By Barbara R. Arnwine

Fighting for social and racial justice is the enduring component of the civil right movements. In the tumultuous 1960s many great leaders emerged, dedicating their lives to moving America toward justice. Iconic civil rights activist, Medgar Evers made tremendous efforts in fighting for positive change and social justice. June 12, 2013 marked the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Evers. Though only 37 at the time of his death, he had become a key civil rights leader who worked diligently to secure equal rights in the state of Mississippi.

It is vital to ensure that his work and legacy does not become blurred with other historical events. We must continue to teach younger generations of activists how we have been afforded certain rights, including voting rights, because of the bitter sacrifices of sheroes and heroes like Evers. The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law extends its deepest appreciation for Mr. Evers’ courageous life and civil rights legacy.

Among my sheroes is Evers’ widow Myrlie Evers-Williams, who has valiantly upheld their shared ideals since his murder. The Lawyers’ Committee fully supports Myrlie’s efforts to build a memorial for her late husband at Alcon State University in Mississippi. More information about the memorial is available at http://mememorial.org/.

After becoming the first field secretary of the NAACP in Mississippi, Medgar Evers organized and participated in voter registration efforts, demonstrations, and economic boycotts of companies that practiced discrimination. He also worked to investigate crimes perpetrated against African Americans. Evers’ many contributions to the civil rights movement, along with his untimely death, were both factors in the creation of the national Lawyers’ Committee, which I have been honored to lead for the last 24 years.

In the summer of 1963 demands for racial justice were increasingly being met with lawless intimidation and violence, and immediate action was needed. On June 11th President John F. Kennedy gave a nationally televised speech on civil rights stating that “it is better to settle these matters in the courts than on the streets.” Tragically, only hours after Kennedy’s speech, Evers was assassinated by a member of the White Citizens’ Council.

Shortly after President Kennedy heard the news of Evers’s assassination, he called for the best and the brightest attorneys in the nation to attend a historic meeting at the White House and urged them to defend the rule of law and the rights of civil rights demonstrators. Within a week, the Lawyers’ Committee was formed to obtain equal opportunity for minorities by leveraging the pro bono resources of the private bar to address legal factors that contribute to racial justice.

Today the Lawyers’ Committee and our partners remain vigilant on civil rights issues. We are currently fighting for stronger tenant laws in New Orleans, providing a voice for those who may not know how to speak up for their own fair housing rights. In addition, we are fighting to protect voters from voter suppression laws. We also strive to break the School to Prison Pipeline (STPP) through helping students who have fallen subject to the juvenile justice systems reenter into school to complete their education and educating teachers and parents on STPP issues.

In our efforts to uphold the legacies of civil rights activists, and encourage new activists to emerge, we have also implemented the Young Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights initiative. The goal of this initiative is to encourage lawyers in the first 10 years of their career who are interested or actively engaged in the work of the Lawyers’ Committee to join us in the fight. With our Young Lawyers Initiative, we are assisting the next generation to answer the call to action and become more knowledgeable about pressing racial and social justice issues by getting involved and connected with the civil rights issues nationally.

Leaders like Medgar Evers blazed a trail for generations to come; it is now up to us to continue fighting for justice. Let not the work of Mr. Evers be done in vain, but let it be a reminder of how far the civil rights movement has come and how much work remains.

Barbara R. Arnwine is president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The Lawyers’ Committee is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, formed in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy to enlist the private bar’s leadership and resources in combating racial discrimination and the resulting inequality of opportunity – work that continues to be vital today. Jaila Carter, a Psychology major at Howard University and intern for the Lawyers’ Committee, contributed to this editorial. For more information on the Lawyers’ Committee’s 50^th anniversary, please visit www.lawyerscommittee.org or http://www.towardjusticecampaign.org/. For more information about the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Institute, please visit: http://www.eversinstitute.org

By Lawrence Watkins, TheGrio.com

Ethel “Ellie” Hylton has always been a high achiever. Perhaps it runs in the family. As the niece of news anchor Soledad O’Brien, Hylton’s personal achievement in graduating from Harvard College with the highest GPA in her class might not come as a surprise.

