Victories and Stereotypes

By Julianne Malveaux

Gabrielle "Gabby" Douglas PHOTO: Facebook.com

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - If you don’t follow Olympic gymnastics, you may not have heard about Gabrielle Douglas before this year. But the amazing grace of this 16-year-old African-American propelled her to Olympic gold last week, and she is the first African-American to win an individual medal in gymnastics. Indeed, her performance toppled the Russians, who have portrayed themselves as unbeatable. So unbeatable, as a matter of fact that the winner of the silver medal, Viktoria Komova, “sobbed uncontrollably”, according to a news report, because she so expected to win.

This calls for unqualified celebration. Sneaking into some of the celebratory comments, though, were snarky and rude comments that many reserve to tarnish African-American accomplishment and victory. Channel surfing in the talk radio space (why??), these comments came in two categories, equally objectionable.

First, there were comments about Gabrielle’s hair. As the young gymnast did her thing, there were many – including some self-hating African-American women – who commented that her hair wasn’t up to par - shades of the comments about Michelle Obama. I’m not sure what style would be appropriate for a gymnast, but let’s celebrate Gabrielle’s medal instead of railing on her hair. Are we still stuck on the Spike Lee version of “straight or nappy” as a contrast?

When Don Imus insultingly uses the word “nappy”, we Black folks are up in arms, as we should be. But when sisters excoriate an accomplished young woman, there are those who nod their hair in agreement. When will we, black women, get over this hair thing? And when will we stop playing into other people’s stereotypes. To be honest, hair was the last thing on my mind when I saw Gabrielle’s stunning performance. Why was anyone thinking of hair?

In addition to thinking of hair, some commentators were thinking of fatherhood. Where was her dad, too many asked? One radio talk show host took a whole five minutes ruminating on absent dads. But the truth is that while Gabrielle’s mom, Natalie Hawkins, and her dad, Timothy Douglas, are divorcing, Mr. Douglas, a soldier who has served both in Iraq and Afghanistan, is very much part of her life. He was present for the Olympic trials, but had responsibilities that kept him from the rest of the games. His presence or absence should not be the fodder for speculation.

I wouldn’t mind the commentary so much if the same folks spent any time speaking of the economic plight of African- American men. The most recent jobs report shows that while the unemployment rate ticked up from 8.2 percent in May to 8.3 percent in June, the rate for African-American men rose from 14.2 to 14.8 percent officially. Unofficial rates would put African American male employment near the 25 percent mark.

Furthermore, alternative sets of data more effectively explore the plight of African-American men. The employment-population ration, which measures the percentage of men aged 10 to 65 who are working, shows that 57.7 percent of African American men in that age group have jobs, which means that more than forty percent do not. More than two of three African-American men, then, do not have work, yet this statistic is rarely discussed. In contrast, the employment-population ration for White men was 68.4 percent, a full 10 percentage points higher than the rate for Black men. Timothy Douglas is employed, and he is, indeed, defending our country. Why is his presence or absence at the Olympic games subject to mean-spirited discussion, when it is clear that he supports his daughter?

It is easy to suggest that the Tea Party attacks on President Barack Obama have made it “open season” on Black people among the commemtariat. And certainly, coverage of the President and his family has been rife with stereotypes. Still, Tea Party attacks can’t explain the ways that some African American women have talked about Gabrielle Douglas’ hair. In the face of caustic comments about black people from outsiders, must we turn on ourselves?

The only thing I want to hear about Gabrielle Douglas is how amazing her victory was and how inspirational she will be for other young women. All of America ought to celebrate this victory because Ms. Douglas brought the gold home, not for herself, but for our nation. The stereotypes are simply unacceptable, whether African-Americans or Whites are wallowing in them.

Julianne Malveaux is a writer and econnoist in Washington, DC.

Head Shot and Killed While Handcuffed in a Cop Car

Arkansas Cops Claim Suicide, Mother Believes They Killed Him

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Afro American Newspapers

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The FBI is investigating how a 21-year-old Black man was shot and killed while handcuffed in a Jonesboro, Ark. patrol car on July 29.

“We’ve been asked to get involved,” Kim Brunell, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s Little Rock office, told The Huffington Post Aug. 2. The bureau's ballistics experts will join the probe, she said.

