AN EVEN PLAYING FIELD

Wow, here we go again. I’ve been away for a while, partly because I’ve been in a writing funk, but mostly because I’ve been busy trying to keep my head above water; doing the dirty work if you will, still working the night shift, and scrubbing cars on my days off, doing whatever I need to do to keep the lights on. Since my last post, a cease fire in South Lebanon was finally implemented, after approximately 1,300 civilian deaths compared to less than 200 deaths on the Israeli side of the conflict. What really caught my attention was the quick reconstruction response from Hezbollah following the ceasefire. Within days of the resolution, Hezbollah men hit the streets with bulldozers and money for the affected people. I’ve already said this once; let’s not sound foolish by calling people terrorists while overlooking what they mean to the people. Click here for a related reconstruction story. Yet one year after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, we’re still trying to figure out how to rebuild our own cities. Why has it been such a struggle to get New Orleans back on its feet? Does it have to do with race? Class? Both? Very much so if you ask me. Please watch the Spike Lee documentary “WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE” now airing on HBO. If you haven’t had the opportunity to see for yourself what’s going on down there, this documentary will certainly put things into perspective, click here . So anyways, where am I going with this one? Speaking not only of the Katrina recovery efforts, is it an even playing field for minorities today? Would things be further ahead in the recovery efforts if the socioeconomic status of the affected regions was higher and predominantly white? Is the recovery effort seen differently by different races? Well, if you ask Rockey Vaccarella, he’d tell you things are doing great, and he’s happy with the FEMA trailer he lives in, click here. I watched Vaccarella on the news that day, and I have to admit he was painting a picture that not even the news casters could believe; he was just so thankful for all that’s been done for him. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying not to be thankful for whatever help you get. I’m just saying there are a lot of people in New Orleans that would disagree with Vaccarella’s outlook on the recovery efforts, which is probably why his story made it to the media in first place. How do the people that never got trailers feel about the whole thing? How do the people that will never be able to return the New Orleans because they didn’t have any claim to the land to begin with feel about it? Now they are displaced in a different city, in many cases away from everything they once knew, that includes family. This post is not intended to be strictly on Katrina, but on whether or not an even playing field exists at all even when it comes to something so widely covered such as Katrina one year later.
I often get together with a friend of mine to talk about race relations and whatever hot topic is out there. We often do this while attending a baseball game or we’ll just go out for a few drinks and just go at it. My friend Will, now 50 years-old, is by American standards a white person, his father was Irish, and his mother is Italian. I met Will about 8 years ago, we worked for the same company, but we never hung out together or anything and I sometimes wonder if we would’ve ever clicked as friends had it not been for what I call just a simple twist of fate. One night while I was still in the office, a little old lady showed up looking for her son, Will, who called her stating that his car broke down a couple of miles from the office, he needed her to pick him up. So I wound up escorting the little old lady over to where her son was, and with that act of kindness an odd but good friendship was born. So anyways, I began to discuss different topics with Will the other day, and we were talking about the Gulf Coast recovery efforts, how slow things have moved along, we talked about how badly neglected the people in the region were way before Katrina ever hit land, how that was the real crime. Katrina simply put the decrepit state of the minority population, particularly in New Orleans, on a magnifying glass for the entire world to see. So we got to talking about race relations on a greater scale, and so the question was thrown out there: is there an even playing field for minorities? So a mini debate took place on the welfare system, affirmative action, and the education system.
Of course, my take on the entire subject is that minorities are at a huge disadvantage and the playing field is largely tipped against us minorities. Additionally, programs that attempt to even out the playing field such as affirmative action, are constantly under attack by the ruling majority; these attacks create a great deal of animosity towards minorities and women benefiting from them, it’s almost like you’re being punished over again for being black or for being a woman for that matter. The idea of these baseless attacks is to create the perception that white people are in fact the ones at a disadvantage; let me just say right out that this entire perception is a fallacy, we all know that unemployment rates are much higher among blacks, and minorities do not rank higher than whites in education or income levels. I’ve been trying to get promoted into management at my current employer, and the experience has been one filled with so many disappointments. I’ve been turned down for promotions more than I’d like to admit, and unfortunately I haven’t been given a convincing reason as to why I haven’t made the cut. The feedback has always been positive (to the ear at least), yet I’ve never gotten the job because of some other factor, not my qualifications or ability, I’ve even heard them say it wasn’t the right time. While I was venting with Will in one of our outings, he said to me this: “Don’t worry about it man, these things tend to workout in your favor sometimes”, that was six interviews ago. So then he went on to tell about a situation where he wound up not getting a managerial job over a black female, he said that was a way of companies fulfilling a double quota (women and minorities) with only the hiring of one person. Although this might be true as far how some companies deal with affirmative action, his belief and way of thinking is in line with the white disadvantage perception. In Will’s defense, I can say that he’s a work and progress, he’s admitted to acting racist in his youth, and he’s come a long way, at least he’s not afraid of talking about race relations with a person of color face to face, I don’t know how well he’s doing with his own kind though. According to Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, “If someone uses the phrases “affirmative action” and “reverse discrimination” in the same sentence, it is usually a sign that a lesson on White privilege is needed. This is not to say that everyone who understands White privilege supports affirmative action policies, but at least that basic understanding assures that all parties in the conversation recognize that there are systematic social inequalities operating in our society, and that the playing field is not level”. For a good lesson on White privilege I’d recommend stopping by Changeseeker's blog, whyaminotsurprised.blogspot.com , there's a link on my page for her, she’ll break it down for you. So what is affirmative action? So many people get so heated up about this, I thought it be good to actually define what we’re talking about. Dr. Tatum offers a great definition: “attempts to make progress toward actual, rather than hypothetical, equality of opportunity for those groups which are currently underrepresented in significant positions in society by explicitly taking into account the defining characteristics-sex or race, for example-that have been the basis for discrimination”. Now, there are a few ways companies implement affirmative action program, they can be categorized as either process oriented programs or goal oriented programs. What’s the difference? Well, process oriented programs focus on creating a fair, consistent, and equal application process. The assumption is that a fair process is going to yield a fair outcome. So in theory, if everybody got the same shot at the job, everybody was asked the same types of questions, then without a doubt the best candidate is going to be selected, regardless of sex or race. That sounds real good in theory, but is that what really happens? Is there room for bias? If so, how does it go unchecked? What happens quite often is that the decision maker may make his of her decision based on some other exterior reason, if a white candidate has extra credentials that may not even pertain to the job itself, those credential may be used as the deciding factor. On the other hand if a black candidate is carrying some extra credentials, than it may be taken as an over qualification, which may be used as a negating factor. Process oriented programs have been proven to be infective in practice. Now the goal oriented approach to affirmative action attempts to fulfill an organizational goal of diversity. These aren’t quotas being filled, but organizational goals that in fact can be exceeded. All things being equal, job requirements and all, the candidate selected should be the one who fulfills the organizational goal of diversity. In any event, if a minority is selected over a white person, this in no way, shape, or form means that a less qualified minority was given a job over a more qualified White person. In order to apply for a position, the candidate must be qualified, why in the world would I apply for a job as a surgeon if I’m not medical doctor? The problem is most white people always think they’re more qualified than any minority.
I’ve been quoting Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum to help me mull through this entire affirmative action deal; I’ve been trying to understand the way affirmative action policies are implemented so that I can better asses to the extent I myself have been discriminated against, although it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out. Anyways, I wouldn’t make a claim such as “white people always think they’re better qualified than any minority” without having something to back it up. Let me quote some of the work of social psychologists John Dovidio, Jeffrey Mann, and Samuel Gartner; in “Resistance to Affirmative Action: The Implications of Aversive Racism” they argue that White opposition to affirmative action programs is largely rooted in a subtle but pervasive form of racism they call “aversive racism”, which is defined as “an attitudinal adaptation resulting from an assimilation of an egalitarian value system with prejudice and with racist beliefs”. What this means is that most European-Americans have internalized the cultural values of fairness and justice for all while at the same time being exposed to constant messages of racial biases and stereotypes prevalent in American popular culture. Dovidio et al argue that aversive racists “do the right thing” when the norms of appropriate, nondiscriminatory behavior are clear and unambiguous. In situations when it is not clear what the “right thing” is, or if an action can be justified on the basis of some other factor other than race, negative feelings toward Blacks will surface; in these instances an aversive racist can discriminate against a Black person without threatening his or her “racially tolerant self-image”. So in the case of affirmative action, a White interviewer or human resources executive can indeed discriminate against a Black candidate basing his or her decision on some other factor other than race or specific qualifications. To explore how such a bias can affect how Blacks and Whites are perceived when it comes to competence, Dovidio et al. conducted a study in which White students were asked to rate college applicants who on the basis of transcript information were strongly qualified, moderately qualified, or weakly qualified. For every applicant labeled as a White, there was an identically qualified applicant also labeled as Black. There were no differences in how the students rated the weakly qualified applicants, rejecting the applications regardless of the race ascribed to the application. Whites were rated slightly better than Blacks in the moderately qualified samples, but not significantly different. The significantly different ratings come into play when the applicant had strong qualifications. Even though the strong qualifications applications (as were the others) were identical, only labeled Black or White, the Black applicants were evaluated significantly less positively than the White applicants. In others words, the more qualified the Black applicant is, the more likely he or she will be perceived or evaluated as less competent. In a similar study conducted by Dovidio et al, the bias was even more apparent when the Black person being rated was in a position superior to the White evaluator. While White high- ability supervisors were accepted by subordinate White raters as being somewhat more intelligent than themselves, White raters consistently described high-ability Black supervisors as significantly less intelligent than themselves. So even when we’re talking about a Black supervisor who is more competent than a White subordinate, the White person may see the situation as a Black person with fewer qualifications is receiving preferential treatment. So what did Dovidio et al conclude? :

