Police History with Blacks Not Forgotten

Whatever anyone thinks of the altercation between Harvard scholar, Henry Louis Gates, a black man, and the police, one thing is true: the history of how police have treated black men is a bad one.

None of us know what really happened. The scrubbed choir-boy look of the arresting officer giving television interviews, basically exonerating himself of all wrong, didn’t move me. We in the African American community, and some in the white community, have seen that before.

Police have been known to harass black men, arrest them, and then lie about it. Even after swearing that they will tell the truth, and nothing but the truth, police have lied to protect their jobs, and police departments have lied and supported offending police officers in order to keep their departments together.

That’s the history, and it has not been forgotten.

On the other side, any African American mother with an ounce of sense tells her young boys what to do, what to say and not say, and how to say whatever he does say, when and if stopped by police. One does NOT antagonize the police. It’s suicidal. For men, I would suppose that’s hard, because it seemingly becomes a battle of egos. Machismo kicks in, and the young man stopped doesn’t want the cop to think he’s a punk.

If he thinks that way and acts like it, he’ll most likely be arrested.

So, mothers tell their sons to be quiet and polite, to bite their tongues but to get the name and badge number of the officer. If the encounter is a rough one, mothers advise their sons to get the information quietly.

Not that anyone thinks the officer will be addressed, but keeping quiet keeps one out of jail, and getting the badge number and name gives the citizen a sense of dignity lost in the encounter.

Professor Gates apparently didn’t follow the golden rules of police encounter. One police officer friend of mine said that the officer was wrong. He flat out said it was a false arrest, and he said that the officer was wrong in not giving Professor Gates his name and badge number when he was asked.

“You are absolutely supposed to give a citizen your name and badge number if and when they ask,” he said, “that’s why some officers will take off their badges sometimes because they know the rules.”

Hmmm. Nobody said anything about that being a part of procedure when they talked about how the Cambridge officer was following procedure in all he did.

But here’s the thing. Let’s say that the Cambridge officer was completely in the right. What handicaps him is the history of white officers with black men. There have simply been too many instances of white officers harassing black men, locking them up and then lying about it.

There have been too many “oops” shootings where a white officer, scared, has assumed that a black man has been dangerous, just because of his looks, and the result has been too many hasty shootings, resulting in too many wrongful deaths.

African Americans and other minorities know the history of black/white law enforcement encounters all too well. Professor Gates might very well have offended the white officer by accusing him of racism, but it’s the history welling up, spilling out and over. The question in the mind of a so-called “good” citizen, in his own home, having produced ID and proof of his status as a Harvard scholar, would, yes, be “are you harassing me because I am black?”

“Would we be going through this if I were white?” In the minds of us who are African American, the answer is “no,” and it is infuriating to know that no matter how “good” or “compliant” we try to be, no matter how much education we get or how well known we are, we are still, in the eyes and minds of too many, still second class citizens.

The unfortunate thing is that all white officers get clumped together, as do all black men. There is no distinction between individuals. It feels like, more than anything, that the Cambridge officer fell into a state of male ego as the other male confronted him. He, the officer, had the power, and used it. That probably happens a lot.

The fortunate thing, though, about this unfortunate encounter, is that it shows America that we are no way in a post racial society. Until we admit and deal with the hidden, subliminal prejudices that affect us all because of this country’s racism, we will never be able to move forward, African American man elected to the presidency notwithstanding.

And that’s a candid observation.

Caring for the Least of Us

It is a hurtful thing when someone feels that things or money are more important than one as an individual.

A while ago, a friend of mine, pregnant, found herself at her stepmother’s home when she went into labor. Her husband had dropped her off and was at work; my friend’s labor was getting bad rather quickly, and so it was not rocket science, after watching her pain intensify, that there was a need to get her to the hospital.

There was a problem, though. My friend’s husband was not there, and the stepmother had an issue.

“You can’t get in my car,” she said. “You might mess it up.”

The car was a Mercedes. My friend was devastated.

She called another friend who lived nearby, who rushed over and picked her up in time to get to the hospital before her baby was born. When the stepmother came with my friend’s father to see the baby, my friend refused to let her in the room.

“Her car was more important to me,” she told me later, her eyes filling with tears. “Her car was more important than me or this baby.”

It was a hurt that has probably not healed to this day.

In another instance, this one more personal, I was graduating from college. Education was preached to us our whole lives; it was expected that we would all go to college, all five of us, which we did.

