Thinking on the Concept of White Privilege

My virtual blogging friend, intellectual compatriot and all around just cool person Arlene Fenton, author of the currently quiescent blog Black Women Vote, has had occasion recently to point out to me what she considered possible evidence of "white privilege" in operation, in connection with the shocker win by a white sorority in a step contest.  Its not a topic I get into often if at all, but her comments did stay with me and today I came across an explication of the concept of "privilege" that I thought was particularly salient and explanatory.  Oddly enough, it comes from a Hot Air post pushing back on the characterization of Conservatives as closed minded. The salient bits in my mind:

The point is that when one group has privilege, and the other doesn’t, the response isn’t symmetrical, a fact that the dominant group tends to spend a lot of time remarking upon. The out-group is angrier and prizes its group identity–”conservative”–over weaker affiliations like “journalist” or “sociologist.”

That’s why you have black newspapers, and Jewish magazines, and Irish arts centers, but no “Bland: The Magazine of the American White Middle Class.” The dominant group doesn’t enforce its group identity the way the out-group does. It doesn’t have to. It gets to decide what constitute[s] the acceptable modes of behavior, sources of authority, and ways of knowing. The privileged group doesn’t need its own institution specifically devoted to advancing its interests.

Mothers: Send Your Sons To War

We're losing a generation of young black men. Trapped not only within geographic ghettos, but cultural and mental ghettos, with walls built out of dependency, ignorance and a poverty of vision. Young men with better than average intelligence, but with minds and imaginations left to wither on the vine in progressively failing public school systems.

Young men and boys growing to adulthood in female headed households, without fathers or even father figures. Drowning in a degenerate and spiritually bankrupt miasma of rap music, drifting through extended family networks tethered weakly to incomplete family units with no idea what an intact family even looks like except for Cosby reruns.

Now, these poorly educated, improperly socialized, fatherless boys are adrift in a faltering information age economy indifferent to their lack of skills, initiative or circumstance and its not working out.

Meanwhile they are coddled and indulged by mothers or grandmothers or girl friends and baby mommas who shelter them in basements, spare bedrooms or apartments into adulthood and beyond to a point where their instinct for dignified independence is dulled and senile.

I have such drifting young men in my family and you probably have one or two in yours. Whats to be done? Send them to war.

We should be encouraging, exhorting, cheering on these unemployed and underemployed boys and men to join the military in droves, droves I say. Employment, opportunity, training, benefits, values, honor, duty, country, God. Its all right there, everything they are not getting as they slowly molder on momma's couch. They are drifting through a failing economy while the military's offer of opportunity and advancement is ignored because momma is afraid her baby might get shot. So we let them drift and rot into stunted manhood, stumbling through our cities, urban zombies of disfigured and maimed potential leaving neglected children in their wake.

Wasn't there a time when mommas told their young men "you got to get out of my house and stand on your own two feet"? When the barber at the shop would say "if you don't know what to do with yourself, join the service". Now we eschew such advice, and why? Because its not cool for black boys to go to war, to go serve anymore? Because somehow we think we're selling out to send black boys to the military? Its crazy talk. There is no honor nor value in being undereducated and unemployed and incapable of supporting a family, but we indulge and tolerate that very outcome for multitudes of our young men despite the fact that military service is a readily available alternative.

The armed services have often been the leaders in providing opportunity, in demonstrating equality and a culture of merit. Its a place where a boy can learn how to be a man, where he can be tested in the fire and forged into something stronger. Its structure, its discipline, its hierarchy. Its a job, its honorable and instead of ginning up yet another midnight basketball program over at the church, maybe we ought to be ginning up the armed services urban recruit escort program, to walk our boys right from that high school graduation where they picked up that worthless diploma and into their billet in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard or Marines.

White Guilt, Political Correctness - What Is This Really About?

A recurring theme out there in the political atmosphere about Barack Obama becoming president is the idea that we live in a PC, guilt addled culture that was willing to elect an unqualified affirmative action candidate for its attendant history making feel good effect.

