Building a Firewall Against the Idea of Reparations

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa, 5th District), arguably one of the most radical white-racist bigots in Congress, showed his complete and total contempt for African-American descendants of slaves this week when he tried to label a court-ordered settlement to Black farmers as Reparations for Slavery.

The above video clip is from Rachel Maddow's Nov. 30, 2010 segment known as "Debunction Junction," and the portion dedicated to Steve King starts at 3:15 if you want to skip the first two stories.

The gist of the story is that Black farmers had been systematically denied farm subsidies that white farmers were getting on a regular basis, so they sued. Yesterday, the final battle (mentioned in the fourth paragraph at the link above) was ended by Congress freeing up the funding for the court-ordered settlement. Finally, the Black farmers will get their $1.25 billion for damages. It was a battle against the USDA and its employees who had systematically favored white farmers over a period of decades.

In spite of the fact that even Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack called it a "sordid chapter in USDA history," Rep. Steve King still could not swallow the idea that Congress, or the courts, had found that white folks had violated any kind of law in favoring whites over Blacks. I guess in his mind that is just how things ought to be in America...an idea that "might is always right."

This plight of the Black farmers is what put Shirley Sherrod on the map before Andrew Breitbart cherry-picked her out-of-context quote and Fox News re-broadcast it.

Indexing for this Topic:

"Reparations"

"We've Done Enough"

An Interesting MLK Blvd Open Source Blog

One of my professors here at Florida Atlantic University recently pointed out that there is an open source photo journalism site that is dedicated to publishing photos and opinions about the MLK Blvds of America. The photos are all aggregated from the Flickr photo pool entitled "MLK Blvd."

If you have a good photo, poem, or other significant contribution, I would invite you to get involved there. Unlike myself, that site has not adopted a advocacy position like I have, but if you review the photos on the Wordpress site you can see all of the elements of marginalization and oppression that I have pointed out here in South Florida.

For example, just head out to the site and keep the following four topics in mind as you review some of the photos:

NIMBY (Just look at the number of freeway overpasses featured in these photos.)

Urban Blight (Stores with no windows, or bars on the windows.)

Homelessness (Blankets stored under the overpasses.)

Re-naming Resistance (Several posts talked about the resilient former names of these streets.)

My personal favorite was the post by Morgan Jones from Oakland, California where the caption noted that eight freeway overpasses overshadow MLK Way between 35th Street and 36th Street.

The Harry Belafonte - Liberty City - Tacolcy Center - Communism Connection

The photo on the right is the Belafonte Tacolcy Center and it is located on MLK Blvd. in Liberty City. My investigation is still ongoing, but from what I can tell it is one of the oldest community organizations in Liberty City that is specifically targeting at-risk youth. This year it celebrated 43 years of existence.

TACOLCY is an acronym for "The Advisory Committee of Liberty City Youth," and when Harry Belafonte supported the center in its early years with a very generous gift they added his name to it.

The Tacolcy model has been held up as one of Florida's most successful prevention models for catching inner-city youth before they take a wrong turn in making some of those difficult decisions that are made infinitely more difficult when faced from under the barriers and marginalization of the inner-city.

What I found most interesting as I did my research is how some of America's most generous celebrities are labeled as socialists, or in Harry Belafonte's case, communists. What these celebrities are guilty of is putting people first.

When you oppose materialism and corporate greed, it might mean that you are not a good candidate to support a Republican, but does that make you a socialist?

There are two really bad words that most of Harry Belafonte's critics use as a pejorative when they attack him, and those words are "social justice." One right-wing radical site that railed on Harry Belafonte and other Hollywood celebrities was also sounding off against the the History Channel for airing a production called "The People Speak." It was a montage of celebrities reading excerpts from Howard Zinn's book, "A People's History." (That link allows you to read the entire book free, on-line.)

The right-wing blogger called it "revisionist history" that was meant to be biased against the white majority and the "heroic" tycoons and business owners who made this country the envy of the world.

The celebrities featured in "The People Speak" claim the stories of bold protesters and oppressed minorities and workers are "inspiring," while Zinn himself has stated that casting history as a people's movement toward change offers hope.

