July 24, 2011

Do Dark-skinned Black Women Receive Harsher Sentences?

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Louisiana Weekly

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Colin Powell said it, Sen. Harry Reid hinted at it about President Barack Obama, and Black folks have known it for hundreds of years. There are advantages to being a light-skinned Black person in the United States.

Research on those advantages isn’t new, but with the release of a recent study by Villanova University, the breadth of quantitative studies that examine colorism, or discrimination based on skin tone, continues to increase, reports The Root, an Online news magazine. From housing opportunities to employment chances to which women have a good shot at getting married, the lighter-is-better dynamic is at play, research shows.

The study took into account the type of crimes the women committed and each woman’s

criminal history to generate apples-to-apples comparisons. The work builds on previous studies by Stanford Univ¬ersity, the University of Colorado at Boulder and other institutions, which have examined how “black-looking” features and skin tone can impact Black men in the criminal-justice arena.

But researchers say this is the first study to look at how colorism affects Black women and how long they may spend in jail. Part of the reason may simply come down to how pretty jurors consider a defendant to be, and that being light-skinned and thin (also a factor stud ied in the research) are seen as more attractive, says Lance Hannon, co-author of the Villanova study.

Racism gets all the headlines, but colorism is just as real and impacting, Hannon explains. How “white” someone is perceived matters. “Colorism is clearly not taken as seriously or is not publicly discussed as much as racism, and yet these effects are pretty strong and the evidence is pretty strong,” he says. “It’s a very real problem, and people need to pay attention to it more.”

Christina Swarns, director of the Criminal Justice Practice for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, says the study’s findings are part of a larger problem in how the justice system deals with African Americans. “It is obviously part and parcel of the problem of overincarceration of the African-American community in this country,” she says. “There is unquestionably … an association between race and criminality, and I think this study emphasizes how skin color plays an important role in that perception of a link between race and criminality.”

William Darity, professor of African-American studies and economics at Duke University and director of the Research Network on Racial & Ethnic Inequality, has studied the impact of skin shade on marriage rates for women and employment for men.

Darity says the Villanova study expands previous research and underscores a known truth. “This has been a long-standing issue and problem that all Blacks don’t face the same type or degree of discrimination,” he says.

Treating people differently because of the lightness or darkness of their skin isn’t exclusive to whites. As an example, Darity cites his research, which found that there are “real” disadvantages for darker-skinned black women when it comes to their chances of getting married.

“And one would have to say that’s to a large degree the consequence of preferences on the part of black men,” he says. That same preference for lighter-skinned black women over darker-skinned black women is true for white men, Darity adds.

But there has been recent movement by the government to take colorism more seriously, Hannon says. He pointed to a 2008 initiative by the U.S. Equal Employ¬ment Opportunity Commis¬sion that explicitly considers colorism. Hannon also notes that because the Civil Rights Act refers to “color” and not simply race, the door is open for litigation around colorism, which could also push the policy dial.

Darity believes that the benefits of light skin have to be addressed to cause change. “There are clear social and pecuniary benefits to being lighter-skinned in America,” Darity says. “Unless we eliminate those benefits, this will go on, because the advantages are real.”

July 18, 2011

Civil War Still Not Over, Some Say

Visitors at New Black Civil War Museum Say Race Education is Missing in America

By Hazel Trice Edney

 

Ohio school teach Paul LaRue tells audience how he led Black and White middle school students in a project to mark graves of Civil War soldiers, many of which were Black. PHOTO: Roy Lewis/Trice Edney Wire

Morgan Gadson, 6, and Marqus Strong, 9, don the uniform parts of Black Civil War veterans. PHOTO: Roy Lewis/Trice Edney Wire

 

Civil War re-enactors were among members of the audience as panels discussed racial reconciliation. PHOTO: Roy Lewis/Trice Edney Wire

Dr. Frank Smith, the museum's founder and executive director, escorts U. S. Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) on an impromptu tour. PHOTO: Roy Lewis/Trice Edney Wire

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – Racial profiling and police brutality; economic inequality; racial stereotypes; disparate incarceration rates, unbalanced criminal justice and media bias.