“My aunt has been a friend and an inspiration since I was a little girl,” Hylton told theGrio. “I’ve enjoyed watching her career, and I admire all the success she’s had by taking risks and following her passion. It’s always fun getting together with her and the rest of my extended family!”

Hylton, who graduated this year with a degree in sociology, was honored with the Sophia Freund Prize, which is given to the Harvard student with the highest grade point average graduating summa c*m laude. She was also inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa Society last fall.

Hylton credits the support of her parents (who also graduated from Harvard magna c*m laude in 1982) with much of her ability to attain success.

Credits parents with her success

“I feel like I owe everything to my parents,” Hylton said. “They have been the most supportive people in my life. They always have supported me academically and [in] my extra-curricular activities. My parents never really pushed me in any particular direction. I never felt pressured to achieve because of my parents.

“They barely ever mentioned Harvard when I was growing up. My family is supportive, but not pushy,” she reiterated. “They want me to do my best, but they will never tell me that I have to achieve a certain standard.”

READ MORE

** Author’s Note: In my column “IF YOU DON’T LIKE DISPARITIES, TRY EQUALITY” I erroneously restated a comment I heard during a “think tank” at Rodham Institute. I was extremely remiss in not fact checking this statement. In communicating with Howard University, the facts are that of the 120 students admitted in Howard University’s School of Medicine for Fall of 2013, 36 males (30% of the class admitted) are indeed African American males. My apologies to Howard University and anyone inadvertently affected by this mistake. Julianne Malveaux, Ph.D 

Last week I attended a “think tank” conversation with leaders of the Rodham Institute, a newly established center at George Washington University that is dedicated to reducing health disparities in Washington, DC.  This is an important effort, because Washington, DC is such a divided city.  “East of the River”, Wards 7 and 8, are the poorest areas in the district, with some of the most challenging problems, and with an obesity rate of over 40 percent, more than the national average, and more than the extremely poor state of Mississippi.  There are food deserts “east of the river” where it is easier to get potato chips than an apple or banana.  While there are rudimentary hospitals and health centers, most referrals to a specialist will likely require a Ward 7 or 8 resident to take an expensive taxi ride across the river.  This city is rife with health disparities.

Washington, DC isn’t the only city with these issues.  Whether you are in San Francisco, Baltimore, New York, Chicago, Atlanta, or Dallas, there are areas that can be described as predominately black and predominately poor.  To be sure, there are well-off people in these predominately black areas.  They live there by choice, and have the resources and luxury of mobility that gives them access to some of the best hospitals in the city.  But the poor don’t, and when health centers consolidate or close, they experience barriers to health care.

Health disparities are a function of assets, access and attitudes.  Those with greater assets have more access to healthy food, better health care, and more information.  Those without assets do not, and often make a decision to forego medical treatment in terms of something more basic – food.  Some of these folks can’t or don’t know to go to cost-savings suburban stores like Costco, where bulk healthy food is readily available.  Some, stuck in habit, prefer greasy food to baked options.  Many do not make the connection between eating choices and heart disease.  Assets and access are linked.

Then there is the issue of attitudes.  Too many physicians don’t take poor (and African American) patients seriously.  The Institutes of Medicine released a study in 2002 that showed that African American and Latino men were less likely than others to get painkillers for a broken bone.  A subsequent study showed that African American children were likely to get differential treatment in emergency rooms.  Too many poor people use emergency rooms for primary health care because they lack health insurance or access to good health care.

The attitude gap is also internal.  Too many poor (and Black) people don’t take good care of themselves, which explains some health disparities.  Frequent exercise and good eating habits go a long way toward healthy living, as do regular checkups.  Some folks don’t know how to do the right thing.  Some folks don’t have access to the right thing.  And some people just won’t do the right thing.

