Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Three Things That Will Make The Lions Contenders


Well, its looking like 0-16 is inevitable for my Detroit Lions. With three games left vs. the Colts, Saints, and Packers, the odds aren’t good, or they are…aren’t, whatever. All three teams will be fighting for playoff spots the rest of the way. The Packers could get knocked out of contention soon, but Detroit hasn’t won a game in Green Bay since I was 4 years old, and I'm not counting on a win this time around either.


Looking forward, here’s what the Lions need to do to become a contender.


  • Build the team from inside out

  • Look at the teams that have had success this year. From Pittsburg, to Tennessee, to New York both the Giants and Jets. All of them have formidable offense and defensive lines. And if this year is any indication, you don’t need great wide receivers and a great quarterback to win. If an offensive line opens up some holes, John Clayton himself could be your running back.



  • Keep Daunte Culpepper

  • Daute will have one year left on his contract, and will be a relatively inexpensive starting quarterback. Plus it looks like he may be able to develop a rapport with Calvin Johnson. The Lions are going to need Culpepper around to mentor the quarterback they take on the first day of nexts year's draft.


  • Don’t take a quarterback in the first round.

  • Granted, this team has very few pieces to build around (can’t build around a wide receiver), but a quarterback is not the answer. Getting a left tackle that would push Jeff Backus to guard makes a lot of sense. Also, no matter what defensive system is implemented next year, this team is going to need a pass rusher. Players that get 15 sacks can make a defense look better than it actually is (see San Diego).


    Hey don’t worry Detroit fans, odds are they have to be good one year, right? Why not next year?

    Friday, November 28, 2008

    What's Wrong With Kanye West?



    There's something up with Kanye. You can hear it in his latest album, 808's and Heartbreak. You can see it in his latest interviews with Angie Martinez, Conan O'Brien, and Jimmy Kimmel. The vibe is wrong. His tone is somber and his smiles seem manufactured-and all of this is extremely noticeable.


    This is the reality for West, whose mother passed in a very public plastic surgery incident. West has blamed his mother's death on his acquisition of fame. While 808's and Heartbreak speaks to this tragedy, it mainly chronicles the break-up with his ex-fiance. All this tragedy has lead to the new sound in Kanye's fourth album.


    While the autotune sound has been the main criticism of this album there are other stark differences to notice. The lyrics are simpler than in past albums and don't always seem coherent. The tone is also noticeably dark, which West himself has pointed out.


    Perhaps this is merely West dealing with life and nothing more.

    Saturday, November 8, 2008

    The College Football Mess



    Anyone that says the BCS gets it right is kidding themselves. Don’t take this statement to be an endorsement of a college football playoff. It’s not. It's a NON-endorsement of the current system. This is a observation based on a couple of factors.


  • #1 is only #1 by default.


  • If not for the losses of teams ranked higher before this week, Alabama would not be #1. This is not to say that Alabama is not the best team in college football. I'm only saying its too hard to tell. Put Alabama up against USC or Penn St.-Is Bama a lock to win? It's too hard to say.


  • Better conferences get punished.


  • The Big 12 has a couple of teams I'd like to see in BCS bowls this year-Texas, Missouri, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma St. Three of these teams won't be playing in the BCS because of the rule that only 2 teams from a BCS conference can play in BCS bowls. Do any of these teams desereve a shot at the national championship? Ah, yea I think so.



    If the BCS gets it right, then maybe the NFL should adopt it.

    Sunday, November 2, 2008

    D.L. Hugley on Sarah Palin

    I had to put this quote up.


    "I can see the moon from my house, that don't make me an astronaut."

    Wednesday, October 22, 2008

    Kerkorian Sells Ford Shares

    I don’t understand why no one is saying it. Its America’s best kept secret, that people my age, the younger generation, we need to be BUM RUSHING the stock market right now. I don’t know much about the stock market, but I know enough to know that many investors are putting up ALL THINGS MUST GO signs like a garage sale. However, investments made at this garage sale could make you rich in a couple of years. This may not bode well for those getting ready for retirement, but for us, the young people, this is like buying diamonds at the dollar store, and these diamonds are real, or they could be. You’d have to be crazy to think that Ford Motor Company is going to continue to trade at $2.17 share. It may take some patience, but com’on…young people should be selling candy or Krispy Kremes to get some cash for investments.


    I have to admit, I’d been thinking about this for a while, but I wasn’t so confident in my thesis. Then I heard a specific someone was thinking just like I am, billionaire Warren Buffet. Buffet wrote in a October 16, New York Times Opinion piece, “Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.” Why? Because Buffet knows that economies come and go in cycles. There are high periods and there are low periods. At 21, I know am going to see prosperity come to this country again. I may be 27, 35, or 50 when that time comes, but America fights back, and I’d bet my dollar on that one.

    Wednesday, September 24, 2008

    No Running

    I rushed in the door out of breath, “H___Hey, Lo…Lou, yo-u still open?” Lou’s eyes lit up as he smiled with that graceful smile I’d seen a thousand times. “Boy you know we always open fo’ you. Get cho’ butt in this chair.” It was 6:37pm and Lou still hadn’t taken off his maroon barber jacket, that’s how you knew he lived in this ol’ shop. Lou claimed he went home at night, but you could walk in at 2 o’clock in the morning and he’d be sitting right there, looking out the gated window, in his red leather barber chair, smellin’ like oil sheen and Barbasol shaving cream, like he knew you were coming, and you were late.



    I had been coming to this barbershop since I was four years old and everything was the same. Same dirty ol’ Sprite vending machine that didn’t work, takin’ up half the space in that lil’ shop. That machine was so dirty you could barely read the names of the choices. Didn’t matter though, like I said it was broke. Manny Jr. tripped over the chord while he was runnin’ around the shop one day. That machine never worked after that, and then Lou put up a “No Running” sign just above the door. The sign had big red printed letters and an exclamation point. I think exclamation points scared kids, cause none of em’ ran around the shop after that, includin’ me.



    It was the same ugly green and white tile floor, with a few cracks exposing the wood underneath. Lou did his best to clean up the scuff marks on the floor, but there had been a lot of people in and out of here. Alotta Air Forces, J’s, Chucks, and Superstars. Mike Tyson had come in once. He’d come in one time when he was in town for training. Matter fact a bunch of famous ol’ dudes had been in here; John Conyers, Coleman Young, Marion Berry, Ron Isley, Frankie Beverly, Walton Payton, and even Lawrence Taylor. Lou had frames up with all of them. Matter fact he had a picture with just about everybody, at least from this neighborhood; Mommas, daddies, brothers, sisters, aunties, cousins, grandmas friends and not-friends. They were all cluttered over each other on the big mirror that took up the whole wall behind his barber chair, right above the counter were he keep the Wahl clippers, scissors, hand mirrors, towels, cotton balls, alcohol, Barbasol, razors, combs, bushes.



    I had a picture up there. It was kinda covered up by a few other pictures, and tinted yellow from light damage, but you could see me and Tia all dressed up for prom. You couldn’t see Lou though, but he was in the picture. Lou gave me that tux for prom, I wasn’t going to go. He said that every man needs to go to their prom. The tux was a little big on me. You could see the sleeves covering my knuckles, and the pants bunched up near my ankles. I didn’t care though. I didn’t care about nothin’ that night, Lou let me drive the caddy.



    “Ya want a shave?” Lou asked me, as I sat in his chair. He wrapped the tissue liner around my neck and I took a sniff; Yep, oil sheen and Barbasol. “Naw, I’m alright. Just take it down a lil’ bit,” I answered. He put the black cape around me and started humming. Lou always hummed while he was cutting hair. It was always Sam Cooke too, A Change is Gonna Come.


    “How’s that little boy doin?” he asked.


    “Oh, he’s good,” I said.


    “You bringin him up right?” he asked.


    “Yes sir,” I said.


    You always knew when Lou was just about to finish because he’d stop humming and start going “uh huh, uh huh.”


    “Uh huh, uh huh” Lou was finishing up.


    He handed me a mirror and I said “Yea,” then he poured alcohol on his hands and rubbed my forehead, the back of my neck, and the sides. He covered my eyes with one hand then sprayed oil sheen on my head with the other. He removed the tissue liner from my neck and buzzed off those last few hairs down there. I stood up and Lou bushed off any hair left on my clothes.


    “Alright,” he said.


    “Thanks Lou,” I said.


    “You bring that boy in here now,” he said.


    “Yes sir,” I said.


    As I headed toward the door, I grabbed my coat and tried to glance threw the big cluttered mirror to get a look at my hair. No luck, too much history was plastered over it.

    Saturday, September 20, 2008

    Class Merge

    Yesterday afternoon as I boarded the 12:55 westbound #50, the bus that travels between Grand Valley State University’s Allendale and downtown Grand Rapids campuses, with my Air-Force Ones’ untied, shorts sagging slightly below my waist, and Lupe Fiasco’s sophomore album “The Cool” blaring through my headphones, an older gentlemen noticed the distinguished polar bear mascot on my t-shirt and grabbed my arm. “You played football for Creston?” he asked.


    He was short in stature and neatly dressed with his polo tucked into his khakis, an old leather belt wrapped around his thin waist, and brown loafers on his feet. Feeling obligated, I sat next to the man and began a casual conversation. His soft voice was difficult to decipher from the hushing vibrations of the bus’s motor. “I played at Creston back in 1948.” His name was Fred and at 80 years old this man was 60 years my elder. Fred, a retired engineer, began telling me how rising gas prices had encouraged his trial with public transportation. “You gotta get one of those hybrid cars,” I told him. He responded with a laugh, “At 80, I’m not likely to see a return on my investment.” Continuing the conversation I discovered that he was volunteering at an engineering camp for middle and high-school aged kids, and that he himself worked for an aero-manufacturing plant some 30 years ago, before his job was shipped to China. “We just can’t compete,” he said, noting the trend of corporations taking advantage of low wage labor in developing countries.


