April 30 - May 6, 2015
Page 4
OPINION
The New Tri-State Defender
John H. Sengstacke Publisher (1951-1997)
The Mid-South’s Best Alternative Newspaper Powered by Best Media Properties, Inc.
“‘Parent Choice’ in education is the one thing that can help families, just like mine, and help them today.”
Bernal E. Smith II President / Publisher
Zip code should not determine a child’s future
Dr. Karanja A. Ajanaku Executive Editor
In her own words: Loretta Lynch’s confirmation Loretta Lynch now is the 83rd U.S. attorney general – and the first African-American woman to serve – after being sworn in Monday by Vice President Joe Biden at the U.S. Department of Justice. The long-awaited ceremony was delayed five months by Senate Republicans locked into a partisan dispute with President Barack Obama.
“As I look out over all of you gathered here today, my overwhelming reaction is one of profound gratitude. I must, of course, thank the President for his faith in me in asking me to lead the department that I love to even greater heights. “Thank you, Mr. Vice President, for your presence and your comments here today, and for your steadfast support and wise counsel throughout the process. I also must thank Senators Schumer and Leahy for their support, over the years and now, and for making the floor of the U.S. Senate a welcoming place for me and my family. And of course, my wonderful family. As you can see, we’re quite a force multiplier! “Many of you have come to know my father through this process. He has been at every hearing and every vote. But he didn’t just start now. I remember looking up as a young Assistant U.S. Attorney starting my first trial and seeing him there – and he came to every one thereafter. He has encouraged me in all things, even when my choices were not the ones he would have made for me. In that, he has been the best of fathers. Without him, I would not be here today, being sworn in as the 83rd Attorney General of the United States, just one week after his 83rd birthday. “And my mother, who could not be here today but is never far from my thoughts or my heart. She grew up in a world where she was always told what she could not do or could not be, but always knew in her heart that she could soar. She did what would have seemed impossible in the small North Carolina town of her youth. She raised a daughter whom she always told, whatever the dream, whether lawyer, prosecutor or even Attorney General, “of course you can.” “I must also thank my wonderful husband, who has supported all of my choices and my dreams. I would not trade his love and support for all the riches in the world – because to me, they are all the riches in the world. “Thanks also go to my colleagues and friends here in the department, in the Eastern District of New York, and beyond. But even more than that, tremendous thanks go to the literally thousands of people, many of whom I have never met, who have expressed their support throughout the process. From the sisterhood of my sorority and all the Greeks who came together, to churches and schools and people on the street who have stopped me and said just a word or two – please know that those few words sometimes made all the difference in the
world to me as I traveled this road. “I thank you all, as I prepare to join once again with the outstanding people of the Department of Justice. I have been privileged to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you twice before from the Eastern District of New York. You are the ones who make real the promise of justice and redress for all Americans. I am honored beyond words to step into the larger role today as your Attorney General, as we continue the core work of our mission – the protection of the American people. “All of the people here at the department are here because at some point in our lives, we all said, ‘I want to be a lawyer.’ ‘I want to be a law enforcement officer.’ ‘I want to be a federal agent.’ ‘I want to be someone’s hero.’ “At the heart of that – for me and for all of us – whether attorney or agent, staff or principal – is the desire to leave this world a better place for us having been a part of it. “The challenge in that – for you, for me, for all of us that love this department and love the law – is to use the law to that end. To not just represent the law and enforce it, but use it to make real the promise of America, the promise of fairness and equality, ‘of liberty and justice for all.’ We are all just here for a time – whether in this building or even on this earth. But the values we hold dear will live on long after we have left this stage. Our responsibility, while we are here, is to breathe life into them; to imbue them with the strength of our convictions and the weight of our efforts. “I know this can be done. “Because I am here to tell you, if a little girl from North Carolina who used to tell her grandfather in the fields to lift her up on the back of his mule, so she could see ‘way up high, Granddaddy,’ can become the chief law enforcement officer of the United States of America, then we can do anything. “We can imbue our criminal justice system with both strength and fairness, for the protection of both the needs of victims and the rights of all. We can restore trust and faith both in our laws and in those of us who enforce them. We can protect the most vulnerable among us from the scourge of modern-day slavery – so antithetical to the values forged in blood in this country. We can protect the growing cyber world. We can give those in our care both protection from terrorism and the security of their civil liberties. We will do this as we have accomplished all things both great and small – working together, moving forward, and using justice as our compass. “I cannot wait to begin that journey. “Thank you all for being here, both today and in my life. “Thank you.” (Transcript from the U.S. Department of Justice)