Critics of the Zinn Project, however, warn that the curriculum is more about pushing Zinn's admitted pacifist and socialist agenda on the next generation.

Michelle Malkin blasts "The People Speak" as an effort to promote "Marxist academic Howard Zinn's capitalism-bashing, America-dissing, grievance-mongering history textbook, 'A People's History of the United States.' … Zinn's work is a self-proclaimed 'biased account' of American history that rails against white oppressors, the free market and the military."

I encourage you to watch the 24 video clips and judge for yourself whether it is revisionist history or not. To me, it did not seem that they were making this stuff up. Taken as a whole, those 24 video clips pretty much explain the real history behind the inner-city problems that are faced by Liberty City today, and which justify the 43-year existence of a place called the Belafonte Tacolcy Center.

The rhetoric that has turned the words "social justice" into a pejorative has definitely taken a turn for to the extreme since an African American democrat moved into the White House. How this all plays out remains to be seen, but from the perspective of the "white guy on MLK Blvd.," it would be nice to have a few more men like Harry Belafonte around.

Indexing for This Topic

"Inner-City"

MLK Avenue, Deerfield Beach, FL - The most easily overlooked.

I cross this MLK Avenue every day that I attend classes on the Boca Raton campus of Florida Atlantic University, and yet I have failed to blog about it. I guess it is long past time that I write about my very own hometown "MLK Avenue."


View Larger Map

I'm not going to do a formal "report card" on Deerfield Beach's MLK Avenue because it is almost entirely a residential area. There are a cluster of businesses where it intersects with Hillsboro Blvd., and there is even a franchised restaurant there, but it is otherwise not a very nice residential area. Poverty is a part of everyday life here, and the schools in the area all qualify as "Title 1" schools. That, as much as anything else, is the true signature of a low-income area.

Deerfield Beach Elementary School actually fronts right on MLK Avenue, but it is Deerfield Beach Middle School (a short walk east over the railroad tracks) and Deerfield Beach High School (a short walk south of where MLK Avenue ends near SW 10th Street) that have garnered all of the international media attention in the last year. It is my opinion that the behavior that attracted this attention is deeply rooted in marginalized populations and it is not unique to Deerfield Beach. It just happened to come to a head here within the last year for one reason or another.

Before I link you to the stories, let me first say that I am taking an upper level course entitled Sociology of Mental Health as one of my electives this semester. It goes into great detail as to how status and role play into emotional health. When you are poor it dramatically increases the probability that distress will be experienced within families. While race does play a major role in this neighborhood, these events in Deerfield Beach had more to do with poverty and the difficulties associated with life in the inner-city than it did race.

The first event happened on October 12, 2009 (just over a year ago) when 15-year-old Michael Brewer was doused in a flammable liquid and set on fire. He told a live international television audience that his school was a "terrible" school. I'll let you read up on the details, but I remember my facts correctly it had to do with a bike, a video game, and $40.

The second event was in March 2010, just when Michael Brewer was getting out of the burn unit. Jocie Lou Ratley had her head stomped and kicked with steel-toed boots as a consequence of an insensitive text message that she sent to Wayne Treacy. They kept her in a medically induced coma for weeks and the brain damage will require years of therapy to compensate for. She will never be the same person. It is not expected to be a complete recovery.

Last month there was yet another tragic event in this neighborhood. In what has been described as an accident, 12-year-old Anthony Alejandre was shot in the face by his 17 year old friend, Jose Torres. The two families were very close. Jose Torres' room was described as a "small arsenal." The boys lived across the street from each other, two blocks east of MLK Avenue in Deerfield Beach.

Yes, these events could have happened anywhere in America, but they happen most often in the inner-city. School counselors are consistently over-worked in these schools, and these schools depend on a tax base that is far less affluent than the schools in the suburbs. The parents in these schools have less time to be engaged in school activities, and they often work longer hours, irregular hours, shift work, or more than one job, leaving the kids alone more as "latch key" kids.