These are just a few of the racial ills still raging like an ideological civil war across America as the nation continues to commemorate the sesquicentennial – 150^th anniversary - of the start of the Civil War, the raging violence that separated a nation and brought an end to slavery in the U. S.

Some among the streams of people who attended grand opening activities at the African American Civil War Museum and Memorial in the heart of the District of Columbia, were adamant that the education of America’s youth and re-education of adults are among the key answers to racial reconciliation and Black progress.

“I am a history major at UDC. I love everything about American history,” said Micaiae Strong, a student at the University of the District of Columbia. Her son, Marqus, tried on a Civil War Union uniform and gave a salute as part of his educational outing. “I like to know the ins, the outs, the whys, the reasons and how Black people used the laws they created against us to get our freedom. And I want my son to understand there’s no option to fail,” Strong said.

They toured the new 5,000 square foot facility during a break between panels during a racial reconciliation conference that kicked off the weekend event that included a festival class race films and Monday’s ribbon-cutting.

Sheila Willis of Atlanta also brought her 5-year-old son.

“I feel that if we would teach kids integrity and equality across the board, that will level the playing field,” she said. “I want him to know his history because if you know our history, you can move forward.”

That kind of teaching - for children and adults alike – are what Paul LaRue told the audience he’s been doing.

LaRue, a history teacher at the Washington High School in Washington Courthouse, Ohio, took to the stage and showed ways to get other teachers involved doing hands-on lessons with African-American heritage like what he’s been doing in his community for past 10 years.

“By getting students involved hands-on working with African-American heritage or Civil War heritage, you get students to not just talk about it but actually doing it,” said LaRue, who is White.

One of his activities with Black and White Middle School students involved setting headstones for veterans who have unmarked graves.

“By helping to mark a veteran’s grave, I think that makes it real. We have marked about 70 unmarked graves, about half of which are African-Americans,” he said. “Then, instead of just discussion or a debate, it’s, ‘I’ve made a contribution’. It’s been a really positive team collaboration.”

Still others say children must be retaught how to take control of their own lives and futures regardless of their educational backgrounds.

“We just taught our kids – through civil rights and integration – to go to college, work hard, get a good job, but that’s not how you build a nation,” said Ernest E. Johnson, 60, a real estate broker, who describes himself as a “lover of the struggle.”

He said, “We have to first re-educate our children through ownership and control. That’s how you establish permanency and uplift your race.”

The commemoration that started on April 12, 1861, will last for four years through the anniversary of the end of the war, April 9, 1865. Dr. Frank Smith, founder and visionary of the AACWMM, who also serves as its executive director, hopes that will be enough time to create enough dialogue to move toward racial healing in America.

“I’m hoping that by the time this sesquicentennial period - this four-year celebration - is over, America will have a greater appreciation of the [role that] African-Americans played in making America a better place – by ending slavery and keeping America united under one flag,” Smith said. “Furthermore, there could be no racial reconciliation in America until we got rid of slavery and Jim Crow. And it took the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement to do that and I think most people would admit that America is a better place.”

Civil War re-enactors, historians, teachers and interested onlookers of all ages packed into the museum over the weekend. Many held the same sentiment – that the true story of Black soldiers’ battle for their own freedom and the subsequent progress can’t be told enough.

“People who started off as slaves ended up as businessmen…You don’t hear about all those accomplishments. You don’t learn about those people who made contributions to assist,” said Judy Williams, a member of FREED – Female Re-enactors of Distinction. “So, I chose to be a re-enactor to help educate and tell that story…It’s a story truly of overcoming.”

The level of conversation that Smith hopes for will take the participation of all races says Darryl Jones, a D.C. business owner.

“First, we – Black, White, blue, green, purple - must recognize historically what has happened to Africans in America prior to slavery and up to the present. Once we acknowledge that, then we have a basis for going forward and the understanding of how we can have an intelligent conversation on the blight of Black people here in America.”

Jones says the details of Black history are not known well enough to have the impact that it should. “First you have to reinvent the history book. We have to teach our kids, White and Black – the history of America. Right now history remains his story. Our story remains a mystery.”

We must tell our own story, says Keith Butler, who worked for 10 years as a technology coordinator for D.C. Public Schools. “A lot of us have forgotten about our pasts.”

