Stop and Frisk

With "some fact-based suspicion," the police can stop anybody, interrogate him, and search him. (Or her.)

But the police seem to have trouble distinguishing between suspicious appearance and conduct. The appearance route seems to result in mostly Black and Brown people getting stopped and frisked, because just having dark skin makes a person suspicious.

If you protest, you might get arrested. That's what happened to Leonardo Blair, a reporter who was stopped and frisked and then arrested and charged with "making unreasonable noise" and "disobeying a lawful order." The charges have since been dismissed.

Integration: Good for All of Us

I just read Can We Talk about Race: And Other Conversations in an Era of School Resegregation by Beverly Daniel Tatum. Phd.

What is the significance of continuing residential and increasing school segregation? One possible outcome is that while interracial contact and more-tolerant racial attitudes increased during the last half of the twentieth century, the same may not be true in the first quarter of the twenty-first century, particularly in our public schools. For example, when high school students were asked . . . how often they interacted with people of other races--engaging in activities such as having a conversation, eating together, or playing sports--the percentage of white students who said they did this "a lot" increased significantly over the time between 1976 and 2000, doubling from approximately 15 percent to 30 percent. While conversely this statistic suggests that 70 percent of white youth do not have such experiences with great frequency, the increase in interaction reported in this study can be seen as a positive result of improving race relations in America. What will the answers be in 2010? In 2020?
. . . The progress that has been made in the reduction of racial prejudice that can be associated with shared school experiences is at risk of stalling.

Racist or Bumbler?

You may have heard about Department of Justice voting rights honcho John Tanner's ill-advised remarks back on October 4 and 5, during meetings with the NAACP and the National Latino Congreso:

• ". . . minorities are slightly more likely" than whites to have photo IDs, speculating that this was due to "vestiges of racism still at work in the United States" ("vestiges"? "vestiges"?)
• ". . . our society is such that minorities don't become elderly the way white people do. They die first."

At the time, there was a bit of outrage about what Tanner said. From Barack Obama:

Such comments are patently erroneous, offensive, and dangerous, and they are especially troubling coming from the federal official charged with protecting voting rights in this country.

Mr. Tanner has already demonstrated questionable judgment in overruling the decision of Justice Department lawyers that the Georgia photo ID requirement would disproportionately discriminate against African Americans. For Mr. Tanner to now suggest, in an effort to defend his erroneous decision, that photo identification are not necessary for minority voters because "they die first" shows just how far the Justice Department has fallen. This is a disgrace and yet another reason why the next Attorney General must demonstrate a strong commitment to civil rights.

Tanner did apologize later:

"My explanation of the data came across in a hurtful way, which I deeply regret."

And then requested a move. Now he has been assigned to the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices, where he will probably find some way to chew his toenails. Stay tuned.

It seems to me Tanner just as guilty of Not Making Sense as of racism, in that he seems to first argue that requiring IDs for voting cannot disenfranchise minorities because minorities are more likely to be harassed by the police and asked for IDs and therefore are more likely to have IDs already, but then he says that it really doesn't matter if elderly minority folk have IDs because they're too dead to vote, anyway.

I Don't Get Clarence Thomas

What world does he live in? But I digress.

In 1996 California voters rose up in protest against the Color Threat and passed Proposition We Hate Black People, Brown People, and People of the Feminine Persuasion 209, a nasty bit of legislation intended to dismantle affirmative action.

In order to fully understand why affirmative action is necessary, one must review the facts:

Slavery was ended only 154 years ago. (Emmett Till was murdered only 52 years ago.) The Civil Rights Act was passed only 40 years ago. (The Tuskegee Experiment ended only 35 years ago.) After only 10 years, not even enough time to begin addressing institutionalized discrimination practices, the Supreme Court already began to restrict affirmative action only 30 years ago.

But if you don't want to look at history, you can just look at the present circumstances. It seems so obvious that the demographics of the leadership of this country does not reflect the demographics of the country, as the vast majority of legislators and CEOs are white men, which means there is a problem that must be addressed. It seems highly unlikely to me that all who happen to be Brown people, Black people, or people of the feminine persuasion are not as smart nor as capable as the white men who run the show. If the lack is not in capacity, we must look to a lack in opportunity.

Recently, the state of California audited the 23 California State Universities and found that, indeed, there are not so many Brown people, Black people, or people of the feminine persuasion being hired, and the recommendation was made that the CSU "develop an affirmative action plan."

Work to Do

. . . in the immortal words of the Isley Brothers.

I could have left this Achievement Gap Summit after the first session I attended, by three brothers, three warriors on the front line, about what these brothers have done at their school to raise up the children.

One of the co-founders, Fluke Fluker, described a trip he made to Africa, and in so doing, told us that Masai warriors greet one another by asking, "How are the children?"

