If you pair this book with The Derrick Bell Reader, edited by Richard and Jean from NYU Press in 2005, you will have insights into two of the most senior and most prolific voices in Critical Race Theory.

For a multidisciplinary anthology from an important new voice in critical theory, see Progressive Black Masculinities by State University of New York at Buffalo Law School associate professor Athena Mutua from Routledge Press.  The 15 selections include famous black feminists like Patricia Hill Collins and Beverly Guy-Sheftall along with well-known legal scholars such as Elizabeth Iglesias, John Calmore and Stefanie Phillips. The voices posit that the greatest peril to black men may be limited notions of manhood.

This latter reader is a great companion to UCLA professor Devon Carbado’s Black Men on Race, Gender, and Sexuality, published by NYU Press in 1999.

On Sunday, thousands of men will gather at Temple University’s Liacouras Center as part of the new “10,000 Men” initiative. The program, offered in response to Philadelphia’s rising homicide rate, will train a predominately African American group of men as “Peacemakers” who will enter “designated communities and deter unwanted and illegal behavior.”

In many ways, I am encouraged by the renewed commitment to protecting our own communities. As opposed to Mayor John Street’s “Safe Streets” initiative, which attempted to transform the ‘hood into a de facto police state, 10,000 Men wisely recognizes the benefits of community involvement. In addition to offering us a much-needed dose of responsibility, the initiative provides a tangible alternative to armchair activism and sideline complaining. After all, how can we complain about senseless violence and police incompetence if we are unwilling to come up with a reasonable alternative?

The problem is that this strategy is far from reasonable.

If we’ve learned nothing from the historic Million Man March –where African American men became the first group of people to launch a protest march against themselves– we found out that the government and mainstream Americans will never stop large numbers of Negroes from confessing their collective sins in full public view. The problem is that, instead of inspiring policymakers to support our efforts, such actions reinforce the absurd notion that violence and poverty can be eliminated by embracing a gospel of individual responsibility. In this case, by agreeing to “take back our neighborhoods” we concede the point that we lost them solely due to our own personal failings.

The last time I checked, joblessness and crack had something to do with it too.

Rather than demanding higher wages, better schools, and stricter gun laws, the current plan absolves the government of its responsibility to protect our most vulnerable  citizens. For example, even if we are to accept the quixotic idea that ten thousand unarmed civilians can make peace within inner-city war zones, couldn’t we expect even greater results from ten thousand trained officers? Unfortunately, the current initiative makes no such demands from the State.

Of course, this doesn’t have to be an either-or proposition. There is no reason why African American men (and women!) cannot take control of their communities and fight for social justice at the same time. Unfortunately, I have yet to hear how breeding newschool Guardian Angels will produce political education, protest, or even voter registration. Until we focus on these and other issues, even ten million men won’t help us.

“I’m part Native American.” 

“My grandmother...”

“Cherokee Indian…”

"Princess…”

It is quite interesting to hear declarations of Indian blood without any indication of identity or affiliation. Like my late colleague Vine Deloria, Jr., I wonder too, why is the indigenous forbear always female (safe choice), Cherokee (quite popular) and royal (not a commoner)?  And why must people share this with me as if we are Native Blood Brothers?   Most of the people who divulge with information are about as Indian as Heidi.

Many states retained laws that allowed persons to claim remote amounts of Indian blood, but still classify themselves as white.  Similar amounts of black blood would render a person’s claim to whiteness as moot.  In Virginia, a statute existed that defined “white” as “one-sixteenth or less of the blood of the American Indian and hav[ing] no other non-Caucasic blood.”  This allowance permitted Indian blood to override the doctrine of hypodescent — its presence alongside European ancestry did not automatically prevent one from being white.

In its accommodation of one-sixteenth Indian blood, the 1924 Racial Integrity Act venerated the “Pocahontas Exception.” Acknowledging the interracial marriage of Pocahontas, the famous “Indian Princess” and the Englishman John Rolfe, the Pocahontas Exception ensured that their descendants could be legally white. The “First Families of Virginia ” who demanded this accommodation wanted to celebrate their ancestral and historic ties to colonial America.  For elite Virginians to demand this accommodation demonstrates a shifting concept of racial purity. Instead of tainting one’s civic and legal liberty as a white person, strains of Indian blood assume a different, more exotic and arguably desirable meaning.

Virginia’s statutory conception of “white” codifies what I call miscegenistic exceptionalism, where the intent of white racial purity exempts and protects certain nonwhite ancestries from the threat of taint.  In this case, the exception is Indian blood, and this is codified by law.  Racial groups normally considered nonwhite may receive honorary status as “white,” underscoring the argument of race as a social construct rather than a biological truth.