    This chance encounter was intriguing because Fred and I would be considered completely and utterly opposite in so many ways. He is white and I am black. He is old and I am young. What possibly could we have in common? Certainly, if politically engaged, he would be a supporter of Senator McCain. Given the slim chance that I, an urban African American male might be politically active, surely I would be a supporter of Senator Obama.


    The chances of Fred knowing the lyrics to my favorite Kanye West song or how to use my iPod were slim to none. The chances of me being able to identify with the rising costs of his daily medication were non-existent. The chances of the two of us finding commonality on any level were minimal. Yet there we sat noticing the same issues facing this country; over-dependence on foreign oil, jobs being deported to countries like China and India, the modernization of those countries, and the vulnerability of America’s manufacturing and labor sectors.


    The sight of us talking must have been oxymoronic for on-looking riders.


    The daily commute to and from class has facilitated my observation of what seems to be the beginning of a cultural shift in America. Gas prices are one factor increasing the interaction amongst members from opposite sides of the economic spectrum (even if this interaction only takes place on the turf of the poor). This, if nowhere else, can be observed in the seats of the city’s public transportation.


    It’s not so unusual now to see inner city kids carrying backpacks, iPods, and basketballs riding alongside businessmen wearing suits and carrying Blackberries and briefcases. Nursing students are sitting next to elderly women traveling to medical appointments. Single mothers are making their weekly commutes to the grocery store while couples are heading downtown for a night out.


    America’s middle-class is suddenly riding right next to America’s lower-class.


    Evidently a struggling economy does not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, age, or ethnicity. Its reach misses few, and those that cannot escape its grasp are all lumped into the same boat…or bus, if you will.

    Friday, September 19, 2008

    The Devil's Triumph

    He rushed out of the courthouse panting, with his face still pale white from the shock. The rain was soaking his suit as reporters chased him to his SUV. Despite the camera lights and microphones in his face, all he could think about were the words uttered to him just a few moments ago.

    “Daughter has been shot... critical condition… Detroit Medical Center.”


    He’d gotten the news while cross examining the most famous defendant in the most famous trial in Detroit’s history. He was crossing the Mayor, Kwame M. Kilpatrick. He’d tried and convicted mob bosses, gang leaders, and drug lords. There were always threats but never had someone actually touched him or his daughter.

    About eight years ago now, a packaged bomb was sent to his office, but the bomber forgot to connect some wires and it failed to detonate. Just last year someone attempted a drive by. Twenty-seven shots fired and not one managed to even graze the man whom the Detroit News dubbed the city’s Arc Angel. Gabriel had taken all the necessary precautions to protect his daughter; from keeping her in the suburbs to working under the last name Rosales. That’s how he knew it was Kilpatrick. He had the power to get access to that kind of information.

    “PROSECUTOR’S DAUGHTER SHOT”, the Free Press had the headline up on their website before Gabriel could even get to the hospital.

    Some news crews were already set up at the DMC. They were crowding the entrance of the emergency room, security wouldn’t let them inside. With a police escort Gabriel pulled up to the entrance and got out of the truck. The reporters engulfed him like they were pigeons and he was bread. All of them were shouting over each other.

    “Mr. Rosales, is it true that your daughter was shot!?”

    “Do the police have any suspects!?”

    “Do you believe this is anyhow connected to the trial!?”

    “Do you think you’ll be able to continue working the case!?”

    “What is your daughter’s status!?”

    “Mr. Rosales…!”

    “Mr. Rosales…!”

    “Mr. Ro…!”

    By the time he actually made it into the ER, the scene outside had drawn everyone’s attention inside. Nurses, patients, doctors, people sitting in the lobby, everyone was staring at him. Every TV in the waiting room had the news on showing Gabriel rushing out of the courthouse and arriving at the hospital. You could hear the telecasts through the muffled silence, “Just moments ago district attorney Gabriel Rosales arrived at the Detroit Medical Center…” Not knowing who to question he approached the nurses’ station.

    “Where’s my daughter?” Gabriel tried to hide the intensity in his voice, but the nurse looked slightly shaken like he had just screamed at her. Before she could stutter out a response a doctor intervened.

    “Mr. Rosales, I’m Dr. Herald. If you’d come with me please.”

    They walked down a hallway out of the main emergency room lobby. Gabriel, still wet, was waiting impatiently for his information and getting angry at the same time.

    With his teeth clinched he asked again, “Where’s my daughter?”

    “Mr. Ro…,” Gabriel felt that the doctor was about to give him one of those lines, one of those politically correct lines that doctors practiced to give family members bad news. He grabbed the doctor by his collar and slammed him into a wall, banging his head into one of those knock-off paintings. Gabriel’s eyes were peered on the doctor like hot coals. Their noses were just inches from touching.

    “WHERE IS MY DAUGHTER!?” Gabriel demanded.

    “Sh-she’s in surgery,” Dr. Herald stuttered, rubbing the back of his head.

    Gabriel released his grip and took a few steps back, realizing he had just lost his cool. He was breathing heavy. “Where was she hit?” he asked in an apologetic tone, while staring at the wall, waiting to hear the worst possible news.

    “The bullet entered through her stomach…passed through the cardiac valve and is lodged in the back wall of her heart,” Dr. Herald answered, seeing the despair on this father’s face.

    Cardiac valve. Breathing deeply Gabriel leaned back into the wall, put his head down and washed his hands over his face. Cardiac valve. That meant that blood would flow back into the heart. Cardiac valve.

    “What room doctor?” Gabriel asked and headed to the operating room.

    His heart was pounding. Through the glass he could see his daughter’s closed eyes and the oxygen mask covering half her face. IVs were sticking out of her arms and doctors looked as if they were in a panic. Masked faces with soft blue scrubs were running in and out of the OR. One surgeon was barking at everyone else.

    Beep. “God damn it, get that sowed up!”



    Beep. “Com’on! Make sure she’s getting oxygen!”





    Beep. “Nurse, get me more blood!”









    Beep. “Defibrillators! DEFIBRILLATORS!











    Beep. ---------------------------------------------



    Gabriel saw the line go solid and dropped to his knees. For a second his world froze…There was only the gasp of disbelief.

    Gabriel ran into the operating room with remnants of nervous sweat on is brow. He stared at his daughter’s lifeless body as nurses tried to revive her. This Arc Angel was powerless to bring his own daughter’s life back. The mayor killed his daughter. Kilpatrick had killed the Angel. The devil had conquered Gabriel.

    No judge would let a DA handle a case in which the defendant is suspected to have been involved with the death of the prosecutor’s daughter. Conflict of interest. Gabriel couldn’t try the case anymore. Didn’t matter though. None of it did. He was going to kill the devil himself.

    Wednesday, September 17, 2008

    Lions: Don't Look In The Mirror

    After a preseason in which the Lions looked absolutely dominate in all phases of the game, Jon Kitna and company are being exposed for what they are-A team with numerous weaknesses. After two weeks into the NFL season here's what we know.


  • The defense is bad, very bad. After two weeks the Lions rank 31st in total defense. The front seven doesn't scare anyone and teams with average to good offensive lines can gash the defense for 4 yard per carry. It's hard to win when opposing offenses are constantly facing 2nd and 4 or 3rd and 2. Oh yea, the Lions haven't even seen Adrian Peterson yet. Lets see if the Viks even attempt a pass in week 6.

  • Marinelli's men e.i. Chuck Darby, Kalvin Pearson, Dwight Smith, Dwayne White, Brian Kelly...haven't made the team better. During the Offseason we heard, "These guys have experience in the system." Maybe the Lions are running the wrong system. Yes, the Tampa 2 has produced two Superbowls this decade (Indianapolis, Tampa Bay) but the Lions simply don't have the personnel for this system. The Lions lack the pass rush that Colts and Bucs Superbowl teams had.

  • Calvin Johnson isn't filling his potential. No, even with the second most receiving yards in the NFL, Johnson could do better. With all that speed and athletic ability he should be getting 5 or 6 yards of separation on defenders, right now that's not happening. Anyone who watched the Monday Night game between the Eagles and Cowboys witnessed both Terrell Owens and DeSean Jackson get at least 5 yards of separation from the secondary. Johnson has this ability, but because of the limited amount of time Kitna has to throw the ball, in addition to two high safeties the Lions face, Johnson can't get deep.

  • Kevin Smith has heart. He could be something to watch if the offensive line opens up wholes for him. He has a hunger, a burst.

  • This week the Lions travel to San Fransisco to face the 49ers. Two teams in transition. If Detroit goes into the bye week 0-3, look out there could be some changes in the front office.


    .

    Tuesday, September 16, 2008

    Gaberiel: The Killer

    I kill. The people, they love me for it. Heck they pay me for it. Murders, rapists, mob bosses, child pornographers, drug lords, gangbangers, dirty politicians, you name it. Any and every sadistic fuck in this district. The click-clack of my thousand dollar square toe shoes echoing off the rich mahogany might may as well be the tic-toc counting down to a conviction. I am Alexander, Caesar, and Achilles. My word is my sword slashing through corruption and injustice. My word is truth. I am truth. I am justice. Ye though the city walk though the shadow of the valley of death, it shall fear no evil. My rod and my staff, they comfort thee. I am God. I say who lives. I say who dies. I am a killer, in a suit and tie.

    Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick is a devil. He has sucked money out this city for eight years. He stole the election. He’s extorted, laundered, covered up, and blackmailed. He has no regard for the law, but today he will. Today he will meet God, and God will kill him.