The action came after civil rights leaders called for a comprehensive investigation of the July 29 death of Chavis Carter of Southaven, Miss. even though Jonesboro authorities said that two Jonesboro police officers are on administrative leave and an investigation by local officials is underway into what local police called a suicide.

“The Arkansas State Conference of the NAACP and the Craighead County Branch of the NAACP express our deepest condolences to the family of Chavis Carter, and call upon the Jonesboro Police Department, FBI and Justice Department to conduct a thorough, transparent and unbiased investigation into Mr. Carter’s death,” according to a statement by the two NAACP units released Aug. 3.

Carter was the passenger in a white pickup truck that was stopped by Jonesboro police just before 10 p.m. on the night of July 29, according to the police report. An officer reportedly searched and found marijuana on Carter. A subsequent records check yielded an outstanding warrant for Carter in Mississippi.

“As protocol he was handcuffed behind his back and double locked, and searched,” said Sgt. Lyle Waterworth in an interview with WREG.

But minutes later, officers said they heard a thumping sound and on investigation they found Carter “slumped forward with his head in his lap," and covered in blood. Carter’s hands were still secured behind his back and a small caliber handgun allegedly was found beside him, accordig to the Jonesboro Police Department report. Carter was taken to St. Bernards Regional Medical Center where he was pronounced dead.

Police have concluded that the victim, who they said they searched twice, somehow retrieved a hidden weapon and shot himself in the head.

“Any given officer has missed something on a search, be it drugs, knife, razor blades, this instance it happened to be a gun,” said Waterworth.

“I think they killed him, my son wasn’t suicidal,” said Teresa Carter, the victim’s mother, in an interview with WREG-TV, a CBS affiliate in Memphis.

In addition, she said, he had called his girlfriend from the stopped vehicle, promising to call her from jail. She also said she is puzzled about Additionally, how her son, who was left-handed, could shoot himself in his right temple.

Grassroots Activists Struggling to Motivate Blacks to Vote

By Hazel Trice Edney

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - With Black unemployment rates still stuck in double digits while Whites remain consistently below the national average, economic frustration and suffering in the Black community is making it difficult for grassroots organizers to motivate people to the polls Nov. 6.

“We are in crisis,” says Baltimore Pastor Jamal-Harrison Bryant, whose Empowerment Movement is holding a “Code Red” conference Aug. 15-17 at the Empowerment Temple where he pastors. “In 2008, we were excited to see a Black man running for President. But we were so excited by the prospects of a Black president that we failed to establish a Black agenda.”

Bryant says President Obama is simply “not motivating Black people to go to the polls” and he has found that many who are planning to vote “can’t even articulate why” they will vote for the candidate they’ve chosen.

Blacks turned out for Obama at a record 98 percent four years ago. This time around doesn't appear so certain as the frustration appears pervasive and Black leaders are struggling to create a sense of urgency.

Lee Saunders, the first Black president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO, made it plain before a packed house with hundreds of activists and youths last week at the A. Philip Randolph Institute National Education Conference in Downtown D.C.

“Sisters and brothers, make no mistake about it. We’ve got to work like hell and re-elect Barack Obama as our President in November,” he said. Saying that Mitt Romney has sent jobs to other countries, exploited tax loopholes while refusing to show his tax returns, and wants to give tax breaks to millionaires, Saunders told the applauding audience, “Sisters and brothers we’ve got to make sure that the only way that Mitt Romney gets into that White House is that he stands in that line with everybody else and he’s on a tour.”

Both young and seasoned grassroots activists interviewed at the conference expressed the uphill battle they face.

“A lot of our young people are actually not real excited about this election. They feel that there were some things that should have changed or should have happened over the last four years that didn’t, so they really don’t feel the need to get out and vote,” says Jessica Brown of Tampa, Fla., national field coordinator for Black Youth Vote, a program for the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation (NCBCP).

She says she tries to inspire her youthful peers by telling them that it’s not just about the presidential election but even trickles down to state and local leaders. “We really try to teach them about what voting is and bring it home literally to their communities.”

