Those who know me, know that I consider myself to be a Conservative. I believe in smaller government, free enterprise and lower taxes. Like most people, however I cannot be summed up with a single word. There are a couple of issues which I suppose I would have to admit, I am hopelessly liberal. Affirmative Action is foremost among those. Some would argue that this is a contradiction. That how can one believe in the things I cite, and yet still favor race based assistance for college admissions and hiring. Well the truth is, I don't really. It occurs to me that while ethnicity plays a major role in the extent to which equal opportunity is presented to people in this country, it is not the only player. Clearly socio-economic hardship plays a large part in that as well. The inner city is the inner city, regardless of what color your skin is, if your school spends more on metal detectors and grief counselors than on books and college preparations counselors and your parents are both junkies, you are at a significant disadvantage. Period.
At the risk of seeming narcissistic, I turn again to my own example. My annual statement from the Social Security Administration tells me that I have made several million dollars in my career so far and will make several million more before I die of a heart attack at my desk. It also tells me that by the time I have that heart attack I will have paid somewhere between 3 and 4 million dollars in taxes. Federal, state, property, sales etc. My Harvard education, most of which was paid by government grants and other aid, cost about $45,000. One need not be a Harvard economist to be able to compute that $3 million in return for a $45K investment is money well spent. 3000% ROI is a return Wall Street would turn cartwheels over. So what does that have to do with Affirmative Action?
Well listen up and I will tell ya. First let's look at what Affirmative Action (sorry I can't to the AA abbreviation without thinking of Alcoholics Anonymous so bear with me) for? What's it supposed to do? Well it's simple. It is supposed to afford an opportunity for people who, for reasons which can best be characterized as "institutional injustice" have not been afforded an equal opportunity by our society. So what the hell does that mean? Stay with me and I will explain. As has come to light with the New Haven firefighter case and the ongoing NYFD lawsuit, there are issues with how people are evaluated in this country. Not so much anymore because of any insidious desire for exclusion, but simply because the people doing the evaluation assume certain things, certain knowledge, a certain familiarity with concepts and ideas that are thought to be "common sense" so to speak. Yet for some, these concepts are as foreign as the Chinese alphabet to us Americans. The easy answer would be to say "Well if you want the job/college admission/whatever then it is incumbent upon you to go learn what you need to know to get it." And to some extent that would be true. If not for the not so small problem of people not even knowing what it is they don't know. Again to harken back to my own experience. When I took the SAT, I was immediately aware upon reading through the test that there was stuff on it that I had not ever touched in any classroom. Even though I was as intelligent as any kid taking that test, maybe more, there were questions on it that I was never going to be able to answer, at least not with any confidence. And there was no way for me to know what I didn't know, until I took the test. Yes I know that kids now have access to SAT prep classes and some schools even have the prep people on campus full time. I have seen the whole cottage industry that has grown up around test preparation. But again, how many of those facilities are in the inner city? Or out in rural Arkansas? Yes, kids who go to school in affluent areas have access to all that stuff, but what about the rest? What about the kids whose parents never finished high school, which is going to be a very large number in the next generation as dropout rates climb toward 20% nationwide? What about those kids who don't know enough about the college boards to even begin to know where to look for help preparing for them? What about the thousands and thousands of kids who go to high schools that don't even have guidance counselors anymore?
As luck would have it, I did well enough on the SAT to get into Harvard and every other school I applied to. Maybe I was a really good guesser. Was I an Affirmative Action admit? Maybe, maybe not, I don't really know.. And don't care.. I know that there were ZERO professors at Harvard who gave me "Affirmative Action" grades. My guess is Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson or Judge Lynn Toler or Governor Deval Patrick or yeah.. that President guy would probably say the same thing. Harvard professors as a rule seemed like hard asses who wanted to challenge and push all their students to the brink of suicide! But I digress. Once you get into the school, you still gotta do the work. And if you are underprepared, which I was, you will find it difficult to get off the ground. What I found upon arriving at Harvard was that there were kids, black and white and everything in between, who had come from MUCH better schools than my gigantic public school in Orlando. Nothing against public schools, but the prep schools in New England, the great schools in the Virginia commonwealth, the great schools in Cali, yes I said Cali, which used to have one of the 5 best secondary educational systems in the country. Those kids came to Harvard with a HUGE head start on kids like me. Faced with that, I had two choices. Fold and declare myself a failure who didn't belong here.. or get to work playin catchup. I chose the latter. So I caught up with some, passed some others and never got within shouting distance of still others because they were both at least as brilliant as me and worked just as hard or harder AND had the huge head start that I was never going to make up. But the point is, you have to take it on. A kid has to be willing to accept that challenge and fight that uphill battle for four years.
