Elizabeth Montgomery And The Cast of "Bewitched" In Blackface? An Old School Lesson About Prejudice!

Black Males Doing Worse Than Expected In US Schools

Proficiency of Black Young Men Is Bleak & Getting Bleaker!

By TRIP GABRIEL

Only 12 percent of black fourth-grade boys are proficient in reading, compared with 38 percent of white boys, and only 12 percent of black eighth-grade boys are proficient in math, compared with 44 percent of white boys.

Poverty alone does not seem to explain the differences: poor white boys do just as well as African-American boys who do not live in poverty, measured by whether they qualify for subsidized school lunches.

The data was distilled from highly respected national math and reading tests, known as the National Assessment for Educational Progress, which are given to students in fourth and eighth grades, most recently in 2009. The report, “A Call for Change,” is to be released Tuesday by the Council of the Great City Schools, an advocacy group for urban public schools.

Although the outlines of the problem and many specifics have been previously reported, the group hopes that including so much of what it calls “jaw-dropping data” in one place will spark a new sense of national urgency.

“What this clearly shows is that black males who are not eligible for free and reduced-price lunch are doing no better than white males who are poor,” said Michael Casserly, executive director of the council.

The report shows that black boys on average fall behind from their earliest years. Black mothers have a higher infant mortality rate and black children are twice as likely as whites to live in a home where no parent has a job. In high school, African-American boys drop out at nearly twice the rate of white boys, and their SAT scores are on average 104 points lower. In college, black men represented just 5 percent of students in 2008.

The analysis of results on the national tests found that math scores in 2009 for black boys were not much different than those for black girls in Grades 4 and 8, but black boys lagged behind Hispanics of both sexes, and they fell behind white boys by at least 30 points, a gap sometimes interpreted as three academic grades.

The search for explanations has recently looked at causes besides poverty, and this report may further spur those efforts.

“There’s accumulating evidence that there are racial differences in what kids experience before the first day of kindergarten,” said Ronald Ferguson, director of the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard. “They have to do with a lot of sociological and historical forces. In order to address those, we have to be able to have conversations that people are unwilling to have.”

Those include “conversations about early childhood parenting practices,” Dr. Ferguson said. “The activities that parents conduct with their 2-, 3- and 4-year-olds. How much we talk to them, the ways we talk to them, the ways we enforce discipline, the ways we encourage them to think and develop a sense of autonomy.”

The report urges convening a White House conference, encouraging Congress to appropriate more money for schools and establishing networks of black mentors.

What it does not discuss are policy responses identified with a robust school reform movement that emphasizes closing failing schools, offering charter schools as alternatives and raising the quality of teachers.

The report did not go down this road because “there’s not a lot of research to indicate that many of those strategies produce better results,” Mr. Casserly said.

Other have a different response. The key to narrowing the achievement gap, said Dr. Ferguson, is “really good teaching.”

One large urban school district that has made progress is Baltimore’s, where the dropout rate for African-American boys declined to 4.9 percent during the last academic year, down from 11.9 percent three years earlier. Graduation rates for black boys were also up: 57 percent in 2009-10, compared with 51 percent three years earlier.

Andres A. Alonso, the chief executive of the Baltimore City Public Schools, said the improvement had little to do with changes at the margins, like lengthening the school day or adding mentors. Rather, Mr. Alonso cited aggressively closing failing schools, knocking on the doors of dropouts’ homes to lure them back and creating real-time alerts — “almost like an electrical charge” — when a student misses several days of school.

“Hispanic kids and African-American kids this year had a lower dropout rate than white kids,” Mr. Alonso said.

Source - NY Times

Author Earl Ofari Hutchinson Revisits The LA Watts Riots, 45 Years Later!

By Earl Ofari Hutchinson

My friend and I watched looters gleefully make mad dashes into the corner grocery store. Their arms bulged with liquor bottles and cigarette cartons. Suddenly, my friend shouted out as if he was speaking to an audience: “Maybe now they’ll see how rotten they treat us.” The “they” was the white man. My friend’s words were angry and bitter.

Yet, underneath, there was a subtext of hope that the mass orgy of death and destruction that engulfed our neighborhood during the harrowing five days and nights of the Watts riots in August 1965 might improve things for blacks. Over the years, when I returned to the block I lived on during the riots, I often thought of his bitter yet hopeful words.

Forty-five years after the riots, those words remain just that: hopeful. The streets that my friend and I were shooed down by the police and the National Guard 45 years ago look as if time has stood still.

They are dotted with the same fast food restaurants, beauty shops, liquor stores, and mom-and-pop grocery stores. The main street near the block I lived on then is just as unkempt, pothole-ridden and trash littered. All the homes and stores in the area are all hermetically sealed with iron bars, security gates and burglar alarms.

Forty-five years ago, many of us were poor and trapped in a segregated neighborhood. But we knew, trusted and looked out for our neighbors. We could walk the streets at night, and felt secure in our homes. That day is long past.

On the 25th and 40th anniversary of the Watts riots, I hosted and participated in symposiums in Watts on the meaning and significance of the riots to Los Angeles and the nation. The participants were from community groups that worked in Watts, its residents, and elected officials. They were virtually unanimous that conditions were frozen in time, and that the government and businesses had failed miserably to keep their promises to remake Watts.

The riots were largely a reaction to racial injustices suffered by black Americans in Los Angeles, including those related to jobs and discrimination. But Tommy Jacquette, executive director of the Watts Summer Festival, asserted that Watts was still the same Watts that he grew up in. Jacquette, until his death in 2009, each year commemorated the deaths of those killed by police during the riots. He called them martyrs.