The aversive racism framework has important and direct implications for the implementation of affirmative action policies. Affirmative action has often been interpreted as “when all things are equal, take the minority person.” Our research suggests that even when things are equal, they may not be perceived as equal particularly when the minority person is well- qualified and the situation has personal relevance to the non-minority person. Because Whites tend to misperceive the competence of Blacks relative to themselves, resistance to affirmative action may appear quite legitimate to the protesters. Insufficient competence, not race, becomes the rationale justifying resistance.

So even with laws that are designed to even out the playing field, you can see that a bias that people may or may not be aware of is still working to keep the scales tipped, favoring the ruling class. One thing is certain, if you don’t know you have a bias, you’ll never understand what I’m talking about, and you’ll never believe racism is still alive. How can you fight something you don’t know is there? How can you get rid of something you don’t even acknowledge? White privilege people, look it up. As I told my friend Will, in reality the ineffectiveness of affirmative action pales in comparison with the poor education we offer our children today, you want to talk about a real equalizer, let’s talk about fixing the education system.
The public education system in our country is nothing to be proud of, and in my opinion, it’s a main cause for inequality, leading to diminishing Black representation in higher learning institutions and the work force in general. Why do we not want to deal with this problem? What the hell is “no child left behind”? It’s a mockery, and politicians out there today have the faintest idea or interest. Providing all children with quality, honest, and competent education is the key to the future of this country. Why are we not putting money where it’s needed the most? We need books, teachers, and computers, all that good stuff, in poor neighborhoods, we need after school programs for under privileged communities, we need to give these kids wings to fly. Instead, funds are still being allocated by zip codes and real estate taxes. Of course the suburban schools are going to be prepared, properly staffed, and even beautified. But why can’t we divide the funds equally? It’s not that hard to do, this way the predominantly Black and Latino schools, located in the ghettos of America, can also enjoy smaller classrooms, state of the art libraries, relevant text books, competent teachers who actually care about their students. Last time I checked the percentage of Black kids who drop out of high school is still above 60 %, highest among all minorities. This is where the unfairness all begins, in the schools. What do you think most of this Black youth is going to do? They are certainly not going to become stock brokers and CEOs, their chances would be slim to none with out education. On the flip side, our government spends dozens of times more money building and running prison facilities than what they could be spending on education. So it’s not that they don’t have money to spend, rather how they choose to spend that money and why. Human warehouses, people that would otherwise be productive citizens had they been given a fair shot, a decent education. I’m not saying crime wouldn’t exist, but our decrepit education system certainly does generate more criminals than scholars. You do the math. But it’s all systemic if you ask me, everything has a functional end result. Our country is systematically set up to provide the best of opportunities to those already in power. Don’t get it twisted, what you see today happening in a country is not an accident, it is a design.
My conversation with Will on welfare was a rather short one. I don’t think he knew that the average welfare recipient is a single-white female, not generational Black baby mamas who get pregnant just to get more money out of the system. That’s just yet another unsubstantiated claim created by some to make us all look bad. I’m just going to wrap this one up right here. I’ll be addressing the racial socialization of children in this country on my next post, good stuff. Holla…….