This meme never fails to tick me off. Every time I hear it or see it expressed in writing in one form or another, I think to myself "Dear God, please stop with the whining". Its enough (almost) to make one yearn for the days of open and unabashed hostility between white and black as a more open and honest time. 2040 has not arrived yet, there are still way more of you than us. If affirmative action is such an anathema, just outlaw it or better yet, simply stop doing it. I resent the resentment about such things, though if I'm being fair I have to admit black people had a hand in creating it. We share some of the blame, as race hustlers like Sharpton and Jackson have created small, self serving industries out of exploiting white guilt and defensiveness about race. We've been willing accomplices often enough.

If I get analytical about it, then I have to ask, if we are a guilt ridden PC culture, what is it that white America is guilty about? What is the guilt that Sharpton and Jackson exploit for money again and again? They keep drawing from this well and each time I see it happen, I'm wondering what underground source are they tapping?

What is it that makes the city of New Haven deny white firefighters promotion because a few black test takers didn't make the cut? The test subject matter was known beforehand. I presume that the same books the white fire fighters studied were available to the black firefighters. In the absence of some relevant information that I'm missing, at first blush, it just does not make sense that the city of New Haven would behave so completely unreasonably merely because black firefighters complained, legal catch 22 or no.

You can't put it all on us. What is it at work in the psyche of white America in 2009 that makes the New Haven case possible? Obama is easy to understand (white guilt did not elect him, simple as that), but the New Haven case, that makes much less sense. Can you explain it? I can't.

The End Game is Not Diversity, Its Education

Brother KMyles at the Wichita NAACP blog sends out an impassioned plea to resist the movement back to neighborhood schools in Wichita without concurrent redistricting.

"Saying that neighborhood schools "may not be as diverse as we'd like", but they will be "equitable" is essentially no different than saying that the races of children will be "separated" into different, "but equal" schools. That battle has already been fought and the very notion discredited."

In his view, permitting resegregation into neighborhood schools again will produce a host of enumerated bad outcomes;

• a return to practically single race schools
  
• a gradual migration of highly qualified and experienced teachers from the predominantly African American Schools to the predominantly White and suburban schools (which is a feature of teachers union contracts that allow them to move with seniority)
  
• the replacement of those highly qualified and experienced teachers with newly minted and inexperienced teachers
  
• a precipitous decline in test scores
  

Leading to:

• adapted curriculums (more block hours on NCLB testable disciplines to the exclusion of civics, the humanities, and some science courses)
  
• increased focus on basic proficiency and a decreased focus on high achievement
  
• a 'hardening' of the achievement gap

To put it bluntly, I think he's all wet on this. There is an underlying assumption in his discussion, namely the idea that securing educational achievement for black children is synonymous with diversity, where diversity = the presence of white children in their classrooms. What are we saying; that the presence of white children in the classroom apparently flips an educational switch in the brains of black youth and they have better educational outcomes? This is really an absurd way to secure educational excellence and achievement for our children, and I'm stunned that in 2009, we fail to see it. KMyles cites the distressing results of the 2007 replications of the Kenneth Clark Doll tests as proof of the urgency of the issue.

It is indeed sad and distressing to watch these tests that seem to indicate a crushing lack of self worth or esteem on the part of these children. But for the love of Mike, will someone explain to me how the remedy for that is ensuring they are educated in a classroom with white children!!? How does doing that cure this? More to the point, why is a desegregation strategy pursued to address things such as migration of experienced teachers or deficiencies in curriculum? Why not attack those problems directly, which are not caused by a lack of diversity, but by the deficiencies of centralized, bureaucratic school systems.

Diversity has now become an end in and of itself, ferociously pursued on the faulty assumption that it is an appropriate proxy for educational quality. It....is....not. Its quite ironic that local chapters of the NAACP of 2009 continue to pursue this strategy. Ironic because I do not for one second believe that the architects of the legal strategy that over turned segregation pursued a desegregation course because they believed being educated in a diverse classroom was the route to better educational outcomes. They pursued that course to break out of a separate but equal regime that was only separate. In order to gain the equal part of the equation, they knew they had to be able to send black children to the schools white children went to, because those schools were better resourced and provided for. It wasn't about diversity or being educated with white children, it was about escaping the shoddy conditions of the schools black children were confined to.

