March 9, 2014

To Be Equal 

President Obama Rallies Help for Young Males of Color with “My Brother’s Keeper” Initiative
By Marc H. Morial

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - “There are some Americans who, in the aggregate, are consistently doing worse in our society -- groups that have had the odds stacked against them in unique ways that require unique solutions…And by almost every measure, the group that is facing some of the most severe challenges in the 21st century in this country are boys and young men of color.” - President Barack Obama

Last Thursday at the White House, I was on hand for one of the most inspiring and important Presidential announcements in recent history.  In the aftermath of the killings of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis, and in response to data showing how badly the odds are stacked against millions of boys and young men of color in the United States, President Obama kicked-off “My Brother’s Keeper,” an unprecedented public-private initiative aimed at improving life outcomes and addressing opportunity gaps for the nation’s most vulnerable population.

The President made the announcement before an audience of young males of color and a coalition of government, business, civic and philanthropic leaders.  I was proud to be there to represent the National Urban League.  In unusually personal terms, President Obama spoke about his own struggles with drugs and alienation as a young boy growing up without a father.  He called on all Americans to do more to improve the prospects for young males of color who are less likely to graduate from high school and more likely to be unemployed or end up in jail than any other group in America.

Framing the initiative as both a moral and economic imperative, President Obama has done what Congress has failed to do over the past five years -- convene a diverse and bipartisan coalition of Americans committed to targeted help for communities and populations most in need.

At the heart of the My Brother’s Keeper initiative is a commitment from a group of businesses and large and small foundations who have pledged at least $200 million over the next five years, on top of the $150 million they have already invested to test and expand proven strategies for improving the life prospects of young males of color.  The President has also formed an interagency federal task force to direct this effort. 

As the National Urban League Movement has asserted for years, we know what works: early childhood education, stronger pathways to college and the world of work, alternatives to zero-tolerance discipline policies, shutting down the school-to-prison pipeline, more guidance from fathers and mentors, and the courage and determination of young males of color themselves to reject negative stereotypes, make good choices and succeed.

The need for this initiative is clear.  Data shows that boys and young men of color, regardless of socio-economic background, are disproportionately at risk throughout the journey from their youngest years to college and career – including large disparities in reading proficiency, employment, and involvement in the criminal justice system.  These young men are more than six times as likely to be victims of murder than their white peers and account for almost half of the country’s murder victims each year.  As the President said, “These statistics should break our hearts, and they should compel us to act.”  I agree and I commend President Obama for his leadership in tackling this problem.  

“My Brother’s Keeper” is an inspiring example of what we can do when we transform words into action and coalesce around complex issues with a commitment to changing lives. But, there is still much to be done as we work together – across the public-private-nonprofit spectrum  – to drive this initiative forward.  The opportunity is before us, and so is the will.

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March 4, 2014

From NNPA to NAACP to Silicon Valley – Ben Jealous Still Pushing Technology for Equality
By Hazel Trice Edney

Former NAACP President Ben Jealous, seen here leading a protest, is now fighting for racial justice in a new way.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – Benjamin Todd Jealous, the former NAACP president, who has weaved a career through politics, the Black press and civil rights, has now announced his next course of action in pursuit of racial equality and economic justice in America.

Jealous and the Oakland, Calif.-based Kapor Center for Social Impact, located near the Silicon Valley, announced this week that he has joined the Center as its first venture partner. The center’s co-founders and co-chairs Mitchell Kapor and Freada Kapor Klein are bringing Jealous on to find tech-savvy entrepreneurs and inventors with ideas for using technology for social impact, mainly to fill racial and economic gaps in America.

Jealous will help find the entrepreneurs, help them shape their tech visions; plus establish the selection criteria for possible seed money. He will also help lead the center’s effort to make investments in non-profit organizations that are about closing social gaps and will join the board of the Kapor Center-funded Level Playing Field Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending racial barriers in science, technology, engineering and math. 

“I’ve always been interested in technology. I’ve always been interested in [deepening] the social impact. And I’ve always been very curious about ways to use technology to advance the social impact,” Jealous said in an interview this week. “When Mitch and Frieda came forth and offered me the opportunity to join the Kapor Center for Social Impact and start trying new things every day…while still staying focused on achieving my life’s mission of and leveling the playing field and closing gaps to access and opportunity in our community and the country as a whole, I leapt at it because it had been a long time since I’d tried something new that had the potential to level the playing field for hundreds of thousands and millions of people.”

Jealous says one of his first stops will be a learning tour of Silicon Valley, the South Bay portion of San Francisco, which leads the nation in cutting edge technology. The Kapor Center has a program for underrepresented college students to get paid internships in Silicon Valley companies.

