I've been in the Middle East with the Rev. Jesse Jackson for the first five days, and I feel like I've been working on a degree in Middle Eastern affairs.
We've been in Syria where we met with the president, as well as religious leaders. Jackson's mission is to secure support for the proposed UN peacekeeping mission, to extend the cease-fire, and to convince Hamas and Hezbollah forces to release three Israeli prisoners.
We left Syria by motorcade, escorted by military personnel.
By the time we reached Beirut, my heart was aching over the devastation in this region.
Elvria Arellano is the illegal immigrant who has chosen to live in a cramped storefront church rather than face deportation to Mexico.
Besides being here illegally, Arellano, who is a single mother, was caught using someone else's Social Security number. While I empathize with her plight, Arellano is using icons of the civil rights movement--first Rosa Parks, but now also Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X--to justify her decision to break immigration laws.
Sorry. I haven't felt like wading through these posts lately.
But there's no escaping the madness when it comes to race. I was in Indy when the Andrew Young story broke. Actually, Young didn't say anything in his now infamous interview with the Los Angeles Sentinel that he didn't say in a recent editorial board meeting with the Chicago Sun-Times, except I don't remember him mentioning "Jews."
None of us batted an eye.
I was more appalled that someone of Young's stature--a civil rights leader, former Atlanta mayor and U.N. Ambassador-- had stooped to being a pitchman for Wal-Mart.
Still, I came across an interesting e-mail about Young's remarks.
The e-mail was written by a man who identified himself as "white man" who grew up in South Shore. He went to Mt. Carmel as did his sons. But he has also worked for several predominantly African-American municipalities. Because he sent the e-mail to my private mailbox, I'm not identifying him by name.
But I think what he had to say was right on the money:
"For a white guy, I think I have a pretty good pedigree to reflect on racial issues and stereotyping.
To an extent, what Andrew Young said is true...In the African-American inner-city community, the small Mom 'n Pop stores are almost invariably owned by Arabs, and before that by Koreans. When I drove my kids to Carmel, we passed what everybody called the "Arab grocery store" on Marquette Blvd. Just drive on Western from 55th to 79th and see who owns the liquor stores. My African-American friends and I all refer to the "Arab Liquor stores." We all do.
What Andrew Young was guilty of is laziness--stereotyping, in my view, is more about language laziness than a bad heart. Lazy language pushes us into cultural collisions because it relies on false syllogisms, which in turn lead to overreactions. Laziness begets laziness. For example, we all honestly know that south of Madison, the vast majority of the criminals, the bad people, the "element" are African-American. At the same time we also know t hat the vast majority of African-Americans are very good people. None of us takes the millisecond to articulate the distinction. Lazy language.
I firmly belileve that like Andrew Young, the vast majority of us are good-hearted people. We just need to be reminded of the dangers of lazy language as a mirror of lazy thoughts.
I, for one, thank this gentleman for such a gentle reminder.
After a day of workshops, I ended up at a reception being hosted by the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force.
It was pretty lively.
i spotted an empty chair at a table with the only two white women in the room.
I grabbed a seat and struck up a conversation.
Both women work for non-profits. They were at the NABJ conference scouting talent for fellowship opportunities.
"So how does it feel to be the only white people here?" I asked.
After the women finished laughing, one of them told me that when she told a relative she was going to a National Association of Black Journalist convention he asked: "So why are you going?.
There was an awkward moment when she walked into the sea of black faces. She realized then how black people must feel on a regular basis, she said.
The other woman went to NPR's Farai Chideya's 6:30 a.m. work-out session and she was the only white woman there.
"Actually, everyone went out of their way to make me feel welcome," she said. "They kept asking me if I was O.K."
Both women agreed the experience had taught them something about race-relations.
"Every white person ought to experience being the only one in the room," one of the women said.
Why We Still Need the National Association of Black Journalists
This is a question that comes up so often, I might as well get the answer out of the way before someone asks me again.
I'm in Indianapolis attending NABJ's 31st Annual Convention and Career Fair.