Look at the history of the cases which were consolidated and argued before the Supreme Court by the NAACP's legal team. Every one of them was about getting black kids out of crap schools that were purposely maintained that way. This is the historical backdrop against which KMyles makes his argument for resisting movement back towards neighborhood schools without redistricting that would presumably ensure substantial numbers of white and black children would be educated together. What is the theory here, that the presence of white children equates to a better school? If the school is all black, by default its children will recieve an inferior education? If thats our approach to education for our children, is it any wonder that a 2007 replication of the Kenneth Clark doll tests produces such horrific results? We are telling the kids that they are less when we behave this way.

Diversity does not equal quality education and should not be pursued as a primary, secondary or tertiary strategy for delivering better schools to black children, but it has become an end in itself. It doesn't appear that anyone is really being critical about the issue and recognizing that the integration strategy pursued in Brown vs. Board of Education was really about getting black kids out of inferior schools and into the better schools whites maintained for themselves. This was the real point of the battle. Black kids were forced to attend poorly supplied and resourced schools and denied access to the well resourced and supplied schools of whites. I'm quite certain that Thurgood Marshall didn't think we needed to attend white schools because diversity was so wonderful and necessary for black children. He fought to reverse the forced denial of education to our kids and get them better schools. The doll tests and the self esteem arguments were simply emotional sweetners for their arguments, essentially filling the same role that WMD did in making the case for the war in Iraq. That was the point then and it should be the point now. To deliver better schools to our kids.

But its not. We fight tooth and nail for integration as an end in itself. But we are missing the forest for the trees. We should be fighting to get our kids educated well, not whether or not they can attend a school with white students and achieving the latter does not assure the former. Its not a necessary fight in the modern age, because we can attend most any school if we can afford it or if we live in its attendance zone if its a public school.

But we are wasting time with diversity while our kids are falling further and further behind, refusing to face facts, one of them being that centralized public school systems lack the management and educational fire power to address the educational needs of urban populations stressed by a variety of socioeconomic conditions. Like the auto companies, they are saddled with legacy labor costs they cannot shed and union structures that are part of the problem, not the solution. These centralized bureaucratic systems are not nimble enough to deal with whats happening to our kids in and out of school. Furthermore, they are expensive and inefficient. We are spending two or three times what we should because these systems allocate their resources for education poorly and our money is not doing the work it should.

I'd also argue that far from being a detriment, neighborhood schools, properly implemented, are a benefit not only to the educational outcomes of black children, but also to the value of our neighborhoods. Anybody who's left the hood to live in the suburbs knows that quality of schools has a material impact on the value of homes in a given area and its a major attractor for people to invest in a home in a particular locale. If we pursued excellence in neighborhood schools, we would have not only better educational outcomes, but the value of home assets owned by the people in that neighborhood would rise because the presence of a high quality neighborhood school makes that neighborhood more desirable.

I'm not just long on critique. I've got the big gun answer - charter schools. Why are they the answer? Because when properly implemented, a charter school system drives accountability for performance down to the school level, is driven by market forces such that the good ones will thrive and the bad ones will fail, is open to a variety of configurations and approaches and does it all for about a third of what public schools do it for, particularly with regard to physical plant.

Lots of places in the US have charter schools, but there are only a few that get it right. The one that has the best system in place in my view is Indianapolis. The mayor of Indianapolis is the only mayor in the country currently with the power to charter schools. In nearly all big cities, Mayors are confronted with failing public school systems, but since they don't hire the superintendent and they are not on the school board, they have little ability to actually affect how school systems run. However, they have to deal with the consequences of a failing system such as aversion to homeownership investment in the city and poor workforce preparation.

