Valerie Jarrett is one of the highest ranking Black women ever appointed to a presidential advisory post. To read more about Jarrett, follow this link.

(Photo Source: Swamppolitics.com)

***

People who are unfamiliar with the phenomenon of Black Greek letter organizations often react with surprise when they learn these groups are as active and influential at the alumni level as they are on college campuses.

An article in today’s New York Times Magazine illustrates quite beautifully how the post-graduate activism of at least on Greek letter organization has transformed from a college sorority into a political force to be reckoned with.

I hope you enjoy this anecdote as much as I did:

On Jan. 25, 2008, the day before the South Carolina Democratic primary, Barack Obama endured a grueling succession of campaign events across the state. When his staff informed him that the evening would conclude with a brief show-up at the Pink Ice Ball, a gala for the African-American sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha, Obama flatly refused to attend. “I’ve been to sorority events before,” he said. “We’re not gonna change anybody’s mind.”

Rick Wade, a senior adviser, Stacey Brayboy, the state campaign manager, and Anton Gunn, the state political director, took turns beseeching their boss. The gala, they told Obama, would be attended by more than 2,000 college-educated African-American women, a constituent group that was originally skeptical of the candidate’s “blackness” and that the campaign worked tirelessly to wrest from Hillary Clinton. State luminaries like Representative James Clyburn — himself an undeclared black voter — would be expecting him. They would be in and out in five minutes.

Obama’s irritation grew. “Man, it’s late, I’m tired,” he snapped. “I’m not going to any sorority event.”

The three staff members knew what their only option was at this point. “If you want him to do something,” Gunn would later tell me, “there are two people he’s not going to say no to: Valerie Jarrett and Michelle Obama.”

At the day’s penultimate event, a rally in Columbia, Gunn, Brayboy and Wade pleaded their case to Jarrett, the Obamas’ longtime friend and consigliere. When they were finished, Jarrett told them, “We can make that happen,” as Gunn would recall it. Jarrett informed Michelle of the situation, and when the candidate stepped offstage from the rally, Obama’s wife told him he had one last stop to make before they called it a night.

“I told Anton I’m not going to any Pink Ice Ball!” Obama barked.

Then Jarrett glided over to the fuming candidate. Her voice was very quiet and very direct.

“Barack,” she said, “you want to win, don’t you?”

Scowling, Obama affirmed that he did.

“Well, then. You need to go to Pink Ice.”

“And he shuts up,” Gunn recalls, “and gets on the bus.”

— From “The Ultimate Obama Insider” by Robert Draper, The New York Ties Magazine for July 25, 2009

Posted by Ajuan Mance

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in ranked #3 on the list of 2008’s most cited Black scholars in the humanities.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (b. 1950) with author Wole Soyinka (left) and scholar Cornel West (center).

(Source: Reuters)

***

For me, no matter how intelligent I may or may not be, for me to have been one of those six black boys who graduated from Yale in 1966, affirmative action was a class escalator. As far as I’m concerned, ladies and gentlemen, no one in the American academy has benefited more from affirmative action than I have. And that’s why I will go to my grave as an ardent and passionate defender of affirmative action. For me to become so successful in America, and for me to become a gatekeeper of American society and stand at the gate and protest affirmative action to keep out women or people of color would make me a hypocrite as big as Justice Clarence Thomas, and I’m not that kind of person. We need more affirmative action in this country, not less affirmative action. I don’t care what the White House says, and I don’t care what the minority on the Supreme Court says, and that’s the subject of my address this afternoon.

–Henry Louis Gates, Jr., from his 2008 commencement address at Berea College

***

Biographical Notes: Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the
Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Gates earned his B.A. at Yale University (History, summa cum laude). He holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. in English literature from Clare College at the University of Cambridge, where he was the first Black student to earn a doctorate in literature.

In addition, he has received 50 honorary degrees, from institutions including the University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, New York University, University of Massachusetts-Boston, Williams College, Emory University, University of Toronto, Morehouse, the University of Benin, and others.

Gates is the editor of The Root.Com. He is also the author of several books, including The Signifying Monkey:
A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism (winner of the 1989 American Book Award), Colored People: A Memoir (Knopf, 1994), and Finding Oprah’s Roots, Finding Your Own (Crown, 2007). His biography on the Harvard University website describes the impact of his discovery of previously forgotten Black women’s texts:

Professor Gates authenticated and published two landmark African American texts: Our Nig, or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black (1859), by Harriet Wilson, the first novel published by an African American woman; and The Bondwoman’s Narrative by Hannah Crafts, one of the first novels written by an African American woman.

