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Although I disagree with Shelby Steele’s thesis on Obama, he was right about one thing: so-called black authenticity in politics is largely intertwined with being angry and confrontational. Al Sharpton made this point plain as day in the recent New York Magazine piece.

In his book, Steele argued that black leaders either conform to bargainer or challenger identities. Bargainers give whites the benefit of the doubt with regard to racism and challengers constantly rub racism in the faces of whites. Steele asserts that Obama is a bargainer, a claim which I think is entirely off the mark (where I discuss here ). But Sharpton demonstrates that Steele is on the money about the challenger concept being the dominant identity of black politics. From the New York Magazine article:

Until recently, Sharpton’s relationship with Obama has been more aloof. Sharpton has also been underwhelmed by Obama’s campaign. “He never came off as a fighter,” he says, a strategy that he thinks has hurt Obama with a key demographic: black women. “Black women like a fighter. Even if you’re fighting a fight that is not my fight, I will believe that you might fight my fight. And to come off as ‘I’m all right with everybody’ doesn’t give people who want a fight a comfort level. I want somebody who’s at least a little upset with somebody, because I’m mad as hell. If you’re not mad, how do I get passionate about you?”

Sharpton thinks Obama should take more cues from his wife, Michelle. He still thinks about the time he bumped into her at a recent Chicago fund-raiser. He claims the conversation went like this.

“How you doing, Mrs. Obama?”

She’s tall, and looked down at him. “I’d do a lot better if we had your endorsement.”

Sharpton tried to play dumb. “What do you mean?”

“We need your endorsement. I’m just telling you straight out: We need your endorsement. What are you going to do?”

Sharpton didn’t know what to say. “I’m like, ‘Uh, well, duh.’ I mean, she was like a sister back in Brownsville, where I grew up!”

Could he have played the tune of the angry black women stereotype any clearer? Did he not represent the angry black man stereotype perfectly? Could he be any more wrong?

Sharpton’s premise is that being a fighter and projecting anger go hand in hand. But who was a greater fighter for justice than Martin Luther King? Was he angry? Of course. Was that central to his message? Absolutely not. In fact, he fought his fight embracing a principle that is in opposition to this sentiment. Al, more than anyone, should get this.

I don’t care about Sharpton slighting Obama. That’s politics and I’m not here to defend Obama. But I do care about Sharpton (and the media) appointing himself the arbiter of black authenticity. To claim that he is not impressed by Obama because he doesn’t seem angry enough and implying that he is not black enough because of it, is just plain ridiculous. And I, for one, am tiring of him speaking for all of us.

**Hat tip to Baratunde Thurston of Jack & Jill Politics, Carmen Dixon of All About Race, and Desmond Burton of Afronerd from Wednesday’s Bloggers’ Roundtable on NPR**

Wishing everyone the best for the holiday season–whatever you celebrate; whatever you believe. It’s a time for reflection, introspection, and connection.

I felt like Jesse writing that…

Don’t forget that The Great Debaters comes tomorrow–Christmas day. Could make for a nice Christmas evening outing. I’ll be checking it out then along with about half of the  black community.

Speaking of which,  stay tuned for a piece I wrote related to the film to appear in the Philly Inquirer on January 1.  I’ll post it here at that time.

Last week in Iowa, John Edwards fielded a question from the audience regarding what he would do about the possibility of “payback” from the black community towards whites if Obama were elected. Referencing the O.J. case as an example, he said:

“How are you going to get that brought out in your campaign? Will the same thing happen? If he should become elected, you think Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Oprah Winfrey are going to let him forget about that and their obligation?” the man said, not identifying who he meant by “he” and “him.” [Source: MSNBC]

When I read of this man’s question I was immediately reminded of a high school experience. I attended an affluent, predominantly white school where I was a member of the Martin Luther King Jr. club. One year, the president of the MLK club, an exceptionally bright and hard working brother from the deep ‘hood, decided to run for student body president. Take a wild guess at whether he won.

I distinctly remember concerns being voiced by some white students that he was going to turn the school into an MLK club were he elected. His rebuttal, “Are you worried that Chad will turn the school into a ski club? Are you worried that Sally will turn the school into a photography club?” Again, think he got elected?

Although the question wasn’t directed to Obama, I wish he could have laid it down like my boy did back in high school–exposing the question for what it was. Then again, he’d likely face the same fate.

