(Akiit.com) What Do You Call A Black Man At Harvard?

Years ago, the answer to this question would be the n-word. Today it’s Esquire, Doctor, Congressman, Professor or President. Unfortunately, the police in Cambridge did not receive that memo before they arrested Harvard Professor, Skip Gates, as he was treated as just another n-word by the police.

Cambridge is supposed to be liberal city, full of progressive intellectuals who look down on antiquated philosophies, such as racism. Scholars from all sorts of backgrounds come to Cambridge to study and teach at Harvard and MIT. The idea of Cambridge as a liberal, tolerant, progressive city stands in sharp contrast to the racial profiling that occurs there everyday, which was exposed by Gates’ arrest.

What does it say about America if racial profiling occurs in one of its most progressive, racially tolerant cities?

Black people all across the country are constantly forced to show their ID’s to police to justify their presence and prove they’re not criminals. Black people are racially profiled in predominantly black neighborhoods as possible drug dealers or gang bangers and in white neighborhoods as possible thieves who don’t belong in those communities.

Gates’ arrest speaks as much to the racism of his neighbors in his upper class Cambridge neighborhood as it does to racial profiling by the Cambridge police. If an elderly white man was struggling with the door to his house as Gates was, one might think his neighbors would probably offer to help him or at least find out what was going on, rather than calling 911 to report a possible break in. In Massachusetts, the presence of a black male in a wealthy community in any capacity is enough to make a nosy racist neighbor call the police on him.

Gates’s arrest for “disorderly conduct” stems from his interaction with the officer who came to his house. The arresting officer, Crowley, has a reputation in Cambridge for racially profiling and harassing African Americans. The fact that Gates had to show his ID to prove that he lived in his own house and was not, in fact a criminal who was robbing it, is bad enough, arresting him for getting angry about it added insult to injury. If a 60 year old white man came to the door voluntarily I doubt he would be asked to show ID to prove he lived there.

According to Gates’ friend and Harvard colleague, Professor Charles Ogletree, after being asked for his ID, Gates repeatedly asked Crowley for his badge number as was his right to do.

The arresting officer, Crowley had this to say about the incident, “While I was led to believe that Gates was lawfully in the residence, I was quite surprised and confused with the behavior he exhibited toward me.” Crowley also claimed that Gates yelled at him and was being disorderly. Ogletree said the same thing in much in different terms, saying Gates “expressed his frustration at being subjected to the threat of arrest in his own home.”

For a man as distinguished as Gates to be forced to prove he was actually a Harvard Professor, who actually lived in a nice house in a nice neighborhood, could be frustrating. The disorderly conduct charges seem to stem from the officer taking offense at Gates’ claim about racial profiling. If Crowley had gone through some racial sensitivity training, maybe he would not be surprised that Gates was angry at perceived racial profiling. To be feel you are being treated as a common criminal because of your race is very hurtful and dehumanizing, especially for someone like Gates who might not have to deal with that type of police racism as much as other African Americans.
Read The Full Story…

(Akiit.com) When a wide receiver in football is called to go over the middle to catch a pass and the pass is one that would force the player to extend their arms to complete the reception three things happen. The thought that the player clearly has is that they will have to take a hard hit to catch the ball. A safety running up is a given but the possibility of a linebacker flinging their body into the receiver is a distinct possibility. The ones that last in the NFL are the ones that disregard the hit and reach all the way out to pull the ball in. They take the hit, wipe the blood of their noses, and go back to the huddle trying to show no pain. The ones that don’t make it keep their arms close to their bodies so their arms can protect their bodies. They hear footsteps coming. They get short arms. Also know as alligator arms. They’re not very respected by even their own fans no matter their talent level. On global issues of racial justice African people need someone who can go over the middle. Martin Luther King Jr. went over the middle no sacrifice to great. Fannie Lou Hamer went over the middle, took a beating in jail that would break most people and kept on struggling. She put her everything on the line for her people. President Obama has alligator arms about racial justice. He’s afraid of the contact that being truthful would bring.

When the President travels with Vice President Biden to Scranton PA or Youngstown OH he talks about the ways that structural decisions have created the “Rust Belt’ and how these structural decisions (NAFTA, GATT, deindustrialization, etc) have transformed what was formerly known as the Iron Belt into a dying, haunted ground that crushes aspirations, devastates communities, and is unworthy of the USA or humanity. Never once has the President gone into working class white communities and talked about the Meth labs that dot those communities, or how they should stop eating pork filled breakfasts. How the white working class should forget about how they were betrayed by the companies that they had given their life’s work to and how they should get over it. We have yet to hear how the white working class should stop blaming affirmative action for their quasi-developmentally disabled children not getting into an Ivy League school.

When the President speaks about the USA, his inaugural address being a prime example, he waxes poetically about the ideals, activates, and legacy of America’s “founding fathers”. The structures that these men created are praised and raised as monuments of human possibility and ingenuity. And he would rather be dipped in boiling oil than to tell the American people to get over this entire veneration of the dead founders of the country, stop this celebration of the 4th of July, and stop raising the US constitution to a hallowed place. That it was a document that justified genocide and enslavement.

