What Do Roland Martin and Trent Lott Have in Common? A Don Armstrong Guest Post

I was invited into this Forum because of comments I made about Roland Martin last week on Amy Alexander’s Facebook Wall.

It was suggested that a reference I’d made to a lesbian friend who came out to me a few years ago was particularly relevant to the Roland Martin situation. It’s a pungent story, though I’m wary of telling it again, out of the moment, for fear it may be interpreted as one of those “Some-of-my-best-friends-are...” stories, a cliché bordering on insult. However, I am always up for nuanced, detailed explorations of ‘difficult topics,” and tend to assume that folks are smart enough to get it. I will forge on and share that anecdote here, since it is appropriate within the context of the Roland Martin versus GLAAD dust-up.

Martin’s suspension by CNN – where he is a paid Commentator -- for an anti-gay tweet he posted during the Super Bowl, is pungent, too: a famous person behaving badly during the biggest broadcast of the year, with new-media overtones to up the ante. Of course, not everybody thinks that Martin behaved badly. The discussion I was involved in, like many others, touched on a variety of threads in the story.

Several strands within the discussion in the immediate aftermath of Martin’s suspension have the power to titillate: How CNN and Martin handled the aftermath (Poorly, according to a PR expert who was interviewed by media critic Richard Prince about the issue); whether one can tweet whatever one wants, when one wants, from any venue one chooses (No, according to every unoriginal thinker in North America); whether Martin is a homophobe (Doubtful, according to one line of thinking—my Facebook group, which is suspiciously littered with journalists and even an acquaintance or two of Martin’s); whether Martin’s fellow CNN commentator Dana Loesch (who is white) should have similarly been suspended three weeks earlier for advocating urination on the corpses of alleged Taliban fighters (Yes, from FB Commenters who are black); whether this was all much ado about nothing (Yes, said two women in the group, one of them a particularly vociferous writer/veterinarian from Mississippi); whether this was another example blacks being mistreated and subjected to a double standard in America (HELL YES, said a youngish African-American man of caustic debating habits, an individual I had tangled with before in Social Land, who, thankfully, ducked out early after informing me who Bayard Rustin was.)

As you can see, that is a wide range of opinions, all expressed in the first news cycle following Martin’s suspension, all published on a leading social media platform.

I certainly applaud the opportunities for free and open discourse that the Internet now allows us. It’s just a shame it all comes down to a lot of the old bigotry. Doesn’t matter if the bigotry is expressed by a white person, a brown woman, or a gay man, or on a Facebook Wall or a Twitter feed. Bigotry is the problem, and the media’s discussion to date of the Roland Martin tweets are losing sight of that fundamental point.

Streetfighter 2.0

I first weighed in on the Roland Martin anti-gay tweeting discussion with mild intentions. A few days earlier, in fact, I had argued very coolly, if ineffectively, with a maniacal, left-leaning Facebook “friend” about whether Republican presidential contender Rick Santorum was an “asshole” for his very clear anti-gay views (Unnecessary Roughing, was my verdict; of course, this was before Santorum regained viability in the race). A year and a half earlier, I found myself trying to pull a guy out of his car in the parking lot of a Home Depot after he chased me and threatened me for going around him at a red light. I decided then that I had to get a grip—on something other than his ankle, that is.

Since then, I’ve made a concerted effort to do so. A day before the Martin dustup I earned robust praise for surgically exacting comments I made in another FB discussion about the election, which I had joined solely to back up an old friend who was on the verge of being trounced, rhetorically.

This time, though, the suggestion that Martin’s comment (“If a dude at your Super Bowl party is hyped about David Beckham’s H&M underwear ad, smack the ish out of him!”) was a matter of personal preference got my goat.

Boom!—out the window went cool rationality and I went straight for the tender underbelly, so to speak: asking the Mississippian who had popped up on Amy’s FB wall whether she would have been similarly cavalier if Martin’s joke had concerned fat women. You can imagine how effective that argument was.

Then I resorted to my favorite weapon: verbosity. When that, too, failed, I took a different tack and tried to appeal to her better nature: I decided to tell the story of my woman friend (OK, now it’s organic) who is a lesbian.

I’ve known her more than 30 years, and though our paths have diverged, we’ve remained close but were only in loose contact for a number of years, till this moment when, on a work trip, she visited the city where I was then living. We went for a long drive to a museum one day and had a grand time, talking, laughing, re-connecting. On the way back, she broached a topic that had gone untouched for a long time: her romantic relationship.

She and the woman with whom she lived had shared an e-mail address for years, so I knew they weren’t roommates. Nonetheless, she chose her words carefully as she spoke. After she was through, she said she had seen me staring at the ring on her finger; the two were married, she said. “I wasn’t staring at your finger,” I told her. She insisted I had, which I think it was a sign of her self-consciousness. She’s a prominent figure with many friends. She must have gone through similar scenarios many times. I can’t imagine it would ever be easy.

I told FB Mississippi that my friend is a sports fan, that she and her wife have a daughter and that they were more than likely watching the game when Martin’s made his tweet. “Perhaps it’s presumptuous of me to say this to you,” I wrote, “but I'm going to ask you, on behalf of my dear friend, her wife, their daughter and me, the next time you hear someone suggest that someone else loves the wrong type of person, wrong type of fellow adult, say to yourself, if not the speaker, ‘That’s wrong,’ because it is, and it doesn’t matter how casual the expression may have been, or how a TV network handles the aftermath of the statement, whether there have been other equally egregious acts that went unaddressed; we live our lives in small moments, in our living rooms with our friends and families. We don’t live on network broadcasts, so I’m asking you please, for us, for that young woman hearing that her loving family is morally wrong and that her mothers should get the ‘ish’ smacked out of them for loving each other, think about how painful that must have felt and how often she must have felt it…. That young girl has undoubtedly lived her entire life that way.”

A Blackened Eye

Well, I thought it was moving. FB Mississippi, however, was unmoved. “I’ll say it again,” she wrote. “I think [Martin] was jesting as is often common in these settings and your fury will get more mileage in the prosecution of someone who actually has committed a hate crime against someone. Because at the end of the day, what is the worse to happen? Roland loses his position AND? Right. nothing more, just another [African-American] man removed from a hypocritical network that [the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation] has had problems with before. Hey, why not get CNN shut down completely?”

She’s right in certain regards. Martin was not—unlike Santorum—attempting to foment a jihad against homosexuals. He was just goofing, no question about it. Now, I hate to rummage up a cliché—I’m a journalist myself, an editor, and try to avoid clichés—but what if we were to substitute “black” earmarks for “gay” in this scenario? Often such comparisons trample logic, but not in this case. Holy Hell would have broken out if a white person—say, Rush Limbaugh or Chris Matthews—had made a similarly mindless comment about beating up an African-American. I’m not sure what the equivalent threshold test would have been—playing basketball? Listening to James Brown? Eating chitterlings?—but bear with me a moment.

What defines "blackness?" I would contend that, in this country it is in part a legacy of moral high ground. It’s not genes, at least not the extent one might think. I’m not convinced, for instance, that the things Michael Jordan did on the basketball court—and perhaps the prevalence of African-Americans in the NBA—reflects a genetic advantage. When I was a copy editor at the now-defunct, but once well-regarded, Sport magazine, there was an editorial meeting at which the latter issue—why blacks dominate pro basketball— was discussed. I was about 28 years old and fully expected to set my white colleagues straight. What exactly that meant—what I believed and what I thought that they believed—I don’t recall, but I came away from the meeting disabused of my certainty. (I’ve since concluded that Jordan’s big advantage was his relationship with his father, but don’t look for supporting footnotes.)

