Time for President Obama to Return the Favor (Black Folks Ridin' Hard for POTUS)

Dear President Obama,

I listened to your comments on the looting going on in Baltimore yesterday.  All I could think was, "Here we go again."

Let me get to the point:  You're quick to criticize black folks when we don't live up to your standards, but you're slow to criticize non-black folks when their failure to live up to any standard of decency leads to the murder of black folks.

As one reporter noted, you did not walk the streets of Ferguson.  You were silent about Eric Garner.  I've not heard you utter the phrase "Black Lives Mater."

But the minute that black folks -- young black folks at that -- begin to loot and riot in response to the racial transgressions you barely acknowledge?  Then it's on.  You jump on the obvious bandwagon and, despite your race, fail to add anything to the conversation that non-blacks don't already think and say.  You fail to add the context that your experience as a black man in America would cause to come to you naturally.  Or at least it should.

Sure, it's easy to call young black people "thugs."  It's easy to confirm the pre-existing stereotypes.  But you have a higher calling and a greater debt to the very people you condemn so easily.

You have a higher calling because you know better and you were put into office in part because you were expected to lift your voice for black people at most, or at least to make sure that black people are treated equally under the law.  Make no mistake -- many black folks had their doubts about you.  I know for certain that many black women would not have voted for you but for the fact that you are married to Mrs. Obama, enabling you to wear her "race rank," for lack of a better phrase.  The idea behind black folks putting a black man in the White House was that he -- you -- would bring your life experience with you and deploy it for our equal treatment and everyone else's education. For many of us, the reason to vote you in for a second term was to give you the political freedom to speak to the uneasy issue of race that you didn't have in your first term.  The idea was that you'd have nothing to lose and you'd expend some political capital on the uneasy issue of race.  Instead, you chose to use Eric Holder as your proxy.

To make matters worse, your comments on Baltimore embodied Professor Derrick Bell''s Third Rule of Racial Standing from his book, "Faces at the Bottom of the Well, " to wit:

Few blacks avoid diminishment of racial standing, most of their statements about racial conditions being diluted and their recommendations of other blacks taken with a grain of salt. The usual exception to this rule is the black person who publicly disparages or criticizes other blacks who are speaking or acting in ways that upset whites. Instantly, such statements are granted 'enhanced standing' even when the speaker has no special expertise or experience in the subject he or she is criticizing. (emphasis added).
And when the President of the United States disparages black people, without adding the context to their actions that he knows or should knows, this exception to the rule of racial standing becomes all the more stronger.

But you knew that.

You chose to call them thugs when you could have quoted Dr. King about the nature of rioting:  "Riot is the language of the unheard."  You didn't put their actions into context,   You simply brushed all of those who looted with a broad brushstroke, with an easy sound bite, knowing that you wouldn't have to bear the consequences of the condemnation you heaped upon them and those who look like them.

Enough. Is.  Enough.

To borrow a turn of phrase from your girl Ms. Bey, black folks have been ridin' hard for you, Mr. President.  Ridin' hard, even when you've done things that, quite frankly, we and most of the free world didn't understand (like that "line in the sand" with Syria that you couldn't back up).  We understood why you couldn't consistently address issues of race in your first term -- because they would be a distraction from all the other issues you had to tackle -- the economy, two wars, health care reform, etc.  But we put you in a second time in hopes that you would be free to speak about, and do something about, race in America.  Because being the first black President -- hell, being the first black ANYTHING -- comes with its own set of responsibilities.  One of those is to make it better for those who look like you and don't have the same power or platform that you do.  This idea that you have to be a President of all the people and not just one group is undermined by the fact that we're Americans, too, and our race problem is America's race problem.  And yours.

Mr. President, Black America has been ridin' hard for you.  It's time for you to return the favor.  You could start by explaining us instead of being the first to criticize us.

Sincerely,

Black Woman Blogging

My Garage Is a Metaphor for Me

As 2011 comes to a close, I'm happy and sad at the same time. Most of all, I'm filled with hope and optimism. Yes, hope and optimism, even in these trying times.