And yet today there is an online story that I found that was carried by The Bellingham Herald, a city that touches the Canadian border and the Pacific Ocean in Washington State. Why this version of the story was at the top of my search results I cannot tell you, but I found it interesting that it is literally the furthest possible city from Deerfield Beach within the continental United States, and yet people there seem to be following the series of events that have taken place here, in schools where my kids would be attending classes if this was happening 10 years ago.

The story that I found today focuses on a few of the positive things that are happening in this neighborhood that borders MLK Avenue here in Deerfield Beach. It talks of how an investment in time and attention will make a difference. Those are two things that I personally am willing to invest in making this country a better place, and I'm starting here at home in South Florida. Please join me.

Indexing for This Topic:

"Complicity"

"Monster's Ball" - Teaching a 'work-around' tactic for racism.

My ally in doing this inner-city research work is Mickey Rowe. He recently suggested that I watch the critically acclaimed movie, "Monster's Ball." I now understand why. I decided to do a formal review of the movie for this blog.

It Takes a Human Being

The 2001 movie production, Monster’s Ball, tells the story of two families in the present-day Deep South. It was not a big-budget film, but that did not stop it from accomplishing something that other producers and directors had failed to do when trying to communicate a message about the racial divide in America. Monster’s Ball effectively skirted around the topic of racism and dealt with it subliminally.

If you have ever heard the expression, “…looked right through me,” then you get the idea of how the writers for Monster’s Ball dealt with a topic that modern America always seems to approach with awkwardness and trepidation. Racism was there. It was bigger than life in the plot, but you never once were forced to focus on it as part of the story. Racism gave the film a reason to exist, but it was only part of the plot because it represented the real world in which the characters lived.

Halle Berry, who won the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her performance, played Leticia. Her husband, Lawrence (Sean Combs), was a death-row inmate who had run out of appeals. The movie’s title comes from the cruel nickname that the prison guards have given to the 24 hour suicide watch for the night before the day of execution. Hank (Billy Bob Thornton) and his son, Sonny (a very young Heath Ledger), are the prison guards assigned to this task.

The tone for the movie is set when Lawrence does a pencil sketch of Sonny. When he hands the finished drawing to Sonny, Sonny tells him how it is a better likeness of him than a photograph. Lawrence explains that this is because, in his opinion, it takes a human being to really see another human being. Scenes through the rest of movie are built upon the premise that only a few of us in modern society take the time to see people who are different from us as real people who are living valuable and meaningful lives.

The impact of the movie comes from the fact that Hank, a widower who is taking care of his invalid and widowed father, is caught between two very different worlds. His father is a hate-filled racist, but Sonny, who still lives at home as well, has black youth as some of his friends. A personal tragedy forces Hank to choose a definitive path for his future. One of the most powerful moments of the film come when Hank finally chooses to place his father in a nursing home.

In what is perhaps the most brilliant maneuver of the movie (it was also nominated for an Oscar for best screenplay written for the screen, but didn’t win), Hank and Leticia don’t stop to think about the fact that events are drawing them together. Simply put, both are exhausted from their fight against fate, and each has reached the point where they are willing to simply allow life to take its course. The minimal script in the movie is part of its magic, and the musical score, composed by Asche and Spencer, is haunting as it fills in for unnecessary dialog. The screenplay was written by Milo Addica and Will Rokos. The cinematography has the raw nerve of an indie film in its risk-taking creativity. The emotions of the movie cannot be put down on paper and need to be experienced.

Monster’s Ball was directed by Marc Forster and produced by Lee Daniels Entertainment.

Indexing for This Topic:

"Cause for Optimism"

MLK Hialeah: Life on the "Right" Side of the Tracks

As you head west on NW 62nd Street (MLK Blvd.) through Liberty City, you will cross the CSX / Tri-Rail tracks.

This will mean that you are in Hialeah, but nobody will have to tell you that.

You will be able to tell that something changed by how many name-brand stores and franchises that you see on both sides of the road.







To Hialeah's credit, many other cities would have let MLK Blvd. end at the tracks and retained the old name of the street (in this case, W 9th Street), but Hialeah continued MLK Blvd. all the way to the canal, and this was courageous.




