CAN WE BEGIN AN HONEST DISCUSSION ON RACE?

Barack Obama's speech on race has caused many people in America to begin talking about the subject. Most black people talk about race daily. We function every day on whether any experiences we undergo have a racial tinge to them.
We can wonder, was the service at a restaurant just poor, or did we get poor service because we are black? We notice if the waitress treats others the same way we get treated. Then our minds can rest because we see the same poor service is evenly distributed.
I recently had a cop pull me over after I passed his parked car and looked at him. My mind immediately questioned whether he truly pulled me over for speeding or did he do so once he saw I was black-and then decide to say I was speeding? Especially in light of the fact that I didn't get a ticket.
On and on, in the everyday activities of a black person, we wonder in the back and forefront of our minds what race has to do with it.
The biggest question regarding race is how honest we want to be about it. Sadly, every word uttered in a conversation about race between the races in America is subject to the "racism" charge. Recently, during an interview on a radio station, Barack Obama referred to his grandmother as a "typical white person." That comment immediately caused a lot of flap.
His opponents and many on conservative talk radio jumped on his use of the word "typical." Yet if you think about Barack Obama's experience in growing up in this country, all of his relatives in this country during his entire formative years were white. His cousins, his aunts, his uncles, his nieces and nephews. All are white. And Barack, because of who he is within the family, was able to see things that no child who only visits or is the adopted relative ever truly does.
But I have to wonder why there was such outrage from some in white America over his use of the word "typical"? Who better than Obama, who has one foot in the white world and the other in the black world and has lived the experience, to truly be able to make an observation and label it as "typical."
Barack Obama also didn't have a single blood relative in this entire country who was black until his children were born. Yet white America because Barack Obama is half-black has completely given him over to black America. Why is that? How is it that Barack's black half has more power than his white half? How is it that someone who spent all his formative years with a white mother, white grandparent and around all their white friends can now be criticized for using the term "typical white person"?
Yet at the same time, he is expected to explain or defend black America-a black America he didn't grow up in and only came to be a part of once he was grown. Those same pundits who raged that Obama used the word "typical" don't seem to have a problem posing questions to Obama to explain a community he didn't grow up in. I saw one interview where Obama was asked to explain black patriotism, as if our patriotism is somehow different.
At the same time, I am not seeing anyone questioning why whites are so quick to vilify and deny someone who is one half of them?
Most whites, I suspect, are very uncomfortable with the race conversation because for many of them it will be the first time in their lives that they have to address their own racial being. I remember having a conversation with a co-worker years ago and because I felt comfortable with her, I asked her if she ever thinks about being white. The question kind of stunned her because, as she confessed to me, she didn't.
So I am curious and perhaps my white readers can respond. How often do you think about being white? If you live in a predominantly white area, do you think about how white it is? When you see your children's class picture and it's filled with other white children, do you wonder why there aren't any black children in the picture? Or do you just accept it as being part of "normalcy"?
If we are to honestly explore the racial dynamics of this country, we are all going to have to get thicker skin. Curious questions need to be asked and answered without fear that one party is "racist" while the other is the "victim."
Let the discussions begin!

Property Values Falling - Will Our Property Taxes Fall As Well?

Foreclosures. Properties sitting vacants for months. An over abundance of condominiums on the market. Yet our Mayor calls for people to do a Board of Review appeal rather than a true reassessment of all properties.

For those that don't kow, your tax amounts are set by the Cook County Assessor who gets those rates based on the city council vote for the tax amounts. Once the Assessor asses your properties based on number of bathrooms, fireplace or not, finished basement or not, brick or frame, slab or basement, etc. you are assesed on those features. The only thing you can do with the Assessor is certify the validity of them taxing you for a finished attic when all you have is a crawl space.

Once the taxes are assessed, you can then file a request with the Board of Review to appeal your tax amounts. That is what Daley is calling for. Yet as the price of Chicago properties are falling, shouldn't we all be reassessed downward first?

However, since the current option is to appeal your assessment, I urge people to go do. Every dime we can save is money the city won't waste.