    I paced the stained mahogany courtroom floor as the light beamed in from the afternoon sun, and shined down on my custom made Italian suit. I had stained this floor myself with conviction after conviction, confession after confession. In the cracks and holes on the floor beneath the defendants chair were the tears fifteen to twenty, twenty-five to life without parole, and the death sentence. I put those tears there. That chair had seen men’s lives destroyed, families ruined, and justice served.


    My voice filled the stagnant air, the air that tasted and smelled like old wood. “Mr. Mayor, what is your association with Tamara Green, also known as Strawberry?” A former Florida A&M offensive linemen, 6’5’’ and about 270 pounds, this devil didn’t know fear. His legal team was composed of eight of the best defense attorneys in the country. Alabama, Connecticut, Utah, California, attorneys came from all over the country for this motherfucker.


    “She attended a party at my home,” he stared back. His stare was a challenge. His smirk told me he wasn’t scared. The Detroit style pinstriped suit illustrated his arrogance. It was fitting though, because he had pimped the city.


    “She attended a party…” I responded. That wasn’t the answer I wanted. He knew that, and I knew that my question wasn’t going to get the answer I wanted. “She attended this party…as a guest, a waitress, what?”


    He was still smirking, “She was a dancer.”


    “She was a stripper at your party,” I corrected him.


    Tamara Green had worked a party at the mayor’s house in September of 2006. She’s dead now. Reportedly she’d gotten into a fight with the mayor’s wife after getting caught going above and beyond the duties of her job.


    Just then one of my assistants came running though the courtroom’s double doors, sweating and panting. He motioned me to come over, and whispered in my ear. The blood was rushing from my face as I asked the judge for a recess.


    “For what cause?” he asked.


    “My daughter’s been shot,” I said.


    The devil sat, with a steady fire gleaming in his eyes.

    Saturday, April 12, 2008

    Them: Discussing Race's Effect on Juries' Decisions

    “It’s those people! I’m tellin’ you…” Juror 10 shouts as the twelve jurors begin deliberations in Reginald Rose’s play Twelve Angry Men (10). “You know what they’re like…these people are born to lie! (64)” They are such simple words, but Juror 10’s use of those, they’re, they, and them bring a host of implications and questions. Who are those people? And because this boy (that is on trial for murdering his father) is one of them, does that imply that he is guilty or that the chances of him being guilty are higher than if he were not one of them? These are deliberately sarcastic questions with an underlying point. Juror 10, also known as the bigot, has associated certain characteristics with the defendant simply because of his ethnic and social background. Juror 10 has stereotyped the defendant. The caricature of Juror 10 begs the question, are juries racist? This question comes at time where the irony of race relations in America is so clearly apparent. The progress of social equality can be witnessed in the fact that an African American man has a legitimate opportunity to win the White House, yet it is obvious that more progress can be made when examining the incarceration rates of minorities in this country.
    There are some compelling statistics regarding this issue. According to the Department of Justice, 32% of all African-American males will enter a State or Federal Prison during there lifetime, compared to 17% of Hispanic males, and just 5.9% of White males. A study examining imprisonment rates in the state of Washington presents some more interesting results.
    The results of our present study indicate-across counties-that the relative size of the minority population, the economic standing of minorities, and the degree of urbanization have significantly different effects on white and nonwhite rates of imprisonment (Bridges, Crutchfield, and Simpson 1987; 355).

    These statistics seem to support Juror 10’s assumptions, that those people are just apt to committing crimes. This is exactly the assumption that this essay will attempt to address. Minorities are incarcerated a higher rate, but is this due to bias juries? Before we move on, it should be acknowledged that generational poverty, inadequate education, and other factors affect minority incarceration rates. These statistics likely correlate to the high minority arrest rates. This plays a decisive role in this study because it affects the percent of minority cases which go to trial, which affects conviction rates and so on. More minorities will be convicted if more minorities are arrested and go to trial. In addition, it is difficult to assess if a minority defendant has been wrongly convicted due to racial prejudice or if that defendant has been convicted correctly but race attributed to the decision to convict. There are a host of known and unknown variables that make answering this question difficult. Again, do juries indeed have racist tendencies or is Juror 10 correct to associate crime with those people?
    Sexual assault cases present a unique opportunity to study jury tendencies. Many of these cases lack physical evidence and witnesses, leaving the jury to decide between the creditability of the defendant and the victim. Such scenarios are more susceptible to be determined by the biases of a jury than cases with more solid evidence. “In the absence of compelling physical evidence, victims’ actual and assumed (stereotypical) characteristics might be weighed heavily in jurors’ decisions (Bottoms, Davis, and Epstein 2004; 2).” The same can be said for the defendant. A mock jury study conducted by Bottoms, Davis and Epstein examined this relationship between decisions of juries and the race of both the defendant and victim. Experiments of various scenarios where conducted to determine what role race plays in these cases.
    The first experiment cleverly lays out a case scenario in which a 28 year old male teacher is being tried for sexually assaulting a 12 year old girl. To portray race without actually labeling the race of the victim or defendant, the case scenario uses ethnic sounding names. For example, the scenario juggles the names of the victim between Jessica Kelly, Tonya Jones, and Maria Gonzalez to represent a Caucasian American, African-American, and Hispanic American respectively (8). While study the predicted that the race of the victim would play a decisive role in the decision to convict, results showed otherwise.
    [T]here was no significant difference in guilty verdicts or credibility judgments as a function of victim race. As predicted, however, the White victim was perceived to be less responsible for her abuse than were either the Black victim or the Hispanic victim (13).

    Certainly the variance in responsibility associated with the victim can be somewhat attributed to the stereotype that African Americans and minorities in general are promiscuous and more likely to be sexually active at a young age, thus a minority female child is more likely to provoke a sexual assault than a White female child. Interestingly, while race affected jurors’ perception of the degree of responsibility belonging to the victim, it did not affect the decision to convict the defendant. The results of this first experiment seem to be somewhat encouraging. While jurors may bring stereotypes to deliberations, it seems that they are able to put them aside and decide a case based on the presented evidence.
    The results of the second experiment produced results similar to the first. The case scenario of experiment two differed from the first experiment only in the name given to the defendant. The names Don Reed and Darryl Johnson were given to portray a Caucasian American and an African American respectively. Again, this experiment did not support initial hypotheses. It was predicted that there would be higher conviction rates in cases where the victim was White and the defendant Black. The results indicated that jurors were not negatively affected by cases involving different races; “defendants in same-race abuse cases (Black defendant/Black victim and White defendant/White victim) were assigned more degree of guilt than were defendants in different-race abuse cases (Black defendant/White victim and White defendant/Black victim)” (19). Jurors in experiment two determined, similar to experiment one, that minority victims were more responsible for there sexual assaults than were White victims.
    The Bottoms, Davis, and Epstein study has provided some positive incite into jury tendencies. This study shows that though jurors may have prejudices, they do not necessarily vote in accordance to those prejudices. In other words, jurors may have pre-existing notions about those people, but in this study it does not effect the ultimate decision. The study did however show both the age of the victim and gender of the juror to be a factor in sexual assault cases. Women were more inclined to side with the victim, while men tended to be more neutral. Additionally, younger victims (age 12) were considered more credible than older victims (age 16). Jurors considered older victims to be more likely to provoke sexual assaults and thus less credible.
    The results of this study are interesting considering the complaints about racism in the American legal system. Perhaps juries are actually competent as suggested by Kalven and Zeisel’s American Jury[1], and instances such as the Amadou Diallo[2] and O.J. Simpson cases are select occurrences. This study suggests that cries of injustice should not be directed toward the jury system but toward police officers, unjust sentencing guidelines, and unequal sentencing recommendations provided by prosecutors. It should be noted that Juror 10 has not yet been proven false. Though his opinion is discriminatory and bigoted, it can be argued that the Bottoms, Davis, and Epstein study supports Juror 10’s assumptions. Those people are incarcerated at a higher rate because they are arrested at a higher rate, which could be due to the fact that they commit crimes at a higher rate. Perhaps you actually can’t trust them.
    Not so fast. Mock jury studies like the Bottoms, Davis, and Epstein study do have weaknesses. This study, and others like it, used only college students in its assessment, and the case was provided in a written summary instead of live testimony (Sommers and Ellsworth 2003; 1002). In addition, mock jurors evaluated and decided the case individually, without deliberating with other mock jurors. This type of method can have profound effects on the results of a study. (1) College students are higher educated, are often taught to be liberal thinkers, and learn on campuses that often promote diversity. This is not to say that there are no college educated bigots, but the chances of having jurors that are able to put side stereotypes to decide a case are significantly increased when selecting from a pool of college students. The modern jury selection process selects people from all types of backgrounds, including the uneducated and those with prejudices. It is also conceivable that these college students figured out what the independent and dependent variables of the experiment were, and thus decided to vote without prejudice. (2) While the Bottoms, Davis, and Epstein study attempted to simulate race through ethnic sounding names, it cannot produce the actual reality of live testimony. Live testimony provides jurors with a face, voice, and personality to evaluate much like what was done in the deliberations of Twelve Angry Men. The face, voice, and personality of a witness, victim, or defendant would give a juror more opportunities to identify a witness, victim, or defendant as one of those people.
    Actual conviction data provides more substantial evidence for the posed question of this essay, however even actual data can be misleading. While we can determine the amount of minorities brought to trial and the number of them convicted, it is more difficult to determine what actually contributed to the decision to convict. It is easy to count the number of minorities vs. Whites convicted, but if a disparity exists it does not necessarily mean that there is a bias (Sommers and Ellsworth 2003; 1000). It simply means that one group was convicted more often than another group. It means nothing more and nothing less. This type of data does allow for certain trends to be established and further explored but it can never be decisively conclusive. When this data is combined with actual juror interviews, then a slightly more definitive determination can be made regarding the role race plays in juries’ decision making.
    A 1985 study conducted by Lafree, Reskin, and Visher is of particular interest in this essay because it studies the effects of different variables, race being one, in real sexual assault cases. This study, unlike the Bottoms, Davis, and Epstein study, is examining actual data and combining it with the said opinions of individual jurors (393). This study, like the previously noted study, also showed a correlation between the race of the victim and the decision to convict. “Noteworthy too is jurors’ predisposition to exonerate men accused of raping black women” (397). This study also suggests the Black sexuality stereotype to explain results. It should be noted that the effect that race has on a cases has been somewhat unexpected. In the two studies examined, the race of the defendant has not been as important as the race of the complainant. It is difficult to determine what should be taken from these two studies. Should the jury system be celebrated for not being bias against minority defendants, or should it be condemned for an apparent bias against minority complainants?
    This essay questioned the role race plays in juries’ decisions. I thought that I would find black and white evidence to support the notion that juries were actually bias against minority defendants, but this is not what I found. The effect that race has on juries is complicated and mysterious. I have examined only sexual assault cases in this essay, which was likely to hinder the validity of my study. Sommers and Ellsworth suggest that, “White jurors are indeed influenced by a defendant’s race, but this influence is not consistent across cases” (1029). In addition, cases that are obviously racially charged are less likely to be subject to racial bias, as jurors attempt to make impartiality a priority.
    White juror bias may be a more serious concern in run-of-the-mill cases when racial issues are not salient and White jurors are not alerted to the need to guard against prejudice (Sommers and Ellsworth 2003; 1029).