Our mother, however, died before seeing us all achieve that. That was sad, but we were pretty sure our dad would be just as proud as Mama would have been, because he had preached education as hard as had she. But when it came time for me to graduate from Occidental College in Los Angeles, my father, who lived in Detroit, did not come.

“It’s too expensive,” he said. It’s not that he did not have the money; it’s that seeing me graduate was not a priority for him, not something on which he wanted to spend his money.

So, I graduated with no parent present.

I thought about those two instances today as I listened to the debates going on about health care coverage for all. The battle cry is that it is too expensive; both political parties are balking about the cost, and to be sure, it is high.

But the alternative, the so-called “least of these” not being able to get health care, is not acceptable to me. If it is that people are “pro-life,” then shouldn’t that sentiment carry over to wanting to take care of those who have been born and who are trying to live?

Lawmakers have excellent health care, as do their children. Is the fact that those who “have” cannot “see” those who “have not” getting in the way of them exercising compassion?

It is so easy to ignore people who are struggling; we isolate ourselves and stay in our comfort zones, and then, as if to justify ignoring those who “have not,” we begin blaming them for their conditions and fall into the not-so-true statement that if one wants something in the United States, he or she can have it.

Tell that to Indians on reservations. Tell that to people who live in Appalachia, or to brown and black people in ghettos who cannot make ends meet in spite of working two to three jobs.

Tell that to parents of children with cancer or other terminal or chronic diseases whose health care benefits have run out, and all they get when they confront the system is a lot of double talk and red tape.

Tell that to young college graduates who cannot get jobs with benefits and who cannot afford to get health care on their own.

Some people give up, but far more keep pushing and reaching for the American dream which simply is not guaranteed to everyone who seeks it

Crunched in the middle of the overall health care plan overhaul is the issue of children’s health care. Yes, Congress passed the CHIP bill earlier, but what is needed now is a solidifying of a health care plan which will insure all children. The Children’s Defense Fund is supporting amendments to the current health care bills being considered that will insure all children, that children will receive all medically necessary services regardless of the program serving them, and that the bureaucratic barriers that keep far too many children uninsured will be done away with.

We’re talking about 9 million children. We’re talking 42 million adults. We’re talking about human beings, all worthy of getting health care.

Someone said to me, “Health care is not a right.” Huh? I don’t understand that. The way the system is set up now, that person is right; health care now is a privilege. But it ought not be that way. It ought to be, especially in this country, that any American citizen, anyone working and paying taxes, gets adequate health care.

Someone else said that’s socialism.

Huh? How is everyone getting health care the definition of socialism? Though those who are preying on the fears of people are using the “s” word, the health care reform package in no way gets rid of private health insurers. It does make it possible, though, for people to get health care through the government if they cannot afford private health insurance.

The arguments being put forth against health care for all reminds me of the stepmother who didn’t want her Merceded soiled by her pregnant stepdaughter, or my dad, who didn’t want to spend the money to see me graduate from college.

What we invest in the people of America will determine the strength of America. The health of too many Americans is badly compromised by largely preventable disease and illness. Are the “haves” so covetous of their status and things that they really cannot share enough so that the least of these have a fighting chance at a good life?

Gee, I hope not. I know that the fight is all about money. It’s about big business not wanting to lose profits.

But what does it cost a nation to keep its profits and in the process, slam the door of indifference in the face of so many of its citizens?

Because that’s what all this barking about the cost feels like.

And that’s a candid observation.

On Sarah Palin

I don’t like Sarah Palin and I don’t like Liz Cheney.

But I agree with Liz Cheney on two things: 1) the media has exercised its sexism in its coverage of her, and 2) every time Palin is attacked by those who do not like her, her ratings are going to go up.

The latest report of Palin’s so-called ethics violations made me gag. Who’s fooling whom? There is no way Palin has been any less ethical than any of her male counterparts, yet we do not hear of these incessant ethics violations charges against them.

For some reason, the mainstream just does not like her, and apparently, many in her political world do not like her, either.

But if they (the media and the political sphere) think that they are going to destroy her or make her go away by keeping these charges coming against her, or attacking her, they are more naive than I’d like to believe.

Why don’t I like Palin? Because I think she represents a small, bigoted portion of America, not the masses. I don’t like her because she seems too ready to do what I think “the right” has done too much of: attack and prey on the fears of people. I do not like politics at all, and I especially hate attack politics.

It feels like, from the reports that we’ve all seen on television and read in the media, that the good ol’ boys did not and do not like her. Their sexism has been apparent, and I think they have pandered to the mainstream media that they say they hate, to get them to print and report their opinions of her.