Why are charters better? In my view, all of the accountability for performance is right at the school level. You don't have to mediate accountability for performance through superintendents, school boards or teachers unions. Charters must exercise care to serve the needs of their students and their families or lose their enrollment to another. Secondly, the charter approach permits tremendous variation in educational approach and philosophy. It is far more flexible in responding to the needs of students.

Sadly though, the charter approach is often hotly protested in the cities where its needed the most. We fight tooth and nail to preserve a public school system that consistently under performs for our kids, that promises to improve and rarely if ever does. We fight to preserve centralized bureaucratic school systems as though they have a right to exist, as though they are the only way to do education. I have conversations with people about education and they argue strenuously for more propping up of centralized bureaucratic education systems, but they are never very clear about why it can't be or should not be done any other way. Case in point Detroit. In 2003, Michigan millionaire and philanthropist Robert Thompson offered the city $200 million to build 15 Detroit charter high schools. His offer started a full scale war by the teachers unions on the Mayor and the Governor and when the dust had cleared, Thompson was run out of town along with his $200 million. Lest you think I'm just harshing on Detroit, I lived there for 8 years and I was around for that particular fiasco.

Education is an imperative for the African American community, but we are going to continue to lag in this area if we do not divorce ourselves from dependence on centralized bureaucratic public education systems in our urban centers. They don't work, have not worked for decades now. The charter approach, as exemplified by the Indianapolis model (which won a Harvard Innovation in Government award) should be speedily adopted by mayors of urban centers across the country. The black activists for education who fight to preserve these poor performing systems need to start championing what works, rather than what doesn't.

State of the Black Union... Awesome: But Something Is Missing

I listened with great interest, amusement and political junkie enthusiasm to the State of the Black Union event hosted by Tavis Smiley this past Saturday. As a forum of political thinkers, commentators, intellectuals and activists, it was marvelous. To have an opportunity to hear so many very articulate and lucid thinkers on the black condition in American was very thought provoking. I loved hearing Dyson drop science about Obama and accountability (see the Featured Video). Farrakhan called on people to reconnect to God, quoting the Bible the whole time, which I found intriguing. Perhaps he was just making allowances for the audience before him, but I found it curious that the spiritual leader of the NOI did not once in his remarks acknowledge his own God, Allah, but rather punctuated his comments entirely with the scripture of Jehovah (for the record, I do not believe Muslims and Christians worship the same God, but thats another post). I was interested in the comments of Sheila Jackson Lee and her impassioned, if slightly defensive, championing of Hillary. I was entertained and then a little appalled at the commentary of Dick Gregory. I enjoyed Sharpton being the fly in the ointment, violating the seemingly tacit agreement that the participants would not rhetorically set at each others throats over the Obama/Clinton nomination conflict. And I found much of interest in what many of the people had to say about the state of our black union.

But in as much as the commentary and critique was inspirational, I find fault with SOBU as it is put forward on two grounds. For one, as much diversity as there may have been in the panels ideological viewpoints, it is largely the case that those panelists are almost exclusively to the political left, in several cases, the far left. So there is a great deal of sameness in their thoughts. Its a lot of preaching to the choir and celebration of victimhood. Whether its being laid out in Sharpton's hood certified straight talk or Cornel West's incomprehensible and impenetrable intellectual speechification, it all shares a similar premise: the idea that we are the eternal victims of a relentless and unending white supremacist onslaught encoded in the DNA of this nation's every institution. To listen to the SOBU panelists, this victim status is and will always be the defining characteristic of our existence. Its a perspective I reject as self limiting and self defeating. But it is the operative world view of nearly all the SOBU panelists to my mind. Which leads me to the second fault I find with this august gathering, which is that that they are all talk and insufficient, non strategic action. This talented tenth epitomizes, for all the talk of accountability and agenda, the crisis of black leadership. There is a crisis of effective black leadership in America. Simply put, we have too little of it. Across the board, black led organizations are almost incapable of exercising principled, effective, strategic leadership. This phenomenon holds true across the spectrum of black organizations, from churches, to national service organizations to community development corporations. Whether you're talking about homeowners associations, civic organizations, local chapters of national organizations, greeks, or political organizations, effective, accountable, strategic leadership is few and far between.