Without program like Affirmative Action, a kid like me might never get that chance to accept that challenge. My parents were both high school dropouts. I was the first member of my family to graduate from college. If I look at it honestly without the opportunity to go to a college like Harvard.. I probably still would have gone to college.. To UCF maybe.. Maybe Valencia Community College. Gee how different would my life be now had that been the case? I don't think I would have ended up on drugs or on welfare. I was never that kind of kid, but my earnings, and with it my taxes paid, would certainly be less than half what they have been. Harvard has opened more doors for me than I can count. I have had no less than a dozen interviews in my career for jobs I was unqualified for, just because the interviewer "wanted to meet somebody that went to Harvard." I have no illusions that I was somehow "special" and that's why I received the opportunity I did. I got lucky. I fell under Mrs. Betsy Folk's section of the alphabet. Mrs. Folk was a godsend. But she's a topic for another blog.
In the worst case scenario a kid like me struggles through one crappy job after another and spend a significant amount of my life on the government dole. My wife could give birth to 5 or 6 kids, each of which would increase the amount of the government dole we could qualify for, and maybe one day in a momentary lapse or reason or out of desperation I commit a crime, get busted, end up in jail. Get out a few years later, a convicted felon. Game over.. life over.. Likewise my kids just inherited that life sentence with me.. and probably their kids with me. Instead, my kids grow up with a college degree all but a foregone conclusion of their education process. Never get into any legal entanglements beyond traffic tickets and the like and the cycle, at least for my lineage, is broken forever. 45 G's = 3 million in tax revenue, 5 people (myself, my wife and kids) likely never to commit a crime and never to need government assistance (because I am certain I will die before I collect any social security.) Seriously, does anyone wanna argue that this is an investment worth making over and over again?
Oh yeah, I'm forgetting the "innocent victims" of Affirmative Action, the people displaced by the beneficiaries. These people argue correctly that "two wrongs do not make a right." And that is true. However, the continuation of the rewarding those for whom the system is already rigged in favor of, is a greater wrong. Affirmative Action is our society's way or recognizing that we have a system that is rigged in favor of some to the detriment of others and attempting to make amends. Some would ask "Okay fine, but how long do we keep this up? At what point will the debt be repaid to minorities in this country?" My answer is always the same.. My people were oppressed in this country for 300 years. My parents were alive when it was still illegal to teach a black child to read in some Southern States. 300 years. Let's go ahead and keep Affirmative Action in place for half that.. Then let's talk..
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
Gates arrest shines the light on a deep dark issue.
I've alternately lampooned it and pontificated about it on various forums, but it's time to take a longer look at the arrest of Professor Gates this past week. Let me begin by saying I do not know Professor Gates nor Sgt. Crowley personally. Never met either of them to the best of my knowledge. The media has beaten this thing to death to the point that the President of the United States felt compelled to weigh in and then later to try to excuse himself from the fray. Usually I long for the media to leave celebrity stories alone quickly. Not because this story does not merit attention but because the media has a way of twisting a story until it becomes a perverted mess. It is my sincere hope that this one won't end up that way. It's too complex and important. Some might ask why it's so important. Well sit back and relax and I will explain.
To jump right into the meat of the matter. The Gates case has an opportunity to effect significant change in how men of color are treated by law enforcement in this country. The Gates incident involved a celebrity of sorts, which is the only reason the media gave it even a second thought. Black men are treated with something less than respect by law enforcement every day in this country. This incident brims with the possibility of putting a serious dent in that problem. I don't believe for one second that either Gates or Sgt. Crowley or the president for that matter handled this situation the best way they could have. How ironic that of that threesome, only the President has been humble enough to admit that HE overreacted. Gates and Crowley seem to be dug in, which is unfortunate. The two of them could do a great deal for the relationship between Black men and law enforcement in this country by simply admitting their own culpability in this matter and taking a more conciliatory tone.
