Analysis: Do Blacks Truly Want to Transcend Race?

Five little words — ”I forgot he was black” — have exposed a contradiction in the idea of a post-racial nation.

The comment came from MSNBC host Chris Matthews after President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech Wednesday.

”He is post-racial, by all appearances,” the liberal host said on the air. ”I forgot he was black tonight for an hour. You know, he’s gone a long way to become a leader of this country, and past so much history, in just a year or two. I mean, it’s something we don’t even think about.”

The staunch Obama supporter meant it as praise, but it caused a rapid furor, with many calling the quote a troubling sign that blackness is viewed — perhaps unconsciously — as a handicap that still needs to be overcome.

Apparently, Matthews forgot to ask black people if they WANT to be de-raced.

”As a black American I want people to remember who I am and where I come from without attaching assumptions about deficiency to it,” said Dr. Imani Perry, a professor at Princeton’s Center for African American Studies.

Although she thought Matthews was well-intentioned, she found his statement troubling, because ”it suggests that if he had remembered Obama’s blackness, that awareness would be a barrier to seeing him as a competent or able leader.”

”The ideal is to be able to see and acknowledge everything that person is, including the history that he or she comes from, as well as his or her competencies and qualities, and respect all of those things,” Perry said.

That’s a very different vision of ”transcending race” — a consistent theme of Obama’s political history — than one in which race has disappeared altogether.

”It’s important for us to remember that everyone has a race,” Blair L.M. Kelley, an associate professor of history at North Carolina State University. ”When you say we’re going to transcend race, are white people called on to transcend their whiteness?”

”When (black people) transcend it, what do we become? Do we become white?” she asked. ”Why would we have to stop being our race in order to solve a problem?”

Matthews didn’t get that far down the post-racial road on Wednesday night. But his comments instantly exploded online, especially on Twitter. Ninety minutes later, he clarified his comments on the air.

”I’m very proud I did it and I hope I said it the right way,” Matthews said, noting that he grew up in the racially fraught 1960s.

”I walked into the room tonight, you could feel (racial tension) wasn’t there tonight and that takes leadership on his part, to get us beyond those divisions, really national leadership,” Matthews said.

”I felt it wonderfully tonight, almost like an epiphany. I think he’s done something wonderful. I think he’s taken us beyond black and white in our politics.”

Plenty of people supported Matthews on Thursday, saying his sentiments, although poorly worded, reflected the view that all Americans are now equal.

But for many blacks, it was hard to forget the word ”forgot.”

Kevin Jackson, a black conservative and author of ”The BIG Black Lie,” hews to the same philosophy as the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck — that people should be judged on their merits, not their color.

Yet Jackson does not want his blackness to be forgotten.

”Absolutely not,” he said. ”Because we have an amazing history.”

He pointed out that if Don Imus had made the same comment as Matthews, ”everybody on God’s green earth would be out to hang him by his you-know-what.”

Sophia Nelson, a black attorney, former lobbyist and founder of PoliticalIntersection.com, which focuses on politics, race and gender, said she has been offended by people calling her articulate and intelligent: ”That’s saying that people who look like me normally aren’t those things.”

She said Matthews’ comment showed the same unconscious bias as those by Vice President Joe Biden when he was still a senator that Obama was ”clean” and ”articulate,” and Sen. Harry Reid’s saying that Obama was more electable because he was light-skinned and lacking a ”Negro dialect.”

”Matthews was saying exactly what he meant,” Nelson said. ”He forgot he was black because he’s so articulate and so compelling.”

Another common interpretation of Matthews’ comment was that if he forgot Obama was black during his speech, it must be part of his thinking the other 23 hours of the day.

Which is not necessarily a bad thing, said Kelley, the North Carolina State professor.

”Obama is forcing people to see blackness,” she said, ”in a way they haven’t had to in the past.”

