Examining racial divides created and made worse by man

Race is a funny word. Man-made, just like everything else we’ve created using our own languages. I believe it is an attempt, at best, to distinguish ourselves from a common genome.

When I was very young, a race was something I saw horses or greyhounds compete in. I grew up in the suburbs of Colorado - hardly a prime suitor for diversity in the 1980s. But, nevertheless, I hardly ever felt like the ugly duckling because of the amount of melanin in my skin or the child that everyone looked at funny because I didn’t physically fit in. Looking back, I’m sure plenty of factors played into this relatively comfortable childhood, particularly the idea that I came from an Asian background. Asians have a very different sort of stereotype associated with them, especially those of the Indian subcontinent.

In my teens, people didn’t look at me and think, “She’ll never make it through middle school” or “I wonder if her parents are crack cocaine addicts”. People looked at me and wondered which Ivy League I’d be attending and how many hours a night I spent studying. And in a funny little way, I began to disapprove. Mostly because I was put on a pedestal I wanted neither to justify nor own. And when I didn’t make Ivy League for college (mostly because I didn’t apply to begin with), people wondered if I was the “special” case among Asian Americans.

It was in freshman year of college that the entire schism between racial groups became very apparent to me.  Prior to this, I didn’t know what “racism”, “white supremacy” or “affirmative action” really were. Of course, I’d studied the Civil Rights movement and gave my allegiances to honorable figures like Martin Luther King, Jr., but they didn’t apply to me. I was neither black nor Hispanic. I came from an immigrant family that specialized in skilled labor and whose parents were sworn in as American citizens when I was in the second grade. Parents who had their Masters degrees from American institutions and who lived a relatively comfortable life.

I may have not personally experienced racism growing up, but that isn’t to say I wasn’t exposed to it. Americans are not the only ones with a long history of racism. It’s a global phenomenon. Many Pakistani Muslims, for example, find Indian Hindus to be inferior, “dirty” and “backwards”. “Monkey worshiping filth”, as one particular individual in my family used to put it. Why this hate? Hinduism and Islam clash historically, politically and religiously. Their followers must, as result, categorize themselves as superior to the other faith in order to justify their own beliefs. This is not to say peaceful coexistence does not exist. But there are a fair share of extremists and racists riddled in the both populaces, some of whom also happen to make-up my family.

This sort of racism also isn’t something to discuss with others. It’s a dinner table conversation, behind closed doors. It is understood, but never publicly acknowledged. Growing up, I found it to be a fascinating paradox that I vicariously lived, through my own parents. They’d smile, make small talk with Hindus and non-Muslims – and then behind closed doors, the hate would fill every corner of every room in the house. At the time, I was too young to realize that what they were engaging in was racism. Thankfully, their words weren’t too impressionable, either.

I did have a personal face-off with racism in the latter years of high school. It stemmed from the ignorant and widespread racism following the 9/11 attacks in 2001. These days, it doesn’t matter if you’re Pakistani, Bengali, Indian or even Sri Lankan – to the ignorant racists in this country, you’re a “terrorist”. In 2002, I was stopped at Bush Intercontinental Airport and subjected to SWAT team interrogations, for absolutely no reason except that my name was Maha. A white Delta employee at check-in was kind enough to report me (for national security’s sake, of course). It’s a very belittling and awful feeling, to be subjected to racism. Suddenly, your personality and your achievements are trashed for your name and what your skin color is. And often times, there isn’t a single thing you can do about it.

But I’ve learned, through attaining my own independence from unfortunate aspects of my bicultural identity, that racism is very much psycho-social. Individuals with racist tendencies have failed, for the most part, to establish their own personal identities. It is easier to elevate one’s ethnic, religious or national background to a higher level over another than to endure deep introspection geared towards understanding and strengthening insecurities surrounding personal identity. At the microcosmic level, this could be controlled. If an individual exhibits racist behavior, he or she can be consequently restrained.

At the macrocosmic, state-level, however, it becomes a rather nasty problem.

Being Asian in the gulf Middle East

When I was 8 years old I watched my mom get pushed into a kitchen at an Arab wedding and ordered to serve drinks to the guests. The mother of the bride didn’t realize that my mom was a guest. She was, in fact, personally invited by the bride (a former student of my mom’s), who wanted her favorite teacher to be there on her special day. The reason my mom’s sequined scarf and make-up went ignored is because my mom is Malaysian.

Let me take you back. The years my family spent in Kuwait are littered with uncomfortable incidents like the one described above. We moved to Kuwait about a year after the Iraqi invasion was over, and shaken from the war, Kuwait was hugely xenophobic in the early ‘90’s. My parents were working in a village called Batu Buruk (Ugly Stones), Terengganu on the east coast of Malaysia before they were offered better-paying jobs as instructors in the Middle East, and as Muslims with a romanticised idea of the region that gave the world the Prophet (swt) and the Quran, my parents were excited that their kids would grow up in such a privileged environment. They packed up their three girls (ages 1-5) and flew to Kuwait University, Shuwaikh.

My village Malay gave way to a gulf Arabic accent in school, and one of the first teases I got was for being “yabaneezy” (Japanese). When my mom came for PTA meetings the teachers would give surprised looks and tell my mom her English was good. My mom’s first couple of months as an instructor at the Sharia’ College for Girls was rocky with repeated explanations that she was the teacher. No she wasn’t the tea lady, no she wasn’t the cleaner; she was the teacher. “Mudarasa” my mom would say in Arabic and the students would continue to give her wary looks. Luckily my mom was a great teacher, because it would only take a couple of weeks for those same wary students to become enthralled by her classes and her zany humor. “Miss wallah I love you, you must meet my family!” On days when I visited the office with my sisters, a hail of black abaya robes would descend on us and leave lipstick streaks across our cheeks. “Ya Allah Ms. Jenifah you have many children and you are still so small mashallah!” They’d look at my almost-five-feet mother, mousy in her own baggy abaya and wonder how they started out with such different assumptions. It was unfortunate that not all Kuwaitis could be in my mom’s classes.

