From theGrio:
Why are white families $95,000 richer than black families? This is a question that a recent study tries to answer.
According to a report by the Institute on Assets and Social Policy at Brandeis University, the wealth gap between African-American families and white families has jumped dramatically in 23 years.In fact, the difference in financial assets between these two groups has increased over four times in a generation, from $20,000 in 1984 to $95,000 in 2007.
The Brandeis report also found that middle-income whites experienced a greater increase in net worth than high income blacks. Average white families earning $30,000 had accumulated $74,000, while blacks earning more than $50,000 owned only $18,000, for a wealth gap of $56,000.
To make things worse, 10 percent of African-Americans owed at least $3,600 in debt, nearly doubling their debt burden since 1984. And sadly, at least a quarter of black families had no assets to rely upon when times get rough.
So, what's the problem here? The problem is that income equality is not translating into wealth equality and economic security for black households. Some of this is due to bad public policy, including tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, and other measures that have redistributed wealth upwards-- to those who are already rich and arguably don't need more.
But there is another reason, namely, institutional racism in housing, labor and lending. The deregulation of the lending market has resulted in systemic discrimination against people of color and the poor, who pay more for credit. Those who live paycheck to paycheck borrow just to make ends meet, depending increasingly on payday lending, a.k.a. legal loan sharks, and check cashing stores that prey on these poorer communities. Blacks and Latinos have been steered into risky, costly and sketchy subprime mortgages, more than twice the rate of whites with the same income. The foreclosure crisis has wiped out what little wealth many of these families owned, placing a stranglehold on the ability of the African-American community to build wealth.
Similarly, according to another report, communities of color were disproportionately cut out of conventional mortgage loans after the housing bubble burst. A collaborative effort of several nonprofit groups, the study is called Paying More for the American Dream IV: The Decline of Prime Mortgage Lending in Communities of Color. From 2006 to 2008, prime lending in minority areas decreased 60.3 percent, compared to 28.4 percent in predominantly white areas.
What are the solutions? Well, to their credit, the researchers at Brandeis recommend the use of public policy to close the racial wealth gap. For example, wealth-building policies must specifically target families of color. And an effective Consumer Financial Protection Agency would guarantee fairness for consumers who borrow money to pay for basic expenses and necessities. Additionally, the American Dream study recommends stronger fair lending enforcement; requiring banks to fund the revitalization of damaged neighborhoods; halting foreclosures; expanding the Community Reinvestment Act to promote responsible lending and investment, and expanding the Mortgage Disclosure Act to shed light on discriminatory practices.
These suggestions make a great deal of sense, but since public policy alone is not enough, I would take it a step further. Over the years, African-Americans have found themselves in a recession or depression, regardless of the general state of the U.S. economy. Needless to say, when America catches a cold, black America catches pneumonia, as the old adage goes. Perhaps the black community should consider a two-pronged strategy in turning their economic lives around.
First, "do for self" and "cooperative economics" make more sense now than ever before. What better time is there than the Great Recession to embark on a plan for economic empowerment? Black folks had their backs against the wall since day one in this country. During Jim Crow segregation, the African-American community banded together out of necessity and supported one another. They created businesses and services that the community relied upon, causing dollars to circulate throughout the community. Some black enclaves, such as Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma, were burned down to the ground by white mobs who hated on their success. However, this is not to romanticize a difficult period for black America. Nor am I advocating some Booker T. Washington-esqe, self-help, up-by-the-bootstraps approach that ignores racial injustice and systemic inequality.
This leads to my second point. We also have a need to acknowledge and combat institutional racism. Racism in this country is not merely a few nutty Klansmen sporting white sheets and burning crosses. Rather, we are dealing with institutions and structures in society that discriminate against certain people based on race, and in a material, dollars-and-cents way. We should fight institutional racism by holding our elected officials' feet to the fire in terms of public policy reforms. In addition, we must hold corporations accountable for their business practices, and boycott those financial institutions that exploit people of color.
Only then will we begin to close this ever-widening racial wealth gap.
May 29, 2010
Jim Crow In A Teabag
What can I say about Rand Paul that has not been said? Paul, of course, is the GOP nominee for Senate in Kentucky, and Great White Hope for the Tea Party faithful around the country. And he is the son of Congressman Ron Paul of Texas.
Rand Paul recently made statements in opposition to portions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, on the grounds that private businesses should be allowed to discriminate against African-Americans and others and deny service to them. He is entitled to his opinions, however racist they may be. But he cannot expect to run as a serious candidate from a major party and not have such controversial points of view scrutinized. At the very least, watching this not-ready-for-primetime-politician try and wiggle his way out of his past statements will make for great entertainment at the very least. Paul is dead wrong, but he unwittingly provided a valuable service to the public.
Tea parties and racism. Many of us suspected that the Tea Party movement is a fundamentally racist one. Although it would be unfair to say that all Teabaggers are racist, certainly it would be disingenuous for anyone to argue that the movement does not appeal to the angry mob, particularly those white folks who hate blacks and Latinos, immigrants, and most of all the President because he is black fascist-socialist-Muslim-communist from Kenya who refuses to produce his real birth certificate. And it would be intellectually dishonest to say that the Teabaggers are not a part of the recent surge in right-wing hate group activity of late, including militias, anti-immigrant Patriot groups and others.
From their early days at the McCain-Palin rallies during the 2008 presidential campaign, the Tea Party crowd has had an energy about them that smells of a Jim Crow type of racial intolerance, just like the 1950s and 1960s. Rand Paul's prominence only confirms what many already knew, which is that racism under girds the Teabag movement.
Flawed ideologies. All ideologies need to undergo a stress test to see if they can survive everyday use. It is one thing to express an ideology, and sell wolf tickets if you will. But it is an entirely different thing to put those ideas into practice. In that regard, Communism as practiced has been a huge failure. The notion of equalizing a society that has known harsh inequities and economic exploitation sounds like a good idea. But when the new system of government is as brutal, corrupt and incompetent as, or more brutal, corrupt and incompetent than the one it replaced, well, that is a bankrupt ideology--at least as it is being applied.
Similarly, capitalism in the American context is a failed system. The concept of trickle-down, free-market economics has led to an unprecedented looting of the American people and a concentration of economic power, with an upward redistribution of wealth from the have-nots to the have-mores. Moreover, the financial institutions that espouse laissez-faire capitalism for the rest of us prefer socialism for themselves in the form of government-sponsored bank bailouts and corporate welfare payments.
Aspects of libertarianism have their merits, and there is something to be said about less government intrusion in certain aspects of one's life. But his civil rights views demonstrate that Dr. Paul and his libertarian ideologies are impractical and simply not ready. If you hate government so much, why run for political office in the first place? And how can you claim to oppose government intrusion, yet oppose physician cuts to Medicare when it serves your own narrow interests?
Finally, for Paul to call the President un-American for criticizing BP--the corporation responsible for the world's worst ecological disaster--is confounding at best. Obviously, Rand Paul is cheerleader for a system that allows people and businesses to do as they please without limits, without social responsibility built into the system. Remember, unfettered capitalism gave us slavery, worker exploitation, and all sorts of human rights abuses. That was the free market in action.
Dr. Paul wants to appear principled by opposing civil rights and endorsing the oppression of black people over forty years after the fact, all in the name of his narrow ideology. In the end, he appears boxed in by that ideology, as are his prospects in the Senate.
But then again, in this country, you never know.
Rand Paul recently made statements in opposition to portions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, on the grounds that private businesses should be allowed to discriminate against African-Americans and others and deny service to them. He is entitled to his opinions, however racist they may be. But he cannot expect to run as a serious candidate from a major party and not have such controversial points of view scrutinized. At the very least, watching this not-ready-for-primetime-politician try and wiggle his way out of his past statements will make for great entertainment at the very least. Paul is dead wrong, but he unwittingly provided a valuable service to the public.
