Race Baiting In the American Media?...No Kidding!

I am enthralled with the 2008 primary election coverage in both parties. To say the least, there are some very interesting personalities in the contest. I am routing for Senator Barak Obama. A highly intelligent, capable candidate that can easily assume, and better, the role now played by President George W. Bush. And he happens to be a black man! I stopped being one of those Negroes who feels like we have to continue proving our worth to (white) people in this society. We have done that to my satisfaction long ago. The first black this or that does not excite me any longer. Barak Obama does.

Despite the professionalism with which Senator Obama carries himself, this easily mainstrean candidate is being corralled by the corporate media into their favorite saga -- the state of race relations among whites and blacks.

Barak Obama is too classy to take offense over such ridiculous questions as, "How do you respond to the notion of Bill Clinton as America's first black president? Obama handled the idiocy of the question with aplum. Yet, the nerve of it all! A ridiculous assertion by anyone, including Toni Morrison. Senator Obama has been subjected to this scheme from the start of his campaign. Indeed, many personalities on the African American cultural-political scene expressed early suspician over Obama's authenticity as a candiate representative of the aspirations of "the black community." Much of this had to do with his relatively late arrival on the national scene. Some of it to his popularity among whites in his home State of Illonis, but much of it was about their own jealousy of him. We even heard baffoonish comments from a former Atlanta mayor, Andrew Young, about Senator Obama's less than black-enough identity. Let me make one thing perfectly clear. There has never been a man in the history of these United States that looked like Barak Obama that was not considered (unequivacally) a black man.

Race not withstanding, Senator Obama has gone out of his way not to run a racially divisive campaign. He does not have to because he has broad apeal, and he is driven by a vision. Young voters across the nation are attracted to him. He is a huge favorite among white democrats in places like New Hamshire and Iowa. And tonight's outcome in South Carolina showed that he is preferred, by 1 in 4, among white voters there. Nevertheless his supporters, and hopefuls like me, have to listen to Tim Russert go on incessantly with a distracting racial analysis each night. Russert , Fox'Sean Hanity and race-intoxicated pundits like them, are ignoring the many prominent political endorsements for Senator Obama, as if they are not influential white people with diverse constituencies.

It is always hard for a black person to break the constraints of American racism and ascend to equitable ground. Frederick Douglass said that power concedes nothing without a demand. The Clintons are showing that to Barak Obama in this presidential campaign. Marcus Garvey explained the rascist tendencies of white supremacists to diminish the progress of the Negro race by redefining them as other than. Watch the mainstream media try to force Senator Obama to all but deny his heritage, before he can win the Democratic nomination for president.

Book Review: Red Moon Over China

Author Iris Chang is hearby lauded for her profoundly sobering book, The Rape of Nanking (1997). Obviously I am late getting to the book, having first heard of it when the author was interviewed on C-SPAN several years ago. I made a mental note to read it one day, and I finally got around to doing so last month. I am glad I did. In Nanking, Chang (pbuh), chronicles the Japanese invasion of China at the start of World War II in Asia -- several years prior to our participation in 1941. It is a horrifying account of how, in this contemporary area, man and his government armies can be so grossly inhumane to their opponents, war notwithstanding.

My own notion of Japan is probably not unlike that of most Americans. Japan was on the opposing side - but they were likely lackeys for Hitler and his army. Its shining moment was its sneak attack on Peal Harbor, but we quickly smeared that brazen grab at glory with deposits over two of their major cities. Attacks that not not only devastated Japan, but the entire world. Ironically, the United States' response to Pearl Harbor brought about international sympathy for a country that was a chief member of the original "axis of evil." It caused sustained periods of public guilt among Americans, and it obscured Japan's own heinous deeds with its pursuit of supremacy in Asia.

In Nanking, Iris Chang educates us about the true role of Japan during the war. She describes the mentality of a traditionally isolated nation whose culture, traditions and prior defeats spurred its nationalism and made it competitive in the arms race of that time. The Japanese enmity for the Chinese and their quest for expansion, lead them to commit some of the most gruesome atrocities of the war. Crimes against humanity that approximated those committed by the Nazis -- in deed if not in scale.