Jesse Washington, AP

Racial threat puts Ohio college on alert, on edge

An attacker could find many places to hide at Hocking College, a campus carved into a forest in the Appalachian foothills. And with the threat of a mass killing looming over black students at the community college, Allen Edwards is steering clear of the trees.

“I don’t feel too safe walking by the woods,” said Edwards, a 19-year-old black student from Canton. “There’s woods everywhere. And somebody could be out in them, and I don’t know.”

The FBI is investigating a threat scrawled last week on a bathroom wall warning that black students would be killed Feb. 2. It bore the trademarks of just another casual - though chilling - threat of violence on a college campus, but students here aren’t taking any chances.

At least two black students have withdrawn permanently from school out of fear for their safety, and another dozen have moved out of the dorm where the threat was found, officials at the two-year technical college said. Some students seem unperturbed, but others say the threat has brought simmering racial tensions to the surface.

The school confirmed Tuesday that the threat said black students would be killed Feb. 2. At least one subsequent note reading “kill the n——” was reported.

Hocking covers hundreds of densely treed acres in the Wayne National Forest about 60 miles southeast of Columbus. The campus overwhelms Nelsonville, an economically depressed rural town plagued with heroin addiction and unemployment. About 400 of the school’s 6,300 students are black, many of whom are foreign exchange students from the Caribbean.

The college has provided temporary housing for students who are too scared to stay in Hocking Heights, the dorm where the threats were found. And for those wary of venturing outside until after Feb. 2, teachers are making allowances for missed classwork.

Since the first threat was discovered Friday, the school has installed more security cameras in dorms and beefed up foot patrols. A $5,000 reward is being offered, and extra counselors are on hand.

Campus spokeswoman Judy Sinnott said that she had not heard previous complaints of racist taunting, but that on a small campus, anything can happen.

“Any time that there are young people, you know, there’s going to be tension,” Sinnott said. “Young people will be young people.”

Edwards lives on the second floor of Hocking Heights, a few doors down from the two black students who abruptly quit. He’s contemplating leaving, too, but hasn’t decided.

Edwards said he has seen racist comments written on the same bathroom wall in the past but didn’t let it bother him. But two days after the first threat was found, he saw the second on the bathroom wall and reported it to campus police.

“I’m not sure how to feel,” he said. “I’m just going to see how everything plays out.”

Another resident of the second floor, Amelinda Marengo, sat on her bed and said that even though the threat doesn’t include her, she is still afraid.

Marengo, who is half Puerto Rican, said she and her black roommate endured racist taunts in the cafeteria on several occasions last year. Her roommate declined to be interviewed.

“We’d be sitting at a lunch table and some guys would be sitting across the room, and they’d be screaming, like, ‘n—– lover’ across the table,” Marengo said. “I had enough of it one day and I got up and I just started yelling at them and telling them, like, ‘There is no reason for you to treat someone like that.’”

About a year ago, Marengo said, a male friend led her into the second-floor men’s bathroom and showed her racist comments on the wall, including a drawing of what she called a “hangman.”

It wasn’t clear whether the Feb. 2 date held any significance for the campus. FBI agent Mike Brooks in Cincinnati said he could not comment.

It’s not the first time racial threats - usually found to be hollow - have interrupted life at a college. Officials at St. Xavier University in Chicago shut down the campus in 2008 when threatening messages were found scrawled in the bathroom of a freshman dorm, and in 2006 a black woman pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct after threatening letters to minorities at her former college led officials to move dozens of students for a night.

But the threat at Hocking, with its racially tense environment, is sending ripples through the area. Students and faculty members at Ohio University in nearby Athens are also on alert. Short of stationing police officers in the woods - which Hocking lacks the manpower to do - officials there say vigilance remains the best defense.

Students rushed to classes Tuesday as an icy wind blew snow flurries through the trees. Disturbing rumors floated, including a claim - later determined to be false - that nooses had been found in the woods. Some students, all of them white, admitted they had heard racist comments on campus before, but said those attitudes are confined to just a handful of people.

