Monthly Archives: February 2023

Point of View Columns

In Celebration of Black History Month 2023

 Last week I had the distinct honor of being the guest speaker at the Black History Month Celebration hosted by the employees of the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

So here we go:

Please imagine if you will that we will time travel almost 53 years ago to an America that was still shuddering from the assassinations of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and the Kennedy brothers – John and Robert – the cause of death was always an assassin’s bullet and always there was mystery, confusion and doubt in the aftermath, some of which lingers to this very day.

It was 53 years ago that tens of thousands of American military personnel along with millions of Vietnamese military personnel and civilians died in what was then one of the most brutal and horrific wars in recent history – the Nigerian civil war certainly being deserving of dishonorable mention.

It was 53 years ago that many American cities were still smoldering ruins after the insurrections following assassinations, police brutality and the daily recognition of rights being denied to Black people, even the right to hope.

And it was 53 years ago that I was a senior at Dartmouth College – an institution that was a critical building block in the institutional bastions that had supported, justified and rationalized racism, institutionalized white supremacy and codified the basic precepts of white male supremacy in this nation that had been built on stolen land and genocide.

In my almost four years at Dartmouth I was (and remain) proud of being part of a brotherhood of young Black men who navigated a path unknown to us or our forebearers. We were following the Drinking Gourd towards some semblance of justice and something other than inequality. And with no playbook, no guide, no griot -we changed that institution called Dartmouth College for good and forever.

And while that institution is far from being perfect, due to our belief in the possibility of change there are now more Black students, Black alumni, Black faculty, Black deans and administrators and Black alumni than could ever have been imagined 53 years ago.

We were too young to believe that there was such a thing as impossible. We had to learn to believe that as we grew older.

And so, with the assent of the Dartmouth College administration my fellow Black alumni of the Class of 1970 chose me to be the first Black person to speak at a Dartmouth College commencement in its 200-year history. And before I begin today’s remarks, I wish to share for you a few closing lines from that speech – please keep in mind that the year was 1970, the speaker was a 20 year old Black man – Richard (Law and Order) Nixon (he was about 4 years away from total disgrace and infamy), and George Wallace, though paralyzed by an assassin’s bullet still remained in the national consciousness and most of all, racism, both benign and overt, was very much a clear and present part of the American character.

That was the America in which I found myself, and at the close of my remarks I said this:

We have been told to believe in America, to believe that there was something deep down inside America that was good. And what has happened?

Black brothers die daily in the Indochina madness that is just another example of the sickness of America spilling out all over the world, and still we try to believe; Nixon tells Black people that he doesn’t give a damn about us, that he would rather put a white man on the moon than put food into a Black (or white) child’s stomach, and still we try to believe; the Congressional Record of the United States details the past plans for the construction and use of concentration camps and still we are supposed to believe.

The time has now come for us to believe in ourselves. The time has come to make ourselves free. Our stars of freedom still shine and our saints of righteousness do live. You only have to look around.

The stars are in the eyes of little Black babies and children who were born destined only for freedom, the saints of righteousness are the mothers and fathers, the brothers and sisters who have provided the strength for Blackness to survive in the face of the forces of evil seem to be everywhere.

The time is coming, the time has got to come, when freedom will be seen in our smiles, and our Blackness will mean freedom. We have to believe this, because this is the only reality left to us.

That is what we are about, that is what today means for us. To best sum up our feelings though, I would like to quote a poem written by Brother Herschel Johnson, of this class, as this poem speaks for the souls and spirits of all of us:

For you mothers with dirt-rough hands

For you with backs aching from bending

And flushing and scrubbing

For all you women on transit

You with brown bags under your arms

Bringing home the leavings of white folks

Bringing it to your children

For all you Black mothers and fathers

Who had to live with humility

And yet have had the pride to survive

For you Black mothers and fathers who raised up

Your men are now with you.

