The history of certain Fraternities

I recently sat in on a Black Political Thought class and the issue of Fraternities on Rhodes Campus was brought into question.  It was brought to my attention that at least one  of the fraternities used to host public lynchings and that this same frat continues to celebrate the Old South as part of its tradition.  How do you all feel about this?  Is taking part in an organization that condoned lynching and continues to celebrate some of the same traditions that inherently connected with lynching and racial terror an issue?  Just something I would like to hear y'all opinion about.

The Murder of Steven Askew

This story hits close to home:

The murder of Steven Askew was in cold blood by a police officer with a less than perfect past.  Yes, Steven Askew was Black and the officer was white.  The report says that Steven was waiting on his girlfriend, asleep in his car after leaving work, when the police, who had been called to investigate a noise complaint, approached his car and startled.  According to the officer, Steven reached for his gun (which he had a license for) and he fired.  Thus, a 24 year-old black man is dead at the hands of the police.  

http://www.memphisflyer.com/NewsBlog/archives/2013/01/30/officer-involved-in-steven-askews-shooting-death-has-checkered-past

The link that I just provided shows that this officer has a racist history as well as anger management issues which were of public knowledge to the police department.  What do you all think about this?  What do you all think about the fact the police continue to hire and keep people who they know are potentially detrimental to the society.  Now a young man is dead, and this young man could have easily been me or one of my family members or friends.

Has Roe v. Wade Led to an African American Holocaust?

                Roe v. Wade created the right for women to get abortions, but now an argument has come out that the African American community has be overly utilizing this right. In 2010 the CDC reported that African Americans accounted for 12.6% of the population, but account for 35.4% of all abortions. In the documentary Freakonomics, there is a claim that during the 90’s crime went down in New York City primarily because 18 years before young pregnant black women could get abortion, so that in the 90’s there were less poor black youth on the streets to cause crime. Has the court’s decision created what the article calls an “African American Holocaust,” or had it allowed the African American community to better prosper because less of the population was growing up in unsuitable conditions to prosper. Personally I am pro-choice, but the high number in the African American community brings a light to this issue I had not previously considered. In my final paper for this class I learned that an “institutionally racist” education system was harmful for African Americans and one of the problems was that the children were not receiving the appropriate amount of sex education. If this is the case then maybe higher African American abortions are only caused because other protection measure are not adequately understood by the youth, and the mothers do not feel fit to raise a child at a young age. However, the article quotes Dr. Martin Luther King, "The Negro cannot win as long as he is willing to sacrifice the lives of his children for comfort and safety", which raises a counter argument against African American community. The context of comfort certainly seems to apply here, but the issue of safety is something that needs to be explored for this context. If safety means financial safety, and the parents do not think that they will be able to provide for the child it does not seem as if they are sacrificing the child but rather waiting to develop an environment that would be better fitted to a raise a child. Although Dr. King was a minister, I do not think that he would believe that the goal of the African American community would be to raise as many children as it could regardless of condition. I think that it is interesting how this court decision has played a crucial impact on the African American community, and the statistics provided by the CDC sounds like interesting research in trying to explore why this phenomenon has occurred. 

 http://www.hvpress.net/news/176/ARTICLE/12335/2013-04-24.html

He Wears the Mask

                In this article Ta-Nehisi Coates addresses the issues surrounding black conservative politicians. He targets specifically Dr. Benjamin Carson a recent “darling of the right-wing”. As he correctly points out it often seems as though our political parties try and make an effort to show us how racially diverse they are; in this case the Republican party. Coates’ case is that Dr. Benjamin Coates is nothing but a puppet of the conservative party in an attempt to somehow counter Obama and his blackness. Conservatives are simply recognizing that 95 percent of African-Americans voted for a democratic president and if they can find a black conservative to tout he will somehow be the “Conservative Black Hope”.  He even quotes a former Republican Illinois State Senator “We needed to find another Harvard-educated African-American who had some experience on the national political scene” and that “We need that because the Democrats have made an icon out of Barack Obama”. He sees the Republican Party as searching for the right candidate. In his view the Republican Party is simply looking for a black conservative mind that can use to somehow split the black community into voting for conservatives.