So here we are, well-meaning folk all I am sure, talking and listening about the achievement gap. Black students and Latino students are attending college at half the rates of white and Asian students. Three times as many Black men are going to prison than are attending college. (Obviously, the problem here is also the criminal injustice system, not just the lack of equity in education.) Tavis Smiley said this morning that education is the civil rights issue of this decade.

But, people, let us stop laying all the responsibility at the teachers' door. We are our brother's keeper. We all have a responsibility. We are all accountable for the education of our children, which means we are all accountable for their welfare.

Do they have food? A hungry child can't learn.
Are they receiving dental care? A child sitting in class with a toothache can't learn.
Do they receive preventive health care? A child who is ill at home is not learning.
Are their homes and neighborhoods safe? A child who is afraid will not learn.

Talk. Listen. Read. Learn. Teach. Vote. Do something.

Put Away Your Wallet

Stock up. There's an economic boycott coming:

ATLANTA -- Civil rights leaders called Tuesday for a march on the Justice Department and an economic boycott next month because they believe the federal government has been sluggish in dealing with hate crimes.

They called for Americans not to spend any money Nov. 2 as an economic boycott of the federal government's handling of hate crimes. And they announced initial plans for a Nov. 16 march on Justice Department headquarters in Washington.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, Martin Luther King III and other activists at a news conference outside the federal courthouse in Atlanta cited the uproar in Jena, La., surrounding three white teens accused of hanging nooses outside a school and the six black teens charged in the beating of a white student. Five were initially charged with attempted murder, but that charge was reduced.

The civil rights leaders believe the federal government should prosecute the noose hanging as a hate crime. Louisiana authorities have said there is no state law under which they could prosecute the students suspected of hanging the nooses.

"The Justice Department is missing in action," King said.

A spokesman for the Justice Department, Erik Ablin, said in an e-mail message that federal, state and local officials are aggressively investigating numerous noose hanging reports around the country, as well as other incidents involving racial or religious threats.

I'm all for it. Show the power. If nothing else, it will be good for legislators and companies to see how many people really are paying attention. November 2. Mark it on the calendar.

Make Segregation Equal?

I understand it. Neighborhood schools have a lot to recommend them. You can walk to school; there's a sense of community; your children and their friends live close to each other. Desegregation may mean traveling an inconvenient distance to school, and it may mean social isolation for children after school, and it brings a host of other problems. But, still.

Schools with a majority nonwhite student population are going to have less money, because these are schools on the wrong side of the street from the gated communities and gently rolling green hills and high property values. These schools usually will not be staffed by the most experienced administrators and teachers. They may not have all the supplies they need, nor enough books, nor computers. The way schools are funded makes sure of this, in this land of I Got Mine and You Can't Have Any (so short-sighted).

Yes, all schools should teach the same material, be equally rigorous, provide the same supplies, offer the same opportunities. They should.

But even if they did, even if schools truly were separate but equal, that would still be a terrible world in which to live. Wouldn't it mean that we gave up?

Education Requires Integration

Or at least it should.

School integration is good for everybody:

Wells’s [Amy Stuart Wells, of Columbia University's Teachers College --ed.] brief primarily focuses on the long-term benefits of school integration. She cites social science data that shows integrated schools have a strong, positive effect on students’ racial attitudes and ability to interact with others in multiracial settings. The data show that minority students receive long-term benefits from integrated schools: they tend to move into more racially integrated settings in their lives and careers; they experience greater social mobility; they have higher occupational aspirations; and they develop intergroup skills that benefit both the graduates and their employers.

At the same time, research shows that white students who attend racially integrated schools have fewer racial stereotypes and prejudices, even controlling for other relevant social factors. Not only do integrated schools help the life chances of minority students, they also lessen the discrimination they face in society. Furthermore, Wells presents research showing that schools are often the only place that children are exposed to the multicultural experiences that lead to these benefits.

But there is so much opposition:

MILTON, Mass. -- Last spring, town officials in this affluent Boston suburb changed the elementary-school assignments for 38 streets -- and sparked outrage. Some white families had been reassigned to Tucker, a mostly black school which has historically had Milton's lowest test scores.

Among those reassigned is Kevin Keating, a white parent who is talking to lawyers about going to court to reverse the plan. I "just don't feel good putting [my son] in an inferior school," he says. His ammunition: the U.S. Supreme Court's June ruling that consideration of race in school assignments is unconstitutional.

Some work for integration in an attempt to reduce the racial achievement gap in test scores:

Although the push to integrate public schools is often associated with the civil-rights movement, these days many school administrators want to integrate schools for a more practical reason: to raise test scores. Studies show black and other minority students tend to perform better academically when they learn alongside white classmates. Districts face the threat of losing government funds if school test scores fail to meet a certain threshold.