*Hat tip to Tyrone*

I was made aware of this video a couple of months ago but resisted writing on it since I did not want to give it any more air play than it was receiving at the time. But now that the film is out and is all over the blogosphere and newspapers, I don’t think my little blog can do anything to add to the hype. So my 2 cents on this:

A DVD purporting to show real footage of violent crimes including shootings, carjackings and sexual assault has the Internet buzzing, police investigating and critics outraged at reality filmmaking gone wild.

Producer Ousala Aleem, 25, says he has already sold more than 10,000 copies of “Criminals Gone Wild,” which reportedly contains raw and uncut footage of robberies, muggings, drive-by shootings and assaults.

Aleem, of Brooklyn, N.Y., called the budget for the movie filmed in New York, Connecticut and Alabama “real small,” but said he has already made more than $300,000 since it went on sale last month. [Source: ABC]

There has been some debate as to whether this DVD is real or not. The way I see it, it makes no difference. It’s being marketed it as real. Either way it’s glamorization of black on black crime — well, murder actually. That’s the real problem with it.

And it’s sad on so many levels. The most obvious and disturbing, is the exploitation of the black community by a black man — all in the name of making a buck. In the filmmaker’s own words, “The minute you come out with crime footage everybody wants to buy it. My pockets are fat now.”

If indeed, this movie is real, Aleem actually stood by filming black men robbing and killing other black men, sold it as a DVD, and is now boasting about how much money it has made him.

The second sad point is the wasted talent in this production. How much planning, leg work, and skill did it take Aleem to produce this DVD and market it? Making contacts with those in the film, acquiring the necessary equipment and software, shooting the footage, editing, artwork for the cover, advertising. It’s no small task. All this ability and hard work put towards this? Really? Imagine if that same talent had been applied to a productive endeavor for the black community; or at least non harmful one. A sad display of an extreme lack of imagination.

Just as sad as any of the other points is that there are plenty in the black community who have bought and will continue to buy this DVD. You can bet there will be no shortage in sales and Aleem’s pockets will surely continue to get fat. For sure, there will be boys and men huddled around the TV watching this just as they do football–and probably with a similar level of enthusiasm.

This all adds up to an extremely disturbing commentary on the black community, or a segment of it at least, and a stark reminder that we still have so far to go.

*Hat tip to Carmen*

This one’s strictly for the nerds [my hand raised].

I promise to only hit you with these more technical “checkups” (what I’ll be labeling as tech checks from here on) every couple of months or so. Sometimes, I just can’t help myself. Plus, just maybe, some of you (okay, maybe one or two) are interested in a brief breakdown of the debate regarding the dropout/graduation rate for minorities.

So what is it? 50% or 75%? Probably the most popular view is that 50% of blacks/Latinos graduate from high school but there is a sizable contingent who argue that the graduation rate is 75%. A pretty significant difference. What gives?

Numerous researchers have examined the graduation and dropout rate, but the two most publicly vocal about the 50% and 75% graduation estimates are two economists, Jay Greene and Lawrence Mishel, respectively. Both are well respected in the policy and academic worlds but for whatever reason, Greene’s estimate has captured more public attention than Mishel’s.

If you’re really into this topic you can listen to a debate between Greene and Mishel on this issue (you will truly identify yourself as a nerd if you click on that link). If you’re more into reading, you can check out one of Greene’s reports here and Mishel’s here. If none of this interests you and you just want the bottom line, below is a sketch of the greatest hits from both of their positions.

But first, why is the number so hard to pin down? Isn’t it just a matter of counting who graduates each year? Researchers only wish it were that easy. Determining a graduation rate requires being able to account for students from the time of entering 9th grade to graduation. Quite a tall order for national scale data collection. But it’s important because one needs to be able to account for students who move around and in and out of school.

Furthermore, one needs to adjust for retention. This is big because of the 9th grade bulge issue. There is a particularly large number of 9th graders who are retained each year making it inaccurate to make a simple comparison between all 9th graders in say, 2007 and the count of all diplomas in 2011. This is because not all of these 9th graders are truly entering 9th graders. You’d get an underestimate of the graduation rate this way (and overestimated dropout). This poses a major problem for analysis that most researchers readily recognize.

Now that that that’s out of the way, here’s how Greene and Mishel derive their estimates and deal with the bulge:

Jay Greene (the 50% guy):

• He uses a dataset that counts all of the degrees (Common Core of Data)
• He agues that using these data are more accurate than other data due to the fact that it is a count of all diplomas rather than an estimate based on a sample.
• He adjusts for the 9th grade bulge by averaging 8th through 10th grades. He admits it to be simplistic but also argues it to be accurate.

