The Curry Report
December 18, 2008
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In This Issue
Civil Rights Movement Inspires Blacks Abroad
Obama's True Colors: Black, white ... or neither?...
Roads, Trains Can't Handle Jan. 20 Droves.
Source: Blagojevich Nixed job for Jackson Jr.'s Wife after He Refused $25K Donation
Obama's Senate List a Big Miss
U.S. Losing Ground on Education
Civil Rights Movement Inspires Blacks Abroad
Curry Headshot 

By George E. Curry
NNPA Columnist

 

LONDON - A trip from Gatwick Airport to London's central city is visible confirmation that national entities are no longer restricted to imaginary geographical boundaries. Among the United States-based businesses passed en route were: Friday's, Pizza Hut, Texaco, Coca-Cola, Nike, a Chevrolet dealership, KFC, Hilton Hotel, Hyatt Hotel, Starbucks, McDonald's, Subway, Burger King and Blockbuster's.

But the leading U.S. import for Blacks living in the United Kingdom is the modern Civil Rights Movement.

That was made clear repeatedly this week as an American delegation accompanied Jesse Jackson to London, Birmingham, Leicester, Nottingham and Liverpool. Everywhere he went in the U.K., the civil rights leader was treated more like Michael Jackson than Jesse Jackson - he was hounded by people seeking autographs, photos or simply a peek at the former aide to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

At a stop at a local community center, for example, dozens of people lingered for more than an hour after Jackson's speech, ignoring repeated appeals from organizers to vacate the building. They weren't the only people waiting - there was intense media interest in interviewing Jackson. And he accommodated journalists, sometimes doing three or four back-to-back interviews.

"Barack Obama will be America's next president," Jackson told reporters. "He stands on the shoulders of many well-known and yet nameless and faceless freedom fighters who made this day possible."

While some African-Americans suffer through what could be called Jesse Fatigue - watching him on the national stage for more than four decades - Jackson is often treated like a head of state when traveling abroad. And when he interacts with Blacks, he gets the rock star treatment.

Karen Chouhan, the organizer of Jackson's trip to England, says Americans underestimate the impact of the Civil Rights Movement abroad.

"We see the example in the U.S. of the Civil Rights Movement, a struggle that has taken over 40 years, from when Black people had no right to vote to a Black president today," said Chouhan, head of Equanomics, a London-based organization that seeks economic parity for people of color. "It gives us hope that we can achieve the same thing."

Some activists here see a parallel between the plight of African-Americans in the U.S. and Blacks in Britain.

"In the London mayoral election, the person who became the mayor was known for having called Black people piccaninnies and saying they had 'watermelon smiles,'" recalled Chouhan. "Yet, he was still elected mayor of London. That's incredible in a city with a Black population of 38 percent. He appealed to Whites in the suburb and that's why he got elected. We can't let that happen again. We must use our voting power and our economic power to much greater effect."

Blacks here flock to Jackson in part because he remains King's most visible political heir.

At virtually every stop, he was asked whether a Barack Obama-like figure could become Prime Minister of Britain. Jackson flipped the question, asking if White voters here had matured enough to elect a qualified person of color. At that point, reporters usually shifted to another topic.

As Jackson acknowledges, he is not the first African-American to become involved in international affairs. Others that predate him include W.E. B. DuBois, Paul Robeson, Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X and Dr. King.

But the combination of the civil rights protest model, widely copied by other groups seeking to empower their communities, and the election of Obama on Nov. 4 has arguably made Jesse Jackson more popular abroad than he is at home. Each time he was introduced this week, the Civil Rights Movement or Jesse Jackson's 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns, or both were credited with paving the way for Obama's victory.

Without prompting, people were eager to discuss President-elect Obama.

"We're all excited about Obama," my driver, Renford Carr, told me on the trip from the airport. He jokingly asked, "Is it true that they are going to call the White House the Black House?"

Chouhan says she, too, is excited.

"It has given us permission to aspire, to hope that we can do that, too," she said. "The message of change, hope and equality is what we want to pick up. We already have change, we already have hope, but we don't have equality. That's what we want to accomplish."

Obama's victory has sparked calls for stronger ties among Black people around the world.