Butler is working with the National Association of Colored Women to establish a Grandparents Academy. “We’ve gotten away from the basics,” Butler said. “This will focus on re-teaching our kids.”

Coming up on the second half of the reconciliation forum, D. J. Walls, 34 and Nicole Williams, 31, dropped in just to see what they might learn.

“We’re young,” she said. “We came today to look around and see what it’s about.”

Acknowledging the plight and social statistics involving young Black males, Walls says racial reconciliation can only come when individuals pursue it as a personal goal.

“There’s so much negativity,” he said. “We need more understanding and communication and for people to have an open mind. You have to understand before you can judge.”

Minority Youth Media Consumption May Be Hampering Academic Achievement

By Nadra Kareem Nittle

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from America’s Wire

LOS ANGELES (TriceEdneyWire.com) - Krystal Murphy received her first cellphone at age 13 and she used it solely to keep her parents in the loop about her activities. Four years later, her use of the phone has changed dramatically. Now 17, she relies on it to text friends, surf the Internet and send messages on Twitter.

“I’m on my cell all day, every day, as soon as I wake up and until I go to bed,” says the African-American teen from South Los Angeles.

According to a Northwestern University study of youth media consumption, Krystal’s habits are widespread among young people of color. Released in June, “Children, Media and Race: Media Use Among White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian American Children” found that those between ages 8 and 18 use cellphones, television, computers and other electronic devices to consume an average of 13 hours of media content daily. That’s 4-1/2 hours more than their white counterparts.

The study has renewed debate about whether minority youths spend too much time on media consumption and not enough on reading and studying. While some people insist that the disparity in media consumption contributes to the education gap between minority and white youths, others cite it as a positive that can aid a child’s educational growth.

“I think that the results of this study coupled with the other factors that we know influence student performance,” says Sharon Lewis, research director for the Council of the Great City Schools, an advocate for urban public schools and students. “When you combine all of this together, it’s another indication that we need to take extra steps to reach [minority] youth.

“Factors such as health, such as preschool experience, such as a sibling that may not have graduated, such as coming from a single-parent household and then you add this [media consumption] to it—it’s another indication.”

Past reports have shown a correlation between television viewing and low academic performance. A 20-year study of 678 families released in 2007 by the New York State Psychiatric Institute found that teens who watched three or more hours of television daily had an 82 percent greater chance of not graduating from high school when compared with those who watched less than an hour. However, critics of that study say students who struggle academically may be more inclined to watch TV to avoid the rigors of schoolwork.

The Northwestern study is said to be the first in the United States to examine children’s media use by race. Nearly 1,900 youths participated. The study re-analyzed data from previous Kaiser Family Foundation studies on media consumption, finding that racial differences in children’s media use remained static when accounting for socioeconomic status or whether youths came from single- or two-parent homes.

The results, which appeared to counter concerns about a possible digital divide and may give parents and educators new strategies to meet needs of minority youths, surprised Ellen Wartella, head of Northwestern’s Center on Media and Human Development. She co-authored the study.

“Recreational media use is an enormous part of young people’s lives, more than we ever thought,” she says. “It’s quite clear we have a group of young people who are tethered to their technology.”

The report finds that Black and Latino youths spend one to two more hours daily watching TV and videos, an hour more listening to music, up to 90 minutes more on computers and 90 minutes on cellphones, and 30 to 40 minutes more playing video games than white youths. During the past decade, black youths have doubled their daily media use, and Latino youths have quadrupled theirs, according to Wartella.

Asian-American youths also consume more media than their White peers. Asians lead all groups in use of mobile devices at 3 hours and 7 minutes daily, compared with 2 hours and 53 minutes for Latinos, 2 hours and 52 minutes for Blacks and just 80 minutes for Whites. Asians also spend 14 more minutes daily watching traditional TV than do White youths and more than an hour daily than Whites watching TV online, via TiVo or on DVD. Nevertheless, Asian-American youths remain high academic achievers, challenging the contention that media consumption hurts student performance.

Kerry Riley, an affiliated scholar at the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, says media can help students of color in the classroom.