One thing that’s inarguable is that culture—the habits we collectively develop, the things we typically do as members of a group—becomes part of who we are, and the civil rights movement would later emulate. Because it was a mass movement, credit for the risks taken and rights won was owed to whole communities, if not all of black America (and many white Americans).

How sad to me, then, that so many African-Americans now seem to view the purpose of those earlier African-Americans’ sacrifice to have been the improvement of our particular situation and little else—not the vital role played in honing the most stable democracy on earth.

That word, “democracy,” has lost a lot of its power through overuse. How many young people—or even older ones—can adequately define it? Not a reasonable paraphrase of what it says in Webster’s; I’m talking about its ultimate implications.

“Democracy” means people running their own lives, not being owned or controlled by others. Black people, more than other Americans, should embrace that idea and so much else that our country stands for. This, it is often said, is a nation of laws, not men, meaning that we have rules we’ve written down and, to an impressive degree, live by; the ultimate authority, in short, is not the capricious views of a monarch or other individual. It is US. Though this country and its leaders have violated our principles many times, those principles, I am convinced, have been upheld about as often as one could hope for in a world populated by humans. Principles are important. How sad that so many African-Americans see the Roland Martin incident as black versus white…excuse me, as black versus the broader culture.

Been There, Suffered That

One lesson to be derived from generations of struggle for equality is the linchpin role that elites such as the White Citizens Council played in spurring less-powerful men to regrettable action. And how often have I witnessed African-Americans alert to the slightest inference of racism from the most inconsequential white figure—the grandmother on the train, the clerk at the train station? How can any African-American pooh-pooh jokes made by an influential black person about violence against a person because of who he is, not what he’s done? The dynamic is so familiar.

FB Mississippi’s characterization of the Martin incident as simply a matter of personal preference has a powerful and bitter precedent in my recent past.

Just weeks earlier I cut the cord—for good, I’m certain—on another close friendship, this time with a conservative white woman I met while living in the Midwest. We met through a dating site but never dated. From the beginning race was an issue and ultimately a bitter one, but our friendship was built on mutual loneliness. We found we could, and did, tell each other absolutely anything about our love lives at a time when we both needed someone to talk to. We traded in excess of 20 e-mails a day, many of them lengthy.

Then Trent Lott happened and we never fully recovered.

Lott, you may recall, was the Republican Senate majority leader from Mississippi, a powerhouse in the federal government until, at Strom Thurmond’s 100-birthday party, he praised the older man’s 1948 run for president on the Dixiecrat ticket. The Dixiecrats’ raison d’être was segregation. They deserted the Democratic Party because of Harry Truman’s integration of the armed forces. And Thurmond was their presidential pick. That was all well and good in 1948, I suppose. Baseball was only integrated a year earlier, but by 2002 the case for integration was, shall we say, pretty much settled—except at Strom’s big shindig—and, it seemed to me, in my friend’s loyalties.

She clung to Lott like a mother to her child. It took eight years for me to extract any acknowledgement of any sort of error on Lott’s part, no matter how small —poor timing, insensitivity, leaving the toilet seat up! She remained a loyal friend, more so than I, but she would not desert Lott, and I just could not excuse him, especially after it came out that while Lott had been a student at Ole Miss, he had led an effort to exclude blacks from his fraternity.

Personal preference was the defense that this friend offered again and again. Even to my (seemingly) modest assertion that one could not expect an African-American to go along with exclusion purely on the basis of color, she was closed to compromise. It remained a sore point until a few weeks ago, when I had to decide between our divergent politics and friendship, I decided the friendship was no longer worth it.

“Preferences,” for me, will probably never again be an innocuous word in a pull-down menu.

How odd that in one week I should argue for tolerance of Rick Santorum’s homophobia (he looked so pitiful in the YouTube clip) and for the repugnance of Roland Martin’s clumsy Tweet.

But you know, I think Grant Hill said it best in the NBA’s current anti-gay bashing commercial: We as a people are “better than that.” We were once, anyway. We should be again.

Don Armstrong is an Editor and Writer in Brooklyn.

A Communicator's Quandry: Silence is Golden....or Silence = Death

I've been making the acquaintance of silence lately.

This is not an unpleasant development, as Pico Iyer recently outlined. The growing array of electronic devices holding ever-louder levels of chatter can be an Issue. For example, I'm on the record as experiencing mixed feelings about my use of Facebook and other social media channels. As a Content Producer, also known as a Professional Communicator, I kind of dig the opportunity to spend hour after hour in complete silence.

Same time, I'm also a divorced Mom of two school-aged children. This means two things, where silence is concerned:

-- No matter what happens during my "normal" weekday, whether I operate by day in solitude or mingle in a bustling metropolis, I will indeed be required to talk by the time Lights Out arrives in my home. Electronic devices -- TV, iPods, or computers -- are likely to be deployed at some point during most evenings, though I do impose moratoriums now and again. Also, I am compelled to advocate for my children in settings and contexts, sometimes, that are not ideal or comfortable, even for a relative extrovert like me.

-- Secondly, work (which I must engage in) usually involves talking. As a Professional Communicator I have for many years earned income by, well... Communicating: ideas, messages, narratives expressed to various audiences, across a variety of delivery vehicles.

Thus the concept of hours' worth of consistent "silence" is new and intriguingly, now somewhat sexy to me. The prospect of utter Thoreau-level quietude is appealing to me...to a point. I can't say that I recall appreciating silence very much before in my adult life, not profoundly or meditatively. As Iyer recently observed in his essay in the Times, it has become an expensive luxury for people to be able to "afford" silence. Which is to say that if you have to get out in the world and work, you probably will suffer a range of distractions. Being able to "drop out," or more refreshingly, check in to an off the beaten path retreat takes money.

I came of age during the 1980s, when ACT-UP and swaths of other Americans regularly marched the streets chanting, "Silence equals Death!," an understandable response to the Government's inaction on the growing AIDS crisis. I come from a culture and time when Speaking Out was expected, encouraged, praised. The Personal is the Political, is how I was brought up. Obviously ideally, there is a separation between between one's personal life and one's work-life, particularly in the context of when and where it is appropriate to speak up or choose silence.

Increasingly, though, I'm questioning the pragmatism of the viability of being outspoken in any context. Speaking up these days may not be the best course, even in the face of crazy-bad domestic and international problems and with the advent of cheap and available "communications" devices. We are drowning in data and information yet far too short on goodwill, understanding and compassion. Folks are especially tetchy these days, no matter where you find them. Economic insecurity is not new for America but it does feel to me at this time as if our body politic is experiencing an epic level of paranoia and fearfulness. A collective kind of spiritual corrosion that is blurring the line -- in all kinds of spaces and contexts -- between integrity and unscrupulousness. We've been forced to get "lean and mean" in a growing number of places, not inherently a bad thing. Except that in too many instances, the emphasis is on the "mean" end of that equation.

There is precedent for such technology-driven cultural paradox, to be sure. As a student of American history, I take comfort (however cold) in understanding that such tension is not new. And while I do not live in the past, I am willing to consider all manner of historic scenarios, even in fiction form, to find tropes, metaphors, themes, that may help guide me.