Our Children Problems Begin at Home

The acorn doesn't fall far from the tree. That's one of the first things that came to mind after hearing of the latest killings of young black children by other young black children on the West Side over the past couple of weeks. From the murder of Kadeidrah Lynn Marsh to the murder of Ruben Ivy, there must be something wrong in the families of the individuals who murdered them.
How many of us can look at our blocks, neighbors and friends and see in their children the makings of a future criminal? How many of us know uncontrollable children being raised by out-of-control or unconcerned adults? How many of us are shocked when certain young people end up on the wrong side of the law-especially when we watched them grow up being the "bad kid on the block"?
Yet even though it is the easiest thing in the world to blame the families, we must, as a neighborhood and community, step up to the plate regarding our involvement or lack thereof in the lives of those children who end up being the local neighborhood terrorist. When we sit on our buns and don't do a damn thing, we are just as much to blame as the child who pulls the trigger.
I remember several years ago being at the park and having some smart-mouth young boys give me grief. It was almost 9 p.m. and they were still outside, as if they didn't have a care in the world. What one of the boys didn't know is that I knew his grandmother. I knew her to be a religious woman who didn't take a lot of nonsense. Yet here it was late at night and her grandson was out at a time when I felt he should have been home. When I mentioned my encounter with her grandson, she was appreciative to hear about his behavior. Yet in the back of my mind, I wondered why in the world would she have permitted him to be out so late?
How many people are open to hearing that they need to get a grip on their children and grandchildren? Most of us don't want to hear or be criticized for the method and manner in which we raise our children. My friend did listen to what I said about her grandson, but it was a slippery slope. One misstep in what I was saying could lead her from nodding in agreement to defending her child and telling me off for not "minding my own business."
Part of the problem, as I see it, is that we have good people trying to raise children, but they are at the same time tired and overwhelmed. As a community, we have for far too long accepted the "single mama" or "grandmother" raising-of-children concept.
At the same time, we have accepted the irresponsibility of men who father children and don't stick around to raise them. We are failing to acknowledge how much the world has changed and the difficulty and exhaustion caused by raising children in the 21st century. Whereas there was a time when we could, by words alone, instill "the fear of God" in our children, society has now done its part to tell our children if we whip them or threaten to whip them, they can call DCFS and be protected.
A few weeks back, I wrote about our state legislators patting themselves on the back for instituting "a moment of silence" in school. At that time, I wrote we needed a corresponding and mandatory class called "the consequences of your actions." The recent murders show that our young people are acting without thinking. Then their parent will claim their child is a "good child." But that "good child" didn't think. They didn't pause for one second and say to themselves, "If I shoot and kill this other person, I will go to jail. I will get locked up and be a murderer. I will cause grief to my family and to the family of the person I killed." Becoming "scared" after the fact doesn't change the reality that the young person is now a murderer. Praying to God once they have done their dirty deed isn't the same as praying to God before they act and asking him to show them a different path.
If we, as parents, are to be successful, we need to begin to reiterate to our children that they must "THINK!" They must know and acknowledge that for every action, there is a reaction. If you touch a hot stove, you will get burned. If you shoot and kill someone, you will go to jail and possibly the electric chair. Illinois currently only has a moratorium on the death penalty. We haven't abolished it.

Cook County Tax Increase

made a huge pot of Chili a couple of weeks ago. Most people like saltines with their chili. I like Ritz Crackers. But I can't afford Ritz Crackers. So for as long as I can remember, I've been buying Ritz-type snack crackers at Aldi's. And for as long as I can remember, those crackers cost me 99 cents a box.
So imagine my shock when I went into Aldi's and their version of Ritz Crackers was now $1.39. That's 40 cents more than I had expected pay. Percentage-wise that's close to a 50-percent increase in price. I was shocked. If one box of crackers can now be so much more, what happens if everything we buy is now that much more?
I began checking with others who shop at Aldi's. Like me, they all remember the crackers being 99 cents. One person did mention $1.29, but 99 cents has been ingrained in people's minds for so long, it's the amount that comes to most folk's minds right away.
As I began to talk with different people about the price of food, one thing became perfectly clear. We can hear different economists argue over whether this country is in a recession or not, but food prices are going sky high, and being able to eat is going to get harder for most people.
With gas hovering over $3 a gallon and many economists claiming the price may rise to $4 a gallon by June, then our food prices will increase to make up the added cost of getting that food to market. As our energy prices rise, so will everything else.
If memories of going to the gas station and buying $2 worth of gas are fading, so will the memory of being able to go to the store and buy milk and cereal for $5.
As we struggle to handle paying higher and higher food prices, we now must contend with the Cook County board increasing our sales taxes-especially when everything else is rising in cost.
I have decided to protest by spending as little money as humanly possible in Cook County. I already combine my trips so that my gas purchases are always outside of the City of Chicago. Now I will have to make sure my food, clothing and everything else is done outside Cook County. For those of us on the West Side, it may mean traveling to Elmhurst, Schaumburg or Oak Brook. But when making a major purchase, the savings can be tremendous.
The only ones who will truly have to pay the new taxes are the poor who don't have a car to travel outside of the county to shop. These are the same folks the Cook County board tries to claim they are helping. But in reality, they have instituted a plan that will, in the long run, hurt the ones who least can afford it.
When re-election time comes, let us remember those who voted to hurt our pocketbooks the most, while claiming they increased the taxes to help us.

