May 28, 2015
By Lee A. Daniels
NNPA Columnist
Question: When men (and a few women) belonging to gangs known to law enforcement agencies for criminal behavior explode in a rampage – using guns, knives, clubs, and chains in trying to kill each other, and police officers, too, that leaves nine dead, nearly 200 injured and hundreds arrested, is that a “riot?”
Answer: Apparently not if the overwhelming majority of the gang members are White?
America’s present-day “racial divide,” has never been more strikingly displayed than in the refusal of much of the mainstream and conservative media to describe the May 17 biker riot in Waco, Texas as a riot.
The riot, which occurred at a popular restaurant amid dozens of innocent bystanders and, according to police, involved members of five different gangs, was one of the most extraordinary outbursts of mass criminal violence in recent memory. Further, almost immediately after Waco police arrested the bikers, rumors swirled that other members of the gangs were heading toward the city to both continue the battle against their rivals and carry out death threats made against Waco police officials.
Yet, scanning the newspapers, the universe of online publications, and the network and cable television news programs, you’d have scarcely come across any description of what occurred in Waco as a “riot.” Nor would you have likely found any reference to the bikers, clad in their distinctively grungy biker garb, as “thugs” – or, as one newspaper reader put it: “murdering thuggish rioters.”
MediaMatters, the watchdog group, pointed out the contrast in how Fox News, for example, covered Waco versus Baltimore and Ferguson.
It noted, “After African-American communities in Baltimore and Ferguson, Mo. came together to demonstrate against the deadly and racially disparate policies of law enforcement, Fox News branded the protests a ‘war on cops.’ But when the story became a mostly white Texas biker gang plotting to kill police with grenades and car bombs, the network took a decidedly less sensationalist approach in its reporting.”
CNN Political Commentator Sally Kohn wrote, “In fact, in much of the coverage of the Waco shootings, the race of the gang members isn't even mentioned. By comparison, the day after Freddie Gray died in the custody of police officers in Baltimore, not only did most coverage mention that Gray was black, but also included a quote from the deputy police commissioner noting Gray was arrested in ‘a high-crime area known to have high narcotic incidents,’ implicitly smearing Gray and the entire community.”
The disparity in coverage did not go unremarked upon on Black social media, in a host of progressive publications, and in numerous online reader-responses to mainstream-publication stories. (Many also noted the Waco police responded to the deadly shootout with none of the heavily-militarized equipment and body armor that immediately marked police responses to peaceful protests in Ferguson and Baltimore.)
Indeed, the differences in the language used underscore that the way words and phrases are used to talk about race and racial events has its own meaning. In this instance, it’s that such words as “riot” and “thug” are part of the lexicon of America’s continuing racial divide that, among other things, individualizes White crime and White flaws while it indicts all Black Americans for the flaws and crimes of individual Blacks. Some years ago a journalist friend of mine described this dynamic as “the chains of collective guilt.”
The phenomenon isn’t new, of course. Once, the lexicon of anti-Black collective guilt helped justify the actual chains of Negro slavery and the legalized racism that followed. Now, it’s usually employed in more subtle ways.
Except when it’s not: As in the revealing discoveries over the past two months of racist, sexist and homophobic tweets and e-mails by cops in the police departments of San Francisco, Miami Beach, and Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
In each case – all are still in early stages of investigation – police officers, some with long years on their force, were found to have exchanged from dozens to hundreds of social-media messages disparaging with vile slurs against Blacks, Hispanic-Americans, women, gays and lesbians, Muslim Americans – and, of course, President Obama. Law enforcement co-workers and innocent civilians alike were denigrated along with Black criminal suspects. The bulk of the messages in all these instances, which cover from 2010 to the present, focused on Black Americans.
The discoveries have led to the resignations of some of the officers, and disciplinary actions, including firing, against the others. Even more important, prosecutors and police officials in the three cities are reviewing cases of defendants in which the officers were involved either as arresting officers or witnesses at trial. In San Francisco, prosecutors have already dropped eight cases connected to some of the officers there.