Tea parties and racism. Many of us suspected that the Tea Party movement is a fundamentally racist one. Although it would be unfair to say that all Teabaggers are racist, certainly it would be disingenuous for anyone to argue that the movement does not appeal to the angry mob, particularly those white folks who hate blacks and Latinos, immigrants, and most of all the President because he is black fascist-socialist-Muslim-communist from Kenya who refuses to produce his real birth certificate. And it would be intellectually dishonest to say that the Teabaggers are not a part of the recent surge in right-wing hate group activity of late, including militias, anti-immigrant Patriot groups and others.
From their early days at the McCain-Palin rallies during the 2008 presidential campaign, the Tea Party crowd has had an energy about them that smells of a Jim Crow type of racial intolerance, just like the 1950s and 1960s. Rand Paul's prominence only confirms what many already knew, which is that racism under girds the Teabag movement.
Flawed ideologies. All ideologies need to undergo a stress test to see if they can survive everyday use. It is one thing to express an ideology, and sell wolf tickets if you will. But it is an entirely different thing to put those ideas into practice. In that regard, Communism as practiced has been a huge failure. The notion of equalizing a society that has known harsh inequities and economic exploitation sounds like a good idea. But when the new system of government is as brutal, corrupt and incompetent as, or more brutal, corrupt and incompetent than the one it replaced, well, that is a bankrupt ideology--at least as it is being applied.
Similarly, capitalism in the American context is a failed system. The concept of trickle-down, free-market economics has led to an unprecedented looting of the American people and a concentration of economic power, with an upward redistribution of wealth from the have-nots to the have-mores. Moreover, the financial institutions that espouse laissez-faire capitalism for the rest of us prefer socialism for themselves in the form of government-sponsored bank bailouts and corporate welfare payments.
Aspects of libertarianism have their merits, and there is something to be said about less government intrusion in certain aspects of one's life. But his civil rights views demonstrate that Dr. Paul and his libertarian ideologies are impractical and simply not ready. If you hate government so much, why run for political office in the first place? And how can you claim to oppose government intrusion, yet oppose physician cuts to Medicare when it serves your own narrow interests?
Finally, for Paul to call the President un-American for criticizing BP--the corporation responsible for the world's worst ecological disaster--is confounding at best. Obviously, Rand Paul is cheerleader for a system that allows people and businesses to do as they please without limits, without social responsibility built into the system. Remember, unfettered capitalism gave us slavery, worker exploitation, and all sorts of human rights abuses. That was the free market in action.
Dr. Paul wants to appear principled by opposing civil rights and endorsing the oppression of black people over forty years after the fact, all in the name of his narrow ideology. In the end, he appears boxed in by that ideology, as are his prospects in the Senate.
But then again, in this country, you never know.
Why Not Blame It On A Black Man?
I just read a pilot study that CNN released on the racial attitudes of children. And nearly 60 years after the watershed Brown v. Board of Education case - in which the Supreme Court invalidated Jim Crow school segregation - it seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
In the study, three psychologists tested 133 students in the 4 to 5 and 9 to 10 age ranges. Eight schools were involved, half from Georgia, and half from the New York metropolitan area. The study was designed to simulate the Kenneth and Mamie Clark study used in the Brown case, in which African-American children were asked whether they preferred a white doll or a black doll. Having expressed an overwhelming preference for the white doll, they demonstrated the negative effects of segregation on "ego development and self-awareness in Negro children."
Curiously, the results were about the same six decades later. In the recent study, the researchers asked the 4 and 5 year olds a series of questions and had them answer by pointing to one of five cartoon pictures that varied in skin color from light to dark. The 9 and 10 year olds were given the same questions and cartoons, but were also asked questions concerning a bar chart showing light to dark skin tones.
Essentially, white children responded with a high degree of "white bias," meaning that they viewed their own skin tone positively, they associated darker skin with negative characteristics, and they were far more stereotypic in their racial attitudes, beliefs and preferences. There was no difference between age groups. And black children also had a bias towards whiteness, although not nearly as great as white children did.
The lesson that I take from these results is clear:
1) parents, teach your kids well, but better than you're doing now, and
2) this is a nation that still upholds whiteness and denigrates blackness.
To be sure, black self-esteem is a lingering, unresolved issue in a racist nation that cannot grapple with the whole race thing - even with a black president of biracial parentage named Barack Obama. But that white children are internalizing white skin superiority and negative black stereotypes so intensely should tell you that they are not learning the right things at home when it comes to diversity, tolerance and inclusion, if they are learning anything at all. Unfortunately, that is how white-skin privilege works. As the self-proclaimed standard bearers, white Americans often may not feel as if they have to worry about talking to their children about such matters. Parents of color, however, don't have that luxury. And in a nation where the color of your skin can determine where you live, your livelihood and even your life or death, parents of color may feel the need to help their children navigate through a color-coded society fraught with obstacles and pitfalls.
And in this environment screaming for racial understanding, states such as Texas and Arizona would further exacerbate things by whitewashing their public school curricula and eliminating ethnic studies courses.
The negative labels assigned to blackness and all things black are readily apparent in the English language. And the badges of slavery and Jim Crow remain, even as those dreaded institutions are supposedly a thing of the past. Lynchings in this country have a shameful history, and typically they were committed upon a rumor that a black man raped a white woman. Black equals poverty, inferiority, laziness and all the horrible and distasteful things one can conjure up. Black man equals all of those dreadful things plus criminality. (Apparently, a black man with the title of President of the United States equals Nazi-Communist-Kenyan-Muslim-black-radical terrorist.)
So, when Charles Stewart, a white man in Boston, murdered his pregnant wife in 1989, he said a black man did it. And everyone believed it. When a white woman named Susan Smith murdered her two young sons in South Carolina in 1994, she said that she had been carjacked by a black man, who drove away with her children. And everyone believed it, even though Smith said the man wore a knit ski cap. As an aside, I've never seen any of my South Carolinian relatives wear a knit ski cap. And typically when this sort of thing occurs, the police will wage ultimate war on the chocolate side of town, rounding up all the brothers just for the hell of it.
And just the other day, a white Philly cop shot himself and claimed it was the work of a black man with cornrows and a tattoo. Why do they keep doing it? Obviously because they know, or at least think they can get away with it, in a nation that tells you that these are the acts expected of darker-skinned folks. With negative stereotypes in the media, and black and brown inmates filling up to 70 percent of the nation's prison beds, why not?
This problem is far greater than one study can solve, but the CNN report is instructive. Consequently, we need to remind ourselves that the more things change, the more they stay the same. This reality must be unsettling for those who risked life and limb to build a better society. It tells you the work ain't over, and it would serve us well to reach the children.
In the study, three psychologists tested 133 students in the 4 to 5 and 9 to 10 age ranges. Eight schools were involved, half from Georgia, and half from the New York metropolitan area. The study was designed to simulate the Kenneth and Mamie Clark study used in the Brown case, in which African-American children were asked whether they preferred a white doll or a black doll. Having expressed an overwhelming preference for the white doll, they demonstrated the negative effects of segregation on "ego development and self-awareness in Negro children."
Curiously, the results were about the same six decades later. In the recent study, the researchers asked the 4 and 5 year olds a series of questions and had them answer by pointing to one of five cartoon pictures that varied in skin color from light to dark. The 9 and 10 year olds were given the same questions and cartoons, but were also asked questions concerning a bar chart showing light to dark skin tones.
Essentially, white children responded with a high degree of "white bias," meaning that they viewed their own skin tone positively, they associated darker skin with negative characteristics, and they were far more stereotypic in their racial attitudes, beliefs and preferences. There was no difference between age groups. And black children also had a bias towards whiteness, although not nearly as great as white children did.
The lesson that I take from these results is clear:
1) parents, teach your kids well, but better than you're doing now, and
2) this is a nation that still upholds whiteness and denigrates blackness.
