Reality Check
By A. Peter Bailey

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - There are few people more detested and feared by many White males that what they consider  an “uppity Black man”, uppity being any Black man who looks them straight in the eyes when speaking to them, who does not smile unless hearing something to smile about, who does not shuffle his feet when around them. In other words, a Black man whom they can’t intimidate with bluster and ranting.

In the old days, from the era of enslavement through the 1960s, many Black men were assaulted and in numerous instances killed for coming off as being uppity, especially by White males in the former Confederate States of America. The most extreme; yet far from uncommon, reflection of that White male attitude on uppity Black males is a quote attributed to Senator Ben Tillman of South Carolina in 1906 in response to President Teddy Roosevelt inviting Booker T. Washington to dine with him in the White House.

To Tillman and many others of his ilk, that was a flagrant outrage. Tillman declared bombastically that  “The action of President Roosevelt in entertaining that nigger will necessitate our killing a thousand niggers in the South before they will learn their place again,” as quoted in the book, Up from History, the Life of Booker T. Washington by Robert J. Norrell, published in 2009.

I thought about that history when watching Rep. Darrell Issa, Chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and his cohorts go after Attorney General Eric Holder around the flawed “Fast and Furious” gunrunning operation. During the congressional hearings, it was clearly evident that Issa and his crew consider Holder an uppity Black man who had the nerve to not be intimidated by their name-calling and threats.

Of course they were not as vicious as Tillman was. Times and circumstances have changed. They had no desire to kill Holder; what they wanted to do was to totally destroy his reputation and ability to remain Attorney General. As they arrogantly questioned his integrity, his competence, his honesty, his right to be in that Cabinet position, Holder’s eyes and body language made it plain that Issa and his boys were right about one thing - Holder held them in contempt, total contempt. And they knew he felt that way which made them even more determined to goad him into saying something they could use politically against him and President Obama.

Holder remained cool and resolute, treating them with the scorn they so richly deserved. We and he should be proud that he is the first sitting Cabinet member to ever have been held in contempt of Congress. And we should also be proud that he is an uppity Black man.

Journalist/Lecturer A. Peter Bailey, a former associate editor of Ebony, is currently editor of Vital Issues: The Journal of African American Speeches. He can be reached at 202-716-4560.

By Sylvester Monroe
Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from America's Wire

LOS ANGELES (TriceEdneyWire.com) - Rodney Glen King's apparent accidental death at age 47 has prompted a flood of media punditry about the legacy of a life rife with misfortune. It was young Glen, as he was called, who had discovered his father's body in the family bathtub. Rodney Sr. reportedly drank himself to death when Rodney Jr. was in high school.

Following his father's penchant for alcohol, the younger King made a fateful wrong turn at age 25-drinking and driving, and leading Los Angeles police officers on a high-speed chase that thrust him into an ill-fitting celebrity he never wanted or wore very well. King was eulogized by the Rev. Al Sharpton in Los Angeles on Saturday and burried in Forest Lawn Cemetery.

King's brutal videotaped beating seen around the world years before the advent of YouTube changed the course of his life. It also triggered events that altered how law enforcement and government officials handle complaints of excessive force and police brutality. The initial impact of the beating in March 1991 was to shine light on a dark realm of routine police misconduct in Los Angeles and other cities.

Six days of deadly rioting followed acquittals more than a year later on April 29 of the officers who beat King and led to sweeping reforms of the police department. A heralded commitment to community policing, increased civilian oversight and more enlightened department leadership, including appointment of two black police chiefs, significantly cooled longstanding tinderbox relations between police and the African-American community.

Less successful in Los Angeles and other cities nationwide has been elimination of the gross stereotyping, or profiling, of young blacks as dangerous, drunk, drug-crazed ogres who can be controlled only with extreme force.

Twenty years after the Los Angeles rioting, national attention is again focused on a racially-charged assault. This time, an overzealous community watch volunteer in Sanford, Fla., is charged in the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager, and initial police handling of the case has raised widespread concern.

The King and Martin cases are markedly different in detail, especially in that Sanford police had nothing to do with Martin's death. But unchanged in two decades is continued use of excessive force by law enforcement officers and others who seek, out of fear, to justify violent and often fatal encounters with black youths and men.

Such professed fear has been a major dynamic in practically every questionable case of excessive police force against young blacks since the Watts riots of 1965 in Los Angeles. That fear factor played a key role in the King trial defense and in another verdict shortly before the city exploded in anger and violence in April 1992.