The same could not be said for my dad. At 6-foot-6-inches, blue eyes and as white bread as Iowa makes them, my dad was regarded as the big American hero who fought the Iraqis (which, as an instructor from Ugly Stones, he hadn’t). Kuwaitis didn’t trust any foreigners or other Arabs, but if you were American you were given rockstar treatment. Shop clerks would smile at you, people on the street would go up to you, and if you were an instructor at the University, the women would swoon.

And swoon they did. My dad would come back after teaching to his office and find that love letters had been stuffed under the door and a few giggly girls in abaya waiting outside. My dad received offers for a second or third wife on a regular basis. At first my parents would laugh at these gestures, but the overwhelming attention bolstered my dad’s ego while the tactless prejudice bogged down my mom’s confidence and self esteem, setting what was once a stable marriage onto a rocky patch of misunderstanding and injured feelings.

Eventually the racial attitudes towards our family and the lack of affordable good schools drove my family to move back to Malaysia. After a couple of years of settling down, my parents received job offers from the Middle East again, but this time in the Emirates. My siblings and I refused to go back, but after being assured that we’d be going to international schools this time, we relented. We were happy to find that racial attitudes in the Emirates are much improved from the ones in Kuwait. For one thing the Emirates is more cosmopolitan, and the university my parents teach at is a hodge-podge mix of local and expatriate students. As American-Malaysians we found our niche among the other halfsies and 3rd culture kids of Emirati-Iranian, Polish-Greek, Egyptian-Philippina, and the Lebanese-Cypriot types. We were finally not weird: we were just like everyone else.

My mom still encounters a few awkward situations in the Emirates, but nowhere near the scale that she had in Kuwait. Recently with Obama’s election we can see that racial attitudes are slowly shifting in the US as they do in my mom’s classroom. Justice Sonia Sotomayor once said that “stereotyping is perhaps the most insidious of all problems in society today,” and we found that to be true, but it’s also true that this insidious problem can be dealt with—from the students in my mom’s classroom to the attendees of President Obama’s speeches. It’s not enough that anyone can be a good teacher or president in theory: Sometimes a country needs to see the black president at the White House leading, and sometimes people need to see the Malaysian woman in hijab standing at the white board teaching. Perhaps the change isn’t as big or as radical as most of us would prefer it, but if one person can change the way they think of other races, it makes that much of a difference when they respect people like my mom who expect discrimination.

My mom continues to teach in the Middle East, only this time she’s armed with experience, that same zany humor, and hundreds of students and friends that love, respect and admire her.

A show of hypocrisy as Republicans bash Sotomayor

Republicans have a great knack at 1-upping Democrats in every unethical thing possible. Take, for example, Mark Sanford’s extravagant affair with an Argentinean woman. It makes John Edwards look like an amateur. Or former Vice President Dick Cheney’s approval of torture – while Al Gore was too busy hugging trees. In the realm of political pundits, Republican Ann Coulter remains unchallenged. And now, Alabama Senator Jeffrey Sessions’ racial history is making Sonya Sotomayor look like, at best, yet another victim of the “white privileged male” mentality.

Sotomayor is being revered as potentially the first Latina justice to take a seat in the United States Supreme Court. But she is also being assaulted by right-wing conservatives over her 2001 comment regarding the role of her ethnicity in the United States: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life”.

To resolve the paradox: Why would it be an important milestone in US history that a Latina judge sits on the Supreme Court, if race didn’t matter?

This hypocrisy of racial politics is being perpetrated by a charming top GOP pick: Mister Jeffrey Sessions. The same senator who believes the ACLU and NAACP are “Communist-inspired” and “un-Constitutional”, that the Ku Klux Klan was “OK”, minus the “pot smokers”, and that white civil rights lawyers are a “disgrace to his race.” Despite this, Sessions believed he was fully entitled to interrogate the Supreme Court nominee on the racism charges last week.

Why the fury over the wisdom of this accomplished señora? Sotomayor’s comment sparked a row in Washington because it is a reality that most Americans refuse to publicly acknowledge. The experience that Sotomayor was referring to runs parallel to a deep and turbulent racial disparity in this country’s history. Let’s take, for example, a recent study from the Pew Hispanic Center comparing home ownership rates between whites, blacks, Asians and Hispanics.

The study quotes that “in 2007, blacks and Hispanics borrowed higher amounts than did whites with similar incomes, exposing themselves to greater debt relative to their incomes.” What are the socio-economic repercussions of this blatant inequality? While the majority white population (including Sessions and Roberts) enjoy luxuries like vacations and the ability to afford higher education, struggling blacks and Hispanics are barely making ends meet. For aspiring Supreme Court justices like Sotomayor, this means working much harder to attain the same level of merit as their white counterparts.

Despite the figures putting her at a relative disadvantage to her white counterpart Sessions, how wise did the Latina manage to become? Ms. Sotomayor graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University and attained her Juris Doctor from Yale Law School. After which George H.W. Bush himself nominated her to the District Court for the Southern District of New York in 1991.

Yes, that’s right folks; a Republican president has already previously nominated Sotomayor to a federal court.