"If we can join hands across the water with the U.S., and if we can join hands in Europe and with Africa, that's the internationalization of the movement that we need," explained Chouhan. "It increases our clout. Together, we're stronger and Rev. Jackson is making that possible for us."


George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine and the NNPA News Service, is a keynote speaker, moderator, and media coach. He can be reached through his Web site, www.georgecurry.com.

 


Obama's True Colors: Black, white ... or neither?

Obama Speaking 
 
By Jesse Washington

December 12, 2008

� Associated Press

 

A perplexing new chapter is unfolding in Barack Obama's racial saga: Many people insist that "the first black president" is actually not black.

Debate over whether to call this son of a white Kansan and a black Kenyan biracial, African-American, mixed-race, half-and-half, multiracial - or, in Obama's own words, a "mutt" - has reached a crescendo since Obama's election shattered assumptions about race.

Obama has said, "I identify as African-American - that's how I'm treated and that's how I'm viewed. I'm proud of it." In other words, the world gave Obama no choice but to be black, and he was happy to oblige.

But the world has changed since the young Obama found his place in it.

Intermarriage and the decline of racism are dissolving ancient definitions. The candidate Obama, in achieving what many thought impossible, was treated differently from previous black generations. And many white and mixed-race people now view President-elect Obama as something other than black.

So what now for racial categories born of a time when those from far-off lands were property rather than people, or enemy instead of family?

"They're falling apart," said Marty Favor, a Dartmouth professor of African and African-American studies and author of the book "Authentic Blackness."

"In 1903, W.E.B. DuBois said the question of the 20th century is the question of the color line, which is a simplistic black-white thing," said Favor, who is biracial. "This is the moment in the 21st century when we're stepping across that."

Rebecca Walker, a 38-year-old writer with light brown skin who is of Russian, African, Irish, Scottish and Native American descent, said she used to identify herself as "human," which upset people of all backgrounds. So she went back to multiracial or biracial, "but only because there has yet to be a way of breaking through the need to racially identify and be identified by the culture at large."

"Of course Obama is black. And he's not black, too," Walker said. "He's white, and he's not white, too. Obama is whatever people project onto him ... he's a lot of things, and neither of them necessarily exclude the other."

But U.S. Rep. G. K. Butterfield, a black man who by all appearances is white, feels differently.

Butterfield, 61, grew up in a prominent black family in Wilson, N.C. Both of his parents had white forebears, "and those genes came together to produce me." He grew up on the black side of town, led civil rights marches as a young man, and to this day goes out of his way to inform people that he is certainly not white.

Butterfield has made his choice; he says let Obama do the same.

"Obama has chosen the heritage he feels comfortable with," he said. "His physical appearance is black. I don't know how he could have chosen to be any other race. Let's just say he decided to be white - people would have laughed at him."

"You are a product of your experience. I'm a U.S. congressman, and I feel some degree of discomfort when I'm in an all-white group. We don't have the same view of the world, our experiences have been different."

The entire issue balances precariously on the "one-drop" rule, which sprang from the slaveowner habit of dropping by the slave quarters and producing brown babies. One drop of black blood meant that person, and his or her descendants, could never be a full citizen.

Today, the spectrum of skin tones among African-Americans - even those with two black parents - is evidence of widespread white ancestry. Also, since blacks were often light enough to pass for white, unknown numbers of white Americans today have blacks hidden in their family trees.

One book, "Black People and their Place in World History," by Dr. Leroy Vaughn, even claims that five past presidents - Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge - had black ancestors, which would make Obama the sixth of his kind.

Mix in a few centuries' worth of Central, South and Native Americans, plus Asians, and untold millions of today's U.S. citizens need a DNA test to decipher their true colors. The melting pot is working.

Yet the world has never been confronted with such powerful evidence as Obama. So as soon as he was elected, the seeds of confusion began putting down roots.

"Let's not forget that he is not only the first African-American president, but the first biracial candidate. He was raised by a single white mother," a Fox News commentator said seven minutes after Obama was declared the winner.

"We do not have our first black president," the author Christopher Hitchens said on the BBC program "Newsnight." "He is not black. He is as black as he is white."

A Doonesbury comic strip that ran the day after the election showed several soldiers celebrating.

"He's half-white, you know," says a white soldier.

"You must be so proud," responds another.