The shocking acquittals of the police officers in the King trial came less than two weeks before Soon Ja Du, 51, a Korean store owner, received a 10-year suspended prison term, probation, a fine and community service for the shooting death of Latasha Harlins, a 15-year-old African-American. Du said Harlins was stealing a bottle of orange juice and shot her in the back of the head. The incident was videotaped.

Nine years later, in April 2001, rioting was sparked in Cincinnati when a police officer shot and killed Timothy Thomas, a 19-year-old black. Five months later, the officer was acquitted.

Like Trayvon Martin, Thomas was unarmed. He was shot while running away from the officer, who was trying to arrest him. Officers in the King beating mounted much of their defense for striking King more than 50 times by saying that the 6-foot-4 King, who weighed more than 200 pounds, refused to obey commands to stay on the ground, and that they feared for their safety.

Recently, attorneys for George Zimmerman, the white Hispanic neighborhood watch volunteer charged with second-degree murder in Martin's death, released a police video in which he reenacted what he says happened during the fatal encounter. Zimmerman says he feared for his life after Martin reached for Zimmerman's gun, and told him, "You're going to die."

According to Zimmerman, he shot Martin in self-defense under Florida's controversial "stand your ground" law that gives citizens the right to use deadly force if they fear for their lives.

Martin's parents contend that Zimmerman was the aggressor and pursued their unarmed son, who was walking home from a convenience store through the gated Sanford community that Zimmerman patrolled. They say Zimmerman racially profiled the teenager, followed and confronted him despite being told not to by a 911 operator whom Zimmerman called to report a suspicious black man.

Before and after the King beating, there have been numerous incidents of excessive police force against black men by police officers and others who invoked versions of the fear-factor defense. As recently as 2009, a grisly police assault was captured on videotape in Oakland, Calif. A transit police officer shot and killed Oscar Grant, 22, an unarmed black shown lying on a train platform at the officer's feet. The officer was convicted of involuntary manslaughter but acquitted of second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter.

Ironically, on the day Rodney King died, black and Latino community leaders gathered at a rally in New York City to protest the city's stop-and-frisk policy that they say has led to escalated profiling of young blacks and Latinos, and increasing allegations of excessive force and brutality by New York police officers.

The rally followed a report this year by the New York Civil Liberties Union showing that the New York City Police Department conducted 685,724 stop-and-frisk searches in 2011. More than 86 percent of those targeted by police were blacks and Latinos.

"What happened to me and what's happened to others can still happen," King said in an interview with Ebony Magazine in April, shortly before the 20th anniversary of the rioting. "The police are still killing people. I am just glad I was one of those who the camera was on."

King often said he wanted his epitaph to read: "Can we all just get along?" Nervous and visibly shaken, he spoke those words at a 1992 news conference immediately after rioting erupted.

The answer to his question may well be influenced by the outcome of the expected trial in the Martin shooting. This time, it is not a police officer but a private citizen who took it on himself to patrol the streets to protect his community from what he viewed as potentially dangerous intruders.

How the Sanford Police Department handled that shooting will be as important as actual facts of the case and a verdict. In the King case and others, blacks felt that their voices and concerns about police misconduct went largely unheeded. When the officers were acquitted even though the videotape clearly seemed to show excessive force, blacks in Los Angeles took it as one more slap in the face.

Similarly, the Martin family and African-Americans across the nation were outraged that Zimmerman was not arrested immediately and charged. When city officials rejected Police Chief Bill Lee's offer to resign, the situation was aggravated. Lee, who had stepped aside temporarily in May and was on paid leave, was fired on June 20.

Whatever the outcome, if Sanford's black community and African-Americans elsewhere do not believe that the investigation and expected trial were conducted fairly and that black profiling has been addressed adequately, the answer to Rodney King's plaintive plea will undoubtedly be, "Not yet."

Whether Trayvon Martin will become the Rodney King of his generation remains to be seen. But one thing is clear: The ghost of Rodney King will loom large over the trial of George Zimmerman.

America's Wire is an independent, nonprofit news service run by the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education and funded by a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Our stories can be republished free of charge by newspapers, websites and other media sources. For more information, visit www.americaswire.org or contact Michael K. Frisby at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from Target Market News

William Tompkins

(TriceEdneyWire.com) The National Newspaper Publishers Association has announced the appointment of William Tompkins to the post of President and CEO of the 70-year-old trade organization. The appointment was made during the NNPA's annual convention in Atlanta June 20-23.