Also, 1991 is the same year that George W. Bush’s Supreme Court nomination John G. Roberts was fighting hard on the side of the Oklahoma Board of Education to ensure the re-segregation of its schools. Roberts, a current Supreme Court justice, was also quoted in 1983 saying, “I think this audience would be pleased that we are trying to grant legal status to their [Hispanic-Americans] illegal amigos.”

As expected, Sessions wasn’t up in arms about his fellow Republican’s concerning comments at the time of Roberts’ nomination in 2005. His selectivity in addressing potentially racist Supreme Court justices seems to indicate a preference in minority women over white males. How ironic.

But perhaps Sessions has a right to harass others about racism.

He seems to be more familiar with it than the rest of us.

What the NAACP Means to Me

As a brown-skinned immigrant who has spent 25 years working for racial justice, I owe a good deal of my life to the legacy of the NAACP. So I attended and watched the organization’s centennial convention in New York this week, with both gratitude and the urge to contribute.

My family emigrated to the United States from India when I was five, which would have been impossible if the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act hadn’t removed country quotas under the pressure of the civil rights ethic.

When I became a community organizer at age 20, I found an inspiring set of groups to work with—few would have existed without the movement’s example and infrastructure.

Yet, my very presence in this country, and my activism, symbolize the demographic and political trends that have changed the racial justice struggle since those days some 40 years ago. Today’s context includes great numbers of non-black people of color, complicating the way in which racism plays out. Certainly there have always been activist indigenous Asian, Latino and Arab communities, but there’s no question that recent immigration has driven our numbers up, expanding our presence in small cities, suburbs and rural areas where we never used to be.

The dominant racial dynamic of the 21st Century is not solely black and white, but a complex hierarchy in which multiple groups of color shift around according to geography, economic status and political power. While communities of color all relate to racism, we don’t experience it in exactly the same way.

I’ve spent most of my career building multiracial organizations and alliances, working with black, Latino and immigrant communities to win new health programs, to protect labor rights, to control the police and to reform school systems. In the early days, I made the “same boat” argument for sticking together—racism oppresses us all in one way or another. But eventually the very real differences between our positions would arise. Immigrants had language problems at the local hospital, but black people were routinely denied high quality treatment through discrimination that was much harder to prove. Black men experience racial profiling while driving, while South Asian and Arab Americans get it at the airport, and law enforcement justifies those actions in different ways.

Sometimes, in some places, people of color exercise their power in ways that hurt other people of color. At some point, cooperation based on abstract solidarity turned into competition based on specific grievances about the higher step someone else appears to occupy on the ladder.

We can prepare for that moment and deal with it constructively, and dozens of groups across the country have managed to do just that. Being ready means building a broad agenda to expand resources, educating ourselves about other communities, and, most of all, acting as if we’re in the same movement, if not the same boat.

I’ve been privy to a great example in the restaurant industry through my participation in and writing about the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROCU). In any high-end restaurant in any city, we will find the same racial arrangement: white people, whom employers consider attractive enough to speak to diners, in the living wage jobs at the front of the house; immigrants of color at the dangerous low-wage jobs in the back of the house; and black Americans missing entirely, relegated to fast food.

The obstacles we face in accessing the industry’s benefits vary according to employers’ faulty perceptions of our relative worth. Breaking down that hierarchy requires thinking it through, which almost always leads to a complicated set of solutions. Training programs, new hiring and promotion policies, immigration reform and the enforcement of anti-discrimination laws are just a few strategies that ROCU pushes in cities like New York, Detroit, New Orleans and Chicago. ROCU meetings take place in multiple languages, and organizers make constant adjustments to make sure the group is truly inclusive.

That’s the essential challenge facing the NAACP too: being a racial justice leader in a multiracial nation. Its new president, Ben Jealous, is committed to revitalizing the organization—nothing and nobody gets to be 100 without getting a little weary—in ways that connect its current membership to the rest of us. He uses the broader language of human rather than civil rights and works hard to inspire young people, who barely blinked through his speech to the Youth and College Division at the convention.

I’m not attached to the NAACP changing its complexion. The organization doesn’t have to be fully multiracial to meet the challenge set by Jealous. Black people need their organizations, and other communities of color also need black communities to be well organized. As we do our work, though, we need to do it together, regardless of how we’ve arranged ourselves. The solutions we come to will differ, but we can stand up for them together, grounded in our commitment to dismantling the racial hierarchy as thoroughly as we can over the next 100 years.

The author, a social justice activist from the Indian American community, explores the role of the venerable rights organization and the kind of leadership necessary going forward in a multiracial nation.

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Rinku Sen is the president of Applied Research Center and Publisher of ColorLines magazine.
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This article appeared on New America Media.

Exploring racial divides in America

What is your race? Check all that apply.

I’m brown. Latina. Hispanic. Whatever. There’s no way around it.

Since 1790, the American government has been racially classifying and socially constructing labels for us – people of all colors and looks – to help “identify” or “place” us in society, with each U.S. Census allowing for more racial categories. Are they necessary? I don’t know, but they’re there and it’s not realistic to easily eradicate a racial system that has existed for centuries.

I don’t look black, white or oriental. I’m brown, or whatever other title is applicable. That’s what I am, that’s how I’m seen and it’s what I know. And I’m OK with it.

I do have to say, though, that there is a slight hostility between the numerous ethnic groups that are placed under the umbrella term Latino. Guatemalans or Salvadorans are not the same as Mexicans or Cubans.

Despite people of Hispanic/Latino origin coming from different countries and diverse cultural backgrounds, most people don’t understand the differences between us, especially those who lie outside the brown umbrella.