Since the riots, the Watts Labor Community Action Committee has operated an array of job, education and housing programs in Watts. But its executive director Tim Watkins has been frustrated by chronic funding shortfalls, city and state budget cutbacks, and the refusal of major industry and retail businesses to commit to development in the area.

In the decades after the riots, the L.A. Watts and the many Wattses of America were written off as vast wastelands of violence and despair. Many banks and corporations, as well as government officials, reneged on their promises to fund and build top-notch stores, make more home and business loans, and provide massive funding for job and social service programs in such poor black, inner city areas.


Business leaders still have horrific visions of their banks and stores going up in smoke or being hopelessly plagued by criminal violence.

The National Urban League in its annual State of Black America reports grimly note that blacks have lost ground in income, education, healthcare, and their treatment in the criminal justice system compared to whites. They are more likely than any other group in America to be victimized by crime and violence.

Five years ago, the L.A. chapter of the National Urban League and the United Way issued an unprecedented report on the State of Black L.A. The report called the conditions in Watts and South L.A. dismal. Blacks have higher school drop-out rates, greater homelessness, die younger and in greater numbers, are more likely to be jailed and serve longer sentences, and are far and away more likely to be victims of racial hate crimes than any other group in L.A. County. The report has not been updated, but even the most cursory drive through the area shows nothing has changed.

The only significant social change in Watts is the ethnic demographic shift. Forty-five years ago, the area was predominantly black; it is now predominantly Latino, with growing numbers of Cambodian, Vietnamese and Filipino residents.

The fast changing demographics have at times imploded in inter-ethnic battles between blacks and Latinos over jobs, housing and schools. There have also been deadly clashes within the L.A. county jails. Black flight has also drastically diminished black political strength in Los Angeles and statewide.

In the past decade, the number of blacks in the California legislature has shrunk, and there is the real possibility that blacks could lose one, possibly two, of their three city council seats in the next few years.

Watts is no longer the national and world symbol of American urban racial destruction, neglect and despair. But the poverty, violence and neglect that made it that symbol is still very much there.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.

Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann Shows Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton And NAACP's Ben Jealous How It's Done!

Play That Funky Music White Boy!

Does the civil rights movement have a new spokesman? After the break, watch Keith Olbermann of MSNBC show the brothers how to speak to issues of race, fairness and equity.

African American, Obama-Inspired Republican Candidates - Yes, You Read It Right!

Black Folks Pick This Year in G.O.P. Races To Shine

Among the many reverberations of President Obama’s election, here is one he probably never anticipated: at least 32 African-Americans are running for Congress this year as Republicans, the biggest surge since Reconstruction, according to party officials.

The House has not had a black Republican since 2003, when J. C. Watts of Oklahoma left after eight years.

But today the New York Times shines the spotlight on black Republicans running across the country — from a largely white swath of beach communities in Florida to the suburbs of Phoenix, where an African-American candidate has raised more money than all but two of his nine (white) Republican competitors in the primary.

Party officials and the candidates themselves acknowledge that they still have uphill fights in both the primaries and the general elections, but they say that black Republicans are running with a confidence they have never had before.

“I ran in 2008 and raised half a million dollars, and the state party didn’t support me and the national party didn’t support me,” said Allen West, who is running for Congress in Florida and is one of roughly five black candidates the party believes could win. “But we came back and we’re running and things are looking great.”

“There is no denying that one of the things that came out of the election of Obama was that you have a lot of African-Americans running in both parties now,” said Vernon Parker, who is running for an open seat in Arizona’s Third District. His competition in the Aug. 24 primary includes the son of former Vice President Dan Quayle, Ben Quayle.

Princella Smith, who is running for an open seat in Arkansas, said she viewed the president’s victory through both the lens of history and partisan politics. “Aside from the fact that I disagree fundamentally with all his views, I am proud of my nation for proving that we have the ability to do something like that,” Ms. Smith said.

State and national party officials say that this year’s cast of black Republicans is far more experienced than the more fringy players of yore, and include elected officials, former military personnel and candidates who have run before.

Mr. Parker is the mayor of Paradise Valley, Ariz. Ryan Frazier is a councilman in Aurora, Colo., one of four at-large members who represent the whole city. And Tim Scott is the only black Republican elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives since Reconstruction.

“These are not just people pulled out of the hole,” said Timothy F. Johnson, chairman of the Frederick Douglass Foundation, a black conservative group. That is “the nice thing about being on this side of history,” he said.

He added that the candidates might be helped by the presence of Michael Steele, the chairman of the Republican National Committee who is black and ran for the Senate himself in 2006.

“Party affiliation is not a barrier to inspiration,” Mr. Steele said in an e-mail message. “Certainly, the president’s election was and remains an inspiration to many.”

But Democrats and other political experts express skepticism about black Republicans’ chances in November. “In 1994 and 2000, there were 24 black G.O.P. nominees,” said Donna Brazile. “And you didn’t see many of them win their elections.”

Tavis Smiley, a prominent black talk show host who has repeatedly criticized Republicans for not doing more to court black voters, said, “It’s worth remembering that the last time it was declared the ‘Year of the Black Republican,’ it fizzled out.”

Many of the candidates are trying to align themselves with the Tea Partiers, insisting that the racial dynamics of that movement have been overblown. Those interviewed overwhelmingly called the racist narrative a news media fiction.

Still, black Republicans face a double hurdle: black Democrats who are disinclined to back them in a general election, and incongruity with white Republicans, who sometimes do not welcome the blacks whom party officials claim to covet as new members.

This spring, Gov. Robert F. McDonnell of Virginia was roundly attacked for not mentioning slavery in his Confederate History Month proclamation, which he later said was a “major omission.” Black candidates said these types of gaffes posed problems in drawing African-Americans to their party, but also underscored their need to be there.