To be sure, black self-esteem is a lingering, unresolved issue in a racist nation that cannot grapple with the whole race thing - even with a black president of biracial parentage named Barack Obama. But that white children are internalizing white skin superiority and negative black stereotypes so intensely should tell you that they are not learning the right things at home when it comes to diversity, tolerance and inclusion, if they are learning anything at all. Unfortunately, that is how white-skin privilege works. As the self-proclaimed standard bearers, white Americans often may not feel as if they have to worry about talking to their children about such matters. Parents of color, however, don't have that luxury. And in a nation where the color of your skin can determine where you live, your livelihood and even your life or death, parents of color may feel the need to help their children navigate through a color-coded society fraught with obstacles and pitfalls.
And in this environment screaming for racial understanding, states such as Texas and Arizona would further exacerbate things by whitewashing their public school curricula and eliminating ethnic studies courses.
The negative labels assigned to blackness and all things black are readily apparent in the English language. And the badges of slavery and Jim Crow remain, even as those dreaded institutions are supposedly a thing of the past. Lynchings in this country have a shameful history, and typically they were committed upon a rumor that a black man raped a white woman. Black equals poverty, inferiority, laziness and all the horrible and distasteful things one can conjure up. Black man equals all of those dreadful things plus criminality. (Apparently, a black man with the title of President of the United States equals Nazi-Communist-Kenyan-Muslim-black-radical terrorist.)
So, when Charles Stewart, a white man in Boston, murdered his pregnant wife in 1989, he said a black man did it. And everyone believed it. When a white woman named Susan Smith murdered her two young sons in South Carolina in 1994, she said that she had been carjacked by a black man, who drove away with her children. And everyone believed it, even though Smith said the man wore a knit ski cap. As an aside, I've never seen any of my South Carolinian relatives wear a knit ski cap. And typically when this sort of thing occurs, the police will wage ultimate war on the chocolate side of town, rounding up all the brothers just for the hell of it.
And just the other day, a white Philly cop shot himself and claimed it was the work of a black man with cornrows and a tattoo. Why do they keep doing it? Obviously because they know, or at least think they can get away with it, in a nation that tells you that these are the acts expected of darker-skinned folks. With negative stereotypes in the media, and black and brown inmates filling up to 70 percent of the nation's prison beds, why not?
This problem is far greater than one study can solve, but the CNN report is instructive. Consequently, we need to remind ourselves that the more things change, the more they stay the same. This reality must be unsettling for those who risked life and limb to build a better society. It tells you the work ain't over, and it would serve us well to reach the children.
May 14, 2010
Arizona's ethnic studies ban whitewashes history
From theGrio:
When Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed the infamous anti-immigrant bill into law, it was clear that people in that state lost their minds. But apparently that was not enough. Now, the governor just signed a bill into law on Tuesday that bans ethnic studies programs in the schools. Really?
The new law prohibits classes that "promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, promote resentment of a particular race or class of people, are designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group or advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals." Schools that fail to comply will lose their state funding.
A group of six UN human rights experts denounced the law on the grounds that people have the right to learn about their own culture and language. Meanwhile, the Arizona Department of Education has also announced that it will no longer allow teachers with "heavy" or "ungrammatical" accents to teach English. As the last state in the Union to recognize the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, Arizona suffers from a poor track record on tolerance.
The real target of the Arizona law is the Tucson School District, which offers coursework focusing on African-American, Native-American and Mexican-American studies, and the contributions of these groups in history and literature. Tom Horne, the head of the Arizona schools and Republican candidate for attorney general, supports the ban. Horne condemned ethnic studies as "ethnic chauvinism" and "high treason."
Claiming that such programs encourage public school students to hate white people, Horne said "It's just like the old South, and it's long past time that we prohibited it." Horne is right that it is just like the old South, but he's getting it twisted. Rather, the anti-ethnic studies bill--along with the anti-immigrant bill--makes Arizona look like those racist Jim Crow states that resisted civil rights for blacks and the desegregation of the public schools in the 1950s and 1960s.
Back then, white Southern segregationists fought against the rights of African-Americans to vote, go where they pleased, and enjoy the same quality education as whites. It was a fear of a black planet, so to speak. Today, racist conservative whites are carrying on the tradition of their Jim Crow predecessors. They are afraid they are losing their "way of life" to darker-skinned people and Spanish-speaking immigrants, even though brown people were here first. With a population that is 40 percent minority, and with more Latino babies born than white babies, Arizona is set to become a majority-minority state by 2015. Texas, Hawaii, New Mexico and California already reached that threshold.
Similarly, in March the Texas Board of Education approved a curriculum change that essentially mandates a conservative, white-Christian bias in the teaching of social science. This has resulted in a wholesale removal of brown and black people from the textbooks. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and civil rights groups such as LULAC and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund were stricken from the books, although Justice Thurgood Marshall was allowed to remain. And conservatives unsuccessfully attempted to erase all references to hip-hop music from the history texts and replace it with country music. Conservatives defeated attempts by Hispanic board members to include more Latino figures in the curriculum, in that heavily Latino state. "They can just pretend this is a white America and Hispanics don't exist," said board member Mary Helen Berlanga. "They are going overboard, they are not experts, they are not historians," she added. "They are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world."
Now, this is where ethnic studies really fits into the equation: A legacy of the civil rights movement, the ethnic studies movement came about in the 1960s and early 1970s at a time of empowerment for racial and ethnic minority groups. When Harvard students demanded black studies in 1968, faculty who were protectors of the status quo predicted the end of Harvard and of civilization. Ethnic studies serves a valuable purpose, which is to challenge the Eurocentric teaching of history, the social sciences and the humanities on college campuses. When youth know that their people were a part of American history, they will excel in their studies. And we all benefit when we learn about the heritage of all groups, and their contributions to the world. This is a matter of pride, not resentment.
As a high school exchange student in Japan, who later became an East Asian Studies major as an undergrad, I benefited from ethnic studies. While in college, I learned about the richness of Asian history and culture, and the Asian immigrant's contribution to the American experience. After graduating from college, I worked for a bank and an advertising agency in Tokyo, and later on did human rights work and studied international human rights law in the U.K. My exposure to the teachings of other cultures and societies allowed me to better appreciate the diversity of the U.S. It also made me an effective world citizen who can operate across cultures.
At a time when we should increase our diversity efforts and teach our children to live together and understand one another, Arizona is sending the wrong message. This is not, as Pat Buchanan once claimed, "a country built basically by white folks." By removing ethnic studies, Arizona spits in the face of the civil rights legacy, and tells people of color they don't count, that their culture doesn't matter.
These Foliticians Are America's Problem
If you look at the problems plaguing this nation today, from economic collapse to environmental catastrophe, it is safe to say that some politicians had some hand in the mess. Corruption in politics did not just become an issue. Obviously, this is a centuries-old crisis in the making. But the consequences of misguided policies and sub par politicians are so dire today--and the direct link between bad people and bad outcomes is so clear--that we must take notice.
After all, the disaster of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans was a failure of political leadership as much as it was a failure of the levees. The current BP oil deluge which has turned the Gulf of Mexico into chocolate milk has eclipsed the Exxon Valdez oil disaster of 1989. To be sure, the BP accident is an environmental threat that speaks to the deadly serious pitfalls of off-shore drilling. But it is also a crisis of bad political intentions, from the right-wing lobbyists such as FreedomWorks that worked with BP to push for more oil drilling, to the corporate lackeys at the 2008 GOP convention who shouted "drill baby drill." Let's not forget former Vice President Dick Cheney, who championed deregulation of the oil industry with his energy task force, and whose company Halliburton figures prominently in the oil rig disaster.
Similarly, the Great Recession and the destruction of America's middle and working class is as much the creation of deregulation-loving, Wall Street-enabling bipartisanship as anything else. Political greed almost killed healthcare reform. And for what it's worth, although reform was historic, individual politicians' quest for self-aggrandizement watered down the reform package, with the public option as a casualty.