I don’t think that’s right, even though the last thing I want is Sarah Palin in the White House. Sexism, like racism, is wrong.

It’s OK if the good ol’ boys don’t like her, but it’s not OK for them to manipulate the press to attack her. They are only garnering more support for her. The press has attacked her through attacking her daughter and her infant son. That does not bode well.

To make matters worse, her “almost son-in-law” jumped into the fray and has attacked her as well.

They are setting her up to be the scorned maiden of the political world, and for many, that will bring sympathy and outrage, bolstering her appeal, not lessening it.

I wish Sarah Palin would go away. It is clear that she is not. She is, in spite of my angst about it, being a very clever politician, and the men in power are too dumb to see it. She is playing them, and they are losing.

That’s just a candid observation.

Insidious Supremacy

I think that we are seeing an insidious form of white supremacy in the confirmation hearings of Sonia Sotomayor.

This is not an accusation. It is an observation.

At the heart of the issue is the assumption that only white men have the capacity and ability to be impartial, that only white men have a history of not allowing their biases and prejudices to affect the decisions they make in court or, for that matter, the stories they write or produce for television and radio.

It is obvious that Judge Sotomayor’s comment that a “wise Latina” might make better decisions than white men has galled the good senators, and many journalists as well. There is an air of incredulity that she would have the audacity to say such a thing, and a genuine distrust of her, a fear that she will be unable to make sound judicial decisions because she will allow her background to sway her.

Angelina, Michael and Kids

I wonder if I missed it – the story by ABC News wondering how or if Angelina Jolie’s black kids would do all right with a white family?

I only ask because I exhaled a sigh of disgust when I saw posted on my Facebook page a link from ABC News. It was entitled, “Will Michael Jackson’s White Kids Get Along With Black Family?”

How amazingly ignorant and telling of where the heads are of the producers of ABC News. Not only was it ignorant but ridiculous. Haven’t these kids BEEN getting along with their black family?

I reacted because, still, the illness called racism stings in ways and places we, or at least I, wish it would not. When Angelina Jolie adopted her black kids from Africa, I do not recall any big news story asking if her black kids would get along with their white family.

In that case, it might have been a more justified question, because those kids, Angelina’s,I mean, came from a nearly all-black environment to a white home. Quite the shock, I’d say.

But Michael Jackson’s kids have been close to their black family from the beginning. I would assume they have had plenty of contact with black kids, black culture, black food. So, what’s up with ABC News?

I have tried to watch quietly as stories touching on race have come up since Michael Jackson died. Before this ABC News piece, I gnawed at my fingernails as I watched Marcus Allen, the little African American boy whose summer camp class was told it was not welcome at a private white swim club, fight back tears as he voiced pain about being talked about so poorly by white families apparently concerned that association with black kids would be bad for their children.

I winced and bit my lip as I read what the president of the club said in his club’s defense, saying the problem was not racism but an issue of overcrowding.

OK, I thought. I’ll be stupid today.

The issue for that president is that his members, his paying members, probably threatened him his job if he didn’t do something about getting the undesireables out of their pool.

Little Marcus Allen thought that people “didn’t think like that anymore,” and his mother, the director of the day camp, said that it was ridiculous that in 2009, we were and are still dealing with this type of thing.

Sad as it is, though, we are. We are still dealing with racism because we have never dealt with racism. Everybody has wanted to believe that just because Barack Obama was elected president that the sticky fingers of racism, a tumor in our society, suddenly dissolved and went away.

How about not?

America is like a patient that knows something is wrong but is afraid to go to the doctor. Our racism is not getting better. It is at best the same, though some explicit, noticeable things have changed. That is progress for sure.

But what needs to change are the feelings individuals carry inside, feelings of superiority or inferiority, depending on one’s race, that have been incubated and nurtured since slavery. Those feelings are deeply rooted in the psyches of Americans, whether we like it or not. We do not want to admit to the illness. That’s why there’s such a rush to claim “post racial” America. But no such animal exists.

If Angelina Jolie’s black kids will presumably be all right in a white world, not just with a white family, then why would not Michael Jackson’s kids do all right with a black family? Jackson’s kids are in an environment with a grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins whom they love and who love them. They have been in each others’ company since birth. Why would they NOT be all right?

America, America, stop denying this peculiarly “American” disease and let’s deal with it, once and for all. Jackson, ironically sang, “It doesn’t matter if I’m black or white.”

How about that’s an ideal that has not yet taken?

That’s a candid observation.