The Buie Knife

Wealth Gap Between Blacks, Whites Grew Larger 2001-2008

Tony Racina's assertion that African Americans should thank their lucky stars that their ancestors were born into slavery and segregation because they now have the opportunity to fully achieve the American dream ignores the reality that blacks still face a rather staggering wealth divide in relation to whites. It's not surprising that the net worth of the average American is less than it was in 2001. But it is sad and shocking that "the gap between the wealth of white Americans and African Americans has grown. According to the Fed, for every dollar of wealth held by the typical white family, the African American family has only one dime. In 2004, it had 12 cents." -- Meizhu Lui, in a Washington Post column. She is director of the Closing the Racial Wealth Gap Initiative and author of The Color of Wealth: The Story Behind the U.S. Racial Wealth Divide.

Obama's Justice Department and Philadelphia's New Black Panthers

A mass email is circulating claiming Obama's Justice Department, for political reasons, dropped charges of voter intimidation by the New Black Panthers in Philadelphia. Not surprisingly, Fox News and the Washington Times are spreading this meme, continuing in their sure-to-fail quest to equate Obama with black radicals. Joel Mathis of the Philadelphia Weekly had a good analysis of the case. Yes, the panther with the night stick might have made some folks feel intimidated. What the WT & Fox coverage fails to mention is that two black panthers were escorted away from the polls by police on election day, there was absolutely no evidence that any voters were intimidated. The mass email fails to mention that a federal judge approved a judgment against a third New Black Panther Party member, Minister King Samir Shabazz, aka Maurice Heath of Philadelphia, forbidding him from "displaying a weapon within 100 feet of any open polling location on any election day in the City of Philadelphia."

As Vestiges of Segregation Endure, Documentaries Help to Confront Racism, Bring Racial Healing

Shockingly, in some parts of the South, segregated high school proms are still being held. The New York Times spotlights segregated prom nights in Mount Vernon, Ga.

Despite the old reputation of Southerners as more bigoted than the rest of the nation, in my own experience and observation, many Southerners are more liberated from the shackles of racism than people from other regions because they have had to CONSCIOUSLY and deliberately BREAK from what were once Southern social norms. Several white Southerners have told me recently that they felt they were rebelling against the teachings of their parents and grandparents when they voted for Barack Obama for President (Obama won the Southern states of Virginia, North Carolina and Florida.)

It is important for these stories of breaking racial barriers to be told, and increasingly they are being told: 

• A documentary film, "Landscapes of the Heart" is being made of the life of Elizabeth Spencer, a native Mississippian, born in 1921, who rebelled against racial injustice and was disinherited by her father. The film is based on her memoir by the same title. I've had the privilege to meet Elizabeth Spencer, who now resides in Chapel Hill, on several occasions.
• The film will join a strong collection of documentaries about race in North Carolina. Four such films were part of an excellent film festival in Chatham County, sponsored by the Chatham Arts Council. I hope arts councils in other counties in the South will consider similar film festivals, as that is one way to acknowledge the racial injustices of the past that still have an impact on the present. The discussions that surround these films can lead to community healing.
• Another documentary, “The Town Before Brown: Segregation in Chapel Hill, NC, Prior to 1954," explodes the myth that Chapel Hill was always a liberal town on the issue of race. Indeed, for most of the 1960s, it was just as racist and segregated as other Southern towns. Written, produced and directed by UNC Education Professor Gerald Unks, it's an important contribution to understanding the pervasiveness of segregation in the South.
• "An Unlikely Friendship" is a documentary about the remarkable relationship between two Durham, NC residents, an outspoken Black activist, Ann Atwater, and an embittered Klansman, C.P. Ellis.
• A book I wrote, Teacher of Our Town, about the experiences of my mother, Lillian Secrest Buie, were similar to those of Elizabeth Spencer. Born in 1920 in Monroe, NC, a school teacher in Scotland County, NC for most of her career, she also risked the condemnation of her contemporaries to speak out and work against racial injustice. Some examples of her moral courage on race relations are posted here.
• The Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina has a blog for the Bishop's Committee for Racial Justice and Reconciliation. "The mission of the Anti-Racism Committee of the Diocese of North Carolina is, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to transform our congregational and diocesan structures, communities, and personal lives to eliminate racism."