 There is something deeply concerning about this republican view. It is based on the idea that black people voted for Barack Obama because he was black and not because he agreed with their politics. He calls this theory “The Plantation Theory” because it says that black people are not free to vote on their politics but are rather slaves to the Democratic Party. This theory obviously doesn’t exactly hold true. If you look at election results from 2004 (Bush/Kerry) versus 2012 (Obama/Romney), you can clearly see little differentiation. According to CNN 11 percent of African Americans voted for a republican candidate in 2004 versus 5 percent in 2012. That is a measly 6 percent difference in voters in a group of people that make up 12.5 percent of the population. Coates fails to address how this strategy is not only based on false assumptions but the numbers simply don’t back it up.

Coates does however address the fact that there are black Republicans out there. According to him when he first met Coates when he was younger he has no doubt that Coates was a Republican. His main issue is that the Republicans had no plan on tapping him a political candidate then. Only since Obama has come to the national scene has the Republican Party tried to make national figures out of black conservatives. So he sees Carson as in some way the newest Republican marionette. He sees a black man who is willing to represent a party that is overwhelmingly white and has no qualms about it.

Is this only a Conservative problem? off the top of my head I think of Julian Castro speaking during the 2012 DNC. Why in a party filled with powerful people would you choose the mayor of San Antonio to speak if not to appeal to the Latino vote, or is there somehow a difference here? Can or should we cast a vote according only to race? Can a black conservative run for a party that has largely ignored him until their time of need? Is the criticism that Carson is wearing a “Mask” fair?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/04/opinion/coates-he-wears-the-mask.html

Towson University

Matthew Heimbach is the founder and president of the White Student Union at Towson University located in Towson, Maryland near Baltimore. He says that the mission of the group is, “to create an avenue for people to participate in political, cultural, educational, and social events to celebrate European heritage.” Heimbach also says that, “for those who are not Towson students it seems hard to fathom that every single day black predators prey upon the majority white Towson University student body.”  Many Towson students feel that this group is really a group of White Supremacists and are unhappy that Towson University has allowed the group to exist.  Supporting this belief, the Southern Poverty Law Center has added this group to their “Hate Map”.  Towson University Administration refused to formally recognize the organization as a school group saying that it failed to meet the criteria of a school sponsored group and was not given an advisor or a place to meet.

Towson University has the lowest crime rate of any of the Maryland State Universities.  Based on the school’s diversity statistics, the school is 13% black and 68% white.  The rest of the student population is Asian, American Indian, Hispanic and Other.  With such a small number of African American students, and such a low crime rate in comparison to other schools, it is hard to imagine how the “black predators “ could  “prey upon the majority white student body”. 

The group has organized a campus watch group to assist security with patrolling the campus at night. To me, this seems like another Treyvon Martin incident waiting to happen. The student body and administration are against this and concerned that this will instigate racial profiling and cause campus violence. Administration has warned the group that they are against any group of citizens taking the law into their own hands. Racial profiling is not something to be taken lightly.

In response, the Black Student Union, the Student Government Association, the Greek Student Association and the International Student Association formed a unity group called Be The Change and sponsored a rally and a peace walk.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/group-plan-patrol-towson-university-response-black-crime-wave-sparks-controversy-article-1.1301666

Disability Checks and the Black Community

This past March, the radio program, "This American Life," published an examination of what was happening in America in terms of the growing number of people on disability. "Trends With Benefits" looks at the system all over the country from those who are on disability, to the legislation passed that allows so many people to get on disability, and those who benefit from getting people on disability. 