What is telling is that the inner-city ended as quickly as it did.







Marshall Davis, the manager at the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center in Liberty City, talked about living in "The Canyon" as a child, which was what they called the corridor of homes that backed onto the tracks.






At the time he lived there (and he is probably in his late 50's), there was nothing beyond the tracks at the time. That means that Hialeah got a fresh start as a "new" city and didn't have the baggage of being a segregated city.



That gave them a leg up on Liberty City, and the difference is a clear as night and day.

Indexing for This Topic:

"Wrong Side of the Tracks"

Atlanta: The Martin Luther King Jr. Capital of America

In August of 2009, on a road trip that would take us to Toledo, Ohio, and into Connecticut for our wedding, my husband and I spent the first night of our trip in Atlanta. More than anything, I wanted to visit the King Center.

I was not disappointed in what I found there, and it was gratifying to see that the center was now accompanied by a National Historic Site facility as well. This had been added from when my husband had last been there.


One thing about the National Historic Site that kind of took me off guard was how closely they tied Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to Mahatma Gandhi. I was not surprised, but it was one of those, "...of course" moments.


It made perfect sense that it would honor Gandhi as the inspiration behind King's non-violent resistance.


I have been a student of Gandhi and King from the time that I had gone to battle with my church over my changing world view. One of the first books that I read as I sought to expand my understanding of how religion and privilege went hand-in-hand had been Mel White's "Religion Gone Bad."
In his book White talked extensively about how King and Gandhi had been the driving force behind him as he founded the activist organization, Soulforce.

To say the experience at the King Center and the National Historic Site was humbling somehow sells it short. A better word would be reverent. More than a museum, it felt like I was walking on hallowed ground, and standing in the shadow of two men who exhibited a rare kind of humanity that only comes once in a generation.

Indexing for This Topic:
"Cause for Optimism"

Inner-city Infrastructure: Overtown's Lyric Theater

I have come to realize that there are two different pedigrees when it comes to the inner-city areas of South Florida. One is a lineage that traces the roots of the marginalized community to white founders who fled to the suburbs as undesirable "others" moved in next door. The other lineage is derived from when a community was a segregated enclave in which Blacks were forced to live under Jim Crow laws. The four communities in South Florida that I am familiar with who have this kind of lineage are Overtown and Liberty City in Miami, Sistrunk in Fort Lauderdale, and Pearl City in Boca Raton.

The advantage of finding an area that was historically a segregated community is that the heritage is rich in culture. But in the case of Overtown, Sistrunk and Pearl City, these communities are all very close to what is now the commercial core of those cities. This simple fact is now putting them at risk. In all three instances there is an enormous amount of pressure to erase and "sanitize" the Black history and have the commercial district swallow it up. As a friend explained it to me, "Suddenly [the white folks] realized they had given up a prime location."

In Overtown, the historic Lyric Theater is a good example of what can be done to resist exactly this kind of pressure. In 2007 we were given an example of what kind of activism is needed in order to draw attention to not only the heritage of these communities, but also to preserving the buildings.

The Wikipedia post for Overtown almost seems to credit this increased attention to spurring on the revitalization of the theater, and by 2012 it looks like it will serve as a focal point of a youth program.

But back to that 2007 event. It was during the Art Basel festival season when a POPtv / nonradioMusic Studio Lab Project (no, that is not a typo) presented "AAPC+Overtown; A Snapshot of the Golden Age of American Music."

The project featured Derin Young and it was a multimedia performance that showcased historical Overtown residents and visitors by using both audio and video content. What it also did was celebrate the rich cultural history of Overtown. The performance utilized special segments highlighting Sammy Davis, Jr., Sam and Dave, Nat King Cole and Dinah Washington, as well as music from contemporary composers like Derin Young and R.M. Crews, who form the nucleus of the Studio Lab Project.

Indexing for This Topic:

"The Culture"

"White Flight"

Florida New Majority and The Miami Worker's Center

Since my most recent visit to Liberty City and Overtown I have been following two groups that are building a strong presence there.