This is not to say that all politicians are rotten. To the contrary, many are dedicated and committed to their constituents, and have a long, proud record of accomplishments. These are the honest public servants who were grown by the community, and who answer to the needs and concerns of the people. Perhaps they were propelled into office because of some issue or cause to which they were personally devoted, or a personal tragedy that changed their life. Nevertheless, these politicians take their job seriously, and might even take principled stands, sometimes to the detriment of their political career.
But these days, I can't help but think of the lyrics to the old UB40 song "Folitician":
Who is the folitician which the song decries? I think of a poor shlub, maybe someone who is selling hot dogs on Market Street, or your thoroughfare of choice. Perhaps he or she is clueless on political matters. Perhaps this person isn't too bright, maybe even dumb as bricks or semi-illiterate. In any case, this individual is malleable, a marionette looking for a puppet master. Some powerful interests may identify this shlub as someone they can use as their front man (or front woman, because pimping is an equal opportunity game).
Or, perhaps the folitician comes to Washington, or Albany, or Sacramento, or some other city of choice, with good intentions and great ideas. But the lobbyist money is just too good to pass up--it flows just like water, or oil for that matter. This supplemental income becomes their crack, if you will. Foliticians depend on the money to help support the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed. They blatantly flaunt their greedy inclinations in front of their constituents, casting their lot (and their votes) with those who paid them off, rather than who voted them into office. The voters are too clueless to notice, the foliticans think, and far too often they are correct.
Alternatively, the folitician might come to the scene, fully formed, as a slick, savvy, wholly-owned subsidiary of the corporation whose water (s)he was paid to carry.
Now more than ever, the public is beginning to understand that we, our economy, our health and our environment are paying a helluva price for pathetically corrupt political misleadership. America's political system has a quality control issue. The product is flawed because the raw materials are flawed. If we allow them, this dysfunction will become our undoing. Blame the wholly-owned foliticans as we will for our current situation, and we should, we must assume responsibility as well. After all, they were not elected by themselves, and democracy wasn't meant to be a spectator sport.
After all, the disaster of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans was a failure of political leadership as much as it was a failure of the levees. The current BP oil deluge which has turned the Gulf of Mexico into chocolate milk has eclipsed the Exxon Valdez oil disaster of 1989. To be sure, the BP accident is an environmental threat that speaks to the deadly serious pitfalls of off-shore drilling. But it is also a crisis of bad political intentions, from the right-wing lobbyists such as FreedomWorks that worked with BP to push for more oil drilling, to the corporate lackeys at the 2008 GOP convention who shouted "drill baby drill." Let's not forget former Vice President Dick Cheney, who championed deregulation of the oil industry with his energy task force, and whose company Halliburton figures prominently in the oil rig disaster.
Similarly, the Great Recession and the destruction of America's middle and working class is as much the creation of deregulation-loving, Wall Street-enabling bipartisanship as anything else. Political greed almost killed healthcare reform. And for what it's worth, although reform was historic, individual politicians' quest for self-aggrandizement watered down the reform package, with the public option as a casualty.
This is not to say that all politicians are rotten. To the contrary, many are dedicated and committed to their constituents, and have a long, proud record of accomplishments. These are the honest public servants who were grown by the community, and who answer to the needs and concerns of the people. Perhaps they were propelled into office because of some issue or cause to which they were personally devoted, or a personal tragedy that changed their life. Nevertheless, these politicians take their job seriously, and might even take principled stands, sometimes to the detriment of their political career.
But these days, I can't help but think of the lyrics to the old UB40 song "Folitician":
You come chatty chatty chatty run up you' mouth; (repeat)
One man, one vote you hear from the shout. (repeat)
You full of pure promise but you tell damn' lies; (repeat)
You make a mistake And then somebody dies. (repeat)
Hey folitician, me seh hey folitician
Me seh hey folitician
What you doin 'bout the slums?
You sit around all day, jus' a twiddle your thumbs;
You have a strange expression
Mek you look like you' dumb. (repeat)
You worry everybody 'til you put them in a box. (repeat)
Who is the folitician which the song decries? I think of a poor shlub, maybe someone who is selling hot dogs on Market Street, or your thoroughfare of choice. Perhaps he or she is clueless on political matters. Perhaps this person isn't too bright, maybe even dumb as bricks or semi-illiterate. In any case, this individual is malleable, a marionette looking for a puppet master. Some powerful interests may identify this shlub as someone they can use as their front man (or front woman, because pimping is an equal opportunity game).
Or, perhaps the folitician comes to Washington, or Albany, or Sacramento, or some other city of choice, with good intentions and great ideas. But the lobbyist money is just too good to pass up--it flows just like water, or oil for that matter. This supplemental income becomes their crack, if you will. Foliticians depend on the money to help support the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed. They blatantly flaunt their greedy inclinations in front of their constituents, casting their lot (and their votes) with those who paid them off, rather than who voted them into office. The voters are too clueless to notice, the foliticans think, and far too often they are correct.
Alternatively, the folitician might come to the scene, fully formed, as a slick, savvy, wholly-owned subsidiary of the corporation whose water (s)he was paid to carry.
Now more than ever, the public is beginning to understand that we, our economy, our health and our environment are paying a helluva price for pathetically corrupt political misleadership. America's political system has a quality control issue. The product is flawed because the raw materials are flawed. If we allow them, this dysfunction will become our undoing. Blame the wholly-owned foliticans as we will for our current situation, and we should, we must assume responsibility as well. After all, they were not elected by themselves, and democracy wasn't meant to be a spectator sport.
May 8, 2010
Black college students get a lesson in cyber-racism
From theGrio:
Is the web a hostile environment for African-American young people? Apparently, yes. Black college students experience more bias and discrimination online than their white counterparts. And they have more negative attitudes towards racial diversity on campus. This, according to a study conducted by Brendesha M. Tynes, a professor of educational psychology and African-American studies at the University of Illinois, and Suzanne L. Markoe, a psychology professor at UCLA. They surveyed 217 African-American and white college students in order to assess social networking, online victimization and the racial climate on college campuses.
The study found that black students, who generally have more diverse contact online and spend more time on the web, experienced more online victimization, and discrimination as simple as a racist image posted on a social networking site such as Facebook or MySpace. And they face a more negative racial environment at school.
For African-American students, negative online experiences outweighed the positives. Meanwhile, the study found that although diverse offline contact fostered a more positive campus climate, online contact did not accomplish the same result.
As this study suggests, one should not underestimate the effects of online racism on one's mental health, including anxiety and depression. And surely, those of us who are actively involved in online communications are acutely aware of the amount of racism in cyberspace, not to mention the dramatic increase in hate speech since the election of President Obama.
Professor Tynes received a $1.4 million grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to "study the risk and protective factors associated with online racial discrimination across racial and ethnic groups." This past March she and Markoe released another study, this one dealing with the responses of the same 217 students to racially themed party images. Examples of these images are of "gangsta" themed parties where white students mock black culture, typically dressing as black stereotypes, perhaps wearing blackface, and serving fried chicken and watermelon. For example, students at the University of California at San Diego made fun of Black History Month by holding a "Compton Cookout". The hosts of the event "urged participants to wear chains, don cheap clothes and speak very loudly."
A few years ago, students at Tarleton State University in Texas held a Martin Luther King Jr. Day party, complete with students dressed as Aunt Jemima and urban street gangs. And a blackface party at Clemson University in Greenville, S.C., participants dressed in knitted caps and jerseys and held 40-ounce bottles of malt liquor. Some women padded their pants to make their butts appear larger.