Why is there an exception for Pocahontas, or other Indian Princesses? What prevents a similar loophole for Irish Nell , George Washington’s Venus or Sally Hemings ? What enduring legacy of American collective memory categorically resists the embracement of a “Slave Grandmother Complex?” With increasing numbers of Americans freely and lately claiming Native ancestry, we may ask why such affirmations do not meet the triumvirate of resistance, shame, and secrecy that regularly accompanies findings of partial African ancestry. In other words, what is the exceptional legal and social status of the Indian Grandmother that allows her to escape the reach of antimiscegenation law?

For a longer answer to this question, see, Kevin Noble Maillard, The Pocahontas Exception: American Indians and Exceptionalism in Antimiscegenation Law

President Bush fancies himself to be a man of the Christian faith. Famously, in a primary debate prior to the 2000 presidential election, the President declared that "[w]hen you turn your heart and your life over to Christ, when you accept Christ as the savior, it changes your heart. It changes your life. And that's what happened to me."

In the third presidential debate in 2004, the President reiterated that "[my] principles are derived from who I am. I believe we ought to love our neighbor like we love ourself . . . . And so my principles that I make decisions on are a part of me. And religion is a part of me."

These are merely illustrations of the President's repeated invocation of faith as a seminal part of his identity and his policy-making. By his own reckoning, his Christian faith is an indelible part of who the President imagines himself to be.

So I ask: Would Jesus have vetoed the SCHIP bill?

Of the over 43 million Americans lacking health insurance, about eight million are children. Not only does this mean that millions of children are unable to access the care they need to treat debilitating illnesses, it also means they cannot obtain the preventive care and counseling that protects against sickness and promotes wellness.

The State Children's Health Insurance Program ("S-CHIP) is one effort -- albeit incomplete -- to address this problem. S-CHIP, a partnership between the federal government and the states, provides health coverage to poor families who are not covered by Medicaid but who also cannot afford private insurance. The program currently covers about 6 million people -- most of whom are children -- and is credited with having reduced by one-third the number of uninsured children.

As you know by now, Congress, with bipartisan support, passed a bill seeking not only to extend S-CHIP but to expand it. The congressional bill would have added $7 billion to the program in each of the next five years, enabling S-CHIP to cover an additional 4 million children.

This, evidently, was too much for the President to bear. He vetoed the bill, claiming that it would cover too many middle-class families, would encourage those with private coverage to switch to S-CHIP, and would represent an unjustifiable step toward government-managed health-care.

These rationales, however, are unsupportable. According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, 84% of new children covered by the bill would come from families eligible under current S-CHIP income guidelines -- so the argument that the bill targets well-to-do families is simply untrue. This also undermines the claim that the bill encourages families to switch from private coverage to S-CHIP: almost all of the children covered by the bill -- because they would be eligible under current S-CHIP standards -- cannot afford private coverage in the first place. These families would be going from no coverage to S-CHIP -- not private coverage to S-CHIP.

Finally, the government-managed-health-care trope is both meritless and stale. S-CHIP subsidizes private health care coverage, not a system of government-controlled care.  And, in any case, the premise underlying this scare tactic -- that government-managed care would preempt private choice -- is simply inapplicable where people have no coverage to begin with. Simply put, S-CHIP provides coverage overwhelmingly to people who cannot afford it; and it is this moral imperative that drives the broad public support for this bill.

So what would Jesus do? I think the answer is clear: "Whatever you neglected to do unto one of the least of these, you neglected to do unto Me."

Brown gets all the attention.  Loving v. Virginia does not.  In fact, most Americans do not even know the legal history of interracial marriage.  But everyone certainly has seen or heard of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.

This year marks the 40^th anniversary of Loving.  In this decision, the court rendered all laws forbidding marriage between persons of different races unconstitutional.  This ruling allowed Mildred Loving, a woman of mixed African, European, and Native descent, to marry Richard Loving, a white race car driver, and live peacefully in their home state of Virginia. 

In the lower court, the state judge opined that “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents…he did not intend for the races to mix.”  In the appeal, the court decided that such separation infringed upon a fundamental right to marry.  Prohibiting interracial marriage became illegal.

How far have we come in 40 years?  Have we moved on up since Helen and Tom Willis?  One may even read interracial intimacy as fashionable.  While Asian children still claim the highest numbers in international adoption, sub-Saharan African children have become “the new black.” Novelist Danzy Senna (who is black, white, and Jewish) proclaims that “America loves us in all our half-caste glory.”  And, of course, the interracial Messiah, that “skinny kid with a funny name” sends us all into paroxysms of miscegenous glee.

