of substance will be capable and able to do those things we've always measured ourselves by. 'The Jews do x', 'Whitefolks do y'. And while it's certainly not fair or accurate to have such 'standards' of comparison, there are Jews and whitefolks who are indeed doing some of the things that make our country great. Despite what we do or do not know about their networks, I think it is reasonable to assume that African Americans of a successful hue will clump together in autonomous networks which are multiracial, but include large interconnected black families.
As a generation who integrated predominantely white colleges and universities, black networking was significant and useful to us, both academically and socially. What becomes of the leaders of the Black Student Unions of 1984 now in the greater society in 2004? This is not simply an echo of the Black Baby Boom. There is rebellion and synthesis, but it doesn't quite have a face. Certainly not a nationally recognized one when it comes to politics.
I think Class plays a big part in this, but I don't think 'trans-class unity' is an appropriate way to identify the pull between previously proud Talented Tenthers and the black man on the street.
More later...
The crisis of the American cities in the 1960's and 1970's is often ascribed to racial tensions, which did indeed play a part. But Mr. Rae suggests that the problems were broader, that what was later called "white flight" actually began in the 1920's with the weakening of the city center. The tragedy, in his account, is that the great migration of blacks to Northern cities in the 1930's and 40's began at the very moment when the jobs and factories they were seeking were becoming less stable.
This snippet is taken from an article that appeared in The New York Times entitled What Should a City Be? You won't hear this question brought up in a single debate. You won't see it asked on a single Sunday News program. You definitely won't hear Bill O'Reilly talk about it...but this is the most important question of the early 21st Century from my vantage point.
Think about it this way. Cities were created largely to efficiently bring together warehouses for finished/raw product, massive labor pools, manufacturing plantations, financial engines, and shipping routes. Manufacturers left for the suburbs beginning in the fifties, then overseas...along with the warehouses. The financial centers are now largely virtual with a couple of international exceptions. The freeways have largely bypassed waterways like the Detroit River.
What we have left is the large labor pool with nowhere to go for work.
Ofari is trying to grapple with this question in LA (though I don't think he knows it). The Kangaku Book Club here in St. Louis along with The Commonspace are working on this explicitly, as well as The Boggs Center in Detroit.
Many cities have taken the entertainment route. St. Louis, Detroit, and a number of other cities across the country have implicitly argued that the 21st Century City will be a sort of New Babylon, filled with neogladiators, man-whores, and crap games.
The New Urbanists take another route. Let's bring the fifties neighborhood back, they say. I liked watching Leave It To Beaver but I don't think I'd want to LIVE there. See The Truman Show for this view taken to excess.
Boggs and the others in Detroit call for a grassroots transformation of empty blocks and broken alleys into community gardens, lo-tech environmental filtering systems, new waterways and open micro-markets.
This discussion will pretty much remain underground I think. Not many voters, or corporate donors interested in this discussion.
I've been thinking a lot lately about the role of social science in building a better democracy. I'm a finalist for the Robert Wood Johnson Scholars in Health Policy Program, and will be interviewing at the University of Michigan, and at UC Berkeley the next couple of weeks. The purpose of the fellowship is to get social scientists to turn their research agenda towards health. If I were to be selected, it wouldn't be a big transition for me. I consider myself a new jack Fabian in some ways, and I firmly believe that my scholarship doesn't mean much if it can't be used to help people build a better society.
So when I read today's New York Times article about the Science of Crime, I was immediately intrigued. From the bio of Dr. Earl it sure sounds like he should be considered part of the Old School. His tenacity, his ingenuity, and his willingness to knock down the broken windows theory proved it.
James Q. Wilson is the dean of conservative social science and one of the primary intellectuals behind the "broken windows theory" of crime prevention. In a nutshell, this theory posits that there is a relationship between tangential signs of social disorder (broken windows, weeds, graffiti, etc.) and crime. If you on the one hand punish individuals for acts of social disorder AND fix the signs themselves, you should lower the crime rate.
But there are two problems. The first is intellectual--there is little proof that there is a relationship between fixing broken windows (or punishing graffiti artists) and lowering crime rates. And when I say "proof" here I'm talking peer-reviewed journal article type proof--NOT New Republic type proof. The second is both philosophical and political. The basic policy response that emanates from broken windows theory is an aggressive form of policing that basically operates on the assumption that citizens are either criminals to be arrested, or passive standers-by to be maneuvered around.