Black journalists from across the country will spend the next three days focusing on career development, attending workshops networking....and, yes, partying.
Yes, there are non-black journalists here as well, but for the most part, they are here as recruiters.
I caught up with Bryan Monroe, NABJ President and the Vice President and Editorial Director of Ebony and Jet Magazines, Johnson Publishing Co., and asked him why--in 2006--do we still need NABJ?
Monroe's answer echoed the sentiments of many black journalists today:
"If you look at the reality of the news business, blacks are still woefully underrepresented in America's newsrooms. We make up about 13 percent of the population and between 3 and 5 percent of most mainstream newsrooms. If you slice that even further and look at blacks in leadersship positions, there's no functional diversity," he said.
"In the news business, it's important to have media that reflects the communities that they cover, otherwise you cannot accurately know what is happening in your community," Monroe said.
With diversity, listeners, viewers and readers get a "full and accurate" picture of "the communities that they live in .
"That's just a function of good journalism," Monroe said, adding that diversity also makes good business sense.
"The importance of journalism in American society is we are the only business protected by the Constitution and the First Amendment," he said. "We have an obligation to make sure that the report is accurate and complete. And it's not just about who we hire in the newsrooms," Monroe pointed out. "But at the end of the day, it's about the journalism that we do."
Lynn Pitts, Executive Producer of NBC News "Today, Weekend Edition," says she's often asked the same question, and she puts the shoe on the other foot.
"If you walk into a newsroom and there were 50 black people in the newsroom, and one white person--one lonely little soul in the newsroom --who had a problem, who would you go to? Suppose you had a conflict with another employee, who would you seek out to talk to about it ?" she asked.
"That's how NABJ started in the '80s," she said. "That's how it grew into being the organization that it is today."
Thirty-one years later, there are still newsrooms across the country where a black person is still that lonely soul.
Seems to me if you can pay $500,000 to build a house in South Barrington, racism shouldn't be a problem? Right.
So what do you think happening when a seller suddenly reneges on a contract to sell to a well-to-do oral surgeon? The surgeon claims the mob-connected seller changed gears after learning he is black? See Sun-Times
Frankly, I had the same reaction to this story as I did to the Diann Burns's complaint about the contractors who allegedly screwed up her house. That is, it's incredibly sad that even when you are an accomplished member of the Millionaires Club, you still worry about racism.
Is this an example of what some of you call the "race card?"
I'm in Toronto attending the International HIV/AIDS conference.
Thanks to the Black AIDS Institute, I've been given an opportunity to spend the next three days with medical professionals, activists, advocates and policy-makers from all over the world.
Because of the heightened terror alert, getting out of Chicago's O'Hare Airport was a real challenge. But people took the intense screening in stride, and I learned that I could really get by with one suitcase and no carry-on bag.
Toronto looks so much like Chicago that Hollywood has passed it off as Chicago in several movies. I've been here a few times and there's a noticeable difference between the people in Chicago and the people here. They are a lot friendlier.
Instead of jumping in a cab, I decided to take public transportation from the airport to the hotel. I wanted to see for myself how Toronto's public transportation system compares to CTA. Besides, the cab ride would have been about $55, compared to $2.75 for the bus and subway.
Needless to say, I had a dazed look on my face when the bus deposited me at the Kipling Subway station. But a white man in a business suit who was going my way assured me he wouldn't let me get lost. After pointing out the transit map (that goodness I can read one), he talked and I listened. He wanted to know where I was from and why I was in Toronto. He was just returning home from a business trip in Nova Scotia.
Two stops a later, a black man sat down between us and struck up a similar conversation. He’s from Jamaica, and makes his living as a painter. He was quite proud of that, and went into his bag and pulled out a photograph of his brightly-painted home in Jamaica. He talked about how great Toronto is, although he said that the terrorist threat had changed things. He also told me not to worry--he wouldn't let me get lost.
People of all nationalities--Muslim women in head scarves, Indians in long Saris, Asians, blacks, whites, people who sounded like they were from someplace in the Caribbean all traveling in the same direction.