Chang went to great lengths to verify and document how Japanese armies pillaged and looted Shanghai and Nanking during their invasion at the start of the war (circa 1934). She bravely tells of brutality that is unfathumable to the average person, even today. Acts of rampant and grotesques rape, mass killings and torture. including killing for sport and experimentation. These acts occurred during the Japanese invasion and occupation. They were inhumane crimes on a grand scale committed against soldiers and many more civilians. In deed, I do the history an injustice with this telling. Read the book.

I found The Rape of Nanking was an important read for a few reasons. It has been said often that America's release of atomic bombs over Japan was as prudent an act of military strategy as it was punishing. To that, Chang describes the mentality of the common Japanese soldier and their commanders during this period in history. She gives credence to the notion that our troops would have suffered casualities during a land invasion of Japan that would have been both brutal and innumerable. And it would have prolonged our effort in the Pacific -- as the Japanses were loathe to surrender under any ordinary circumsatnces of war. Nanking gives context to the fears -- even paranoia -- of our government and its drastic action against Japanese citizens here in the U.S. during the war. Finally, and most important, it reminds me that such acts as described by the author have several antecedents, and when they combine to manifest such a virulent evil in men, there is no limit to what can occur.

A final word. Recently I have become accustomed to dropping a line of thanks via e-mail to authors whose books stir something inside me. And so I did with Iris Chang. However, just moments after finding a website where I could register a note in praise of her work, I discovered that she died a few years ago (2004). She did invaluable work for her people, and for all of humanity. All Praise is Due...

Education

There is much to say on this topic. In fact, because the term is so broad, it implies an almost unlimited number of possible subjects. For my purposes I am referring, specifically, to the subject of formal (public) education. And, generally, to the subject of education derived from individual, self-driven study. I make a life for myself as a public school administrator. So naturally, I have a perspective on education that manifests in a number of opinions on how our schools work for, or against, the pursuit of education. However, I thrive in this life as a result of my own self-driven pursuit of "true knowledge of self," and the peace and understanding that comes from that pursuit.

I must admit that I came into public education aimlessly. After a prior "career" on the fringes of public administration, I decided to cash in my certificate of eligibility from the New Jersey Department of Education and 'go into the classroom.' I was motivated by a latent activist spirit and the need to create a stable lifestyle for my yet unborn children to join in with me. The only real training I had were the models afforded me by a handful of my best teachers from elementary and secondary school. However, I was full of idealism from the charge to go forth and 'give back to your community' gotten from my HBCU experience. This, layered with a considerable survey of black nationalist literature, formed my approach to working in public education -- in the beginning.

In the past ten years, I have gone from an idealistic classroom teacher in an urban (IE., predominately black) school with almost missionary zeal, to an administrator in a suburban (predominantly white) school and back again. I now work in one of New Jersey's thirty plus "Abbott Schools." The state's supreme court ruled that Pleasantville, NJ is one of dozens of municipalities in the state that cannot provide a 'thorough and efficient' education to its residents do to economic inequalities that form the basis for school funding. Basically, the school district is on welfare so that it can educate its children to meet the state's standards. The students attending this school are overwhelmingly black and Hispanic. Not surprisingly, these experiences provide me an advantageous perspective on the topic of education which I plan to expound upon in subsequent installments. However, I will close this entry with a series of guiding questions derived from the experiences I've had so far in my career.

What is an education? What is the goal of public education? Are racial factors contributing to the (comparative) underachievement among blacks and Hispanics?...or is it a red herring? What should children be learning?

Strictly Business

My nine year old son took this picture of me for my blog. He captures me locked in and focused.

Book Review: Islam & the Blackamerican

I am recommending a book I read recently. If, like me, you are interested in sociology and religious issues, then Sherman A. Jackson wrote what I think is one of the more interesting books on Islam of late. In Islam and the Blackamerican: Looking toward the Third Resurrection, Jackson thoroughly addresses the influence Islam has made on African-American people.