Posted by Ajuan Mance

The now-famous photo of Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. being arrested for disorderly conduct. Would your conduct be disorderly if police officers were questioning you for attempting to gain entry into your own home?

***

For my most recent thoughts on this case follow this link : “Vindication for Lucia Whalen, or Why the 911 Call Means Everything and Nothing at All“

The debate around Gates arrest — on this blog and others, and throughout the news media — is both frustrating and thought-provoking. Statements like Justin Wilson’s (read his comments here) indicate the discomfort that some white people have around other races and around the general fear of being labeled a racist; but in the end, such statements fail to truly get to the heart of the matter.

The fact is that very few Black people truly hate white people. Indeed, studies have shown that white people in majority Black environments (HBCUs, for example) are treated with much greater kindness and are welcomed much more fully into the community than Black people in majority white environments. Clearly, if a lot of Black people hated white people, then this would not be the case.

I do believe, however, that most Black people fear the possibility of becoming a victim of white racism, especially at the hands of the police. Pretty much every Black man I know (and a lot of Black women, too) have had the experience of being harrassed by police officers for crimes or infractions that they did not commit.

Given this fact, I think it is a credit to Black people that we do not hate all police. But, the fact is that we don’t; and over and over Black inner-city communities have expressed their desire to partner with the police in order to build better, safer, and strong neighborhoods.
In any event, the underlying question in all of this current discussion of whether or not Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was justified in his reaction to the police and whether or not the police were justified in arresting him seems to revolve around whether or not Black people should simply bow our heads, say yessir and no sir and submit humbly to unfair accusations by police officers.

Let me be clear. I do not think police are horrible people. Indeed, I think most cops are trying to do a good job. Police, though, live in the same world that the rest of us inhabit, and that is a world in which it is impossible to absorb at least some of the negative attitudes about race that are so pervasive in our society.

And here is my last and, I think, most important point. Many people bristle at the suggestion that the actions of Officer Crowley (who arrested Gates) and Lucia Whalen (who made the 911 call that led to the arrest) were racist actions.

I chatted about this question with James, a Black on Campus reader, and some of what I am expressing comes out of my conversation with him. Thanks James!

I think that the sticking point in this debate is rooted in our failure to distinguish between racist people and racist acts. Certainly, there are people who acknowledge their racist feelings towards people who are different from them. Such people feel justified and even proud of their racial biases. But I think we often fail to acknowledge that you don’t have to be a self-proclaimed racist to commit racist acts.

Officer Crowley was and is a Barack Obama supporter who teaches classes about racial awareness. I wouldn’t at all be surprised if Lucia Whalen was also an Obama supporter, and I am almost sure that she does not consider herself a racist.

And yet it seems foolishly naive to suggest that the fact the Ms. Whalen looked at two well-dressed Black men, one of whom was gray-haired and rather short (and neither of whom had a backpack) and somehow saw them as two big black men with backpacks has nothing to do with racism.

Outside of the context of his Harvard office, the very professorial looking “Skip” Gates looked to her like a dangerous thug.

Does this mean she is a racist? Actually, no, it does not. Does it mean that the racism of our society has partially shaped her perception about Black men who she does not know to be Harvard faculty? Absolutely.

Posted by Ajuan Mance

UCLA psychology professor Phillip Atiba Goff

***

Dr. Gates makes for a good victim. He is a superstar intellectual of erudition, status and influence. Moreover, no one is accusing Dr. Gates of illegal behavior in his recent altercation with a Cambridge police officer. He was, by his account, simply too tired after a long flight to tolerate what he perceived to be racially biased policing. That such a distinguished scholar received such undignified treatment is what makes the incident newsworthy. But what makes it important is something else: good victims make good movements possible.

This nation has often needed good victims to gird our moral resolve.

[…]

The young black and Latino men and women who routinely face the kind of treatment Professor Gates endured are largely not good victims. They are young and poor […] and are often involved in crime. When these people are targeted for humiliating and unfair treatment, it is difficult for some of us to muster much outrage — even if the outcome is that 1 in 9 black males between the ages of 20 and 34 are incarcerated. That apathy should be our shame and not theirs.