One of the ways the attitude gap could be bridged is by admitting more African Americans to medical school.  However, one of the speakers at the Rodham Institute conference indicated that not one African American man was admitted to this year’s class at Howard University’s medical school!  The speaker was absolutely wrong, but unfortunately credible, since not one of the 150 people present questioned the statement. In fact of the 120 students admitted to Howard Medical School, 30 percent (or 36) are African American men.

Former Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton closed out the conference, graciously laying out her vision for the institute and answering questions.  She said that health disparities are a function of inequality, and that’s the point that sticks.  Too often we look at the results of inequality without looking at the causes.  Health disparities, the achievement gap, unemployment differentials are all a function of inequality.  Dealing with these gaps on a piecemeal basis doesn’t get us close to the solutions.

At the same time, how do we close the income and wealth gaps that are at the root of so many other gaps?  In the current conservative environment, talk of income or wealth transfers is just that. . .talk.  Conversations about reparations are even more meaningless in this environment, especially when the entire Congressional Black Caucus won’t sign the Conyers bill on simply studying the impact of slavery on contemporary American life.
The Rodham Institute has laudable goals, a wonderful founding director in Dr. Jehan El-Bayoumi (full disclosure – my doctor), and a great community focus.  In working to eliminate health disparities, perhaps this group will get us a bit closer to closing economic disparities as well.

In the 1969 Supreme Court ruling Alexander vs. Holmes County Board of Education, a unanimous court ruled that a Mississippi school district “terminate dual school systems at once and to operate now and hereafter only unitary schools.” The ruling, a mandate for non-compliant segregationists, was supposed to finally reverse the tide of Jim Crow era “separate and unequal” education.

Today, while more students generally attend racially and economically diverse schools, it is no secret that our schools are anything but unitary. According to recent reports by The Civil Rights Project at UCLA, concentrations of Blacks and Latinos into resource-deprived schools are at unprecedented levels, reversing years of progress toward integration since the monumental Brown v. Board (1954) and subsequent decisions. But while more recent Supreme Court decisions from Oklahoma City, Louisville, KY and Seattle, WA and policy-level failures such as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) are rightfully viewed among myriad protagonists of these trends, often overlooked by integration advocates is the reality of “dual school systems” operating at the curricular level, not just at the facility level.

Take for example the case of Southwest Elementary School in Durham, North Carolina. When David Snead began his tenure as principal in 1999, he discovered that 98% of the school’s white students and only 7% of black students were identified as “gifted and talented” (G&T), therefore placed in a separate, challenging curriculum. More astonishingly, this was in a school where blacks represented over 70% of the student body, while whites represented only 30%.

Snead, who is white and male, came face to face with one of America’s long-embedded institutional-level responses to integration: racialized tracking. And rather than accept internal segregation as an everyday norm, one grounded in the still-prevalent belief that minority students are “cognitively inferior” (or for self-professed non-racists, that they purposely under-perform out of fear of “acting white”), Snead believed otherwise. The principal worked with the school’s teachers to alter ways they thought about “giftedness,” given that their assessment triggered consideration for subsequent testing into advanced curricula. The results were astounding.

READ  MORE

by Ben Jealous

On April 29, seventeen dedicated activists were arrested for civil disobedience at the North Carolina General Assembly as they protested attacks on education, health care, voting rights and the poor. Six weeks and six “Moral Mondays” later, nearly 400 people have been locked up, and the nation is watching.

This is what democracy looks like.

The peaceful protests were started by Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II, president of the North Carolina NAACP State Conference. Rev. Barber has spent decades fighting for the poor and working class in his home state, building diverse coalitions like the Historic Thousands on Jones Street People’s Coalition and the Forward Together Movement. Despite name-calling and threats of violence, he has continued to build his grassroots movement to fight poverty, racism and the discriminatory policies of the “Old South”.

