Neuman: Sean Taylor, Whitlock, & Black on Black Crime

Neuman is a good friend of mine. We agree on social and political issues about 50-60% of the time. But even when I disagree with him I always appreciate his persuasive, thoughtful, and provocative arguments. His comments on my last post about Sean Taylor are a great example. I decided to bump it up to a post for some more shine since it framed the issues of Taylor’s death, the response by Whitlock and others, and black on black crime in an interesting way. With his permission, I’m also including additional comments of his from a private group on which we converse with several other close friends.

Sean Taylor and Black on Black Crime

Whoa! Jason Whitlock has always been provocative but he came especially hard in his article for Fox Sports in responding to the murder of Redskins’ Sean Taylor. And even before Whitlock wrote this, some bloggers responded similarly–saying what many were thinking but afraid to say. On Tuesday, The Field Negro had this to say:

Asking Better Questions in Race Surveys

Dawn Turner Trice wrote a piece in the Chicago Tribune that echoed some of my reservations about the recent Pew Research Center survey with respect to the types of questions asked. Her particular issue had to do with the question about whether blacks can be considered a single race.

Say you were contacted for a national survey and this was one of the questions: Which of these statements comes closer to your view — even if neither is exactly right: Blacks today can no longer be thought of as a single race because the black community is so diverse OR blacks can still be thought of as a single race because they have so much in common.

How would you answer? Could you answer?

Remembering Harold Washington

I didn’t live in Chicago during the time he was mayor, but since I am now a resident, it is only right for me to give props to Harold Washington, one of the first black mayors of a major U.S. city (Chicago’s very first). Sunday was the 20th anniversary of his death, but his influence is lasting in Chicago and in others he has inspired such as Obama.

If you haven’t heard of him, you’d most likely enjoy learning a bit about him whether you live in the Chi or not. He was definitely a different kind of politician–refreshingly so. Here are a few remembrances to check out:

- A great radio story from Chicago Public Radio
- A short story from NPR
- A Chicago-Sun article

It would be great to hear from some Chicago natives who were around when he was in office.

Report on Minority-Serving Institutions

The National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) released its report on minority-serving institutions (MSI). They describe MSIs as, “colleges and universities serving a large percentage of minority students” and identify 6 different subgroups of such schools.

Here are some of their findings:

• In 2004, the 1,254 MSIs accounted for just under one-third of all degree-granting Title IV institutions (schools that can disburse federal financial aid) but they enrolled nearly sixty percent of the 4.7 million minority undergraduates.

• Hispanic-serving institutions and Black-serving (non-HBCUs) accounted for 27 percent and 16 percent, respectively of MSIs followed by Asian-serving (8 percent), HBCUs (5 percent), and American Indian-serving institutions (1 percent).

• The majority of students in Hispanic- and Black-serving MSIs were enrolled in public 2-year institutions.

• When compared to four-year non-MSIs, MSIs (except for Asian-serving) had a higher percentage of institutions with open admissions policy and institutions with at least half low-income enrollment.

Black Women NBC Series: Part 1

The first installment of NBC’s five-part series was almost as much about the underachievement of black men as it was about the success of black women (check their website for videos). It pointed out a few gender gaps such as 64% of black college students consisting of black women–no newsflash here. Haywood Strickland, president of Wiley College, went as far as to say that black women have grasped the concept that success requires steady hard work while black men have yet to embrace this idea. Instead, he says black men aim for quick and grand success where the odds of doing so are slim (e.g. pro sports, rapping)–an explanation heard many times before.

As for reasons typically offered for the gender disparities, the show noted schools that “give up on black boys” and a “bad boy” subculture (read hip-hop). Burt-Murray also reflected on the old adage, mothers raise their daughters and love their sons and suggested that this may be another reason–that maybe black girls are pushed more to excel while boys are “nurtured.”

The more interesting part of the show addressed the growing influence of black women in business and politics. For example, Angela Burt-Murray, editor of Essence, commented on a recent study showing that in the next election, 6 out of 10 black votes will be cast by black women. Regarding economics, the episode made mention of how black women control 62% of the $850 billion dollars of black spending power.

I must admit that at first I was a bit uncomfortable with all the talk of the plight of the black man in a series about black women. After re-examining it, I still take some issue with it, but also recognize that including discussion of black men places the black women in a larger context. And ultimately, it is hard to talk about black women without addressing how the condition of black men places certain challenges on them in terms of relationships and family. Black women care about and love black men. The show was not disparaging of black men, rather they spent too much time on the issue and hit a sore spot of the black community–once again.

Injustice in Brazil

I learned about this on The Black Informant’s blog.    