As I am a black man, who spent my formative years in the segregated South, and a man who has gone through two separations and one divorce, I am fully able to empathize with Professor Gates' indignation at being treated like an interloper in his own home. I understand what it feels like to have to defend one's presence in one's own house. I've been pulled over for "DWB" a number of times, most of them in "progressive" California. In that context it would be very easy for me to automatically side with Gates and never even consider the cop. But at some point in my maturation process, I learned that cops, for the most part, are decent people trying to do a job. Because they are drawn from the pool known as the human race, some of them are jerks, maybe even outright assholes, but coloring them all with the same brush is exactly what led to racial prejudice and racial profiling to begin with. So I learned to treat them with respect and in turn I found out they would gladly reciprocate. Gates should have done exactly this in his situation. If he had thanked the officer for looking into the call and protecting his neighborhood and his home, offered him some coffee and given the identification immediately when requested and without attitude we would never have heard a peep about this. But in his defense, Gates was tired and grumpy from a long trip and clearly annoyed at having to break into his own home. This obviously impaired his judgement momentarily. That could happen to any of us under those circumstances. At the same time, the cop was probably aware of where he was responding to the call. He knew it was the home in the area of where Harvard puts up professors and other staff. He might even have known it was Gates' residence. If you've met many Harvard professors, you would understand how cops might be a little irritated with their elitism and the sense of entitlement and superiority they exude. Well.. not all of them but some.
The lesson that needs to be learned here is that parties in this sort of situation need to ask themselves one simple question before they react and that is simply: What would a reasonable person do here? Reasonable middle aged men don't scream at cops. Reasonable cops don't arrest middle-aged men who prove they're in their own homes and there is are no warrants or restraining orders to service. And certainly a reasonable head of state does not undermine law enforcement off hand without the slightest clue as to the facts. The bottom line is it's high time we in America grew up about race. It needs to stop being a topic that is either completely off limits or spoken of only in hushed tones or in some clinical academic setting. People need to re-learn how to talk to each other. To appreciate each other's differences, and to understand how insignificant those differences truly are in the grand scheme of things. Some of those differences are funny. Others are charming. But not of them really amounts to a hill of beans in the cosmos. In the blink of an eye that is our life span here on this planet, to expend the amount of time and energy we do dividing ourselves based on the .3% (or whatever the number is) of our genetic make-up that is different is beyond ludicrous. Any intelligent life looking in on us would rightfully conclude we are absolute morons.
But I digress. This is about cops and black folk. Black men in particular. Black men need to quit feeling the need to act like one of the "Boyz in the Hood" every time we have to engage a cop and in turn cops should try not to see a character from "Oz" every time he encounters a black male. Yes there will be times when both will be the case.. but those will be the exception and not the rule. Remember the "What would a reasonable person do?" rule. How about we try it, just for a while?
To jump right into the meat of the matter. The Gates case has an opportunity to effect significant change in how men of color are treated by law enforcement in this country. The Gates incident involved a celebrity of sorts, which is the only reason the media gave it even a second thought. Black men are treated with something less than respect by law enforcement every day in this country. This incident brims with the possibility of putting a serious dent in that problem. I don't believe for one second that either Gates or Sgt. Crowley or the president for that matter handled this situation the best way they could have. How ironic that of that threesome, only the President has been humble enough to admit that HE overreacted. Gates and Crowley seem to be dug in, which is unfortunate. The two of them could do a great deal for the relationship between Black men and law enforcement in this country by simply admitting their own culpability in this matter and taking a more conciliatory tone.
