CAN NEW JERSEY GET A BREAK?

sigh… 44 people arrested for corruption! Jersey just can’t shake its roots can it? And its equal opportunity crime too, even the orthodox Jews were in on it. You know..I really like New Jersey, lived there for a while, but corruption does seep into the tiniest corners of local government there. Look at Camden. The city has absolutely no tax base because so few businesses have remained. Now how can that be? Because palms are now just greased with federal and state money.  I don’t know how New Jersey will ever be cleaned up, but for the sake of the good people there, I hope something positive happens soon.

…just something I was thinking about…

“HOME GROWN” TERRORISM

Yesterday’s breaking story was the announcement of the arrests of some so-called “home grown” terrorists in North Carolina. The government alleges that  Daniel Patrick Boyd, his two sons and four others, all of whom with exception of one, are U.S. citizens were training and preparing to go to Afghanistan and engage in violent jihad.  There were no allegations that they were planning any violence on American soil.  Daniel Boyd said he once fought in Afghanistan, with the full knowledge and approval of the U.S. government. You may remember that at one time, the U.S. government supported bin Laden and others in Afghanistan because they were fighting the Soviets. That was then and this now and its bad to fight for the same people you fought with before. You following that? Of course these are just allegations, we will have to wait until the trial to find out what they actually did. It does however, give me an opportunity to remind folks that home grown terrorism is the main threat on American soil, both before and after 9-11.  We are spending so much money looking for any one who is”Arab” looking or Muslim, that we can’t see the people who were born and raised here, usually trained in our military, and full of hate. The F.B.I. terrorism report has always identified domestic terrorism as the main threat on American soil.  As if to emphasize the point, James von Brunn, the white Supremacist who shot up the Holocaust Museum was indicted today. Secretary of the department of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, said “we” are the best defense against home grown terrorism… Look out y’all. You know whose neighbors are going to be calling the police! Some how I don’t see too many white people getting turned in. Just check out the comments of Boyd’s neighbors…they all said he was perfectly nice.  The same thing is said  when a serial killer, who is also a boy scout leader or a church official, gets arrested. Every one is shocked because the people just seem “regular.” So how exactly are these same people going to recognize a domestic terrorist? Warning! Big brother will be watching…but watching whom?

…just something I was thinking about…

MICHAEL VICK AND WORK POSSIBILITIES

Michael Vick is out of jail and has been thoroughly punished for running the dog fighting ring. Ok, well he was really punished for killing the dogs! That’s my belief anyway…no one cared about the gambling. He did his time and now he’s out. Why are people suggesting he shouldn’t be able to return to football?! There are plenty of felons playing football and a bunch of them are way more dangerous than Michael Vick!! At least he didn’t beat up his wife or girlfriend and get away with just a public apology, like say…Warren Moon and countless others.  If he was a white athlete, say like the swimmer who got caught smoking the marijuana, you’d all be talking about giving him another chance.I know many of you have pets and I don’t believe any one should abuse an animal. I have reported neighbors for pet abuse. BUT, no one should permanently excluded from pursuing a professional career because they killed a dog, even if it is some dogs. Vick has more than paid for what he did. Get over it and let the man do what he does best, which is play football.  Hopefully, one of the many teams with abysmal records will pick him up.

…just something I was thinking about…

UPDATE ON GATES

All right…his neighbors are off the hook. It was some random white woman walking in the street that called the cops. The public effort to support the cop as a good person is well under way. That is one of the problems with dealing with race in the United States. Only openly racist people will admit that race influences them. Every one else refuses to acknowledge that race could possibly influence them.   It is impossible to be in the United States, for even two weeks and not learn to be influenced by race, unless of course you don’t watch televison, listen to the radio, read any newspapers or magazines, or go outside and watch how people interact.  Racial bias is in the fiber of almost everything that occurs here. Even good people can and do have racial bias. So, let’s get over that…”he’s a good person” thing.

Finally,  um… is Gates pushing his partly white heritage just a little bit too strongly?