Those coalitions were put to the test when North Carolina lawmakers decided to embrace one of the most radical agendas in the nation. In the space of a few months, lawmakers rejected $700 million in federal unemployment benefits and passed up federal funds to expand Medicaid for half a million people. At the same time, they voted to raise taxes on 900,000 poor and working class people; slash funding for pre-school and kindergarten; and spend time pursuing wildly unpopular proposals, like a bill that would let legislators receive gifts from lobbyists.

Then, following a pattern we have seen across the country, they tried to cement their agenda by suppressing the vote. Rather than convince the public to vote for them on merit, legislators introduced a voter ID bill that would disenfranchise nearly 500,000 voters, and planned to roll back early voting, same-day registration and Sunday voting.

The community had seen enough. What followed was a textbook example of how grassroots organizing can and should work.

In late April, Rev. Barber and the HKonJ coalition organized the weekly Moral Mondays protests at the State House in Raleigh. Next, Rev. Barber engaged the NAACP’s broad network of 100 youth and adult units, organizing 26 local protest events across the state. In Halifax County, where one out of four people live below the federal poverty line, locals packed Mount Hope Baptist Church. In the small city of New Bern, more than 250 people packed a community center and cheered two community members who had been arrested at a Moral Monday. Each event made its own point while reinforcing the larger message.

Rev. Barber also took the advice of Dr. King: “If you are comfortable in your coalition, then your coalition is too small”. The protestors getting arrested each week are from all different backgrounds – veterans and students, schoolteachers and blue collar workers, professors and doctors, labor and environmental leaders, and clergy of different races, classes, faith communities and even physical abilities. They are unified by shared values and a belief in what Rev. Barber calls “a deeply moral and constitutional vision of society” where “the focus of public policy is justice for all and care for the common good.”

I was particularly moved by the words of Dr. Charles van der Horst, a white doctor from the UNC School of Medicine who would clearly benefit from the legislature’s agenda. He spoke outside the State House last week about the concept of fusion politics:

“This is not a black thing, this is not a white thing. This is not a poor thing, this is not a rich thing. This is not a Christian or Jewish or Muslim thing. What hurts one person, hurts us all.”

Dr. van der Horst is absolutely right, and his message should reverberate on a national scale. North Carolina will not thrive if it insists on selling off the rungs on the ladder to the middle and upper class. In the same way, America will not prosper if our leaders refuse to address wealth inequality and the same attacks on education and voting rights.

Luckily, America is listening. The protests have earned growing national press, and last weekend Melissa Harris-Perry devoted a segment of her national Saturday morning television show to the campaign. Moral Mondays have become a catalyst for a broader debate on public policy and the common good.

The question is whether North Carolina will listen to its own people. Only time will tell, but as Rev. Barber and the state’s activists have proven time and time again, they will not stop fighting until justice is won.

Ben Jealous is president/CEO of the NAACP. 

Contact:  Ben Wrobel 917-846-0658 bwrobel@naacpnet.org @NAACPPress

by Dr. Williams Spriggs

This week, the Center for American Progress (CAP), a think-tank closely associated with President Obama’s Administration since it was the home of many key White House officials like Gene Sperling and Melody Barnes, changed course on backing a “grand bargain” with Republicans on cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits and raising taxes on high income earners to balance the budget in the long run.

After taking a position favoring a debate on shrinking government back in 2009, CAP now sees four years later, that the job crisis remains while the federal deficit and the size of government has plummeted. But, let’s hope this change in heart has a similar effect on the Obama administration.

Five years after the onset of the Great Recession, there are still 2.4 million fewer payroll positions in America than in January 2008. At the rate of job creation last month, it would take more than thirteen months to get back to the pre-recession level of employment-meaning a net job growth of zero jobs over an almost six-and-a-half year period. The result is a backlog of Americans looking for jobs-officially 11.7 million. The brunt of the difficulty in the labor market has fallen on young workers who are suffering from the lowest levels of employment on record; fewer than 38 percent of 18 and 19-year-olds have jobs.