Pride is the center of racial identity, and some white people seem insulted by a perception that Obama is rejecting his white mother (even though her family was a centerpiece of his campaign image-making) or baffled by the notion that someone would choose to be black instead of half-white.

"He can't be African-American. With race, white claims 50 percent of him and black 50 percent of him. Half a loaf is better than no loaf at all," Ron Wilson of Plantation, Fla., wrote in a letter to the Sun-Sentinel newspaper.

Attempts to whiten Obama leave a bitter taste for many African-Americans, who feel that at their moment of triumph, the rules are being changed to steal what once was deemed worthless - blackness itself.

"For some people it's honestly confusion," said Favor, the Dartmouth professor. "For others it's a ploy to sort of reclaim the presidency for whiteness, as though Obama's blackness is somehow mitigated by being biracial."

Then there are the questions remaining from Obama's entry into national politics, when some blacks were leery of this Hawaiian-born newcomer who did not share their history.

Linda Bob, a black schoolteacher from Eustis, Fla., said that calling Obama black when he was raised in a white family and none of his ancestors experienced slavery could cause some to ignore or forget the history of racial injustice.

"It just seems unfair to totally label him African-American without acknowledging that he was born to a white mother," she said. "It makes you feel like he doesn't have a class, a group."

There is at least one group eagerly waiting for Obama to embrace them. "To me, as to increasing numbers of mixed-race people, Barack Obama is not our first black president. He is our first biracial, bicultural president ... a bridge between races, a living symbol of tolerance, a signal that strict racial categories must go," Marie Arana wrote in the Washington Post.

He's a bridge between eras as well. The multiracial category "wasn't there when I was growing up," said John McWhorter, a 43-year-old fellow at the Manhattan Institute's Center for Race and Ethnicity, who is black. "In the '70s and the '80s, if somebody had one white parent and one black parent, the idea was they were black and had better get used to it and develop this black identity. That's now changing."

Latinos, whom the census identifies as an ethnic group and not a race, were not counted separately by the government until the 1970s. After the 1990 census, many people complained that the four racial categories - white, black, Asian, and American Indian/Alaska native - did not fit them. The government then allowed people to check more than one box. (It also added a fifth category, for Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders.)

Six million people, or 2 percent of the population, now say they belong to more than one race, according to the most recent census figures. Another 19 million people, or 6 percent of the population, identify themselves as "some other race" than the five available choices.

The White House Office of Management and Budget, which oversees the census, specifically decided not to add a "multiracial" category, deeming it not a race in and of itself.

"We are in a transitional period" regarding these labels, McWhorter said. "I think that in only 20 years, the notion that there are white people and there are black people and anyone in between has some explaining to do and an identity to come up with, that will all seem very old-fashioned."

The debate over Obama's identity is just the latest step in a journey he unflinchingly chronicled in his memoir, "Dreams from My Father."

As a teenager, grappling with the social separation of his white classmates, "I had no idea who my own self was," Obama wrote.

In college in the 1970s, like millions of other dark-skinned Americans searching for self respect in a discriminatory nation, Obama found refuge in blackness. Classmates who sidestepped the label "black" in favor of "multiracial" chafed at Obama's newfound pride: "They avoided black people," he wrote. "It wasn't a matter of conscious choice, necessarily, just a matter of gravitational pull, the way integration always worked, a one-way street. The minority assimilated into the dominant culture, not the other way around."

Fast-forward 30 years, to the early stages of Obama's presidential campaign. Minorities are on track to outnumber whites, to redefine the dominant American culture. And the black political establishment, firmly rooted in the civil rights movement, questioned whether the outsider Obama was "black enough."

Then came the primary and general elections, when white voters were essential for victory. "Now I'm too black," Obama joked in July before an audience of minority journalists. "There is this sense of going back and forth depending on the time of day in terms of making assessments about my candidacy."

Today, it seems no single definition does justice to Obama - or to a nation where the revelation that Obama's eighth cousin is Dick Cheney, the white vice president from Wyoming, caused barely a ripple in the campaign.

In his memoir, Obama says he was deeply affected by reading that Malcolm X, the black nationalist-turned-humanist, once wished his white blood could be expunged.

"Traveling down the road to self-respect my own white blood would never recede into mere abstraction," Obama wrote. "I was left to wonder what else I would be severing if I left my mother and my grandparents at some uncharted border."