“For me, the issue isn’t having more media,” says the professor of ethnic studies. “It’s access to higher standards of media.” He adds that teachers and mentors of minority youths increasingly expose them to social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook to help them learn about many issues.

Riley says he has directed students to use cellphones in class to access music videos and shown them cartoons such as “South Park” and “Family Guy.” Incorporating media in class to showcase popular culture, he says, has helped blacks and Latinos understand how music forms and television shows can function as parodies of Western society.

“We helped them to understand these weren’t just elements of popular culture,” Riley says. “They were existential forms of social critique that related directly to their lives. So I, as an African-American professor, was able to use popular culture via Google, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook as a pedagogical tool to help educate African-American and Latino youth and increase their academic performance.”

Northwestern’s Wartella agrees that greater media consumption isn’t necessarily a drawback for youths but might put them at risk for obesity.

“One concern is exposure to food marketing, specifically television advertising for foods high in calories and lower in nutrients,” she says. “We’re saying maybe we should take a look at the negative consequences if they’re watching television. Our hope is to start a national conversation about youth and media.”

Her study’s finding that, among children, 84 percent of Blacks, 77 percent of Hispanics and 64 percent of whites and Asian-Americans have TV sets in their rooms is telling. Blacks not only lead youths in TV ownership but also are also more likely to be obese or overweight. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that 22.4 percent of black children are obese and 44.4 percent are overweight, compared with 17.4 percent and 36.9 percent for white children, respectively.

Félix Gutiérrez, a University of Southern California journalism and communication professor who has written extensively about race and media, doesn’t necessarily recommend advising youths of color to watch less television. It depends on whether they’re intellectually engaged, he says.

The New York State Psychiatric Institute study found that students who passively absorb entertainment on television find classroom lessons boring. Gutiérrez advises parents that rather than leaving children alone to watch favorite shows, they should join them and initiate meaningful discussion about what’s on the screen.

“Studies in the past have shown that when children saw a stereotypical portrayal of an Indian or black or Mexican, it helped to have parents there to challenge the message,” he says. “There weren’t many Latinos on TV, so if a Ricky Ricardo type came on, the child could hear the parent saying, ‘People think we’re all like that.’ ”

Such critical feedback from parents helps children of color not to internalize racially demeaning messages, according to Gutiérrez.

Of course, not all minority youths spend much time watching television. Melissa Reed, 15, of the San Fernando Valley in California, says she rarely tunes in. Instead, the black teen exercises regularly and spends “maybe like up to five hours listening to music on my iPod.” Melissa also spends about an hour daily on her computer but not necessarily for homework.

The Northwestern study found this trend among youths of all races. White, Black and Hispanic juveniles spend on average of 16 minutes daily on computers for studies, with Asian-Americans using computers for that purpose a mere four minutes more.

That the Northwestern report showed little difference in numbers of computers in homes of White, Black and Latino children surprised Gutiérrez. Homes of each of these groups have about two computers, while Asian-American homes average three.

“This runs counter to the digital divide talk of the late ’90s and early part of the millennium when they said that black and Latino youth would be left behind technologically,” Gutiérrez says.

Now that minority youths rely daily on new and traditional media, parents and educators should engage them by using these tools, says Lewis of the Council of the Great City Schools. “Educators need to be more familiar with this new media, so we can use this to our advantage, so young people can have an educational experience with it that’s meaningful.”

Krystal and Melissa say teachers routinely assign them homework requiring Internet use and that taking shortcuts that way is all too easy. According to Melissa, students must be motivated to use technology to develop better thinking skills.

“I think the Internet can easily give you answers if you use it just to look up answers for homework, but it doesn’t really help,” she says. “That’s the easy way out. If you actually want to learn, that’s not going to help at all.”

Parents can help by monitoring how children use different forms of media and for what length of time, Lewis says. The worst thing parents can do is allow children to shut themselves in their rooms while using media because that offers no way to gauge whether critical thinking skills are being used, she says.

Wartella agrees. She says media shouldn’t function as baby sitters but should entertain and inform youngsters, and connect them with parents.

“Parents should start talking to young people about what media they’re using and why they’re using it and try to figure out what’s going on,” she says. “It’s the way we communicate with our children.”