Yet when President Obama speaks to African people his sense of historical memory suddenly fades. It doesn’t simply fade the President advocates a “get over it” advocacy that borders on a call to mental illness. Amnesia is indeed a mental sickness. Two recent incidents highlight this fact. On his trip to Africa President Obama quickly advocated Africans get over the Trans-Atlantic Slave and colonialism. How Africans are primarily responsible for the horrid conditions on the continent and that any wealth robbery or structural impediments are unrelated to current conditions. How the past activities of African leaders (many supported by the US and Western Europe) had devastated the continent, and how Africa needed to “pull itself up by its own bootstraps”, and not look to the West for support, nor redress.
Read The Full Story…

(Akiit.com) I am not Al Sharpton. In fact, I never could be and I don’t want to try. I am also not Henry Louis Gates, a man with an undeniable contribution to the legacy of Black Scholarship in America. I am simply Boyce Watkins, the son of a 17-year old mother and a father who happened to be a high-ranking police official for the past 28 years. I’ve argued with my father for decades, as his Bill Cosby-like views of the world have often made my face twist with confusion. But I listen to my father, because there is value in seeing other points of view.

When I hear about a Black man being mistreated by police, I take a moment of pause. I think about the horrific statistics on Black males in the criminal justice system, in which we are more likely to be arrested for the same crimes, more likely to be convicted, more likely to be incarcerated and expected to get more prison time than our White counterparts.

I think about my uncle, an older brother figure who was pressured into pleading guilty to a case that he wanted to fight, and who is psychologically damaged to this day from the trauma of going to prison as a 17-year old kid. I also think about my own graduate school experience in Kentucky, when I was rudely questioned by an officer after falling asleep in my office the night before a final exam.

But I also think about the experience of good police officers, who put their lives on the line day in and day out, and are constantly forced to grapple with the confused society that comes from 400 years of historical oppression. Whenever a Black man is shot, officers are typically accused of racism, sometimes by those who don’t even know the facts of the case. If a crime goes unpunished, we complain about police not doing their jobs. But when officers arrest the wrong person, we complain that they are being overzealous and perhaps racist. Sometimes they are being racist, even when they don’t intend to be; racism is a disease that affects us all. All of this is compounded by the officer’s fear that he/she might not come home for dinner that night after taking on the most dangerous elements of our society.
Read The Full Story…

(Akiit.com) Mainstream media coverage of the NAACP Centennial Convention held in New York last week generally proclaimed “Mission Accomplished” for the NAACP. Since Barack Obama took over the nation, in many people’s minds (both black and white), racism is over. The recent arrest of Henry Louis Gates — Mr. Black in the minds of much of academia - is a newsflash to the contrary. Gates has so successfully served as an African American gatekeeper that he has even helmed the successful PBS series “African American Lives,” which has helped such prominent Black Americans as Oprah Winfrey and Tom Joyner shake their family trees all the way back to Africa. Gates doesn’t wear baggy jeans or hold a mic in his hand. He’s done all the right things. Serving as the director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute of African and African American Research at Harvard University, he wields a mighty sword in all things African American.

The details have been sketchy. A passerby, a white woman who presumably lives in Gates’ Cambridge neighborhood, noticed a black man, well, two - Gates and his cab driver - trying to get into a house without a key and rightfully called the police. Let’s not jump on the messenger. If this had been an actual break-in, I’m sure Dr. Gates would have appreciated the police being called. The problem began when Cambridge Police Sergeant James Crowley arrested Dr. Gates aware that Gates was in his own home. The alleged “disorderly conduct” occurred once Gates reportedly began sharing exactly how he felt about the incident.

Gates’ arrest serves as a powerful reminder that all is not well in post-Obama America. Because the full details aren’t in, it’s not safe to jump to conclusions of racial profiling and racism on the sergeant’s part. For all we know, the officer could have been doing his job and Gates, knowing the truth from his perspective, never heard that part of the discussion. And perhaps such a burst of outrage from a white man of similar stature would not have warranted an arrest. We don’t know the specifics of this incident yet. What we do know is: certain actions from us are interpreted differently than they are from others. It’s why black men have often been taught to be quiet in the presence of a police officer, to speak only when spoken to.
Read The Full Story…

(Akiit.com) Two million more black voters cast a ballot in the 2008 election than in 2004; and, young black voters had the highest increase in turnout among all groups, a U.S. Census Bureau report released today revealed.

“We knew black youth influenced the outcome of the election and will do so for years to come” said Melanie L. Campbell, executive director and CEO of The National Coalition on Black Civic Participation. “Today’s Census report backs up our findings”

Although voter turnout among some groups decreased or remained the same in 2008, according to the Census tables, overall 18 to 24 year-old turnout saw a two percent increase over 2004, reaching 49 percent. However, 18- to 24-year-old black voters turned out at 55 percent, an eight percent increase from 2004.

“We knew our work made a difference,’” said William Kelllibrew, national coordinator of Black Youth Vote! (BYV!), the young adult division of The National Coalition. “This report is confirmation of the success of Black Youth Vote! Since The National Coalition started the young adult division our work has helped to inspire a new commitment to service and civic engagement among 18-24 year-olds”

Salandra Hanna, Florida BYV! advisor adds, “In 2004 black voter participation among 18 -24 year-olds increased four percent over 2000, and in 2008 participation increased a whopping eight percent! While there is still much to do to keep this demographic engaged, this news confirms the positive trend and gives us great encouragement”

The National Coalition’s BYV! worked in twelve states registering new voters, educating voters on their rights at the polls, and urging them to VOTE FIRST. The National Coalition credits their VOTE FIRST Campaign with reducing the problems at the polls on Election Day. Other effective outreach to young adults included partnerships with American Urban Radio Networks (AURN), fraternities and sororoties and BET. AURN produced and distributed celebrity-voiced public service announcements urging young people to vote early.
Read The Full Story…