Prometheus 6

Let's say we have a city which has set a speed limit of 55 miles per hour on its roadways. What do you think the police have to do to enforce the speed limit? They have to catch and punish speeders. And to catch speeders they have to exceed the speed limit. In fact, they have to engage in the sort of driving that, if they were civilians, would have the cops chasing them in a heartbeat.

This is exactly the sort of "contradiction" the Movement Conservatives on the Supreme Court sees in civil rights law.

The major conundrum of the civil rights age remains. The 14th Amendment bans discrimination on the basis of race. But the Civil Rights Act, which bans "disparate impact" discrimination -- procedures (such as exams) that yield racially unbalanced results -- affirmatively mandates racial favoritism to undo those results. The evil day will come, writes Justice Antonin Scalia in his concurrence, when this contradiction will have to be resolved.

Should we allow the police to exceed the speed limit while enforcing the speed limit? Absurd to even ask. Yet that's the discussion we're having on enforcing civil rights.

I had to think back to the two Black male teachers I had. I don't think it was so much seeing them as transmitters of knowledge as that they were both authorities and in our personal heirarchies.

Number of Black Male Teachers Belies Their Influence
By Avis Thomas-Lester
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 4, 2009

Tynita Johnson had attended predominantly black schools in Prince George's County for 10 years when she walked into Will Thomas's AP government class last August and found something she had never seen.

"I was kind of shocked," said Tynita, 15, of Upper Marlboro. "I have never had a black male teacher before, except for P.E."

Tynita's experience is remarkably common. Only 2 percent of the nation's 4.8 million teachers are black men, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In fact, Thomas, a social studies teacher at Dr. Henry A. Wise Jr. High School, never had a black teacher himself.

There's this journal called Social Problems that published this article in February. Here's an abstract of the article, which I find seriously intriguing.

Negotiating White Power Activist Stigma

Pete Simi‌
University of Nebraska, Omaha
Robert Futrell‌
University of Nevada, Las Vegas

This article uses extensive ethnographic data on the U.S. white power movement (WPM) to describe the interactional aspects of managing activist stigma in everyday settings. We describe their stigma management as a form of everyday resistance. In the face of strong cultural codes against extreme racism, they conceal their Aryan identity to avoid the constant ire, indignation, and conflict they face from others. But, concealing their activist identity creates dissonance, which they work out by exploiting opportunities to selectively disclose features of their racist self. Disclosing aspects of their Aryan self while covering the more extreme aspects creates some expressive balance, which activists experience as resistance to social constraints on identity and self-expression that they perceive. We explain variances in the degree to which WPM members conceal and disclose their identity by focusing on structural differences in the common, everyday settings of family, work, school, and other public contexts.

It would cost me $12.00 to buy a copy of it. Or I can spend $4.00 and some relaxing time going to the library, which has a subscription, and snarf a copy there.

Maybe some day it will be public access terminals that serve the purpose, but libraries give you access to things you'd otherwise never even know existed. Libraries are where you find the memories of our collective mind.

I have a friend in San Francisco that I may have to visit soon...but California is getting to be as crazy as Texas.

BART 'N-word' bombshell waiting to go off
Phillip Matier,Andrew Ross, Chronicle Columnists
Monday, June 29, 2009

(06-28) 17:20 PDT -- Overlooked in the court hearing that ended in former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle being ordered tried for murder in the slaying of Oscar Grant was testimony about another officer's explosive outburst just 30 seconds before Grant was shot.

One of the videos made by riders at the Fruitvale Station in Oakland early New Year's Day caught Officer Tony Pirone standing over the prone Grant and yelling, "Bitch-ass n-."

Pirone and his attorney say he was parroting an epithet that Grant first hurled at him - though Grant's voice is not audible on the tape.

The sound-enhanced tape shows Pirone delivering a shoulder chop to Grant and bringing him to the ground. Pirone can be heard saying twice, "Bitch-ass n-, right?"