“I think what the governor failed to do was to recognize the pain and the emotion that was really sparked by the institution of slavery,” said Mr. Frazier of Colorado. “As a Republican, I think I have a responsibility to continue to work within my party to avoid those types of barriers. The key for the Republican Party is to engage every community on the issues they care about and not act as if they don’t exist.”

Entire article, including photos

Senate Leader Harry Reid Confesses It Was Obama's Light Skin And "Non-Negro" Dialect That Won Him Over!

Dirty Harry Gets Put On Blast

Embattled Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada apologized today for making stupid, idiotic remarks about Barack Obama during the presidential campaign. And you thought only Republicans say ignorant things.

Journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann reported the disparaging remarks in their new book "Game Change," which is scheduled to be in bookstores Tuesday.

The authors quote Reid as saying privately that Obama, as a black candidate, could be successful thanks, in part, to his "light-skinned" appearance and speaking patterns "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."

"He [Reid] was wowed by Obama's oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama -- a 'light-skinned' African American 'with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,' " Halperin and Heilemann say.

"Reid was convinced, in fact, that Obama's race would help him more than hurt him in a bid for the Democratic nomination," they write.

In a statement to CNN, Reid said, "I deeply regret using such a poor choice of words."

"I sincerely apologize for offending any and all Americans, especially African Americans for my improper comments.

"I was a proud and enthusiastic supporter of Barack Obama during the campaign and have worked as hard as I can to advance President Obama's legislative agenda," the senator from Nevada said.

Reid pointed to his efforts to integrate the Las Vegas Strip and the gaming industry, among other legislation favored by African-American voters.

"I have worked hard to advance issues important to the African American community."

Reid, who waited to formally endorse Obama until after the tough presidential primary battle ended in 2008, is facing an uphill re-election fight this year in his home state.

Source

It Was Kumbaya Election Night 2008, Now Data Shows Blacks Not Getting Stimulus Loans

SBA Data Reflects Hispanic Small Businesses Also Shut Out In 2009!

By Aaron Glantz of New America Media

Loans handed out to struggling small businesses as part of President Barack Obama's stimulus package have largely shut out minority businesses -- especially those owned by Blacks and Latinos -- according to data provided by the federal government's Small Business Administration (SBA) to New America Media.

On June 15, the SBA, using money from the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, launched the ARC program, America's Recovery Capital, giving banks and credit unions 100 percent guarantees so they're taking no risk when they make loans of up to $35,000 to previously successful, currently struggling small businesses to help them ride out the recession.

Under the program, the borrower pays no interest and makes no payments for 12 months, then has five years to repay the loan. SBA charges no fees and pays interest to the lender at prime - the rate of interest at which banks lend to favored customers - plus 2 percent.

The Obama Administration does not report the racial breakdown of who's benefiting from these loans at Recovery.gov, but data obtained by NAM from the SBA found that of the 4,497 ARC loans where the race of the borrower was reported, 4,104 (over 91 percent) went to white-owned firms, 140, (3 percent) went to Hispanic-owned businesses, and 151 (3 percent) went to Asian- or Pacific Islander-owned businesses. Only 65, (1.5 percent) went to black-owned firms.

Overall, white-owned businesses received over $130 million in loans through the program, while Hispanic-owned businesses got $4 million and black-owned businesses less than $2 million.

In five states - Alabama, Arkansas, New Hampshire, South Dakota, and Wyoming -- every single firm that received an ARC loan was white-owned. In eight other states, including Louisiana and Nevada, all but one loan went to a white-owned firm.

Story continues ...

HP Tracking Webcams Don't Recognize Black Faces - Well, Excuse Me!

This is beyond awkward. It appears that Hewlett Packard's new webcams, which have facial-tracking software, can't recognize black faces. After just returning from that Tavis Smiley America I Am exhibit, HP has some esplainin to do!

Their response:

"We are working with our partners to learn more. The technology we use is built on standard algorithms that measure the difference in intensity of contrast between the eyes and the upper cheek and nose. We believe that the camera might have difficulty "seeing" contrast in conditions where there is insufficient foreground lighting."

Why Does Rush Limbaugh Get To Have All The Fun On Syndicated Radio?

Star Search

by Mark Lassiter

On his nationally syndicated Premiere Radio Networks' show, Rush Limbaugh recently called President Obama "this little boy, this little man-child president..."

How many days before Limbaugh calls for armed revolt against The White House via Fox and Friends over coffee and donuts?

The Tea Party Express 2 is a Great American event for Fox News to promote and rally behind. How are protesters empowered and financially supported by a new program claiming to be "Fair And Balanced"? Fox News sponsors the echo chamber for a tea party coming to a city near you, complete with President Obama being demonized, shot at, lynched or dehumanized. If there is a Presidential do-over before 2010 will Fox News cite treason for its high ratings?

When I listen to the single point of view that is broadcast to over 600 stations via national media behemoth like Clear Channel on a daily basis, I am reminded of the words of my former neighbor, also African American, who said with force, "we have so much talent."

Certainly, money is not a problem as Limbaugh's deal with Clear Channel Communications is the second-largest ever for a radio personality, ranking behind Howard Sterns's five year agreement with Sirius Satellite Radio in 2004 for more than 500 million dollars. According to The Los Angeles Times, Limbaugh's salary is more than the combined annual salaries of the four best paid anchors on network television.

Unfortunately, syndication has more to do with the large advertisers than it does the unique interests of the local markets. Syndicated shows have stunted the development of new local talent as they force many local businesses from marketing to local consumers as the stations can base their ad rates on 'national' levels and carry ads purchased by the syndicated show and not the local audience they are supposed to represent.