    Admittedly, this study has produced more questions than answers. While I found extensive research on the effects race has on White jurors, there was limited research on the effects race has on minority jurors. It is more than possible that minorities can be bias against their own race. “I hate Black people too!” comedian Chris Rock shouts while telling a joke during his fourth HBO special. I also found no legal answers to the imprisonment disparity statistics noted in the introduction. Perhaps the answers lie in the structure of society or in culture. Additionally, the studies noted other factors to influence decisions, but in most cases those other factors were just as complicated and mysterious as the race factor. The Sommers and Ellsworth study also suggests that there is a correlation between the racial composition of a jury and the length and quality of deliberations. There has been extensive research on this topic but the research does not point to any specific conclusions. So, are juries racist…well the jury’s still out on that one.


    Works Cited

    Bottoms, Bette L., Suzanne L. Davis, and Michelle A. Epstein. “Effects of Victim and Defendant Race on Jurors’ Decisions in Child Sexual Abuse Cases.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology. V.H. Winston & Son: 2004. Pgs 1-33.

    Bridges, George S., Robert D. Crutchfield, and Edith E. Simpson. “Crime, Social Structure and Criminal Punishment: White and Nonwhite Rates of Imprisonment.” Social Problems. Vol. 34, No. 4. University of California Press: 1987. Pgs 345-361.

    Criminal Offender Statistics. 7 Aug 2007. U.S. Department of Justice-Office of Justice Programs: Bureau of Justice Statistics. 4 March 2008

    Ellsworth, Phoebe C. “One Inspiring Jury.” Michigan Law Review. Vol. 101 Issue 6. University of Michigan: May, 2003. Pgs 1387-1407

    Lafree, Gary D., Barbara F. Franklin, and Christy A. Visher. “Jurors’ Responses to Victims’ Behavior and Legal Issues in Sexual Assault Trials.” Social Problems. Vol. 32 No. 4. April 1985. University of California Press: 1985. Pgs 389-407

    Rose, Reginald. Twelve Angry Men. New York: Penguin Group, 1997

    Rock, Chris. Never Scared. Directed by Joel Gallen. Home Box Office; 2004.

    Sommers, Samuel R. and Phoebe C. Ellsworth. “How Much Do We Really Know About Race and Juries? A Review of Social Science Theory and Research.” Chicago-Kent Law Review. Vol. 78. 26 Aug 2003. Pgs 997-1031. Accessed on 3/24/08: http://lawreview.kentlaw.edu/articles/78-3/sommers_ellsworth.pdf



    [1] Comment noted from Ellsworth, Phoebe-“One Inspiring Jury”. Ellsworth gives a brief summary of American Jury see pg 1394.
    [2] In the Diallo case, the unarmed African native Amadou Diallo was shot 41 times by plain clothes New York City police officers. One officer actually emptied one clip, reloaded and emptied a second clip. The case spiked racial protest in New York and around the country. The officers in the case were eventually acquitted.

    Wednesday, April 9, 2008

    Darfur Needs Action

    The situation in the Darfur province of Sudan has been described as civil war by some and genocide by others, but almost everyone has conceded that the situation is disturbing. Innocent non-Arab Africans in Darfur are being murdered, raped and displaced by government sponsored Arab militias, the Janjaweed. Admittedly, this brief summary of the chaos does little to acknowledge the totality of the suffering in Darfur. It does not account for the gruesome stories of rape in which young girls are tied down and sexually assaulted by numerous men. It does not account for the many stories of Janjaweed soldiers demanding that a mother chose one of her children to be killed. It does not account for those who have survived the militia attacks, yet suffer from starvation in refugee camps. This essay and any essay that attempts summarize the suffering in Darfur, does an injustice to actual reality of the situation. Reading about Darfur’s genocide, in our magazines and newspapers, is comparatively easier than a first person account of dead bodies and thrashed villages. In considering these factors it would be difficult not to support United States military intervention in Darfur that would look to stabilize the situation and provide protection for those who desperately need it.
    Quite naturally, the first factor considered in supporting military intervention in Darfur is the severity of humanitarian crisis. Both proponents and opponents of military intervention have conceded that the situation in Darfur is deplorable. While some have attempted to categorize the Darfur situation as civil war, in 2004 upon returning from his trip to the Sudan, “Secretary [Colin] Powell told the U.S. Congress that the State Department had concluded that genocide had been committed and that the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed bore responsibility” (Clough). It was after the 1994 Rwandan genocide that the United Nations Security Counsel made a “never again” commitment, essentially acknowledging that never again would the international community allow such humanitarian crisis go uncontested. This commitment has been tested in Darfur’s genocide, yet despite this commitment the international community has been either unwilling to act or unwilling to sanction the Sudanese government with any real consequences. Accounts of Nazi Germany and the Rwandan genocide invoke emotions of shock, disbelief, and horror as they also summon the questions “Why didn’t anyone do anything?” If nothing is done to bring stability to Darfur, then history will look upon this time with the same questions and similar guilt, and once again the U.N. Security Counsel will be making a “never again” commitment.
    There is no question that the situation in Darfur is horrific and that the genocide should be stopped. This is not the point of disagreement in considering military intervention in Darfur. Many opponents of U.S. military intervention note that the protection of Darfur’s people is simply not the responsibility of the United States. These pundits point to the Sudanese government, the African Union, or the United Nations as the bearers of this responsibility. While this argument may hold a degree of truth, it is problematic when considering the reality of each suggested protector. It would be logical to contest that a government is responsible for the protection and well being of its constituents, however Darfur is not a logical situation. The Sudanese government is actually funding the Janjaweed militias that have been committing these heinous crimes. It would be just as difficult to legitimately establish the African Union as the bearer of responsibility. Many of the states in the African Union have difficultly handling unrest within their own boarders. This and the newness of the A.U., having been established in 2002, combine to make the organization relatively weak. The A.U. itself is not strong enough to handle the situation in Darfur. Even displaced Darfurians have reservations about the A.U.’s ability to handle the crisis. One interviewee explained to journalist Samantha Power that “African troops were too susceptible to bribes,” and that “We will not return to our homes until the white people come and make us safe” (Power).
    Since the Sudanese government and the AU have failed, it has been asserted that the protection of Darfur’s people is the responsibility of the United Nations. This assertion is somewhat laughable since many critics of the U.N. have compared the organization’s political strength to that of a toothless dog. The political strength of the U.N. is another matter to be argued, but in the case of Darfur, U.N. resolutions and threats of sanctions have not stopped the slaughtering. U.N. Security Counsel Resolutions 1556, which demanded the Sudanese government disarm the Janjaweed, and 1564, which called for the Sudanese government “to end the climate of impunity in Darfur”, have been hollow threats with few consequences for the uncooperative Sudanese government (Clough). Furthermore, the U.N. is an organization that has repeatedly demonstrated that state sovereignty is its primary concern. This doctrine conflicts with taking a hard-line stance toward the Sudanese government.
    Who then shall be the protector of Darfur’s people when the bureaucracy fails? The fact that Darfurians are not U.S. citizens is not enough to conclude that the United States holds no responsibility in this matter. Surely the U.S. has acted in other matters to “liberate” an oppressed people. This type of reasoning can partly explain entering into the Vietnam and Iraq wars. Furthermore, America has symbolized itself has the protectors of democracy and peace. The American conscience can not easily avoid the responsibility of Darfur with this type of unwritten declaration.
    Opponents of U.S. military action have also contested that any foreign military intervention would disrupt peace negations between north and south Sudan. While the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005 has demanded a permanent ceasefire, Janjaweed militias still terrorize Darfur. Nicholas Kristof, of the New York Times, notes how the Sudanese government has reneged on its commitments under the CPA.
    [The Sudanese Government] still hasn’t withdrawn all of its troops from the south; it keeps delaying a census needed for the elections; and it appears to be cheating the south of oil revenues. And the U.S. and other countries have acquiesced in all this.
    -Kristof
    Accounts such as these undermine the legitimacy of such peace talks. Refusals to grant journalists visas further imply that the Sudanese government will not or are unable to stop the Janjaweed from terrorizing innocent people (Kristof).
    It has become apparent that the sole knowledge of genocide in Darfur is not enough to motivate U.S. military intervention. “America needs a reason to intervene that relates to its economic interest and diplomatic agenda” (Booker). Stability in Darfur could also have some economic benefits, as Darfur yields 2 billion dollars annually from oil revenue. Due to a 1997 executive order American oil companies are not allowed to operate in Sudan, leaving the oil reserves to benefit Chinese, Swedish, and Canadian oil companies (Clough). With gas prices continuing to increase in historic proportions, it would not hurt to develop an economic relationship with a stable and genocide free Sudan. Stability in Sudan would help bring economic stability the region, especially in Chad which has had to house many of the displaced Darfurians (Kristof and Reeves).
    The argument over how to handle Darfur has been divided into different discourses and the arguments of both the proponents and opponents of U.S. military intervention have been thoroughly examined. Opponents of U.S. military intervention have noted, and justly so, every possible negative associated with military intervention. These opponents have suggested that military intervention will stall peace talks, incite even more violence, and will be too similar to the U.S. intervention in Somalia. The possible negatives of U.S. military intervention should not be overlooked, but what if opponents of military intervention are wrong? Is it inconceivable for a U.S. military presence to actually have a positive impact? Surely there are some Darfarian girls that would be thankful to the U.S. for sparing them from the possibility rape. Surely there are some Darfurian mothers that would welcome a U.S. presence to insure the safety of their children. It seems apparent that the dire consequences lie in the argument against military action. Diplomacy has produced few results. It is now time for America to act.