Riots, anger and state-
sanctioned killing …It doesn’t matter that there’s a black president, a black attorney general, a black police commissioner or a black mayor. Black youths expressing pain and rage, fear and disbelief, are characterized as criminals, and the cops who left Freddie Gray nearly decapitated are on taxpayer-paid vacations. We’re expected to be angels when we’re faced with demons. We’re expected to hold hands, sing, “We Shall Overcome,” and wait patiently for the wheels of justice to turn and for freedom to ring. This country is comfortable with black tears and black fears but uncomfortable with black rage. But when the tears are dry and injustice remains, sometimes rage is all that’s left. … In a 1967 speech, “The Other America,” the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. told an audience at Stanford University why black Americans riot, and it still holds true today: “I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. “And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquilli-
ty and the status quo than about justice, equality and humanity. “And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postKirsten West Savali pones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.” In short: No justice, no peace. That is what youths in Baltimore are demanding: justice. That is what was demanded on the streets of Ferguson, Mo.: justice. That is what will be demanded in the next city and the next city and the next city because there is no pause button on revolution, no such thing as a polite uprising and no more tolerance for second-class citizenship. If peace for all is the true goal and not oppression for some, then this country must first grapple with the fact that a smashed window at CVS smashed is merely a window into its own shattered soul. (Kirsten West Savali is a cultural critic and senior writer for The Root. Follow her on Twitter: kwestsavali.)
“All of the people here at the department are here because at some point in our lives, we all said, ‘I want to be a lawyer.’ ‘I want to be a law enforcement officer.’ ‘I want to be a federal agent.’ ‘I want to be someone’s hero.’” – Loretta Lynch (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty via NewsOne)
Ignored: African-American women killed by police You know their names – Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice – because these African-American men were unarmed and killed by “law enforcement” officers. Their names have been part of a litany invoked when police shootings are discussed. Their deaths have been part of the impetus for the Black Lives Matter movement, especially because the police officers that killed these men (and a little boy) have paid no price for their murders. You are far less likely to know about Rekia Boyd, shot by an off-duty police officer in Chicago. While the officer who killed Boyd was acquitted, her killing sparked few protests, and little national attention. Kate Abbey-Lambertz of the Huffington Post identified 15 women who were killed during police encounters when they were unarmed, including Tanisha Anderson (Cleveland), 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones (Detroit), and Yvette Smith (Bastrop, Texas). The killing of another woman, Miriam Carey, was especially egregious. Carey, a dental hygienist, drove her car into a security checkpoint near the White House. The Secret Service fired multiple shots at Carey, killing her and putting her 13-monthold daughter at risk. Meanwhile, a white man scaled the White House fence without a shot fired. Another made it into the White House residence without encountering a gun. A few people protested Carey’s death, but the protests fizzled. AlterNet and Clutch Magazine, online sources such as Huffington Post, reported on some of the unarmed black women who were gunned down. Again, these killings were barely protested, and garnered no national attention. Little seems to have changed since Gloria Hull, Patricia Bell-Scott, and Barbara Smith wrote “But Some of Us Are Brave: All the Women Are White, All the Blacks are Men.” The book, written in 1993, addressed the invisibility of African-American women. While the majority of the unarmed African Americans killed by police officers are men, about 20 percent of those killed are women. The publicized killings of African-American men have happened all too frequently in the past 12 months. Each killing strikes our collective community like a body blow, especially when officers are poorly trained, have records of brutality, and are acquitted. When the roll of recent killings is called, women may be absent because there has been little publicity about assaults against women in the past year. Based on the record, however, we know such assaults are likely to have happened. Contemporary African-American women are not the only ones who history has swallowed. Fannie Lou Hamer was beaten so many times, and so severely that she developed a blood clot and lost much of her sight in one eye. One kidney was injured and her entire body cov-