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) — A teenage girl was locked up on theft charges in an Amazon jail for weeks with 21 men who she said would only let her eat in return for sex, according to authorities, setting off a national scandal over the treatment of women by Brazil’s justice system.

The 15-year-old said she was required to have sex with at least two inmates, police spokesman Walrimar Santos said by telephone Thursday from Belem, at the mouth of the Amazon River, where the victim was transferred after nearly a month living with male inmates.

By her account, officials did nothing — until the story erupted in the national media and outraged Brazilians demanded her transfer.

NBC Series on Black Women

Check it out. The five-part series, African American Women: Where They Stand, starts tonight on NBC. I’m sure there will be some interesting discussion across the blogosphere following the broadcast (hopefully this site included).

For years, Black women have told their daughters they may have to take care of themselves without a husband so it’s imperative that young women develop skills.

It is happening.

The numbers of Black women earning college degrees and taking leadership roles in the workplace are impressive.

And the huge achievement gap between African-American women and men is astounding. Black women are making gains in record numbers. It may suggest to some that Black women have gotten the empowerment message and have met all accomplishment goals. That would be only half right. According to research, there is still a lot of work to do.

Is Obama a Bound Man?

Shelby Steele, an essayist on race from Stanford’s Hoover Institute, has a new book on Obama called A Bound Man. I haven’t read it yet but an article in Sunday’s Washington Post summarized Steele’s thesis:

In “A Bound Man,” Steele makes the case that Obama has adopted “a mask” familiar to many African Americans, designed to appease white America’s fear of being thought racist by offering it the opportunity to embrace a nonthreatening black person.

Steele writes that “the Sixties stigmatized white Americans with the racial sins of the past — with the bigotry and hypocrisy that countenanced slavery, segregation and white supremacy. Now, to win back moral authority, whites — and especially American institutions — must prove the negative: that they are not racist. In other words, white America has become a keen market for racial innocence.”

“The problem here for Barack, of course, is that his racial identity commits him to a manipulation of the society he seeks to lead,” Steele writes. “To ‘be black,’ he has to exaggerate black victimization in America. . . . Worse, his identity will pressure him to see black difficulties — achievement gaps, high illegitimacy rates, high crime rates, family collapse, and so on — in the old framework of racial oppression.”

Steele makes a good point that part of Obama’s appeal to whites is that he doesn’t trigger white guilt. And it is true that Obama is on a slippery slope of trying to prove to black folk that he is down for the cause and prove to whites that he is non-threatening. But I think Steele goes too far in saying that Obama’s response to these pressures is to “mask” his true self or blackness. All politician’s wear some kind of mask and Obama is no exception, but I assume Steele is asserting that Obama presents even less of a self than what is typical. To the contrary, I see Obama as doing an excellent job of accurately presenting himself as a multidimensional black man–a concept that has been difficult for America, white and black, to grasp and accept for a very long time. He has been successful at helping people get beyond imposed expectations of what a black political leader is (or should be). Also, he has not pandered to blacks in terms of exaggerating the black condition as Steele argues. As mentioned in the article,

Obama has said repeatedly that while blacks face real issues of discrimination, they also have responsibility for their own lives. Parents must turn off the TV, he says, and read to their children. Fathers must take responsibility for the children they bring into the world. That is definitely part of his message.

Quetsions to ponder

I’m a little late on this due to the holiday but thought I’d post anyway. From Friday’s Chicago Tribune:

So,” the woman asked, “how do we beat the bitch?” And Sen. John McCain laughed.

It was, he said, an “excellent” question. Yes, he went on to express respect for Hillary Rodham Clinton, to whom the woman referred. But not once while answering that question at a campaign stop in South Carolina recently did he suggest that it wasn’t appropriate to call Clinton a “bitch.”

Can you imagine if the Democratic front-runner were Sen. Joe Lieberman and the woman said, “So, how do we beat this Hebe?”

Can you imagine if it were Gov. Bill Richardson and the woman said, “So, how do we beat this spic?”

Can you imagine if it were Sen. Barack Obama and the woman said, “So, how do we beat this coon?”

I guarantee you, McCain would not have laughed and if he had, we would now be writing his political epitaph. But the woman asked, “How do we beat the bitch?” and McCain did laugh and now shrugs off any suggestion that he should have done more.

He’s wrong.

From viewing the video, McCain was clearly uncomfortable and a little embarrassed during the interaction and seemed at a loss for what to do or say. The question is whether he should have been responsible for doing more or whether the reaction expressed in the article is political correctness gone too far. Does the author of the article have a point about the use of “hebe”, “coon”, and “spic” being equally offensive as “bitch” or is “bitch” in a different category that doesn’t require the same level of reproach? A more fundamental question has to do with why female political leaders are commonly viewed as cold and calculating “bitches.”