After viewing racially explicit photos, only 20 percent of white students in the study found the images offensive, as compared to 60 percent of black students. Moreover, white students who considered themselves "colorblind" on racial matters were more likely unfazed by the photos, while those who believed racial differences should exist were more likely offended. The survey appeared in the Journal of Diversity in Higher Education.
These two studies are timely, given the most recent example of online student racism coming from Harvard Law School.
As a follow up to a dinner conversation, Stephanie Grace, a law student at Harvard, wrote an email message to a few of her classmates proclaiming her belief that blacks are "less intelligent on a genetic level" than whites.
"I think it is bad science to disagree with a conclusion in your heart, and then try (unsuccessfully, so far at least) to find data that will confirm what you want to be true," she added. "Everyone wants someone to take 100 white infants and 100 African-American ones and raise them in Disney utopia and prove once and for all that we are all equal on every dimension, or at least the really important ones like intelligence. I am merely not 100% convinced that this is the case."
That email has since gone viral and people around the world are getting familiar with Stephanie Grace's feelings about black people. As a black man who graduated from law school and has dual Ivy League degrees, I don't necessarily react to the Stephanie Grace story with shock. Many institutions of higher learning are filled with students who wear their sense of entitlement on their sleeve. Sheltered, they travel in circles where they are never forced to confront their prejudices.
And while law schools have diversified over the years, they have a long way to go. A white-male-oriented environment, with a curriculum based on the Socratic method of teaching, alienates students of color and women. Students such as Grace learn cold legal reasoning that allows them to test their "cute" racist arguments. But their education does not teach them character or compassion, nor does it ground them in the everyday world where everyone is not white and privileged, and where justice and equity are lacking. Sadly, they bring their racism in a large suitcase when they become leaders in society. Some even take a seat on the Supreme Court. While 90 percent of the legal profession is white, roughly 70 percent of the inmates in America's prisons are black and brown.
Sadly, a network connection only allows students to perfect their racism, with high-tech anonymity in some cases, and without accountability.
And to those who believe racism is over, think again. Hopefully the Tynes and Markoe studies will help us understand how to fight student cyber-racism, and possibly provide solutions to improving race relations at colleges and universities across the country.
Is the web a hostile environment for African-American young people? Apparently, yes. Black college students experience more bias and discrimination online than their white counterparts. And they have more negative attitudes towards racial diversity on campus. This, according to a study conducted by Brendesha M. Tynes, a professor of educational psychology and African-American studies at the University of Illinois, and Suzanne L. Markoe, a psychology professor at UCLA. They surveyed 217 African-American and white college students in order to assess social networking, online victimization and the racial climate on college campuses.
The study found that black students, who generally have more diverse contact online and spend more time on the web, experienced more online victimization, and discrimination as simple as a racist image posted on a social networking site such as Facebook or MySpace. And they face a more negative racial environment at school.
For African-American students, negative online experiences outweighed the positives. Meanwhile, the study found that although diverse offline contact fostered a more positive campus climate, online contact did not accomplish the same result.
As this study suggests, one should not underestimate the effects of online racism on one's mental health, including anxiety and depression. And surely, those of us who are actively involved in online communications are acutely aware of the amount of racism in cyberspace, not to mention the dramatic increase in hate speech since the election of President Obama.
Professor Tynes received a $1.4 million grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to "study the risk and protective factors associated with online racial discrimination across racial and ethnic groups." This past March she and Markoe released another study, this one dealing with the responses of the same 217 students to racially themed party images. Examples of these images are of "gangsta" themed parties where white students mock black culture, typically dressing as black stereotypes, perhaps wearing blackface, and serving fried chicken and watermelon. For example, students at the University of California at San Diego made fun of Black History Month by holding a "Compton Cookout". The hosts of the event "urged participants to wear chains, don cheap clothes and speak very loudly."
A few years ago, students at Tarleton State University in Texas held a Martin Luther King Jr. Day party, complete with students dressed as Aunt Jemima and urban street gangs. And a blackface party at Clemson University in Greenville, S.C., participants dressed in knitted caps and jerseys and held 40-ounce bottles of malt liquor. Some women padded their pants to make their butts appear larger.
After viewing racially explicit photos, only 20 percent of white students in the study found the images offensive, as compared to 60 percent of black students. Moreover, white students who considered themselves "colorblind" on racial matters were more likely unfazed by the photos, while those who believed racial differences should exist were more likely offended. The survey appeared in the Journal of Diversity in Higher Education.
These two studies are timely, given the most recent example of online student racism coming from Harvard Law School.
As a follow up to a dinner conversation, Stephanie Grace, a law student at Harvard, wrote an email message to a few of her classmates proclaiming her belief that blacks are "less intelligent on a genetic level" than whites.
"I think it is bad science to disagree with a conclusion in your heart, and then try (unsuccessfully, so far at least) to find data that will confirm what you want to be true," she added. "Everyone wants someone to take 100 white infants and 100 African-American ones and raise them in Disney utopia and prove once and for all that we are all equal on every dimension, or at least the really important ones like intelligence. I am merely not 100% convinced that this is the case."
That email has since gone viral and people around the world are getting familiar with Stephanie Grace's feelings about black people. As a black man who graduated from law school and has dual Ivy League degrees, I don't necessarily react to the Stephanie Grace story with shock. Many institutions of higher learning are filled with students who wear their sense of entitlement on their sleeve. Sheltered, they travel in circles where they are never forced to confront their prejudices.
And while law schools have diversified over the years, they have a long way to go. A white-male-oriented environment, with a curriculum based on the Socratic method of teaching, alienates students of color and women. Students such as Grace learn cold legal reasoning that allows them to test their "cute" racist arguments. But their education does not teach them character or compassion, nor does it ground them in the everyday world where everyone is not white and privileged, and where justice and equity are lacking. Sadly, they bring their racism in a large suitcase when they become leaders in society. Some even take a seat on the Supreme Court. While 90 percent of the legal profession is white, roughly 70 percent of the inmates in America's prisons are black and brown.
Sadly, a network connection only allows students to perfect their racism, with high-tech anonymity in some cases, and without accountability.
And to those who believe racism is over, think again. Hopefully the Tynes and Markoe studies will help us understand how to fight student cyber-racism, and possibly provide solutions to improving race relations at colleges and universities across the country.
Let Us Expand the Definition of Terrorism
I begin this commentary by looking up the word terrorism.
One dictionary defines terrorism as follows:
Similarly, the U.S. military says terrorism is:
Practically speaking, however, terrorism is defined differently in everyday American life. Terrorism is synonymous with Muslim and Arab extremism, and affiliated persons, organizations and nations. The threats they pose are either real, perceived, or purely conjured up. The terrorist-as-enemy-of-America is like the bogeyman of Red Scare fame, ubiquitous yet elusive, and you can't quite put your finger on them because they're tricky. The definition of terrorism itself can serve as a political weapon--a form of terrorism itself, dare I say. Call someone a terrorist, or a communist or socialist or supporter thereof, and you delegitimize everything that person has to say. You marginalize everything that person represents.
In these days of extremism at home, we cling to a narrow, selective definition of terrorism, while ignoring blatant forms of terrorism in our own midst. In doing so, we can't see the forest for the trees.
A progressive voice for peace, Rabbi Michael Lerner, was almost certainly a victim of terrorism on the night of May 2 and early morning of May 3. Right-wing Zionists attacked his home and threatened his life. The attackers attached posters to his door and property with a strong glue. And the posters attacked Lerner personally, as well as liberals and progressives as being supporters of terrorism and "Islamo-fascism." They posted a bumper sticker which read "fight terror--support Israel" next to a caricature of Judge Goldstone, the South African jurist who issued a UN report on Israeli human rights violations during the military campaign in Gaza. The Goldstone report called on Israel to do an independent investigation into Operation Cast Lead, and punish those elements of the IDF who were responsible. The report was denounced by rightists in the U.S. and Israel as "anti-Semitic" and "pro-terror."