— Phillip Atiba Goff, “The Gates Case and Racial Profiling,” The New York Times

***

Biographical Notes: Phillip Atiba Goff is an  assistant professor of psychology at UCLA. He earned his Ph.D. in social psychology at Stanford University and his B.A. in Afro-American studies at Harvard. He has published a number of articles in both scholarly journals and popular magazines and newspapers. His research interests are in race, stereotyping, and law enforcement, and he has served as a consultant for police departments around the country.

Posted by Ajuan Mance

Many will hail the announcement by the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education (GSE) that they have created an early identification program specifically of Black males as an exciting development. Indeed, Penn’s Grad Prep Academy is a wonderful opportunity for talented college juniors of African descent to get mentorship, support, an insider’s view of the Penn GSE application process, and full funding for a 3-month, $1200 Stanley Kaplan GRE prep course.

The 10 Black men who are selected for the program will get a 4 – day, all expenses paid trip to the Penn campus, during which they will tour facilities and meet with GSE students and faculty. When it comes time to apply to graduate school, these applicants will be able to apply to Penn with all fees waived. In addition, “each Academy participant will be paired with a current Ph.D. student in education at Penn GSE or elsewhere who will offer mentoring throughout the graduate school application process, feedback on essays and other application materials, and advice on where else to apply besides Penn GSE.”

Penn has stated that their goal is to enroll as many members of the Grad Prep Academy class as possible, which indicates that these young men will be well positioned for acceptance into this prestigious doctoral program.

Having spent a considerable amount of my career observing what works and what doesn’t in terms of recruiting Black students to undergrad and graduate programs, I have to give credit where credit is due. The Grad Prep Academy– which familiarizes students with the Penn campus, sustains each student’s relationship with the institution throughout the application process, and then (most likely) facilitates their admission — is exactly the kind of initiative that works. Early identification leads to application which leads to admission which leads to greater numbers of (in this case) Black men in Penn’s Graduate School of Education.

As a Black woman professor who mentors young Black women interested in doctoral study, though, I must say that I am saddened by what seems to be the absence of similar programs for young Black women. Is this an indication that Penn administrators believe they already have enough Black women doctoral students in the School of Education? If so, then might the University consider developing similar programs in those fields in which Black women are underrepresented?

There is certainly a gender gap in Black education. For the last ten years, African American women have earned roughly 65% of all doctorates awarded to Black people (Source: The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (JBHE)). The 65% statistic can be quite misleading, though, in that it seems to imply that there are large numbers of Black women doctoral students. The reality is that in all but two fields (Business and Education), African Americans make up between 2% and 9% of all graduate students enrolled. Consider the following chart from the JBHE.

If Black women make up 65% percent of all graduate students in any field except Education or Business, then they — like their male counterparts — are still dramatically underrepresented. While the focus on Black men is in many ways admirable, it fails to address the ways in which graduate education is, in general, failing to attract Black people in most disciplines. In other words, there is significant room for improvement in graduate recruitment and mentoring for Black students across genders.

Posted by Ajuan Mance

President Obama supports responsible policing, but today’s statement on racial profiling makes clear that good policing must include equal treatment for all people, regardless of race.

***

During the question and answer period after today’s presidential address, Obama was asked to weigh in on the arrest of African American Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Here’s what the President had to say:

“I don’t know – not having been there and not seeing all the facts – what role race played in that, but I think it’s fair to say number one any of us would be pretty angry, number two that he Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home,” Obama said in response to a question from the Chicago Sun-Times’s Lynn Sweet.

Gates, Obama allowed, “is a friend, so I may be a little biased here. I don’t know all the facts.”

However Gates, he continued, jimmied his way to get into [his own] house.”

“There was a report called into the police station that there might be a burglary taking place – so far so good,” Obama said, reflecting that he’d hope the police were called if he were seen breaking into his own house, then pausing.

“I guess this is my house now,” he remarked. “Here I’d get shot.”

Undergirding the long digression, though, was Obama’s place as a new symbol of racial reconciliation, and his long past in the trenches of the politics of race and discrimination in the Illinois State Senate.