During the recent holiday break, I brought my 12 year-old daughter to see The Artist at the American Film Institute Silver Theater and Cultural Center near where we live in suburban Washington, DC.

If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it, especially if you are interested in the enduring dilemma of old technologies replacing new, and the forced obsolescence of workers that can result. I won't review the film here but will say that it's protagonist, a silent movie actor name of "George Valentin" -- wonderfully portrayed by Jean Dujardin -- is an updated version of Gene Kelly's silent film heart-throb "Don Lockwood," from the 1952 Hollywood classic musical Singin' in the Rain.

Valentin, like Lockwood, is a big film star in the silent movie era....until he is thrown for a loop by the onset of "talkies," state-of-the-art films that required actors to not just look great and be hyper-physical but to actually master the refined art of speaking a part; to actually give voice to a character.

Unlike Lockwood, though, Valentin stubbornly resists the changing winds, and spirals to despair: He can't get work, he won't accept the help of an actress who sincerely wants to draw him safely into the new sphere, he becomes paralyzed and then despondent. The Artist's director cleverly employs some of the most cliched conventions of silent films and parodies them all at once. Valentin's chosen solution to his misery will not surprise you but the plot's resolution is crisp, believable, and sweet.

We talked about how fun the movie was, my daughter and I, as we darted out of the Silver Theater on a chilly, gray post-Christmas day. She is a fan of American films from the '30s--'60s, and is developing a refined eye and ear for nuances. Storytelling, of course, is at the core of effective Communicating, so I lean toward indulging her in this burgeoning interest.

Yet what I didn't share with her as we huddled beneath an umbrella along Colesville Road following our viewing is this: I identified with "George Valentin" profoundly. His character, it turns out -- and yes, here is a "spoiler alert" -- experiences paralysis at the prospect of diving in to talking films because he is.......insecure. Acutely insecure. And it paralyzes him.

Despite his luminous physical talent and solid intellect, he freezes up at the thought of having to verbalize a character. The director of The Artist, to his credit, gives viewers hints of Valentin's insecurity-cum-malady in a handful of subtle visual cues and with two astonishing sound-oriented pieces. I didn't quite connect the puzzle piece until the curtain had drawn at The Silver, which is in its restored Art Deco splendor, the perfect place to see such a movie.

But when I asked my daughter why she felt Valentin had so stubbornly held out from diving in to talkies, she said, "Oh, he had a THING about talking. He may have had a speech impediment, or some kind of similar issue. For whatever reason, he didn't think he could do it," she continued. "So at first he tried to be cavalier and pretend it didn't matter. But then he got stuck, and he couldn't move forward even when it was obvious that he had to."

And so,....well. There it was, from the mouths of not-quite babes.

My sub rosa agenda in taking my daughter to see The Artist was --at least this is what I thought it was before the film got underway -- primal foremost and intellectual second. I had wanted to sit among a crowd of people and experience art in relative silence; I wanted to see a story about someone who was struggling with a new medium. I wanted an artistic take on the potential costs and benefits, in the political context, of keeping silent.

I received that and much more: A finely drawn story of a skilled practitioner who freezes up in the face of looming change. It isn't that George Valentin could not easily adapt it is that he could not easily compartmentalize. Like many 'creative types," he felt his emotions perhaps too strongly, failed at shutting down his receptors. Valentin was sentimental about his trade, and yes, there was a purity and integrity to silent films....but who was to say that talkies could not also achieve those virtues? Wasn't George Valentin such a sap and loser for failing to Get with It?

Faced with the prospect of having to stretch and grow beyond merely physically emoting, Valentin preferred silence in those crucial moments when external forces imposed a need for transition, for action. It was a fear-driven preference that nearly killed him.

Of course, any viewer who comes away from this film and blames Valentin for becoming "stuck," has got to be one fucked up cold hearted asshole indeed. And yet, in the space where artistic and historic metaphor meets contemporary realities? The cold-hearted, fucked-up assholes today have pretty much rigged things in such a way that it can be impossible to know. You can be stuck, or unstuck, sailing along with the new program, faking it, or stopping momentarily to smell the flowers and it won't matter: You quite easily could be steamrolled based on dumb luck or due to a fleeting unwillingness (not the same as being "stuck") to Give it Up quickly.

Well then. I am learning to accept silence, to seek it and embrace it. Hopefully I can continue Communicating in the pro context but also find the space to go Silent and to speak up when and where I need to -- on my own terms, and not to the detriment of my livelihood.

Go Ahead, "Lean Forward." But Watch Your Back...and Don't Get Taken In.

The videos of the ill-fated OWS street action in Oakland the other day churned my stomach.

I mean, really. So many urgent questions, starting with, Who is training these activists?

Followed fast by, Will any cable TV political chat show hosts take responsibility for having ginned up the OWS-ers, for having worked them up to such a degree that they felt safe enough to face off with cops?


From what I have viewed of the recent Oakland situation, and the Wall Street, pepper-spray incidents of a few weeks ago, there are apparently more protestors concerned with turning cameras on cops than on getting the hell out of the way.

I chalk this up to youthful ignorance -- but also to the influence of partisan cheer-leading found on a multitude of news-ish sites on the Interwebs, and on the 24/7 cable TV news channels.

In particular, MSNBC's prime time programming is to be singled out for its egging on of the OWS-ers coast to coast.

"Lean Forward" is the cable network's marketing "house-ad" message-frame, and the spots (which air daily, across all the cable network's programming) feature hosts Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow, and Ed Schultz, earnestly sharing their (liberal-tinged) thoughts about how America is in a battle between Good and Evil. I am a San Francisco Liberal, and media Old Head, which is to say that I appreciate the ads for their slick ability to convey clearly the high stakes bound up in our present political landscape.

Yet I do worry that the "Lean Forward" ad campaign -- accompanied by a weeknight prime time line up that is vociferously, unapolagetically Left-leaning -- is not serving well the American people. No, I am NOT going neo-con, and I am equally opposed to the Fox News Channel's equally one-sided (Conservative) political bent.

But the Liberal me lives within the same spirit, brain, memory, and body as my Journalist. And I am inherently -- well, from training and experience -- reluctant to let the Liberal in me drive the Journalist unquestioned.

The cops in SF, Oakland and Berkeley are widely known (among natives) for being militarized. This is not news....unless you don't know the history, or have the wherewithal to look it up...or don't care to report it.

The videos of the Oakland "Occupy" protest demonstrated to me foremost that even the best-intentioned among us -- including high-profile Liberal, "activists turned TV news people" -- are ignorant about key aspects of our recent American history. The folks we see in the recent Occupy Oakland videos are not mindless 'bots but I bet you dollars to donuts that they felt emboldened by what they view on MSNBC and what they have heard in the past two weeks on other liberal-leaning broadcasts. They did so at their own peril.

Has anyone in MSNBC's editorial braintrust at 30 Rock in New York watched the KRON TV footage showing how the cops responded during the multitude of protests in the '60s and '70s in the Bay Area? (KRON was the NBC affiliate in SF for many years.) How about footage of the cops' handling of the homeless camps that sprang up around San Francisco City Hall during the 1980s, anybody at MSNBC bother to watch those images? Probably not.