Prosecutors showed the tape in court on the last day of Mehserle's preliminary hearing, but the headlines went to the judge's decree hours later that there was enough evidence to send Mehserle to trial for murder.

Under questioning from Mehserle's attorney Michael Rains, Pirone insisted it was Grant who had first "called me a bitch-ass n-."

Asked if he had repeated the slur to Grant, Pirone testified: "I don't remember, but it very well may have happened."

"Is that something you would have initiated on your own, calling him names?" Rains asked.

"No, I don't talk like that," Pirone said.

Oakland attorney John Burris, who is representing Grant's family in a lawsuit against BART, called Pirone's words "shocking and disturbing."

"Pirone was out of control," Burris said, "assaulting Oscar Grant and taunting him with racial slurs, and none of the other officers seemed to put him in check."

A number credit self-belief in their success, while some also cite their reliance on the classic American virtues of hard work and self-reliance.

...which means they're typical mainstream Americans. Judge accordingly.

New book spotlights black America in Obama era
Tue Jun 30, 2009 6:09pm EDT
By Matthew Bigg

ATLANTA (Reuters Life!) - A new book attempts to dig beneath the euphoria that swept black America when Barack Obama became president to ask the question: what, if anything, actually changed?

"Family Affair: What it Means to be African American Today" is a collection of short, autobiographical essays in which 76 black professionals detail how their families played a role in their success, either as springboards, or barriers to be overcome.

It's one of a slew of books published since the November election in which authors examine the changes in U.S. society that allowed Obama, the first African American president, to run successfully.

CNN is going to try it again, July 22 and 23rd. As I recall, Soledad was more upfront in the online discussion that followed Black in America last time. They shipped me links to a couple of previews.

There's actually a lot of stuff up on the site already. It will remind you a lot of Ebony Magazine.

Check his reaction at the end of this clip.

“The ruling gives employers less flexibility to change the selection process once it’s established,” said Katharine Parker, a lawyer with Proskauer Rose who is chairwoman of the Labor and Employment Committee of the New York City Bar Association. “As a result, employers will want to try to establish bulletproof selection criteria.”

Some may abandon written tests altogether.

To avoid charges of discrimination, many cities have already been moving away from such tests in favor of other methods of hiring and promoting employees in places like fire and police departments. They say written tests are often not the best way to determine who can perform best.

Just keep in mind that all outcomes are still possible at this point.

Ruling Offers Little Guidance on Fair Hiring
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

In ruling for a group of white firefighters in New Haven on Monday, the Supreme Court tried to address a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t quandary for many cities and other employers: what they should do when an employment test yields results that overwhelmingly favor whites.

But many legal experts said that instead of setting forth clear new rules, the court’s decision left things as muddled as ever for the nation’s employers — and seemed to ensure much more litigation over the explosive issue of employment discrimination.

“We don’t see clear, bright-line guidance here,” said Lars Etzkorn, a program director with the National League of Cities. “This is going to be good for employment lawyers.”

The 5-to-4 ruling applies largely to public-sector hiring and to civil service exams, but could also affect private employers that use tests or other screening methods. The court said that if an employer used a hiring or promotion test, it generally had to accept the test’s results — unless the employer had strong evidence the test was flawed and improperly favored a particular group.

With the court’s ruling making it harder for cities and other employers to throw out tests they conclude are unfair, employers are expected to work harder to make sure their written tests — indeed their entire selection process — are fair.

This morning I linked a Reuters report on the "White Firefighters" case. First paragraph read:

WASHINGTON, June 29 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday that New Haven, Connecticut, discriminated against a mostly white group of firefighters who were denied promotions, overturning a decision by high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

It's been updated twice. Now the first paragraph reads:

WASHINGTON, June 29 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court dealt a blow to President Barack Obama's high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor on Monday, overturning a ruling by her that it said would illegally deny promotions to white firefighters based on race.