And statistics may support a claim of racial freedom in marriage.  In a recent Gallup poll, white approval of interracial marriage increased from 4% in 1958 to 75% in 2007. Without a doubt, the total number of interracial marriages increased (depending on your source) as a result of Loving, from approximately 150,000 in 1960 to 1.46 million in 2000.

Yet, interracial sex is always the trump card for social offence.  Black male athletes dating or marrying white women continues to generate ire and criticism.  Political mud-slinging harps on the interracial dating record of Representative Harold Ford, Jr.  And in 1999, Sen. Bob Bennett predicted no presidential nomination problems for George Bush unless he “step[ped] in front of a bus” or “some black woman comes forward with an illegitimate child.”

Interracial sex, when posed as a threat, when completely illegal, testifies to its enduring taboo. Despite progressive posturing and harmonic celebration, mixed marriages only account for about 4% of all marriages in the United States.  Of this percentage, the of these marriages occurred between Asians and whites.

The largest growth in interracial intimacy occurs in our minds and in art. Undeniably, multiracial families, persons, and partnerships exist, yet the explosion of beige has yet to infiltrate all sectors of American society and culture. Until then, we are all guests at Hepburn and Poiter’s very, very long, long dinner.

The United States Supreme Court held in June that school districts were prohibited from voluntarily pursuing racially integrated schools except in the most cramped of circumstances.  Many civil-rights leaders loudly criticized the decision as a wholesale denial of the educational needs of black children. The reaction of Julian Bond, Chairman of the NAACP, is typical: He claims that all-black schools represent the racial and economic disfranchisement of black children.

This sentiment not only obscures the true significance of integrated schools, but it also disrespects the academic capacity of black children.

Racially integrated schools are vital if our nation is to viably move beyond its tragic racial history. Our culture is one that remains riven by race, and our difficulty in extricating ourselves from our racial legacy is largely a byproduct of the fact that Americans simply do not know one another across racial lines.  We don't live with one another; we don't socialize with one another; and rarely do we work with one another in collegial settings. Instead, media defines our cross-racial perceptions of one another.  I'm rarely mistaken for a law professor, and often taken for a basketball player, because most Americans -- of all racial backgrounds -- come to know black men on the basis of associations disseminated through media. And those signals -- to say the very least -- do not correlate with academia.

Integrated schools are indispensable to combating this problem -- the problem of alienation: the fact that Americans simply do not know one another, let alone understand one another, across racial lines. This is a challenge to the very character of our democracy, as it challenges the shared sense of identity and experience that makes a nation out of a hodgepodge of diverse peoples.

But this purpose is entirely distinct from the one suggested by many traditional organizations concerning the demise of school integration.

Many advocates imply that integrated schools are a precondition for black-student achievement. While learning, particularly at the upper levels, is certainly richer and deeper in diverse classrooms, integrated schools are not necessary for black children (any more than it is for White children) to learn to read, write, reason, compute math, and analyze scientific questions at a high level.

In fact, the very suggestion of such is reflective of a stigmatized conception of the competence of black children: the same sort of depressed perception of black capacity stimulating many to question whether black children can learn at all.

Black students, ultimately, need what every other child needs: good teachers; challenging curricula; adequate resources; and demanding expectations. Diversity is good too, and we should strive for it for democratic reasons. But it is by no means essential to black-student achievement, and we should be more careful to ensure that our rhetoric doesn't suggest as much. 

As many of you know, my colleague, Professor Erwin Chemerinsky, http://www.law.duke.edu/fac/chemerinsky/ , was recently offered the deanship at a soon-to-be-established law school at the University of California Irvine.  On Tuesday, less than a week after he signed a contract, UCI Chancellor Michael V. Drake flew to North Carolina and withdrew the offer apparently due to conservative opposition. See http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/09/12/the-oc-law-school-edition/ or http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ucilaw13sep13,0,5893599.story?coll=la-homecenter  

A similar dynamic occurred last winter at Duke Law School, where Chemerinsky was one of three finalists for the deanship.  As was the case nine months ago, I find myself struggling with a number of observations and questions: 

First, have we kissed academic freedom goodbye? Is the ability of a professor to express ideas openly, to dissent from prevailing norms, no longer valued or desired?  Are public universities now in the business of policing viewpoints, of punishing those who engage in public debate? Surely history has taught us that this is dangerous to achievement of the free and democratic society to which presumably we still aspire.   

Second, how do liberal beliefs render irrelevant almost three decades of outstanding service as a gracious colleague, prolific scholar, committed advocate, generous mentor, and engaged public citizen?  Why is being progressive presumptively disqualifying (especially for those with stellar credentials) while being conservative is presumptively qualifying (especially for those with mediocre track records)?  