I'm happy about some of the political developments I've seen, political awakenings among the have-nots -- the Arab Spring, the Occupy Movement. I'm sad for the brilliant people we lost -- Professor Derrick Bell, Teena Marie, Heavy D, Amy Winehouse, Vesta. And I'm optimistic and filled with hope simply because of my garage.

My garage is a metaphor for me.

I started the process of cleaning out my garage back in August, and I didn't finish in time for winter as I had planned. In the process of going through over 30-plus years' worth of stuff, I came across old awards, grades, evaluations of me as a student and as a teacher, term papers, and columns I wrote when I was president of a minority bar association. One of my writing professors from a summer program I was in stated that I was a hard-working perfectionist who, in his estimation, would indeed reach perfection in her writing. Some of the evaluations from my law students stung, others inspired me. A letter of gratitude from a federal judge about whom I'd written a letter to the editor defending him and one of his most controversial decisions brought a smile to my face. I even found a treasure trove of piano books from my teen years, with pieces by Rachmaninoff and Chopin that I can barely read now but had mastered a long time ago. I've also discovered treasures large and small, pictures of long-lost friends, letters from deceased ones -- I even had a letter from Professor Derrick Bell saying that he had decided to move on from full-time law teaching to pursue his new passion -- writing. It buoyed my spirit.

It came to me that my garage is a metaphor for me. My garage, like me, holds hidden or forgotten treasures. Just as my garage houses unopened wedding presents, pictures, and all sorts of things that have the potential to make my still-unsettled house a home, I still hold the potential, hidden or forgotten, to reach goals I'd long ago given up or forgotten about on due to my age or lack of prior success, confidence, or focus.

So my one and only resolution for 2012 is to explore my hidden or forgotten potential and use it to reach goals I'd forgotten or given up on, even if I'm only taking small steps towards those goals.

Here's to my potential and yours, gentle readers. Happy New Year!

Today My Heart Hurts, And I Just Don't Have The Words

Yours truly is at a loss for words. Too many deaths of too many greats in too little time.

First we lost Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, civil rights leader and the plaintiff in the U.S. Supreme court case Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, in which he challenged the city of Birmingham's absolute refusal to issue a parade permit for black protests. That he had the courage to fight "Bombingham" all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1963 speaks volumes.

Then we lost Steve Jobs. His admonition to live your own life and follow your intuition resonates with me because I know I'm on the wrong path.

The third and hardest blow for me is the loss of my former professor Derrick Bell. He literally took me by the hand as a cynical and unhappy law student and walked me around the offices of his faculty colleagues to convince me that I needed to apply for a federal judicial clerkship because it would be invaluable to my career. Of all the professors we spoke to on that sojourn down that dark and moldy-smelling faculty hallway, Professor Elizabeth Warren took time out of her day to convince me that Professor Bell was right, probably because of her respect for Professor Bell. But Professor Bell was so much more than a career advisor that to all of us black law students at Harvard, especially those like me who were first generation college grads and clueless. That he stood up for black women law professors by protesting the utter failure of Harvard Law School to hire and tenure a black woman law professor, to the point of leaving his post at Harvard Law, was a testament to how much he was willing to sacrifice for the generations coming behind him, generations that included me.

I remember when he came to Marcus Books in Oakland for a book signing for "Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism." I was three years or so out of Harvard Law, and although I was never one of his star students, he was happy to see me and insisted that I call him "Derrick." "No, Professor Bell," I replied, "You will always be Professor Bell to me." In my mind and in my heart, he would always be the master, the teacher, and I would ever be the student, his student. I respected him and all he had done too much to even dare to place myself on the same plane as him.

What makes this worse is that I was just telling my husband, Black Man Not Blogging (BMNB), that I needed to catch up with Professor Bell and just thank him for all he did for me, for all of us black law students. To tell him that although I really haven't found happiness in the law, that I was still searching, but elsewhere.

Now it's too late.

My heart hurts and I just don't have the words today.