Monday, May 18, 2009

Arizona State: Obama Doesn't Rate



“We have to learn how to communicate and teach between all ethnic and cultural perspectives. Not with a dominant cultural perspective and marginal alternative cultural perspectives, but across all of these. We have not figured out how to do this. We need to embrace cultural diversification in America and change the culture of the university as a critical first step.”

ASU President Michael M. Crow

(remarks delivered at the 2004 Educating for a Diverse
America: A Summit and Symposium, Austin, TX)

Perhaps Arizona State University Michael Crow forgot his own remarks excerpted from ASU's "Diversity Plan" when he decided the vice-minister of China was more accomplished than the 44th President of the United States.

Seriously though, was it a mistake? Perhaps an oversight? Or is a former US Senator who was recently elected to the most powerful position in the free world honestly not yet accomplished enough to receive an honorary diploma from Arizona State University?

Even conservative political analyst David Gergen (who served in the Nixon and Reagan White House) called it an "Embarrassment" to the University and to the people of Arizona. Play the interview to the right and listen for yourself.

In an act that has left many people of all races scratching their heads, Arizona State University, not exactly the intellectual/academic hub of US colleges, has come under scrutiny by mainstream media and the Blogosphere by deciding NOT to bestow an honorary degree upon President Barack Obama when he delivered the commencement address there on May 13th.

With the thoughtful laid back perspective that made him such an appealing candidate, the 44th President shrugged off the controversy and delivered a rousing send off to the 9,000 ASU grads in front of a crowd of 63,000 at Sun Devil Stadium.

University spokeswoman Sharon Keeler was quoted as saying "His body of work is yet to come. That's why we're not recognizing him with a degree at the beginning of his presidency," after the school's student newspaper first reported the decision.

Was race a factor? ASU gave the vice-minister of education in China an honorary degree on his visit there - think about it. Some ASU grads have called for university president Michael Crow to resign his position.

Regardless the decision has backfired for ASU. The media, as well as many ordinary citizens were left puzzled and many, outraged. One her return to the SNL Newsdesk on Saturday night, Amy Pohler ripped ASU in a blistering editorial commentary that mocked ASU's long-held reputation as a 2nd rate Pac-Ten university and a destination for partiers rather than scholars.

Among the biggest critics of the ASU - decision, ASU grads, hundreds of e-mails and letters from outraged Sun Devil grads have poured into Websites and newspapers around the country; some grads mailed their ASU diplomas to the president, many embarrassed that their school decided to withhold the diploma.

The snub raises deeper questions in the minds of many who recall that Arizona was one of the few states to openly OPPOSE making Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday a paid holiday to appease it's ultra-conservative voter base; same state that sent Barry Goldwater, known as "Mr. Conservative" to the US Senate.

Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) opposed the legislation to make MLK Day a holiday in support of Governor Even Meachem's staunch opposition to the bill - which was signed into law by the first President Bush.

Ronald Reagan, former North Carolina Senator and pro-segregationist/openly racist Jesse Helms also led opposition to the bill - some forget that the US was rife with protests over Arizona's reluctance to endorse the holiday in the late 1980's and earl 90's.

Arizona's tourist industry suffered and the NFL moved the 1990 Super Bowl XXVII from Tempe to Pasadena in protest of the states opposition and the underlying meaning.

Sadly, ASU officials decided to make a completely pointless policy gesture rather than stand up and help rehabilitate the state of Arizona's legacy as a region of intolerance and right-wing conservatism by suggesting that the 44th President of the United States, former US Senator and former president of the Harvard Law Review was not qualified to receive the same recognition given to other US presidents.

In all fairness to Arizona residents, I think ASU's decision does NOT reflect the state's zeitgeist - the decision did far more harm to Arizona's image and frankly, in the wake of the media wash; they came out looking pretty ignorant.

Go Sun Devils!

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Essence & Vibe Expand Multi-Media Offerings


With a growing segment of professional media-savvy African-Americans in the US, a couple different magazines that target black Americans are preparing to launch multi-media ventures that will direct their content to compete with more mainstream media company offerings.

Monday's Media Daily News Website reports that Essence Magazine, HLN and CNN will partner to produce a weekly television series on CNN that address current topics affecting African-Americans.

In 2008 CNN produced "Black in America", a multi-part series exploring different aspects of the reality of life in the US for African-American's in today's society; CNN will produce "Black in America 2" this year as well.

I thought it was a positive sign to see these issues explored in a mainstream news setting in a primetime slot, making it accessible to all Americans.

Celebrity gossip magazines/Websites are hot and Hip-Hop culture magazine Vibe is jumping in too. Defying the current slide in print revenue and the migration of content online, Vibe is jumping into the celebrity/gossip market with the launch of The Most.