WHAT'S REAL

I’ve been so busy lately; don’t even know where to begin. Since my last post so much has happened. I’ve been watching the news carefully, and trying to see where the truth lies between all the reporting going on, reporting that I must say is more one sided than not. Many say we’re very close to World War III, so far all I’ve seen in bloodshed, one dominant country, Israel, completely destroying the weaker country Lebanon. I do not intend to minimize what a life is worth, because I understand that what apparently set this whole crisis off was the kidnapping of 2 Israeli soldiers by the Hezbollah organization, one that was born out of the resistance movement against Israeli occupation in Lebanon during 1982. What this tells me is that no matter how one might want to isolate the incident, it always stems from the past, as in any event, in order to completely understand it, you must dig for its history. So the problems in the Middle East can be traced back to the rebirth of the nation of Israel in the 1950’s. Many will tell you that there will never be peace in the Middle East, and from what you hear in the media, the blame always seems to be put on the Arab or Muslim people. Why do you think that is? Why do we always label anything that we don’t fully understand as radical? , Militant? Terrorist? Yet we choose the ignore the carnage around the situation, we chose to ignore who is applying pain and suffering here, we even chose to ignore what the rest of the world thinks about how much force is being exerted here. George Washington led the resistance in our journey towards being a sovereign and independent country. People cannot and will not be oppressed forever, that’s just part of the human condition. So as much as we like to call everybody a terrorist nowadays, let’s not sound foolish while doing it. I will not agree with every tactic employed by some of these organizations, but the one thing they have in common is that they’re all trying to change the social and political conditions they are living in now. So how does that relate to us? Some of the changes these organizations seek may not benefit us as a country, and I’m speaking economically, not security wise. See, I believe that if we really want to be diplomatic at all, or be of any help to the world, we should try to solve conflicts like this with the peoples best interest in mind, not the leaders, not any given country, the people, because they are the ones getting blown into pieces day in and day out. Over 400 Lebanese, most of them civilians have died; every single soul as precious as any Israeli civilian. Click here to see what our ambassador has to say about collateral damage. Same scenario with Palestine, everybody was happy about the country having elections until HAMAS won the elections, chosen by the people, which says a lot if you asked me. Now, that being said, I do understand that you cannot call for the destruction of a people as HAMAS has done as well as other Muslim leaders have done. So, as I mentioned earlier, somewhere in the middle of this whole fiasco lies the truth, buried beneath all the deaths, all the previous wars, and most certainly tied to the past and to religion, more on that further on down.

Now I’m not standing here defending terrorism, I’m standing up for humanity, in much the same way the world responded to the Holocaust when Hitler tried to eliminate the entire Jewish race. And I’ll take the opportunity to say that I don’t think any Arab or Muslim nation can actually accomplish the destruction of Israel, as much as some of them call for it. Israel is too powerful militarily to be taken out like that, not to mention they have the U.S. as their cheerleader and ally. This is why this whole crisis is so alarming to me; it’s not even a fair fight. Was there any other alternative for Israel other than to butcher its neighbor? Of course there was, they could’ve talked, no one group of people is better than any other, and so we should be willing to talk to any group, even if that group shares completely different views on whatever many issues. The word racism has come up in many of the articles I’ve read. Go to the link “ANSWER” I have on my page for more information on this alternative perspective, something you won’t see on CNN. Do I think it has to do with race? Absolutely it does, it has to do with being Arab, it has to do with being Jewish, it has to with weather you’re pro or anti-American; it has to do with religion as well. There’s no single answer to this, but these are the major factors surrounding this issue. Occupation is what I relate this the most with, it comes in different forms, and we just choose to only look at one side of the coin. Some may say that immigrants are taking over our country, right? And this is why we want to secure our borders, and toughen immigration laws, right? I mean, if we don’t stop all these Latino people, they’re going to change our land, they’re going to take over, never mind that we nearly enslave them for labor, they are threatening the status quo, right? I mean, we got some pretty animated people behind this issue, and mind you that we’re not really being threatened by anything eminent per sei, but the loss of political power scares the hell out of the elite. And this is how this all relates to us. Imagine having to deal with some other country trying to take over what we call home. Many speculate on how complicated things would get if Iran and Syria join the fight against Israel. But who fears for what is happening now? Who is speaking out for the hundreds of innocent people that have already died? Walter Mosley once said that we as a country must look at ourselves as among the enemy; that we most consider if we have done anything as a country to provoke all this violence. Are we occupying some of these Middle Eastern countries, and enforcing our will on them? Are we turning our backs to some of these countries? Are we exploiting any of these countries? Or are we guilty by association? Iraq comes to mind when I look at the entire situation, and I can’t help but to feel sad for the 2500+ soldiers we’ve lost in the war, and the tens of thousands of Iraqis that have died in this crazy, unjustified war, in the name of freedom and democracy, ha. Why are we even in this country? These are the kinds of situations that give the rest of Americans a very bad name, when we bully our way through the world, not valuing life, not even our own lives. Digging deeper into this whole scenario, including our involvement, is the core source of all of our differences, an institution that has claimed more lives than all the major catastrophes in history combined, that is the social institution of religion.