Here are the “new realities” that moved CAP: Last month the Congressional Budget Office projected that the federal deficit will be 4.0 percent of the nation’s output (the Gross Domestic Product measuring the value of all goods and services produced), less than half where it stood in 2009. By 2015, the deficit will shrink almost another half, to 2.1 percent of GDP.

The Washington consensus backed by the administration and Republicans in Congress was a view that the federal deficit had to be brought under control and the federal debt stabilized to promote a robust recovery. Well, we have been in “recovery” since 2009, but we have not recovered. There are still 12 million Americans chasing four million job openings, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics figures, who are not feeling recovered.

Republicans have continued to hold up the discussion on creating jobs in favor of discussing shrinking government. Today, we are 2.4 million jobs short of a recovery because, in large part, we are down 735,000 workers in the public sector since January 2009; almost half of those being local education workers-cutting more than 300,000 teachers from our children’s classrooms. So, cutting government has meant less than stellar job growth by cutting government employment, cutting investment in our children and then ignoring a discussion on how to take on the crisis of employment that 18 and 19-year-olds are facing.

Further, the ramifications of shrinking public sector employment came home to roost in another way this week, when private sector sub-contractor Edward Swanson leaked the lax oversight of private sector contractors given access to America’s personal information through an NSA secret surveillance program. The federal work force is 40,000 smaller than in January 2009; in part, because the build-up in security has been through contracting out work that should remain under close public supervision.

As CAP points out, the experiment in Europe to use fiscal restraint to create stability for growth has failed to produce growth and has instead worsened the job prospects in Europe and hurt demand for American exports. The arguments those Harvard economists’ Reinhart and Rogoff made warning of shrinking economic growth if federal debt got too high has been discredited. So, even the conservative American Enterprise Institute is getting on board, advocating for the direct hiring into government jobs for the long-term unemployed. Clearly, America needs a new conversation.

Now if only the administration is also listening. The new policy conversation will start when President Obama disengages the Republicans over “a grand bargain.” When he says to the Republicans in Congress who are debating the size of cuts to the SNAP program (food stamps) that taking food off the tables of American children and starving American children is not going to generate jobs or improve the path to fast job growth, America can start to have a real conversation about jobs.

It is time for the president to come before the American people and rally behind us, because the American people know that cutting Social Security benefits will not create jobs today or in the future, or that another trade agreement with Vietnam is not going to generate jobs for them, or raising the interest rate that students pay on college loans, or any of the list of items Washington is poised to debate. President Obama deserves a better legacy than compromising over the meaningless. Just as the president got behind the American people on immigration reform, and the justice in marriage, we need the president on the right side of history in economic policy. Negotiating with Republicans on things that don’t matter-and won’t help-puts him on the wrong side.

William Spriggs serves as Chief Economist to the AFL-CIO and is a professor in, and former chair of the Department of Economics at Howard University.  Bill is also former assistant secretary for the Office of Policy at the United States Department of Labor.

ASHEVILLE, N.C. - Salecia Johnson, age 6, grew frustrated in her Milledgeville, Ga., kindergarten class last year and erupted into a temper tantrum. Unfortunately, it’s something that mothers sometimes must confront with raising young children. But what happened next was not routine, nor should it be happening to Salecia or any other children.

Creekside Elementary school called the police, who said they found Salecia on the floor of the principal’s office screaming and crying. Police said she had knocked over furniture that injured the principal. The African American child was handcuffed, arrested and hauled to the local police station. She was held for more than hour before her parents were notified and charged with simple assault and damage to property, but didn’t have to go to court because she is a juvenile.

But the ordeal has severely impacted the child. Her mother, Constance Ruff, says Salecia is traumatized, having difficulty adjusting back to school and may never recover. Salecia, she says, has awoken at night screaming, “They’re coming to get me!”Sadly, her case is not an anomaly.