This leads me to ask of Reuters, "What the hell is your problem?"

An appeals court judge only rules on whether or not the proceeding proceeded as the law requires. They deal a lot in precedent.

US top court rules against city on race promotion
Mon Jun 29, 2009 10:45am EDT
By James Vicini

WASHINGTON, June 29 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday that New Haven, Connecticut, discriminated against a mostly white group of firefighters who were denied promotions, overturning a decision by high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

By a 5-4 vote and splitting along conservative and liberal lines, the justices overturned a ruling for the city by a U.S. appeals court panel that included Sotomayor, who is President Barack Obama's nominee to replace retiring Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court.

At issue in the case was whether a city can, as New Haven did, throw out the results of a firefighter promotion exam after it yielded too many qualified white applicants and no acceptable black candidates. The high court ruled it cannot.

For now, I have to say today is the first time I've heard the case described as one where there were "too many qualified white applicants."

G.M., Detroit and the Fall of the Black Middle Class
By JONATHAN MAHLER

When we talk about what the end of the U.S. auto industry will mean to thousands of autoworkers, we tend to have a specific image of that worker in mind: He’s a conservative white Democrat who lives in suburban Detroit, hangs out in his local union hall, belongs to a bowling league and owns a hunting cabin in the Upper Peninsula. This is the iconic American autoworker. In fact, as much as a fifth of the industry’s work force is African-American.

The story of the rise of America’s black working and middle classes is inextricably bound up with that of Detroit and the Big Three. It is not a story with a simple upward trajectory. For a long time, blacks were relegated to the least desirable jobs in the plants and initially confined to a small ghetto on the East Side of the city. But slowly, haltingly, over the course of the 1950s and early ’60s, the plants became fully integrated and black workers spread across Detroit block by block, moving the city’s de facto color line as they went. “It wasn’t that long ago that Detroit was the home of the nation’s most affluent African-American population with the largest percentage of black homeowners and the highest comparative wages,” David Goldberg, an African-American Studies professor at Wayne State University, told me.

Autoworkers still make up much of what is left of Detroit’s black middle class, but their numbers are shrinking fast. Last year, 20,000 black autoworkers nationwide were either laid off or took buyouts from the Big Three. A disproportionate number of those workers were from Detroit and its environs. When those who remain lose their jobs, have their homes foreclosed — Detroit has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation — and have to move elsewhere in search of work, when they accept an early-retirement package and no longer have any reason to stick around, that will truly spell the end of the city.

We’ve been hearing this phrase — “the death of Detroit” — for years now, but this is what it’s going to look like, how it’s going to play out. There’s a perverse paradox here, one that I was reminded of every time I met a black autoworker in an Obama T-shirt or with an Obama bumper sticker adorning his or her car. We have just elected our first African-American president, and yet, at the same moment, a city and industry that together played a central role in the rise of the black middle class — that made possible lives like Marvin Powell’s — is being destroyed.

I first saw these advertisements at Kiss My Black Ads, shook it off as crazy white folk stuff. stuff white people do spotted it, and asked the musical question

"think that blackface is okay if white people are the butt of the joke".

Of course, he had to complicate the question by throwing in a bunch of edge cases.

But I look at it and wonder who they're selling to with this ad. I also wonder if the ads work

Baltimore Officers Win Settlement In Discrimination Suit
City Must Pay For Consultant To Track Cases
POSTED: 10:56 am EDT June 24, 2009

BALTIMORE -- The Baltimore City Council's Board of Estimates on Wednesday approved a $4.5 million settlement on behalf of 15 former and current police officers who filed a racial discrimination lawsuit.

Sgt. Louis H. Hopson Jr., a 28-year veteran of the Baltimore Police Department, along with 14 fellow African-American police officers, filed suit in December 2004 in the U.S. District Court in Maryland, alleging a pattern and practice of racial discrimination in the department dating back 12 years.

The plaintiffs charged the police department with creating a hostile work environment, retaliating against whistleblowers and engaging in disparate disciplinary actions.