    Works Cited
    Booker, Salih. “Editorials & Comment: Genocide in Darfur.” The Nation. 279.2 (2004): 1-8.

    Clough, Michael. “Darfur: Whose Responsibility to Protect?” Human Rights Watch. New York. January 2005. Accessed on 3/24/08: http://www.hrw.org/wr2k5/darfur/1.htm

    Kristof, Nicholas D. “A Genocide Foretold.” New York Times. February 28, 2008. Accessed 4/6/08: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/opinion/28kristof.html

    Power, Samantha. “Dying in Darfur.” New Yorker. Vol. 80, Issue 24, pg. 56-73. August 2004. Accessed through database: Academic Search Premier.
    Reeves, Eric. “Sudan Resumes Civilian Destruction in West Darfur” Sudan Tribune. February 20th, 2008. Accessed on 4/6/08: http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article26

    Monday, February 25, 2008

    Good Marketing

    I have never seen an ABC commercial on BET. Today I saw one. Today at exactly 7:58 pm on BET appeared a commercial for Raisin in the Sun, premiering on ABC at 8:00pm on the same date. I wonder how many people in their homes said, "Oh yeah" and turned the channel.

    Monday, February 18, 2008

    Online Forum.

    The following is my response to an individual on an online forum, who stated that a vote for Barack Obama is a vote for a shift toward socialism. Please feel free to state your opinion, whatever that may be.

    Your's Truely,

    Will


    PRETTYINBLUE Let me say this in response to your comments about Barack and moving towards socialism. To an extent, i think your right. But then again any ideological shift to the left would be moving towards socialism, even if it was a small shift. Now universal healthcare, thats a big shift. I'm not sure if you read what I said about it before, but it kinda scares me. With all that said, there is one thing that the Democrats keep noting, which I think is true; that there is an ever growing gap between the poor and the wealthy in this country. And I don't know if it is indeed governments responsibility to close that gap. Generally Republicans would say no and Democrats would say yes. I think in a perfect world, there wouldn't be any gap. Everyone would be open to the same opportunities as everyone else. If this was the case, everyone would vote Republican. There would be any need for government programs or any of that. Its sad that this is not the the case. So then the question come again; is it governments responsibility to close this gap, or is it the individuals responsibility. I think more often than not...I am going to say that it is the individuals responsibility. Notice i did say, more often than not. Should there be welfare programs...yes, but should we let people live there lives off of welfare...nope. Should we give minorities incentives for college, like scholarships that specifically for minorities?...i'd have to give up my scholarship if i said no. What i'm trying to do is find a happy medium between these two side. Man if i ever do i'm running for president. CASS 3000, I would like to hear what you have to say about what i just said.

    Wednesday, February 13, 2008

    YES WE CAN!!!....(elect a black man to the presidency.)

    Originally, I picked up Dr. Shelby Steele’s book “A Bound Man; Why Are We Excited About Obama and Why He Can’t Win” to try and find some illogical criticisms. I assumed that the book would be written in a fashion similar to Dr. Michael Eric Dyson’s book criticizing comments Bill Cosby made about the black community. In reading the opening pages of Dr. Steele’s book, instead of finding arguments that were easy to counter, I found a sick and painful feeling growing in my stomach. In my reading, I found that I had, like the rest of America, fallen into the misconception that America was turning a new leaf; that the pertinence of racial politics in this country was fading away. This sick feeling grew in my stomach as I realized that if Barack Obama were a white man, we would not being having this discussion about his candidacy. There would not be a jubilant excitement about the possibility of a minority president, and I would not being writing this essay right now.
    The irony is that Senator Obama has centralized his campaign around transcendence, a type of politics that looks beyond race. Yet in doing so, race has become the key facet of Senator Obama’s campaign. Looking to expunge itself from its ugly racial past, white America can claim racism dead with the emergence of a black president. After Obama announced he would seek the Democratic nomination, Senator Joseph Biden stated that senator Obama was “articulate, bright, and clean.” Senator Biden’s comments “showed surprise in the high ability of a black.” Furthermore Senator Biden’s statements “celebrated Obama at the expense of other blacks who were presumably inarticulate, not bright, and unclean.” If you find yourself questioning the legitimacy of my argument consider this, “When you can credibly run for the presidency only two years out of the Illinois state legislature and, upon announcing your campaign, immediately surge past all but one competitor, then something in society is drawing you forward.” For America, Barack Obama is a trophy if not a symbol that shouts “YES WE CAN!” and whispers “elect a black man to the presidency.”

    Tuesday, February 12, 2008

    Media And Politics


    At no point in history has the American media had a bigger role in shaping public opinion than it does today. The current highly contested Democratic primary is a testimony of this fact. With both candidates poised to make potential history, Hillary Clinton to be the first female president and Barack Obama to be the first African-American president, the coverage of this primary has been arguably unprecedented. The coverage of this primary and the influential role the media has on it, presents an opportunity to explore how the role, content, and tone of the media has shifted in the last twenty years. The analytical lens of the media that includes talk radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, political pundits such as Ann Coulter, and talk show host like Bill O’Reilly did not always exist. The coverage of this primary allows us to examine how this shift came about.
    This past fall, while campaigning in Iowa, a photo of an obviously tired and seemingly distraught Hillary Clinton surfaced in the news. This led to questions about problems within the Clinton campaign, including who was actually running the campaign (Clinton or her husband) and if a female could handle the rigors of the presidential spotlight. After a shocking loss in the Iowa primary some new reports even questioned if Senator Clinton could be competitive with the emerging sensation Senator Obama (Goodwin). This type of analytical interpretation of news is a stark contrast from the traditional fact based, objective media standard that existed pre-1970’s. It was during this period, from the 1920’s to the 1970’s, that media and journalism was a sacred industry, upheld by unwritten rules. Journalists attempted to leave their opinions out of articles, with objectivity being the goal. This media era left politicians personal flaws, such as Presidents John F. Kennedy and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s adultery, out of mainstream news. “It was an era when the mostly male journalism profession was deferential and uncritical of public officials, especially on issues related to sex (West 68).” To say that a presidential affair would be front page news in today’s media era would be a drastic under statement.
    While objectivity remains a standard in the field of journalism, analysis and interpretation has become more popular. While the objective era would have questioned Senator Clinton’s political policies, the analytical era would question if a female would be able to handle the presidency.
    It wasn’t enough to report the “who, what, when, and where” surrounding an event. Rather, reporters must delve into human motivation, explore why particular actions were undertaken, and provide some sense of the larger significance of these activities.
    -West 72
    This shift, from objectivity to analysis, is marked by two events that changed the way new was covered: Vietnam and the Watergate scandal. “Vietnam was the first real television war (West 62).” The general public was privy to clips of live war action that it had never experienced before. It was a combination of the images and the unprecedented length of the war that lead to the increased dissatisfaction with it. Reports about increased causalities were accompanied by pictures of American body bags and flag draped coffins. These reports contradicted the government released statistics that suggested that the United States was winning the war, and sparked journalist to become more investigative in their reporting. In 1968 the model of objective reporting, CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite, broke the mold when he questioned the war. Cronkite questioned if the U.S. was getting stuck in the war and stressed that we should get out. While the media is often accused of helping lose the war by enticing criticism of it, journalist did not make up the information that they were reporting, nor did cameramen fake the body bags and coffins they were filming.
    The lesson learned from Vietnam was to do investigative reporting because one source may not give you all the facts. This lesson was applied in 1972 when the Democratic Party’s headquarters, then the Watergate hotel, was broken into during the election season. President Richard Nixon was running for reelection and he won, but in being concerned about his opponent the White House Administration decided to try and get an inside bead on Democratic strategy. “[T]he break-in was part of a systematic plan of surveillance and disruption targeted at Democratic opponents by the Nixon White House…(West 63).” When questioned about the connection between the break-in and the White House, the Nixon administration insisted on the absurdity of the possibility. Two Washington Post reporters, Bob Woodard and Carl Bernstein, continued to investigate the case and found that the trail of this burglary lead directly to the president and that White House officials and the president himself had lied. Of course following this finding President Nixon resigned, and media again learned some valuable lessons. The Watergate scandal taught journalist to be persistent with investigations, and arguably more importantly to be always be skeptical.
    As mentioned earlier, prior to the 1970’s media and journalism was a sacred industry controlled by few media outlets. The shift to the analytical era marked the dissemination of the media monopoly. Darrell West describes this dissemination in The Rise and Fall of the Media Establishment.
    At political events, flamboyant Rolling Stone commentator Hunter Thompson stood side-by-side with journalistic icons such as David Broder of the Washington Post.
    -West 69
    Journalism had lost its prestige, and prominent media outlets began to lose patrons to other outlets. Like any industry, media is driven by profit. This would mean media outlets would have to take different approaches to gain profit.
    The analytical era of media is marked by distinct attributes. As already discussed interpretation and analyzes became the norm. With this, the journalist’s opinions and biases, while not purposely distorting a story, they do become a part of it. The newly founded Cable News Network (CNN) provided a platform for the new era of news. The shift to interpretation in media coincided with the popularization of political punditry. Pundits are “individuals whose subject area expertise allowed them to place events in a broad historical and political context (West 73).” While West gives a distinguished detention of pundits, most people would know them as the people that argue on CNN or Fox News. Political pundits may be the representative flag of the interpretive era. These opinionated individuals provide insight as well as entertainment, which is of utmost importance in the analytical era.
    With all of the forms of media available to today’s American, entertainment becomes important. While media outlets will report an issue, they will oftentimes add controversial interpretation to add an entertainment element. Many times news outlets pair political pundits from different sides of an issue to create an argument. For instance, with the recent Jena 6 case, CNN paired together African-American liberal Michael Eric Dyson and white conservative Ann Coulter. These types of contrasting opinions are needed for media to maintain a level of interest. People want to be entertained, and in this era where media outlets compete with each other for attention, newspapers, magazines, and TV news programs need to have content that is going to have appeal and more importantly is going to sell.
    I noted in the introduction that the media has a large role in shaping public opinion. To investigate this claim I conducted an informal experiment. I asked 6 of my friends whom they believed was currently winning the Democratic primary. None of them are political science majors but do pay some attention to politics. All six of my friends answered that they believed Barack Obama was currently winning. When I informed them that Hillary Clinton still had the lead, but that Barack was closing in, they all responded similarly. “I thought Barack was winning.” This mistake in fact isn’t surprising considering that after the Iowa primary many news outlets claimed Clinton to be dead in the water. The polls before the New Hampshire primary predicted a Clinton defeat and were decidedly incorrect. With Clinton getting the negative publicity following comments here husband made, its not surprising that anyone would mistake the leading candidate for a candidate with a troubled campaign. With today being Super Tuesday across the country we will get to see if the results my informal experiment are representative of the nation or just my friends. One thing is for certain in American media and politics today. For a candidate to be successful they must learn how to properly manipulate the media.
    Works Cited