Here is where Dr. Earls comes in. First the method and the data:
From June to October 1995, trained observers drove a sport utility vehicle at 5 miles per hour down every street in 196 carefully selected Chicago neighborhoods.As they drove, a pair of video recorders, one on each side of the S.U.V., recorded social activities and physical features: litter, graffiti, drug deals, public drinking, everything within the camera's view. When the researchers were done, 11,408 blocks had been observed and videotaped. Then the police records on homicide, robbery and burglary were pulled for each of these 196 neighborhoods, along with in-person surveys of 8,782 residents.
Just the numbers alone are impressive...but for me as a social scientist this is much deeper than that. The mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods involved in this project is a potent fusion. I don't think I would've ever thought about actually doing drive by videotaping, much less combining that with surveys AND neighborhood crime data? You've got to be KIDDING me. Ingenuity doesn't even begin to describe this approach.
But here's the kicker:
In a landmark 1997 paper that he wrote with colleagues in the journal Science, and in a subsequent study in The American Journal of Sociology, Dr. Earls reported that most major crimes were linked not to "broken windows" but to two other neighborhood variables: concentrated poverty and what he calls, with an unfortunate instinct for the dry and off-putting language of social science, collective efficacy.
What this basically means is simple. You get communities to organize themselves, and the crime rate decreases. You organize citizens and empower them, and they transform their own reality. Whereas broken windows basically requires an aggressive state apparatus to subjugate (dare I say "crush") citizens, Earls' approach requires that we give citizens the ability to establish order (whatever that means to them) from the bottom up. I talked about how our goal should be to establish policy that can be spun from ANY perspective (democratic, republican, conservative, liberal, radical)...this is an excellent example. In one fell swoop Earls moves social science forward by his innovative research design, and moves democracy forward by using the results to call for empowering citizens. Dubois would be proud.
Next semester I teach Public Opinion and American Democracy (I'm looking forward to student attempts to create their own propaganda!) and a senior seminar for African American Studies majors. The students register today.
As of this moment I have 10 students in my senior seminar class, and another 4 on the waitlist.
No men.
So maybe they're all selling drugs? Pulled by the lure of easy loot, (more money than they could make at McDonalds!), fine women, and phat rides, maybe the brothers are simply being pulled (by the lure of money, rides, chicks) pushed (by the lack of other jobs) into the black market (pun intended)?
If you're black or Latino and grow up in the seventies and eighties in working class urban environments, you know drug dealers. At least I did. And if you know drug dealers...REALLY know drug dealers, you know this can't explain the gap.
I heard about Steven Levitt over the summer. A young economist (well, not so young anymore) at Chicago, Levitt has become known for asking unique questions. Like "What does the Weakest Link tell us about Discrimination?" Or "What can we learn by tracking the business patterns of a drug gang?" Or "Do black people with 'black names' lose on the market?" (The answer to this last question he gave at Washington University at a talk, but I was out of my mind and missed it.)
To be honest I think his willingness to pursue these questions really tells us more about the genius of everyday folk when applied to the academy, than about HIS genius. That is, if Economics as a discipline weren't filled with white (and some asian) men of middle to upper class backgrounds, someone would've asked these questions before. But yet and still everytime I try to think about what is possible in political science, I check out Levitt's page, and Christian Davenport's.
I remember some time during the late eighties early nineties the bottom of the crack market fell out. From what I understand the supply of crack grew so fast that the profit margins became very very small...and the product became very very cheap (and crack is already pretty cheap). It was when I heard about this dynamic (which I think led to a return to drugs such as marijuana and heroin), that I really began to think about the economics of the drug trade. How can everyone get paid selling crack, if the product is being sold at a price that is just a shade above the price it's being MADE at? Better yet, if everyone is making massive loot...why do "drug-infested" neighborhoods look the way they do?
Levitt was able to track the activities of a dealer over the course of a few years, starting off with the fundamental question "if everyone in drugs gets paid, why do so many of them stay with their mothers?" He finds that dealers in upper-management positions do make loot, the ones on the ground make something closer to the money they'd make at McDonalds or at the plant (probably a little less than they'd make at the plant).