The following is copied from the "About Us" page of the Florida New Majority (FNM)

"Founded in 2009, FNM overcomes the history of racism and division in the Sunshine State.

"By building common cause among diverse communities we are expanding democracy and developing the leadership of underrepresented communities. We are shifting the role of government away from being a pocketbook for corporate interest, to supporting the well-being of all Floridians."

The Miami Worker's Center is headquartered at the corner of MLK Blvd and 7th Avenue in Liberty City. There is a block party on Saturday, October 23rd, 2010 that sounds like a fun event.

Both of the above groups have e-newsletters that you can subscribe to on their web pages. I am confident that I will be posting quite a few more events and campaigns that these groups are involved with.

Indexing for This Topic:

"Cause for Optimism"

The Overtown Renaissance Movement

I just finished a Prezi presentation. Take a look. It is a far cry from a Powerpoint slideshow for sure.

Give it about 10 seconds to load in the background before you click on anything. It is a large file. Then click on the ">" icon at the bottom. This will start the program and it will take another 10 seconds to buffer.

Next I recommend you click on "More," then "full screen," and then advance the screens manually with the ">" icon at the bottom of the screen.

Indexing for This Topic:
"The Culture"

"Cause for Optimism"

Liberty City Sheds Its History as the Crime Capital of South Florida

The last line of the Wikipedia entry for Liberty City is disturbing to me.

Liberty City is a notoriously dangerous section of Miami as mass shootings are commonplace.

I have to ask why somebody would end this Wikipedia post in this manner after reading the prior sentences within the same paragraph.

Liberty City is also home to the Miami Workers Center. A strategy and organizing center for low-income communities and low-wage workers in Miami-Dade County. Initiated in March 1999, the Center’s mission is to work to end poverty and oppression. The Center’s most significant achievement has been the initiation and development of Low Income Families Fighting Together (LIFFT)—a grassroots membership organization of and for current and former welfare recipients, low-wage workers, and public housing residents that has become a growing force in Miami-Dade County. In these efforts the Miami Workers’ Center joins arms with Miami-Dade County's low-income people to address issues of poverty and limited opportunity.

There is much to be hopeful for in Liberty City, not the least of which is the massive investment made by the county to provide community services to the residents. This 5-story tall building is dedicated entirely to providing much needed health and wellness programs to some of the most disadvantaged people of South Florida. It is adjacent to the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Metrorail station.

People are too quick to condemn the inner-city poor as a drain on taxpayers. People like my nephew. Thankfully, Miami-Dade County sees their work in Liberty City as an investment in the future, rather than a paternalistic duty.

As wonderful as the Miami-Dade County Human Services Office Building is, I doubt if it will do as much to alter the course of history in Liberty City as the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center will. While visiting the center to take photos I met with the manager, Marshall Davis. He is a white-haired man who has been at the center for more than twenty years.

This is a small excerpt of a conversation that I had with him. My question to him was, "What makes you optimistic about the future of Liberty City?"

Indexing for This Topic:

"Cause for Optimism"

"The Culture"

The Murals of Liberty City, Florida

This particular mural stood out among the many that were painted along MLK Blvd. in Liberty City. It is obvious that somebody is keeping it vivid and fresh. It virtually leaps off the wall and grabs you as you drive by. (Click on image for a high-resolution view.)

When driving by, you, as a driver, will not have a chance to read the words, but there-in lies the message. Only a few American's will not recognize them as excerpts from King's last speech.

"Like anybody, I'd like to live a long life...but it doesn't matter now. I've been to the mountaintop."

And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But...we as a people will get to the Promised Land."

This is the short video of a portion of the speech that includes the above phrases:

There were many other murals along MLK Blvd. in Liberty City, and here is a sampling.

Going under the I-95 freeway eastbound, this is your initial view.




If you get stopped at the light under the freeway, you get to read these words.








These murals are in the downtown core.











Make sure you take a moment to read the initial comment made below this blog by 'circles...all the way down' about this sign, which he entitled "For Rent: Dream of the Century."