There isn't a single nationally syndicated progressive Black voice on Clear Channel (or anywhere) who has the same unchecked creative license as Rush Limbaugh. It is time for that to change along with the colors of leaves in the Fall. Business models and old systems are being reshaped by the minute. Media, both traditional and new, will experience its own epiphany when people understand how "we have so much talent" translates into becoming cultural pioneers.

There is no need for a massive cattle call along the lines of American Idol. The only issue is conforming to the clearly defined Limbaugh criteria.

The Job Description is as follows: must be angry, fearless and divisive. Must make audience uncomfortable. Host will have free reign to craft vocabulary, leverage language or bend facts in the name of truth, justice and the American Way. Forget the intellectuals. I nominate Wanda Sykes, Charles Barkley, Chris Rock, Screamin Jay Hawkins (RIP), a fired-up Cedric The Entertainer, or Chuck D of Public Enemy.

Top Ten Candidates for The Next Great Media Host

10. Wyatt Cenac - cool, simultaneously brilliant and unassuming. Emmy Award winner. His sleepy eyes mask a surgical strike at all things stereotypical. Feature 'reporter' on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. In October 2009, he worked with rapper Slim Tug on the music video "Still a Boss" as a parody of how the recession is affecting the rap community..

9. Dave Chapelle - outrageous and raw. Reminds me of Sly Stone back in the day. The question was not whether Sly would be late to his concert, but whether he would show up at all. Chapelle walked away from 50 million dollars to keep his show on Comedy Central.

8. Cris Carter - analyst on ESPN Monday Night Countdown, Sunday NFL Countdown and HBOs Inside the NFL. Passionate and willing to fight for the things he believes in. He said if he were in charge of the Dallas Cowboys he would put a bullet in Terrell Owens which caused an uproar that caused him to apologize for his comments. "C'mon man!"

7. Wanda Sykes - Emmy Award winner named one of the 25 funniest people by ntertainmentFox has her signed for a new show as reparations for Fox News Channel. I hope she does well. I miss the HBO Chris Rock Show with Grandmaster Flash as musical director.

6. Carlton Douglas Ridenhour / Chuck D - rapper, author, publisher, lecturer and producer. Politically active. Testified before Congress in support of peer-to-peer MP3 sharing. Believe the hype.

5. Chris Rock - from Saturday Night Live's Nat X to his current standup routine, Rock is more Baptist preacher than comedian as he exposes hypocrisy with a compact New York City switchblade.

4. Larry Wilmore - "Senior Black Correspondant" with The Daily Show is a good enough title to merit a promotion to the national stage. A veteran of 30 years, he has written for The Office, Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air, In Living Color and The Bernie Mac Show. His latest book, "I'd Rather We Got Casinos" sums it up.

3. Paul Mooney - "BET is owned by White people. They rewrite history. They are big liars. They don't like the messages I send. They get intimidated and get frightened." Wrote for Richard Pryor. What more needs to be said?

2. Mike Wilbon - co-host of ESPN's hit show Pardon The Interruption. His commentary on sports and society have been a staple in Washington DC for decades.

1. Charles Barkley - has crossed over to the promised land where he can say anything he wants and get away with it. The studio show for NBA on TNT is a work of art. His aspiration for public office in Alabama is a plus. Introduced to him at Jocks N Jills sports bar in Atlanta and found him to be gracious and almost as funny as he is on the set.

We have so much talent. You make the call.

Writer George Alexander Dissects Black Privilege

Yes, We Have An African-American President. What's Your Point?

By George Alexander

Black is sometimes black, and that’s that. Well, maybe. Recent news events have pulled the focus from the economy, healthcare and Iran to the horrible practice of racial profiling. On the positive side, this forces us to examine the notion of black privilege. Just what is it anyway? Does it exist at all?

For starters, it’s hard not to see that a black man with Ivy League credentials, national prominence and wealth can escape many of the ills facing black men in America today. Let’s face it, being a black man in America today—notwithstanding a black man at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue—ain’t easy.

Let’s see, where shall we begin? Black people in general, and black men specifically, are hard hit by everything from the unemployment gap, health disparities, and the HIV/AIDS crisis to the educational achievement gap, disproportionate incarceration rates, and the income/wealth gap.

It’s easy to see that blacks with higher incomes and levels of education have many advantages over less fortunate blacks when it comes to access to good schools for their kids, health insurance and the ability to live in low-crime areas with access to good quality grocery stores, with fresh fruits and vegetables.

Highlighting my point, a 2007 Pew Research Center survey indicates that African Americans see a widening gulf between the values of middle-class and poor blacks, and nearly four-in-ten say that because of the diversity within their community, blacks can no longer be thought of as a single race. So even we blacks see differences within our race.

And what we find in the recent high-profile example of racial profiling is an opportunity to examine just how far the notion of black privilege goes. The very fact that a black man could be arrested at his home for what the officer called “disorderly” conduct (though charges were dropped), underscores the point that black privilege, in spite of its inherent benefits, is still a dicey game. Are some blacks privileged? Yes. Immune to bias? Absolutely not.

Many black leaders and opinion makers, who have weighed in on the matter of Prof. Henry Louis “Skip” Gates being arrested at his Cambridge, Mass., home weeks ago, strongly contend that a white person in that situation would never have been arrested in his home after it was determined that there was no burglary or other crime being committed. It’s debatable, but I concur. This scenario happening to a white person is rather hard to imagine, given the history of racial profiling in this country.