Third, where then is all the support for the ubiquitous claim that the academy is run by - and “ruined” by - left-wing radicals?  Could it be that conservatism rules in an atmosphere that insists the opposite is true?   

Fourth, what is the going price for a law school? a university?  Is the financial cost of critical thought too expensive for a law school devoted to the public interest? 

And, finally, how can any senior administrator lead a candidate, whose liberal views did not appear overnight, to the point of actually signing a contract only to “discover” that the candidate would be politically controversial, polarizing, and a lightening rod for conservatives?  Does anyone believe the Chancellor was not subject to outside influence?  Surely this kind of incompetence does not augur well for the future legal program at UCI.  In addition to academic freedom, there is a fundamental question of integrity at issue here.   

The law school at UCI was to be devoted to the public interest.  Yet, Chancellor Drake rejected a candidate with a lifetime of demonstrated commitment to serving the public.  It appears the Chancellor acted out of fear - a fear that the appointment of someone with Chemerinsky's record, someone with stated and expressed views, would stir up too much debate, stimulate too much dialogue, and incite too many people to action.  In other words, he seems to have feared that UCI law school, from its inception, would do precisely what academic institutions are supposed to do - encourage us to think critically and to engage in robust and spirited debate.   

Chemerinsky is Jewish and today is Rosh Hashanah, a time when Jews are called upon to reflect upon the recent past and to contemplate the new year.  I am not Jewish, but I have engaged in my share of reflection and introspection today.  And, I have come to agree with the conclusions of a fellow blogger (Neil), who wrote “UC Irvine’s position is indefensible and intellectually bankrupt. The school deserves condemnation from every person who respects academic freedom and respects the notion of free-flowing political discourse, whether they be conservative or liberal.”  I invite all persons who share these viewpoints to voice their concerns to Chancellor Drake and the UC Regents, and to boycott any future efforts to build a law school at UCI.   

--Professor Trina Jones, September 13, 2007  

As I review my 6 year-old niece’s school supply list and syllabus for the semester, I’m reminded that it has been five years since President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act  into law. The Act sparked numerous debates concerning the use of standardized testing as an accurate gauge of student success. However, long before NCLB there were voices questioning our reliance on standardized testing and whether our schools adequately prepare students for success in the classroom and beyond. Dr. Asa G. Hilliard, III was one such voice. In a 1991 article Hilliard wrote:

 The risk for our children in school is not a risk associated with their intelligence. Our failures have nothing to do with poverty, nothing to do with race, nothing to do with language, nothing to do with style, nothing to do with the need to discover new pedagogy, nothing to do with the development of unique and differentiated special pedagogues, nothing to do with the children's families. All of these are red herrings. The study of them may ultimately lead to some greater insight into the instructional process; but at present they serve to distract attention from the fundamental problem facing us today. We have one and only one problem: Do we truly will to see each and every child in this nation develop to the peak of his or her capacities? If our destination is excellence on a massive scale, not only must we change from the slow lane into the fast lane; we literally must change highways. Perhaps we need to abandon the highways altogether and take flight, because the highest goals that we can imagine are well within reach for those who have the will to excellence.

 Hilliard, who served as the Fuller E. Calloway Professor of Urban Education at Georgia State University, dedicated his professional career to promoting the academic success of disadvantaged students with a particular emphasis on poor children and students of color. He promoted the concept of cultural pluralism as a means of helping each child realize his full potential. As author of over 200 articles and books on education and child development Hilliard encouraged parents and educators to reject mediocrity and promote a more demanding learning environment that encouraged a positive self-identity. As a founding member of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations, Professor Hilliard believed that an awareness and appreciation of African history was a meaningful way of promoting student achievement. Hilliard died in Egypt on Sunday, August 12, just two days before the start of classes at Georgia State.

Hilliard’s views were controversial and often elicited criticism from his contemporaries who blamed the achievement gap on student apathy and poor parental guidance. Yet Hilliard believed that even the most “at-risk” students could succeed if presented with the right school conditions. Hilliard defended his position by stating, “children, no matter what their racial or ethnic background, should be presented with pictures of the real world. That is how we can support accurate perception. In addition, this is how we assure that children from every group will find themselves at the center of materials that they study. Motivation and self-esteem are deeply affected by the topics that we choose to present and by the coverage we choose to give those topics from a pluralistic perspective. As it is true that there are many models of teaching that result in excellence in student achievement, there are also many models of excellence in pluralistic curriculum. However, as with pedagogical success, curricular success tends to be out of the awareness of the majority of our educators.”