I ask because I know from those situations that cops will brutalize OWS activists; I know this because I have seen them brutalize homeless advocates, ACT-UP members, and the shaggy Food Not Bombs kids. So what I want to know is:

Why wouldn't a responsible "newscaster" in 2011, especially one who flies proudly the flag of "activist," not warn their viewers/followers of this, even as they gin them up with segments and reports clearly designed to spur street activism?

Sure, Frank Rich delivered a sweeping piece in the recent edition of New York magazine on a long-ago showdown between Real People fed up with being left out by the Fat Cats. Rich tells the story of the Bonus Army, those Depression-era, middle and working class Americans who thronged the District of Columbia in protest of income inequality and job losses in the bleak years following an orgy of excess from early corporate titans and Robber Barons.

Rich's piece is instructive, if thin on the role of media back then. The piece does mention a favorite touchstone figure of postmodern Liberal media columnists, Father Coughlin, a "populist" who railed against class inequality on a popular radio program during the '30s.

Well guess what? The speed, vehemence, and utter pervasiveness of media today is even more influential than in Father Coughlin's day, far outstripping what existed in the '30s or in the intervening years. And more acute, too, is the vast income gap that exists between those who hold media perches that have wide reach -- such as cable TV political show hosts, and top editors and writers at the NY Times and the Washington Post -- and the rest of Americans.

David Carr at The NY Times wrote a cute, timely column early this week suggesting that Journalists should consider an "Occupy the Newsroom" movement, spurred by the crazy lucrative exit packages and bonuses received by some media company executives even while their editorial operations are vanishing. I think Carr didn't go far enough: The experienced, trained, well-paid Journalists still hanging on in "legacy" news organizations should protest the disappearance of black, brown, and others from their ranks who are "non-traditional," aka, from working-class families.

Yes, I am pissed off. No, I don't give a crap if you think that All Black Women are Pissed Off. My professional profile is what it is, I am quite accomplished, thank you very much; I am capable of (and spoiling to, frankly) standing up on this. The alleged "thought-leaders" of media today -- whatever the delivery platform -- are either "vets" who helped screw up the old model or "digital natives" who are so clueless about life that they might just screw up whatever comes next.

Much as the Fox News "journalists" ginned up the Tea Partiers in the summer of '09 with their highly-partisan, ill-informed reports, the "journalists" at MSNBC have ginned up the OWS-ers who are now getting their asses kicked on the streets of our cities.

Rachel Maddow, Lawrence, O'Donnell, Bill Maher, and their kin at FOX, ABC, and NBC have not, to my knowledge, ever been street reporters.

They claim to be "truth-tellers," yet the 50-thousand foot altitude of much of their rhetoric is absent a crucial element known to any Old School Journalist who has covered large-scale domestic disturbances in the US during the past half-century: Verify and report. Yes, people, Cops in many cities nationwide are militarized. They have been militarized since the street actions of the '60s.

It doesn't matter if you are politically opposed to this admittedly unfortunate reality. If you are a "news anchor," what matters is that you refrain from presenting reports that are wholly designed to inflame your (politically partisan) viewers to engage in confrontations with these local armies....without letting them also know that the local cops will fuck them up.

The decimation of the ranks of qualified, trained journalists of color is not discussed by Maddow and others, likely because they are the beneficiaries of this development. While we were learning the ways of Corporate Journalism -- whitewashing, downplaying, masking, the grit and resolve that led us to become Journalists in the first place -- these late-coming arrivistes were hanging out in their parents' homes, or attending college or knocking around in activist or entertainment, or corporate environments.

And when the winds of corporate media turned away from "objective, Just the Facts Ma'am" reporting that had been the standard for more than a century, toward a product that is infused with entertainment, the gatekeepers looked not for black and brown trained journalists -- many of whom also have "agendas" -- but to academics and activists who were telegenic, and "familiar," if highly partisan.

If you care about the process of verification (which is what Journalism IS, people, not a big mystery, but not easy to carry out faithfully, day after day), you might ask yourself this:

What will it mean in the future if everyone in the US who calls herself a "Journalist" is really not interested in verifying anything more than what they already think they know?

"Lean Forward," indeed, Dear Viewer.

Just be sure to verify, as much as you trust. And do your best not to blindly fall in.

On True Radicalism: Talk Softly, Wield Big Ideas, Solid Values

Derrick Bell had a very soft voice.

I first learned this during our phone conversations, which began in 1996. That is when I approached him to contribute to a book I was editing.

He lived in New York City, I was in Cambridge, Mass.

In my early 30s at that time, peripatetic and over-confident, I quickly learned to be calm, thoughtful, and focused whenever we spoke by phone. Derrick Bell, an NYU Law School professor, certainly was.

Why did I ask him to contribute to The Farrakhan Factor, a collection of essays by black writers, economists, academics, journalists and activists?

Two reasons:

I consulted with more than a dozen people as I sought to build a pool of 15 contributors for the book. It works like this: You contact people who probably won't write for the book but who in all likelihood can A) cogently brainstorm with you, and B) recommend or steer you to others who will write for the book. In that process, which took nearly six months, everyone I tapped mentioned Derrick Bell.

Second, I had read Bell's book, Faces at the Bottom of the Well, and enjoyed it immensely.....even if I didn't get all of the allegories and metaphoric imagery bound up in Bell's brand of high-minded Critical Race Theory. I did get its main message, though: African-Americans face a host of big systemic obstacles that no single silver bullet will instantly vanquish.

More than a decade later of course, I know that I was very fortunate to have made Derrick Bell's acquaintance. I am fortunate, too, that he made the time and found the energy to contribute to The Farrakhan Factor.

His essay in that book, published by Grove Press in 1998, is titled, "Farrakhan Fever: Defining the Line Between Blacks and Jews."

Given the contemporary discussion over the question of whether President Barack Hussein Obama can count on votes from Jewish Americans in the 2012 presidential race, I suggest you take a look at Bell's essay on Farrakhan's outsized place in the imagination of some Jewish Americans.....back in the mid-1990s. Characteristically, Bell's delivery in that essay was gentle, the literary version of his soft voice in real time. But the intellectual rigor, forceful logic, and compassionate values -- from anyone else, it would have been called "radical" -- is unmistakable.

Nowadays, of course, high-pitched rhetoric and slick presentation are what rises to the top of search engines and (apparently) the public's consciousness, coming from our "leading" black public intellectuals (many who now crowd the cable TV airwaves daily), and from just about anyone else who carries the mantle of "expert" on the Big Four topics of our social discourse -- politics, race, education, the economy.

Derrick Bell, of course, made television appearances in his time, too. In contrast to what we see now, however, he may as well have been sleeping upright during his infrequent on-camera turns. Not long ago, this understated demeanor was valued and appreciated for conveying a sensibility that read as Serious. I am not trying to sound like the cranky Old Gal on the front porch, railing about the Krazy Kids and their Hippity Hop Music but the high volume of what passes for "intellectual discourse" these days really does drive Americans farther apart, I believe.

Derrick Bell, like a few other of the "Old School" black intellectuals that I've been lucky to work with, would not be booked on the "leading" national political talk programs of today....unless he agreed to boil his complex, thoughtful theories about intra-ethnic tensions (blacks v Jews), and Critical Race Theory down into incendiary buzz-words.

I worked closely with Derrick Bell to shape his essay in that Farrakhan collection, and, when the book published, we finally met in person.