When my stop approached, both men motioned me toward the exit. The Jamaican, who had been telling me how he always looks out for black people, got the attention of a young black woman across the aisle and asked her--no, he told her, she had to make sure I got on the Northbound train.
She looked surprised to be getting orders from a stranger, but she led me up the escalator anyway. I lost her in the throng of commuters and ended up taking the wrong train anyway.
That meant I had to drag my over-stuffed bag down a long, long flight of stairs in order to the other side of a platform. A young dark-skinned man, possibly from the Middle Eastern background, asked if I needed help. I said no. He asked again. I relented even though he was already carrying a large bag.
He picked up my hefty suitcase and hauled it down the stairs. I said thanks. He said, "You're welcome," and went about his business.
I got a call from Bomb and Arson Cmdr. Edward O'Donnell Thursday morning.
Turns out, O'Donnell was one of the police officers involved in a auto collision near 15th & Homan about a week ago. See the full version of my Thursday column for details..
"I'm that guy," O'Donnell told me. "The people in the neighborhood were fantastic. Somebody did take me out of the car. I couldn't find my seatbelt. They put out chairs so that me and the other officer could sit down. They were excellent."
No one tried to exploit the situation, he said.
"Nothing was taken out of my car. Someone did come and take me out of the car. By the time they had walked me 10 or 20 feet, people had brought out chairs," he said.
The accident, which left O'Donnell pretty banged up, involved two squad cars. Although O'Donnell is a high-ranking police official, he's often on the street. He sees a lot of the good as well as the bad.
"Recently there had been a shooting at 15th Christiana, and police called for back up. I saw a single black boy on the corner. He looked at me and nodded his head," O'Donnell said.
Maybe it would help if we talked more about the our positive interactions across racial lines. As O'Donnell points out: It's not all bad out there.
What is it going to take before the Chicago Police Department realizes that a lot of black people are fed up? And when will the aldermen open their eyes and see that many of their constituents are sitting on a powder keg?
This is true not just because a 14-year-old boy from Cabrini-Green was critically injured when he allegedly pointed a replica of a 9mm Smith & Wesson at officers. But because too many people are complaining about being mistreated by police officers.
People will debate whether or not the Cabrini-Green teen brought the shooting on himself since BB guns are illegal in Illinois. Some of them will blame the boy’s parents for not knowing he had the fake gun. Others will blame the cops for shooting first and asking questions later, even though police have been killed by gun-toting teens.
Unfortunately, A lot of black people are more willing to believe that a white cop would shoot an unarmed black kid than they are willing to listen to the cop’s side of the story.
There is a good reason for black people not trusting the cops.
Even people who have never had a run-in with police, know there is something terribly wrong when hundreds of black suspects are tortured into giving false confessions, and the man primarily responsible for those tortures is rewarded with a fat pension and time to spend cruising in a boat called “Vigilante.�
Even people who have never seen the inside of a jail and couldn’t care less when drug dealers and gang-bangers are locked up, know that something ought to have been done about Jon Burge and his posse.
Because the city did nothing to stop this racist cop back then, and because the law says it’s too late to do anything about him now--we shouldn’t be surprised that a lot of people in black neighborhoods are complaining about being disrespected by police.
When an 11-year-old girl is struck by a stray bullet while playing video games in her father's basement, I want a SWAT team to swoop down on the neighborhood and go door-to-door looking for the shooter.
I want police to put up road blocks and search every car until they find the person who cared so little about his own life and the lives of others that he fired a weapon on the street.
I also want to distance myself from such an evil human being.
But I can't.
Truth is, every time I am confronted with the horrible things black people can do to other black people, I'm filled with anger and shame. I doubt whites feel that way about white serial killers.
For all the ranting and raving about blacks commiting most of the violent crimes, the reality is the majority of the victims of those violent crimes are black.
Darian Shellie, the North Chicago girl, who was killed Sunday night when a bullet shattered the only window in her father's basement, is one of three young black girls murdered this year by random gunfire. In March, Siretha White, 10 and Starkesia Reed, 14, were killed nine days apart on the South Side.