Jealous, who dates his keen interest in technology back to a fourth and fifth grade computer science program, served as president/CEO of the NAACP for five years until his resignation late last year. There, his leadership in technology grew NAACP’s mobile messaging base from 5,000 activists to 423,000 and from 175,000 email activists to 1.3 million.

Jealous' technological skills also harken back to when he started as executive director of the 200-member National Newspaper Publishers Association in 2000 with a vision of bringing the Black Press on line with websites and a full-service wire service for its members. Before his departure almost half of NNPA’s newspapers were on line and the wire service continues to thrive.

Jealous’ record of using technology to fight for racial justice is what established the mutual attraction between him and the Kapor Center.

"Ben has spent his career working to end racial and economic gaps in society, from the criminal justice system to education to health care,” said co-founder Freada Kapor Klein in a statement. “We are tremendously pleased that he will bring his vast experience, strategy and energy to the tech sector as the next frontier in his life's work for justice and inclusion."

Jealous’ civil rights career is just as important as his tech interest said co-founder Mitchell Kapor, one of the first Silicon Valley billionaires. "As an entrepreneur and an investor, I've built my career on seeing the possibilities of good ideas and the right team, and then bringing that vision to life. By bringing Ben to the Kapor team, we are making a bet that someone who has succeeded in changing the broader world in so many ways will do the same in our world."

When Jealous left the NAACP last year, he said he would spend more time with his growing family and would also work to start a political action committee (PAC) for transformative Democratic and Republican candidates. He said this week that he will continue to do it all.

“I will reserve a portion of my time continuing my work in politics. This will be 80 percent of my time and 20 percent will be continuing to build the PAC,” he said. “It’ll be separate and ongoing work.”

As for his family, Jealous says he will remain bi-coastal, primarily living in Maryland with his family even as he travels for the Kapor Center.

The Center has already made major strides in its quest for social justice. Jealous ticked off a list of ideas, aps and inventions as examples that have already received funding. They include technology that lowers the astronomical cost of telephone calls from inmates to their families; a blue tooth hearing aid that costs only $75 instead of the normal $3,000-$5,000; technology that helps parents and children with bi-lingual education; a way to send money home to another country without paying a 30 percent remittance fee; and a way to make college education available for the cost of a Pell grant.

“So, that’s what we’re talking about here…Very similar to my work at the NAACP. We’re working on multiple gaps simultaneously,” Jealous said. “It’s impossible not to be excited.”

March 7, 2014

Racial Healing Activities Inspire Hope for ‘Truth and Reconciliation’ in America
By Edna Kane-Williams

Edna Kane-Williams

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Emmett Till. The four little girls in the Birmingham bombing. Rodney King. Trayvon Martin. Their names and situations invoke memories of extreme racial tension and often exacerbate feelings of racial distrust because of the painful circumstances surrounding their deaths. Across the nation, these and other historic stories of violence have for years saturated the airwaves and newspapers.

And yet, in many of America’s communities, programs and lessons in racial healing and tolerance are quietly spreading. Some are simply conversations that lead to understanding and changed behavior. Others are actual activities to establish outreach and relationships for racial diversity.

Like South Africa’s “Truth and Reconciliation” campaign that began the yet progressing road to racial healing post-apartheid, programs across the U. S. are inspiring hope that truth and reconciliation can also happen in America following slavery, Jim Crow, the civil rights movement and contemporary racial strife.

For example, the “Teaching Tolerance” program of the Montgomery, Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLCenter.org) describes its efforts to “foster school environments that are inclusive and nurturing – classrooms where equality and justice are not just taught, but lived. The program points to the future, helping teachers prepare a new generation to live in a diverse world.”

The program, which issues a Teaching Tolerance magazine; multimedia teaching kits, a Teaching Diverse Students initiative and special projects like Mix It Up at Lunch Day, reaches hundreds of thousands of educators and millions of students a year.

Likewise, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, which prioritizes equality and justice for the lives of children, four years ago launched a five-year initiative called, “America Healing”. The foundation is pouring $75 million into programs and organizations that work toward ending racial inequities in trenches across America.

As a part of this initiative, Kellogg convenes an annual conversation among leaders of those groups, civil rights leaders and others who work for racial justice. The open and frank conversations aim to raise “awareness of unconscious biases and inequities and to help communities heal.”

Congressman John Lewis (D-Ga.) has praised this initiative, saying, “At a time when our nation shows disturbing signs of becoming more polarized, this courageous effort by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to promote healing within local communities is sorely needed.”

Of course these are works in progress and America has a ways to go for complete healing and reconciliation. Despite efforts like these to unite communities and touch individual lives around the nation, the SPLC reports that more than 190,000 incidents of hate and intolerance per year have been documented by the federal government over the past decade.