What happened? There was a time when the black community had more capable leadership. But it seems as though somewhere between the end of the civil rights movement and the beginning of the 21st century, we lost our strategic leadership skills. An older post civil rights generation has remained stuck in the strategies of an era that is long gone, while blocking a younger generation from leadership. The new generation, focused on "getting mine" isn't applying critical thinking or strategic leadership skills to the intertwined political, social and economic challenges we face.

The result: underperformance in nearly every aspect of the community when it comes to implementation of effective strategies that address the interests of the black community. For all the prescriptions of the SOBU panelists, none of them individually or collectively, has an organization articulating AND implementing in a strategic, disciplined way an agenda of rational political and economic action. Where's the beef? Do any of you know how to articulate and implement a vision and strategy for black progress that does not rely on government response or calls to free our minds? Who is articulating a national policy on economic development, social response and political development of the black community that is worth the paper its printed on? Not anybody on those panels.

The State of the Black Union? Perhaps as troubled as it has ever been. Our talented tenth have a variety of answers to our problems, answers which themselves are problematic, shortsighted and grounded in victimhood. But that aside, I don't think any of them has the first clue about how to strategically, on a national level, implement solutions to the problems we face. Unacceptable.
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House Negroes for Hillary

I've opined in previous posts that the Black Establishment, along with the race hustler contingent, would most likely lead the way in undermining support for Obama's campaign. And sure enough, not only are they doing that, but they went me one better with "African American Men for Hillary" which you can see at the Clinton website.

This is a Exhibit #1 when it comes to black folks selling themselves out. In Obama, we have a credible, eminently qualified African American candidate for the nomination. He's got the skills to pay the bills. He's a bit of a neophyte playing at this level, but if I'm gonna support somebody thats trying to step up to the presidential plate, he's a good horse to bet on. He's raised $52 million to support his campaign. But what is our black political and establishment leadership doing? They are selling the brother out to support Hillary.

I'm a republican and a conservative. Obama isn't necessarily my first choice to vote for based on his politics. Nonetheless, as an extremely credible black candidate making a run for the White House, I want the guy in it. I want him to get the shot via the Democratic nomination. And for all her vaunted "experience" in the halls of the White House, Hillary comes with her own set of baggage. She is not a slam dunk.

But I'm watching the black establishment and I'm trippin, because these "negroes" are backing Hillary. They have all been co-opted by the Clinton machine and they are backing Hillary because they are all dreaming of how the good times are going to roll if she wins. The patronage train will be leaving the station then and they want to be on board. Phenomenal woman Maya Angelou for crying out loud is backing Hillary over a credible black man. How in the hell do you square that?

Now, here is the question of the hour. Is the black street going to follow the establishment's lead and sell Obama out too? We were down for Jesse, but Obama can't get any love? I understand that establishment negroes and the race hustlers are in it for themselves and have been bought off with promises. They are whoring themselves out. But then again, I don't understand it. Obama is as liberal as anybody could want. He is against the war, he's for civil unions, supports abortion rights, I mean what more could they want?

But they are selling him out. And what I want to know is whether or not the black street is going to go along with this BS. Are the common black folk of America going to see this for the sellout that it is and support Obama? Or will they follow like sheep the establishment negroes that are leading the charge for Hillary?

Black Child Left Behind

People wonder why so many black children are failing in school and what the heck is wrong with the educational system. Well, a lot of things and this Supreme Court decision in June of this year reflects one of them which is that "diversity" has become an end in itself in our schools. It doesn't appear that anyone is really being critical about the issue and recognizing that the integration approach created when Brown vs. Board of Education was really about getting black kids into the better white schools they were denied entry to. This was the real point of the battle. Black kids were forced to attend poorly supplied and resourced schools and denied access to the well resourced and supplied schools of whites. I'm quite certain that Thurgood Marshall didn't think we needed to attend white schools because diversity was so wonderful. He fought to reverse the forced denial of education to our kids and get them in to better schools. That was the point then and it should be the point now.