Group Continues Scrutiny of Justice Clarence Thomas

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Louisiana Weekly

(TriceEdneyWire.com) — Nonpartisan government watchdog group, Com­mon Cause, moved on two new fronts last week to address ethics questions surrounding the U.S. Supreme Court: In a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the U.S. Marshals Service, the group formally asked for copies of government records relating to travel by Justice Clarence Thomas.

The request is aimed at determining whether Justice Thomas traveled on a plane owned by developer and political activist Harlan Crow on seven occasions over the past four years, and if so, whether those trips were properly disclosed.

The New York Times has raised questions about three of the trips, while a Common Cause review of flight records found four additional trips made by Crow’s jet that followed a similar pattern of travel from Dallas to Washington and on to Savannah, Ga., Tho­mas’ hometown.

Federal law requires all federal officials to disclose who pays for their travel.

Also, in a letter to the president of the American Bar Association, Common Cause urged the nation’s largest group of lawyers to join in efforts to persuade the Court to publicly embrace the code of conduct that all other federal judges must follow and to enforce tough ethical standards on its members.

“Americans are concerned, and rightfully so, over mounting evidence that our highest court is operating outside the ethical standards that apply to other federal judges,” said Common Cause President Bob Edgar.

The New York Times last month raised questions about ties between Crow and Thomas and his wife, Ginni. Crow has given Thomas an historic Bible, valued at $19,000, and according to a report published in Politico donated $500,000 to establish a political organization, Liberty Central, that initially was run by Ginni Thomas.

Crow also reportedly spent $174,000 to add a wing named for Justice Thomas to a library in Savannah and put down $1.5 million to purchase an abandoned cannery where Thomas’ mother once worked in Pin Point, Ga. In addition, the Times reported that Crow is financing redevelopment of the cannery building into a museum.

The Times also raised questions about whether Thomas has travelled on Crow’s corporate jet and yacht without reporting it on financial disclosure forms.

Federal flight records indicate that a Crow-owned jet flew in April 2008 from Dallas to Washington DC and after a brief stop went on to Savannah, where Crow’s yacht was docked.

During that same week, an item appeared in a South Carolina publication noting Thomas’ arrival aboard Crow’s yacht in Charleston, SC, a few hours north of Savannah. Thomas reported no gifts or travel reimbursements in that time period.

The Times noted two other instances in which Justice Thomas’ travels corresponded to flights of a Crow-owned plane. Justice Thomas was in Savannah in early 2010 for the dedication of a building in his honor.

On the day of that event, Crow’s plane flew from Washington to Sa­van­nah and returned to Washing­ton the next day. Justice Thomas reported in his financial disclosure that his travel had been paid for by the Savannah College of Art and Design, which owned the building.

In a 2009 financial disclosure, Justice Thomas reported that Sout­hern Methodist University in Dal­las had paid for him to travel to its campus for a speech on September 30. Flight records show that Crow’s plane flew from Washing­ton to Dal­las that day.

In reviewing flight records, Com­mon Cause discovered four additional trips in which a Crow-owned plane traveled from Dallas to Washington and after a brief stop went on to Savannah.

Federal law requires that Thomas, like all federal officials, disclose who pays for his travel; intentional misreporting is a violation of both the Ethics in Government Act (5 USC 104) and 28 USC 1001.

“We don’t know if Justice Thomas was travelling on Mr. Crow’s plane, because neither Justice Thomas nor Mr. Crow will confirm or deny the trips. That’s why we’re requesting the travel records,” Edgar said.

Following publication of the Times’ story on June 18, Com­mon Cause wrote letters to both Thomas and Chief Justice John Roberts. The letters asked if Thomas traveled on Crow’s jet and yacht, and if so, who paid for it, and whether the Supreme Court follows ethical standards that apply to every other federal judge. Neither Thomas nor Roberts responded.

“Americans are entitled to ans­wers to these questions, which have cast a cloud over the highest court in the land,” Edgar said.

Edgar noted that Justice Thomas has acknowledged failing to properly disclose his wife’s sources of income over a 21-year span, a violation of the Ethics in Government Act.

“Now, there’s evidence that the justice also may have failed to report, or misreported, travel paid for by a wealthy friend,” Edgar said. “This is a serious matter."