A VICTORY FOR DUKE STUDENTS AND US ALL!

The Duke Lacrosse rape case is in the news and at a very interesting time given the current rage over the IMUS case (sees previous blog).

I must admit that this particular case had my ire up quite high – from the beginning!

To me, all prosecutors are now suspect. They are not interested in justice but just a chance to run for higher office; well maybe not all of them but most. They are capable of sacrificing an innocent person’s life just to win a conviction and therefore a winning resume. I can point to many cases here in Michigan, especially the Detroit area.

The motives of the North Carolina prosecutor in this case MIKE NIFONG should have been suspect from the beginning. He was running for re-election in a black community and he did not even bother to interview the woman accuser until nine (9) months after the charges were brought against the three Duke students.

I am surprised that no one in the police or justice department stepped up to the plate to call out prosecutorial misconduct. Where they all scared for their jobs? I think they should all be included in the legal civil suits that will surely follow – and I think heads should roll big time!

The prosecutor played the race card; rich white students, poor black single-mother, student and dancer just trying to make ends meet – perfect!

Sharpton and Jackson made an appearance as they always do – remember IMUS? I hope their names come up as this whole thing blows up.

Many are wondering how our justice system could allow such a miscarriage of justice. Why don’t we have a system that can identify rogue prosecutors?

The three white students had rich parents and so they could afford to spend 3-5 million dollars on a good defense team. What if they were poor students going to Wayne State University in Detroit using their GI Bill after the Vietnam War (like me and my friends) to get an education and had no extra money available except to feed themselves. I would venture to say that those students would be facing 30 years behind bars – lovely?

The question of race and sex is a national pathology as anthropologist Lionel Tiger of Rutgers says. We react. We are allowed to be manipulated and we forego the use of reason. We are pawns in the game of race and race card players are very good at it.

It is time we stood up to this manipulation because people’s lives are at stake or at least their well-being.

People that don’t have a racist bone in their body should not be made to feel as if they are inherently racist because they are white – enough!

FIRESTORM OVER WHAT IMUS SAID?

I don’t know Don Imus. I know he looks like shit and I heard he is pretty opinionated on the air but I don’t really know his views, etc.

I do know that he has created quite an uproar; an uproar heard around the whole country – now that is big!

While commenting on a women’s college basketball game, he pointed out how tough the women of Rutgers University were with their tattoos and all and then he called them “nappy-headed hos”.

I heard the actual clip and to me at least, it seemed he was trying to be cool and imitate some rapper talk. It did not seem he said the phrase out of any malicious intent.

Whatever made him say it, his words caused a firestorm. First the ladies on the team objected and so did their coach followed by the proverbial gadflies of racial issues, Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson. Soon the station that carries Imus (MSNBC) was forced by its black employees to cancel the program, sponsors of his program pulled out, presidential candidates made their opinions known, etc…………………………. I must say that Rudy Giuliani simply asked if Imus apologized and left it at that.

Well now, what shall we make out of all this?

I have heard that Imus is a jerk and has used iffy language in describing a host of groups including Jews, Hispanics, Gays and the list goes on……………………………

He appears to be quite popular and it appears, influential. Many personalities can’t wait to get on his show.

Imus did apologize for going “over the top” and for that matter, kept apologizing and as far as I know, continues to apologize – to no avail.

The fact that he did not call the female basketball players “Afro-headed whores” but “Nappy-headed hos” is significant. The second phrase has been used by countless black rappers in countless “songs”. It appears he was mimicking their rapping styles.

Was it insulting – hell yes! “Nappy” meaning kinky hair is a negative racial comment and “hos” is an obviously derogatory sexist comment. Should he have said it? No, but he did.

I see two problem areas in this whole scenario that continues to unfold before us. The first is the use of language and the second, priorities.

We all realize that we live in a country that guarantees freedom of speech. We all also realize that there is acceptable and unacceptable social language. Swearing or cursing in public is a no-no for example even though it happens - often.

A recent phenomenon is the appropriateness of using certain historically derogatory words by specific individuals. The best example is the word “nigger” or any variation thereof (nigga). Blacks can and do use that term and on a regular basis. You might say - all the time. Yet the same word cannot be uttered by a non-black because that would constitute a slur. Blacks use the word as a form of endearment?

Being Polish, we treat the term “Polack” as a derogatory word and I have heard Poles call each other that as if it was OK because they ARE Polish. I see the comparison but I don’t buy it. Calling one a Polack is demeaning and the intention is to demean. The dictionary defines Polack as usually “disparaging” and for this reason I react negatively when the term is uttered in my presence by a Pole or anyone else.

The term “ho” is also part of the rapper lexicon and is used just as often as “nigga”. It appears that black men are called “niggas” and black women are called “hos” – on a regular basis in song as well as in normal street use.

I don’t want to get academic on you but many anthropologists point out that the blacks using these terms are men and many black men feel deficient when compared to black women and therefore call black women by the demeaning term “ho” as a way to bolster their perceived manhood.

Street slang can and has become popular in our culture. I think it is a natural occurrence especially among the young and is also spread by the entertainment industry and Imus obviously tried to sound hip by imitating rap lingo.

Does the Rutgers women basketball team deserve to be called “hos”? Absolutely not and they deserve a big apology. On the other hand no woman, black or white, deserves to be called a “ho” by anyone and that includes black men, rappers and all.