While widespread activities aim to teach youth and adults how to break racial barriers and authentically embrace diversity, some leaders see a void where more activities could be happening.

Elder Bernice King, an ordained minister who is the youngest child of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., believes many churches – Black and White - have lost their community focus.

“Honestly, we just keep living from day to day until another incident happens,” she said in a recent conversation with AARP. She said, as people gather weekly in houses of worship, “It would be so tremendous if we could use that as an opportunity to break some ground as it relates to some of these racial divides.”

Elder King serves as chief executive officer of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. There she oversees the Atlanta-based programs and exhibits that aim to inspire “new generations to carry forward his unfinished work”.

As thousands of youth visit the center every year, she sees hope that America’s painful racial legacy will gradually dissipate as future generations assert fresh perspectives.

“I see so many kids…And I watch the affinity that they have for each other across racial lines,” she said. “They don’t see color the way we do. They don’t see race the way we do. They, I believe, are our hope for a changed world going forward. And if we would just pay close attention to them, we could learn something. Because they don’t think about, ‘I should have more than the other’. In fact, they teach us, ‘I want this person included with me. It’s only fair and right’...It’s almost as if it’s their assignment to do it for us; to redeem us.”

Edna Kane-Williams is AARP Vice President, Multicultural Markets and Engagement

March 4, 2014

Sunday's Oscars Indicate Hollywood May Be Calling Blacks
By Lapacazo Sandoval

Oscar®-winner Steve McQueen, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, and Spike Lee pose together at the Governor's Ball following the live ABC Telecast of The Oscars® from the Dolby® Theatre in Hollywood March 2.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The Time is now. If there ever was a time for African Americans interested in the motion picture industry to make a move, that time has apparently come. 

This is not suggesting the existence of a post-racial America (or a post-racial Hollywood) or that it will be easy because you are African-American.  Make no mistake, the film business is a tough business.  But if you’ve got what it takes, are passionate and persistent enough to tough it out in the face of rejection and persevere, you can make it. 

This is the implication from recent years; including Sunday night’s Academy Awards – that aspiring African-American filmmakers should dream big and go for it.  Hollywood appears to be calling for diversity and has opened its doors - gradually. 

Here are a few key factors: During the first 54 years of the Oscars, which began in 1929, only three African-American actors had received the Academy Award by 1983.  Those winners were Hattie McDaniel as Best Supporting Actress for “Gone With the Wind” in 1939, Sydney Poitier as Best Actor for “Lilies of the Field” in 1964, and Louis Gossett, Jr. as Best Supporting Actor for “An Officer and a Gentlemen” in 1983. 

Over the next 30 years, there were 11 more Oscars awarded to African-American actors which include Whoopie Goldberg, Halle Berry, Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Jennifer Hudson, Octavia Spencer, Forest Whitaker, Mo’Nique and Jamie Foxx.

The 86th Annual Academy Awards this year saw yet another Oscar presented to Lupita Nyong’o for her role as Best Supporting Actress in the film “12 Years a Slave,” which also won the Academy Award for Best Picture.  The film's director, Steve McQueen, made history becoming the first black producer ever to win the coveted Best Picture award for this film. The word “Black” is used here rather than African-American because Steve McQueen is British and Lupita Nyong’o is African from Kenya. 

This year’s Oscar Ceremony made history again by introducing to the world its new president Cheryl Boone Isaacs, who is the first African-American to serve as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.  In a recent interview, Isaacs said, “I am glad to be president during this year’s season.”  

A seasoned veteran in the movie business, Isaacs over the years has held every position on the Academy’s Board of Governors.  In the film business since 1977, Isaacs is well aware of the challenges facing African-American filmmakers historically.  As such, she has made diversity a priority for the Academy.  Isaacs explains, “We’ve been making strides at the Academy to make it more inclusive.  To open up our ranks.  To recognize different voices from around the world, including America, because there are different stories to be told.” 

Isaacs feels that education is critical to the success of the Academy meeting its goals. “We really want to educate young people to the range of opportunities in the motion picture business,” says Isaacs.  Academy programs include Team Oscar, The Student Academy Awards, and the Nicholl Screenwriting Fellowship.

It is the cumulative struggle of many African-American artists and others over many years that has produced a new, more equitable Hollywood system.  Diversity is a broad term which seeks to be inclusive of all people, not just African Americans.  “We are looking for the best and the brightest,” says Academy president Isaacs.

After winning Best Picture for “12 Years a Slave,” the film’s producer Brad Pitt perhaps made the best case for diversity when he said, “At the end of the day, we just hope that this film remains a gentle reminder that we're all equal.  We all want the same.  We want dignity and opportunity for ourselves and our family, and that another's freedom is every bit as important as our own; and that's it, and that's everything.”