Thank you and may a beautiful Black peace always be with you.

And at the conclusion of my remarks I received a standing ovation from an overwhelming white commencement audience. Sometimes the truth does indeed prevail.

And now, 53 years later there has been progress and regress. We can cite the progress that has been made with the appearance of Black billionaires and millionaires, the election of a Black president of the United States and a Black vice president of the United State. We have seen progress with the election of Black mayors and governors, and we have seen progress in the number of Black CEO’s heading Fortune 500 corporations. More Black men and women are going to college and medical school and business school and law school beyond numbers that Booker T. Washington couldn’t comprehend in his wildest dreams.

And yet…and yet, more Black men and women suffer the burden of the New Jim Crow, populating American prisons and jails far out of proportion to our percentage of the national population. Our young men, and increasingly our young women, are killing each other in numbers that would make the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan happy as a hog in a mudhole. We have seen our common language and shared culture degrade ourselves with violent, misogynistic self-hatred and a bizarre embrace of ignorance.

Of course, we also have to take to time to observe, assess and consider the present and the future because if we ignore the present and fail to consider the future, then we do so at our own peril.

It should be noted once more that the origins of Black History Month began with the work of the great Black historian G. Carter Woodson. The celebration began in February because the birthday of the great Frederick Douglass was in February. And I would like to share a quote by Brother Douglass:

There is no Negro problem. The problem is whether the American people have honesty enough, loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough to live up to their constitution.

We have seen the birth and the growth of the Black Lives Matter movement and white corporate America has paid lip service to the concept – but institutional change has been elusive at best for Black America.

The end of the Trump presidency featured the first truly armed insurrection against the United States government since the Civil War. That the insurrection was led and planned by a sitting President of the United States should make us very concerned that the worst is yet to come.

Right now, Trump lies dormant like a fat rattlesnake in cool weather. But cold-blooded reptile that he is, the warmer the weather the more active he will become. He is already venomous and we would be fools to think that he will not strike again.

Meanwhile, by every indicium – family income, infant mortality, life expectancy, incarceration rates, poverty levels, education and income deficits – the narrative of this country is that no matter where we live, no matter how much money we make, no matter where we went to school – if you are a Black woman, man or child – we live in a different country than that of our white sisters and brothers.

Since the November 2016 election we have seen the deconstruction of American democracy moving from slow motion to warp speed. And even though American democracy has never been the saving grace of Black America that it should be, its demise simply cannot be a good thing. That is because the successor to American democracy could be very well be an authoritarian America that will certainly not be the friend of any Black woman, man or child.

Since the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 – and I realize that many of you gathered today were not even born then and therefore have enjoyed a level of franchise entitlement that never existed for Black people before that year and…. may soon evaporate before the end of this decade.

We have seen the deconstruction of the Republican Party, at one point the party of Reconstruction- seemingly a million years ago- and is now the vehicle for a proto-conservative, authoritarian, neo-fascist, jackbooted and tattooed cadre of shock troops hell-bent on a reconstruction of America that will not resemble anything that has been seen in this country’s history.

We must understand that instead of worrying about how many times Joe Rogan says “nigger” we should be worrying about how many members of Congress and the Senate will no longer consider Black Americans as a legitimate part of their constituency and that we are not truly citizens of this country. And once that becomes the case, the remaining guard rails are coming down.

The American house is on fire. Like many housefires it may not be that noticeable at first – there might be some oily rags in the garage waiting for a moment of ignition or some old and moldy magazines smoldering in the attic and then – conflagration.

In the future we should never look back and say that we had no idea that it could get this bad. We have been warned and we have a choice. As Frederick Douglass said:

Power concedes nothing without demand

The question now is what do you demand? What do we demand?

We can regroup and reorient our focus towards resistance and resilience. We have to realize that our forebears didn’t even have shoes, but they marched to freedom – spiritually and literally.

Anything that we might consider to be freedom today is in jeopardy.