These murals are under the I-95 freeway westbound, toward the downtown Liberty City area.






The spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has been kept alive in Liberty City. At the far western end, just before entering the Hialeah portion of MLK Blvd., you will pass Martin Luther King Jr. park, where there is a larger-than-life statue of Dr. King.


If you want to take some of the art home with you, you can always buy a T-shirt.

Indexing for This Topic

"The Culture"

"Cause for Optimism"

Report Card: Fort Lauderdale / Lauderdale Lakes, Broward County, Florida

Fort Lauderdale / Lauderdale Lakes

Broward County, Florida

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Avenue

(Also known as: NW 31st Avenue)

Zip Codes: 33312 / 33311 / 33309 (south to north)

Overview: If you click on the map below you will not see an MLK Blvd (or in this case, MLK Avenue) anywhere in sight. For reasons still unknown to me (but which I will be investigating), Google Maps still does not show NW 31st Avenue as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Avenue. Neither did Mapquest. Regardless, the street signs all show both MLK Avenue and NW 31st Avenue for the duration of the road that I traveled. The Broward Transit Route Map did show Route 40 going along the northern length of what it referred to as MLK Blvd. (not Avenue...go figure), which it also showed turning into NW 31st Street when it passed Commercial Boulevard in the north.

MLK Avenue through Fort Lauderdale starts in a thriving residential community of single-family homes south of Davie Boulevard in South Fort Lauderdale. (See photo of home below.) Heading north, the parcels of land along MLK Ave. start becoming commercialized while the residential neighborhoods continue behind the commercial buildings.

View Larger Map

At NW 19th Street you enter Lauderdale Lakes, and by the time you reach Oakland Park Boulevard (the equivalent of 31st Street) the area is heavily commercial and even borders on becoming industrial. It gradually transitions back to residential, and by the time you reach NW 40th Street the street signs no longer reference NW 31st Avenue as MLK Avenue.

Length: Approximately 5 miles

From 1300 Block South to 3900 Block North.

(Davie Boulevard in the south to just shy of Commercial Boulevard in the north)

Classifications:

Residential Neighborhood (houses and apartments visible to MLK Avenue) = 50%

Vacant = 15%

Blighted and Ignored = 5%

Blighted but Not Ignored = 5%

Gentrification Failing = 0

Gentrification Succeeding = 0

Viable with Room to Improve = 50%

Vibrant and Car Friendly = 25%

Vibrant and Pedestrian Friendly = 0

Commercial Corridor: Main Street = 10%
(Only at the crossroads with east/west major intersections.)
Gentrification Failing = 30%
Gentrification Succeeding = 10%
Viable with Room to Improve = 60%

Commercial Corridor: Mom & Pop Shops = 20%

Vacant = 50%

Blighted and Ignored = 10%

Blighted but Not Ignored = 20%

Gentrification Failing = 10%

Gentrification Succeeding = 0

Viable with Room to Improve = 10%

Vibrant and Car Friendly = 0

Vibrant and Pedestrian Friendly = 0

Industrial Corridor = 15%

Vacant = 30%

Blighted and Ignored = 30%

Blighted but Not Ignored = 40%

Gentrification Failing = 0

Gentrification Succeeding = 0

Viable with Room to Improve = 0

Vibrant = 0

Institutional and Parks = 5%

Gentrification Succeeding = 50%

Viable with Room to Improve = 50%

Community Assets:

Parks and Community Centers: There are several schools along the length of this MLK Avenue, owing primarily to how heavily residential the corridor is. Most of the schools did not front MLK Avenue but the number of school zones were evidence that they were there, just out of sight. On the property with the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Elementary School there was a school with the name "Title I Migrant and Special Programs" on the sign out front. The one visible community center that fronts on MLK Avenue, the brand new Edgar P. Mills Multi-Purpose Center, was tough to research on the web, but I believe it to be a "Family Success Center" and arts facility. It was disturbing to see that almost without exception, Broward.org cited the address as 900 NW 31 Ave. and made no reference to the fact that it was on MLK Avenue. This bears some more investigation as to why that would be.