One Miami Beach cop tried to excuse his behavior by describing it as just part of the police department’s longstanding “culture.” Unfortunately, the same could be said for the mainstream and conservative media’s refusal to use the most accurate descriptions for the Waco biker riot.
It’s those similarities that are worrisome.
Lee A. Daniels is a longtime journalist based in New York City. His essay, “Martin Luther King, Jr.: The Great Provocateur,” appears in Africa’s Peacemakers: Nobel Peace Laureates of African Descent (2014), published by Zed Books. His new collection of columns, Race Forward: Facing America’s Racial Divide in 2014, is available at www.amazon.com.
May 21, 2015
By Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr.
NNPA Columnist
More than any other first lady of the United States of America, Michelle Obama continues to stand above those who would attempt to distort her leadership. First Lady Obama’s recent commencement address at the Tuskegee University in Alabama exemplified her courage to speak truth to the world without fear of repercussions.
Michelle Obama’s resilient optimism is refreshing as well as sobering. I am certain the class of 2015 at Tuskegee will always remember the strong and poignant words of wisdom that they were given during their graduation ceremonies. But we all can learn from her timely remarks.
We live today in an increased atmosphere of racial polarization in America since the election and re-election of President Barack Obama. We, therefore, should welcome public utterances that transcend the prevalent negativity surrounding any attempt to address the question of race in the United States.
Michele Obama is perfectly qualified and strategically positioned to use her leadership in a constructive manner to advance the interests of Black America and all those who struggle and cry out for freedom, justice and equality. As a talented Harvard Law School graduate, devoted mother, and loyal spouse to the president, the first lady has risen to become one of the most admired persons in the world.
The first lady eloquently stated, “But here’s the thing – our history provides us with a better story, a better blueprint for how we can win. It teaches us that when we pull ourselves out of those lowest emotional depths, and we channel our frustrations into studying and organizing and banding together – then we can build ourselves and our communities up. We can take on those deep-rooted problems, and together – together – we can overcome anything that stands in our way.”
In other words, we should strive to avoid complacency and the cynicism of hopelessness. The history and the centuries-old legacy of African people in America and throughout the world proves our ability to overcome the hardships of oppression and injustice. It was also good to hear Michelle Obama call for Black American unity and “banding together.”
Our families and communities across the nation are certainly in critical need of greater unity and collective resolve to stand up together to provide leadership and direction in particular for our youth and young emerging leaders. We cannot afford to permit the evolution of an ahistorical generation of young people who have not been given the truth of our history nor given the encouragement that they need to excel and make their mark on history today.
In fact, over the next weeks we will witness numerous graduation ceremonies in particular at other Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The good news is that thousands of Black American college graduates from HBCUs and from other institutions of higher learning will be pushing forward to demand greater access to wealth-building careers with the intent on giving more back to the communities from which they have emerged. Like the first lady, I am optimistic about the future to the extent to which we continue to stand up to injustice while at the same time pressing forth to economically empower our families and communities.
Education and empowerment are both goals that must be attained and each generation has to rise to the occasion with persistence and focus. There will be setbacks and sometimes disappointments in everyone’s life. Yet, the enduring lesson from Michelle Obama’s magnificent address was that when those life challenges happen, do not let your problems or critics define who you are. We have to have faith in our own capacity to rebound and to stand for truth even when it might not be the popular or politically expedient.
We are a resilient people. We resist oppression. We are against inequality and injustice. We stand for liberation and freedom for ourselves and for all people. The more we stand together, the more we make progress. We are grateful that in our lifetime we are privilege to witness how the first lady epitomizes what it means to be a freedom fighter with courage and grace, but most of all, with a glowing resilience that motivates and inspires others to excel.
Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. is the President and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) and can be reached for national advertisement sales and partnership proposals at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ; and for lectures and other professional consultations at: http://drbenjaminfchavisjr.wix.com/drbfc.