Where's the Outrage? Where's the Anger?

I just got the second installment on my tax bill and the amount went up over 75 percent. That was after I had gone to the Board of Review and appealed my taxes. Otherwise my taxes would have gone up over 100 percent. As our elected officials continue to spend tax dollars as if we are supposed to work for them, I have a question: Where is the anger and where is the outrage?
One of my best friends called me up. She's selling her house and moving to the southern suburbs. She can no longer take the filth and drug dealers on every corner. She's been very active in the community but can't take it here anymore. As Austin continues to lose good people like her every day, I have a question: Where is the anger and where is the outrage?
We have had a number of young black men shot and killed in Chicago for who knows what reasons. Earl "Tony" Hughes was the latest to die. He was shot and killed a block from my house. When there is a fire in the community and people die, firemen go door-to-door passing out fliers and smoke detectors. Yet when a young man is murdered, why haven't we seen an initiative from the CPD to go door-to-door, passing out fliers, and asking people to report anything they might have seen? We have a cold-blooded murderer running loose on the streets of Austin. I have a question: Where is the anger and where is the outrage?
In 1988, people in the North Austin community marched at the corner of North and Cicero avenues, demanding that the CTA move their bus barn from that location so we could get a grocery store and shopping center on that corner. It took 14 years to get Washington Square Plaza. After losing Cub foods, we went through the holiday season last year without a grocery store. Now a year later, the shuttered location which was home to that crappy Grand Mart International (ha ha, now that's a joke!) food store is gone, and we again will go through a holiday season without a grocery store. I have a question: Where is the anger and where is the outrage?
Mayor Daley recently announced he was going to cut back on the amount of property tax increases he was requesting in his 2008 city budget. First he asked for a huge increase and proclaimed the money was needed, then he backtracks and claims the city can function on less. It makes me wonder if the initial increase was just pure greed for all his pet projects and to make us pay for all the cost overruns (just think Millennium Park and O'Hare Airport) and lawsuit damages paid out for the behavior of rogue cops. I have a question: Where is the anger and where is the outrage?
The CTA just put many of its riders through mental hell-twice. In proclaiming that the agency didn't have money and was about to shut down a number of bus lines, the CTA also managed to place on every bus stop a colored notice. The CTA also took out a full color ad in a number of newspapers telling us about their pending financial crisis. It's amazing-the CTA could on one hand threaten the safety and livelihoods of the people who need it the most while spending money for color posters and ads. I have a question: Where is the anger and where is the outrage?
Every year about now we get reports about the lack of city contracts to black people. Every year our black aldermen act like it is a surprise to see that we get so little of the money we pay in taxes coming back to our community. Every year the aldermen puff up their chests and act outraged while every other ethnic group in this city reaps the reward of city contracts and we who represent almost 50 percent of the city population receive a paltry 9 percent of the contracts. I have a question: Where is the anger and where is the outrage?
Sadly, I have an answer to my own question about the anger and outrage.
There isn't any!

Are you Joshua or are you Moses?

I offer sympathy to the family of Blair Holt. He was the young honor student killed last week on the bus at 103rd and Ada.

Since his murder, I've been seeing many of the usual suspects. The mayor harps on gun control-but not on unemployment issues, inflation, misuse of monies by the public schools for security, lack of after-school activities as well as poor funding for the park district-as the main factor. To him, it's just gun control.