Ironically, the 3 most influential religions in the world, Christianity, the Muslim faith, and Judaism are all fundamentally Abrahamic; they share some of the same books, and in theory, they all believe in the same God whether they call HIM Jehovah or Ala. In the name of God, ushered by religious practice, man has committed the biggest crimes in history. Where should I begin? Well, if you look in the Bible itself you will find evidence of brutal wars going on in the name of God, the war between the chosen people of God and the unclean heathens, you’ll find blood all over the Old Testament. The Spanish were at war for 700 hundred years in the name of religion, trying to claim their land back and rid it of Moors and Jews. If you didn’t convert to Christianity you could be expelled from the land or maybe even killed. Then we can go back to the late 14th century and early 15th century where in the name of God, the Christians of the world, began to enslave Africans to bring to the Americas, so they could work them to death. The Spanish for instance argued that they were indeed doing the world a favor by Christianizing the Africans and Natives, that they were nothing but savages, and would not be able to see the face of God if it weren’t for them. In the name of God David Koresh burned with 80+ of his followers. More recently, my hometown of NY was attacked on 9/11/01, in the name of Ala, which is what got us where we are today, fighting the war against terror. So whose God is right? For which of these Gods is it ok to kill for? What happened to the all loving God? This is what I’m getting to, religion is supposed to be a unifying force, a practice that accentuates the good of all humanity, yet none of the religious leaders has been able to stop the bloodshed, always one claiming to be the one true faith and announcing damnation to the rest of the world. Religion is one of the strongest social institutions worldwide; it has so much to do with how we behave everyday, and how we look at the world, our socialization begins at a very early age. As a child, I myself was raised in the Roman Catholic faith, so very early I was taught that I was only supposed to get married once, that murder was a cardinal sin, not forgivable by God, that fornication was bad, that eating meat on good Friday was being irreverent to God, and I got very good at memorizing entire verses of the Bible or the rosary book, let’s not even talk about the Virgin Mary. Later as a young adult, I tried out the protestant approach, now this was even harder in the sense that nearly everything you could possibly think of was a sin. I mean, I went to churches where listening to secular music was ungodly, women couldn’t wear makeup or pants, so many doctrinal procedures, it was hard to keep up with it, it really did feel like a camel would have a better chance of squeezing through a needles’ eye before I could get into heaven. I lived my life in fear of eternal damnation. I used to wake up in the middle of the night sweating, thinking I had missed the rapture. So what am I saying here? All I’m saying is that as human beings we must never lose our ability to think for ourselves, to process the information passed on to us, and actually see if it makes sense. Religion nowadays has nothing to do with spirituality or even salvation for that matter, and I wonder if it ever did. Look, I’m not here to renounce God himself, but none of this that I see today comes from God, and if it does, than that’s not my God. It’s a giant socialization machine, that how I see it, it creates the biggest fears on people, and this is how you get them to follow your every absurd idea. Fear mongering is what it is, this is how George Bush got re-elected, and it’s exactly what goes on with some of these other militia leaders. The right wing extremist of our nation have dictated a lot what we can and cannot do in our country recently, and it all comes from these misplaced values of cleanliness, morality, and righteousness. If we could only practice what we so adamantly preach, we might have a half ass chance into heaven. George Bush just vetoed a bill that would’ve help fund embryonic stem-cell research, click here, on the premise that it was morally wrong, and I quote "Human beings are not a raw material to be exploited or a commodity to be bought or sold and this bill will help ensure that we respect the fundamental ethical line,". The problem I see with this veto is that it is morally hypocritical, the same man that is making a statement about how precious every single life is, is the same man who has created chaos in Iraq, causing death by the thousands, and he hasn’t even skipped a beat. So far he’s done nothing to influence Israel to stop killing people, yet stem cell research is morally wrong, there’s a thin line between precious life and collateral damage I guess. But this veto was done exclusively to satisfy the religious right, let’s not forget we have elections coming up in November, and he needs to make sure that his fan base shows up at the polls. Do you see how powerful the social institution of religion is now? The same could be said about leaders such as Osama Bin Laden and Hassan Nasrallah, they too have a following, and I’m not drawing a direct comparison here, but my point is that all three of these leaders claim to have faith in God, they all appeal to the masses by using religion as the basis for their moral stance or course of action. Who is right? I ask again. What lives are worth saving? Armageddon is coming says the preacher man now, they end of the world is near, the return of Jesus is sure to be soon, let us repent and ask for forgiveness and salvation. Not that these preachers haven’t been saying this for years now, but it certainly is a way to keep the following faithful. The signs are all there, right? But let’s keep in mind that they were probably saying this during WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Desert Storm the year 2000, 9/11, and of course again now. I’m not saying there aren’t any good lessons to be learned from religion, but these are not the lessons we hear of today. Live in fear is what I hear, who knows; maybe the people in power will be able to scare us into another term in office ya know. See, when we don’t know the answer to something, when we don’t know what lies ahead of us, when we are cluttered with unpredictability, that’s when we are most vulnerable, that’s when we turn to God, to faith, to a higher power. Instead we are misguided by those who seek their personal interests and hide behind the holy cloth. Let’s not just take everything at face value people, use your head as much as it may hurt to do so. And that my friend, is real.

THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT EXTENSION ON HOLD?