But whatever you think about the issue, I argue that the recent Gates incident has to be examined in context of our racial radar. A new study, for example, recently reported in a story in ScienceDaily, validates the findings of the Implicit Association Test, a psychological tool created by Prof. Anthony D. Greenwald Ph.D. of the University of Washington. The test found that 70 percent of those tested have an unconscious, or implicit, preference for white people compared to blacks.

Not good.

The harsh reality is that racial bias is alive and well, rearing its head when many of us are not even aware of it. This becomes particularly tricky when you’re standing in front of a guy in blue who has a badge, a gun and preconceived notions about you. What you have are the dynamics of power coupled with—if the study’s findings are correct—intrinsic racial discrimination. No amount of privilege can necessarily combat the bias if someone is subconsciously predisposed to preferring white people, or believing that white is right.

With such latent racial attitudes, you never know when your blackness will be the issue that lands you behind bars or in the cemetery. Given the dismal fates of Sean Bell, Amadou Diallo, Oscar Grant and the countless, nameless, faceless African Americans who ended up dead at the hands of law enforcement—having committed no crime whatsoever—I don’t even want to think about it. The fact that a Boston policeman has been suspended for referring to Gates as a “jungle monkey” in an email after the widely-reported dispute, only serves to tell you what you’re dealing with here.

The fact of the matter is that blackness—well-to-do or otherwise—in America is an evolving, increasingly nuanced phenomenon. Add a black president to the mix and what you have is downright status schizophrenia on the part of some blacks. We’ve made progress. No, we haven’t. We’ve made progress. No, we haven’t. The dual nature of this reality can become confusing. What’s certain is that progress can always be put to the test. Cops are a particularly good litmus test if you’re ever confused.

Let’s see here, you’re sitting at home in your nice digs in a tony part of town watching your black president conduct a White House press conference and it makes you proud. You feel good about yourself. You feel good about America. You feel good about the world! You may even know the president and consider him a friend. You are, by all accounts, privileged.

After watching CNN or MSNBC, you enjoy a glass of organic orange juice you bought at Whole Foods. Then, you put on your $200 jogging shoes and go out for a jog in your neighborhood. At mile 2, on a route you run regularly, you’re stopped by the cops and asked if you live there.

Yes, you might be insulted, but when encountering a cop in such a situation, it’s still a good idea to err on the humble side. Chill out. The idea is to make it back home safely to your lovely wife and kids. It’s not exactly the time to show your Ivy League credentials to a man who may never have even walked on a college campus in his life, except perhaps to break up a disturbance after a Final Four game. So you will yourself to relax and remember that while it’s still not a perfect world and black privilege isn’t necessarily white privilege, you will, with any luck, probably be okay.

In other words, black privilege has limits.

Sadly, you don’t know when those limits will be put to the test. Thank, God, most encounters are not deadly. It might be a Madison Avenue store when you are followed around by a clerk (remember Oprah in Paris at Hermés? She didn’t even get in the store); it might be at a bank that steers you toward an unfavorable mortgage product despite your income or credit score; it might be at a New York co-op building whose board refuses you without explanation. It should be predictable, but it still feels cruelly random when it happens to you.

When it comes to dealing with the police, the big issue for blacks of privilege is that you can never get the idea in your head that you have “arrived.” When it comes to dealing with the police, some experts underscore the importance of always using caution.

‘It is unwise for anyone of any race to raise their voice to a law enforcement officers,” Al Vivian, who is black, told the New York Times last week. Even though there is no evidence at this point that Gates raised his voice at all, I could not agree more.

The point is that when dealing with law enforcement, privileged or not, it’s best to be prepared. That, and keeping a cool demeanor, will hopefully prevent you from ending up in the morgue.

Here’s my Black Man’s Police Survival Guide:

1.Pray.
2.Know your rights.
3.Keep your hands visible at all times.
4.Don’t argue with the police.
5.Don’t get attitudinal with the police.
6.Watch your tone of voice.
7.Don’t resist arrest.
8.Don’t curse out the police.
9.Don’t talk about the policeman’s mama.
10.Remember that less is more.
11.Smile but don’t shuffle.
12.Be polite.
13.Say “Yes, officer” and “No, officer,” but don’t shuck and jive.
14.Stay calm.
15.Avoid sarcasm.
16.Don’t say you know Barack Obama or voted for him. This is particularly the case if you are in a red state.
17.Don’t tell the cop, “You will regret this day” or “Do you know who I am?” Trust me. He doesn’t.
18.Get home safely.

George Alexander is the author of Why We Make Movies and Queens: Portraits of Black Women and Their Fabulous Hair. He also wrote the VH1 series Black in the 80s.

Originally published on The Defenders Online blog -- an online outlet of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

Sometimes Black Republicans Have To Call A Spade A Spade!

So I said to him, "Barack, I know Abe Lincoln, and you ain't Abe Lincoln."

A fellow member of the GOP, also African American, sent this picture and accompanying words via email. It depicts famed members of the Republican Party including Nixon, Reagan, Bush I & II, and Roosevelt among others sitting around a table engaging in what appears to be a friendly poker game.

My friend wanted to know what I thought of this. I had an immediate visceral reaction that was so strong, it me to stop what I was doing and post it. It doesn't stop here. Under the hood, check out the rest of the language.

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.

You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.

You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.

You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence.

You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.

.....Abraham Lincoln

Thoughts???

Tavis Smiley Keeps The Conversation Going With African Americans

State of the Black Union in L.A. Addresses Mixed Emotions
Obama Sees "Tougher Times" for African-Americans
Farrakhan: Followers Must Continue "Obama Energy"
Snoop Dogg Appears at Nation of Islam Convention
Columbia Univ. Names First Black Woman College Dean
Talking with T-Boz on “Celebrity Apprentice”
Did Being Black Help Senator Roland Burris?