The crime against Rabbi Lerner came after a week of Lerner and his staff at Tikkun magazine receiving hate mail. These acts stemmed from Tikkun's announcement that if South African Zionists made good on their threat to prevent Judge Goldstone from attending his grandson's bar mitzvah, Lerner would hold the bar mitzvah in the Bay Area instead. Tikkun is presenting an award to Goldstone next year for his commitment to human rights in Israel, and apparently some people don't like that.
Although Lerner has received death threats and hate mail over the years, this recent attack is troubling because they targeted his home. "By linking Lerner to alleged terrorism, they provide for themselves and other extremists a 'right-wing justification' to use violence against Lerner, even though Lerner has been a prominent advocate of non-violence", Tikkun said in an official statement. Lerner speaks out against violence everywhere around the world, including Palestinian acts against Israelis. But when he and groups such as J Street advocate a pro-peace solution, they are branded as anti-Israel. This comes as a group of over 3,000 European Jews signed a petition criticizing Israeli settlement policies, and warning of the dangers of systematic support for the Israeli government.
Turning the page a bit, we are witnessing state-sponsored terrorism within our borders, most prominently coming from the state of Arizona. Arizona's legislature passed--and the governor signed into law--a bill which makes it a crime under state law to be in the U.S. illegally. The law allows police to stop anyone with a "reasonable suspicion" of being undocumented, and demand proof of citizenship. Those who cannot produce the documentation face arrest, a $2,500 fine, and 6 months in jail.
I submit that Arizona's anti-immigrant law is nothing more than Juan Crow racism, a codification of xenophobia, specifically designed to intimidate Latinos regardless of their citizenship status. Although its proponents will tell us it does not racially profile, the law is part of the mix that makes people with Spanish surnames feel unwelcome and unsafe, in an environment of heightened anti-Latino violence and discrimination. After all, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a hate group with ties to the eugenics movement and white supremacists, assisted in drafting the bill. An honest, vigorous debate on immigration and border security is one thing. Bad people passing a law with cruel intentions is another.
But Arizona did not stop there. They are banning ethnic studies in the schools, characterizing such programs as "ethnic chauvinism" and "high treason." Under the policy, schools will lose state funding if they offer courses that "promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, promote resentment of a particular race or class of people, are designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group or advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals." And the Arizona Department of Education is removing teachers with heavy accents.
Ethnic Studies were part of the civil rights movement--born in the late 1960s and early 1970s at a time of increased cultural awareness among people of color--to counter a Eurocentric perspective of history. State governments in Arizona and Texas feed into white extremist antipathy towards diversity by denigrating and eliminating people of color in their school curricula, "taking the country back" so to speak, via the textbooks.
A vibrant democracy should allow for differences of opinion, free from demonization and threats of violence against those who disagree. We may have differences of opinion with people, even those within our own family, but we don't resort to terrorist attacks against them.
One dictionary defines terrorism as follows:
The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.
Similarly, the U.S. military says terrorism is:
The calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological.
Practically speaking, however, terrorism is defined differently in everyday American life. Terrorism is synonymous with Muslim and Arab extremism, and affiliated persons, organizations and nations. The threats they pose are either real, perceived, or purely conjured up. The terrorist-as-enemy-of-America is like the bogeyman of Red Scare fame, ubiquitous yet elusive, and you can't quite put your finger on them because they're tricky. The definition of terrorism itself can serve as a political weapon--a form of terrorism itself, dare I say. Call someone a terrorist, or a communist or socialist or supporter thereof, and you delegitimize everything that person has to say. You marginalize everything that person represents.
In these days of extremism at home, we cling to a narrow, selective definition of terrorism, while ignoring blatant forms of terrorism in our own midst. In doing so, we can't see the forest for the trees.
A progressive voice for peace, Rabbi Michael Lerner, was almost certainly a victim of terrorism on the night of May 2 and early morning of May 3. Right-wing Zionists attacked his home and threatened his life. The attackers attached posters to his door and property with a strong glue. And the posters attacked Lerner personally, as well as liberals and progressives as being supporters of terrorism and "Islamo-fascism." They posted a bumper sticker which read "fight terror--support Israel" next to a caricature of Judge Goldstone, the South African jurist who issued a UN report on Israeli human rights violations during the military campaign in Gaza. The Goldstone report called on Israel to do an independent investigation into Operation Cast Lead, and punish those elements of the IDF who were responsible. The report was denounced by rightists in the U.S. and Israel as "anti-Semitic" and "pro-terror."
The crime against Rabbi Lerner came after a week of Lerner and his staff at Tikkun magazine receiving hate mail. These acts stemmed from Tikkun's announcement that if South African Zionists made good on their threat to prevent Judge Goldstone from attending his grandson's bar mitzvah, Lerner would hold the bar mitzvah in the Bay Area instead. Tikkun is presenting an award to Goldstone next year for his commitment to human rights in Israel, and apparently some people don't like that.
Although Lerner has received death threats and hate mail over the years, this recent attack is troubling because they targeted his home. "By linking Lerner to alleged terrorism, they provide for themselves and other extremists a 'right-wing justification' to use violence against Lerner, even though Lerner has been a prominent advocate of non-violence", Tikkun said in an official statement. Lerner speaks out against violence everywhere around the world, including Palestinian acts against Israelis. But when he and groups such as J Street advocate a pro-peace solution, they are branded as anti-Israel. This comes as a group of over 3,000 European Jews signed a petition criticizing Israeli settlement policies, and warning of the dangers of systematic support for the Israeli government.
Turning the page a bit, we are witnessing state-sponsored terrorism within our borders, most prominently coming from the state of Arizona. Arizona's legislature passed--and the governor signed into law--a bill which makes it a crime under state law to be in the U.S. illegally. The law allows police to stop anyone with a "reasonable suspicion" of being undocumented, and demand proof of citizenship. Those who cannot produce the documentation face arrest, a $2,500 fine, and 6 months in jail.
I submit that Arizona's anti-immigrant law is nothing more than Juan Crow racism, a codification of xenophobia, specifically designed to intimidate Latinos regardless of their citizenship status. Although its proponents will tell us it does not racially profile, the law is part of the mix that makes people with Spanish surnames feel unwelcome and unsafe, in an environment of heightened anti-Latino violence and discrimination. After all, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a hate group with ties to the eugenics movement and white supremacists, assisted in drafting the bill. An honest, vigorous debate on immigration and border security is one thing. Bad people passing a law with cruel intentions is another.
But Arizona did not stop there. They are banning ethnic studies in the schools, characterizing such programs as "ethnic chauvinism" and "high treason." Under the policy, schools will lose state funding if they offer courses that "promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, promote resentment of a particular race or class of people, are designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group or advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals." And the Arizona Department of Education is removing teachers with heavy accents.
Ethnic Studies were part of the civil rights movement--born in the late 1960s and early 1970s at a time of increased cultural awareness among people of color--to counter a Eurocentric perspective of history. State governments in Arizona and Texas feed into white extremist antipathy towards diversity by denigrating and eliminating people of color in their school curricula, "taking the country back" so to speak, via the textbooks.
A vibrant democracy should allow for differences of opinion, free from demonization and threats of violence against those who disagree. We may have differences of opinion with people, even those within our own family, but we don't resort to terrorist attacks against them.
May 2, 2010
What In The Sam Hill Is Wrong With Arizona?
Let's start out by saying that Arizona's new anti-immigrant law is unconstitutional and cannot stand in any reasonable society. The worst in the nation, the law allows police to stop anyone suspected of being undocumented, and demand proof of citizenship. Those unable to produce documents showing they are "legal" can be arrested, fined $2,500 and locked up for up to 6 months. The law makes it a crime under state law to be in the U.S. illegally, whatever illegal means.
It is a wretched and regressive piece of legislation, to be sure, in a state that will become majority of color in ten to fifteen years, and in a nation that is browning by the day. After all, the reality that a majority of the babies born in this nation will soon be of a darker hue unsettles some people.