I traveled from Massachusetts to New York City via Amtrak along with another of the book's contributors, Rev. Irene Monroe of Cambridge. We two met up with Derrick Bell, and sat down at WNYC with Leonard Lopate; we spoke with Lopate and his audience for an hour about Minister Farrakhan, the state of black leadership, and the ways that blacks' history of oppression in America has influenced the definition of "black leadership."

After, we three repaired to a local eatery -- it was a blue-sky, crisp late-winter day in New York, and for a couple of hours, we drank hot tea and traded stories about our respective families.

Derrick Bell had been, by that time, widely described as "controversial, "mostly because he had quit a tenured position at Harvard Law School a few years hence in protest of that institution's inability to hire more diverse faculty. That word -- "controversial" -- popped up again in some of the obituaries that published last week, after Bell died at age 80. The usage of that word is flat and rote....to my ears, it fails to capture the quiet confidence, good humor and inner-calm that I picked up from Derrick Bell in my admittedly limited contact with him.

As I encountered Derrick Bell, he was a gentleman and a scholar, a smart black man from a generation that knew first hand what is required to bring about radical change in the US. Bell succeeded in his brand of quiet radicalism without assistance from non-stop exposure on national cable TV programs, or Tweetable soundbites. I do wonder what he'd make of Herman Cain, and the ceaseless carping from TV noisemakers about President Obama's style and his supposed lack of intestinal fortitude, aka "fight."

I wish I'd checked in with Derrick Bell in recent years. But I am very fortunate to have known him and to have learned from him the power of steady, low-pitched strength.

The POTUS Speaks to Blacks, Foolishness Ensues in The Media

President Barack Obama recently addressed the Congressional Black Caucus in Washington, D.C.

Some of the reports of President Obama's recent CBC address painted a picture of what the President said that is very different from what he intended -- and what the fullness of his talk actually conveyed.

This discrepancy is not unique.

For example, I was at the New York Hilton on July 16, 2009, when President Obama spoke to the the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People during its Centennial celebration.

I post his speech below, in full, exactly as it arrived in journalist's hands a couple hours before he stepped to the podium at the New York Hilton on that humid July evening. What gripped me about this address at the time, and which still resonates, is the President's firm grasp of the history of race relations in the US and his nuanced (if also tough) analysis of the mounting barriers to racial and economic equality in America.

Those nuances were not discussed much in the day-after coverage of the President's NAACP address in '09....a dynamic that apparently hasn't improved in the interim.

First, here is a link to a big news story that appeared in the press the very day after The POTUS made this NAACP address in '09....ostensibly written by a "respected journalist" who covered the very same event. Please find another link below, and of course, feel free to search other "live" pieces from this July 2009 address on your own: It truly was a historic speech, in my view.

As the saying goes, You Decide: In this case, read this material -- the links I've provided and the actual speech, below -- then consider whether there might be a bit of a....perception gap between some in the mainstream, Legacy press corps who follow The POTUS, and...the rest of us.

At the same time, in fairness to my colleagues in the MSM press, there were also black outlets that criticized President Obama following that'09 NAACP speech for allegedly having been "condescending."

Oh, and as I was writing this post tonight -- Tuesday, 27 September, 2011 -- I learned that someone yelled out during a talk by President Obama yesterday that he is "the anti-Christ.

At best, blatant disrespect.

At worst?

Some citizens of our great land continue -- three years into his term -- losing their minds over the presence of a black Commander in Chief. Sigh.

So, to the transcript: I recommend you read President Obama's speech first, then click the links I've provided.

Feel free to let me know what you think in the Comments or to ignore, cogitate, seethe, or celebrate in private. I've covered this sort of media shortcoming for a long time -- yes, it has become most tiresome but still: it must be placed into the record, especially since the "media reporters" at what remains of the MSM for the most part ignore diversity gaps in newsrooms.

For now, here's that 2009 speech that President Obama made to the NAACP on its 100th Anniversary.

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

________________________________________________________________________________

EMBARGOED UNTIL DELIVERY

July 16, 2009

Remarks of President Barack Obama – As Prepared for Delivery

NAACP Centennial

New York, New York

July 16, 2009

It is an honor to be here, in the city where the NAACP was formed, to mark its centennial. What we celebrate tonight is not simply the journey the NAACP has traveled, but the journey that we, as Americans, have traveled over the past one hundred years.

It is a journey that takes us back to a time before most of us were born, long before the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, and Brown v. Board of Education; back to an America just a generation past slavery. It was a time when Jim Crow was a way of life; when lynchings were all too common; and when race riots were shaking cities across a segregated land.

From the beginning, Du Bois understood how change would come – just as King and all the civil rights giants did later. They understood that unjust laws needed to be overturned; that legislation needed to be passed; and that Presidents needed to be pressured into action. They knew that the stain of slavery and the sin of segregation had to be lifted in the courtroom and in the legislature.

But they also knew that here, in America, change would have to come from the people. It would come from people protesting lynching, rallying against violence, and walking instead of taking the bus. It would come from men and women – of every age and faith, race and region – taking Greyhounds on Freedom Rides; taking seats at Greensboro lunch counters; and registering voters in rural Mississippi, knowing they would be harassed, knowing they would be beaten, knowing that they might never return.

Because of what they did, we are a more perfect union. Because Jim Crow laws were overturned, black CEOs today run Fortune 500 companies. Because civil rights laws were passed, black mayors, governors, and Members of Congress serve in places where they might once have been unable to vote. And because ordinary people made the civil rights movement their own, I made a trip to Springfield a couple years ago – where Lincoln once lived, and race riots once raged – and began the journey that has led me here tonight as the 44^th President of the United States of America.

And yet, even as we celebrate the remarkable achievements of the past one hundred years; even as we inherit extraordinary progress that cannot be denied; even as we marvel at the courage and determination of so many plain folks – we know that too many barriers still remain.

We know that even as our economic crisis batters Americans of all races, African Americans are out of work more than just about anyone else – a gap that’s widening here in New York City, as detailed in a report this week by Comptroller Bill Thompson.

We know that even as spiraling health care costs crush families of all races, African Americans are more likely to suffer from a host of diseases but less likely to own health insurance than just about anyone else.

We know that even as we imprison more people of all races than any nation in the world, an African-American child is roughly five times as likely as a white child to see the inside of a jail.

And we know that even as the scourge of HIV/AIDS devastates nations abroad, particularly in Africa, it is devastating the African-American community here at home with disproportionate force.

These are some of the barriers of our time. They’re very different from the barriers faced by earlier generations. They’re very different from the ones faced when fire hoses and dogs were being turned on young marchers; when Charles Hamilton Houston and a group of young Howard lawyers were dismantling segregation.

But what is required to overcome today’s barriers is the same as was needed then. The same commitment. The same sense of urgency. The same sense of sacrifice. The same willingness to do our part for ourselves and one another that has always defined America at its best.

The question, then, is where do we direct our efforts? What steps do we take to overcome these barriers? How do we move forward in the next one hundred years?

The first thing we need to do is make real the words of your charter and eradicate prejudice, bigotry, and discrimination among citizens of the United States. I understand there may be a temptation among some to think that discrimination is no longer a problem in 2009. And I believe that overall, there’s probably never been less discrimination in America than there is today.

But make no mistake: the pain of discrimination is still felt in America. By African-American women paid less for doing the same work as colleagues of a different color and gender. By Latinos made to feel unwelcome in their own country. By Muslim Americans viewed with suspicion for simply kneeling down to pray. By our gay brothers and sisters, still taunted, still attacked, still denied their rights.