The House of Representatives is expected to renew talks concerning the landmark Voting Rights Act; this act enabled blacks and minorities the right to vote. The 25 year extension to the bill was expected to sail through Congress. However, a small group of southern representative, including FL, objected to the extension, stating that some of the southern states would be singled out and forced to pay for errors from the past they claimed they have corrected. One of the provisions calls for some of the southern states, such as TX, FL, and GA among others, to have to seek clearance with the Justice Department before implementing and changes on voting rules. The benevolent southerners feel that they are not receiving credit for the strides they have made over the years towards civil rights. They further contend that it would be Justices Department burden to prove why these southern states have to go through this extra scrutiny. Click here for one of the stories.

Ok, for one, thanks to a southern state like the one I live in, Florida, we single handedly gave George Bush the presidency in what will probably go down in history as one of the biggest most embarrassing voting scandals. We still don’t know where a bunch of those ballots went. So you expect me blindly to trust state voting officials to do the right thing? I think not just the southern states should be held to this scrutiny, but all the states. Let’s not pretend we haven’t heard of last minute voting pole location changes in largely black districts to make things not so easy for us. Many voters even miss out on voting because of messes like this, sending me from one place to another until there’s no time left. Why is it such an inconvenience to have to report every voting rule change to higher authorities? Do we not feel we have to answer to somebody, at least people we represent, which brings up the real reason this is such a problem for some Republicans. The reason they have a problem with this is because they would seem extremely obvious in their gerrymandering tactics, which is a clever way to minimize the minority influence in politics.

Another provision they object to is one that requires states to print out ballots in other languages if that state or region is heavily populated by non-English speaking citizens. They contend that since immigrants are supposed to be proficient in English, there should be no reason for a ballot printed out in Spanish for example. For another article click here .

Let me just say this, I guess proficiency in the English language would be a requirement to become a citizen. The problem with that word would be how you define proficient. There are many people in this country that may very well have the ability to carry a conversation in English with you, but does that mean they feel comfortable reading in English? Last time I heard, you don’t have to be literate to cast a vote, oh wow, thanks to the Voting Rights Act, so why should you be subjected to cast your vote, and maybe not be sure how you’re voting because the ballot is not printed in a language you’re most comfortable with. Let’s not forget about some of our older citizens that have been here most of their lives, yet haven’t been able to dominate the language. You cannot say that these people are dumb or un-American. There’s a big difference between learning a couple of words, understanding a language, and completely mastering a language. Scientific research shows that language development occurs in the frontal lobe of the brain; this part of the brain takes some ten to twelve years fully develop from the time an infant is born. Multi-language mastery is most successful in children, up to the ages of 10 or 11-years-old without any visible accent in any of the languages learned. Once the frontal lobe is fully developed, language mastery becomes a bit more difficult, not impossible, but more difficult. The older you are, the harder it will be to learn a second language; this explains why some people that have been here since early adulthood still have problems dominating the language. Whenever you see a person who can dominate more than one language without any visible flaws in any of them, that person positively learned the languages at a very early age, and used all languages on a frequent basis. So it’s not so much that foreigners are stupid or slow, but it’s more of a biological limitation that all humans have. I would argue to say that they’re pretty smart for coming to just understand the language. Having lived in Puerto Rico, a commonwealth of the U.S., I know for a fact that nobody speaks English regularly in the Island (other than hospitality employees), yet all Puerto Ricans are citizens, and millions of them live in the states, what do we do them? Call them non-citizens? My mother would’ve fit this particular scenario very well (rip).

The bickering over these 2 provisions is so freaking childish, it should be an insult to all Americans alike. What is it that we’re trying to do here? Turn the clock back in time? As far as I’m concerned, this Act should be made permanent, not extend it 10 years, or 25 years, or whatever, make it a permanent fixture. Even though many of us are living under a presidency we did not vote for, it is our right, and responsibility to continue to vote in the future, and we should make sure that our rights are not temporary. The loss of power is scaring the crap out of elite, but let’s not let anything intimidate us. Make it permanent; things may change for the better, maybe not for our generation, but for our children.

THE MAN IN THE MIRROR

Some time ago I was hanging out with a Latino friend of mine, and for some reason we began to talk about different people and their attitudes. Right now the specifics of the conversation are a little blurry to me, but I know my friend began to speak about African-Americans being too sensitive when it came to race relations, she mentioned something about letting things go, that things weren’t as bad as they were. Needless to say I began to explain to her some things about internalized oppression; statistical data that reveal how much lower minority incomes were compared to European- Americans. I talked about the institutionalized oppression and how our prisons are overpopulated with brothers doing time for pity crimes; I also spoke about how much more we spend on building maximum security prisons than on good educational programs that would intern give young people more options before turning to crime. The conversation got deep, and my friend asked me why I was so passionate about the subject, I replied that the subject was part of who I was, and that led to explaining to her about my background, how I was raised Puerto Rican, but in reality I was African-American. This revelation took my friend by surprise, for one, she was amazed at how good my Spanish was, but until then, she wasn’t quite getting why I was so high strong on speaking about race relations.

A week went by and I hung out with a larger crowd of Latino friends, so that night at the party, one of topics of conversation was my race; evidently they got to talking about it in my absence. So another one of my friends comes up to me and tells me, “Yo Jay, I didn’t know you were black, I thought you were Puerto Rican”. Don’t get me wrong, they weren’t trying to be nasty with me or anything, but the news seemed to surprise everybody, so instead of introducing me as usual, they began to introduce me as: “this my friend Jay, he’s black, can you believe it?, and he speaks better Spanish then me” So the party went on, the introduction took place a couple of more times, and the fact that they were mentioning it so much began to bother me, I just felt like suddenly they had a different perspective about me after learning about my roots, I didn’t know what to think about what they were saying and how they were going about the whole situation. Later on, after sobriety went out the window, we were all having a good time, and one of the people in the party was chilling with me, cracking some jokes and what not, when she said to me that it didn’t matter where I came from or if I was black or whatever, that I was still a cool guy.