The settlement requires Baltimore city to pay a $2.5 million cash award and spend an additional $2 million to upgrade the police department's training and record-keeping, as well as employ an independent consultant to monitor its internal disciplinary system.

It will be a pirate copy, though, and I won't buy the DVD.

"We're just putting more personality in," Bay said. "I don't know if it's stereotypes — they are robots, by the way. These are the voice actors. This is kind of the direction they were taking the characters and we went with it...I purely did it for kids," the director said.

Jive-talking twin Transformers raise race issues
By SANDY COHEN, AP Entertainment Writer
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
(06-24) 09:59 PDT LOS ANGELES (AP) --

"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" introduces some 40 new mechanized characters of all shapes, sizes and even sexes — but it's a pair of jive-talking 'bots that critics are singling out as more than just harmless comic relief.

Skids and Mudflap, twin robots disguised as compact Chevys, constantly brawl and bicker in rap-inspired street slang. They're forced to acknowledge that they can't read. One has a gold tooth....

Black historians tend to focus on the collective flows in the movement; white historians tend to focus on the edge dwellers, the Black individuals that had anchors in the Black and white communities.

Six Questions for David Beito, Author of Black Maverick
By Scott Horton

T.R.M. Howard was not everyone’s idea of a civil rights hero, and his accomplishments have been widely neglected. But as historian David Beito and sociologist Linda Royster Beito demonstrate in their book Black Maverick: T.R.M. Howard’s Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power, he was in fact one of the most effective black civil rights leaders of his generation and a key figure in bringing civil rights to Mississippi and empowering black voters in Chicago. I put six questions to David Beito about his new book.

1. Howard’s life puts him at the center of a number of historic events, usually playing a vital role, particularly in the civil rights movement of the fifties and sixties, yet his name rarely figures in the short list of leadership figures cited in the media. Has his role been underappreciated?

Yes, very much so. Standard works in black history rarely mention him. Much of this neglect has to do with the political biases of historians. Quite simply, Howard doesn’t fit their ideal of a civil rights leader. He was not an ascetic Gandhi-like figure, a union activist, or a clergyman, but rather a prosperous businessman who did not hesitate to display his wealth, bet on horses, stage ostentatious New Year’s Eve parties, lead big game hunts to Africa, and speed down the highway in his brand-new Cadillac. In contrast to Martin Luther King Jr., he carried guns and was ready to use them in self-defense “just in case.”

Another reason Howard has been forgotten relates to Howard himself. He never tried to pigeonhole himself as a “civil rights leader.” During the 1960s and 1970s, he increasingly focused on his medical practice and hobbies such as big-game hunting. In 1972, his life’s work culminated in the opening of the Friendship Medical Center on the South Side. It was the largest black privately owned medical facility in Chicago. While Howard supported numerous civil rights causes later in life, he preferred to do it from behind the scenes. Sometimes his ego also got in the way of working with other people.

Despite this, Howard was not a man to boast about his past civil rights accomplishments. He always had his eyes on a future project. In this respect, he was one of the premiere renaissance men in black history.

Hat tip to ptcruiser.

This is another one of those films you're going to want to download but can't for copyright reasons.

Losing just the same

This documentary reflects on the lives and aspirations of an African American family - the Johns - who moved to West Oakland from Louisiana, focusing on Robert Lee Johns and his mother Agnes. A voiceover prefaces the film with a statement that it presents: "A story of people caught in a lifelong struggle between their hopes and their abilities and their discovery that no matter how hard they try they will be losing just the same." Includes views shot around the streets of West Oakland, public speaking by Curtis Baker (Black Jesus), meetings at the Oak Center Site Office and excerpts from a graduation ceremony at McClymonds High School. Also features scenes of Robert attending a job interview at a garment factory in San Francisco and a fantasy sequence in which he imagines himself graduating successfully from high school. This film was written and produced by Richard Moore and Saul Landau and directed by Richard Moore and Irving Saraf.