Roads, Trains Can't Handle Jan. 20 Droves
White House 
 
With Street and Bridge Closures, Expect 'Long Lines, Long Walks'
 
By Lena H. Sun and Eric M. Weiss
� Washington Post
December 15, 2008
 

Even if only half of the projected 2 million to 4 million people show up for next month's presidential inauguration, the Washington region's roadways and transit systems will be too pressed to handle the crush, planners say.

Officials are working out details of their transportation plan for the event, but the capacity of the area's transit and road infrastructure, combined with strict security, means residents and potential visitors need to have realistic expectations about how quickly they will be able to move around on Jan. 20, officials said.

People who live near the Arlington Cemetery Metro station, for example, and are planning to take the subway to the swearing-in ceremony might want to think about walking, because trains will be packed. On foot, the three-mile trek from the station to the Reflecting Pool at the Capitol should take about an hour.

And anyone planning to drive in from Virginia might consider a boat: the Roosevelt, Memorial and inbound 14th Street bridges will be restricted to buses and authorized vehicles. Maryland and D.C. officials are also considering bus-only corridors.

Even for those who can get to town or who live there, moving about is going to be dicey: Widespread street closures will severely restrict driving, parking and taxi availability, and delays are likely to be extensive. City officials are working to designate pedestrian-only streets.

But getting into town might be easier than getting out: If 1 million people try to board the subway at the same time after the main festivities end, it could take more than eight hours to move everyone.

In other words, consider staying home in front of the TV with a bowl of popcorn.

"It's going to be a lot of walking, a lot of waiting, and you might not get too close to the president," City Administrator Dan Tangherlini said.

Of course, plenty of people can't stay home -- they'll have to work. At the 1,316-room Wardman Park Marriott in Northwest, the District's largest hotel, employees can sleep on cots. Homeland Security employees will be sleeping in a trailer.

Transportation experts are not mincing words.

"If millions of people are coming to the National Mall, Metro can't handle everyone. It's impossible," agency spokeswoman Candace Smith said. People should expect "long lines, long walks, and they need to make decisions about what they're willing to put up with."

A huge section of the District should be made a no-drive zone, said Metro Board Chairman Chris Zimmerman, who also serves on the Arlington County Board. "You'd be nuts to try," he said. "I would discourage anyone from driving into the city."

Zimmerman wants alternatives to Metro, such as park-and-ride lots along Interstate 95 for special bus service.

Amtrak and airlines are adding trains and flights, although seats were available late last week. The additional flights represent a fairly hefty increase, officials said. Seats are added when reservation systems sense increased demand. Southwest, United Airlines and US Airways, one of the largest carriers at Reagan National Airport, have added flights and, in some cases, switched to bigger planes.

According to reservation data, the biggest travel days for airlines are going to be the Saturday before and the day after the inauguration. For Amtrak and local commuter rail services, the busiest times are expected to be Jan. 19 and 20.

Officials at National and Baltimore-Washington International Marshall airports said they had not made special arrangements for parking and are urging travelers to check the airports' parking hotlines and Web sites for availability.

Car rental companies have been scrambling to get enough vehicles to Washington area airports to handle the increase in reservations, said Paula Rivera of Hertz, who declined to provide specifics, citing competitive reasons.

Thousands of passengers have booked sleeper-car berths on Amtrak trains heading to Washington from Atlanta, New Orleans and Chicago, but some seats were still available as of late last week, spokeswoman Karina Romero said.

Amtrak expects Jan. 20 to be its busiest day of the week. For those who aren't planning to spend the night in Washington, a train leaving Atlanta the night before the swearing-in is scheduled to arrive at 10:10 a.m. at Union Station, a short walk to the Mall.

Amtrak is monitoring reservations to see where and when to add trains or cars, Romero said. Thanksgiving is the company's busiest period of the year. "But on Thanksgiving, everyone is heading everywhere," Romero said. "During the inauguration, everyone is heading to D.C."

Virginia Railway Express and MARC commuter trains, which do not operate on holidays, will provide service on Inauguration Day.

Regional transportation officials say they are meeting several times a day to work out a plan. D.C. officials say they have found parking in the city to accommodate half of the 10,000 charter buses expected by the Secret Service and will provide specifics this week. The goal is to park them within walking distance of the Mall.