Despite the prominent role of Muslims like Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali and many others held in the popular conscience of America during the 1960's and 70's, the face of Islam today is no longer immediately synonymous with Black people. Vast immigration to the United States, especially by Arab and Pakistani nationals, have changed the image of Islam in America. It is this dynamic, and its consequences for the prototypical African-American Muslim, that Jackson writes about in his book.

Sherman Jackson describes the effective 'appropriation' of Islamic culture into a viable protest culture, and ultimately a contending religious movement by Black Americans. Forerunners of the prevailing Sunni Islamic movement, which most African-American Muslims identify with today, were Noble Drew Ali and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Sherman explains how these men were able to forge a new state of consciousness and activism among working class and poor urban Blacks in early 20Th century America. They accomplished this feat using only strains of what Islamic culture that were to survive slavery. Do largely to the vision and organizational brilliance of Elijah Muhammad, immaculately dressed, industrious, educated, disciplined black men became the most recognizable face of Islam in America by the 1970's.

This all changed with the coming of immigrant Muslims. With their [other-worldliness], facility with the Arabic language, social customs -- be they rooted in Islam or not -- and their penchant for non-assimilation, immigrant Muslims became the de-facto authenticators of Blackamerican Islam. This dynamic was made even more possible due to the demise of Elijah Muhammad and the radical changes undertaken by the Nation of Islam's new leadership, W. Deen Muhammad. Sherman reveals how one of the most influential religious movements of the twentieth century found itself fractured and adrift without a paddle in a sea of change.

There is more to Jackson's book than space will allow me to convey. In order to avoid a complete summary of the book, suffice it to say that the author refers, hopefully, to a new resurrection of Blackamerican Muslims. A resurrection that does not compromise either their authenticity as Muslims, or negate their own cultural heritage. This movement is possible without casting off the highest ideas of American style democracy and prosperity, contends Jackson. To this end the Author suggests that African-American Muslims give serious consideration to the wisdom and moral direction espoused through Sufism - an Islamic tradition with well established roots in the Muslim world. Jackson posits that Sufism serves dual possibilities for Black people. First, it reconnects naturally to cultural traditions in West Africa. Second, it can arrests recidivism is the Black Muslim community through its emphasis on piety. And it has a cannon of religious precepts that will stand against scrutiny.

Read Islam and the Blackamerican.

Clean Water: Drink liberally

"If you can control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his action. When you can determine what a man shall think you do not have to concern yourself with what he will do.
If you can make a man feel that he is inferior, you do not have to compel him to accept his inferior status, for he will seek it himself.
If you can make a man think he is justly an outcast, you do not have to order him to the back door. He will go without being told; and if there is no back door, his very nature will demand one."

– Dr. Carter G. Woodson, The Miseducation of the Negro.

"And thus goes segregation which is the most far-reaching development in the history of the Negro since enslavement of the race. Infact, it is a sequel to slavery. It has been made possible by our system of mis-educating innocent people who did not know what was happening."

– Dr. Carter G. Woodson, The Miseducation of the Negro.


“I have found that, to make a contended slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason.”

-Frederick Douglass


"Foreigners, who have not studied economics but have studied Negroes, take up this business and grow rich."

– Dr. Carter G. Woodson, The Miseducation of the Negro.


"When they began to discuss business, however, he had to leave the room. About the only time he could see them in action was when they were at play, indulging in extravagances which the Negro learned to take up before he could afford them."

– Dr. Carter G. Woodson, The Miseducation of the Negro.

"In chameleon-like fashion the Negro has taken up almost everything religious which has come along instead of thinking for himself. "

– Dr. Carter G. Woodson, The Miseducation of the Negro.


"The Negro has been so busy doing what he is told to do that he has not stopped long enough to think about the meaning of these things."

– Dr. Carter G. Woodson, The Miseducation of the Negro.