Churches: There were less than a dozen churches that fronted on this MLK Avenue. I imagine that the small number has to do with how accessible the area is to other more suitable church sites, such as the very successful (and large) Black churches in the nearby historically Black Sistrunk neighborhood. On the map you will see several churches along the east-west corridors, just a few blocks off MLK Avenue.

National Chain Grocery or Department Stores: None were encountered, not even at the junctions with the major east-west corridors.

Brand Name Franchised Restaurants: A few (your typical KFC and Church's Chicken) were visible from MLK Avenue when I crossed Broward Boulevard, Sunrise Boulevard and Oakland Park Boulevard.

Other National Franchises: Familiar auto parts franchise stores were visible only at the east-west crossroads noted above.

NIMBY Items Encountered:

There is a massive flood reservoir to the east of MLK Avenue between NW 13th and 17th Streets, but it was sheltered by a dike and not visible from the street. The four blocks of chain link fencing were not too attractive though, and gave the appearance of more vacant land.

There were no rail corridors crossing this MLK Avenue because it ran parallel to the CSX Railway corridor ten blocks to the east.

There were two highly visible major power substations along this MLK Avenue.

Indexing for This Topic

"The Report Cards"

Join the "White Guy on MLK Blvd." Facebook Page

We're moving into the big times. Follow me on my own "White Guy" Facebook page.

Contempt for People on Medicaid

In the summer of 2009, there was a serious debate going on about the need for healthcare reform, and many people showed their bigoted views out in the open. One was a doctor, who wrote a "Letter to the Editor" of his Jackson, Miss. newspaper. It became a viral email and went wild across America.

That Facebook page has since gone dead, but it pictured a young physician by the name of Dr. Roger Starner Jones. His short two-paragraph "open letter" to the White House accurately puts the blame on a "Culture Crisis" instead of a "Health Care Crisis".

It's worth a quick read:

Dear Mr. President:

During my shift in the Emergency Room last night, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient whose smile revealed an expensive shiny gold tooth, whose body was adorned with a wide assortment of elaborate and costly tattoos, who wore a very expensive brand of tennis shoes and who chatted on a new cellular telephone equipped with a popular R&B ringtone.

While glancing over her patient chart, I happened to notice that her payer status was listed as "Medicaid"! During my examination of her, the patient informed me that she smokes more than one pack of cigarettes every day, eats only at fast-food take-outs, and somehow still has money to buy pretzels and beer. And, you and our Congress expect me to pay for this woman's health care? I contend that our nation's "health care crisis" is not the result of a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or nurses. Rather, it is the result of a "crisis of culture" a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on luxuries and vices while refusing to take care of one's self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance. It is a culture based in the irresponsible credo that "I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me". Once you fix this "culture crisis" that rewards irresponsibility and dependency, you'll be amazed at how quickly our nation's health care difficulties will disappear.

Respectfully,
ROGER STARNER JONES, MD

A long (and hostile) Facebook thread ensued in which I was at odds with my brother and my nephew. My nephew went so far as to call the inner-city poor "sub-par samples of humanity" who didn't deserve to live and contribute their DNA to the future of the human race. His Social Darwinism is another topic entirely, but I will save that for later.

When I explained this Facebook wall "conversation" to Kala Luzia, a Librarian II at the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center on Sistrunk Blvd., this was her response:

Snopes has verified this story and provided a counter viewpoint from the same newspaper that published Dr. Jones' "Letter to the Editor."

Indexing for This Topic

"Othering"

"Complicity"

"Paternalism"

"We've Done Enough"

Report Card: Riviera Beach, Palm Beach County, Florida

Riviera Beach

Palm Beach County, Florida

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard

(Also known as: West 8th Street / State Road 710)

Zip Code: 33404

Overview: MLK Blvd through Riviera Beach starts in an industrial cul-de-sac three blocks long to the east of Dixie Highway and the Florida East Coast Railway corridor.