Lawrence Mishel (the 75% guy)

• He mostly relies on a national longitudinal dataset (NELS) that uses a large national sample of students and follows them over time.
• He argues that this is dataset is one of the best around for estimating the graduation rate because it can accurately track students over time.
• In his opinion, since one can track kids over time, with these data, one has a more accurate measure of the 9th grade bulge.

The bottom line. Both make strong arguments and you’ll have to make the call for yourself as to which line of reasoning is more persuasive. I’m betting that the reality is somewhere between the two (hmm, sounds familiar).

One thing that most agree on though is that there are certain areas and subgroups of blacks for whom the dropout rate is shocking. Even Mishel, the same guy who claims the dropout crisis to be overblown, mentioned how “horrifying” it was that his analysis showed that less than 40% of young black men in Chicago had completed high school. Scary.

Civil rights activist. Former congressman and mayor of Atlanta. First African American UN Ambassador.

Yep, all titles held by Andrew Young; the same man who made the off-the-wall remarks during this interview. I know he was “just clowning,” during part of the interview–but in a public forum? You have to wonder what he was thinking. Or drinking.

Let’s break down his main points:

1) His reasoning for not wanting Obama to be president now is that: (a) his children need to get older because people will pick on them; (b) he doesn’t have the “support network”; and (c) he doesn’t have enough black people around him

2) His main reason for wanting Obama to be president in 2016 was that during childhood he had exposure to both Chinese and Islamic cultures.

3) By electing Hillary, you also get Bill Clinton who is “every bit as black as Barack” because: (a) he once initiated a soul train line (and moonwalked down it) and (b) he has probably dated more black women than Barack.

4) Hillary should be president now because: (a) she has Bill behind her, (b) she went down Bill’s aforementioned soul train line and (c) she proved her political prowess when Bill was in office by setting up a “defense committee” to “neutralize” all the women he had been with.

You know, I was going to say more on the ridiculousness of all of this, but after reviewing what I just wrote I don’t think there is a need to. The points speak for themselves. Loudly.

In my undergrad days in Atlanta, I remember many folks referring to two of the black megachurch preachers, Creflo Dollar (yeah, that’s his real name) and Eddie Long, as “Theft Yo’ Dollar” and “Eddie Wrong.” I always thought there was a lot of truth in those nicknames–still do. This new news gives me no reason to think otherwise.

Two Atlanta preachers with large media ministries snubbed a U.S. senator’s request for documents sought in a probe of nonprofits.

In response, the preachers say Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) is crossing the line of separation between church and state.

The Rev. Creflo Dollar, of World Changers Church International in College Park, and Bishop Eddie Long, of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, were among six media ministries from which Grassley requested records a month ago.

The argument that Grassley “is crossing the line of separation between church and state” for requesting financial records is straight garbage. But truth be told, even if Dollar and Long turn over these documents and it shows that they are on the up-and-up, I will still take issue with them and other megachurch leaders using “prosperity gospel” as justification for living in opulence. And opulence it is:

Dollar is making no apologies for living in a $2.5 million mansion in Georgia, driving a church-bought Rolls Royce and having access to a luxury Manhattan apartment. He said the church owns some of his luxury items and he bought the rest with his own money. [Source: CNN]

What business do spiritual leaders have with possessing luxury items? Some argue that because they do the community a great service they therefore deserve to have many of the lavish comforts of life. Doctors, lawyers and CEOs all make good money. Why shouldn’t preachers who provide so much more than any of these professions receive at least as much, if not more? Right?

Wrong.

Materialism does not necessarily conflict with the philosophy or mission of these other professions–with the church it is in direct conflict. Why invest in the material when in the end it means absolutely nothing spiritually? More importantly, not only does it have no value in this regard, but it largely acts as an impediment and distraction to the goal. Poverty and injustice, of course are also major distractions, but nobody is asking these preachers to live in poverty.

As they claim, I am sure Dollar and Long have received all kinds of extravagant gifts from their members. Does it mean they must accept them? How about instituting a church policy that disallows or limits personal gifts? How about setting a reasonable self-imposed salary cap with any money being made beyond that going to church services?

We worry all the time about how large “gifts” going to our politicians corrupts them. Should we not have the same concerns for preachers?