About 4,700 buses are likely to be parked elsewhere at Metrorail-accessible locations, such as RFK Stadium in the District, FedEx Field in Landover and some Metro stations with surface lots. (Bus companies can go to http://www.dc.govto obtain the required city permits; they can reserve parking at RFK Stadium at http://2009inauguration.clickandpark.com. Bus companies can also go to that site and link to Metro to buy advance subway passes for their passengers. Mayoral spokeswoman Mafara Hobson stressed the importance of permits for buses parking in the District: "No permit, no parking, no party." People using these charter buses would need to take Metrorail or shuttle buses to the Mall.)

Let's say half of the charter bus passengers will be able to ride the subway. If 1,000 shuttle buses are available, they could make five trips each to move the remaining 5,000 busloads of people. If each round trip from the Mall to a parking site takes an hour, for example, it would take five hours to move all passengers.

Neighborhood parking rules and meter enforcement in the District will be suspended Saturday through Inauguration Day, but they will be affected by street closures, which won't be announced until late this month or the first week in January. Parking garages outside the security cordon will be open at the discretion of their operators, Tangherlini said.

Bicycles will not be allowed within the still-to-be determined security cordon, said Eric Gilliland, executive director of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association. His organization is working with security and transportation organizers to set up bicycle valet parking in three areas just outside the cordon, possibly near the Jefferson Memorial, at Connecticut and K streets and near the Gallery Place-Chinatown Metro station. Metro officials had not decided whether to allow bikes on trains Jan. 20.

After the morning crush, Metro is expecting rushes after the noon swearing-in ceremony and after the parade, about 6 p.m.

The most the subway system can carry is about 120,000 people per hour, officials say. And that doesn't factor in the inevitable delays caused by out-of-towners confused about how to use the system. That number also assumes "nobody gets sick, no one jams the door and all the people cooperate," Metro Board Member Peter Benjamin said. "What do you think the odds are for that to happen if we get 4 million people?"

Glitches can be caused by a number of other factors. Metro has just two tracks, like a two-lane highway. When trains are taken out of service, delays can be lengthy. Doors often malfunction because passengers mistakenly think they are like elevator doors and try to hold them open. And if a passenger becomes sick and can't move, emergency personnel must be called and passengers have to get off the train.

Philadelphia's main transit agency was overwhelmed by crowds during a parade and celebration Oct. 31, after the Phillies won the World Series, and Metro is taking notes. The parade was scheduled for noon downtown, followed by 3 p.m. events at sports complexes several miles away.

By 7:30 a.m. that day, regional rail trains heading downtown were at capacity, according to a report by transit officials. At 8:30 a.m., extra trains were put into operation, and officials warned of one-hour delays. By 9:30, riders were told that trains would not stop at some stations and to use buses. By noon, media outlets were telling passengers that if they weren't already in Center City, they should stay home and watch the parade on television.

Philadelphia officials suspended all inbound regional rail service as of 1 p.m. to provide trains for post-parade crowds, and they cut service to some areas.

Hundreds of thousands of people were stranded, including many parents who had taken their children out of school for the occasion.

The city's transit agency handled one-third more than its daily capacity of 1 million trips, spokesman Richard Maloney said, "but we still disappointed hundreds of thousands of people who were hot and angry. It was like going to the department store, and Santa wasn't there."

Staff writers Mary Beth Sheridan and Nikita Stewart and researchers Meg Smith and Julie Tate contributed to this report.

 

 
Source: Blagojevich Nixed job for Jackson Jr.'s Wife after He Refused $25K Donation
 
Jesse Jackson Jr. 
 
By Don Babwin
� Associated Press
December 17, 2008
 
CHICAGO (AP) - Shortly after his 2002 election, Gov. Rod Blagojevich told Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. he didn't appoint the congressman's wife for lottery director because he had refused to make a $25,000 donation to the governor's campaign, a person familiar with the conversation told The Associated Press.

"That's why she's not getting the job," the person quoted Blagojevich as saying. The person, a Jackson associate who was interviewed Tuesday by the AP, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing federal investigation.

Jackson's name has played prominently ever since Blagojevich was arrested last week on corruption charges, including allegations that the governor tried to sell or trade President-elect Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat for personal gain.