As noted in a lot of the posts on this blog, this is a dilemma for black people. This war for the souls and bodies of our children is being fought on our streets.
Some white people (like Jerry) can boast that they don't live in black neighborhoods and they don't care about what goes on there. But if you are black, you can't really distance yourself from the 'hood. More than likely--even if you live in Wilmette-- you may have a cousin or aunt, an old friend or a grandmother who still call troubled areas home.
Can group identity ever be anything other than a burden?
There's been a lot of back and forth sniping about who is committing the most heinous crimes.
Frankly, anytime a human being takes another human being's life, I consider it a heinous act. But some of you seem convinced that black criminals are worst than white ones, and vice versa, or at least that's how you come across on this blog.
Will some of you address this issue and/or share a resource that will help us identify and begin to address the roots of this bias?
Why are young black criminals like Brandon Rolle often portrayed as more dangerous than criminals like Dale S. Hausner and Samuel J. Dieteman, the alleged serial killers responsible for a string of late-night random killings in Phoenix
.
Rolle is accused of robbing and killing Ronald Gentile, a Homewood man who was in Miami visiting his son. He is described as an ex-con with an extensive criminal record consisting of 13 arrests and four felony convictions. Charges include robbery, possession of cocaine with intent to sell, battery of a law enforcement officer and aggravated assault. He had only been out of prison two months when he was arrested for the crime.
Media also reported that Rolle's mother got into a shouting match with televison cameramen, screaming "You think t his is a motherf----- cartoon?" "I'm going to beat your ass."
Hausner, on the other hand, is described in an Associated Press report as: "always polite to friends," a "lover of boxing who decorated his room with drawings," A father to a 2-year-old girl" and "two young sons who died in a car accident."
Two monsters. Two very different portrayals.
"Off Balance: Youth, Race & Crime , a report co-authored by Lori Dorfman, Director of the Berkeley Media Studies Group and Vincent Schiraldi, founder and president of the Center on Juvenile Justice, gives valuable insights into why this is so.
I'm so repulsed by the word "nigger" I vowed to never use it years ago, and to check anyone who uses it in my presence.
So, of course I was disappointed that the Rev. and state Sen. James T. Meeks publicly used the word-again.
Today, I called up Meeks and asked why.
Last week, Meeks compared some elected officials with "house niggers" in a sermon critical of the Chicago Public School System.
"House nigger" is a derogatory description of slaves who worked in the slave owner's house and benefitted from the close relationship. Today, it is still a derogatory term commonly used by blacks to denounce other blacks.
Meeks also used the controversial slur publicly while protesting alleged racial profiling on the South Side. In an interview, Meeks accused police officers of stopping drivers in cars they deemed to be "niggermobiles."
Wednesday afternoon, Meeks told me he was putting the word to rest.
"I am not using the word at all anymore," he said. "I'm going to officially retire my use of it.
But Meeks also told me that he expects something from White America, too.
"My appeal to White America is this: I will stop using that word, and it will never come out of my mouth again," he said. "But I am expecting them to be as equally passionate about ridding society of the achievement gap as they are passionate about ridding society of this word. I want them to be equally passionate about redlining. I want them to be passionate about the resource gap.
How can they be comfortable knowing that white children get more money per pupil for education than black kids? How can they sleep at night?" he asked.
Meeks also believes white people are the driving force behind efforts to bury this racial slur.
"White people don't like the word because it's a symbol of white racism," he said. "They recognize that it was an error on the part of their forefathers.
I disagree.
As noted by Ferris State University sociology Professor David Pilgrim and his colleague, languages and literature Professor Phillip Middleton, white supremacists have spread their anti-black views on sites with names such as "Niggers Must Die," "Hang A Nigger for America" and "Nigger Jokes Central."
The people behind these sites couldn't care less about African-Americans using the slur. They probably find it funny.
But whites who avoid using this racial slur are getting ticked off.
As long as they can be hounded out of their careers for publicly calling a black person the N-word, they are going to be outraged when blacks use the word with immunity.