But, their frustration links to real life says, William C. Kellibrew, IV, who manages Black Youth Vote as deputy director of NCBCP. “Young people are out of work right now. You can go to any city and find 50 percent unemployment rate or over 40 percent unemployment rate for young people, so it’s a huge issue and they’re looking for jobs at this point. So, who’s going to be creating jobs at this point?”

In Florida, with its infamous history of voter disenfranchisement, African-American activists are being creative in their get out to vote efforts.

Salandra Benton, manager of the Unity Campaign in Florida, says other than jobs, a major concern is the number of convicted felons who have not received the restoration of their voting rights.

“We’re also encouraging those people who have felonies and cannot vote to take five [registered] people to the polls to vote,” she said.

The Unity Campaign is a partnership between the A. Philip Randolph Institute, an organization of African-American trade unionists, and the NCBCP. Letetia Jackson, of Alabama, manager of the Unity Campaign nationally, says the effort is targeting 14 states where African-Americans can make a specific impact.

“We understand that people had high expectations and there’s still a lot of hurt,” Jackson said. She specifically described Black males who have lost jobs and can’t feed their families; also the loss of Black wealth through the housing foreclosures. “I don’t think the national agenda is talking about the pain that’s being felt in these communities with our voters, our constituencies, and our people that turned out in such large numbers in 2008 and had such high hopes.”

Despite the positives, such as health care reform, there is still much to be done Jackson said. Jackson says the Unity Campaign attempts to motivate people by educating them about the alternatives.

“We talk to them about what’s at stake, about the issues, what the alternatives are, how we have to continue the growth and the changes that we started in 2008. It doesn’t end with just one election and let them know really and truly the alternative is so much worse,” she said

Compounding the voter apathy is the fact that many Black Pastors have withdrawn their support for Obama because of his support for same-sex marriage, Bryant points out.

The Rev. Anthony Evans, president of the National Black Church Initiative, says his organization has taken an informal poll of approximately 1,000 of its members and 23 percent say they will not support President Obama because of his support of gay marriage, the slow growth of jobs in the Black community and various issues pertaining to his use of the military.

“This is clear evidence that the support for our beloved President Barack Obama is beginning to erode among Black churches and Black congregants,” Evans says. “Beyond him changing his position on gay marriage I don’t see anything that could turn this tide around.”

But if activists like Jackson has her way, African-Americans will at least go to the polls: “We have to make people understand that while we haven’t gotten everything we needed and everything we wanted, we still have an opportunity to fight and to improve our community. Things are just turning around so in the midst of things starting to turn around for us, we can’t change the game. We have to stay the course.”

'Gabby' Douglas: Second Black Gymnast to Win Olympic Gold

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Afro American Newspaper gabbyroutine

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - African-American gymnast Gabrielle Douglas won an Olympic gold medal as a member of the U.S. national women’s gymnastic team July 31. It was the first gold medal won by a USA gymnastics team since the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. Tagged by sports commentators as the “Fierce Five,” Douglas, along with teammates, Jordan Wieber, Kyla Ross, Alexandra Raisman, and McKayla Maroney, won the gold medal in the women’s all-around event Tuesday night, July 31, with a total score of 183.596; Russia took the silver and Romania won bronze.

Douglas scored a 15.966 on the vault, a 15.233 on the balance beam, 15.200 on the uneven bars, and a 15.066 on the floor exercise.

USA coach John Geddert told reporters that the “Fierce Five” is the best group to ever compete in the history of U.S. gymnastics.

“ Others might disagree, the ‘96 team might disagree,” Geddert said. “But this is the best team. Difficulty-wise, consistency-wise, this is USA’s finest.”

The 1996 U.S. women’s gymnastics team, known as the “Magnificent Seven,” won the first Olympic Gold medal in U.S. gymnastics history. The “Magnificent Seven” featured Dominique Dawes, the first African-American woman to win an individual Olympic medal in artistic gymnastics, and the first Black person of any nationality or gender to win an Olympic gold medal in gymnastics.

Douglas is now only the second African-American woman to win an Olympic gold medal.

“I’m just so proud of these girls, I know how hard we worked to get here,” Douglas said. “This is truly an amazing experience and I’m just so happy and excited to be a part of U.S. history.”