Once the mayor speaks, we can be assured that 99 percent of our black elected officials will say nothing. The ministers got on the bus, prayed and sang. Yet the average business district block in the black community filled with storefront churches that employ no one and that are closed more than they are open. Do those churches really grasp the community needs or are they just part-time visitors to it?

Callers to WVON 1690-AM spewed forth opinions and solutions. One caller wants "them" all shipped off to an Alcatraz-type island, another blames the white man, and even more just call on God.

Truthfully, I don't think those in the "status quo" of authority are interested in doing or changing anything. Why? Let's go back to the case of Robert "Yummy" Sandifer. Many have forgotten what happened in August and September 1994. So allow me refresh your memories.
In August of 1994, a beautiful 14-year-old black girl named Shavon Dean was shot and killed. Just like Blair Holt, she was the innocent victim when some gang members got to shooting. Her murder sent shivers through Roseland, and the police came down hard looking for the shooter.

The heat was on because of her murder and many criminal activities had to be curtailed.
The police began to focus on a suspect. Robert "Yummy" Sandifer. He was called Yummy because of his love of cookies and junk food. He was well known throughout the Roseland community and because of his association with the Black Disciples. He and his "crew" were known to sell drugs, steal, and set fires. When news got around to the rest of his gang members that the police were looking for Yummy, others members of his gang got nervous. If Yummy was caught and started talking, a lot of them would be in trouble. So the word was put out on the street to take Yummy out.

Two of his fellow gang members, Derrick Hardaway, 16, and his brother Cragg, 14, both honor students, lured Yummy into a viaduct. He was found days later shot twice in the back of the head-execution style!

By the way, for those who have long forgotten, Yummy was 11 years old at the time of his death.
Derrick was sentenced to 45 years in jail and Cragg to 60.

After the murder of Yummy and the incarceration of the Hardaway brothers, there was outrage-outrage that lasted a while. But then it faded, and now here we are, 13 years later and the same-o-same-o has again happened. Children with a gun killing another child. Many of the same folks who were outraged 13 years ago are outraged today. But 13 years after the deaths of Shavon and Yummy, can anyone tell me anything what has been put into place so a senseless murder of one child by another won't ever happen again?

Well, truthfully and sadly, not much has changed.

As we look at the black community, where are the jobs for our teenagers? Had there been after-school activities, would Blair still have ended up dead? The city constantly cries broke while having money for Olympics bids, for Looptopia and for every whim the mayor fancies. That's how the mayor can give Loyola, a private institution, up to $46 million in TIF funds even though it doesn't pay taxes. We can have, as the Chicago Reader pointed out last week, young black kids who are hurdlers practicing in the hallways at Lane Tech because we don't have a single indoor fieldhouse for any of the public schools. Worst, the city is getting ready to give Ziegler Financial, a $3.2 billion investment company, $2.7 million to consolidate its offices in downtown Chicago.

As adults, we permit, tolerate, and, basically by doing nothing, encourage what has been going on to keep going on. We are not mad. We are not angry. We aren't even sick and tired of being sick and tired. Instead we've given up. We sit transfixed by the television and await the riches the prosperity ministries say we're due.

There's a popular sermon that many progressive ministers are giving. It's called the Joshua/Moses Syndrome. The premise of that sermon is that although Moses was used to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt to the Promised Land, it was Joshua who was destined to lead them to possess the land. It's the same thing when it comes to ending violence by young people against young people.

So my heart and soul were lifted as I looked at the front pages of the papers and saw the young students from Julian High School walking out and marching to end the violence. March on you young Joshuas! And to the Moses, please just go somewhere and sit down! Your job is done!

The Power of Words

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Disclaimer: The following story is entirely a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely co-incidental.

Carmen woke up upon hearing the loud bang on the door. As she crawled out of bed and peeked through her bedroom door, she could hear the loud male voices. She saw guns. Really big guns! She heard the men screaming to her mother, "Where is Cortez?" "We want Cortez!"

Her father was hiding by the side of her bed. As her mother pointed to the bedroom door, Carmen saw the word ICE on the back of their coats. She had seen that word on the TV news. She had seen men taken away in handcuffs and now they were here at her house. Even though Carmen was only 6 years old, her eyes grew wide as she read that word again and looked at her father.