May 14, 2015
By Marian Wright Edelman
NNPA Columnist
The recent Department of Justice report on police and court practices in Ferguson, Mo. put a much needed spotlight on how a predatory system of enforcement of minor misdemeanors and compounding fines can trap low-income people in a never-ending cycle of debt, poverty, and jail.
This included outrageous fines for minor infractions such as failing to show proof of insurance and letting grass and weeds in a yard get too high. In one case, a woman who parked her car illegally in 2007 and couldn’t pay the initial $151 fee has since been arrested twice, spent six days in jail, paid $550 to a city court, and as of 2014 still owed the city $541 in fines, all as a result of the unpaid parking ticket. The Department of Justice found each year Ferguson set targets for the police and courts to generate more and more money from municipal fines. And Ferguson isn’t alone.
The criminalization of poverty is a growing trend in states and localities across the country.
The investigation of Ferguson’s practices came after the killing of unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown by a police officer, and last month the practice of criminalizing poverty made headlines again after Walter Scott was killed in North Charleston, S.C. Scott was shot in the back by police officer Michael Slager on April 4 as he ran away after being pulled over for a broken taillight. Scott had already served time in jail for falling behind on child support, and on the day he was stopped, there was a warrant out for his arrest for falling behind again. His family believes his fear of going back to jail caused him to run.
His brother told The New York Times that Walter Scott already felt trapped: “Every job he has had, he has gotten fired from because he went to jail because he was locked up for child support,” said Rodney Scott, whose brother was most recently working as a forklift operator. “He got to the point where he felt like it defeated the purpose.”
A 2009 review of county jails in South Carolina found that 1 in 8 inmates was behind bars for failure to pay child support. Rodney Scott remembered his brother trying to explain to a judge that he simply did not make enough money to pay the amount ordered by the court: “And the judge said something like, ‘That’s your problem. You figure it out.’”
The United States legally ended the practice of debtor’s prisons in 1833, and the Supreme Court ruled in Bearden v. Georgia (1983) that it is unconstitutional to imprison those who can’t afford to pay their debt or restitution in criminal cases, unless the act of not paying debt or restitution is “willful.”
But poor people are being increasingly targeted with fines and fees for misdemeanors and winding up in illegal debtors’ prisons when they can’t pay – and in some cases, then being charged additional fees for court and jail costs.
A recent investigation by National Public Radio, the New York University Brennan Center for Justice, and the National Center for State Courts cited a study estimating between 80-85 percent of inmates now leave prison owing debt for court-imposed costs, restitution, fines and fees.
In some jurisdictions defendants are charged for their room and board during lockup, probation and parole supervision, drug and alcohol abuse treatment, DNA samples, and even their constitutional right to a public defender. When poor people can’t pay those fees either, the cycle of debt and jail time continues.
The private companies providing probation services in more than half of the states are some of the biggest winners when poor people are targeted. If people on probation can’t afford the fees they are charged, they breach their probation contract; this can result in more jail time, making it even less likely that they’ll be earning the money they need, and people under the supervision of these private probation companies often become liable for charges exceeding the initial cost of their ticket or fine.
Federal law also prohibits people in breach of probation from receiving a range of benefits, including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), food stamps, and Supplemental Security Income – once again, exacerbating the cycle of poverty, probation, and prison.
According to a study conducted by the American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section, there are more than 38,000 documented statutes nationwide creating collateral consequences for people with criminal convictions, including barriers to housing, employment, voting, and many public benefits.
By denying these citizens access to basic services they need to survive, our policies needlessly increase the risk of recidivism and continue to leave people truly trapped—and when we extend the cycle of poverty by criminalizing poor people, there are only a few greedy winners and many, many losers.
Marian Wright Edelman is president of the Children’s Defense Fund whose Leave No Child Behind® mission is to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities. For more information go to www.childrensdefense.org.