We’re mostly perceived as Mexicans because of the booming Mexican population in California. Yes, there are similarities. Yes, we have almost the same exact experiences with the challenges we face, our parents or just simply growing up.

But we’re different. Our cultures are completely different. Our ways of speaking are different. Our value systems and ways of thinking are different. Our food and music is different. Just because we have some similar qualities like dark skin, hair and eyes doesn’t mean we’re all the same.

Just as Koreans aren’t the same as Chinese or blacks aren’t the same as Haitians. Yet, I’m still assumed to be Mexican, which is the prevalent thought, I suppose.

I don’t think I’ve ever faced blatant racism or discrimination, though. However, maybe indirectly I have.

I’ve usually been followed physically, with the eyes or by a camera whenever I go into stores, most of which are owned or managed by Asians in my area. It is the most irritating thing to be looked at as if I’m going to steal something and even more irritating to be followed while they’re pretending to just be cleaning or organizing.

I’m not dumb and I’m not blind. And I definitely don’t need to steal your cheap things that I can easily buy, is what I usually think. Is it them just being paranoid or is it me and the stereotype I carry that calls for that type of surveillance?

I don’t know, but it’s there.

I’ve also been to wealthy Brentwood neighborhood stores, most of which attract white customers, and have been looked at almost immediately.

Maybe they don’t get too many people like us in their stores? Do I look diseased? Or is it the fact that I’m a beaner/wetback/illegal in their store? Is that too harsh?

Maybe it’s just the reality of how I’m perceived by some.

When my mom came to the U.S. from El Salvador she started working as a housekeeper for wealthy families and continues to work for one in Brentwood. However, she was once fired from her job with a well-known sportscaster; his wife thought she was stealing, which she wasn’t.

She also takes the bus daily and as she waited at her bus stop with other housekeepers, she would come in conflict with an older white woman who lives in the apartment complex near the stop. She repeatedly told my mom to get off of her property or she’s going to call the police and immigration officials.

It’s kind of typical for people to try to intimidate those who look a certain way or don’t speak English as well. These things can’t be sugarcoated.

Furthermore, I don’t know how much President Obama’s election has changed for people. It was a milestone and the blood, sweat and tears of millions of people coat the huge hurdles that were crossed to get to this point.

He is a man who encompasses the wealthy, poor, whites, blacks, Asians and Hispanics. He’s the one who brought the world together, marking one of the most momentous days in American history.

But he is just one man. It’s going to take all of us to change the status quo and progress to a compassionate and accepting future, especially being that this country was founded on diversity.

However, recent events show that some people in society aren’t interested in accepting certain racial groups, making it more difficult to believe that Obama’s election alone will make us move forward.

For example, the Orange County Register reported that on July 4, two men – one bearing a swastika tattoo on his left shoulder – allegedly committed a hate crime against Maria Guadarrama, a 45-year-old custodian in Ladera Ranch, Orange County. She said in a press conference that as they stabbed her they yelled racial slurs, calling her a worthless Mexican.

On the day Americans across the country celebrate the nation’s independence and freedom, two men decided to attack a woman because of her ethnicity and attempt to silence a race as a whole.

Irony at its best.

Dikembe Mutombo: Shattering NBA stereotypes

As big of a player 7′2” Dikembe Mutombo of the Houston Rockets was, let it be his career’s end that finally inspires us to become bigger people ourselves.

It is so easy to stereotype athletes. Maybe even easier to create that small athletic box for black athletes.

But last week, as a freak injury ended the 18 year career of Mutombo, we were reminded again to learn life lessons, not just game stats, from those in sports.

It started in an interview done in the stands as the injured Mutombo was being interviewed during a time out.

The reporter asked questions about his career and about how sad it will be for him to leave the game.

Then the reporter asked, “What would you be without basketball?”

You see, Mutombo grew up in the African Congo. The reporter meant only to highlight the wonderful experience of playing basketball. But the question was also filled with American arrogance. It was an honest mistake by the reporter on live T.V.

Mutombo paused and looked taken back, then through his grinding deep voice he replied, “A doctor.”

Now the reporter is taken back; the interview ends quickly and with smiles.

At first I thought Mutombo was giving a lesson in positive thinking. But it’s true, he would have been a doctor.

Mutombo had not expected to play basketball in college. He came to the United States from the Congo with a scholarship to Georgetown University in the study of medicine. A basketball coach recognized the physical potential of Mutombo, which led to his stardom in Georgetown athletics.

Mutombo was drafted to the NBA and spent the next 18 years as a defensive king. But not before he got his degrees in linguistics and diplomacy.

ESPN Columnist Chad Ford wrote that Americans know Mutombo for his strong defense and blocks. But in Africa his stardom approaches that of Michal Jordan.

Mutombo spent his entire NBA career paying millions to build a hospital in the Congo, giving numerous donations to African charities in all countries of the continent and spending countless more bringing Africans to school in the U.S. through his personal scholarships.

Watch video: The opening of a hospital in Congo

Many athletes accept the shallow stereotypes we expect of them. There is much to be said about the use of a persons body (and more directly) the use of African bodies, for athletic entertainment at the expense of the black mind across the world.

All of which makes the life and lessons of Dikembe Mutombo all the more important in a world of Chris Browns and OJ Simpsons.