On the 45^th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, discrimination must not stand. Not on account of color or gender; how you worship or who you love. Prejudice has no place in the United States of America.

But we also know that prejudice and discrimination are not even the steepest barriers to opportunity today. The most difficult barriers include structural inequalities that our nation’s legacy of discrimination has left behind; inequalities still plaguing too many communities and too often the object of national neglect.

These are barriers we are beginning to tear down by rewarding work with an expanded tax credit; making housing more affordable; and giving ex-offenders a second chance. These are barriers that we are targeting through our White House Office on Urban Affairs, and through Promise Neighborhoods that build on Geoffrey Canada’s success with the Harlem Children’s Zone; and that foster a comprehensive approach to ending poverty by putting all children on a pathway to college, and giving them the schooling and support to get there.

But our task of reducing these structural inequalities has been made more difficult by the state, and structure, of the broader economy; an economy fueled by a cycle of boom and bust; an economy built not on a rock, but sand. That is why my administration is working so hard not only to create and save jobs in the short-term, not only to extend unemployment insurance and help for people who have lost their health care, not only to stem this immediate economic crisis, but to lay a new foundation for growth and prosperity that will put opportunity within reach not just for African Americans, but for all Americans.

One pillar of this new foundation is health insurance reform that cuts costs, makes quality health coverage affordable for all, and closes health care disparities in the process. Another pillar is energy reform that makes clean energy profitable, freeing America from the grip of foreign oil, putting people to work upgrading low-income homes, and creating jobs that cannot be outsourced. And another pillar is financial reform with consumer protections to crack down on mortgage fraud and stop predatory lenders from targeting our poor communities.

All these things will make America stronger and more competitive. They will drive innovation, create jobs, and provide families more security. Still, even if we do it all, the African-American community will fall behind in the United States and the United States will fall behind in the world unless we do a far better job than we have been doing of educating our sons and daughters. In the 21^st century – when so many jobs will require a bachelor’s degree or more, when countries that out-educate us today will outcompete us tomorrow – a world-class education is a prerequisite for success.

You know what I’m talking about. There’s a reason the story of the civil rights movement was written in our schools. There’s a reason Thurgood Marshall took up the cause of Linda Brown. There’s a reason the Little Rock Nine defied a governor and a mob. It’s because there is no stronger weapon against inequality and no better path to opportunity than an education that can unlock a child’s God-given potential.

Yet, more than a half century after Brown v. Board of Education, the dream of a world-class education is still being deferred all across this country. African-American students are lagging behind white classmates in reading and math – an achievement gap that is growing in states that once led the way on civil rights. Over half of all African-American students are dropping out of school in some places. There are overcrowded classrooms, crumbling schools, and corridors of shame in America filled with poor children – black, brown, and white alike.

The state of our schools is not an African-American problem; it’s an American problem. And if Al Sharpton, Mike Bloomberg, and Newt Gingrich can agree that we need to solve it, then all of us can agree on that. All of us can agree that we need to offer every child in this country the best education the world has to offer from the cradle through a career.

That is our responsibility as the United States of America. And we, all of us in government, are working to do our part by not only offering more resources, but demanding more reform.

When it comes to higher education, we are making college and advanced training more affordable, and strengthening community colleges that are a gateway to so many with an initiative that will prepare students not only to earn a degree but find a job when they graduate; an initiative that will help us meet the goal I have set of leading the world in college degrees by 2020.

We are creating a Race to the Top Fund that will reward states and public school districts that adopt 21^st century standards and assessments. And we are creating incentives for states to promote excellent teachers and replace bad ones – because the job of a teacher is too important for us to accept anything but the best.

We should also explore innovative approaches being pursued here in New York City; innovations like Bard High School Early College and Medgar Evers College Preparatory School that are challenging students to complete high school and earn a free associate’s degree or college credit in just four years.

And we should raise the bar when it comes to early learning programs. Today, some early learning programs are excellent. Some are mediocre. And some are wasting what studies show are – by far – a child’s most formative years.

That’s why I have issued a challenge to America’s governors: if you match the success of states like Pennsylvania and develop an effective model for early learning; if you focus reform on standards and results in early learning programs; if you demonstrate how you will prepare the lowest income children to meet the highest standards of success – you can compete for an Early Learning Challenge Grant that will help prepare all our children to enter kindergarten ready to learn.

So, these are some of the laws we are passing. These are some of the policies we are enacting. These are some of the ways we are doing our part in government to overcome the inequities, injustices, and barriers that exist in our country.

But all these innovative programs and expanded opportunities will not, in and of themselves, make a difference if each of us, as parents and as community leaders, fail to do our part by encouraging excellence in our children. Government programs alone won’t get our children to the Promised Land. We need a new mindset, a new set of attitudes – because one of the most durable and destructive legacies of discrimination is the way that we have internalized a sense of limitation; how so many in our community have come to expect so little of ourselves.

We have to say to our children, Yes, if you’re African American, the odds of growing up amid crime and gangs are higher. Yes, if you live in a poor neighborhood, you will face challenges that someone in a wealthy suburb does not. But that’s not a reason to get bad grades, that’s not a reason to cut class, that’s not a reason to give up on your education and drop out of school. No one has written your destiny for you. Your destiny is in your hands – and don’t you forget that.

To parents, we can’t tell our kids to do well in school and fail to support them when they get home. For our kids to excel, we must accept our own responsibilities. That means putting away the Xbox and putting our kids to bed at a reasonable hour. It means attending those parent-teacher conferences, reading to our kids, and helping them with their homework.

And it means we need to be there for our neighbor’s son or daughter, and return to the day when we parents let each other know if we saw a child acting up. That’s the meaning of community. That’s how we can reclaim the strength, the determination, the hopefulness that helped us come as far as we already have.

It also means pushing our kids to set their sights higher. They might think they’ve got a pretty good jump shot or a pretty good flow, but our kids can’t all aspire to be the next LeBron or Lil Wayne. I want them aspiring to be scientists and engineers, doctors and teachers, not just ballers and rappers. I want them aspiring to be a Supreme Court Justice. I want them aspiring to be President of the United States.

So, yes, government must be a force for opportunity. Yes, government must be a force for equality. But ultimately, if we are to be true to our past, then we also have to seize our own destiny, each and every day.

That is what the NAACP is all about. The NAACP was not founded in search of a handout. The NAACP was not founded in search of favors. The NAACP was founded on a firm notion of justice; to cash the promissory note of America that says all our children, all God’s children, deserve a fair chance in the race of life.

It is a simple dream, and yet one that has been denied – one still being denied – to so many Americans. It’s a painful thing, seeing that dream denied. I remember visiting a Chicago school in a rough neighborhood as a community organizer, and thinking how remarkable it was that all of these children seemed so full of hope, despite being born into poverty, despite being delivered into addiction, despite all the obstacles they were already facing.

And I remember the principal of the school telling me that soon all of that would begin to change; that soon, the laughter in their eyes would begin to fade; that soon, something would shut off inside, as it sunk in that their hopes would not come to pass – not because they weren’t smart enough, not because they weren’t talented enough, but because, by accident of birth, they didn’t have a fair chance in life.