In Part I, the main investigator, Planet Money's Chana Joffe-Walt, went to Hales County Alabama where 25% of the working adults are on disability checks from the government. While there she encountered people who seemed like they should be able to manage jobs that required no physical labor, but did did not. The situation was further complicated by the number of working people in Hales County who told her that a lot of people on disability manipulated the system so that they did not have to work. They believed that people on disability were "freeloaders, cheaters, hard partiers," and obese people who wanted to exploit their problems in order to receive money. People on disability that she talked to all had health issues of which the most prominent were chronic back pain (the most common), high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.

Many in Hales County believe that it is unfair that people use manageable health conditions, which with the right medication, diet, and exercise can be alleviated, as excuses to not work. They believe that rather than addressing their health issues, people on disability stew in their own self-pity and then receive checks for doing so. One man who had a job talked about how he encountered a man, who did not work, was on disability, and yet suffered from the exact same health issues as he did, diabetes and high blood pressure. Part I of the show shows the prominence of people who negatively view those on disability. 

People who hold contempt for those on disability often overlook the fact that these people are poor and have no more than a high school education which prevents them from acquiring jobs that would accomodate their health issues. People with chronic back pain can't stand and make burgers in a fast food restaurant for hours on end. And, they often don't have enough education to get jobs where they can sit all day. The same is also true for those with high blood pressure (standing all day really doesn't work out so well for them) and those suffering from severe obesity.  

This problem particularly affects the African American community. Many have high school educations and can only work menial labor jobs. Once they get injured, and especially if it is a long term injury, they are out of work probably for the rest of their life. Of the people interviewed in this episode, one middle-aged black couple survived on disability checks. The husband used to work in a factory until his hands were injured and the wife was in a car accident that resulted in her having chronic back pain. The wife in particular talks about how its not that she doesn't want to work, but that there are no available jobs for her. Joffe-Walt discovered that all the jobs available in Hales County that hired people with a high school education required extensive standing or physical labor. 

The article covers the disability situation in America thoroughly. Although it doesn't directly focus on race, it still points to the lack of education in the black community that ultimately prevents blacks from achieving more opportunities and social mobilization, and the fact that these blacks can't go back to work once they are injured. The article shows that the American public largely views those on disability, including blacks, with a lack of respect without realizing that these people are the victims of a system that favors the privileged. This article articulated to me how ignorance is still a large contributing factor to the white community's racist views towards black people.    

"I swear some people need to learn how to do black hair/skin"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/26/jourdan-dunn-racism-fashion-industry_n_2955162.htm

Let's face it: Black is Beautiful. Some of the most gorgeous people in the world are non-whites, and some of the best models in history have been ethnic. I currently have a girl crush on Marihenny Rivera Pasible from the Dominican Republic. One of the Top Ten Black Models at New York Fashion Week, she rocked the runway. Chanel Iman and Jourdan Dunn are also two of my favorites. Naturally, I had a serious problem when both women had problems with casting. Iman and Dunn share a similar story of being turned away from castings because the client "didn't want any more black girls." Don't worry, it get's worse. Dunn, the 22-year-old British model, was the first black model in over a decade to walk into Prada's fashion show. She was treated with the utmost disrespect and discrimination: "a white makeup artist said she did not want to work on Dunn's face because she was black."Why would someone not want to work on Dunn? Have they looked at her? She's gorgeous. This is not the first time Dunn has been a victim of racism in the fashion industry, which clearly disregards any desire for diversity. In October of 2011, a similar situation occurred, to which she responded with a tweet stating, "I swear some people need to learn how to do black hair/skin". This is not a case of a makeup artist not knowing how to properly apply makeup to dark skin--it was pure racism, something that seems to be just as prevalent in the fashion world as anywhere else, if not more.

I think we can all agree that this kind of treatment toward people is unnecessary. Being a model must be difficult enough without being discriminated against. Despite her run-ins with racism, Dunn seems to be doing well in the fashion industry. As materialistic as the fashion and modeling industries are, do they need to be degraded anymore with stories of racism and discrimination?