No doubt, Gov. Jan Brewer has scored some points among the shrinking base that remains the party faithful, not to mention the anti-immigrant hate groups such as the nativist Minutemen that harass and beat "suspected" immigrants, a.k.a. Latinos. Just looking at it from a purely common sense point of view, it is utter political suicide to spit in the face of a soon-to-be majority of your state, in order to garner the support of an increasingly unhinged, extremist base. And yet, apparently this is what it takes to shine in the GOP these days.
The governor has assured us that there will be no racial profiling permitted under this law. That assertion is utter foolishness. This law is nothing more and nothing less than an expression of hate, a codification of xenophobia and the legalization of racial profiling. Taking it a step further, this is the criminalization of Latinos and presumed Latinos. To take the racial profiling out of a racial profiling law is to accomplish the impossible. That's like trying to take the racial profiling out of the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII, or extract the "unequal" from Jim Crow laws. That's the whole point of it, after all. You can't have it both ways when you dabble in racist policies. Someone, apparently a supporter of the new law, decorated the Arizona capitol steps with a swastika made of refried beans. And South Carolina's lieutenant governor blamed a lazy workforce for allowing illegal immigrants to thrive in his state. That is what you'd expect in this environment. This is what we're dealing here.
I don't know what it is exactly about Arizona, but I do know that the state needs to be boycotted like a Montgomery bus. That state must realize that you cannot treat any group of people as lesser than the rest, nor can you disrespect the country's largest minority group and expect to emerge unscathed. There must be a price to pay this time, and what better place to start than with the Arizona economy? When an Arizona lawmaker wants to boycott his own state, you know how bad it is.
I had to google my brain to retrieve some information on another controversial, racially-tinged episode in Arizona political history. I came up with the 1980s and the Martin Luther King, Jr. national holiday. In 1987, then-newly elected Arizona Governor Evan Mecham - who defended his use of the term "pickaninnies" for blacks - rescinded the King holiday in Arizona. John McCain, who himself had voted against the holiday in 1983, defended the governor's decision to rescind the holiday on the grounds that it was an imposition on states' rights. Not unlike today with his support of the horrid immigration law, McCain was dabbling in racial politics and shoring up his mavericky rightwing bonafides.
I wonder what Dr. King would have said about Arizona's racial profiling law. Certainly, he would have called it an unjust law, one which is "out of harmony with the moral law," and "degrades human personality". As King articulated in Letter from Birmingham Jail, "One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that 'an unjust law is no law at all.'"
And indeed, the Arizona law is an unjust law not even worth the paper on which it was written. Certainly, this is not the first anti-immigration law, and sadly it likely won't be the last, in this nation with a long history of thriving on both immigrants and jingoism. But we must not participate in the madness, and we must not let the promulgators of such junk think they can get away with it.
Is the 'War on Drugs' finally over?
From theGrio:
Recently, the Philadelphia District Attorney announced that he would all but decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana. Seth Williams, the city's first African-American chief prosecutor, has joined forces with members of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for a new drug policy that could eliminate 3,000 drug cases from the court dockets each year. Under the policy, people who are in possession of up to 30 grams of weed may have to pay a fine, but will not have a criminal record.
For a city such as Philadelphia, money is tight. Cash flow problems are running hand-in-hand with a violent crime epidemic. Police, judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys labor in a system that is clogged, overwhelmed and broken. The loosening of penalties on marijuana will free up resources that can and should be devoted to fighting real crimes, violent crimes such as murder and rape. Philly is just the latest example of efforts around the country to take drug policy in a completely new direction. The war on drugs has not ended, but it appears to be slowing down a bit.
The Senate has given green light to narrowing the disparities in sentencing for powder vs. crack cocaine. Currently, it takes 5 kilograms (5000 grams) of powder cocaine to get you a mandatory minimum of 10 years in federal prison, but only 50 grams of crack will give you the same punishment. This 100-to-1 ratio for powder vs. crack would drop to an 18-to-1 ratio, meaning that 280 grams of crack rather than 50 grams would trigger the 10-year minimum jail time. This is a considerable improvement over the status quo, although it could be better. Some judges are even sentencing crack and powder cocaine defendants at a one-to-one ratio.
There was a time when the war on drugs seemed like a good idea to many. Faced with an epidemic of drug use and the violent crime associated with it, society concluded that it had to address the crisis. Politicians were quick to portray themselves as "tough on crime" in order to attract voters on election day. So, draconian drug laws have placed more and more people behind bars for longer and longer periods of time. Catchy slogans such as "three-strikes" made good public relations but terrible law. As a result, 2.4 million people are behind bars in America, about 70 percent black and brown.
And the world's largest prison population was built from the war on drugs. Drugs have fueled the growth of prisons. Around 20 percent of state prisoners and over half of federal prisoners are drug offenders, and around half of all inmates are incarcerated for nonviolent drug and property crimes.
Meanwhile, the criminalization of drugs is responsible for the bloody drug cartel turf war in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, which has left 5,000 people dead in two years. Prohibition was an abysmal failure for alcohol, and it certainly has not worked for drugs, so why not decriminalize, tax and regulate certain illegal substances?
A study by a Harvard economist concludes that marijuana legalization would save $13.7 billion per year in government spending on drug enforcement--$10.4 billion to the states, and the rest to the federal government. And a tax on marijuana could generate $6.4 billion in revenue if the drug is taxed at a rate similar to alcohol and tobacco, and that's a conservative estimate.
According to a recent poll, a majority of Americans under 30 favor legalizing marijuana, and a majority of Americans of all ages favor legalizing medical marijuana. The drug is illegal under federal law, and used for medicinal purposes in 16 states, including California. The Golden State could become the first state to legalize recreational marijuana use for adults when Californians vote on an initiative in November. Taxing the drug could yield the state $1.4 billion annually.
Similarly, drug decriminalization initiatives are being introduced throughout the nation. For example:
· The judiciary committee in the Connecticut legislature voted to decriminalize marijuana for adults 18 and over who possess less than a half of an ounce.
· A ballot measure in Oregon would decriminalize marijuana and allow people to grow the crop with permits.
· Colorado voters passed an amendment that made their state the only state in the Union to recognize a constitutional right of qualifying patients to use medical marijuana.
· In January, the New Jersey legislature voted to allow medical marijuana dispensaries for chronic diseases such as AIDS and cancer. Last year, 60 percent of Maine voters approved of similar dispensaries, and in April, the state legislature authorized up to eight medical marijuana dispensaries.
· In Nevada, a ballot initiative to tax and regulate weed could make its way on the ballot in 2012. And while Arizonais an inhospitable place where Latino immigrants are concerned, voters of that state will decide whether to legalize medical marijuana in November.
Now, while this is progress, the war on drugs is far from over. But perhaps Americans are beginning to open their eyes. Criminalization has given us failed policies, full prisons, empty coffers, and little else to show for it. Now is the time to make a change with the nation's drug laws.
Black children left behind in adoption market
From theGrio:
Adoption nightmares have been in the news quite a bit lately. There were the reports of adoption scams and child exploitation in Haiti following the earthquake, and the arrest of U.S. missionaries who were suspected of kidnapping Haitian children and shipping them to an orphanage in the Dominican Republic. And there was the American woman who adopted a seven-year-old Russian boy and then sent him back to Siberia, which prompted Russia to suspend adoptions to the U.S.
But here is an adoption story that has not received quite as much attention. And it shines the spotlight on the crisis of black children unable to find parents to adopt them. A newly minted study by the California institute of Technology, New York University and the London School of Economics examined the preferences of Americans who want to adopt children. The data were collected between 2004 and 2009, and reflect the views of both straight and gay prospective parents. The study found that adoptive parents have very strong preferences for girls, and children who are not African-American.