…just something I was thinking about…

BLACK HARVARD LAW PROF FINDS OUT HE’S…JUST BLACK

By now, all of you know Professor Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, Harvard’s preeminent academic expert on blackness, was arrested last Thursday. Turns out one of his neighbors saw him using a little shoulder force to get into his home. He didn’t have his key, and they called the police. When the police arrived he was already in his house, showed  his ID, but he and the cop had “words.” He ended up being arrested for disorderly conduct (um…you can be disorderly in your own home…). There are SO many things to talk about here. First off, your neighbors don’t recognize you??? There aren’t that many black people living in Cambridge..not in those kind of neighborhoods, so WHY would your neighbors not recognize you? As for the police, those of you who have ever represented indigent people will recognize that Gates got an “attitude ticket.” That’s where the police arrest black and brown people, not because they have actually done something, but because they insisted on having their rights respected. I guess Gates thought the letters behind his name (PhD) were going to protect him. Or, maybe he thought the Harvard connection was enough. And maybe, as an academic who doesn’t live in a community of color, he might have forgotten that the stuff he writes and talks about actually does happen on a regular basis to real black people.

The prosecutor dropped the charges, but Gates says he wants an apology from the cop. I heard the officer on television this morning saying he had the support of his department and friends and he wasn’t apologizing for anything. I would pay good money to be a fly on the wall the next time Gates goes to therapy! It is a lesson to all of us who temporarily convince ourselves that our education or career success insulates us from racism in America. The letters behind your name, no matter whether they are MA, JD, PhD, DDS,  MD, or anything else cannot erase your black face.

..just something I was thinking about…

OBAMA GOES TO GHANA

Obama chose Ghana as the first African country to visit since becoming President of the United States. There was some sniping that the Kenyans were offended by the choice. But President Obama had a pretty interesting interview with allafrica.com where he talked about Ghana’s long and successful endorsement of democracy and respect for the voice of the electorate. I’ll try to post the video for you. I think it was a good choice. The Kenyan government has taken some hits on the rule of law issue. The ethnic killings after their last elections were horrific and, of late human rights activists in Kenya have been murdered, apparently for political reasons. It was good that Obama chose an African country that is stable and not constantly in the news for corruption or ethnic/religious strife because not all African countries have those problems, although you would never know that from media coverage of the continent. There are 52 nations on the African continent, and hopefully, this president will help make it possible for the world to see more of what has been accomplished in Africa by African people.

…just something I was thinking about…

STEVE MCNAIR AND MICHAEL JACKSON

Huh? You may be asking what do Steve McNair and Michael Jackson have in common. Give me a sec and I’ll explain it! First, let’s look at the Steve McNair death. The brother was married with four boys, and he’s running around town with a 19 year old waitress! C’mon! Look at the horrible memory he has created for his four boys and let’s not even talk about the example of infidelity. Research on athletes in hyper aggressive sports  indicate his level of risk taking is fairly common, among similarly situated players. The young woman, as it turns out, was a little unstable and her friends now acknowledge she had talked about ending her own life. She thought he was cheating on her (…do we sense some irony here?) and killed him while he was asleep. Now brothers…how many times do you all need to go through this example before you get it? Anyway, I digress…

How then are Steve McNair and Michael Jackson related? Both of these very famous and high profile black people were in pain. Friends and associates knew it and sort of looked the other way. McNair’s former team mates said they knew he was wrestling with some issues since he stepped away from football. They mentioned depression, and yet they assumed he would “work it out.” You don’t have to be a psychiatrist to know Michael Jackson was in pain. Just look at how he had tortured himself. (Is it me or has any one else noticed that none of those Jackson kids has the same face they were born with? Whew…a lot of self hate going on there) Now it appears, or at least it is suspected, that Jackson was addicted to pain killers. It would be great if the public would allow celebrities to have a healthy life that included some private, safe space. And it would be even better, if all of us would look around at the people we love and really see them so that we can openly and actively try to help and support them if they are suffering. The human spirit is tough, but the mind is often more fragile. And hey black folks…therapy can be a good thing.

…just something I was thinking about…

HARD TO BLOG IN THE SUMMER…..