Across the country, young people are being arrested for behavior that used to be solved through a trip to the principal’s office or the intervention of a counselor. In Florida, a 14-year-old was arrested and charged for throwing a pencil at another student and spent 21 days in jail. In New York, a 12-year-old was arrested for doodling, ‘I love Abby and Faith on her desk.’ In Chicago, 25 children, some as young as 11, were arrested for engaging in a food fight.

Supporters of zero tolerance policies say being tough on any infraction creates strong incentives to behave. But the reality belies that myth and cries out for the implementation of common sense discipline polices that ensure that students are put on a pathway to career or college rather than the destructive criminal justice system.

The Advancement Project, a multi-racial civil rights organization based in Washington, DC, tracks the increasing encroachment of law enforcement and the juvenile justice system into American classrooms, particularly impacting students of color. The research has documented racial disparities nationally and in specific school districts. According to a 2005 report by Advancement Project, Education on Lockdown: The Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track, Black and Latino students in Denver were 70 percent more likely to be disciplined (suspended, expelled, or given police tickets) than their white peers. There were no states where Black students were not suspended more often than their white peers.

The easy answer is that Black and Latino students misbehave more than other students. However, research consistently shows that this is false. Black and Latino students are punished, even arrested, most often for subjective infractions (i.e. “disorderly conduct,” “disobedience,” “disrespect,” etc.), while White students are more likely to be punished for concrete dangerous activities (e.g., carrying a weapon, using drugs).

During a convening for “America Healing,” a racial equity initiative of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, a panel discussion this spring focused on examples where different sectors of the community have achieved some success interrupting the school-to-prison pipeline.

Jody Owens, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Mississippi office, which filed a lawsuit against the district, asserted that “we are losing a generation” in Meridian, Miss., because of the way children are needlessly introduced to the criminal justice system. Kids are pushed into police detention directly from the classroom. Students referred to the Police Department for misbehavior are automatically arrested and sent to the juvenile justice system. There, these students are given probation requiring them to serve any school suspensions incarcerated in the juvenile detention center. One student spent 48 days in jail for wearing the wrong color socks. Youth who run afoul of school rules, not criminal law, are routinely handcuffed to a pole outside the school for the entire eight-hour school day.

Data shows that zero tolerance policies result in higher dropout rates, lower academic achievement and young people being pushed into the criminal justice system – hence the name school to prison pipeline.

How have practices like these become common?

After the Columbine tragedy, we saw the emergence of zero tolerance policies extended into the nation’s schools. Proponents argue that safety in schools is the key issue though there is little to no evidence these practices create safer learning environments or change disruptive behavior.

America Healing panelists cited the importance of empowering community groups to achieve victory over these destructive policies.

Developing leaders among both adults and children willing to advocate for common sense school discipline; building the capacity of organizations through training and providing community resources; and broadly connecting the movement across the nation can build a movement that works.

Following this model, parent and youth groups, have successfully fought for change.  Denver and Baltimore traded out of school suspensions for minor infractions and adopted a system of positive behavior support, more engaging classrooms, in-school suspensions and restorative justice. Denver reduced the use of police in school discipline. The results are higher academic achievement and graduation rates.

Jerry Tello, director of the national Latino Fatherhood and Family Institute, shared how strong culture and families can play a significant role in diminishing the effects of living within these toxic environments. He emphasized how extreme discipline policies harm the spirit of youth and their self-perception.

The discussions at America Healing highlighted the power of combining legal and policy strategies, cultural awareness and community activism to reverse zero tolerance.

If quality education is to be a critical factor to the long-term success and independence of all children, there must be a myriad of innovative practices and partnerships between schools, families, communities, government and business to align and strengthen conditions that will break the school-to-pipeline.