The next day I woke up with a lot on my mind. For starters, the night before showed me once again how race changes peoples perception, sometimes for the good, a lot of times for worse, what a power lie the notion of race still is. But more importantly, I was racking my brains trying to figure out why their comments about me being black bothered me. I felt like after knowing these people for some time already, it was like they met somebody completely new just because I was black and not a “pure Puerto Rican” whatever that means. Let’s keep in mind that I was the one who opened up this whole race door. After some more reflection, I was able to see that they weren’t really trying to hurt me, and their friendship and affection to me is still to this day unchanged; these people are truly good people who I consider very good friends. But there was still something bothering me, what was it? Why was I upset about this whole black thing? So I literally looked at myself in the mirror, did it for a long time, thinking about this whole thing, until I finally saw what I needed to see. I saw a black man, a handsome one I might add, lol. You see, you can tell yourself all kinds of lies, some lies you’re taught early, other lies you hold on to because they are more comfortable for you, because you have an excuse, because you didn’t have a say, you were just born into a crazy world. Sometimes you just don’t know where you’re going to wind up, a maze sometimes. But the truth is the best way back into sanity, if you’re strong enough. For a long time I stood on the fence, what am I? Back? Latino? Asian? Which is better? Hmm….. Through lessons, hard knock lessons, sweat, tears, scratching for some room to breathe, I’ve come to understand who I am, how does society look at me, and grown some pretty tough skin. So I looked at myself in the mirror and finally came to terms with myself, I embraced my blackness, it’s who I am no matter where I was raised or how many languages I can speak. A black man is black man here, in Puerto Rico, in China, in Nigeria. Ultimately, I’m still the same guy I’ve always been; only now I have a better understanding of myself, and I’ve been able to be honest to myself, I’ve learned to love myself, to keep my head up high you know what I’m saying.

Later on I began to think about my younger days, and I was able to see how differently I had been socialized. I mean, I grew up worshiping Latin girls, and that’s understandable having spent some time in the island, but what was amazing was that yeah, I can remember having crushes on white girls too, and those Playboy magazines where some of my favorites, occasionally I would see a pretty black girl, but for a long time I never even dated black girls. My first sexual experience with a black woman wasn’t until my mid-twenties. What I’m getting at is that I was never taught that black was beautiful, never; all I liked was always lighter than me. I guess that would’ve made me invisible when I looked at myself as a young man, that’s pretty fucked up, what can I say, ok you’re influenced to think one way, and then on the other hand from time to time you get treated like you’re less than dirt, that can be very confusing for a teenager you know.

So now, as a grown up, I’ve come to terms with that man in the mirror, and I see exactly who I need to see, me, and I love everything about it, and love my sisters, and I’m sorry I ignored them for so long, that was really my loss, black is beautiful, feel me, and I’m not just saying this, I mean it with all of me. I’ve learned so much about myself, that in all honesty, I wouldn’t want to be anything else but black, if I come back in another life, I hope I’d come back black again, that’ how rich this is……..More on this later……

THE JOBS AMERICANS WON'T DO?

Last year the President of Mexico, Vicente Fox, caught a lot of heat from the African-American community for making some very bold statements; he said "There is no doubt that Mexicans, filled with dignity, willingness and ability to work, are doing jobs that not even blacks want to do there in the United States," click here . He later called Al Sharpton, as well as Jesse Jackson to apologize for unintentionally offending the African-American community. Where Fox went wrong was perhaps in not taking into account how our great nation came to be what it is; it was built on the backs of our ancestors. So in reality, there are no jobs black people haven’t had to do in this country, and for many years they were forced to work for nothing at all. Now, I do want to say that what Fox said took a lot of courage and is not entirely false. As many of us have noticed and commented on, all minorities have been able to benefit from the sacrifices made by the African-American community. Thanks to the civil rights movement, as well as the feminist movement, all legal minorities have some sort of voice; they have rights, at least in principle. I’d be upset too, if someone wasn’t careful with their choice of words, making my people look lazy, as if we didn’t have to put up with enough bullshit, we still are. This is where I somewhat agree with Fox, we don’t do these jobs not because we’re too good for them, or because we’re lazy. We don’t do these jobs because those jobs simply don’t pay enough for us to live off. As it is, 26% of African-American men and 36% of women hold poverty level paying jobs, click here. We fought with our lives just to get this far, and we got so much more to go, why in the world would we do jobs that pay below minimum wage? Thankfully, many of us do not have to go work at a farm, or kitchen, or in the back of a landscaping truck, or out in the sun in some construction site. There are some of us that may just have to do whatever it takes to make things happen.

I have a friend who happens to be an illegal alien; he simply overstayed his visa, and has been working under the table ever since. Now he doesn’t have the worse paying job, but very demanding, physically that is. He works for a pressure washing business, the owner of the business has many contracts with local car dealerships; the task is to pressure wash all the cars on the given lot, and then dry the cars up with a shamy so they won’t stain. This is not a detailing job; it’s simply to keep the cars looking shiny and dirt free, if the car is sold, it will get detailed then. On average, he washes some 700 cars a day. Being the crew leader benefits my friend quite a bit given his illegal status, he does most of the pressure washing, plus he gets the pay his help whatever he thinks they deserve. My friend is from South America, but the help he affords to get mostly are Mexican helpers; he pockets a reasonable amount, some $700.00 a week, while paying his helpers $350.00 per week. Sounds like good money doesn’t it? Let’s see what he doesn’t have: He has no holidays, no sick pay, no insurance, and no guarantees at all. The job is extremely demanding on the body; you’re constantly wet, yet you’re out in the sun, the water sprayed on the cars gets hot very quickly, so while you’re drying the cars it feels like you’re in a steam room, you’re shoes also get wet, to the point of getting that wrinkle effect from over saturation. It doesn’t get any better in the winter time where you would still be wet, only freezing instead. This is what many illegal immigrants have to do for a piece of the pie. In my friend’s case, his helpers only make $70.00 a day, which may be a lot compared to what an orange picker makes. Imagine having to work for that amount of money and knowing that if you get sick or hurt, you won’t be covered and you may even lose your job because of it. These workers almost represent what our ancestors had to go through 400 years ago, and we would probably be getting paid by the same standard had it not been for the civil rights movement. Some of us may still be under similar circumstances, only we have rights; we can assemble and create grassroots efforts legally to force change. Yet what amazes me the most is that some of us still have to resort to working for nearly nothing because that’s all we can do.