May 07, 2015
By James Clingman
NNPA Columnist
The movie we are watching in Baltimore is a re-run and a sequel. The price of admission has always been too high, but we continue to pay the exorbitant price, anyway. As the opening line in the old TV show, “Dragnet,” proclaimed, “The story you are about to see is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.” In today’s society, that second line should say, “The names have been changed to protect the ‘guilty.’”
My 11-year-old nephew, since the age of five or six, has been reciting, verbatim, the words from his favorite movies. He knows the directors, the release dates, and the bios of the stars in those movies. He has seen his favorite movies many times over. He reminds me of Black people, as we watch the same movie over and over, except we do not remember the vital information contained in the movie, and we even forget who the main characters were and the roles they played.
The latest movie being run in Baltimore is a sequel to the ones we watched in Ferguson, Mo. and Staten Island, N.Y. It is a rerun of what we saw in Los Angeles, Cleveland, and North Charleston, S.C. How many times are we going to pay the price of admission to see the same movie without memorizing the lines and learning from them? How many times must we go through the same experience before we change our response to it?
Some very interesting and pitiful responses (reviews) have come from some of the “leaders” in Baltimore in the aftermath of Freddie Gray’s death. We knew what the politicians’ reviews would be; they are always true to form. But the older folks, who decry the violence as “insulting” and “disrespectful” to Freddie’s family, are even more disingenuous. They seem to have forgotten about 1968 when their generation, and maybe even some of them, burned down buildings and looted all across this nation, in the aftermath of MLK’s assassination. Were their actions deemed insulting and disrespectful to King’s family? If so, did that stop them?
The self-righteousness I hear from those in my generation about the youth who are doing the same thing they did in the 1960s is unfortunate. Where were they before the looting and burning started in Baltimore? Were they busy teaching the youth that what took place in the 1960s was detrimental to their neighborhoods, as they now like to say to TV news reporters? If they have not, until now, passed on those lessons to younger folks, their words ring hollow today.
Some of the sanctimonious comments being made by my generation very strongly suggest that even though we have seen this movie many times, we are content to watch it again without having shared its lessons. Is it because we are ashamed of ourselves now? Do we think we are better than our youth today? We should be bringing the generations together rather than separating them and acting like we have not been where they are.
Amos Wilson said, “The violently oppressed react violently to their oppression.” He also said, “Just as power corrupts, powerlessness also corrupts.” This is the main plot of our 21st century version of the 1968 movie. Same theme, different characters. Why do we only react to what young people do, rather than work with them every day by giving them alternatives to prevent their negative behaviors? It irks me to see our grown men saying, “They need jobs.” Well, create some jobs to give them. It’s so sad to hear our adults crying out, “They need education.” Well, provide them with education. Our youth see many of us as weak and impotent when it comes to protecting them.
We have the resources to provide everything we say our youth need. What must they think of our words, our prayer sessions, our news conferences, our political speeches, and our tepid efforts now to stop and correct their behavior, when we have not used our resources to take care of them? Our answer is to run to those who don’t care about them and beg for jobs, food, education, and everything else they need.
Frederick Douglass’ words are clear regarding power, but as I always add, a demand not backed-up by power will not come to fruition; and the real power in this country is the almighty dollar. Just look at what happened in Indianapolis when the LGBT folks were upset. They did not burn anything down or throw one brick, because they know that dollars rule the day. Their threats to withdraw their dollars were immediately addressed by the politicians.
People whose families own storefront businesses are very unlikely to throw bricks through the windows and burn them down. Sgt. Joe Friday had another saying in Dragnet: “Just the facts ma’am, just the facts.”
Jim Clingman, founder of the Greater Cincinnati African American Chamber of Commerce, is the nation’s most prolific writer on economic empowerment for Black people. He can be reached through his website, blackonomics.com. He is the author of Black Dollars Matter: Teach Your Dollars How to Make More Sense, which is available through his website; professionalpublishinghouse.com and Amazon Kindle eBooks.