“Separate and apart from this incident is that there’s along history in this country of African-American and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately,” the president said, eagerly engaging the issue of racial profiling, a concern earlier in his career that has seen little White House attention to date.

“That’s just a fact,” Obama said of profiling. “That doesn’t lessen the incredibly progress that has been made.”

Obama’s comments make the current administration’s opposition to racial profiling absolutely clear. The support for Gates expressed by the President provides powerful assurance that this issue is “on the radar” of the executive branch, and that the President cares about how civilians of color are treated by law enforcement.

Posted by Ajuan Mance

Valerie Jarrett is one of the highest ranking Black women ever appointed to a presidential advisory post. To read more about Jarrett, follow this link.

(Photo Source: Swamppolitics.com)

***

People who are unfamiliar with the phenomenon of Black Greek letter organizations often react with surprise when they learn these groups are as active and influential at the alumni level as they are on college campuses.

An article in today’s New York Times Magazine illustrates quite beautifully how the post-graduate activism of at least on Greek letter organization has transformed from a college sorority into a political force to be reckoned with.

I hope you enjoy this anecdote as much as I did:

On Jan. 25, 2008, the day before the South Carolina Democratic primary, Barack Obama endured a grueling succession of campaign events across the state. When his staff informed him that the evening would conclude with a brief show-up at the Pink Ice Ball, a gala for the African-American sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha, Obama flatly refused to attend. “I’ve been to sorority events before,” he said. “We’re not gonna change anybody’s mind.”

Rick Wade, a senior adviser, Stacey Brayboy, the state campaign manager, and Anton Gunn, the state political director, took turns beseeching their boss. The gala, they told Obama, would be attended by more than 2,000 college-educated African-American women, a constituent group that was originally skeptical of the candidate’s “blackness” and that the campaign worked tirelessly to wrest from Hillary Clinton. State luminaries like Representative James Clyburn — himself an undeclared black voter — would be expecting him. They would be in and out in five minutes.

Obama’s irritation grew. “Man, it’s late, I’m tired,” he snapped. “I’m not going to any sorority event.”

The three staff members knew what their only option was at this point. “If you want him to do something,” Gunn would later tell me, “there are two people he’s not going to say no to: Valerie Jarrett and Michelle Obama.”

At the day’s penultimate event, a rally in Columbia, Gunn, Brayboy and Wade pleaded their case to Jarrett, the Obamas’ longtime friend and consigliere. When they were finished, Jarrett told them, “We can make that happen,” as Gunn would recall it. Jarrett informed Michelle of the situation, and when the candidate stepped offstage from the rally, Obama’s wife told him he had one last stop to make before they called it a night.

“I told Anton I’m not going to any Pink Ice Ball!” Obama barked.

Then Jarrett glided over to the fuming candidate. Her voice was very quiet and very direct.

“Barack,” she said, “you want to win, don’t you?”

Scowling, Obama affirmed that he did.

“Well, then. You need to go to Pink Ice.”

“And he shuts up,” Gunn recalls, “and gets on the bus.”

— From “The Ultimate Obama Insider” by Robert Draper, The New York Ties Magazine for July 25, 2009

Posted by Ajuan Mance

All the focus this week on Harvard’s Henry Louis Gates, Jr. made me wonder about those African American men and women who paved the way for him and for other Black faculty at this, the nation’s oldest university. Below each photo you will find a link to an online biography. Happy Wordless Wednesday! Enjoy.

In 1949, after 28 years of teaching at the university, William A. Hinton (above) became the first African American to become a professor at Harvard Medical School.

In 1968, Martin L. Kilson became the first African American at Harvard to achieve the rank of full professor with tenure.

In 1975, Eileen Jackson Southern became the first African American woman at Harvard to be appointed to the rank of full professor with tenure.

Posted by Ajuan Mance

Cambridge Mayor E. Denise Simmons (photo source) has stated that she hopes to apologize personally to Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. for his treatment by her city’s police department.

(Photo Source: Joe. My.God. blog)

***

It’s important to remember that “race” is only a sociopolitical category, nothing more. At the same time… that doesn’t help me when I’m trying to get a taxi on the corner of 125th and Lenox Ave.

–Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in Loose Canons: Notes on the Culture Wars

A joint statement issued by the City of Cambridge, Massachusetts and the Cambridge Police Department has called the arrest of African American Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. “regrettable and unfortunate.” The same release expresses “this incident [of his arrest] should not be viewed as one that demeans the character and reputation of Professor Gates or the character of the Cambridge Police Department. All parties agree that this [decision to drop all charges] is a just resolution to an unfortunate set of circumstances.”

To read the press release in its entirety, follow THIS LINK to the City of Cambridge Police Department.

Posted by Ajuan Mance

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in 1998, after receiving a National Humanities Medal.

***

OK. I don’t get this. Gates’ only crime seems to be that he was angry about being asked for identification inside of his own home.  He did, however, do as he was asked. So, why was he arrested? No violence. What is the problem?

The problem is mismatched expectations. The cop did not expect to see a black man in such a nice house, nor do (some) cops like being told “no” by anyone, but most especially by black people. The cop felt the need to “put Gates in his place” and make a show of power even though no crime had occurred. This arrest was totally without merit. The thing is… Gates will be OK. He has a reputation and an established position in life. But, this kind of thing can happen to anyone and often there isn’t any recourse for it. People are simply “put in their place.” It never makes the papers.

—futurebird, for The Daily Kos

***

The news establishment and the blogosphere are buzzing with emotions ranging from outrage to curiosity at the apparent interrogation and arrest of African American Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

It seems that a neighbor saw Gates and his driver attempting to unjam the door of his home and decided to call the cops. Two Black men, one of whom was a middle-aged guy in a sweater and using a cane must have looked like a burglars to Lucia Whalen, a Harvard fundraiser and the neighbor who reported this “burglary-in-progress.” There is little doubt in my mind that Professor Gates was wrongfully arrested. I believe that the Cambridge police acted too swiftly based simply on Whalen’s highly questionable account.

Many in the blogosphere have opined that Gates was racially profiled. The most disturbing part of this, and it is something that we all have to deal with as people of African descent, is that profiling by civilians like Whalen can result in such dire consequences. When Whalen reported Gates and his driver (he was returning from a trip abroad), she did not see her neighbor and a companion. In her mind, Gates and the driver were just a pair of suspicious Black males.

In the coming weeks, much of this troubling incident will focus on the interaction between Gates and the Cambridge police officers who entered his home. I believe that the media would be remiss not to focus at least some of their attention on Lucia Whalen, the woman who initially called 911. Her racism was the catalyst that put all of these other events in motion.

When I was a professor at the University of Oregon, located in Eugene, a city with a tiny Black population (less than 2 percent of the overall population), an African American faculty member — the director of the gospel choir — was harrassed by the police twice, each time after being reported as a Black man behaving suspiciously by white neighbors and residents. Eventually this kind and talented gentleman who was beloved by students left his job and the area. He no longer felt safe or welcome in the community.

As we continue to focus on racial profiling by law enforcement agencies, we must also begin to interrogate how those agencies deal with the racial profiling by white and other non-Black civilians. Until this problem is addressed, every non-Black person in America holds the power of freedom or incarceration over people of African descent; and Black people have no recourse. We can’t even get angry and loud about the injustice of being unfairly interrogated. That was, after all, what Gates was arrested for. He got loud and angry (non-violently) about being arrested, and he accused the police of harrassing him because of his race. They called for backup and they arrested him. The Lucia Whalen’s of the world have all the power, it seems.

And so it remains open season on Black people, as it has always been. If your neighbor all of a sudden forgets that she lives near a Black person, and if she then calls 911, and if you get angry at the police officers at the suggestion that you must show them I.D. in order to prove you belong in your own home (simply because a non-Black person says that you don’t belong there), then you can be arrested. They say that the more things change, the more they stay the same. As long as the Lucia Whalen’s of the world continue to see Black people as little more than suspicious and unwelcome, racism will reign.

You can read about the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. on the following websites, some of which include links to the police report in this case:

Harvard Professor Jailed; Officer Is Accused of Bias, The New York Times

Harvard Professor Gates Arrested, CNN

Black Professor and White Lady Reenact Crash in Cambridge, GAWKER

Skip Gates Arrested for Breaking and Entering, Ta-Nehisi Coates

Harvard Professor Gates Arrested at Cambridge Home (w/link to police report), The Boston Globe

Harvard Professor Charles Ogletree Releases Statement on Behalf of Henry Louis Gates, Wicked Local

Posted by Ajuan Mance