The report found, unexpectedly, that girls are one-third more likely to attract adoptive parents than boys. In the general population, there is a slight preference for boys. Moreover, a baby who is not African-American is seven times more desirable to potential adoptive parents than a black baby. Although all of the parents in the study were white, surprisingly Latino and white children fared about the same.
In an unseemly way, all of this translates into dollars in America's $2-3 billion adoption market: Parents were willing to pay $16,000 more for a girl than a boy, but $38,000 more for a non-African-American baby than a black one.
The real world, it appears, is a far cry from Arnold, Willis and Mr. Drummond of Diff'rent Strokes fame, or the cases of wealthy celebrities who adopt African babies-- whether out of the goodness of their heart, as a political statement, for use as fashion accessories, or to generate positive publicity. And in many ways, we should not be surprised, because this is America. This is a society that still equates blackness with inferiority and criminality, even if the president is black.
As if to make a bad situation even worse, the study pointed to circumstances that are blocking people from adopting children, and causing far too many children to languish in foster care on a road to bad life outcomes. These include the restrictions in some states against same-sex or single-parent adoptions, as well as the 2008 Hague Treaty, which places limitations on foreign citizens who want to adopt children in the U.S. There is a reason why many gay and lesbian families decide to adopt girls from China--often they are barred from adopting here at home.
In fact, removing foreign parents from the pool--who may prove more open and with fewer cultural and racial hang-ups-- reduced the number of successful adoption matches by 33 percent. And eliminating gay parents resulted in a 6 percent drop, with only 18 percent of birth mothers allowing same-sex adoptive parents in the first place.
From a public policy point of view, none of this is good news for black children, who exist in the foster care systemfar beyond their numbers. Although fifteen percent of U.S. children are black, they are one-third of children in foster care, and one-third of those awaiting adoption. As a whole, all children of color are 60 percent of the kids in foster care. And not surprisingly, as adults they fill up the nation's prisons at a disproportionate rate, and are two-thirds of America's inmates.
Many black children need a loving home, so what is the answer? In 1972, the National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW) regarded transracial adoption as a type of racial and cultural genocide. It was a reasonable argument, given the sordid history in this country of social experiments such as the Indian Adoption Project. This was an assimilation program in the 1950s and 1960s that removed Native American children from their families, and placed them in white families. From about 1880 to 1980, Native American children in the U.S. and Canada were also placed in mandatory boarding schools, a racist policy designed to ""kill the Indian" and "save the man".
Similarly, in the early twentieth century, the Australian government kidnapped mixed-race or "half-caste" Aborigine children and placed them in reeducation camps and white homes, in an attempt to breed them out of existence.
Transracial adoption in the U.S. faced a watershed moment in 1994, when the Multiethnic Placement Act was passed to prohibit agencies that receive federal money from delaying or denying the placement of children on the basis of race, color or national origin. But obviously, the law is not working, and race is still a big factor in adoption placement.
In light of this crisis of unadopted black children, more must be done to overcome the institutional racism of adoption workers and place these kids in loving homes. Some have suggested that black families must step up their adoption game, which is not a bad idea. After all, Sandra Bullock, Tom Cruise, Michelle Pfeiffer and Steven Spielberg can't do it alone. But that is not enough. Because the best interests of the child are of paramount importance, providing him or her with a loving, healthy, nurturing environment in a family of any color should be the goal, particularly when the alternative is the foster care system. And if an adoptive parent can provide that to an African-American child-- not to mention affirm that child's racial identity, and know how to do black hair-- then that's really all you need.
In the end, black children should know they are wanted and loved.
Adoption nightmares have been in the news quite a bit lately. There were the reports of adoption scams and child exploitation in Haiti following the earthquake, and the arrest of U.S. missionaries who were suspected of kidnapping Haitian children and shipping them to an orphanage in the Dominican Republic. And there was the American woman who adopted a seven-year-old Russian boy and then sent him back to Siberia, which prompted Russia to suspend adoptions to the U.S.
But here is an adoption story that has not received quite as much attention. And it shines the spotlight on the crisis of black children unable to find parents to adopt them. A newly minted study by the California institute of Technology, New York University and the London School of Economics examined the preferences of Americans who want to adopt children. The data were collected between 2004 and 2009, and reflect the views of both straight and gay prospective parents. The study found that adoptive parents have very strong preferences for girls, and children who are not African-American.
The report found, unexpectedly, that girls are one-third more likely to attract adoptive parents than boys. In the general population, there is a slight preference for boys. Moreover, a baby who is not African-American is seven times more desirable to potential adoptive parents than a black baby. Although all of the parents in the study were white, surprisingly Latino and white children fared about the same.
In an unseemly way, all of this translates into dollars in America's $2-3 billion adoption market: Parents were willing to pay $16,000 more for a girl than a boy, but $38,000 more for a non-African-American baby than a black one.
The real world, it appears, is a far cry from Arnold, Willis and Mr. Drummond of Diff'rent Strokes fame, or the cases of wealthy celebrities who adopt African babies-- whether out of the goodness of their heart, as a political statement, for use as fashion accessories, or to generate positive publicity. And in many ways, we should not be surprised, because this is America. This is a society that still equates blackness with inferiority and criminality, even if the president is black.
As if to make a bad situation even worse, the study pointed to circumstances that are blocking people from adopting children, and causing far too many children to languish in foster care on a road to bad life outcomes. These include the restrictions in some states against same-sex or single-parent adoptions, as well as the 2008 Hague Treaty, which places limitations on foreign citizens who want to adopt children in the U.S. There is a reason why many gay and lesbian families decide to adopt girls from China--often they are barred from adopting here at home.
In fact, removing foreign parents from the pool--who may prove more open and with fewer cultural and racial hang-ups-- reduced the number of successful adoption matches by 33 percent. And eliminating gay parents resulted in a 6 percent drop, with only 18 percent of birth mothers allowing same-sex adoptive parents in the first place.
From a public policy point of view, none of this is good news for black children, who exist in the foster care systemfar beyond their numbers. Although fifteen percent of U.S. children are black, they are one-third of children in foster care, and one-third of those awaiting adoption. As a whole, all children of color are 60 percent of the kids in foster care. And not surprisingly, as adults they fill up the nation's prisons at a disproportionate rate, and are two-thirds of America's inmates.
Many black children need a loving home, so what is the answer? In 1972, the National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW) regarded transracial adoption as a type of racial and cultural genocide. It was a reasonable argument, given the sordid history in this country of social experiments such as the Indian Adoption Project. This was an assimilation program in the 1950s and 1960s that removed Native American children from their families, and placed them in white families. From about 1880 to 1980, Native American children in the U.S. and Canada were also placed in mandatory boarding schools, a racist policy designed to ""kill the Indian" and "save the man".
Similarly, in the early twentieth century, the Australian government kidnapped mixed-race or "half-caste" Aborigine children and placed them in reeducation camps and white homes, in an attempt to breed them out of existence.
Transracial adoption in the U.S. faced a watershed moment in 1994, when the Multiethnic Placement Act was passed to prohibit agencies that receive federal money from delaying or denying the placement of children on the basis of race, color or national origin. But obviously, the law is not working, and race is still a big factor in adoption placement.
In light of this crisis of unadopted black children, more must be done to overcome the institutional racism of adoption workers and place these kids in loving homes. Some have suggested that black families must step up their adoption game, which is not a bad idea. After all, Sandra Bullock, Tom Cruise, Michelle Pfeiffer and Steven Spielberg can't do it alone. But that is not enough. Because the best interests of the child are of paramount importance, providing him or her with a loving, healthy, nurturing environment in a family of any color should be the goal, particularly when the alternative is the foster care system. And if an adoptive parent can provide that to an African-American child-- not to mention affirm that child's racial identity, and know how to do black hair-- then that's really all you need.
In the end, black children should know they are wanted and loved.
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