ered with welts and bruises. She never regained her health, yet when people call the roll of civil rights leaders and icons, her name is too often excluded. There is a historical precedent for the Julianne invisibility of AfMalveaux rican-American women. Hamer is but one of many women whose lives and sacrifices are often ignored. Public policy also ignores the plight of African-American women. President Obama’s “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative is well-meaning, but ignores the status of young African-American women. While young African-American women are more likely to go to college than young African-American men, those who do not go to college face some of the same job challenges as men do. Young women can benefit from the same efforts that young men are offered through My Brother’s Keeper, such as mentorship and initiatives to develop pathways to education and employment. Focusing on young African-American women should not minimize efforts to improve the status of young African-American men. There ought be no competition, but efforts for inclusion. The Black Lives Matter movement must recognize the killing of African-American women as well as African-American men. To do any less, to ignore the unarmed African-American women who are shot, suggests that only African-American men’s lives matter. Any African American who is shot and killed by police officers deserves our attention. Both African-American men and African-American women have economic, psychological, and physical wounds because of the racism we experience. Our economic wounds manifest as higher unemployment rates and lower wages. Our health wounds are illustrated through the health disparities we experience, along with differences in life expectancies. Our psychological wounds include dysfunction in our organizations and relationships. We won’t have healthy and functional communities until we focus on healing wounds among all of us – African-American men and African-American women. I’ve been impressed and excited by the Black Lives Matter movement and the young leadership that has emerged from it. This is a movement that, powerful as it is, would be so much stronger if it acknowledged that African-American women’s lives also matter. (Julianne Malveaux is a Washington-based writer and economist. She can be reached at www.juliannemalveaux.com.)
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When I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in the mid 90’s, I moved to New York City. And I did what most young folks did them: found the cheapest apartment I could afDerrell ford in the nicest Bradford neighborhood possible. That place was a firstfloor front studio near Central Park. The block was lovely, but I lived in the worst building on it. Sanitation workers used to wake me up when they threw the cans against my outside windows. In the winter, I heated the place with my open stove. And if anything broke, it took forever to get it fixed. I paid about three-fourths of what I made to live in that apartment, and my landlord knew that. And because of this, our relationship was uneasy. I only pushed so hard to get things fixed because I couldn’t afford to move. She only did enough to make it barely livable. And we both knew there were hundreds of kids, just like me, ready to take my spot if I decided to head back home. It was all win for her and, because I could not move, all lose for me. My relationship with my old landlord is the same relationship most parents and children of color, particularly in cities, have with their neighborhood schools and school districts. The quality of instruction is poor and, according to the Office of Civil Rights, students are far more likely to be taught by a teacher who is out of subject specialization than elsewhere. There are 90 schools in New York City, for instance, where not one minority child passed the recent round of state tests. These kids and families are stuck with their schools just like my old landlord and I were; the school only giving what it must, and the family desperate to get more for their child’s education. Eventually I got lucky, got a new job, and moved to a better apartment. For most folks, however, moving to a better “building,” or a school or school district in this case, just isn’t an option. If you have money or influence in America, you don’t even blink when your local school doesn’t deliver. You know you can “move” to a private school or another school district, and the local school does too. So if that power is good enough for the wealthiest and most influential, why shouldn’t we give low-income families in southwest Baltimore where I’m from, or Newark, or New York the same options? As a child I got a scholarship to an excellent school and that changed my life, forever, and there is no day I don’t wake up and know how blessed I am because of it. “Parent Choice” in education is the one thing that can help families, just like mine, and help them today. Take a lesson from my old landlord. Your zip code and your income might dictate where you live…but they shouldn’t determine your child’s future. (Originally printed in December, this commentary is being rerun by special request.) (Derrell Bradford is executive director of the New York Campaign for Achievement Now {NYCAN})
QUOTING Shocking observation
“Let me try this again, after so many years of saying the same thing. The vast majority of the problems black people face in this nation can be solved through the utilization of economic power. James That’s what runs Clingman this country and, therefore, that’s what gets desired outcomes. The lack of economic power results in a perverse weakness and subordination of any group of people. Thus, black folks are always shocked at our position, our mistreatment, and our dependency on the very political entities that care very little, if at all, about us. That’s backward and wrong-headed thinking.”