Recovery's Missing Ingredient: New Jobs
Experts Warn of A Long Dry Spell
By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 22, 2009

Analysts say the high levels of joblessness would be accompanied by increases in child poverty, strained government budgets, and black and Latino unemployment rates approaching 20 percent.

"I find it unfathomable that people are not horrified about what is going to happen," said Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute. "I regard all this talk about how the recession is maybe going to end, all the talk about deficits and inflation, to be the equivalent of telling Americans, 'You are just going to have to tough it out.' But we're looking at persistent unemployment that is going to be extraordinarily damaging to many communities. There is a ton of pain in the pipeline."

Christina Romer, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, said that while the president is "very concerned" about the unemployment forecasts, the White House has assumed "a posture of watchful waiting," adding: "There will be big increases in stimulus spending in the fall and early next year. We have to wait to see what happens with that. If you get to the end of this year or early next year and employment is still limping back, then we have to do some serious thinking about whether there might be special problems in the labor market that require targeted interventions."

The Black community has been in a depression for hella long. I think that qualifies for a targeted intervention.

I think one of the goals of this economic repair program should be that we've all wind up on an even footing. It must be made clear to people who want to end affirmative action programs that the approach will be to end the need for them...then the programs will take care of their own demise.

I got no beef with the Supreme Court's decision on the Voting Rights Act today. They just confirmed what was already the case.Take the steps specified in the law and you, too, can be free of its strictures.

That includes Justice Thomas, the single(!) dissenting voice.

Only Justice Clarence Thomas dissented Monday, stating that he thought it inappropriate to sidestep the constitutional question in Northwest Austin Municipal District Number One v. Holder, No. 08-322, and that he thinks Section 5 is no longer constitutional.

I think people have been laying the groundwork to reverse this (and all other civil rights) law. I think a Republican win last November nets a different decision, but given that the Justice Department just this month nailed Georgia for discriminatory practices in voter registration, after the report of how racism and bias were the order of the day under Bradley Schlozman, there was no way without Legislative or Executive branch support to rule the Voting Rights Act irrelevant as a whole.

Unless you're Justice Thomas.

Check this:

McMenacing? Cop Accused Of Pulling Gun At McD's
Written by Brian Maass

DENVER (CBS4) ― A Denver police officer has been suspended after allegedly brandishing his gun at a McDonald's restaurant in Aurora after his order took too long to fill.

Aurora police confirmed the CBS4 investigation saying the incident occurred May 21 at the McDonald's at 18181 East Hampden Avenue.

A spokesperson for the Aurora Police Department said they plan to present the case -- now classified as a felony menacing incident -- to the Arapahoe County District Attorney's Office Thursday for possible filing of criminal charges.

Sources familiar with the case, and the fast food worker's account of what happened, say two off-duty Denver police officers placed an order from their car in the early morning hours of May 21. But once at the drive through window, the employee said the men became agitated and angry at how long their food was taking. The men thought they were being ignored, according to contacts familiar with the worker's account. The male clerk then said one of the officer's flashed his police badge and pointed a pistol through the drive through window in a threatening manner, before driving off without paying.

Both officers are assigned to Denver International Airport although only one has been placed on administrative leave with pay, pending the outcome of the case.

This story was posted at the discussion board at officer.com, which, as you'll see later today, has quite a few interesting stories. But to the point of this post you have to got to read the reactions to this article.

Posted by shamwow111 on 06/19/09 at 7:33AM

The election of Obama has created more race problems for this country. He has divided the nation in more ways then Bush. He is not doing anything to create unity and why would he when for 20 years he and his racist wife followed Rev. Wright.

I have to tell you, I am sick of white people not standing up for themselves. It is time we get a loud mouth like Sharpton who actually stands up for whites. Oh wait, you stand up for white people you are KKK, yet there are atleast 3 different organizations which stand up for black. Plus all the "community activists."