    Goodwin, Michael. “After Iowa, Barack Obama is on a Roll and Hillary Clinton is on the ropes.” New York Daily News. Jan 4, 2008

    West, Darrell M. The Rise and Fall of the Media Establishment. Wadsworth/Thomson: Belmont, CA. 2001

    The Critical Citizen

    The perspective of the critical citizen is seemingly the motivation that founded this great country. However, rather than object to the British government, this motivation caused our founding fathers to secede from it, declaring independence. From this example one would believe that it is the critical citizen model that should mold citizenship not only in America, but in nations around the world. This perceptive allows democracy to reach its full potential. Without it, governments can become totalitarian and oppressive.
    Nathanson suggests that the critical citizen believes that government’s right to rule is based on its commitment to justice, whereas just governments have the right to rule and unjust governments do not. Hobbes contests that citizens do not hold the right to determine if governments’ laws are just or unjust and that such a freedom would lead to chaos due to arbitrary and ambiguous notions of justice. Hobbes’ argument seems faulty on two points. First, governments are generally established in nations, nation which can be defined as a group of people with a recognized and shared culture and history. In most cases it would seem illogical to think that a people with an alike history and culture would have dramatically different notions of justice, just as it would be logical to conclude that this group would have similar notions of morality. The Sunni-Shiite conflict seems to be one of few exceptions of this rule. Secondly, government’s purpose over all else is to preserve life and liberty. It would seem that if ever government lost sight of its purpose, especially in the case of life, it would be not only logical, but necessary to be critical of government. In a similar argument Nathanson notes “If the function of governments is to protect people’s rights, then a government is legitimate as long as it does that… (82)” One may content that this just gives the citizen the unlimited freedom that Hobbes fears. This maybe true, but the law of nature insists that one strive to preserve his own life, even when government infringes on it.
    I have come to learn that whenever two opposing positions are presented against each other it is almost certain that there is some truth and some falsehood in each. Nathanson argues that the government should do whatever the citizens cannot do for themselves. If this is true, then it is possible that government will become the authoritarian government Hobbes argues for. What if people can do nothing for themselves? Then government must be everything. Former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was once quoted “All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” This is the type of government that Nathanson is advocating for with this argument.
    Is the critical citizen perspective a good model for citizenship in the contemporary United States? This question is easier to answer when the question is formulated as such: Is the critical citizen perspective a bad model for citizenship in the contemporary United States? For this to be true, the critical perspective being bad for the U.S. citizen, the government would have to be perfect, meaning the critical perspective would be unnecessary. The critical perspective would be unnecessary because the goals of establishing justice, promoting the general welfare, and securing the blessings of liberty would accomplished and maintained naturally. There would be nothing to be critical about. We know that this is not the case in America. The government is not perfect. Regarding liberty, people are being held in Guantanamo Bay without knowing the charges against them, without the writ of habeas corpus. Promoting the general welfare is a goal, yet there are patterns of poverty that exist in out nations urban centers. Many urban schools cannot provide the quality education available in suburban schools, arguably starting and facilitating these patterns of poverty. The distribution of justice is unequal when sentencing guidelines for cocaine are different dependent on what form it takes. Powdered cocaine, the drug generally associated with whites and “recreational” drug use, has lesser sentencing guidelines than crack cocaine, the form associated with minorities and “criminal” drug use. I’ve given these examples to just to say that government is not perfect, and since it is not, citizens have the moral obligation to be critical.

    Notice

    If you couldn't tell, most of my writings are specifically written for particular classes. This means that you will see a shift in the topics of some of these pieces. Don't worry though. I will continue to address issues concerning racial conscieness, just give me some time.

    -Will

    Tuesday, January 15, 2008

    My Professor

    He speaks as if his every sentence deserves its own recognition.
    Like the president giving his State of the Union Address.
    "Rousseau speaks of the ethical interpretation of citizenship....


    This entails acting with the good of the community in mind."

    Accept there is no applause.
    Just stares.


    Waiting for the next bullet point in the notes.

    His folded hands sit rested on his corpulent figure.

    "Legally as citizens of the United States....


    Then there is the notion...of due process...granted.....to the..........members of the state.......its citizens.

    Smiling.
    No Smirking.
    This smirk I've seen before.
    He believes that he has a superior intellectual capacity.
    It is as if his smirk signifys his belief that exactly no sitting in the seats in front of him well ever reach their so called "potential."

    "Telos is....


    The latin root which means.....the good....or the end...."

    But inside,
    I am smirking too.

    Tuesday, January 8, 2008

    Lions for Lambs


    BE ADVISED: Please bear with me as I struggle through this rant.....I recently watched a movie that absolutely made my skin crawl. The funny thing is that the film wasn't about aliens, ghosts, unsolved mysteries, murderers or any of the above but it was horrifying none the less. The movie was simply about America. More specifically it was about the war in Iraq, the timid state of the American media, and conciseness, a topic that I have attempted to analyze in previous blog entries. It seems as if my inability to completely wrap my head around the movie's subject matter is exactly the point that director Robert Redford is trying to make. Several scenes in the movie mention events and names involving the war and world politics in general. While I do consider myself a conscience individual, even I had trouble following the conversation between Meryl Streep, playing a witty news reporter, and Tom Cruise, playing an ambitious senator. The conversation covered the U.S.'s relationship with Saudi Arabia, the relationship between Iran and Iraqi insurgents, statistics on military casualties, etc. As I sat listening to the dialogue, learning new things and looking up references that I didn't understand, I wondered what would the average American citizen get out of this movie? What would the average person my age (20) get out of this movie? A person that is consumed less with world issues and more so with "I Love New York", Britney Spears, the latest rap beef, sportscenter, etc. It seems as if this mindless entertainment deprives us from observing the important issues in the world.The disconnected (for lack of a better word) state of Americans was one alarming issue that Redford points to. The issue that scared me the most was how Redford paints the American media to be a leashed and blinded dog, leashed by the government, and blinded because of the failure to present impartial opinions. The movie made me think, am I really hearing the real story? If i am not, if I've been fed propaganda by the government through the media, then perhaps my opinions, whom I once thought were my own, are no more unique than...than...Have you ever seen the Manchurian Candidate? Well that's the concept that I'm trying to fit into words here. This is wearing me out...I'll try again later.P.S. I hope all of you that read this can feel where I'm coming from. After rereading my own work, I'm not quite sure that I've articulated myself as clearly a I would like yet I I'm not quite sure on how to correct this problem. The reason I actually posted this entry is to get help from you. Perhaps your comment, question or inquisition can help me better understand my own thought and argument

    Friday, January 4, 2008

    Randy Moss vs.........