Here’s to student success this school year and beyond.

We only played in the summer time
I always knew the fall would come
The winter left me cold and lonely
My friends were just for fun
Spring is just around the corner
So the ground hog said
Maybe next time my friends will stay longer
Even when times are bad

Teresa was my lover until she found another
This story is true
For her there was nothing I would not do
She said I worked too much
Didn’t take time to enjoy life
Man can’t live on love alone
But while I was making money
Timmy was making Teresa his wife

We only played in the summer time
I always knew the fall would come
The winter left me cold and lonely
My lovers were just for fun
Spring is just around the corner
So the ground hog said
Maybe next time my lover will stay longer
Even when times are bad

With friends like Timmy and lovers like Teresa
I might as well be alone
But I never learned to content myself
When the crowd has headed home
With money in my pockets and time on my hands
There must be something new to try
If money can get me friends and lovers
There ain’t much it can’t buy
The Rolling Stones sing, “I can’t get no satisfaction”
And now I understand why
If you depend on other folks to bring it
You may be unsatisfied until you die

© 2007 Terry Smith

As always, the truth tends to lie in between the archetypes anchoring mainstream media.  But, after coming across this report, Booker seems to have given fodder to his critics.  Booker, apparently, spoke recently at a ritzy fundraiser, attended principally by Whites, in which he described a recently deceased Black, female Newark activist as "portly," toothless, and profane.  This, in an apparent attempt to recognize the depth of her contributions to the city.  Several members of the Newark City Council sharply criticized Booker's remarks as racially insensitive and inflammatory, suggesting his rhetoric evoked the the image of a Black "mammy" -- precisely the sort of image, claimed the City Council members, that many Whites are disposed to identify with Black women.

Unfortunately for Booker, this episode reinforces the concerns of many Newarkers that he seeks to exploit some of the worst stereotypes about Black folks for political gain.  He seems often to play up the most negative images of Black folk and Black communities to White audiences, in ways that feel uncomfortably like those late-night infomercials about Sudanese children who can be fed for $1 a day.  His appearance last year on Oprah is another conspicuous example.  Maybe this sort of messaging is the best way to engage a White majority largely disinterested in the plight of poor folk of color.  But the ends don't justify the means.  This approach reinforces the very racial stereotypes that Booker's politics purportedly transcends. 

Maybe Sharpe James had a point.

Black folks love a good fight. Ali versus Foreman. The fight for divestment. The fight against genocide in Darfur. And perhaps the greatest battle of all time: the fight to force America to live up to her promise of equality and justice. And now, it seems that some of us are fighting to keep Ron Isley out of prison.

Seems like a pretty cut and dry case, right? Not quite. According to his fans the 64-year-old Isley is in very poor health and is battling numerous illnesses including cancer and diabetes.  As a result, fans have circulated an online petition demanding that President Bush grant Isley a pardon to keep him out of prison. Uhh, good luck with that. Maybe if Isley had a more endearing nickname like “Scooter,” President Bush would consider a pardon. In spite of the odds over 6,000 fans have signed the petition with significant support from “the voice of Black America”: the Tom Joyner Morning Show.

Certainly I take Isley’s health concerns seriously and I definitely don’t view him as a threat or menace to society. My academic work reflects my critique of this country’s flawed criminal justice system (I’ll definitely blog about some of these critiques later this month). However, in light of the numerous cases of wrongful convictions, absurd applications of mandatory-minimum sentences, etc, I’m having a difficult time choosing Ron Isley’s plight as the latest cause I’m willing to fight for.

Every time I think about contacting the Congressional Black Caucus or the White House on Isley’s behalf I end up writing about Genarlow Wilson’s appeal instead. Ron Isley is definitely a legendary musician who has created an influential catalog of hits. However, I’m more moved by the plight of a young man who went from being a heavily recruited high school athlete to Georgia Inmate #1187055 because of a consensual sexual act with another teenager. More about Wilson in another entry.

I’m glad that Isley’s fans are willing to “fight the power” and more importantly that they’re willing to fight a fractured system that has produced one of this country’s greatest arenas of racial imbalance. As the latest figures from The Sentencing Project suggest, there are 2 million people behind bars in this country of which nearly 60% are people of color. We certainly don’t need to add Isley to that figure but we also need to remove Wilson and others from it.

Just as naysayers criticize Obama’s presidential bid as an illusive quest, I’m sure I’m not the only one saying the same about Isley’s quest for a presidential pardon. So don't expect to see my name on any Isley petitions and the White House phone bank won't be receiving a call from me on Isley's behalf. But hey, who am I to judge. Anything’s possible in America, right?