"Madea" Weekend B.O. King Again/Perry to Buy Island
More TV Ads Project Images of Racial Harmony
Magic Talks Business with Morehouse Students
Renegade Soldiers Kill Guinea-Bissau President
People Injured in Stampede at South Africa's ANC Rally
Halle Berry: Signature Scent Out in Spring
Detroit Lions Baller Corey Smith & Friends Still Missing

Live Blogging At Tavis Smiley's State of The Black Union

Who's Accountable For Black America 10 Years Later

I'm here in Los Angeles for the 10th Annual State of the Black Union and it's getting ready to officially start. Tavis Smiley and Tom Joyner kicked it off.

Host Raymond Brown leads the discussion with Congressman Maxine Waters, Law Professor Charles Ogletree, Journalist Stephanine Robinson, Prosectot Peter Harvey, Columnist Michelle Singletary, Urban League President Marc Morial, Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, Rev. Dr. Iyanla Vanzant, Motivational Speaker Les Brown, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Dr. Tricia Rhodes are the morning panelists.

Everyone talks about how post-racial America is now that we have an African American president. While Barack Obama is the Commander-in-Chief, we still have this issue of post-racial versus post racist.

Per NY Times columnist Maureen Dowd, Attorney General Eric Holder and Rev. Jesse Jackson are living in some distant past.

Michael Eric Dyson just stated he doesn't want to stop being black.

Here we go!!!

State of The Black Union 2009 - 10 Years Later, Any Progress?

ARE WE CREATINNG AN AMERICA AS GOOD AS ITS PROMISE?

Love him or hate him, you have to give it to Tavis Smiley for his ability to gather some of the most influential thinkers, entertainers, and political leaders of our time each year to discuss the state of the Black America. This year is no execption, as Smiley holds court in Los Angeles this weekend during Black History Month.

One of C-Spans most popular live programs, the 2009 State of the Black Union celebrates its 10th anniversary of historic conversations. As Americans celebrate the inauguration of our new President, along with other important national, state, and local elections, this year’s panels examine the role that African Americans can and must play to create an America as good as its promise, from health to housing, criminal justice to environmental justice, and education to economic prosperity.

Panelists from the first State of the Black Union in 1999 will return and take center stage to address and undress the media images and social realities of African Americans.

This year there will be a blogger's panel, featuring the like of Carmen Dixon of All About Race, Lenny McAlister of Hip Hop Republican, and yours truly, Kevin Ross of 3BAAS Media Group. Trust me, it's going to be very interesting.

A Black Man In The White House Means America Is At The Mountaintop, Right???

NOT SO FAST MR. PRESIDENT...

By Erin Aubry Kaplan

It’s the end of inauguration week, and all the Obama hosannahs still linger in the air. It’s understandable. It’s barely comprehensible that Bush is actually gone and that a black man replaced him.

After eight years of pain and suffering Bush and his ilk inflicted on the electorate (to say nothing of the citizenry of the world), it’s absolutely essential that we get a chance to feel good. All that tension built up over all these years needs an outlet. We needed to give voice to it all, to dance, sing, weep, watch parades, go to balls, enthuse over Barack’s élan and Michelle’s outfits. It’s fine. Necessary, even.

But some of the joyousness bothers me, and it has for the duration of the presidential campaign. Here’s my problem: Far too many white people who had a certain smugness about Obama’s rise are now congratulating themselves openly for the historic moment, and far too many black people are letting them get away with it.

The result is that we’re all willingly falling asleep at the switch at the cause of racial justice, which is hardly over. But we’re all simply too vested in feeling good. Whites are triumphal that Obama is symbolically putting to rest the nasty racial battles of the past; blacks are misty-eyed that this is indeed the mountaintop, that we can go no higher and achieve nothing greater.

It was predictable that the conflation of Bush’s exit, King’s birthday, Obama’s inauguration and Lincoln’s bicentennial into one great, shining, badly-needed American denouement would be too much to resist. On Tuesday, CNN featured a crawl that excitedly announced that 70 percent of black people in a poll said that the Obama presidency meant that the dream of Martin Luther King has been fulfilled.

Okay, let’s start there. I hate to be a party pooper, but King’s dream had little to do with electing a black president. King was an activist who evolved into a social radical who believed that economic justice on the largest scale possible was the only way to achieve racial justice, and vice versa.

He would have been thrilled at the prospect of an Obama, of course, and likely would have supported his campaign. But King would have immediately recognized Obama as a product of a successful black middle class that in 2009 is still the exception to black reality, not the rule. He would have understood that Obama is not the expression of a collective movement, as he was, but a towering example of individualism that Americans have always admired more, especially in black folk.

But that admiration has left no room for a discussion of all the troubling facts that still define black life: poverty, imprisonment, poor education, poor employment, poor health outcomes, poor prospects overall, especially for black men.

A Pew Research poll last year found that black Americans are as pessimistic about their own future as they’ve ever been, with good reason. But the strange fact is, we’ve gotten a black president before we’ve gotten effective solutions to any of those problems.

And the mere presence of Obama convinces too many Americans that these problems simply don’t exist, or don’t matter terribly anymore. Even the most effusive black Obama supporters know this is a real danger.

I think Obama, middle-class icon that he is, knows better. But whether he can find a way to articulate concern and craft policy for his less fortunate brethren, the brethren who supported him unequivocally and who rightfully expect something in a first black president—yes, a black president for all people-- remains to be seen.

ERIN AUBRY KAPLAN is the first African American in history to be a weekly op-ed columnist for the Los Angeles Times. Her musings continue to appear in the Times, Essence magazine, and a host of other publications. Kaplan is currently working on her much anticipated book, to be released in 2009.