Let Him Speak: Quotes from Dikembe Mutombo

“Dikembe Mutombo is not just a basketball player. I want the kids to see this powerful message. If you want to dream about being Dikembe Mutombo, it has to be about more than just basketball. They cannot forget where they came from. If they want to dream about me, dream about what I’m doing on a daily basis. Dream about being a person who can look behind them and see people suffering and say, ‘I will turn my shoulder and look after them and see what I can do.’ I think if the kids can get that message, it will be a bright day in Africa soon.”
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“Nobody ever thought that one day kids in Africa would dream about playing in the NBA. Maybe they dream of coming to America and getting an education and stay in America and having a wonderful job. To see that dream transformed into coming into the NBA — dreaming of being the next Dikembe Mutombo; being a role model; being a leader in the community; being someone who can come back and inspire our people — this is has been my dream.”
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“ I know it is going to be difficult to stop people from dying, because death is part of our lives, But to prevent as many deaths as possible, it is up to us to do so. This is something I will do the rest of my life.”

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Credit: Abrahim Appel, 30, a freelance journalist residing in Fullerton, California. He recently acquired his B.A in Afro-Ethnic and American Indian Studies from Cal State Fullerton. He works as a live-in caregiver and is researching masters and PhD programs in Arab-Diaspora Studies or International Relations with an emphasis on ethnic relations while considering a career with the Peace Corps.

Remember the LA Riots

Seventeen years ago last week, 55 people died, 2,300 were injured and 10,000 businesses were destroyed in the Los Angeles riots.

It’s hard to explain the 1992 riots that started on April 29 to people who are too young to remember.

I can say that it was a convulsion of psychological energy; a revolution that changed the realities of a racist country into a more democratic country.

A year earlier the tension had risen as a man named Rodney King had tried to get away from the cops. When the police caught Mr. King, they beat him in a way that would have been illegal to beat a dog.

The images of Mr. King hazily trying to get away from the beating is burnt on my mind.

Many thought it was a new day since the beating had been filmed with the newly invented home video camera.

But it was the reality of nothing changing, even though there was film of the incident that caused things to truly explode.

Even with the recording, the jury’s prejudices translated the event into a scary black man surrounded by a dozen frightened, “rightfully” baton-swinging and kicking keepers of the peace.

The verdict was like a declaration of war on the black community.

“If you got no recourse. You can’t go to the law. What are you gonna do? How do you articulate it,” a LA resident said to the media during the riots.

In one day, 2,000 fires were set in LA. An entire system of the ghetto apartheid that had been built over the black community, like a plantation or a reservation, was being burnt down. America was scared. And the improvements we have seen today have come from that fear. White America had to come to grips with the irrational ideas they held or face a civil war.

Watch video: Juror talks of decision.

A Deeper Look

The fires were sending up the smoke signals of injustice “that black people felt in their bones.” But the riots were not just rage. The riots were the loss of hope.

To understand the riots, we have to remember that the black community in Los Angeles, and across the country, had been ravaged by the crack epidemic for a decade before the riots. An epidemic that reporters have linked to the American government getting monetary support for counter leftists in Latin America.

To understand the riots we have to remember that months before the Rodney King Verdict, a Korean grocer was given probation for shooting to death a 15-year-old African-American, Latasha Harlins, during an argument over an orange juice he thought she stole.

To understand the riots you have to remember that police officers had been taped through the dispatchers referring to Black suspects as “gorillas in the mist.”

During the riots a women yelled, “They wonder why Black people gotta fucking chip on their god damn shoulder? I have three brothers and this (here) is my only son. I’ll be dammed if they beat up on mine. If they do, I’m not taking (the police) to court. I’m gonna put a hit out on them.”

“Beat me up like you did Rodney King, mother fuckers, and I’ll kill every last one of you,” she screamed across the street to the police.

Najee Ali was a rioter in 1992.

Ali said that African Americans had lost control of their own personal liberties and had no economic progress.

Abuse from the police was now combined with not owning your own neighborhoods economy as non-black business owners both sold you your food and hated you.

It all added up to not being the victim this once.

“I was so angry. I wanted to continue. But I stopped after two days out of sheer, physical exhaustion,” said Ali in 2002.

The reason this all matters is that much of the same variables exist today that started the riots of ‘92.

Unemployment in the LA, Long Beach and Santa Ana Metropolitan area was at 10.6 percent in March. Santa Ana has a large population of Latin American immigrants within Orange County.

In Compton, unemployment is nearing 20 percent.

These statistics are approaching the levels that were around when the LA riots occurred.

We can not ignore our segregationist realities. African Americans and Latin Americans today are overly represented in the unemployment line. Just like in 1992’s recession.

If we continue to refuse to learn from the past, we may find ourselves tearing apart the fabric of our nation and each other, again.

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Credit: Abrahim Appel, 30, a freelance journalist residing in Fullerton, California. He recently acquired his B.A in Afro-Ethnic and American Indian Studies from Cal State Fullerton. He works as a live-in caregiver and is researching masters and PhD programs in Arab-Diaspora Studies or International Relations with an emphasis on ethnic relations while considering a career with the Peace Corps.

Hip Hop Wealth

How “wealthy” are the most successful hip-hop artists? Take Jay-Z, Lil’ Wayne, and 50 Cent. Are they wealthy or just rich? At one time Master P was considered one of the “richest” hip-hop moguls. I haven’t heard much about him lately so I wonder about the longevity of his wealth. Will his financial gains flow smoothly and lavishly to his children (Lil Romeo etc) and his grandchildren?