Even though closing the achievement gap is ostensibly a significant goal of the No Test Publisher Child Left Behind legislation, really, are we surprised that to learn that

the Bush administration and various organizations have filed briefs opposing the integration policies.

The real issue is that school segregation is a basic human rights violation:

[According to a UN Human Rights Commission report] the state of segregation in U.S. schools may violate an international human rights treaty to which the United States is a signatory.

Who Shows Up

Remember Pleajhia Mervin, the high school student and birthday cake offender? She is facing criminal charges, while the security guard who broke her wrist is on paid leave. (And Pleajhia has been expelled from school. Probably because she is Black, I'm just going out on a limb here, because of that one federal study: "No other ethnic group is disciplined at such a high rate, the federal data show. . . Yet black students are no more likely to misbehave than other students from the same social and economic environments, research studies have found.")

The Reverend is on the scene. As well someone needs to be. Do not criticize the Reverend to me unless you are willing to quit your job and be Johnny on the Spot whenever an injustice of this nature occurs.

[Followed the link at BlackPerspective.net More here at Electronic Village about the 9/30 protest.]

Nobody Here But Us Racists

The Jena backlash continues:

From the Kansas City Star via Negrophile:

All of this is to say that blaming “outsiders” for protests of local grievances is a well-established tradition in the history of American social protest. Thus, it is not surprising that officials in Jena, La., want to blame an outsider, Tom Bean[I think this is a mistake? I think the name is Alan Bean], founder of the Friends of Justice, for stirring up trouble regarding the six black youths charged in a schoolyard assault on a white student.

From the Independent Weekly in Lafayette, LA:

The article also introduces Jena residents who say the situation is being blown out of proportion by the “international and national media, national civil rights activists and Internet bloggers.” Most believe Jena’s “a safe, nice place to raise a family.”

(A nice, safe place to raise a white family, you mean.)

This isn't new. It had commenced a-brewin' in Jena before the big rally, because Jena was already getting a little too much attention for its segregating ways (article by Etan Thomas and Dave Zirin, posted by Davey D. at Davey D.'s Hip Hop Corner:

Outsiders are always what people in the South have called those who challenge racism. But the story of Jena is not an outsider/insider story. It's a story
about the worst tradition of what is known as Southern Justice.

At Democracy Now, there is an interview with Caseptla Bailey and Tina Jones, the mothers of Robert Bailey and Bryant Purvis. The interview took place the day after the rally. The question about the accusation that outsiders were causing all the commotion came up:

AMY GOODMAN: And, Caseptla, what do you say to those who say this is a bunch of outsiders coming in, everything was fine in Jena before they started marching on our town?

CASEPTLA BAILEY: Well, I’d like to say that everything wasn’t fine in Jena. That’s why the outsiders are here, and that’s why everything has gone so tremendously within the last few months. So I’d like to applaud those people that have come here from the outside, to come in and to support us and to help us and assist us in this matter. So I’d like to say hats off to those persons.

You Got a Right to Say It

. . . and I got a right to be disgusted by it:

Let's get this out of the way: what happened to the Jena 6 was heinous, non-blacks should be reexamining their hearts, and heads should be rolling Nifong-style. I'm as happy as the next Negro to stick it to the man (I'm on record as saying I'd have thrown a rock, just one and into a bush—more of a tossing if you will—after the Rodney King verdict had I been an Angeleno), but this wasn't exactly Selma and these brothers weren't exactly the Scottsboro Boys. Folks should go to jail for stomping a random (and lone) person into the ER, white or not, nooses or not. Not for attempted murder, of course not, but aggravated battery sounds about right, especially when you factor in that the stompee was not, as far as we know, one of the noose hangers. And when we have it on good authority that Jena High also boasts "black bleachers" where honkies fear not tread. Racism, and its effects on the ground, is rarely simple.

No one is saying it is simple. But people are saying, "Enough is enough." That, at least, is a simple message. And what this writer fails to address is the context.

The most objectionable portion of this piece, however, is the self-righteous sputtering:

I made no effort to get to Jena. Instead, I spent that time reading worthy analyses of the proveable, addressable, effects of racism in the criminal justice system. These bespectacled economists and sociologists are downright radical. They already knew that racism filled our prisons; now they're proving how it affects America at large. They're doing more good on Capitol Hill making these "tough on crime" politicians change gears than all the buses in Jena.

To each is given his calling. To each is given his gifts. Some are called to lift their voices in protest at injustice; others are called to research. Others are called simply to labor, or to do what is in front of them at any given time. We none of us got to pick, but when we hear the voice, we go and do its bidding, or we suffer the fate of Jonah.

Who among us has the wisdom to say which gift is most valuable? Not me, not you, and certainly not Debra Dickerson.