    I've often engaged in debates in locker rooms, on buses, and just generally about who the best receiver in the NFL is. Ever since his 1998 rookie season in which he caught a rookie record 17 touchdowns, Randy Moss has been the player that I've defended for this title. His last years in Minnesota and the disgraceful two years in Oakland (In which he still combined for 102 catches, 1557 yards, and 11 touchdowns) caused for more heated debates on this topic. Most commonly someone defended Terrell Owens' brute strength and his dazzling ability to get yards after the catch, Torry Holt or Marvin Harrison's uncanny route running ability, or the ability for the 5' 9 Steve Smith to play like a 6'5 beast. An argument for any of the following men can be made compelling but the truth is no receiver causes as many defensive adjustments as Randy Moss.
    The deep threat that Moss poses opens up other underneath receivers and the running game. Teams like the Indianapolis Colts and the Pittsburgh Steelers that like to bring a safety into the box (Bob Sanders, Troy Polamalu) have to change their philosophy to account for Moss. He could literally go deep on any play. Moss's record breaking touchdown catch highlighted this threat. After Tom Brady short armed a deep ball that would have set the passing touchdown and receiving touchdown records, Brady went right back to Moss on the very next play to make up for the miscue. With Randy, even if you know he's going deep you still cannot stop it. Even if he is covered or double covered he may still out jump the defenders for yet another highlight reel catch.
    The redzone is where Moss shows his dominance. Like Shaq with the ball right under the basket, Big Papi up to bat in the ninth with a man on second, or Sidney Crosby approaching the goal on a fast break, a fade to Moss is a virtual guaranteed touchdown. It is in the redzone where cornerbacks are singled up with Moss with the defense loading up the box to stop the run. It is here where Moss's 6'4 lanky frame is just too much for even the best of the NFL's DBs. No receiver in the NFL's present or past, including the great Jerry Rice, could do the things that Moss can do. Now that he has the NFL's receiving touchdown record, I don't have to defend Moss as much as I used to. If you still question his greatness just think of what people say whenever a great catch is made over a defender. Anyone with football experience has heard the term. If a receiver makes a great catch over a defender, then that man just got "MOSSED!". Not "T.O.ed" not "Holted", not "Harrisoned", and not even "Riced". The correct term is "MOSSED" and too many NFL defenders know exactly why...

    Stalled Movement

    At some point in the last thirty to forty years the progress of the Civil Rights Movement has been dramatically stalled. The lost of affirmative action, continued police brutality (Amadu Diallo, Shawn Bell), and the unequal distribution of wealth and power in America serve as evidence for this claim. Because of this, the movement is almost never discussed in a present tense. Instead it is celebrated and admired (as it should be) but not carried on. The ideal of the movement was to affirm the humanity of African Americans within the United States. It seems clear that is goal that this goal is still in limbo.
    It is not my intent to suggest that progress of the Civil Rights Movement has been completely halted. Remnants of movement progress are clearly visible in today’s society. The progressive number of African American college graduates is complemented by the continued rise of African Americans ascending into the middle and even upper classes (Gates and West, vii-xvii). I justify my claims of a stalled movement with the knowledge that African Americans make up less than 12% of the country’s population, yet take more than 50% of the country’s prison population. It is evident that movement progress has slowed when in 1995 the infant mortality rate of African Americans was 15.1 per 1000 births, while the infant mortality rate of Whites was just 6.3 per 1000 births. Furthermore, the number one cause of death for African American males between the ages of 18 and 31 is violence related death (Marable 4). The problem is not that these statistics exist, but that they have not gotten better over the years.
    Isaac Newton notes that an object in motion will remain in motion until it is acted upon by an outside source. Newton’s first law of physics can be used to address the claims of this essay. The ‘object in motion’ is representative of Civil Rights Movement, and the removal of the ‘outside source’ is the key to the revival of the movement. The problem is that this outside source is as invisible as gravity, but just as powerful. In many cases authors, social commentators, and critics claim that they have found this outside source. Most commonly it is labeled structural racism, immorality in the Black community, and even the laziness of minorities. I have concluded that none of these issues can be the source stalling the present day Civil Rights Movement because they were all present during the core of the movement.
    Perhaps this outside force is a “we’ve made it” feeling that plagues the American psyche. Between 1940 and 1975 the consciousness of African Americans reached a peak, consciousness being ‘to know that you are oppressed’. Not only did African Americans have this consciousness but many did something about it. Instead of participating in athletics, social clubs or cliques many African American youth participated in groups like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). These courageous youth chose jail cells over school dances and football games. They took action in order to change their communities. This type of consciousness and dedication is for the most part absent in the African American youth of today. Instead of understanding what is going on around the world, we are only concerned with what is happening the largely irrelevant hip-hop community. Discussions of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King’s philosophies have been replaced with conversations of who has beef with 50 cent and the latest Lil’ Wayne track. African American youth are not the only guilty party. For many African Americans once the status of middleclass is reached they too become infected with the ‘we’ve made it’ feeling (Dyson xi-xiv, 1-15). There is no middle ground in the Black community where the middleclass is too rich to struggle and the underclass is too poor to. Whites are not without this ‘we’ve made it’ feeling. This is ever so clear in Michigan where affirmative action has been recently voted down, conveying that the original concerns for which it was enacted in the first place are no longer issues. Claims by many Whites that affirmative action policies are oppression of the majority by the minority only reiterate this claim. There are many guilty parties in this problem which suggest that the solution cannot be in any one of them singularly.
    The mention of hip-hop culture in the previous paragraph brings the question of leadership to the forefront. I’ve mentioned that the public dialogue has replaced civil rights concerns with rap beef discussions. Perhaps this is because leaders such as Dr. King, Malcolm X, and Thurgood Marshall have not been replaced at all.
    There has not been a time in the history of Black people in this country when the quantity of politicians and intellectuals was so great, yet the quality of both groups has been so low.
    -West 35
    Dr. Cornel West’s chapter The Crisis of Black Leadership sums up the issue of leadership in the Black community better than I could ever articulate. Arguably, the most influential people in the Black community today are the least qualified to be so. Even the intellectuals and orators such as Michael Eric Dyson, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Henry Louis Gates are guilty of commercializing the plight of Blacks. This is evident in the number of books that they’ve written in comparison to the number of books Dr. King, Malcolm X, and other activist wrote. The activists of the Civil Rights Movement were too busy doing. The Black intellectuals of today are too busy writing. It seems that the since the core of the movement passed we where left only with social commentators and no social changers. When Dr. King and Malcolm X died, the torch was not passed to anyone that was concerned solely with the continued progress of the Civil Rights Movement.
    This essay would be incomplete if it did not address the unequal distribution of wealth and power through an analysis of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. The defining accomplishment of the Civil Rights Movement was the Brown decision that illegalized segregation. This decision is celebrated as ending segregation but in reality it did anything but. It should be noted that the Brown decision only ended de jure segregation, and that de facto segregation still exists extensively in America. Only now instead of Black and White schools there are urban and suburban schools that follow the segregated pattern of pre-1954. Just as the quality of pre-1954 schools was based on color, the quality of post-1954 schools is based on geography. Many urban school districts simply cannot afford to provide the type of education offered in suburban schools, and most urban parents cannot afford to send their children to schools offering better education. This problem is significant to the progress of African Americans because it creates a reoccurring generational cycle. One generation sends their children to unsatisfactory urban schools, because the education isn’t great those children do not go to college. Since these youth do not have college degrees they cannot get well paying jobs which leaves them stuck in the ghetto, and when this generation has children the cycle will be repeat itself once again. The failure to equalize public schools leads to the question, what do we ask for? Education was supposed to be the key to wealth and power, but some how these elements still evade an overwhelming number of minorities in America.
    I started this paper with the less than original claim that the Civil Rights Movement has been stalled. I wanted to discover what this outside source was. After my research I am still puzzled on why this is, for the examples that I have offered are merely branches of a tree that I cannot find the roots of. It seems that I may have committed the same sins authors of Black plight have in limiting the scope of the issue. Still, I do not see that I have worked in vein. I have made some progress. I realized that the flaw in this essay was to seek out a single solution to the plight of African-Americans. Through Grace Lee Boggs, Cornel West, Assata Shukur and others I have learned that the solution to this problem is highly complex and does not simply lie somewhere in the Black community. As West and Lee have asserted, Black is no longer a color, meaning that the issues facing the African-American community can not be addressed in solitarily. The plight of African-Americans is interconnected with the plight of oppressed peoples around the world. This means that any group that has been labeled ‘other’ by society must be recognized and affirmed (Marable 1-15/ Benhabib 1-30). This includes minorities, women, gays and lesbians, abused children in Africa, as well as oppressed monks in Myanmar. Oppression is a weed that must be pulled up from the root. Like Dr. King said, “An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

    Back In The Day

    The narrative of the Civil Rights movement as it is written in today’s elementary, middle, and high school text books paints a mythical picture of a monolithic movement. This narrative implies a sort of cohesiveness in the strategy of the movement by only highlighting the works of Dr. Martin Luther King or the courage of Rosa Parks. The reality is that the Civil Rights Movement had a host of contrasting ideologies, many personas, and crucial events that are neglected in ‘Civil Rights’ chapter of our American history textbooks. One of the contrasts often forgotten in the Civil Rights narrative is the generational differences of the Black community, during the movement. The plurality of the Civil Rights Movement can begin to be examined with a study of the contrasting positions between older and younger African-Americans.
    All generations have distinctions that separate them from other generations, distinctions that create the ‘generational gap’. Technology, historical events, prominent public figures and other pastimes all work together to create this gap between generations. Just as I have heard stories from my father about the Vietnam conflict, the greatness of Walter Payton, and the time his father brought a record player home, my son will hear stories from me about September 11th, the majestic of Michael Jordan, and when ipods first hit the market. The ‘back-in-the-day’ stories of parents and children living during the Civil Rights Movement involved more paramount contrasts. Anne Moody’s mother never thought of her daughter attending school with white children, nor would Mose Wright, Emmett Till’s grandfather, ever think an interracial relationship possible in society were a boy is killed just for whistling at a white woman. No period in American history has witnessed a greater generational gap then that of the Black community during the Civil Rights Movement. As these racial norms, traditions, and taboos began to change with the evolution of the movement, the Black community’s generational gap became more apparent.
    Anne Moody’s autobiography, Coming of Age in Mississippi, presents a perfect opportunity to begin examining the older/younger generational contrast. Moody’s relationship with her mother illustrates the differences between the aspirations, strategies, and visions of the two generations. The frustration that Moody expresses for her mother is quite possibly the root of the difference between what I will label as the pre-movement and movement generations. Moody’s resentment grows out of her desire to blaze her own trail, one that did not involve the agricultural life of her parents. In describing her dislike for farming, Moody expresses this desire clearly.
    So whenever Mama started one of her long lectures on the pleasures of farming, I would drown her out with my thoughts of Mrs. Claiborne and all the traveling she had done and the people she had met. Mrs. Claiborne had told me how smart I was and how much I could do if I just had the chance. I knew if I got involved in farming, I’d be just like Mama and the rest of them, and that I would never get that chance.
    -Moody 90