So, I know what can happen to a child who doesn’t have that chance. But I also know what can happen to a child who does. I was raised by a single mother. I don’t come from a lot of wealth. I got into my share of trouble as a kid. My life could easily have taken a turn for the worse. But that mother of mine gave me love; she pushed me, and cared about my education; she took no lip and taught me right from wrong. Because of her, I had a chance to make the most of my abilities. I had the chance to make the most of my opportunities. I had the chance to make the most of life.

The same story holds for Michelle. The same story holds for so many of you. And I want all the other Barack Obamas out there, and all the other Michelle Obamas out there, to have that same chance – the chance that my mother gave me; that my education gave me; that the United States of America gave me. That is how our union will be perfected and our economy rebuilt. That is how America will move forward in the next one hundred years.

And we will move forward. This I know – for I know how far we have come. Last week, in Ghana, Michelle and I took Malia and Sasha to Cape Coast Castle, where captives were once imprisoned before being auctioned; where, across an ocean, so much of the African-American experience began. There, reflecting on the dungeon beneath the castle church, I was reminded of all the pain and all the hardships, all the injustices and all the indignities on the voyage from slavery to freedom.

But I was also reminded of something else. I was reminded that no matter how bitter the rod or how stony the road, we have persevered. We have not faltered, nor have we grown weary. As Americans, we have demanded, strived for, and shaped a better destiny.

That is what we are called to do once more. It will not be easy. It will take time. Doubts may rise and hopes recede.

But if John Lewis could brave Billy clubs to cross a bridge, then I know young people today can do their part to lift up our communities.

If Emmet Till’s uncle Mose Wright could summon the courage to testify against the men who killed his nephew, I know we can be better fathers and brothers, mothers and sisters in our own families.

If three civil rights workers in Mississippi – black and white, Christian and Jew, city-born and country-bred – could lay down their lives in freedom’s cause, I know we can come together to face down the challenges of our own time. We can fix our schools, heal our sick, and rescue our youth from violence and despair.

One hundred years from now, on the 200^th anniversary of the NAACP, let it be said that this generation did its part; that we too ran the race; that full of the faith that our dark past has taught us, full of the hope that the present has brought us, we faced, in our own lives and all across this nation, the rising sun of a new day begun. Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.

It was in this America where an Atlanta scholar named W.E.B. Du Bois, a man of towering intellect and a fierce passion for justice, sparked what became known as the Niagara movement; where reformers united, not by color but cause; and where an association was born that would, as its charter says, promote equality and eradicate prejudice among citizens of the United States.

From the beginning, Du Bois understood how change would come – just as King and all the civil rights giants did later. They understood that unjust laws needed to be overturned; that legislation needed to be passed; and that Presidents needed to be pressured into action. They knew that the stain of slavery and the sin of segregation had to be lifted in the courtroom and in the legislature.

But they also knew that here, in America, change would have to come from the people. It would come from people protesting lynching, rallying against violence, and walking instead of taking the bus. It would come from men and women – of every age and faith, race and region – taking Greyhounds on Freedom Rides; taking seats at Greensboro lunch counters; and registering voters in rural Mississippi, knowing they would be harassed, knowing they would be beaten, knowing that they might never return.

Because of what they did, we are a more perfect union. Because Jim Crow laws were overturned, black CEOs today run Fortune 500 companies. Because civil rights laws were passed, black mayors, governors, and Members of Congress serve in places where they might once have been unable to vote. And because ordinary people made the civil rights movement their own, I made a trip to Springfield a couple years ago – where Lincoln once lived, and race riots once raged – and began the journey that has led me here tonight as the 44^th President of the United States of America.

And yet, even as we celebrate the remarkable achievements of the past one hundred years; even as we inherit extraordinary progress that cannot be denied; even as we marvel at the courage and determination of so many plain folks – we know that too many barriers still remain.

We know that even as our economic crisis batters Americans of all races, African Americans are out of work more than just about anyone else – a gap that’s widening here in New York City, as detailed in a report this week by Comptroller Bill Thompson.

We know that even as spiraling health care costs crush families of all races, African Americans are more likely to suffer from a host of diseases but less likely to own health insurance than just about anyone else.

We know that even as we imprison more people of all races than any nation in the world, an African-American child is roughly five times as likely as a white child to see the inside of a jail.

And we know that even as the scourge of HIV/AIDS devastates nations abroad, particularly in Africa, it is devastating the African-American community here at home with disproportionate force.

These are some of the barriers of our time. They’re very different from the barriers faced by earlier generations. They’re very different from the ones faced when fire hoses and dogs were being turned on young marchers; when Charles Hamilton Houston and a group of young Howard lawyers were dismantling segregation.

But what is required to overcome today’s barriers is the same as was needed then. The same commitment. The same sense of urgency. The same sense of sacrifice. The same willingness to do our part for ourselves and one another that has always defined America at its best.

The question, then, is where do we direct our efforts? What steps do we take to overcome these barriers? How do we move forward in the next one hundred years?

The first thing we need to do is make real the words of your charter and eradicate prejudice, bigotry, and discrimination among citizens of the United States. I understand there may be a temptation among some to think that discrimination is no longer a problem in 2009. And I believe that overall, there’s probably never been less discrimination in America than there is today.

But make no mistake: the pain of discrimination is still felt in America. By African-American women paid less for doing the same work as colleagues of a different color and gender. By Latinos made to feel unwelcome in their own country. By Muslim Americans viewed with suspicion for simply kneeling down to pray. By our gay brothers and sisters, still taunted, still attacked, still denied their rights.

On the 45^th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, discrimination must not stand. Not on account of color or gender; how you worship or who you love. Prejudice has no place in the United States of America.

But we also know that prejudice and discrimination are not even the steepest barriers to opportunity today. The most difficult barriers include structural inequalities that our nation’s legacy of discrimination has left behind; inequalities still plaguing too many communities and too often the object of national neglect.

These are barriers we are beginning to tear down by rewarding work with an expanded tax credit; making housing more affordable; and giving ex-offenders a second chance. These are barriers that we are targeting through our White House Office on Urban Affairs, and through Promise Neighborhoods that build on Geoffrey Canada’s success with the Harlem Children’s Zone; and that foster a comprehensive approach to ending poverty by putting all children on a pathway to college, and giving them the schooling and support to get there.

But our task of reducing these structural inequalities has been made more difficult by the state, and structure, of the broader economy; an economy fueled by a cycle of boom and bust; an economy built not on a rock, but sand. That is why my administration is working so hard not only to create and save jobs in the short-term, not only to extend unemployment insurance and help for people who have lost their health care, not only to stem this immediate economic crisis, but to lay a new foundation for growth and prosperity that will put opportunity within reach not just for African Americans, but for all Americans.

One pillar of this new foundation is health insurance reform that cuts costs, makes quality health coverage affordable for all, and closes health care disparities in the process. Another pillar is energy reform that makes clean energy profitable, freeing America from the grip of foreign oil, putting people to work upgrading low-income homes, and creating jobs that cannot be outsourced. And another pillar is financial reform with consumer protections to crack down on mortgage fraud and stop predatory lenders from targeting our poor communities.

All these things will make America stronger and more competitive. They will drive innovation, create jobs, and provide families more security. Still, even if we do it all, the African-American community will fall behind in the United States and the United States will fall behind in the world unless we do a far better job than we have been doing of educating our sons and daughters. In the 21^st century – when so many jobs will require a bachelor’s degree or more, when countries that out-educate us today will outcompete us tomorrow – a world-class education is a prerequisite for success.