I have to admit, between the summer weather and eight days of no internet connectivity, its been hard to keep up with the blog, but, let me try to hit on a some stories that passed by during these past four weeks. Just a word or two…

JENA 6 – You may have missed it but  five of the Jena 6 plead no contest to their charges towards the end of June. The boys admitted that the white victim, Barker, had never uttered racial slurs before or during the fight. You remember the Jena 6, from Louisiana? Every one got riled up and said they were being charged cause the town and police were racist. I said then, that everyone was focusing on the wrong issue. It wasn’t whether the boys should have been charged. Any time a group of people beat one person, well..that’s not good. The issue was then, as it is now, whether the police and the prosecutor treated them the same as they would have treated white boys arrested for the same thing. In the hulabaloo of the protests, this issue was never fully resolved and it was a missed opportunity to determine whether black defendants in that part of Louisiana are being treated in a racially biased way. Please people, we have to get more sophisticated about our racial analysis and how we protest. This same kind of shallow treatment is what helped put Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court. We have to do better.

Strip Searching in School – The Supreme Court decided the strip search of a middle school student by school administrators looking for ibuprofen that the girl was alleged to have, was unreasonable and violated her fourth amendment rights. Her bag had already been searched with no success when the administrator decided the school nurse should look in her panties for the two pain killers! Well if they were in there, who was going to want them after  that! Needless to say, no drugs were found. The student, now 19, says the experience scared her.  Attention parents!  You can send your kids to school now and they probably won’t be strip searched. Oh, guess who was the one justice who voted against finding the search unreasonable? You got it…your black justice…

Connecticut Firefighters – The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Connecticut fire fighters. Nothing surprising here. The affirmative action rulings by the Supreme Court have aggressively been dismantling the notion since Rehnquist was Chief Justice. If any of you are expecting the Supreme Court to come out with an affirmative action decision that supports the rights of folks of color, then you are on some serious drugs…. For those who are interested, Professor Ian Haney Lopez has done some of the best writing on how white men have transformed themselves into a minority and used anti-discrimination laws to uphold their own privilege. Check out, “A Nation of Minorities: Race, Ethnicity, and Reactionary Colorblindness,” 59 Stanford L. Rev. 985 (2007).

Sotomayor Hearings – Went well. It was the unusual political grand standing, a general lack of serious substantive discussion of the law or the Constitution. In other words, a regular modern confirmation hearing. That is bad for us as citizens but hey, its the way it is, and it has nothing to do with the candidate’s merits.

Steve McNair – That deserves its own entry!!!

All right…..that’s it,  quick and dirty….

…just some things I was thinking about…

THE KING OF POP AND THE END OF AN ERA

Wow! Michael Jackson is dead. We were in the street when we heard the news yesterday. A brother was telling all the black people he saw as he walked down the street. We already knew Jackson had been taken to the hospital, but the possibility of death had never entered into the conversation.  But maybe it should have. Michael Jackson had a talent larger than life. And many stars at that level are with us for too short a time, burning out like comets in the night sky. It’s almost as if the talent is a curse as much as a blessing. While watching some of the replays of interviews of him last night, I couldn’t help but hear the pain in his voice as his adult man physique tried to come to terms with the world he saw through a child’s eyes. No matter what any one thought of  Jackson’s personal travails, his musical talent could not be questioned. It continues to influence people who are far too young to remember him as a live performer. He changed the way we heard music and the way we visualized it.  For many years, before his demons caught him, he was the complete package, singer, song writer, dancer, consummate performer. And even after his decline, there were constant talks of a come back, which ironically seemed as if it was actually about to happen.  There will be no come back now. And however you remember him is how he will be frozen in time for you. But, I think in the years ahead, Michael Jackson will be remembered for what he was, an extraordinary musical talent, that many have emulated but none can recreate. Here’s hoping Jackson’s tortured soul can now rest in peace. He earned it.

… just something I was thinking about…

GIVING CREDIT WHERE ITS DUE

This blog has been quick to criticize bad police behavior. Just to be fair, I’m going to mention a hearing that was held this week and reported on by the NY Times. The court appointed monitor who oversees the progress the L.A. Police Department is making towards ridding itself of racism, reducing police brutality, eliminating criminal conduct by police officers and a host of other things appeared in court . The monitor reported  that there had been improvement in the Police Department, but that more needed to be done. LAPD of course has asked for a dismissal of the of the monitoring program, but the monitor recommended a three year phase out to ensure that the department stays on track and continues to make improvement. Hopefully, given the prior conduct of the department (remember Rodney King and the Rampart Division), the court will order the transitional ending. In the meantime, if LAPD can actually be improved and maintain the improvements, that will be a very positive occurrence.

… just something I was thinking about …