Well it is time for a white community activist. When a white cop gets shot by a black man, stand up. We should start marching infront of black studios when they say anti white stuff.

White people need to unify. Lets start defending ourselves. It isnt racist, it is exactly what the blacks do. They stand up for unequalities, well time to throw it back at them!

Equal rights for whites.... I believe in it.

Posted by Nobdyasktbut on 06/19/09 at 10:38AM

Nobody asked me but...........................

It's 10:30 am Friday and I'm looking at the front page of this "newspaper." A 14 year old kid had his jaw broken on a public bus. Yet, no description of the attacker. WHY NOT?

Submariner hit me with a copy of “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp… with… a Whole Lot of Bitches Jumpin’ Ship”: Navigating Black Politics in the Wake of Katrina by Michael Ralph, from the journal Public Culture. I needed to see that...I haven't really been paying but so much attention to the struggle for position in Black politics this year.

There's no electoral activity that gives you a winner or loser in Black politics. It's a reputation-based system. The original ways of spreading reputation (the church and Black civic organizations modeled thereon) having become less effective, Tavis Smiley has the first serious, organized tactic to plant, perpetuate and own one's reputation using more modern tools, i.e. a media conglomerate dedicated to the purpose. Mr. Ralph is looking at the social impact of that effort with a jaundiced eye.

There's another reputation transmission method, infiltration, being practiced by what I might whimsically refer to as the Melissa Harris Lacewell school which strikes me as no less organized. And it may be more successful than the Smiley school because Smiley wasn't aligned with the will of the community in November.

...the more they don't.

In a Suburban Gangland, Young Lives Cut Short
By SARAH GARLAND
Many Latino immigrants who sought a brighter future on Long Island have seen their children become ensnared in a flourishing gang culture.

That's the blurb from the front page.

Francisco had never encountered gangs in El Salvador, but he joined Salvadorans With Pride the summer after his first year on Long Island. His new friends promised to end the teasing and bullying, and, like other teenagers, he wanted to fit in. Back at school in the fall, he learned that Jaime had joined Mara Salvatrucha.

I have entertained the idea that minorities pressed into American ghettos universally form violent gangs.

Rusty DePass, the South Carolina Republican activist who infamously "joked" that an escaped zoo gorilla was probably an ancestor of Michelle Obama, has learned the meaning of "hell to pay."

...as was inevitable.

To be clear, DePass's remark was racist, and there's no way to spin it otherwise, as he first tried to. Racist jokes have become commonplace since Barack Obama's election, and, sadly, they keep popping up in Republican quarters.

Last spring, Folks wrote about a Republican state representative who had a flier on his desk showing blacks fleeing Obama, who was depicted as promising jobs to all African Americans. In another recent incident, a staffer for Tennessee state Sen. Diane Black e-mailed a composite picture of all the U.S. presidents. The Obama square was solid black with two big eyes.

These fliers, jokes and antics are not isolated incidents but are part of an ugly subterranean culture of entrenched racism. Living in South Carolina the past 20 years, I've noticed that people who say racist things never think of themselves as racist. What that means, of course, is that they'd never act on their attitudes. They might even find the N-word offensive.

But they'll make racist cracks as DePass did -- or circulate fliers that portray the Obamas in demeaning ways. Seen the image of the watermelon patch in front of the White House? Or the display of Obama books at Barnes & Noble in Coral Gables, Fla., with the book about monkeys slipped into it?

DePass is hardly alone. But he has been thrown to the lions in a sort of spontaneous cleansing ritual. After decades of shame for the state's original sin -- not to mention providing a butt for the nation's jokes -- South Carolinians are tired of being embarrassed.

Now, let's see if Ms. Parker catches the same level of hell she caught over NOT being impressed by Governor Sarah Milf.

That "why should we pay for your actions" bit shows Mr. Matthews still suffers from ignorance on the nature of collective responsibility.