Now for economists and perhaps black public intellectuals this finding may come as a surprise. For those in the game, or for those who know the game, it shouldn't. Which brings us back to the question...where are they? They can't all be selling drugs, not only because you don't make that much loot selling drugs, if everyone did it....if drug dealers had an infinite supply of labor, low level cats would be making even less than what they make now.
So this isn't it. Can't be.
Since I've been a professor at Washington University, I've taught about a couple of hundred kids. Of the black students? Whereas I've taught approximately 30 or more black women, I can remember the men (David, Quinton, Nelson, Akil, Marques, Christopher B., Trumaine, Derrick, Christopher W., and Fred) by name their numbers are so small. Where are they? Part one of a series.
Jill Leovy notes that black men are walking bullseyes. In St. Louis and other cities like it cells of organizers are fighting a losing battle against police brutality, largely because of twin realities:
1. Black men now represent the largest prison population (both absolutely and relatively).
2. Black men have historically been depicted as public enemy #1
So in response to their organizing efforts, these individuals routinely have to grapple with sidesplitting counterarguments like WHAT ABOUT THE VICTIMS? Now I've said before...I don't believe Mike Tyson was a political prisoner. A lot of the kids I grew up with spent time in the joint for crimes they DID commit. But there are two sets of victims here right? There are the victims who either were hit by crime personally, or get hit just by living in the context. Then there are victims who are hit by the panoptic sort. Because they fit a profile.
Fact. Every (black) friend that I have has been harassed by the police.
Not some of them.
Not most of them.
All of them.
If all the police see are weeds (because of the prism through which they sort people into "victims" and "perps") how the hell can we seed?
Magic Johnson has expressed an interest in developing projects in the St. Louis area. A group of activists concerned with police brutality have contacted Johnson and suggested that St. Louis might not be the right place to do business given the climate. While some may ask why in the hell black activists would supposedly shoot themselves in the foot, I'm thinking it is pretty unfortunate that it has to come to this.
Returning to the idea of the old school, what is the old school stance on law and order? I remember when Chuck D. got up at the MTV Music Awards in the early nineties and before he gave out the award he was on stage for said the following: "Free all political prisoners. Free Geronimo Pratt. Free Mumia Abu Jamal. Free Mike Tyson."
Now the old school would hold that some people NEED to be in the joint. Both Pratt and Abu Jamal were activists who were basically jacked because of their political line. COINTELPRO looms large with both Pratt and Jamal though to be fair they may have actually railroaded the right guy in Jamal's case. But Tyson? Hell no. If Tyson's a political prisoner, them I'm Reggie Miller. White supremacy is pernicious, but it should in no way absolve us of our responsibility to act righteously. It's a hard line to hoe in many ways, especially given the stark statistics in places like Chicago, but it is what it is.
The rub here is that we take this stance not just in regards to black criminals...BUT TO POLICE OFFICERS. As the police are actually given the authority by the state to use violence, they should be held to a much higher standard. If a police officer is caught violating the law, the book should be thrown at him. Period.
Now since I've moved to St. Louis, there have been a number of incidents in which youth were killed by police. In one case a young boy was shot in the back by a cop as he was running away. Though a pop gun was found on the child's person, it hadn't been fired. The relationship between the police and black communities in St. Louis are so poor, that when I talked to high school classes (about 50 of them) about public opinion and used attitudes about the police as an example, all I got out of the black kids was laughs when I asked whether they felt they could trust the police.
I've talked about accountability as it relates to black leadership...in order for the police to properly serve and protect black citizens need to be able to hold them accountable. A citizens' review board is the appropriate institution for this task. The activists are right to call for one. But how are we to understand their communique to Magic?
The mayor's first response echoes that of a number of white citizens and probably some black ones, noting that black citizens would be hurt if Magic pulled out.
I understand that response. But it seems to me that anyone interested in ensuring the health and welfare of black citizens would be as interested in making sure the police serve and protect ALL of their citizens, as well as ensuring that business elites of whatever color have the proper climate in which to do business. Furthermore it seems to me that informing the black business elite of the climate in which his/her employees would work is all a part of the free market.
Full information and all that.
Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he'll live for ever.
More later if i have some time.