2008 Presidential Election: Hey Joe Sixpack - Grits Dummy!

By Tor Shephens

One of the events in my life that I have never forgotten occurred when I was in Junior High School. It was when Alex Haley's ROOTS came out.

Just thinking about this has me on edge, in particular as it relates to the present political environment as proffered by Mr. McCain and Mrs. Palin. When I hear “Joe Sixpack”, I can’t help but think this is a code phrase for not me, or the average American, but rather those that harbor the hatred of the past and the racist beliefs that yielded Jim Crow, and even slavery as depicted in the historic television miniseries.

It was cool after Monday's show, but after the Tuesday episode things hit the fan. It was as if everybody in the world was looking at roots. And seeing that folks from around my way were selectively bused to a predominantly white school, the environment during that week was completely different.

Prior to this, we all just had a ball, no problems never. But after that Tuesday segment, like I said it was on. See, that was the episode when Kunta Kinta was made, via whip to call himself Tobe.

There was a tension in the air that day.

Continue...

California Celebrates 100th Anniversary of Post Slavery Black Township Known As Allensworth

In 1908, Lt. Col. Allen Allensworth, a charismatic ex-slave and retired military man, set out to build an all-black community on a hardscrabble patch of land 40 miles north of Bakersfield. This visionary and other former slaves turned the desert wasteland into a thriving pioneer town, making a strong statement about black self-determination.

This weekend, the centennial of his long-shuttered town will be honored by thousands of Californians trooping to the site, now known as Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park.

Though it thrived for less than a decade, the town strikes a special chord among many, who see it as a pioneering effort in black self-determination.

"That group in the first 50 years after emancipation was probably the most dynamic group we've had," said Rick Moss, chief curator of the African American Library & Museum at Oakland. "Allensworth is a real testimony to their drive, their dignity, their willpower -- it's all right there."

Moss is among the speakers at the two-day celebration. So is Lonnie G. Bunch III, founding director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History. The Crenshaw High School Elite Choir and actor William Allen Young will be among the entertainers making appearances.

Amtrak is establishing special bus and train routes to the park from Los Angeles, Inglewood, Sacramento, Oakland and elsewhere. (Details are available at www.parks.ca.gov/). About 5,000 visitors are expected -- far more than the couple of hundred residents who lived in Allensworth at its height.

Visitors will tour the town's three remaining original buildings and 19 that have been reconstructed. The hamlet boasted a hotel, a school, a library, a church, a general store -- the basic municipal amenities that its settlers had found wanting.

A state historic park since 1974, Allensworth was recently the focus of a battle over plans for a 12,000-cow dairy on adjacent land. After concerted protests from black community groups, the state last year paid the landowner $3.5 million to give up his rights for any kind of livestock operation.

Funded by donations, Saturday and Sunday's event is sponsored by the state's Legislative Black Caucus, the California State Parks Foundation and the state parks department.

"We're honoring the vision of these people from 100 years ago," said state parks director Ruth Coleman. "At a time when white supremacy was so rampant, they created this town to demonstrate their self-sufficiency, to prove that blacks could do everything whites could do."

As a youth, Allensworth was sold in the slave markets three times -- once for daring to learn how to read. In a remarkable career, he fought on Navy gunboats in the Civil War and served as an Army chaplain in the Philippines, attaining the highest military rank any black man had held. He also became a Baptist minister before founding the town that bears his name.

At its dedication, he reminded his followers of their purpose in separating from their former, mostly white communities.

"If we expect to be given due credit for our efforts and achievements, they must be made where they will stand out distinctively and alone," he said, exhorting the residents to "settle upon the bare desert and cause it to blossom as a rose."

The colonel, who recruited many settlers from the ranks of his old Army comrades, was "not shy" about promoting the cause, said his granddaughter, Josephine Blodgett Smith of Los Angeles.

The 94-year-old former teacher recalled chugging over hair-raising roads in a model-T to visit relatives in Allensworth.

"When you think of where they began and what they accomplished, these were remarkable people," she said. "The state gave them one teacher and they actually taxed themselves so they could have two."

Just three months after her birth, her grandfather was fatally struck by a motorcyclist.

Beset by water problems and hurt by the closure of its railroad depot, the town withered in just a few years. But, as the only privately financed black community in the U.S., it had already made its mark.

"Even though it didn't 'succeed', it was a tremendous effort," said Moss.

By Steve Chawkins, LA Times Staff Writer (steve.chawkins@latimes.com)

Something Different? Black Lawyer Turned Author Pens Next Chapter In The Sally Hemings Saga

One Sista's New Jefferson Memorial

In her new book, "The Hemingses of Monticello," Annette Gordon-Reed traces the family history of Sally Hemings, the slave who had a 38-year relationship with Thomas Jefferson.

Gordon-Reed, a former lawyer, also edited an anthology of essays about race and the law, and co-wrote Vernon Jordan's 2001 memoir, "Vernon Can Read!"

But she is best known for 1997's groundbreaking "Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy," which examined historians' treatment of the Jefferson-Hemings liaison, and made a strong case that Jefferson fathered seven children with Hemings.

DNA testing a year after the book came out vindicated Gordon-Reed's assertion, and made her book a cause célèbre among Jefferson scholars. Joseph Ellis, whose National Book Award-winning biography of Jefferson, "American Sphinx," claimed Jefferson never slept with Hemings, later conceded the point, writing that it was difficult not to conclude Jefferson had been "living a lie."

When she was in first grade, Gordon-Reed made history. Although Brown v. Board of Education had passed a decade earlier, the school district of Conroe, Texas, where she lived in 1963, operated under a system called "freedom of choice."