According to Folio.com, the bi-annual print title will roll out in June and an accompanying Website, themostmag.com will go up two weeks later.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

The Road to Heaven: John Demjanjuk's Alledged Role in the Sad Story of Sobibor



Mainstream news media organizations from the BBC-News to the New York Times reported on a frail 89 year-old resident of Seven Hills, Ohio named John Demjanjuk (pictured left)being deported to Germany to face charges that he was one of the Nazi SS guards who took part in the killing of over 250,000 Jews in the concentration camp known as Sobibor (pictured, top) over an 18 month period in 1942-1943.

In our 24-7 media-saturated world the here and now often seems to take precedent over the lessons of the past; stories that are 40-minutes old can be considered old news let alone a story that begins more than 40 years ago.

What will become of the past in the future?

With the rapid migration of news to electronic platforms and a seemingly ceaseless demand for faster delivery of information, will future generations remember Sobibor and the other extermination and labor camps constructed by the Third Reich to exterminate human beings?

Sobibor was constructed in the forests of Poland and completed in 1942. by May the facility was gassing large numbers of Jews using carbon monoxide from the exhaust of tanks according to Wikipedia.org.

After arriving at a railway platform, prisoners were marched along a 100-meter stretch of road through woods to their deaths. The road is known as the Himmelstrasse, or Road to Heaven.

Nicholas Kulish of the New York Times notes that sadly, so many years have passed since WWII that fewer and fewer first-hand witnesses with accurate memories of the camp survive; so Demjanuk's trial may be one of the last major court prosecutions of former-Nazis accused of taking part in mass extermination.

Will our current media consumption habits preserve those memories, or bury them?

Neo-Nazis are intoxicated with portraying the Holocaust as a myth and yet cloak themselves in the Nazi flag and idolize Adolph Hitler.

The only thing more horrific than the Holocaust is the thought that it could occur again because people forgot that it ever happened.

Sobibor was the site of one of the very few successful uprisings in German concentration camps - after it happened Henrich Himmler ordered the camp closed and trees planted where thousands of innocent people were gassed because of their religion.

Let's hope that our thirst for "data" never obscures the trees that line the Road to Heaven. Or that time never dims the light of justice.

Is John Demjanjuk really too old for prison? You decide.

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

Swine Flu Offers a Bizarre Selection of Right-Wing Rants from Psuedo-Journalists Like Michelle Malkin


Hmmmm, let's see. What global news story could fact-challenged conservative columnist Michelle Malkin NOT twist into an opportunity to unleash more of her bizarre brand of paranoid flag-waving hysteria?

The same person who DEFENDED the forced internment of Japanese-American citizens during WWII certainly couldn't be expected to let the current swine flu epidemic go by without chiming in on what else? Illegal immigration!

David Holthouse has compiled a pretty funny list in this SPLC Hatewatch editor's selection of various conservative groups offering up everything from blaming Obama for the outbreak to....it's a message from God...

You HAVE to take a moment to check out of some of the strange rhetoric concocted by our fear-mongering friends from the right in response to the spread of H1N1 virus around the world.

Despite some reports that the virus is now on the decline and that it actually originated in CALIFORNIA not Mexico, people, from California's gun totin' Minutemen to eternally enraged radio host Michael Savage, are riled up! According to MediaMatters.org, the logic-agnostic Savage is even offering up the theory that Al Qaeda is sponsoring Mexicans to carry the flu into the United States as part of a terrorist plot. You have to hear this nutbag to believe him:

Joshua Cartwright - Florida Extremist Driven to Murder by Hate


A revealing psychological barometer of the depth of racial hatred amongst some Americans can be gauged by the violent reactions some people have had to Barack Obama's election as the 44th President.

The Southern Poverty Law Center's Hatewatch e-newsletter recently reported that a Florida National Guard member (pictured left) killed two Okaloosa, Fl Sheriff's deputies in a shootout at a gun club because, according to his girlfriend, he was "severely disturbed that Barack Obama had been elected president."

Deputies Warren “Skip” York and Burt Lopez were gunned down by Joshua Cartwright after they attempted to arrest him on domestic violence charges; both men were 45 year-old fathers.

Hatewatch reports that at least 25 law enforcement personnel have been killed by members of white supremacist hate groups in the 14 years since the Oklahoma City bombings that killed 168 people - most recently in Pittsburgh in April when officers Paul Sciullo III, 37, Stephen Mayhle, 29, and Eric Kelly, 41 responded to calls for assistance at the residence of Richard Poplawski, an extremist responsible for posting numerous racist and anti-Semitic messages on the Stormfront Website.

Honestly, what does it take for the government to crack down on the violence against innocent people by right-wing extremists? This is outrageous that this is happening in our nation in 2009.