As I am a black man, who spent my formative years in the segregated South, and a man who has gone through two separations and one divorce, I am fully able to empathize with Professor Gates' indignation at being treated like an interloper in his own home. I understand what it feels like to have to defend one's presence in one's own house. I've been pulled over for "DWB" a number of times, most of them in "progressive" California. In that context it would be very easy for me to automatically side with Gates and never even consider the cop. But at some point in my maturation process, I learned that cops, for the most part, are decent people trying to do a job. Because they are drawn from the pool known as the human race, some of them are jerks, maybe even outright assholes, but coloring them all with the same brush is exactly what led to racial prejudice and racial profiling to begin with. So I learned to treat them with respect and in turn I found out they would gladly reciprocate. Gates should have done exactly this in his situation. If he had thanked the officer for looking into the call and protecting his neighborhood and his home, offered him some coffee and given the identification immediately when requested and without attitude we would never have heard a peep about this. But in his defense, Gates was tired and grumpy from a long trip and clearly annoyed at having to break into his own home. This obviously impaired his judgement momentarily. That could happen to any of us under those circumstances. At the same time, the cop was probably aware of where he was responding to the call. He knew it was the home in the area of where Harvard puts up professors and other staff. He might even have known it was Gates' residence. If you've met many Harvard professors, you would understand how cops might be a little irritated with their elitism and the sense of entitlement and superiority they exude. Well.. not all of them but some.
The lesson that needs to be learned here is that parties in this sort of situation need to ask themselves one simple question before they react and that is simply: What would a reasonable person do here? Reasonable middle aged men don't scream at cops. Reasonable cops don't arrest middle-aged men who prove they're in their own homes and there is are no warrants or restraining orders to service. And certainly a reasonable head of state does not undermine law enforcement off hand without the slightest clue as to the facts. The bottom line is it's high time we in America grew up about race. It needs to stop being a topic that is either completely off limits or spoken of only in hushed tones or in some clinical academic setting. People need to re-learn how to talk to each other. To appreciate each other's differences, and to understand how insignificant those differences truly are in the grand scheme of things. Some of those differences are funny. Others are charming. But not of them really amounts to a hill of beans in the cosmos. In the blink of an eye that is our life span here on this planet, to expend the amount of time and energy we do dividing ourselves based on the .3% (or whatever the number is) of our genetic make-up that is different is beyond ludicrous. Any intelligent life looking in on us would rightfully conclude we are absolute morons.
But I digress. This is about cops and black folk. Black men in particular. Black men need to quit feeling the need to act like one of the "Boyz in the Hood" every time we have to engage a cop and in turn cops should try not to see a character from "Oz" every time he encounters a black male. Yes there will be times when both will be the case.. but those will be the exception and not the rule. Remember the "What would a reasonable person do?" rule. How about we try it, just for a while?
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Hey Mediots? What is it with the MJ hate guys?
So two weeks have gone by since the theatre of the absurd known as "Michael Jackson died coverage" has kicked off and truthfully there is no end in sight. Not sure what to think about that but in truth it doesn't really bother me all that much because I never watched much CNN/Fox News/MSNBC/Entertainment Tonight/{You name the tabloid show} in the first place. I have read the various laments about how overblown the coverage is and find it very easy to agree. What I do not agree with is the tone of some of the laments. "He was a pedophile and a child molester!" asserts one pundit. "He was no Beethoven!" writes another. "He simply was not that significant a person...." is the refrain coming from many corners.
As we live in America, I fully support the right of these people to their opinions about Michael Jackson, his legacy, his alleged crimes, the stupid media coverage, the fans who travel thousands of miles just to stand around hoping for a glimpse of his casket. I get that. But why be in attack mode? Why attack a dead man? Why attack people who adored him whatever their reasoning for doing so? His humanitarian efforts on behalf of children alone render him worthy of high praise and reverence in my opinion. That much of his music was simply formulaic pop is of no consequence. Most music of the rock era can be described thusly. Who cares? It is no less pleasant to listen to just because it isn't filled with full orchestra arrangements and full choir backing vocals. Some people like mystery novels, some people like comic books. Both are legitimate preferences. This whole business of looking down upon those who do not share in our "intelligent" view of the world is extremely distasteful to me. Live and let live. What harm are these "people who mourn a stranger" doing to me, you or the uppity pundits looking down their noses at them? If teenage girls faint at the sight of the Beatles getting off the plane or out of a limo, why would we expect they would have a measured response to the passing of a pop icon like Michael Jackson. The tone of those sitting in judgement of them speaks to the ongoing undercurrent of hate in our society. It has colored our politics for at least the past 2 decades and it has gradually infiltrated all corners of our society. One simply cannot be "somebody" unless one is asserting one's superiority over others by putting them down.