And if we just hope for better times, if we just go about our daily business with the assumption that things really cannot get that much worse, if we cross our fingers and refuse to imagine a more negative scenario than that in which we live, then we dishonor and disrespect everything that Black History Month is supposed to stand for:

-We will dishonor the enslaved mothers and fathers of our people who endured unspeakable horror, somehow holding on to the hope that if not their lives, the lives of their descendants would be better

-We will disregard the historic and epic achievements of Harriet Tubman and Nat Turner and Frederick Douglass on through to Fannie Lou Hamer, Harry T. Moore, Medgar Evers, Viola Liuzzo, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

-and we will disrespect the rich legacy of hope and expectation that has been our inheritance

What can we do? We can invest strategically in that aspect of the political process to which we still have access and demand of our elected officials that every moment of every hour of every day should witness their working with the realization that we are at an existential point in American history and our continued existence is not a given – we don’t have time for political labels or petty partisanship or anything else that does not aim for resistance and resilience

What can we do? We can focus on education, healthcare and community development as if our lives depend on it – because they do.

What can we do? We can immediately stop acting like business as usual is going to yield useful results.

What can we do?

Everything!

We can get more serious about voter registration and, as importantly, voter education and, most importantly voter engagement – in your neighborhood and in your community.

We can learn from the opposition to play the long game – focus on the community boards, the school boards, the state legislatures – not just the bright shiny object called the presidency.

We can develop a real agenda that needs to be supported by candidates at every level – local, state and federal– healthcare, housing education, police/criminal justice reform, voting rights, abortion rights – what exactly do you want? You cannot complain that the system isn’t serving your needs if you don’t know what you want, and you don’t know what you need. And we need to know what we don’t know.

What can we do?

If we believe?

Everything!

Now!

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Point of View Columns

Views on Mississippi, DeSantis and Words From Negrodamus

Mississippi Goddamn

Over a half century ago the legendary Nina Simone wrote and sang a song entitled, “Mississippi Goddamn”. The lyrics quite simply exposed the classic characteristics of dysfunction and true horror that are the primary characteristics of the Sunflower State.

And here we are, over fifty years later, Nina Simone’s words still ring true…. consider:

In The Matter of Tasha Shelby

Tasha Shelby was 22 when she was arrested for the death of her stepson – approximately two years of age. She was found guilty, convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

Twenty years later the prosecution’s doctor changed his testimony stating that the child died from a seizure disorder and changed the death certificate. That should have changed everything. But it didn’t.

In the Mississippi system of justice Tasha Shelby is still in prison. Even the revelation that one of the jury members was revealed to be related to the deceased child did not change matters.

As you are reading this, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves has refused to grant Tasha Shelby clemency.

And, in case you might be leaping to conclusions regarding the historic tradition of racism in Mississippi, Tasha Shelby is white.

Mississippi Goddamn in 2023

While Mississippi 36 per cent of the population of Mississippi is Black, Black residents of Mississippi are underrepresented in the state legislature due to demonic gerrymandering on steroids. And somehow, as this has taken place, the United States Justice Department has stood by, as silent as the Sphinx.

The latest result of this grits and corn pone version of apartheid, the Mississippi State Legislature is establishing a justice and police system that will override the existing systems in the majority Black city of Jackson. Incredibly, in 2023 the Black population of a major American city can be disenfranchised – and the sound of silence echoes throughout the land.

Mississippi Goddamn indeed.

DeSantis and Other Bullies

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis seems to believe that staying in attack mode will get him into the White House. And so, attacking Disney and Black History and transgender men and women makes sense to him. And obviously, enough people who in some leap of imagination that he should be President of the United States.

It will be interesting to see if there are enough people in this country who think that ideological combat is the best way for this country to go forward in the 21st century. The real danger is that with a certain level of non-participation it is possible that a 21st century demagogue could become president of the United States.