Jackson has been identified as one of the candidates Blagojevich was considering for the seat, and a criminal complaint said his supporters were willing to raise $1.5 million for the governor if he picked the congressman.

The complaint quotes Blagojevich as saying on federal wiretaps that an associate of the candidate offered to raise money for him if he made the Jackson appointment happen.

Jackson spokesman Kenneth Edmonds declined to comment on the account of the exchange shortly after Blagojevich's 2002 election but said the Democratic congressman, the son of civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, has approached federal investigators to discuss the governor and others for years.

"He has shared information with federal prosecutors about public corruption during the past several years, including information about Blagojevich and others," Edmonds said.

Randall Samborn, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago, declined to comment, as did Blagojevich spokesman Lucio Guerrero.

Jackson has openly sought the Senate position but denies initiating or authorizing anyone to promise anything to Blagojevich on his behalf. The congressman has said federal prosecutors told him he is not a target of their investigation.

The Jackson associate interviewed by the AP did not know whether Jackson's wife, Sandi had asked for the state lottery job. At the time, Blagojevich was the first incoming Democratic governor after years of Republican rule and had scores of state jobs to fill.

"The governor had kind of penciled Sandi in as lottery director and then asked for contributions from the congressman," the person said.

Sandi Jackson, who has since been elected to the Chicago City Council, did not return a call to her office seeking comment.

In April, the Chicago Tribune reported that an examination of campaign donations to Blagojevich showed that three in four donors who gave exactly $25,000 received administration favors such as state board appointments or contracts.

It's also the same amount of money that figured prominently in the testimony of a government witness in the political corruption trial this summer of political fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko.

Ali Ata, the former executive director of the Illinois Finance Authority, testified that Blagojevich spoke encouragingly about getting him a job in his administration after he personally brought him a $25,000 campaign contribution.

Rezko, who raised more than $1 million for Blagojevich's campaign fund, was convicted of shaking down companies seeking state business for campaign contributions.





 

Obama's Senate List a Big Miss

Mary Mitchell

 
Jarrett wasn't only qualified black choice to fill Senate slot
 
 
By Mary Mitchell
Columnist
� Chicago Sun-Times
December 16, 2008 

There are still a lot of unanswered questions with respect to President-elect Barack Obama's empty Senate seat. After a week, we still don't know who said what to embattled Illinois Gov. Blagojevich.

On Monday, Obama issued a statement saying he and his staff were "not involved in inappropriate discussions," but acknowledged there were "communications."

Previously, David Axelrod, a close adviser to Obama, had to retract statements he made about Obama speaking to Blagojevich about the seat.

Apparently, the public won't get the full story about Obama's role in a process that has gone horribly awry until the U.S. attorney's office tells the Obama camp it can release a review into the matter.

What has come out, however, is that the nation's first African-American president-elect allegedly did not recommend that Blagojevich appoint any of the black politicians who really wanted the job.

When Obama left the Senate, the nation's highest legislative body lost its only African-American member.

Blagojevich has been accused of trying to extort money and political favors in exchange for Obama's Senate seat.

Last week, the Chicago Tribune reported that Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, gave the governor's chief of staff a list with the names of people who were "acceptable" to Obama.

The people who were allegedly sanctioned by Obama were: Valerie Jarrett, his close friend and adviser; Tammy Duckworth, the state's Veterans Affairs head, Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes and U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky.

Later, Emanuel called the staffer and added Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan's name to the list, according to the published report.

A token recommendation?

Although Jarrett would certainly make a fine senator, her alleged interest in the job is suspect.

As Axelrod told a reporter last week, Obama was "very clear" that he "wanted Jarrett to be in the White House."

"There was never any doubt about that," he said.

I believe him.

But apparently, Blagojevich took Jarrett's alleged interest seriously enough.

He's caught on a wiretap talking about trying to parlay a Jarrett appointment into a Cabinet post for himself.

In fact, Blagojevich exploded when it became clear that he wouldn't get anything but "appreciation" from the Obama camp if he gave the slot to Jarrett.

Without explanation, Jarrett abruptly took herself out of the running by issuing a statement saying she did not want to be a senator.

It didn't make sense to me that Jarrett, who has proven to be a brilliant political strategist and fund-raiser, would want to go to the Senate.

She has long been a close Obama family friend and now she has the ear of the most powerful man in the world.