Suddenly the door flew open. The men dressed in black grabbed her daddy and threw him across the bed. Her father shouted, "I know what I did was wrong. It was illegal. But I had to feed my family." Cortez pointed to Carmen and then to the baby sleeping in his crib. The men in the black jackets didn't care. "Come with us," they shouted as they handcuffed him and took him from the house.

Carmen ran from the room and found her mother. "Why are they doing that to my daddy?" she cried. Carmen looked at her father and thought of how much she loved playing with him before he went to work. Every day, Carmen would watch from her bedroom window as her father and the other men would gather on the corner. As a car pulled up, the men would surge toward it. Each of the men, just like her daddy, had children and the money they made would go toward feeding those children.

Carmen and her daddy had a special routine. Every day as he got to the corner, he would pretend to search the sky for her. Carmen would jump up and down and wave until finally her daddy waved back. No matter the weather, they played the same game. When it was cold, Cortez would take off his cap and wave it. When it was raining, he would lift the hood of his jacket back and give her the biggest grin.

Every day they did this and now Carmen's daddy was gone!
Carmen threw herself upon her bed. She grabbed the covers tightly and pulled them close to her nose so she could smell the cologne her daddy always wore. She thought back to the night before when she had snuck out of bed to listen to her mommy and daddy talk. Carmen wasn't able to hear the entire conversation, but what she did hear were words like "illegal," "trouble," and "if they come for me." She even heard her father tell her mother what to do in case he didn't come home. Her mother had cried and begged her father not to go. Cortez told his wife he had to take the risk. He had to work. Years ago he had wanted to be a roofing contractor or maybe even involved in lawn care by doing professional landscape architecture. But he didn't have his papers to do it.

Now as Carmen and her mother watched, the men in the black vests escorted her father to the car in the street. Carmen could see her father's head hanging low. Tears ran down Carmen's face as her father was placed into the back of the car. Her father looked up one last time at the window. This time he didn't wave. He couldn't. His hands were cuffed and as the car prepared to drive off, Carmen could see tears rolling down her father's face. Cortez had never wanted his children to see him like this. As he mumbled to the men getting in the car about just wanting to feed his kids, they told him they didn't care.

"We are a nation of laws and you have broken the law. Whatever your reasons, our job is to uphold the law. If you don't like the law, why didn't you and all your friends do something about it? You should have marched. You should have protested. You should have held a rally and gotten the mayor and all the politicians to come to it and speak about how they could help you. You should have had the Cook County board declare the county a sanctuary for you. How come with three congressmen in this city, all three of them don't use their position to always call attention to your issues? Why don't they tie your issues to any legislation pending that gives amnesty to those who immigrated here illegally?"

Oh, by the way, Cortez's last name is Johnson. And no, he's not an illegal immigrant. He is a previously incarcerated individual and a street pharmacist (ex-offender & drug dealer). The men in black coats were the POLICE and in Illinois, ex-offenders cannot be a roofing contractor or do professional landscape architecture or even become a barber without a license. To get a license, they have to be granted "a waiver based on internal criteria as well as the type of conviction (non-violent, misdemeanor or felony). A waiver is determined on a case-by-case basis by each occupational licensing committee."
This story doesn't have an ending "moral" like in most fairy tales, but it is a reminder of the power that words have. Those words can paint a picture. They can make you think one way or have the exact opposite meaning. If I had you believing that the story was about an illegal alien, read it again.

Words do have power. Our constitution is made up of words. The Ten Commandments are words. Every human being on this planet has developed language which is nothing more than words. That's why terms such as "previously incarcerated individual" sound better than "ex-offender" or "ex-convict" and "street pharmacist" is more palatable than "drug dealer."
As our politicians sit down to discuss what to do about illegal immigrants, let us remind them that we have ex-felons who need their help first and foremost. Any path to citizenship/legalization for illegals must include a path to expungement/restitution for ex-offenders. With 25,000 ex-offenders returning to Chicago annually, prisons should be about reform and offer them real opportunities so that we are not the victims of their recidivism. They are U.S. citizens and, most importantly, they have paid the jail time price that this society has placed on them. Their issues should be placed before legalizing those whose mere presence is breaking the law.