And if that is doesn’t seem possible – remember that Donald Trump was president of the United States.

Words from Negrodamus

There is a possibility that George Santos has an identical twin. If that is true the George Santos that lied his way into Congress may not be the George Santos who, in another dimension, lied his way into Baruch College and New York University without leaving a trace of his existence.

This is a strange story with no ending.

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Point of View Columns

The United States of Gun – The Eternal American Story

In America these days, every day seems like Groundhog Day. Literally there is not a week that goes by when there is not another mass shooting somewhere in these United States. Sometimes the weapon of choice is an automatic rifle. Sometimes the weapon of choice is an upgraded automatic pistol. Sometimes the shooter is white. Sometimes the shooter is Black. Sometimes the shooter is Asian.

Every time there are dead Americans left to be mourned.

Since January 1, 2023 there have be 71 mass shootings in this country – mass shootings being defined as four or more people are shot or killed, not including the shooter. At this rate there will be over five hundred mass shootings in this country by New Year’s Eve. And the 12.31.23 body count is too awful to contemplate.

Yet, keep in mind that this is the new normal in this country. Somehow Americans have been anesthetized or desensitized so that, no matter how horrific the carnage, thoughts and prayers and balloons and flowers appear over the corpses – and the thoughts and prayers float off into the ether along with balloons and the flowers wilt and die and lie with the dead in their final resting places.

It is important for it to be understood that this daily carnage is not normal. And it has never been normal. In 1982 there was one mass shooting death. In 2000 there were 47 mass shooting deaths. Last year, in 2022, there were 647 mass shootings. Americans are killing each other at an unbelievable rate.

There are already more than enough reasons why. The proliferation of guns in this country is of epic proportions – there are approximately 330 million Americans, there are over 400 million guns. There are more guns per capita in this country than any other nation except Yemen – which just happens to be in the midst of a civil war.

There are other countries with high levels of gun ownership, Israel and Switzerland come to mind. But those countries have powerful restrictions on the possession of guns except in extremely limited circumstances and, in both of those nations your guns must be locked up.

It would appear that this country is careening towards a gun fueled apocalypse – all of it the result of the pure, naked and uncontrolled greed of gun manufacturers who are enabled by the National Rifle Association, legislators who will surely sell their souls for a Remington or Colt dollar, and the 2nd Amendment liars.

The last set of enablers are totally loathsome because the 2nd Amendment does not reference the rights of individuals to be armed, but rather militias (which were important during the American resistance to the British during the Revolutionary War) could not be disarmed by the new government that was in formation. But the 2nd Amendment liars and charlatans are impervious to the truth or to the fact that by their lies they are contributing to the unnecessary deaths of thousands of American men, women and children every year.

It would seem that this not-so-new normal is meant to be the American way of life. First graders have to be taught to duck and cover. Every parent who sends their child to school has to hope and pray that they come home alive.

Workers in virtually any pursuit have to learn to “Run, Hide or Fight”. And we all have to wonder if the next trip to the mall or to the supermarket or to church might be our last act on Earth.

Hopefully this gun insanity will come to an end.

Because right now hope for a happy ending is all that we have.

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Point of View Columns

Being Black in America and Mixed Messages

The recent Super Bowl highlighted the fact that this game was the first time that two Black quarterbacks faced each other. It is also important to point out that during this past season ten out of 32 starting quarterbacks in the NFL were Black.

Meanwhile, in another part of the American universe 6 of the Fortune 500 CEO’s are Black.- another way of looking at this picture is that 30% of the quarter backs in the NFL are Black while barely one percent of the chief executive officers of the Fortune 500 are Black.

For decades the NFL and major college football programs would note place Black players in the quarterback position because — pick one – Blacks cannot think properly – Blacks cannot engage in useful executive decisions on the field — Blacks cannot successfully fulfill leadership positions — White players would never follow the lead of a Black quarterback.