Days after the his election, she addressed a group of black journalists and was asked if she would replace Obama in the Senate.

"He is my dear friend," she said. "I would do anything that the president of the United States asked me to do."

But had Jarrett gotten the nod from Blagojevich, Obama's critics would have accused her "dear friend" of showing favoritism and possibly with corrupting the process with unfair influence.

With Jarrett out of the running, no African Americans were on the list.

Although U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. campaigned aggressively for the job, he apparently did not make the cut.

U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, who is backed by a coalition of West Side ministers, also was not on the list.

Illinois Senate President Emil Jones, once Obama's political mentor, announced his interest in the job the weekend before the Blagojevich scandal broke.

He wasn't on the list either.

In the case of Jackson and Jones, a lot of people will likely argue that given their relationships with Obama, the absence of their names is a good thing.

But I am disappointed.

For a black politician to overcome the perception that he or she is a black candidate is still a challenge.

Despite Obama's success, a black person's elevation to the U.S. Senate is still a very long shot.

Yet, without the presence of an African American, the Senate does not reflect America's diversity.

Obama's election to the White House should pave the way for another African-American senator.

 

 
U.S. Losing Ground on Education 
Graduation cap and Book
By Peter Schworm

� Boston Globe Staff

December 10, 2008

 

The United States should take broad and immediate action to boost college attendance, which has plunged in the past two decades and is weakening the country's global competitiveness, a major study released today concludes.

The new reportby the College Board, titled "Coming to Our Senses: Education and the American Future," provided a sobering assessment of the country's educational attainment.

After leading the world in high school completion rates throughout the 20th century, the United States now ranks 21st out of 27 advanced economies.

College completion rates have followed a similar pattern: Once second in the world for younger workers (ages 25 to 34), the United States now ranks 11th. Dropout rates for high school students have tripled in the last 30 years.

"In the last 20 years, we have lost critical ground in this country," said Gaston Caperton, president of the College Board, which convened a panel of 28 education specialists to conduct the study. "We once put our faith in creating an educated citizenry, and we have enjoyed the benefits. A nation's success lies largely on the quality of its human resources. Without well-educated citizens, we will struggle economically and socially."

High school graduation rates have dropped from 77 percent in the early 1970s to 67 percent today, the report found. About 40 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds have attained a postsecondary degree, and just 58 percent of full-time undergraduates at four-year colleges receive their degree within six years.

College graduation rates were significantly lower among minority groups; just 26 percent of African-Americans and 18 percent of Latinos and Hispanics have at least an associate degree.

"As an aging and highly educated workforce retires, for the first time in the history of our country we face the prospect that the educational level of one generation of Americans will not exceed, will not equal, perhaps will not even approach, the level of its parents," the report stated.

The report established a goal of ensuring that 55 percent of Americans earn a college degree by 2025. To help achieve this, it called for free preschool for low-income families, improved college counseling, more rigorous high school coursework, stepped up recruitment of low-income students, and increased financial aid.
 

At public four-year institutions, tuition and fees in 2005 equal 73 percent of income for low-income families, up from 57 percent in 1992, the report found. Financial barriers prevent almost one-half of college-qualified low- and moderate-income high school graduates from enrolling in a four-year college.

"Faced with potentially high expenses, while in the dark about aid amounts, many first-generation, college-going students are discouraged from applying," the study concluded.

William Kirwan, chancellor of the University of Maryland system and chairman of the commission, emphasized the need for immediate action.

"We are fighting the clock now and will regret every moment lost," he said. "Other countries have made educational excellence a national priority while we have been satisfied with 'average,' and it has cost us dearly."




Speaking Engagements
Microphone
November 6, 2008  Association for Black Cultural Centers, Picataway, N.J.
 
  November 15, 2008
NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner
Johnson City, Tenn.
 
 Nov. 28 - Dec. 3, 2008
England: London, Birmingham, Leicester, Nottingham & Liverpool
 
December 16, 2008
The Media Project Town Hall Meeting
Philadelphia, Pa.
 
January 13-16, 2008
Wall Street Project
New York, N.Y.
 
February 6-8, 2008
Anchorage, Alaska
 
April 25, 2008
Barber-Scotia College National Alumni Association
Concord, N.C.
 
 
 
 
 
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