    It is natural for any growing youth to want to leave the home of their parents and spread their wings in society. In the case of Moody, and many youth of the movement generation, spreading your wings not only meant leaving the home but also establishing a new, better standard of living. For Moody, the life of agriculture that her mother’s family shared was not acceptable, nor was the racism that accompanied it.
    “I’d be just like Mama and the rest of them…” It is interesting to examine what this statement entails. To be like the “rest of them” meant to be confined to limits of southern Black life. Toosweet’s (Anne’s Mother) life is representative of many of the lives of the pre-movement generation. This generation was confined by the racism that plagued America, which created asinine social norms. The most absurd and noticeable social norm was Jim Crow. Every single facet of life was limited by the walls of this plague. Job opportunities for women were limited to domestic duties. For men, if there was work available, was limited to the fields. Black men could be lynched for looking at a white woman, while many wealthy white men had sexual relationships with their Black hired help. Black people stepped off the sidewalk when whites were on the path. Financial stability was made impossible due to sharecropping, and other racist economic practices. It is imperative to note that these atrocities were considered norms. For many of the pre-movement generation, a good life was accomplished by working within the limits of these restrictive norms and staying away from conflicts with whites.
    Coming of Age in Mississippi is unique because its setting is within the peak of the Civil Rights Movement, between the 1940’s and 1960’s. This period highlighted the reality of Black life by showing the opposite sides of the spectrum, from poor rural African Americans to middleclass urban African Americans. American society did not accept Blacks as full citizens, but northern life was more optimistic than southern life. Many southern youth, like Moody, decided that they were not to going accept southern social norms. The Civil Rights Movement provided the opportunity to not be like the “rest of them”. Moody’s generation eradicated many of the social limitations that the pre-movement generation suffered from. This time period saw African Americans migrate north in unprecedented numbers. These individuals became first generation college graduates and first time members of the middleclass. It was this generation that took the more radical stance toward achieving social equality (Gates and West, vii-xvii). It should be noted that one could be born between 1940 and 1960 but still suffer from the pre-movement ideology. Anne was born into the pre-movement philosophy but with the help of teachers and her own strong will, she became exposed to more desirable ideals. Similarly one could be born within the pre-movement generation and still have a radical movement stance towards social equality. Fredrick Douglas and W.E.B DuBois are examples.
    It is not my intent to imply that the pre-movement generation was comfortable with American racism. It was a combination of racial conditioning and violent white resistance that made radical change so scary for many African-Americans of both the pre-movement and movement generations. Traditions like Jim Crow became part of the subconscious of many African-Americans, but having just a few citizenship rights was better than having none at all. This subconscious created an inferiority complex in many African Americans and caused many of them to be cautious with the struggle for social equality. For it seemed that the agitation of the movement could result in the loss of the little progress that the Black community had gained since the abolition of slavery. The pre-movement generation had to be fearful of the Civil Rights Movement because of the threat it posed to their minimal comfort.
    Racial conditioning and white resistance would explain why Toosweet frowned on her daughter’s participation in the movement. She had a family to take care of in one the most racist communities in the country and her options were more limited compared to her daughter’s. Whites made it known that participation in the movement would have its consequences. The sheriff of Anne’s hometown was one of those people.
    She said the sheriff had been by, telling her I was messing around with that NAACP group. She said he told her if I didn’t stop it, I could not come back there anymore. He said that they didn’t need any of those NAACP people messing around in Centreville.
    -Moody 285
    Many students of the Civil Rights Movement, including myself, have been quick to condemn Blacks, like Anne’s Mother, that were not fully supportive of the movement. It should be noted that for many African-Americans the decision to support the movement was a life or death decision and it would be hypocritical to criticize anyone that chose not to fully support the radical movement in order to survive.
    Fear was the cause of the struggles of Freedom Summer of 1964 but the racial conditioning that created an inferior subconscious in the pre-movement generation also played a role. Freedom Summer was an attempt, by civil rights groups like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), to get African-Americans to register vote in the most racist part of the country. This one summer is relevant because it brought pre-movement and movement generations face to face with one another. It should be noted that this project was an attempt, and the success or failure of it is debatable. The project was hindered because not everyone cooperated and not everyone was pleased with these northern groups disturbing the ‘southern way of life.’ Many whites were angry with the project because of racial ignorance, but even some African-Americans had a problem with these young northerners bringing unwanted attention to the Black community. Because of the former sentiment the Freedom Summer project had to be run by young students. They had no ties to the community, therefore the family survival issue as it affected Anne’s mother, would not be an issue to these young people. In referencing the southern Black community, Robert Moses, the director of SNCC’s presence in Mississippi, describes the main issue of the Freedom Summer project.
    The Negro churches could not in general be counted on; the Negro business leaders could also not in general be counted on…and, in general, anybody who had a specific economic tie-in with the white community could not be counted on when the pressure got hot. Therefore, our feeling was that the only way to run this campaign was to begin to build a group of young people who would not be responsible economically to any sector of the white community and who would be able to act as free agents.
    -Carson 176
    Moses labels the groups that he cannot count on. He names churches, business leaders, and generally anyone that had an economic tie with the white community. These characteristics describe pre-movement generation African-Americans such as Toosweet. These older Blacks could not be counted on in the radical movement because there financial survival largely depended on whites. Finances for movement generation African Americans did not depend so much on whites.
    It can be argued that there were two (and possibly more) branches of the Civil Rights Movement. A conservative branch, which included pre-movement African-Americans, that advocated self-reliance and slower racial progress and a radical branch, which included youth of the movement generation, and pushed for immediate and tangible racial progress. Without a doubt the father of the latter branch was Booker T. Washington. Portions of Washington’s ‘accommodationist’ theory seem to be interlaced within the pre-movement ideology. Washington believed in slow racial progress. More specifically he encouraged sacrificing political and civic equality in exchange for economic and educational stability. For many of the pre-movement generation this strategy was not as imposing as the radical Civil Rights movement. In a 1985 speech Washington announced his beliefs to the country. He encouraged Blacks to befriend the southern white man, learn how to prosper by farming land, and not to agitate societal change.
    No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top.
    -Washington, Atlanta Compromise Address

    Many have said the ‘accommodationist’ ideology to be degrading to the humanity of African-Americans. The truth of this claim is debatable and must be argued by scholars, but surely Washington believed that his strategy would advance the interest of African-Americans. His ideas were not radical, but they were centered on the betterment of Black life, therefore contributing to the movement.
    It was mentioned in the introduction that the largest generational gap American history has ever witnessed was that of the Black community during the Civil Rights Movement. For many of the pre-movement generation America was still largely two societies, one being Black, one being white. The latter bound by the ignorance of the former. The movement generation was the first to see the possibilities of a merger of the two societies. Landmark decisions like Brown v. Board of Education, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the installment of affirmative action provided the movement generation with opportunities that the pre-movement generation could only wish for. The content of this paper would lead one to assume that the movement ideology blossomed out of no where. To assume this would be to commit another ignorant sin. As I have noted, the reason the movement generation was able to take such a radical stance is because they had the tools to do so. The Civil Rights Movement marked the moment when African Americans felt empowered, educated, and were organized enough to stand up to the United States government. The only circumstance in which this struggle could have taken place any earlier would be if President Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation before 1863. Pre-movement African-Americans are not usually remembered in the Civil Rights narrative, but it must be acknowledged that the movement could not have existed without them.
    It is ironic that I am writing an essay that attempts to shed the monolithic Civil Rights Movement myth. It should be recognized that while I have briefly observed the generational gap of the Black community during the movement, even I have committed the sin of limiting the scope. I have tailored this essay to show how age difference created a divide in the black community but in most cases age was by no means the only dividing factor. Class, gender, religion, and what area of the country you were born in also played a role in ones ideology. While one would be correct to assert that in general followers of Malcolm X where younger and followers of Martin Luther King tended to be middle-aged, it would also be correct to contend that Malcolm X’s popularity was highest with men in poor urban areas and Dr. King’s popularity was highest in southern middle-classed communities. The Civil Rights narrative limits the plurality of the movement. Many, and likely most, African-Americans found inspiration in both Dr. King and Malcolm X. In labeling the ‘pre-movement’ and ‘movement’ generations I have created distinctions for the general purposes of this essay. It is not to imply that these two generations shared nothing in common, or to impose that there was total disagreement between the two. Broadening the spectrum of the public dialogue regarding the movement is my only intent. Furthermore, we should acknowledge that while the Civil Rights Movement had many platforms, some of which conflicted with one another, togetherness still existed in striving for the goal of racial equality. Today’s Black community could learn from this example.

    Works Cited

    Carson, Clayborne. “Mississippi: 1961-1962” The Eyes on the Prize Civil Rights Reader. New York, Penguin Group, 1998

    Gates, Henry L. Cornel West. The Future of the Race. New York; Alfred K. Knopf, Inc, 1996

    Moody, Anne. Coming of Age in Mississippi. New York; Bantum Dell, 2004

    Washington, Booker T. “Atlanta Compromise Speech” 1985. Accessed Through Oxford African American Studies Center (/www.oxfordaasc.com) 12/7/07.