The irony is that the ownership of the NFL has never been known as being progressive or inclusive. The ownership of the NFL has never been known for respecting the rights of non-whites or women. Indeed, the ownership of the NFL is still in the Stone Age when it comes to hiring Black head coaches.

But when we speak about the Stone Age, Corporate America is in the Paleozoic Era. The fact that only six Black people are considered to be worthy of being the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Meanwhile 5.6% of the Fortune 500 CEO’s are Asian American and 3.4% are Latino.

Keep in mind that during that at the beginning of this decade the white population in America is less than 60%. That percentage will never be larger. Within the next few decades America will no longer be a majority white nation.

Also it is important to note that the canard about Black men and women not being “qualified” to lead a Fortune 500 company is not even close to being true. During the past four decades thousands of Black men and women have graduated from the School of Business at Harvard, Stanford, New York University, Stanford – the list goes on. Yet, somehow, some way, in the first quarter of the 21st century, it is impossible for Fortune 500 companies to find a way that only one percent of these companies could find a Black man or Black woman to be the CEO.

In the wake of the Super Bowl, the irony as the bastion of racism that is the ownership of the NFL is comfortable with Black men holding what is arguably the most important position on the teams that they pay billions of dollars to own – the boards and shareholders of Fortune 500 companies cannot get comfortable with 1% of the Fortune 500 chief executive being Black.

It is a shame that here in the 21st century, Black people are still judged by their physical capabilities instead of their intellectual capabilities. It is reminiscent of the American traditions that go back the centuries of American traditions of racism and racist behavior.    

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Point of View Columns

Lies at the Foot of the Statue of Liberty

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

The next time that Ron DeSantis or Greg Abbott or Marjorie Taylor Greene take an Anti-Immigrant Demagogue Holiday in New York, they might want to take a ferry ride to the Statue of Liberty and read the plaque at the base of the statue. While someone might have to help them with some of the words with which they are unfamiliar like “poor”, “wretched”, and “homeless”, one would have to wonder if the full meaning of the Statue of Liberty would seep into their consciousness.

If they took the time to think about it (“thinking” being a herculean effort for these three) they might realize that when it the statue was assembled and unveiled on October 28, 1886, New York City had already been the point of arrival for millions of immigrants from all over the world for over two hundred years. And while there has always been an anti-immigrant virus in the American bloodstream, the sheer number of immigrants who have become Americans should have eliminated that virus from the American bloodstream.

This Less Than Tremendous Trio might have given some thought to the fact that the only non-immigrant descendants in the United States are what’s left of the descendants of the indigenous peoples of North America, indigenous peoples who were the victims of calculated racial and cultural genocide until they were almost extinct – like the buffalo and the passenger pigeon.

It is clear that when Greene and Abbott and DeSantis are talking about stopping the flow of immigrants to this country they are not particularly concerned about the negative economic impact of immigration. Indeed, in states like Florida and Georgia and Texas, the homes of DeSantis, Greene and Abbott the agricultural sectors rely heavily on immigrant labor. Indeed, the history of the American economy reflects a hug reliance on immigrant labor – whether voluntary, enslaved or involuntary (e.g. the Chinese labor on the transcontinental railroad construction).

And while anti-immigration advocates don’t seem to have a problem with Ukrainian men, women and children coming to the United States by the thousands, there is a problem with Haitian, Venezuelan and Mexican men, women and children. Clearly the concern is not American sovereignty – many immigrants become citizens who are fulling committed to the American Way. Clearly the problem is not that immigrants will somehow drain this country of various public service resources – immigrants give as good as they get.

So, what exactly is the problem? Clearly blond and blue-eyed Ukrainians are welcomed with open arms provided with housing, healthcare and employment. Dark skinned Haitians are beaten with batons and trampled with horses at the U.S.-Mexican border, given one hundred dollars and flown back to the hellhole that is now Haiti – a hellhole for which America carries a heavy historical burden of culpability.