You know what I’m talking about. There’s a reason the story of the civil rights movement was written in our schools. There’s a reason Thurgood Marshall took up the cause of Linda Brown. There’s a reason the Little Rock Nine defied a governor and a mob. It’s because there is no stronger weapon against inequality and no better path to opportunity than an education that can unlock a child’s God-given potential.

Yet, more than a half century after Brown v. Board of Education, the dream of a world-class education is still being deferred all across this country. African-American students are lagging behind white classmates in reading and math – an achievement gap that is growing in states that once led the way on civil rights. Over half of all African-American students are dropping out of school in some places. There are overcrowded classrooms, crumbling schools, and corridors of shame in America filled with poor children – black, brown, and white alike.

The state of our schools is not an African-American problem; it’s an American problem. And if Al Sharpton, Mike Bloomberg, and Newt Gingrich can agree that we need to solve it, then all of us can agree on that. All of us can agree that we need to offer every child in this country the best education the world has to offer from the cradle through a career.

That is our responsibility as the United States of America. And we, all of us in government, are working to do our part by not only offering more resources, but demanding more reform.

When it comes to higher education, we are making college and advanced training more affordable, and strengthening community colleges that are a gateway to so many with an initiative that will prepare students not only to earn a degree but find a job when they graduate; an initiative that will help us meet the goal I have set of leading the world in college degrees by 2020.

We are creating a Race to the Top Fund that will reward states and public school districts that adopt 21^st century standards and assessments. And we are creating incentives for states to promote excellent teachers and replace bad ones – because the job of a teacher is too important for us to accept anything but the best.

We should also explore innovative approaches being pursued here in New York City; innovations like Bard High School Early College and Medgar Evers College Preparatory School that are challenging students to complete high school and earn a free associate’s degree or college credit in just four years.

And we should raise the bar when it comes to early learning programs. Today, some early learning programs are excellent. Some are mediocre. And some are wasting what studies show are – by far – a child’s most formative years.

That’s why I have issued a challenge to America’s governors: if you match the success of states like Pennsylvania and develop an effective model for early learning; if you focus reform on standards and results in early learning programs; if you demonstrate how you will prepare the lowest income children to meet the highest standards of success – you can compete for an Early Learning Challenge Grant that will help prepare all our children to enter kindergarten ready to learn.

So, these are some of the laws we are passing. These are some of the policies we are enacting. These are some of the ways we are doing our part in government to overcome the inequities, injustices, and barriers that exist in our country.

But all these innovative programs and expanded opportunities will not, in and of themselves, make a difference if each of us, as parents and as community leaders, fail to do our part by encouraging excellence in our children. Government programs alone won’t get our children to the Promised Land. We need a new mindset, a new set of attitudes – because one of the most durable and destructive legacies of discrimination is the way that we have internalized a sense of limitation; how so many in our community have come to expect so little of ourselves.

We have to say to our children, Yes, if you’re African American, the odds of growing up amid crime and gangs are higher. Yes, if you live in a poor neighborhood, you will face challenges that someone in a wealthy suburb does not. But that’s not a reason to get bad grades, that’s not a reason to cut class, that’s not a reason to give up on your education and drop out of school. No one has written your destiny for you. Your destiny is in your hands – and don’t you forget that.

To parents, we can’t tell our kids to do well in school and fail to support them when they get home. For our kids to excel, we must accept our own responsibilities. That means putting away the Xbox and putting our kids to bed at a reasonable hour. It means attending those parent-teacher conferences, reading to our kids, and helping them with their homework.

And it means we need to be there for our neighbor’s son or daughter, and return to the day when we parents let each other know if we saw a child acting up. That’s the meaning of community. That’s how we can reclaim the strength, the determination, the hopefulness that helped us come as far as we already have.

It also means pushing our kids to set their sights higher. They might think they’ve got a pretty good jump shot or a pretty good flow, but our kids can’t all aspire to be the next LeBron or Lil Wayne. I want them aspiring to be scientists and engineers, doctors and teachers, not just ballers and rappers. I want them aspiring to be a Supreme Court Justice. I want them aspiring to be President of the United States.

So, yes, government must be a force for opportunity. Yes, government must be a force for equality. But ultimately, if we are to be true to our past, then we also have to seize our own destiny, each and every day.

That is what the NAACP is all about. The NAACP was not founded in search of a handout. The NAACP was not founded in search of favors. The NAACP was founded on a firm notion of justice; to cash the promissory note of America that says all our children, all God’s children, deserve a fair chance in the race of life.

It is a simple dream, and yet one that has been denied – one still being denied – to so many Americans. It’s a painful thing, seeing that dream denied. I remember visiting a Chicago school in a rough neighborhood as a community organizer, and thinking how remarkable it was that all of these children seemed so full of hope, despite being born into poverty, despite being delivered into addiction, despite all the obstacles they were already facing.

And I remember the principal of the school telling me that soon all of that would begin to change; that soon, the laughter in their eyes would begin to fade; that soon, something would shut off inside, as it sunk in that their hopes would not come to pass – not because they weren’t smart enough, not because they weren’t talented enough, but because, by accident of birth, they didn’t have a fair chance in life.

So, I know what can happen to a child who doesn’t have that chance. But I also know what can happen to a child who does. I was raised by a single mother. I don’t come from a lot of wealth. I got into my share of trouble as a kid. My life could easily have taken a turn for the worse. But that mother of mine gave me love; she pushed me, and cared about my education; she took no lip and taught me right from wrong. Because of her, I had a chance to make the most of my abilities. I had the chance to make the most of my opportunities. I had the chance to make the most of life.

The same story holds for Michelle. The same story holds for so many of you. And I want all the other Barack Obamas out there, and all the other Michelle Obamas out there, to have that same chance – the chance that my mother gave me; that my education gave me; that the United States of America gave me. That is how our union will be perfected and our economy rebuilt. That is how America will move forward in the next one hundred years.

And we will move forward. This I know – for I know how far we have come. Last week, in Ghana, Michelle and I took Malia and Sasha to Cape Coast Castle, where captives were once imprisoned before being auctioned; where, across an ocean, so much of the African-American experience began. There, reflecting on the dungeon beneath the castle church, I was reminded of all the pain and all the hardships, all the injustices and all the indignities on the voyage from slavery to freedom.

But I was also reminded of something else. I was reminded that no matter how bitter the rod or how stony the road, we have persevered. We have not faltered, nor have we grown weary. As Americans, we have demanded, strived for, and shaped a better destiny.

That is what we are called to do once more. It will not be easy. It will take time. Doubts may rise and hopes recede.

But if John Lewis could brave Billy clubs to cross a bridge, then I know young people today can do their part to lift up our communities.

If Emmet Till’s uncle Mose Wright could summon the courage to testify against the men who killed his nephew, I know we can be better fathers and brothers, mothers and sisters in our own families.

If three civil rights workers in Mississippi – black and white, Christian and Jew, city-born and country-bred – could lay down their lives in freedom’s cause, I know we can come together to face down the challenges of our own time. We can fix our schools, heal our sick, and rescue our youth from violence and despair.

One hundred years from now, on the 200^th anniversary of the NAACP, let it be said that this generation did its part; that we too ran the race; that full of the faith that our dark past has taught us, full of the hope that the present has brought us, we faced, in our own lives and all across this nation, the rising sun of a new day begun. Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.