Gordon-Reed's mother, a teacher at the "black" school, and her father, a local businessman, knew that "freedom of choice" really meant de facto segregation, so to challenge it they insisted that their daughter attend the "white" school.

"I had a sense of being on display," says Gordon-Reed, remembering also how her grandmother went to a fancy Houston department store and bought her granddaughter a new wardrobe, so she would make a good impression on the white students and their families. "It was uncomfortable.

But we had this notion that blacks, whether you wanted to be or not, were going to be judged. You represent the race."

That early, firsthand experience with the interplay of race and history informs much of Gordon-Reed's work, including her compulsively readable piece.

Jefferson has been a subject of fascination for Gordon-Reed ever since she read a school biography as a girl. When she was 14, she joined the Book-of-the-Month Club so she could read Fawn Brodie's "Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate Portrait."

"The fact that he loved books and I loved books was something that attracted me to him," she says. "I'm not really a Jeffersonian in my political philosophy. It was mainly the personality, the endless curiosity that I found and find attractive about him."

The real subject of her work is the way we view the history of slavery, and how it affects our views of race today. "For African-Americans, social history almost invariably overwhelms biography, obscuring the contingencies within personal lives that are the very things historians and biographers normally rely upon to create meaningful depictions of events and lives in the past," she writes. In that respect, the Jefferson-Hemings relationship provides a trenchant case study.

Hemings and her brothers James and Robert arrived at Monticello with Martha Wayles, who married Jefferson in 1772. Hemings was also Wayles's half-sister, born after Wayles's mother died and her father had an affair with his slave, Elizabeth Hemings, Sally's mother. Wayles died in 1782.

When Jefferson traveled to Paris two years later, Hemings and her brother James accompanied him. By the time they returned, the 16-year-old Hemings was pregnant. Although she could have stayed in Paris as a free woman, she chose to return with Jefferson, and lived with him at Monticello until his death in 1826.

As Gordon-Reed writes, our reaction to the idea that Jefferson, a lifelong propo-nent of emancipation, could own slaves and sustain an intimate relationship with a woman who was not only his property but his dead wife's half-sister, and that Hemings could participate in the relationship, makes up "the very complex American response to matters involving not only slavery but even more particularly race and gender."

Here, she says, is where her training as a lawyer gives her an advantage: "The first thing you learn in law school is people are crazy," says the author, who also teaches history at Rutgers and law at New York Law School. "They'll come into your office and explain their motivation, and it will be totally a lie. They don't even understand themselves what their motivations are.

It's not all going to fit." Historians may think that because their subjects are dead, "you don't have to deal with the consequences of their shattered lives if you're not for real." Lawyers don't have this luxury. "We're training people to deal with people's lives. Somebody's going to go to jail, somebody's going to lose a child. You have to be for real." Which may be how Gordon-Reed takes the stuff of Sally Hemings's life—the quotidian and the epic—and makes it indelibly real.

By Newsweek's Jennie Yabroff © 2008

The House Set to Apologize to African Americans

By Jayar Jackson

The U.S House of Representatives is poised Tuesday to pass a resolution apologizing to Black Americans for slavery and the era of Jim Crow laws. Rep. Steve Cohen, who represents a prominently Black district in Memphis, has introduced the bill.

Once the resolution passes, as expected, the House will also acknowledge the injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow laws that segregated Blacks from Whites, providing an unequal life for Black Americans.

Although this is the first time a branch of the federal government will apologize for slavery, I’ve always wondered what the reasons behind these types of resolutions are. Considering the fact that the U.S. doesn’t foolishly deny these heinous acts took place in its past, one can only assume Rep. Cohen is attempting to show his constituents that he understands the severity and repercussions these institutions have had on today’s society.

This resolution is the House of Representatives’ formal agreement with many Americans that have a guilty conscience for what their ancestors did to Black Americans. In my opinion, this resolution is not necessary; no one is rejecting the idea that slavery happened, no one in today’s Congress has been saying that Jim Crow Laws created this false utopia of “separate but equal.”

Some White Americans feel that Black Americans want them to “feel guilty” for what occurred, so a quick, “I’m sorry your ancestors, grandparents, and parents went through such horrible experiences in their own country” isn’t necessary. How can someone apologize for something they didn’t personally do?

I don’t want you to feel sorry for me or my parents. I don’t want you to simply hear my frustrations and hope everything is better now. Discussing race is so taboo in this country, we just want to get it over with, apologize for reasons unknown to us, and get out of the uncomfortable conversation. Listening, internalizing, and actually understanding what was wrong with this country will provide many with the mindset to change the way they think about other races and therefore change the way we still treat each other.

Comparatively, Congress’ simple apology for the past isn’t going to be what continues to move this country forward, either. Learning from the country’s past and the mistakes we made is what is necessary to continue to fight against future instances of human rights violations, a commitment Cohen included. If we label human rights violations as something this country can only do to Black Americans, quickly apologize for it, and then forget about it, we’ll easily overlook the fact that we can violate the rights of Muslims, Middle Easterners, and gay Americans.

The resolution blatantly states, “African-Americans continue to suffer from the consequences of slavery and Jim Crow -- long after both systems were formally abolished -- through enormous damage and loss, both tangible and intangible, including the loss of human dignity and liberty, the frustration of careers and professional lives, and the long-term loss of income and opportunity.” My Bad!!

The 1968 Olympics - Do You Remember Tommie Smith's Raised Fist?

Anthony Samad Has Our Vote To Replace Tavis On Tom Joyner!!!

This Video Is Incredible. Take A Minute, You Won't Be Disappointed!