The job I currently hold right now is more of a weekend job, I get my 40 hours, but I rack them up while everybody else is resting. My full time job is from Thursday to Sunday. I do get to rest for three day, which is how I was able to earn my degree. I do realize that what I make at my job is not a bad salary, and I know there may be people out there in way worse circumstances than me, and for that I am extremely grateful. However, almost half of the money I do earn is automatically taken out of my paycheck to pay for child support. When it’s all said and done, Uncle Sam and my children have consumed 60% of my earnings making things extremely tight for me to manage my own expenses. I’ve already tried to come up the ranks with my employer, and the process has been one filled with bitter disappointments. I’ve been turned down some 5 times for supervisory positions. Not that I’m crazy about becoming a supervisor, but given my time with the company, my experience and my education, there’s no reason I couldn’t do the job nor should I be denied since I’ve already been given a leadership role as it is, only I don’t get the pay I deserve for it. It seems that I’ve hit the glass ceiling, and no matter what kind of spin I put on things, how much I’ve tried to convey my work ethic and mental capacity, all they see a dark man they can’t seem to connect with, intimidating perhaps. But my bills and my everyday needs are not their problem, so the rent barely gets paid, robbing Peter to pay Paul, that’s what I gotta go through to make it happen. I will see redemption someday, maybe at my current employer, but not likely. In the meantime, I’ll just have to hustle, do whatever it is to stay afloat, even it means working every day of week, even if it mean having to wash cars for $70.00 bucks a day. So what kind a man with a degree gets reduced to having to work out in the sun all day? A black man like me, and I’m not ashamed to of it, I can get my hands dirty, it’s all good, I can handle the looks I get from car buyers when they see me all wet and sweaty, if they only knew, it just reinforces a life lesson, nothing’s ever given, nothing comes easy, but I will die trying, you feel me? I’m only trying to eat what they’re snacking on.

Ever wonder how brothers wind up selling drugs? Is it by design or by need, or both? How do these drugs get to the ghetto? There isn’t any real money in the ghetto? If there was any real money, it wouldn’t be the ghetto. So you take the bait, you get caught with a rock, and then the system chews you up and spits you out like garbage. You get to work for nearly nothing, picking up trash from the highway or something like that, with some pig watching over you (sound familiar?). If you’re lucky enough to get out, your worth is less than zero, you might never be completely integrated back into society, so now you may have to take that $5.00 per hour job as your main source, and the cycle gets repeated like your Kenmore. Yeah, I’ll wash cars on the side, but I will not be branded like cattle, and I will not be kept down forever.

As for the 11 million immigrants in this country, the government would rather not give them rights at all; it would violate the 1st commandment of Capitalism, Thou shall not pay for labor fairly. I wish my brown brothers all the success in this struggle, continue to fight, you only have until November to force something. This is all about big business and the conservative movement. Fight for legal status, it’s where it needs to start. Mass deportation is out of the question, we can’t afford it from any angle, but let’s make sure we get something fair that will allow illegal immigrants become legal instead of paid slaves.

P.S. I’ve been busy making some paper, but I will be posting more often, holla……

MY OWN REVOLUTION

This blog will be dedicated to one thing only, and that is to speak my mind on whatever race related topic I feel the need to address. The blog is simply a way for me to get things off my chest. Lately, I’ve had too much on my mind, good, bad, and indifferent, but nowhere to let out all this steam, well almost nowhere. I’m a sociologist at heart, so most of my daily interactions, thoughts, and scenarios will come from a sociological perspective. I named my blog my own revolution because I often think that’s what needs to happen in order to see real change in society. But where are my revolutionaries, where are the Luther Kings, the Malcolm Xs of today, the Fred Hamptons, people that really care about what happens in our communities, people who are aware of the oppression we are still under, and this is not just the brothers and sisters only, it goes beyond that. In the midst of an election year, I see no hope in sight for real change from this bullshit we have to put with today. The war, our education system, our president and who he represents, the fact that racism is still alive, and how it attempts to still keep us oppressed through unfair disadvantages, laws that are designed to keep us in prison and further cut us off from mainstream society. This is the kind of stuff keeping me awake these days, it isn’t anything new, but a lot of us are just sleeping through this. Who’s speaking for us? Really, who is?
I was born in Brooklyn, New York, and I was partially raised in Carolina P.R. where I lived for about 10 years. My story begins back in Brooklyn where I was given up for adoption at birth. My father was African-American and my mother was of Asian descent; the result of this mixture was an orphan child, not wanted by his birth mother, probably because I was too dark, it’s my best guess considering the polarity that even to this day exists between these two races. As for my father, I don’t really know what the deal was with him, don’t know if he had another family, or if he was in prison at the time, that’s anybody’s guess, but that’s a complete separate subject, I’ll have to post some solely dedicated to that.

I grew up as a Puerto Rican even though I was clearly darker than the rest of my family. Don’t get me wrong now, I’m not saying there aren’t any dark Puerto Ricans, in fact, as part of the African Diaspora, P.R. has a significant amount of African ancestry as does the rest of the Caribbean, Central and South America. Anyways, my point is that I was the darkest of the family, and you could clearly see that I had no resemblance to my family at all. Growing up I always thought that there was a difference in being black and being a dark complexioned Puerto Rican. Sure, there are cultural differences and what not, but what else is different? Absolutely nothing. I’ve come to believe that part of my reasoning was by design, perhaps my mother (the adoptive one, and the only one I will always call madre) was trying to protect me from some of the things she had witnessed in her younger days. See there was such a time where being African American was categorically unacceptable in many social circles and arenas such as sports, but if you were Roberto Clemente, you weren’t as bad as being a plain ole nigger, you were Latino, feel me? I always knew there was something different about me. See, in Puerto Rico racism is not as noticeable, put it’s still alive and well.