How should we assess wealth in hip-hop? Switch over to MTV or BET on any given day and you will be inundated with videos and documentaries that proudly give evidence that a particular hip-hop artist is financially successful. Never mind the intellectual content of his lyrics; he could be prattling about “magic sticks,” “superman,” or “getting low.” The content doesn’t seem to matter. The truth is that the success of the artist is measured by the number and caliber of his “whips”; the number of rooms in his “crib”; the shine in his “bling”; and his ability to throw “paper” around in the music videos. And let’s not forget the number of “honeys” that sashay and gyrate around the screen. Perhaps, in the context of hi-hop, we should think of wealth in non-traditional ways.

The traditional concept of wealth carries with it a connotation of old and multi-generational financial excess. It makes you think of sturdy old mansions with massive pillars and mile-long driveways. Although there are some instances of such wealth in old African American families, most members of the black community in the United States have not been able to attain that level of wealth. There are valid and logical reasons for this fate, which are rooted in historical events - brutal slavery, unfair segregation, and rigid inaccessibility to the hallowed and exclusive spaces of privilege.

For black urbanites, this access to wealth is even further-fetched. However, hip-hop has created an unlikely avenue to unprecedented financial gains. I am reminded of a phrase from Tupac’s poetry – “the rose that grew from concrete.” If hip-hop artists are able to make money from the dire circumstances that surround them in the inner-city, should we excuse them for their questionable lyrics? If the commercial formula of mindless lyrics set to fantastic beats brings them financial relief, should we expect them to deliver more socially-conscious, message-laden lyrics? If this is their way to their wealthy place, why do we as an audience begrudge them their success? After all, much of the wealth that is accumulated by those old American families (the ones that own those mansions and driveways) is also rooted in not-so-pristine origins. Why should we hold hip-hop artists to a different standard?

I’m interested in what folks think about this. How should wealth be defined and how does hip-hop intersect with your definition of wealth? To inspire your responses, I thought I’d include the poem I referred to earlier:

The Rose that Grew From Concrete by Tupac Shakur

Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete?/ Proving nature’s law is wrong it learned to walk with out having feet/ Funny it seems, but by keeping it’s dreams, it learned to breathe fresh air/ Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else ever cared.

(This post originally appeared on Black Arts Blog Network)
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Credit: Stephanie Shonekan, Ph.D., is a professor of Humanities and Cultural Studies at Columbia College Chicago. She earned her Ph.D. in ethnomusicology and is the director of Black World Studies.

Celebrating the Word - The Story of Friendship Baptist Church

“To be a preacher is to be a storyteller, scholar, analyst, entertainer, political theorist, and, most ineffably, the anointed of God.”
Upon This Rock: The Miracles of a Black Church

On Sunday mornings, when Bishop James D. Carrington stands before his congregation at Friendship Baptist Church, he sees the old women in scarlet gabardine and boys in faded jeans, heads bowed in prayer. He hears the soaring gospel riffs from the choir reverberate throughout the cavernous sanctuary. He feels the collective breath of the faithful as they punctuate his booming oratories with “Amen!” and “Preach it now!”

And he wonders, as he has for some 2300 Sundays past, how many people will be inspired to receive the Word.

Carrington, 76, has been the pastor of Friendship Baptist Church since its founding in 1964. He has grown the church from 22 members, worshiping in a small house in Fullerton, Calif., to its present location on ten acres in the affluent community of Yorba Linda. Today, his congregation numbers more than 4,000, making Friendship Baptist Church the largest African American church in Orange County.

A graduate of Reed College in Los Angeles, Carrington rose to the challenge handed his class by Dr. Granville W. Reed, president of the college.

“He used to tell us that, if we were called to pastor, we needed to get out of Los Angeles and go to the suburbs because blacks were moving to various communities and not staying in L.A.,” Carrington says. “So when it came up, I ended up in that slot and I’m thankful to God that He put that seed in my mind and my heart to do it because we were the first black church in north Orange County.”

Black churches have a long and colorful history in this country that dates back to the Revolutionary War and the religious revivalism period, when black slaves were converted to Christianity by circuit-riders and revivalist tents.

Samuel Freedman wrote in Upon This Rock: The Miracles of a Black Church, “With their minds, the slaves grabbed at the concept that anyone could be ‘born again,’ implying as it did an equality of all humans before God; with their hearts and voices and limbs, they celebrated that transformation in ancient ways.”

That celebration continues today in black churches across America. They bellow. They boogie. They whoop and wail their way to a frenzied crescendo, while ushers promptly dispense paper fans to relieve the heat-stroked.

“Why do I shout? WHY DO I SHOUT?” Bishop Carrington asked his congregation on a recent Sunday. “Because I am not ashamed to show the Lord I love Him!”

But this exuberant celebration of the word is only part of the story. Although Friendship’s worship style is similar to the urban black churches of which Freedman writes, their love-thy-neighbor tolerance and openness to diversity are more harmonious with the philosophies of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. than the fiery black liberation rhetoric of Reverends Jeremiah Wright or Johnny Youngblood.

Anger doesn’t play well in Yorba Linda, ‘Land of Gracious Living.’

History

“But this prideful self-sufficiency, this rigor and resolve, were to outsiders the most invisible aspect of what was called during slavery ‘the invisible institution.’”
Upon This Rock – The Miracles of a Black Church

In 1964, when Carrington was called to start his church, Fullerton had one of the largest black populations in Orange County. Whites were moving out of the area and college-educated blacks, lured by jobs in aerospace and other industries, began moving in. And that was good for his church, or so Carrington thought.

“I’m the only black pastor here. I’m in the right place.”

It didn’t happen that way, though - the blacks that came to Orange County began to settle in Santa Ana rather than Fullerton. But Carrington didn’t mind what color you were as long as you came.