In my mind, preachers should only follow materialism to the extent that it is useful for connecting with its current and potential members. But their fundamental message and action should remain grounded in tenets of spirituality–not monetary prosperity. Money can and should be talked about in church but should never be central to the overall message.

Shelby Steele wrote a piece in Time last Friday on his new book, A Bound Man and was on NPR yesterday discussing it. Given that I have yet not read his book, I was interested to read and hear a first-hand account of his thesis on Obama and why he can’t win rather than a review. I don’t always agreed with Steele, but I do find his work interesting. He addresses race at a deep level and brings some interesting ideas to the table.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I think Steele accurately describes the kind of “bind” Obama is in: he’s caught between demonstrating black authenticity to blacks and not scaring whites or smearing racism in their faces. Steele says that part of demonstrating black authenticity is to be a challenger, which in part means to, “assume whites are racist until they prove otherwise.” This is in contrast to being a bargainers who, “gives whites the benefit of the doubt” with regard to racism. Steele argues that Obama is a classic bargainer–which whites like. But he is also confronted with black expectations of him being a challenger from black.

As Clarence Page pointed out, it seems to me that Obama does not fit as neatly into Steele’s bargainer/challenger paradigm. He fits better into a third category of bridge-builder–one whose identity in grounded in reconciling differences between groups of opposing positions. And this fits with how others have characterized him as one with exceptional ability for bringing people together. So I’m not sure why Steele claims Obama is selling out his real identity. It seems to me his actions and speech have been pretty consistent with an identity he has embraced and maintained for some time.

Also Steele seems to suggest that the tensions he describes are a special problem for Obama and that he must stop playing this race game and shed the challenger and bargainer masks he tries to don if he is going to be successful. I question the specialness of his problem. What he refers to as mask-wearing and the tensions he describes are par for the course in politics. What’s special about that? Politicians are always attempting to appease different constituencies and are constantly assessing who their allies and enemies are along with how to best play these complex relationships. It’s like Survivor but with real consequences. How is the nature of this challenge fundamentally any different for Obama? Because it’s a racial issue? Nah.

There has been a lot of hoopla about Latino immigrants and whether they make real efforts to participate in and assimilate to so-called American culture. Some say they do while others say they choose to self-segregate and make little effort to learn the English language. The recent Pew Research Center Report got me to thinking about what makes me uncomfortable about some of the latter arguments. I’ll get to that in a sec–first, one of the main findings from the report…

The report indicates that on average, pretty large numbers of Latinos (particularly Mexican, Dominicans, and those from Central America) speak little or no English. However, it is a different picture when comparing across generations:

The surveys show that fewer than one-in-four (23%) Latino immigrants report being able to speak English very well. However, fully 88% of their U.S.-born adult children report that they speak English very well. Among later generations of Hispanic adults, the figure rises to 94%. Reading ability in English shows a similar trend. [Source: Pew]

Still, there are those who feel the threat to American culture and the English language:

Groups that support controls on immigration and English-only initiatives say the federal government and U.S. companies are making it easy for Latino immigrants to continue to speak Spanish.

“The Pew study points to some of the long-term problems,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors conservative immigration policies. “One in eight American-born children of immigrants doesn’t speak English well. . . . And even the grandchildren of immigrants who arrived decades ago, 6% of them still don’t speak English well. That’s pretty bad news.”

Rob Toonkel, spokesman for U.S. English Inc., dedicated to making English the official language of the U.S., said the Pew report’s finding that 71% of Mexican immigrants say they speak English just a little or not at all is reason for concern. It suggests that people don’t need to learn English because they can access any service they need in Spanish, he said. [Source: LAT]

On the one hand, I can understand the argument for wanting to preserve English as the language of the U.S. Usually the assertion is that having a common language helps for a more unified country. I’m not sure how much I buy it, but I get it–the fear has to do with dividing the country even more than it is.

But what makes me uncomfortable is how this argument is sometimes couched (whether explicitly or not) in a desire to preserve “American culture.” That is a different kind of expressed fear. That has to do with the big bad “outsider” coming and contaminating “our” ways of life. We have seen far too many examples of how similar ideology around keeping a culture “pure” has led to biased treatment at best and barbaric treatment at its worst.

I know, I know, the English language issue is not a perfect parallel to this kind of thought. Yet it has enough of a tinge of it rub me the wrong way. And I’m betting that for many, the concern over protecting American culture is very much intertwined with concern for protecting against the browning of America and the “outside” influences it brings. And that sentiment is scary given how such thinking has played out in U.S. history.