I’ve heard many Puerto Ricans say that racism is non-existent in the island, not so. I can tell you from personal experience it’s there. The number one thing I am asked when people, regardless of nationality, find out I have Hispanic roots is: Are you Dominican? Why is that? Because of my proximity to the Haitian color? As if there where no black people in Puerto Rico, only in D.R.. This image has been created both by people living in the island, as well as second and third generation Puerto Ricans living throughout the United States. The fact is, you can find any type of blend in the island, you’ll have some that look more native, some more Spanish, and some straight out of Africa, all three races and cultures have been blending for over 500 years. As a kid, it was very common for a family member, a loving teacher, or even a friend to refer to me as “negrito”, in English that translates into little black boy, sounds harsh, doesn’t it. But in Puerto Rico negrito or negrita are actually terms of endearment. Is it really? This is true for most of the Caribbean, Central, and South America. The only two influential black figures that I remember distinctively from my Latin childhood were the composer Rafael Hernandez, and baseball legend Roberto Clemente, but I never saw the black character in the novella be the good guy, or the smart one, never but maybe once in a leading role. Now when it comes to comedy, black Latin images are in abundance, even in comic books such as “Memin”, which was a comic book about a little black boy, depicted much like little black sambo, or even famous local actors like Angela Meyer playing characters very much like Aunt Jemaima. All in good fun, right? Shit, they had me thinking all this was normal. Max Weber once said that a series of ritualized norms lived in over time, become natural. So even though I was taught not to react to racism, there were always certain reminders that would keep me in check so that ultimately I would still know I was different. Let’s see, there was always that odd look I would get when seen with my mother in public; she was way lighter than me, strong Spanish features, they never guessed she was my mother, no way, how could that be? One of the most vivid memories I have on race as a kid was a confrontation I had with an older cousin of mine, in the heat of the argument she blabbered out of her mouth “negro sucio”, yeah, she called me a dirty nigger; that happened some 20 years ago, but I’ve never been able to forget the amount of hate that was expressed with those words.
I still believed there was a difference between black and brown, until I got back to the main land in 1990. After a few months back in the states, I lost my Spanish accent, and I noticed nobody ever guessed I was Puerto Rican or anything like that; black people would call me brother and any Latinos I would run into would speak Spanish around me because they thought I didn’t understand or speak the language. So here in Florida I began to make real connections with my own people. I began to immerse myself into a whole new world I had been alienated from up this point. While I began to understand how African Americans were treated in this country, I also saw how in some instances playing the Latino race card could sometimes benefit me, especially in FL. Now, at the end of the day it all becomes a struggle for power between them and us, all of us, blacks, browns, yellow, you name it.

We are all positioned systematically to play a specific role in the grand scheme of things. The socially constructed notion of race becomes real to all of us, to those who never in their lives have to deal with somebody who looks like me, and so very real to those of us who have to follow some norm of assimilation, for those of us who wow any European American when he or she hears us talking like them and interacting in a way they feel comfortable with. Parrots can also mimic people too, and very well I might add. So what are they really impressed with when I speak “white”? What are they really saying? That my intelligence can only be measured by the extent I can sound, walk, and act white? Never mind the four year degree I have adorning my wall. And I’m not just making stuff up here. I can now say that I’m proud to be African American. I’ve experienced blackness in the most beautiful ways, but also in the most demoralizing and insulting ways.

African Americans are 4 times more likely to be unemployed at all education levels. To learn about statistics like this one in college can be very impressionable, put to see it with your own eyes really puts things into perspective. I experienced some of this with an employer who denied me the opportunity to advance into management without any convincing excuse or reason. Why did I not get the chance? The picture we are all sold on is that a college education is the key to success in the workplace, get a degree and the sky’s the limit. Just with that one condition, you manage to cut off over 60% of the black population from competing since that’s the percentage of kids that never make it out of high school. So one day you show up to your job and tell Mr. Bossman that you did, you got a degree. “Can I get a real job now?” But the Bossman says to you that “the timing is just not right” or whatever the heck he wants to say so as to not to let you in. Hmm, the truth of the matter is that many people do get the opportunity to advance into stable positions, many times without any significant qualifications, only they didn’t have to sacrifice their families on the weekends, or work twice as hard just to get noticed. You know what I’m talking about? I’m sure some of you do. I gotta leave that one alone, no more specifics. Kanye said it best, “nothing’s ever promised tomorrow, today”.

This is why “my own revolution” was started. I know I’m not alone in this struggle, in this daily mission, the need to hustle, the need to make a change, the need for a revolution. So I want to put the word out there, if there’s a way to pimp the system out, I want to let it out, and I’m not necessarily talking about illegal activity as defined by our laws, but we can still pimp this mother out for all it’s worth. You see, our government more often than not fails to allocate funds for the needs of our communities, yet the bulk of the taxes collected to run our government comes from middle and low income families. How’s that for pimping? There are other instances where help is available, yet our government does such a crappy job in getting the right information to the people who need it. That’s not a mistake, come on now, but I’ll be dammed if we don’t take advantage of whatever we can get. Yeah they make it confusing sometimes, but that’s just part of the game. So many times I’ll be talking about stuff that’s near and dear to my heart, other times I’ll talk about current events, and other times I’ll be talking about stuff that straight up pisses me off, but also be on the look out for information that can benefit you directly or maybe someone you know. This is Each-1-Teach-1, welcome to “My Own Revolution”.