If you watched the horrifying documentary "Torturing Democracy" on channel thirteen last night which examined the torture of detainees in Abu Gharib and Guantanamo by US troops, you can understand why many Americans despise George Bush (and his cohorts Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld) but no one thinks he should be killed because of what he did or failed to do as President.

Yet, many right-wing racists despise President Obama enough that they feel inspired to kill innocent people. There's something far more disturbing going in the minds of those consumed by hatred, something sad that pollutes out collective culturegeist and represents a void of spirituality and respect for life.

It's not a part of the society that I envision for this nation and the world.

Sunday, May 03, 2009

Black at the Beach - Shore Time Again


Traveling out to the Hamptons over the weekend I was reminded that summer shore communities in the eastern United States can be weird places if you're a member of an ethnic minority.

Let's face it, historically they are coastal regions where generations of white people of all classes took their families to vacation, sometimes to escape the heat of the cities; and for some, to spend time where they felt "comfortable".

I have to admit that over the years I harbored some pretty narrow-minded views of the racial atmosphere of the Hamptons, and was suspicious of the people who live and vacation there. As a black guy raised in the suburbs I'm probably guilty of having envisioned everyone out in the Hamptons as a member of the country-club sect, riding horses and talking like Thurston Howell from Gilligan's Island (pictured above)

But times have changed, middle-upper class African-Americans frequent a lot of beaches, Martha's Vineyard for example is a favorite destination for black people with means.

For many years I spent most of my weekends down on Long Beach Island on the New Jersey shore with friends from my high school. Places like Beach Haven, NJ or Seaside Heights, NJ aren't exactly overflowing with people of color and there were occasional instances in which I encountered white residents or vacationers with outwardly hostile attitudes towards me based on my skin color.

Speaking frankly it was always kind of odd to me that SOME of the same white people sitting out on the beach in the sun trying to tan their skin darker, harbored prejudice against people with dark skin.

But the positive experiences I've had at the beach far outweigh the negative ones if I felt isolated at the beach, maybe it was my own problem. The people who made me feel welcome dwarfed those who did not - but that doesn't mean there are not problems with racial tension at beaches in the US - case in point Virginia Beach.

The shore in West Hampton was still quiet over the weekend, too cold and overcast for the summer crowds, but the people (including a local police officer) I met out there seemed cool enough.

I was a guest of artist Steven Colucci and his girlfriend and besides being treated like a king in his amazing beach-front home it was beautiful out there and I realized, I had my own prejudices about people in the Hamptons. I'm not talking about the Hip-Hop elite who go out there for exclusive star-studded catered affairs hosted by Puff Daddy.

There are many liberal-minded people, of all races who've lived out there for years.

There are black people who live out there, the LIRR train stopped for 5 minutes at a station and I stepped out and had a smoke with a young black guy in a do-rag who seemed interested in my going out to shoot a documentary. It really eased my anxiety level to see that there were not just black people out there - but people of different economic backgrounds and races.

There are a number of Hispanic people and quite a few American Indians of the Shinnecock Nation; one of the oldest self-governing Native American tribes in the US, 60% of whom live below the poverty line.

During the 2008 presidential elections, many residents of the Hamptons came together to protest two racially insensitive newspaper columns in The Independent written by editor Rick Murphy in January, 2008. Actor Alec Baldwin was there and spoke out.

Regardless of our race I suppose that each of us carry "baggage" with us when we head down to the beach; the next time I go up to the Hamptons, I'll leave my own internalized prejudices, real and imagined, behind.

Saturday, May 02, 2009

Baracking: Young African-American's Now Emulating the President


I'm on an 11:30am Long Island Railroad Train "Baracking" out to the Hamptons to interview visionary artist Steven Colucci for a short documentary of his life we're collaborating on.

Wait a minute! You may ask, Baracking??

That's right. A new slang term that could evolve as a cultural marker of our times is now becoming popular among young a group of African-American students in an Albany, NY high school - Baracking.

On a recent episode of NPR's Weekend Edition Linda Wertheimer spoke with Ocasio Wilson about he and the students now use President Barack Obama's name as a slang combination of verb and adjective to give expression to engaging in behavior, actions, choices or activities that are morally positive and reflect a sense of good.

How cool is that? While bitter conservative media pundits seem to spend all their time berating the President for every decision he makes, the President's intelligence, sense of optimism and confidence are now affecting the self-image of people all over the world.

Say you're studying for a test, or staying late in the library to prepare for a science project - you're Baracking. Or if you skip school, you're not Baracking. You get the idea. So do millions of people of all ages.

The term Barack the Vote was popularized during the 2008 elections, but I think it's an amazing cultural phenomenon to find young students being inspired to be better human beings and raise the bar of expectation for themselves by altering the way they use the President's name.

I'm proud to be Baracking today, I feel good about that. I feel optimistic about this nation's future.