Previously, in response to an evocative newspaper series called "The Ghosts of 1898," about the only violent overthrow of a city government in US history. I wrote "Truth and Reconciliation in North Carolina,". In that piece, I suggested that the only way for true healing to occur is that we must tell the painful stories of the past, in the presence of the descendants of those who have been most hurt. I'm glad to see that is now happening in the South.

Perhaps Obama's Greatest Accomplishment: Dramatically Improved Perceptions of Race Relations

Perhaps Barack Obama's greatest accomplishment so far has less to do with what he's done and more to do with who he is. Just as John Kennedy shattered a barrier for Roman Catholics, Barack Obama's election has meant a dramatically improved perception of race relations between blacks and whites:

For the first time in CBS News polling history, a majority of blacks are casting race relations in the United States in a positive light. Fifty-nine percent of African-Americans - along with 65 percent of whites - now characterize the relationship between blacks and whites in America as "good," according to a new CBS News/New York Times survey. Less than a year ago, just 29 percent of blacks said race relations were good. The percentage of blacks who say race relations are bad, meanwhile, has dropped from 59 percent last July to 30 percent today.

Read the whole thing.

Drill Deeper:

• Voices Reflect Rising Sense of Racial Optimism (NYTIMES)
• Teaching African-American History in the Age of Obama
• Mrs. Obama Visits Students as Motivator in Chief (NYTIMES)
  

'Old Sins Cast Long Shadows'

"The sins of the fathers (and mothers) will be visited on the children to the third and fourth generation." (Exodus 20: 5; 34:7).

Those old aphorisms are worthy of personal reflection. They came to mind in discussing both personal family histories, political history and racial history. In America we are less inclined to believe old sins cast long shadows and that the sins of the parents are visited upon the children of the third and fourth generation, because our country was founded on the notion that we can break from the sins of the old world by starting over in the New World, and we can break from the mistakes of the past by simply moving -- generally either West to California or South to Florida.

But sometimes there is denial in believing we can escape history. Sometimes it is better to stay and confront it, deal with it, accept it, gradually try responsibly to overcome it. Other times a fresh start is truly possible. Most of us by a certain age have experienced both the liberation of the fresh start and the problems that linger even after we thought they had been vanquished. We have experienced the imprisonment of dwelling or brooding too much on the past, as well as the illusion or the fantasy that we can entirely escape the past. Sometimes we can and sometimes we can't. Wisdom is knowing the difference.

An extreme example of the former is the Middle East conflict, where it seems grievances from long ago perpetuate an endless cycle of violence. An extreme example of the latter is Clark Rockefeller, who tried to escape his personal history by moving and changing his identity. But it eventually caught up with him.

I believe our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents influence us directly and indirectly beyond our knowing, by both their presence and absence, by the choices they made or didn't make. That's why it's so fascinating to study family history. And yet it's also possible to be too attached to that history, to rest on their laurels or make the same mistakes they made because we have never fully individuated. We unconsciously repeat patterns and mistakes until we become conscious of them. Psychologist Carl Jung said that the second half of life should mainly be concerned with individuation, separating ourselves from the sins of our forebears by making the unconscious conscious.

John Hope Franklin, RIP

Duke University historian John Hope Franklin died today at the age of 94. I had the privilege of doing a video interview with him for the NC NAACP in 2007.There's lots of other video and background information on the Duke website as well. It's worth reading and reflecting on his seminal life in the history of civil rights in America.

Related:

• Civil Rights Blog

'Tsunami': Massive Wave of Prisoners Re-entering Society. Will They Find the Infrastructure and Support to Avoid Recidivism?

With state and federal governments under immense pressure to cut costs, legislators have decided that one sensible and prudent way to do that is to reduce mass incarceration. The U.S. incarcerates a higher percentage of its population than even Russia (source). Nationally, one out of every 31 adults is currently under correctional control (it's one out of 38 in North Carolina). Non-violent offenders are locked away for years, costing taxpayers $30,000 a year or more, when they might otherwise be productive taxpaying citizens.