But its not. Now, we fight tooth and nail for integration as an end in itself. TV debates in the wake of the decision were all cast as a fight about whether or not achieving diversity was a compelling interest. But we are missing the forest for the trees. We should be fighting to get our kids educated well, not whether or not they can attend a white school and achieving the latter does not assure the former. Its not a necessary fight in the modern age, because we can attend most any school if we can afford it or if we live in its attendance zone if its a public school.

But we are wasting time with diversity while our kids are falling further and further behind, refusing to face facts, one of them being that centralized public school systems lack the management and educational fire power to address the educational needs of urban populations stressed by a variety of socioeconomic conditions. Like the auto companies, they are saddled with legacy labor costs they cannot shed and union structures that are part of the problem, not the solution. These centralized bureaucratic systems are not nimble enough to deal with whats happening to our kids in and out of school. Furthermore, they are expensive and inefficient. We are spending two or three times what we should because these systems allocate their resources for education poorly and our money is not doing the work it should.

I'm not just long on critique. I've got a big gun answer - charter schools. Why are they the answer? Because they drive accountability for performance down to the school level, they are driven by market forces such that the good ones will thrive and the bad ones will fail, they are open to a variety of configurations and approaches and they do it all for about a third of what public schools do it for.

Lots of places in the US have charter schools, but there are only a few that get it right. The one that has the best system in place in my view is Indianapolis. Bart Peterson, the mayor of Indianapolis is the only mayor in the country currently with the power to charter schools. In nearly all big cities, Mayors are confronted with failing public school systems, but since they don't hire the superintendent and they are not on the school board, they have little ability to actually affect how school systems run. However, they have to deal with the consequences of a failing system such as aversion to homeownership investment and poor workforce preparation. Bart Peterson's response? He obtained the power to charter schools and has essentially built a school system for which he has the power to require accountability. Charter applicants must pass through a rigorous examination to obtain a charter and perform to standards in order to retain it.

Why are charters better? In my view, all of the accountability for performance is right at the school level. You don't have to mediate accountability for performance through superintendents and school boards. Charters must exercise care to serve the needs of their students and their families or lose their enrollment to another. Secondly, the charter approach permits tremendous variation in educational approach and philosophy. It is far more flexible in responding to the needs of students.

Sadly though, the charter approach is often hotly protested in the cities where its needed the most. We fight tooth and nail to preserve a public school system that consistently under performs for our kids, that promises to improve and rarely if ever does. We fight to preserve centralized bureaucratic school systems as though they have a right to exist, as though they are the only way to do education. I have conversations with people about education and they argue strenuously for more propping up of centralized bureaucratic education systems, but they are never very clear about why it can't be or should not be done any other way. Case in point Detroit. In 2003, Michigan millionaire and philanthropist Robert Thompson offered the city $200 million to build 15 Detroit charter high schools. His offer started a full scale war by the unions on the Mayor and the Governor and when the dust had cleared, Thompson had been run out of town along with his $200 million. Lest you think I'm just harshing on Detroit, I lived there for 8 years and I was around for that particular fiasco.

Education is an imperative for the African American community, but we are going to continue to lag in this area if we do not divorce ourselves from dependence on centralized bureaucratic public education systems in our urban centers. They don't work, have not worked for decades now. The charter approach, as exemplified by the Indianapolis model (which won a Harvard Innovation in Government award) should be speedily adopted by mayors of urban centers across the country. The black activists for education who fight to preserve these poor performing systems need to start championing what works, rather than what doesn't.

Where is the Love?

Obama declares he's running for president - CNN.com

Obama declares his run is on and an already crowded presidential contender field gets a little bigger. I'm waiting with bated breath to see what kind of contortions the black establishment goes into to justify what I suspect will be their effectively no support for Obama's run. Because from where I'm sitting right now, Barack is not getting the love. He is a democrat. He is politically liberal, he is anti Iraq war, he is pro choice, he is married and super smart. He has every positive personal aspect Jesse had for his run and lacks many of Jesse's negatives. But I'm not feeling the love coming from the Black Caucus, from the NAACP, from Tavis Smiley (who said at a recent fund raiser for public television in Indianapolis that he thought Barack was guilty of believing the hype and had not paid his dues with the black community) or any other part of the black political establishment.