Those who know me know that I am as cynical and sarcastic as anyone, but I do it with tongue planted in cheek. I don't take myself or my rants all that seriously and encourage others to follow suit. I'm just a guy, trying to live life the best I can. I am not trying to tell others how they should live, what they should think, who they should vote for, whatever.. So called journalists shouldn't either. Reporters should go back to "reporting." These commentary shows that vie to brainwash people to the hosts way of thinking should be taken off the air. People should think for themselves. If they want to know about something they should gather facts and formulate their own opinion, not wait for some talking head to tell them what to think. If they don't understand something, they should turn to someone they know and trust and engage in discussion. Maybe a neighbor, maybe a coworker. Someone known to be intelligent. Not even necessarily someone whose opinion they share. In fact it is often more productive to engage in discussion with someone with the opposite viewpoint than someone who agrees with you. This Michael Jackson thing is not such an issue by the way. Death is not complicated. Nor is a family's loss of a brother and son or children's loss of their father. No one should need to have that explained to them. Speculation about whether he is the kids' father, who gets his money, who does he own money, who gets his children, how much plastic surgery did he have, how many kids did he molest and a long laundry list of trivialities have no place in this. And shame on us for legitimizing this behavior by continuing to tune into it. Maybe its time we should those "smarter and holier than thou" talking heads what "class" is.. by turning them off.
As we live in America, I fully support the right of these people to their opinions about Michael Jackson, his legacy, his alleged crimes, the stupid media coverage, the fans who travel thousands of miles just to stand around hoping for a glimpse of his casket. I get that. But why be in attack mode? Why attack a dead man? Why attack people who adored him whatever their reasoning for doing so? His humanitarian efforts on behalf of children alone render him worthy of high praise and reverence in my opinion. That much of his music was simply formulaic pop is of no consequence. Most music of the rock era can be described thusly. Who cares? It is no less pleasant to listen to just because it isn't filled with full orchestra arrangements and full choir backing vocals. Some people like mystery novels, some people like comic books. Both are legitimate preferences. This whole business of looking down upon those who do not share in our "intelligent" view of the world is extremely distasteful to me. Live and let live. What harm are these "people who mourn a stranger" doing to me, you or the uppity pundits looking down their noses at them? If teenage girls faint at the sight of the Beatles getting off the plane or out of a limo, why would we expect they would have a measured response to the passing of a pop icon like Michael Jackson. The tone of those sitting in judgement of them speaks to the ongoing undercurrent of hate in our society. It has colored our politics for at least the past 2 decades and it has gradually infiltrated all corners of our society. One simply cannot be "somebody" unless one is asserting one's superiority over others by putting them down.
Those who know me know that I am as cynical and sarcastic as anyone, but I do it with tongue planted in cheek. I don't take myself or my rants all that seriously and encourage others to follow suit. I'm just a guy, trying to live life the best I can. I am not trying to tell others how they should live, what they should think, who they should vote for, whatever.. So called journalists shouldn't either. Reporters should go back to "reporting." These commentary shows that vie to brainwash people to the hosts way of thinking should be taken off the air. People should think for themselves. If they want to know about something they should gather facts and formulate their own opinion, not wait for some talking head to tell them what to think. If they don't understand something, they should turn to someone they know and trust and engage in discussion. Maybe a neighbor, maybe a coworker. Someone known to be intelligent. Not even necessarily someone whose opinion they share. In fact it is often more productive to engage in discussion with someone with the opposite viewpoint than someone who agrees with you. This Michael Jackson thing is not such an issue by the way. Death is not complicated. Nor is a family's loss of a brother and son or children's loss of their father. No one should need to have that explained to them. Speculation about whether he is the kids' father, who gets his money, who does he own money, who gets his children, how much plastic surgery did he have, how many kids did he molest and a long laundry list of trivialities have no place in this. And shame on us for legitimizing this behavior by continuing to tune into it. Maybe its time we should those "smarter and holier than thou" talking heads what "class" is.. by turning them off.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