Judith Browne Dianis is co-director of the Advancement Project. She is a prominent civil rights litigator and experienced racial justice advocate in the areas of voting, education, housing, and immigrants’ rights.America’s Wire is an independent, nonprofit news service run by the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. Our stories can be republished free of charge by newspapers, websites and other media sources. For more information, visit www.americaswire.org or contact Michael K. Frisby at mike@frisbyassociates.com. )

by Dr. Julianne Malveaux

When George Orwell wrote the novel 1984, he envisioned a character, a real or imagined “Big Brother” who was a know-all, see-all, omnipotent and elusive presence that intruded into lives because he could.  Those who knew about “him” were told that they did not exist, but in many ways, Big Brother may not have existed either. The omnipotence had taken on a life of its own.

Orwell’s book was a book ahead of its time. At a different point in time, his book could have been dismissed as psychedelic fantasy.  Today, he is just a step behind the reality in which we live.  Verizon is sharing telephone records.  The Department of Justice is monitoring journalists, and the IRS is playing games with those who seek nonprofit status.  People pulled over for a minor traffic violation will have to submit fingerprints to find out if they have broken other laws.   Big Brother is alive and well in too many layers of our lives,

Meanwhile, market researchers are segmenting populations by zip code and consumer patterns.  They can tell you what percentage of whites; African Americans or Latinos live in a certain zip code.  They can tell you what you earn, what you are worth, and how many of your neighbors have criminal records.  The zip code data drives marketers. Does it also drive law enforcement?

A recent study indicated that African Americans are between 2 and 6 percent more likely to be arrested for marijuana violations that whites are.  I guess it is easier to arrest from a corner than from a country club!  The rate of arrests for marijuana possession is 716 per 100,000 for African Americans, compared to 192 per 100,000 for whites.  The disparity is much higher in some counties.

Does this mean that African Americans are breaking more laws, or that law enforcement officers are targeting some zip codes or communities more regularly?  It is a lot easier to pick up a few citizens enjoying marijuana in a park than banging down the doors of an elite country club.  Yet data about marijuana usages suggests that there is little to distinguish the habits of African Americans from those of whites.  The only difference is the arrest rate.

Big Brother knows.

Big Brother has driven the kind of demographic that will tell you where you can find low-income, highly unemployed individuals, no matter of race.  Big Brother can tell you who can afford lawyers and who cannot.  Big Brother can drive police to investigate the least and the left out, those who are most vulnerable, while deciding to allow others to slink behind their space of class and privilege.  Big Brother can play bang for buck games that make it more profitable to arrest those with few resources in the hood instead of those with home-based protection.

Data collection seems to be a race-neutral process.  While data collection is an input, arrests are an output.  Between input and output there is the opportunity for racial bias to show up.  If white folk and black folk take an equal toke, why are black folk more likely to be arrested?  Are zip codes driving public safety officers to one place and deterring them from another?

Differences in marijuana arrests raise real questions about the many ways that data may be used to discriminate.  Instead of structural racism, intrinsic racism, and other forms of racism, we now have a data-based racism that is only logical when we ask how data is collected.  Simply put, the zip code data leads people to discriminate, if only because they are being led to single out a certain population.

Julianne Malveaux is a DC based economist and writer and President Emerita of Bennett College for Women.

By

Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Benjamin Franklin 

Last week The Guardian newspaper confirmed what many Americans have suspected for a very long time, the American government is spying on its own citizens.  The Guardian published a copy of a top secret court order requiring domestic telecom companies to provide the NSA with “…communication records of millions of US citizens…collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.”  According to The Guardian, “The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.”  It is also alleged that internet giants such as Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, have also provided the NSA access to confidential user data.