Black Economic Dysfunction

Blackonomics
By James Clingman

jimclingman

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Amazingly, Black folks in this country still don’t get it. After all we have been through and after everything we have accomplished, prior to and after integration, our relative collective economic position in America has changed very little. In some cases we have digressed in terms of ownership of land, from some 20 million acres of land (31,000 square miles) in 1910; and in our ownership of banks, of which 128 were founded between 1888 and 1934 and 64 Black owned banks existed in 1912. As for other necessities like supermarkets, manufacturing concerns, and distribution networks, we are not even on the economic radar screen.

In light of the latest financial news reports that predict yet another recession just around the corner, and the financial “cliff” from which we will soon fall, as reported on CNN’s, Your Money, one would think Black folks are busy getting our economic act together, our history of business ownership and mutual support notwithstanding.

Sad to say, we are still floundering, enamored by the trappings of the “good life” and living vicariously through reality television shows and the shallow personalities thereon. Instead of working on our own economy we seem to be more interested in the economies of others, like the Kardashians who make about 30 million per year, not counting Lamar Odom’s contribution. We just love to check in on those “wives” of wherever and listen to their vulgarity and watch their extravagance. We can’t seem to get enough of the gossip shows and things that will take us nowhere while making others quite wealthy.

Bob Law once said, “Black folks are just happy because Oprah is rich,” as he pointed out how ridiculous we have gotten when it comes to our own collective economic empowerment. He also chided us for just wanting to see a Black man in the White House – that’s all, just to know he is there.

Most of the people we follow and nearly worship are multi-millionaires and couldn’t care less about us. They wouldn’t give most of us the time of day if we saw them on the street. Yet we idolize and follow them in all that they do, as we slip further and further behind in building (or should I say rebuilding) our collective economic base.

Recent reports cite how important the Hispanic consumer market is and that it comprises more than $1 trillion in buying power. They also point out that Hispanics are the second largest population group in the U.S. and by 2015 they will be 18% of the total population at nearly 58 million persons. Those of us who were paying attention to Dr. Claud Anderson 15 years ago heard him predict just that. He also warned that if we didn’t get anything from this society when we were in second place, what do we think we will get when we fall to third place? He begged us to get prepared but we were too busy helping everyone else build up their wealth and take care of their children. As the saying goes, “It’s time to pay the piper.”

What can we do now? For starters we can look into a mirror and admit how we have played a role in our own economic demise; and then ask, “What can I do to contribute to our collective economic uplift?” Establish or get involved in a local effort to empower Black people, whether through education, politics, economics, or all three. You have to take action.

Remember when the lady on the school bus was harassed by students, and a couple of days later more than $660,000 was raised for her through Facebook? That’s how easy it is for us to do something collectively to help ourselves, yet we fail to take advantage of models that have been and could be implemented to help ourselves.

There was, and could be again, the Blackonomics Million Dollar Club that sent money to 20 Black institutions; we tried to get just 200,000 people to send $5.00 each to a designated charitable entity, but at its height there were no more than 1,000 participants involved. We have the Collective Empowerment Group (formerly Collective Banking Group) that should have a chapter in every major city across this country, but some heads of churches are too egotistical and individualistic to get involved. We had the 10-10-50 Movement, the Nationalist Black Leadership Coalition, the Bring Back Black Movement, and even a Black owned and operated distribution network, The MATAH. Of course there have been many more opportunities that we have squandered for lack of involvement.

Now we have the Unity Movement (myunitymovement.com), which is calling for 2 million people to simply sign up on its website in an effort to capture a critical mass of folks to begin a collective effort to inform and educate, and to start, support, and grow Black businesses. Will you at least do that?

Please, let’s reverse our economic dysfunction and help create a meaningful, pragmatic, and sustained economic movement. Don’t you think our children deserve that as a legacy from us?

James E. Clingman, an adjunct professor at the University of Cincinnati's African American Studies department, is former editor of the Cincinnati Herald newspaper and founder of the Greater Cincinnati African American Chamber of Commerce. He hosts the cable television program, ''Blackonomics,'' and has written several books, including his latest, Black Empowerment with an Attitude - You got a problem with that? To book Clingman for a speaking engagement or purchase his books, call 513 489 4132 or go to his Website, www.blackonomics.com.