As long as Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson don’t say a peep about the use of “ho” by black men, then they have no business criticizing anyone else for using the term.

Was it a racist statement? It sounds like one but if listened to within the context of the entire broadcast, one could not say it was said in animosity or with any other purpose in mind other than to sound hip.

As to my second point about priorities, the black community has many monumental problems. Prisons are filled with young black men; morgues are filled with young black men. Out of wedlock births are on the rise, if that is possible. Poverty is rampant and so is ignorance. Black women have no one to marry and all black leaders have to get angry at is some old, white fart trying to be cool – shame on you!

Responsible blacks need to take the stage (Bill Cosby) and address the real problems facing the black community and tell the grandstanders like Sharpton and Jackson to get the hell off the stage.

I also have something to say about the dumb asses in the white community who allow Sharpton and Jackson to manipulate our society by playing the race card over and over again – grow up!!!

PRODUCT OF A VICIOUS CYCLE!

A recent murder in Detroit got me thinking.

Chris Chelios, a hockey player for the Detroit Red Wings, had two restaurants, one in Detroit next to the Comerica Ball Park.

A few days ago, a young (17), former bus boy at the restaurant that was fired for bad performance of duties, came to ask for his job back; he was black. The white kitchen manager said no so the kid stabbed him with a butcher knife 10 times. A white female manager heard the commotion and came to investigate and she was stabbed 10 times.

I don’t think race had anything to do with the crime but I mention it because I think it does have something to do with the whole affair.

The kid ran but was recognized and was picked up by the police a short time later – he confessed.

Our female, black police chief said something that struck me. She said that our kids (black kids in Detroit) are not taught peaceful conflict resolution. They are not taught how to interact with society. They are not taught basic rules of behavior.

The only family member that could be found was a grandfather. We will see if a caring father even exists or for that matter, a mother. The 17 year old kid said his girlfriend was pregnant and he needed a job. She too worked at Chelios but was fired for not doing her job.

Bill Cosby has been in Detroit numerous times lecturing on responsibility in the black community; a responsibility to raise responsible children that would create responsible families, etc.

I think a vicious cycle exists and the cycle is hard to break and unless we break it, these types of senseless crimes will just continue. Please give a thought to the two victims who were 52 and 49, at a time in their lives where they have achieved some success and were now just enjoying life –gone.

The cycle starts with this kid. He is 17 and has a pregnant girlfriend. He will go to jail for life and she will give birth and raise another black kid that will have basically no parents and therefore no guidance – and the cycle will repeat again when that kid goes to jail after getting his 14 year-old girlfriend pregnant and so on and so on.

Stop the pregnancies! Easier said than done; this is a democracy and people have civil rights BUT children? Well, define the age of consent! Plus getting pregnant in the black community is the normal thing to do. It is so accepted that there is no stigma for getting pregnant out of wedlock – also true for the white community.

Teach them responsibility in school? - Sex education? I don’t think so; teachers have trouble enough just keeping order in the classroom.

Is there a realistic way to break the cycle? Realistic means obeying the law so we cannot force specific behavior.

The answer starts with blacks being able to and forming family units, units that nurture a culture
of normalcy with rules and regulations of behavior that can be passed on and on. I am not saying the problem does not exist in the white community but we are talking about Detroit specifically.

I don’t have an answer but I will let you know when and if, I do.

There is a current issue that has caught my interest. It is a case before the Supreme Court about school integration plans in Oregon and Kentucky.

White parents have gone to court to challenge school plans in their districts that use race to achieve a racial balance in line with the racial ratio of the community. In doing so, they are prohibiting parents from sending their children to schools that they want, specifically, to the schools in their own districts and therefore close to home.

Historically, certain states in the union separated children according to race when it came to education. In these states you had black and white schools or the separate but equal formula. The Supreme Court in the Brown vs., Board of Education landmark ruling said the practice was despicable and violated the equal treatment under the law provision of our Constitution.

The court found that indeed the black schools were separate but not equal and that forcibly separating the races in schools negatively impacted the black students. For this reason they banned the use of race as a factor in how our school systems operated.

Following that decision, we had a pretty contentious time when federal courts ordered “forced busing” in an attempt to desegregate the schools in the country.

Since those days, the need for court ordered school desegregation has gone. Schools are legally prohibited from segregating according to race.

But what has happened in our society is that people settled in communities according to race so you have black, white and mixed communities. In the black and white communities, the schools are de facto segregated. Detroit is a good example where 80% of the population is black and so are the schools. In fact in Detroit, the schools are more like 90% black since many white parents and some black, send their children to private schools.

Communities like Seattle and Kentucky where the racial divide is not so one sided but maybe 60/40 either way, feel it beneficial to maintain that ratio in their schools even if they have to bus children out of their own school district.

There is no argument that a racially diverse school population is good for the students; that has been proven over and over again. But if race is legally NOT to be used as a governing factor in how schools are populated; can the school plans be challenged legally.

I think parents have every right to send their kids (K-12) to the nearest school to their home, if that is what they wish. Many move to certain communities specifically to be part of that communities’ school system. I know here in Canton-Plymouth, the excellence of the school system is what drives the property values higher and higher and attracts parents looking for good schools. Is that a problem? Many black families move here for that very reason, well maybe not that many but some.

Diversity is good for our school children but should it be forced? I think legally, the Brown vs. Board of Education decision should be closely read as no race factor allowed.

Should society be allowed to develop naturally or do we want to meddle with it – good question.