But many of them, like 19-year-old Jacob Taylor, didn’t understand what all the fuss was about.

“It was just some person being ignorant,” he said, and headed upstairs to his room in Hocking Heights.

Meghan Barr, AP

Lawsuits accuse police in Calif. of failing to protect black youth against racial attacks

Racially motivated attacks by gangs on black teenagers has created a “toxic environment” that forced families out of a California city and has left at least one teenager dead, said attorneys for the families of several teens.

The attorneys said Wednesday that the December 2007 fatal shooting of 14-year-old Vernon Eddins in front of his middle school in Union City and another recent incident at a Hayward mall were not isolated incidents, but part of a pattern of violence and persecution of black teenagers by a local Hispanic gang.

Vernon’s death is cited in three pending lawsuits — two in federal courts, and one in state court — accusing the police, schools and school officials of failing to stop the attacks and protect the teenagers.

A federal judge with the Northern District of California indicated on Wednesday the plaintiffs may proceed with their attempt to certify a class action for one of the federal suits filed on behalf of 10 youths and their families against the Union City police department and others.

“Vernon was the one who fell,” said Pamela Price, an attorney representing plaintiffs in two of the suits. “All these children were targets.”

The suit filed in state court names the New Haven School District and school officials as defendants. The second federal suit was filed on behalf of Vernon’s mother, Angelique Paige, against Union City, the school district, and others.

Price said there were at least 10 incidents of attacks against black teenagers since Vernon’s death. As an example of the alleged gang members’ lack of fear for law enforcement, she cited messages left on the social network site MySpace that use obscenities and racial epithets to refer to Vernon.

Messages left for the Union City mayor and for the school district were not immediately returned.

The police department released a statement saying that although they cannot comment on the specifics of the litigation while it is pending, they have attempted to address the issue by establishing a youth violence prevention program and by working with community organizations.

“Youth violence is an area-wide issue not respecting municipal boundaries,” said a statement prepared by police Capt. Kevin Finnerty.

Their efforts have clearly have not been sufficient, said Price.

Several of her clients have moved their children to other school districts to try to protect them from the violence, she said.

“They have been discouraged from filing reports and told, ‘This is DeCoto territory,’ and that they should leave,” she said, referring to the Hispanic gang she named in connection to shootings.

JULIANA BARBASSA, AP

EEOC: Black workers got more radiation

A Tennessee company that processes nuclear waste has agreed to settle federal claims black employees were subjected to higher levels of radiation than others.

The Studsvik Memphis Processing Facility, formerly known as Radiological Assistance Consulting and Engineering, or RACE, has signed a consent agreement with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Memphis Commercial Appeal reported. Under the agreement, 23 black employees are to receive a total of $650,000.

The EEOC alleged the company assigned black employees to work with radioactive waste and manipulated dosimeters to show lower levels of radiation than the actual ones. Black employees were also paid less and subjected to other kinds of discrimination.

“I’ve been here (with the EEOC) 30 years, and I’ve never heard allegations of race discrimination that I consider this serious — because of the health risk,” said Carson Owen, an EEOC trial lawyer.

Lewis Johnson, president of Studsvik, said the alleged discrimination took place before the Swedish-based company bought the Memphis facility.

UPI

Rooney Rule has worked well for NFL

JOHN SMALLWOOD, Philadelphia Daily News

- Indianapolis Colts coach Jim Caldwell is the fourth African-American to guide a team to a Super Bowl, and it doesn’t matter.

Former Colts coach Tony Dungy and Chicago Bears coach Lovie Smith destroyed the NFL’s last great myth about minorities when they met in Super Bowl XLI.

Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin reaffirmed that race has no significance in determining success when he joined Dungy as the second African-American to win a Super Bowl last January.

So now Caldwell being an African-American coach in a Super Bowl is no more significant than his becoming the fifth rookie head coach in a Super Bowl.

And wasn’t that the purpose of the Rooney Rule when it was established by the NFL in 2003?

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