The federal government began to recognize how imprudent the policy of mass incarceration was in 2008, when President Bush signed the Second Chance Act nearly unanimously, to help prisoners re-enter society. The legislation authorized $165 million per year "to experiment with efforts like more schooling and drug treatment inside prison and aid with housing, employment and the building of family and community ties after release."(NYT article).

The NAACP and other organizations want to accelerate the process. They are promoting alternatives to incarceration, especially for non-violent drug offenders.

Between 2008 and 2018, approximately 650,000 people will be released from state and federal prisons EACH YEAR. Dennis Gaddy, executive director of North Carolina's Community Success Initiative, calls it "a tsunami, the mighty wave of people who will hit the beaches of our communities over the next ten years." He writes: "In North Carolina, that will translate into about 25,000 people being released per year for the next decade, or approximately 250,000 people." His article describes the systematic infrastructure that needs to be created so that society can receive former prisoners and "insure their access to quality social services" so that they do not become repeat offenders.

In Sunday's NYT, Leslie Berlin focused on ex-prisoners as entrepreneurs, getting training to run businesses. The article focuses on Prison Entrepreneurship Programs.

An important ingredient in building the infrastructure for re-entry will be volunteers from churches and other community organizations, through prison ministries and programs like Goodwork.org of Durham.

The NC Second Chance Alliance is promoting state legislation to study the barriers facing former prisoners and people with criminal records who've paid their debt to society and are seeking a second chance.

Drill Deeper:

• Another Byproduct of the Recession: Ex-Convicts (Time)
• NC Re-Entry Action Project
• Can Juvenile Offenders Be Rehabilitated?
  

The African American Experience to the Tune of the Star-Spangled Banner As Sung By the Dells

This was played at the NC NAACP Winter Meeting to sustained applause at the end. Direct Link: Click.

We Stand on the Shoulders of the Great Figures of History. One of Them Was Lyndon Baines Johnson

The president most responsible for the progress we have made in race relations since the 1960s has gotten far too little credit. I don't mean John F. Kennedy, I mean Lyndon Baines Johnson, a flawed but larger-than-life figure of Greek Tragedy dimensions, who did remarkable and great things in his first three years as president, 1964-67, before his Vietnam mistakes took him down. I recently watched this great PBS documentary on Johnson and was reminded of all he accomplished so quickly.

If the polls are right, Barack Obama will have the biggest electoral mandate since Lyndon Johnson's landslide in 1964. (Other presidents who won landslides since then -- Republicans Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan -- had to contend with Congresses controlled by Democrats). So Johnson's story is especially relevant today.

Richard Cohen in The Washington Post: "If the polls are right, if it don't rain and the creek don't rise, the winner of the presidential election is sure to be . . . Lyndon Baines Johnson. When he signed the epochal Civil Rights Act of 1964, Johnson knew he was also signing away the South and, with it, much of the white vote elsewhere as well. "We have lost the South for a generation," he supposedly said back then. For that generation, time's up...Barack Obama is a confirmational figure, and this election confirms what has been gradually occurring in American society ever since that July day when Johnson virtually outlawed most forms of racial segregation in America. We've been transforming ever since....(A post-racial society) was the dream of the man who is buried on his beloved ranch -- the unheralded winner of this election. As he would put it: My fellow Americans, we have overcome. Lyndon Baines Johnson, RIP."

Related:

• My Experience Meeting Lyndon Baines Johnson (letter my mother wrote)
• Mac Secrest Recalls Meeting Lyndon Johnson

How Obama Is Bringing the Races Together

I daresay this is happening all over the country:

View this video on WashingtonPost.com

Related:

• Is This What the Republican Party Really Thinks of Blacks?? Racists Come Out of the Woodwork
• Unconscious Racism: Racism Without Racists
• 'Everybody's a Little Bit Racist'
• Black Man, White House: What the First African American President Would Mean for Black America