“When we were a baby church, I didn’t have to make any special appeals, he said. “If you like singing and you like my style of preaching, come on over and get in the family, cuz one day if you are born again, we are gonna be all together regardless of what color we are. We don’t have to deal with the color, let’s deal with the soul.”

The membership grew and the church began a series of moves until 1972, when they were able to buy property at 706 Lemon Street in Fullerton. Three years later they received an $18,000 grant from the Stamps Foundation, which enabled them to erect a building on the property. This was to be their home for the next eleven years.

Meanwhile, the country was mired deep in the throes of the civil rights movement, forcing black pastors to take on political roles. Carrington remembers April 4, 1968 like it was yesterday.

“I got a call from a minister working for Cal State University in Fullerton. He said ‘Dr. Langsdorf is having a memorial service for Dr. King. Can you come be with us and read a scripture?’”

When Carrington reached the campus, he saw the president of the black student union running toward him.

“He told me, ’Pastor Langsdorf don’t want you to just read a scripture. He wants you to speak to the people!’”

That was one of the biggest challenges of his life, Carrington says, because he had to come up with a message to preach to “all those college-degreed people and professors.” But God gave him the text and he spoke to the whole group.

The assassination of Dr. King was a turning point in Carrington’s life, plunging him into a role as a community activist. He helped establish the first human relations race commission in Orange County and assisted Fullerton in establishing fair housing laws, enabling black students at CSUF to rent apartments that had previously been denied them.

“I was the only black pastor about and so I was called upon by a lot of organizations to talk about what needed to be done about race relations,” he remembers. “As a result I made a lot of good friends.”

Friendship Baptist Church continued to grow and, by 1986 their membership had swelled to 800, resulting in services being held outdoors in the summer months.

That year, the church purchased ten acres of land in pastoral Yorba Linda and began laying the cornerstone for its new home. A lot of people didn’t think the church would make it in that area – there were only two black families in Yorba Linda when they bought the property, Carrington says. But that never bothered him.

“Shortly after we moved we had a lot of people coming from LA and different places, and they would drive right by the church, cuz when they looked at the building they thought it was a white church. We used to get a good laugh about that!” he recalls with a chuckle.

Church as Anchor of the Community

“They are family and more than family, the people of Saint Paul. The blows that would rupture bonds of blood or friendship can somehow be absorbed by a community of faith.”
Upon This Rock: The Miracles of a Black Church

By the time Friendship Baptist Church moved to Yorba Linda in 1987, its congregation had spread out, with many people commuting from surrounding counties. Thus, a new problem arose: How can the church maintain a sense of community when its members are scattered over a five-county area?

Carrington believes the answer lies in the church’s ministries and classes it offers their members.

“Overall, we have a ministry that meets people’s needs and as a result, the church has been growing and growing.”

Indeed, there is something for everybody at Friendship Baptist Church. A recent church bulletin listed 52 classes, workshops and meetings in a single week – everything from bible studies to recovery meetings to gospel aerobics.

Reverend Aubrey Craig teaches New Members 101, a monthly class held in the Carrington Building, a three level brick structure that houses classrooms, meeting rooms and administrative offices.

A soft-spoken man with an easy-going and engaging personality, Craig describes the church as a place of escape and a place of hope.

“It’s like therapy – it relieves your tensions and problems. It makes you want to be somebody.” he says. “We all had a common struggle. This (church) is like a campground where people can come together for one purpose: To embrace one another.”

Joyce Jardell of Yorba Linda is one of the newest members of Friendship Baptist Church, having just completed the New Members class.

“I have been coming here for a while and I felt the pull of friendship,” Jardell said. “I knew I could get my spiritual needs met here and that’s why I came. People accept you here.”

Her friend, Carolyn Richardson, agrees.

“I feel so welcome. Everybody here seems so friendly that I felt like it was home. It’s a place of caring and giving.” she said.

On the same evening, just down the hall, the Celebrate Recovery meeting is getting underway. Led by Reverend Patrick Harris, the meeting is a bible-based, 12 step recovery meeting designed, not only for people with alcohol and drug problems, but “any issue that’s weighing you down.” Harris says.

Tonight, thirteen people (three of them white), with issues ranging from gambling to co-dependency, attend. The meeting begins with scripture, followed by a round of songs led by Harris’ assistant, Duane.

“Don’t give up! ‘Fess up and be accountable! Let it go!” Harris counsels the group throughout the session. “Your worth increases when you give yourself away. So get outside of yourself and help others.”

The second hour the men and women adjourn to separate rooms for topic discussions.

Harris has been in charge of Celebrate Recovery for two years. The program started with a bang four years ago but has dwindled over the years, he says. They are trying some new things to bring people in, like having guest speakers and advertising more in the church. One option they are considering is having members give personal testimonies in front of the church, as a way to get people to relate.

“Nobody really wants to come out of denial,” Harris says.

He was once asked why the ministry is necessary if nobody comes.

“We have the ministry” he replied, “so that when God moves them and they want to do something about (their problem) we’ll be there.”

Youth - The Vision of Tomorrow

“All these efforts sought to create an extended family, to build the village that would raise the child.”
Upon This Rock: Miracles of a Black Church

Ministries are an integral part of the black church and Friendship Baptist Church boasts 23, including men’s and women’s ministries, health care, music, drama and youth and young adult ministries.

Reverend Kenneth Curry is the Minister of Children, Youth and Young Adults, giving him the administrative and spiritual responsibility of youth from birth through 35. With his lanky, athletic build and fun-loving nature, kids are naturally drawn to him.

Curry grew up in Compton, where he and his two brothers faced typical urban issues of busing and gangs. They stayed focused, he says, because of their involvement in church and sports. His upbringing showed him the importance of providing youth with good role models and mentors.