It would appear that the issue is about race – which is the case in America since before the United States even existed. And it can be no coincidence that the opponents of non-white immigration are also against reparations for the descendants of Black enslaved people, and they are also against the teaching of racial truths in American schools, colleges and universities.

Donald Trump was on to something when he revived Ronald Reagan’s Make America Great Again slogan (without attribution – but what else could we expect from a true grifter like Trump). The MAGA chant was not meant for Black Americans or Latinos or Asian Americans or the descendants of the indigenous peoples, all of us wondering exactly hen was America great for us?

But the not so subtle, barely subliminal message in Make America Great Again harks back to a time when “minority” concerns were not a priority for white America. There was a time when racial segregated communities and internment camps and reservations were part of the American Way, and it was a time when very few white Americans found any of this to anything more than regrettable, but necessary, ways to keep America great for its white majority.

Today Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Donald Trump are blowing dog whistles that all of us can hear.

We know now that when America is Great Again it will not be Great for indigenous people. Asian Americans, Latinos or Black Americans.

Maya Angelou once said, “when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time”.

It is time for women and men of goodwill to believe and unite, while there is still time to Make America Great for the First Time.

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Point of View Columns

History Belongs to No One

          It would seem that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis believes that history is an item that is subject to possession and favorable revision. DeSantis seems to believe that history belongs to whomever gets to decide on what is history and what is not. He clearly believes that history is a flexible narrative that relies solely on the narrator.

          That this is not true should be obvious. That DeSantis is lying should be apparent. Because history is a collection of facts regarding what has already happened. And just because someone wishes to be selective regarding which facts are presented, does not change the reality of history – and that reality can be obscured for only so long.

          Every country and every culture has its idealized version of itself – it has its myths and aspirational images of what should be. Of course, that is not history – here we are talking about myths and aspirational images.

          Every country and every culture also has an idealized vision of itself so it is understandable that uncomfortable truths are many times overlooked in the name of patriotism and the belief in ideals that have yet to be attained.

          Following up on that point of view we begin to understand how the myth of America collides with the reality of America. The myth of America begins with intrepid pioneers and “explorers” who “discovered” land on which millions of people had been living for thousands of years. Indeed their “discovery” must have been quite a surprise to the indigenous people on this continent – just as the ensuing mass genocide that almost wiped out the indigenous people within the span of a few hundred years was a surprise.

The myth of America also portrays rugged and sturdy white citizens who, with their labor and superior knowledge and technology were able to build a sturdy agrarian based economy which in turn served as the foundation of an industrial economy that became a wonder for the world to behold.

The uncomfortable truth is that without horrific race-based slavery that agrarian based economy would not have been so sturdy. And if race-based slavery was not such an incredibly important asset to the American economy in the 18th and 19th centuries, it is doubtful that New York City would have been the capital of finance which not only financed slavery and the slave trade, but also created the great wealth which financed the transcontinental American “expansion”.

It would appear that DeSantis and his supporters believe that if we believe, and more important teach, as though genocide and slavery were not inescapably crucial elements of the America that we know today, then that reality will evanesce. Which, of course, it will not.

And therein lies the problem for the DeSantis’ across America. Not telling the true story of America does not make the true story go away. Prioritizing the study of “Western Civilization” while minimizing the value and importance of Black history in America is a fool’s errand at best. And most importantly, history does not belong to DeSantis or anyone else. History is a set of facts to be discovered, studies and understood, but history belongs to no one.

And again, it is a fool’s errand to believe that white boys and girls who learn the truth about the history of this country will become ashamed to the point of debilitation, when in fact they will be inspired to aspire to a better America.

Finally, how sad it must be that, at the beginning of Black History Month we have someone like DeSantis trying to proclaim that he owns history and that he will determine what aspect of history should be taught.

Some please tell DeSantis that history belongs to no one…it never has and never will.

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