President Obama, who as a Senator campaigned against such practices as they were being engaged in by the Bush administration, is now defending them.  When asked in 2007 if the president has Constitutional authority to conduct surveillance for national security purposes without judicial warrants, Senator Obama stated, “The Supreme Court has never held that the president has such powers.” Now, according to the President in defense of such measures, “My assessment and my team’s assessment…was that they help us prevent terrorist attacks, and the modest encroachments on privacy that are involved…that on net was worth us doing.”  He went on to say, “When it comes to telephone calls, nobody is listening to your calls. That’s not what this program is about…What the intelligence community is doing is looking at phone numbers and durations of calls — they’re not looking at people’s names and they’re not looking at content.”

I understand that the FISA court granted the order to the FBI but the larger issue is that the NSA and FBI are engaged in the surveillance of American citizens who have not engaged in any wrongdoing.  One has to question the standards that the FISA court is using to grant its orders and whether or not there is truly a check and balance as required by the constitution.

As a Constitutional scholar President Obama should know that his position on this issue fails the “laugh test” on a number of levels. He considers the NSA collecting the telephone records of millions of US telecom customers, having access to the numbers of both parties on a call, location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls as “modest encroachments?  What ever happened to the fundamental legal premise of presumption of innocence?

Has President Obama and/or any member of his “team” ever heard of the 4^th Amendment? “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Where is the basis of “probable cause” to proactively search the records of millions of Americans who have never engaged in any illegal activity let alone activity of a “terrorist” nature?

It is disingenuous for President Obama to attempt to alleviate fears and concerns of Americans about this incredible encroachment and excessive expansion of government power by saying, “nobody is listening to your calls…” That’s not the point; telephone numbers, like social security numbers are assigned to individuals.  If you have the number you have the name. It’s the collection, analysis, and storage of call data of innocent citizens that matters.

I believe that more Americans would be outraged if this were a physical invasion of their privacy as opposed to a technological invasion.  If the police were entering the homes of millions of Americans and taking photographs of their contents and video of their activities more people would be outraged.  Remember the outrage when shortly after 9/11 then Attorney General John Ashcroft proposed using members of the US Postal Service to spy on American citizens?  These actions are a clear violation of the intent of, “The right of the people to be secure… against unreasonable searches and seizures…”

This is clearly an attempt by the “liberal” Obama administration to further the development of the National Security State (NSS) all under the pretext of the Bush era marketing strategy the “War on Terror.” Some will consider my use of the term NSS as an exaggeration or over-the-top.  According to the Center for Media and Democracy, elements of the NSS are that the military exerts important influence over political, economic, as well as military affairs (Eisenhower’s “military industrial complex”). National Security States often maintain an appearance of democracy. However, ultimate power rests with the military or within a broader National Security Establishment. The military and related sectors wield substantial political and economic power. They do so in the context of an ideology which stresses that ‘freedom” and “development” are possible only when capital is concentrated in the hands of elites (the rise of the One-Percent).  Finally, defending against external and/or internal enemies becomes a leading preoccupation of the state, a distorting factor in the economy, and a major source of national identity and purpose.

According to the President, “But my assessment… was that they (these programs) help us prevent terrorist attacks.”  Well, by my assessment the best way to prevent terrorist attacks is to stop engaging in practices that contribute to the promotion and recruitment of “terrorists” and validate the perception/reality of America as an imperialist interloper.  Remember, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom-fighter.”  Stop invading and/or supporting the invasion of sovereign countries.  Stop killing innocent civilians “collateral damage” with drone strikes. These programs and policies destabilize regions and contribute to the influx of weapons that support this destabilization.

President Obama’s National Security State is making American’s insecure. “Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins. Republics and limited monarchies derive their strength and vigor from a popular examination into the action of the magistrates.” Benjamin Franklin – 17 November 1737.

Dr. Wilmer Leon is the Producer/ Host of the Sirisu/XM Satellite radio channel 110  call-in talk radio program “Inside the Issues with Leon”  Go to www.wilmerleon.com or email: wjl3us@yahoo.com. www.twitter.com/drwleon and Dr. Leon’s Prescription at Facebook.com

© 2013 InfoWave Communications, LLC