“Youth make direct connections to adults and these connections can make a difference,” he says.

March is Youth Month at the church, and Curry is a ubiquitous presence on campus: Organizing the youth picnic, coordinating youth day, meeting with parent volunteers and popping in and out of various choir and drama rehearsals.

In three hours, he will have 75 or 80 people at the church to help prepare for the youth retreat. Parental involvement is crucial, he says.

“I can’t be everything.”

Part of Curry’s youth program involves working with high school students to prepare them for college. As they transition out of college, he helps get them established in their career and then, in building their family.

“Which starts the cycle here at Friendship all over again,” Curry says.

Friendship Baptist is a church in transition, he says, caught between the older generation on the way out and the new generation coming up.

Curry says it will be interesting to see what the church looks like in the future.

“We’re getting different nationalities now – Hispanic, white, some Asian-American. We don’t know what that means for the future but I believe the essence of us will stay African American.”

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said that eleven a.m. on Sunday is the most segregated hour and Reverend Curry believes that is true.

“My issue is not so much the segregation but the preference in worship styles,” Curry says. “When we preach, there is an exuberance, there is a celebration in our worship. It speaks to our heritage. African Americans tend to be open toward other races but it’s important for us to retain our flair and flavor.”

Meanwhile, the church is expanding again – plans are underway to build a $2.7 million youth center that will house a gymnasium, a stage and a wing of classrooms. Long term plans include a playground, a new worship center, preschool classrooms and a mortuary.

And what are Bishop Carrington’s plans for the future?

To tell the truth and stand on the Word of God, he says.

“I’ve done that for forty-something years and I think I’ve made something come out right. I’m hoping that one of these days the Lord will say ‘you’ve done all you can do. I want you to go play

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Credit:
Story: Jennifer Karmarkar
Photo & Audio Slideshow: Wayne Huang

The Obama Legacy

The triumphant election of Barack Obama has unleashed the nation at last from the burdens of history. Being the first black man to step into the presidential role might however, materialize into increased scrutiny.

“It is always difficult being the first,” said Raphael Sonenshein, a professor of political science at Cal State Fullerton. “It means you spend a lot of time trying to keep people from attaching stereotypes to you.”

It was a symbolic moment when Obama won the presidency, one that supporters likened to the dream Martin Luther King spoke of during the 1960s Civil Rights Era.

In a society obsessed with racial divides, African Americans have long been stereotyped as emotionally or genetically inferior, said J. Owens Smith, professor of Afro-Ethnic Studies at CSUF.

“Society has always been reluctant to put a black man into a higher position,” said Smith, who cried when Obama won. “[But] now you have a young black, very articulate, [portrays] John F. Kennedy’s image and at the same time, there’s an economic crisis.”

But the high expectations that come with being the first also pack a load of pressure.

The president-elect’s victory managed to remove these black stereotypes and launch the imaginations of young African Americans through out the nation. As a result, the notion of “Mr. President” has completely been transformed.

“I’d say it has now changed for all time,” Sonenshein said. “With this door shattered, it is hard to see how it will be re-closed.”

Many black youth believe they can be president one day, too, Smith said.

“But wanting to become president and getting elected is two things,” he said. “It takes money to be president.”

Obama was able to garner the youth vote, about 23 million nationwide under the age of 30, perhaps more than any election since 1972, according to Civicyouth.org.

They served as the back bone for Obama’s success. Through grass roots organizing, the Internet and transparent campaigning strategies, Obama was able to gain support and funds, Smith said.

In the week following his success, citizens of all nations joined in the celebrations. They declared their delight in the president-elect and in America for transcending beyond years of racial inequality.

Many affirmed, on the same social networking sites Obama used to communicate with youth, that their love for and faith in America had returned once again.

“I’m very glad to see Obama [as] president even if I’m not American but I’m proud to see a black [man] in the White House for the first time in our history,” said Layla of Morocco, a supporter on Facebook.

Others closer to America also reveled in his election.

“For the first time ever since the last eight years, I truly wish that I was an American,” said Crystal, who is African Canadian, also on Facebook.

Supporters must realize however, the difference between campaign speech and reality, Smith said. The fundamental change Obama promised will not come right away.

“The issue is not about civil rights, it’s about the economy,” Smith said. “Once it’s solved, both blacks and whites will benefit.”

As Obama dives into the financial crisis, people will start to focus on his work ethics and how much gets done through his administration.

“It will be like JFK’s Catholicism. Obama will be remembered by what he does, not only that he was the first African American president,” said Kristen Monroe, a professor of political science at UC Irvine.

But the mere fact that he is black will always attract disapproval from those on the radical right.

“You don’t want to get caught in mistakes,” Smith said of Obama, who made no real mistakes during his two year campaign. “If whites make the same mistakes, they’ll get away with it.”

The president-elect will continue his strict, controlled and calm disposition, he said.

A taste of discrimination was evident during the campaign. Even some supporters of Sen. McCain were terrified that a black man could possibly be their next president.

Sen. McCain however, did not tolerate the bigotry and urged his followers to focus on the issues.

“A century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt’s invitation of Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House was taken as an outrage in many quarters. America today is a world away from the cruel and frightful bigotry of that time,” McCain said during his conceding speech.

After his comments, a lot of white people will now follow suit, Smith said.

How the president-elect delivers on the economy and America’s necessities will determine his place in history, besides his status as the first African American to hold the position.

“Over time, the barriers begin to fall,” Sonenshein said. “We will see how long that takes.”

Credit: Urmi Rahman