The selection of Tompkins culminates a nine-month search conducted by Carrington & Carrington, Ltd. According to criteria that circulated throughout the industry, the new president will be charged with developing a new vision for the organization and implementing strategic plans and programs that serve the needs of the more than 200 Black community newspapers represented by NNPA. The trade group is commonly referred to as The Black Press of America.

Tompkins, 55, currently heads his own consultancy firm, Williams Tompkins Associates, in Los Angeles. Before starting his company, Tompkins held positions at Eastman Kodak, including General Manager and Vice President of the Motion Picture Film Group and Chief Marketing Officer for the company's Entertainment Imaging division.

Prior to joining Kodak, Tompkins spent 19 years at The Washington Post, last serving as Vice President of Marketing. Tompkins has a degree in economics from Tufts University, where he graduated magna cum laude and also earned an M.B.A. from Harvard University.

Tompkins will report to Clovis Campbell, publisher of the Arizona Informant and chairman of the NNPA board.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) represents a significant advancement in the effort to repair the deeply broken U.S. healthcare system and promote equitable opportunities for good health for all.

As long as its provisions are fully funded by Congress, the law will improve access to health insurance for more than 32 million Americans, prevent insurance companies from cherry-picking enrollees and denying claims because of pre-existing conditions, and incentivize more health-care providers to work in medically underserved communities.  These are among the benefits that the law is already providing, in addition to what is expected as provisions of the ACA come into force over the next two years.

In addition to ruling that the law’s mandate requiring insurance coverage is constitutional, the Court’s decision ensures that other key provisions of the legislation remain intact, many of which hold great promise to address the needs of those who face the greatest barriers to good health—particularly people of color, who are the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population.

Many people of color face poorer health than the general population in the form of higher rates of infant mortality, chronic disease and disability and premature death.  Not only do these health inequities carry a tremendous human toll, but they also impose an enormous economic burden on the nation at large.

A study released by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies found that the direct medical costs associated with health inequities—in other words, additional costs of health care incurred because of the higher burden of disease and illness experienced by minorities—was nearly $300 billion in the four years between 2003 and 2006.  Adding the indirect costs associated with health inequities—such as lost wages and productivity and lost tax revenue—the total costs of health inequities to our society was $1.24 billion in the same time span.

How might the ACA change these dismal statistics?

By expanding access to private insurance through state health exchanges, improving access for more people who live in poverty through Medicaid expansions, and other reforms, more than 32 million uninsured Americans will gain coverage.  All of these provisions would improve the current state of health care for people of color, who are disproportionately un- and under-insured and who face greater barriers than whites to receiving high-quality care, even when insured.

Many other provisions of the ACA have great potential to reduce the risks that make people sick in the first place.  These provisions—particularly those that invest in prevention and improving the distribution of health care resources—can significantly improve opportunities for good health for all Americans, and particularly people of color.

A major reason why health inequalities persist is because of differences in the neighborhoods of minorities and non-minorities.  Research shows that racial and ethnic minorities are more likely than whites to live in segregated, high-poverty communities, communities that have historically suffered from a lack of health care investment, so they have fewer primary care providers, hospitals, and clinics.  To make matters worse, many of these communities face a host of health hazards—such as high levels of air, water and soil pollution, and a glut of fast food restaurants and liquor stores—and have relatively few health-enhancing resources, such as grocery stores where fresh fruits and vegetables can be purchased.

Several provisions of the ACA, such as the authorization to expand the National Health Service Corps, which provides incentives and removes barriers for health care providers who want to work in medically underserved communities, and the Prevention and Public Health Fund, the first mandatory funding stream aimed at improving the public’s health, will directly address these place-related barriers to good health.

Consistent with today’s ruling, efforts to improve opportunities for good health and improve health equity can—and must—be increased.  Government at all levels can, for example, improve health opportunities by stimulating public and private investment to help make all communities healthier.  They can do so by creating incentives to improve neighborhood food options, by aggressively addressing environmental degradation, and by de-concentrating poverty from inner-cities and rural areas through smart housing and transportation policy.

Given that by the year 2042, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, half of the people living in the United States will be people of color, it is imperative that we be prepared to address the health needs of an increasingly diverse population.  Lawmakers should continue to focus on the goal of health equity – a goal that is not only consistent with the American promise of opportunity, but in our long-term economic interest, as well.

Brian Smedley, Ph.D., is Vice President and Director of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Health Policy Institute.