It smells like a political sellout. Because if the black establishment is not backing Obama, where else are they going to go? The only other conceivable democratic beneficiary of their support is Hillary Clinton. Barack is certainly as qualified as Hillary to run. But I'm beginning to suspect that the black establishment political interests may be bound up with the Clinton political machine. The Clintons are a formidable money raising magnet. Bill, for all his negatives, is still popular and has been a formidable campaigner for black democrats. He's got a lot of IOU's I suspect. They are skilled political tacticians and I have no doubt they will be ruthless in fighting the battle to secure the democratic nod.

The early skin in this game on the part of the black establishment may be this whole discussion about Obama's "blackness" thats been taking place. The argument set forth is that Obama is not black enough because he is not a descendant of slaves, but rather of more recent immigrant stock. He doesn't really have a "black" sensibility. Its a stupid argument I wholly reject. Ripapma, a poster at Booker Rising, has phrased the counter to this argument very well; "Ain’t Black enough" is a term used by "race hustlers" to demean individual success, achievement and virtue in favor of an ideology that promotes victimhood, accepts the status quo, and elevates mediocrity. They provide no reliable or repeatable criteria for who is and who isn't Black enough. The "race hustlers" think for you, speak for you, and act for you, but only if you're Black enough, or the right kind of Black."

Now, I'm not hearing the black establishment say he is not really black, no no, they are speaking in code. The code phrase is "black americans don't know who Barack is" or "he has not paid his dues with black america". I even heard some commentators suggesting that he needs to have Jesse Jackson take him and introduce him to black america. Get real.

Maybe whats going on is not really some silliness about whether he is black enough. Maybe its just plain jealousy and avarice at play here. On the jealousy side, for a variety of reasons, Obama has captured America's attention, white and black. So much so, that he has been able to put himself in the running for the White House. No other black democrat of the last 20 years has been able to ascend to this point. Maybe they are mad. Maybe they feel like "he just got here, he should get in line and put in work just like the rest of us".

On the avarice side, for the black establishment.there is no percentage in backing Obama's run. He hasn't been on the national stage long enough to have a lot of chips to cash in or favors to call. Its still way early to know how things will shake out, but at this point you do have to regard him as a longshot to win. A credible longshot, but a longshot nonetheless. Hillary has it over the rest of the field in political capital and you can bet she will spend it. The black establishment will want to be in on that largess. They will have to make a strategic choice.

A credible black democratic candidate has materialized. I may be off the mark, but I think we are about to witness the selling out of Obama in favor of Hillary.

God is my quarterback

Superbowl 41 is now in the record books both as a football game and as a history making event. Dubbed the "Soul Bowl" in some parts of black radio because it featured the first black coaches to reach the Superbowl, was played on the 1st Sunday in Black History Month and featured Prince for the halftime show. Tony Dungy, beloved Colts coach is now the first black coach to win a Superbowl and his success will undoubtedly open doors for other black coaches in the league as it has in the years leading up to this moment.

I noted with interest that Dungy made a point of downplaying the black history moment XLI was and instead took pains to emphasize his Christian identity and that of his opponent and friend Lovie Smith. He boldly declared upon winning both the AFC championship and then the Superbowl that God was the architect of these victories.

I noted with an equal amount of interest the relative lack of interest by the press in his Christian identity. Far more coverage was devoted to his black identity than to his faith. This aspect of Dungy's life did not get a lot of direct coverage, and was referred to mostly generically via references to him as a "man of faith" or to his "integrity".

Nonetheless, Coach Dungy took this opportunity to raise up the name of Christ and proclaim the primacy of Jesus to his life and no doubt in the process was reaching people who otherwise may not have thought about God or salvation or their eternal destiny. I'm proud of his accomplishment as both a black man and a Christian man. Go Colts!