View Larger Map

Immediately to the west of Dixie Highway is a residential area with a dozen vacant frontage lots that appear to be zoned for commercial. There were a few boarded up and failed mom-and-pop shops, and one seemingly viable strip mall at Avenue U.

The homes through this corridor are a mix of blighted and viable homes and apartment buildings, and exist on both the east and west sides of the Australian Avenue north-south corridor.

After about a mile the area returns to an industrial park on both sides of the North Congress Avenue north-south corridor, and when the road makes a curve to the northeast it becomes the Bee Line Highway.

Length: Approximately 2 miles

From 100 Block West to 3500 Block West.

(Dixie Highway in the east to Bee Line Highway in the west)

Classifications:

Residential Neighborhood (houses visible to MLK Blvd) = 40%

Vacant = 15%

Blighted and Ignored = 20%

Blighted but Not Ignored = 20%

Gentrification Failing = 25%

Gentrification Succeeding = 10%

Viable with Room to Improve = 10%

Vibrant and Car Friendly = 0

Vibrant and Pedestrian Friendly = 0

Commercial Corridor: Main Street = 0%

Commercial Corridor: Mom & Pop Shops = 10%

Vacant = 40%

Blighted and Ignored = 25%

Blighted but Not Ignored = 25%

Gentrification Failing = 10%

Gentrification Succeeding = 0

Viable with Room to Improve = 0

Vibrant and Car Friendly = 0

Vibrant and Pedestrian Friendly = 0

Industrial Corridor = 48%

Vacant = 50%

Blighted and Ignored = 10%

Blighted but Not Ignored = 0

Gentrification Failing = 0

Gentrification Succeeding = 0

Viable with Room to Improve = 10%

Vibrant = 30%

Institutional and Parks = 2%

Gentrification Succeeding = 100%

Community Assets:

Parks and Community Centers: There is one community center with an attached park along the Riviera Beach MLK Blvd.

Churches: Most of the churches in this corridor are one block removed from MLK Blvd, but there are at least a half-dozen Black Church congregations, all in the residential area.

National Chain Grocery or Department Stores: None were encountered.

Brand Name Franchised Restaurants: None were encountered.

Other National Franchises: None, not even an auto parts franchise.

NIMBY Items Encountered:

Sewage and water treatment facilities are located at Avenue U.

Two major rail corridors frame in the residential area.

The industrial parks along both rail corridors are not the small-business models. They are campus-sized industrial installations.

Indexing for This Topic

"The Report Cards"

Divide and Conquer: A Warning to the Black Church about Hegemony

Hegemony is a media and political term that describes a phenomenon whereby a minority can maintain control over a much larger population through an array of tactics that have proven successful over the history of the world. The Black community need look no further than South African apartheid to know that it works against them, and that it has been used against them since the beginning of time.

If I remember my history correctly, it was warring factions within African tribal cultures that first started selling captured tribe members as slaves to white explorers.

The pastors of the Black Church need to examine themselves as it relates to this one specific tactic of hegemony, and that is the tactic of dividing and conquering. If hegemonic forces can keep the minority populations at each other's throats, then they will never band together to fight their real enemy, will they?

In a Sept. 29, 2010 article published by the Dallas Voice, Linus "Buster" Spiller wrote the following as a follow-up to the Eddie Long story:

"My greatest wish is that black gay men will place themselves in the forefront of this dialogue because our lives are at stake. No longer can we sit in these churches silently, pay tithes, and have verbal whipping after verbal whipping heaped upon us as though we are not worthy of basic human decency, even if we have deep family ties within that church community. No longer can we freely give our time and talents in support of religious institutions that don’t extend respect in return. And no longer should we tolerate hypocritical biblical teachings by those like Long, who feel comfortable leading efforts such as his infamous 2006 march against gay marriage, yet allegedly violated the marriage covenant with his own wife according to Christian doctrine."

You can read the full story on the Dallas Voice, but for now, I want to go on the record as one who states very clearly that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr would have never come out against homosexuals. Bayard Rustin was one of his most trusted allies and the genius behind many of the tactics that built the public support behind the Civil Rights movement. Coretta Scott King has always maintained this same kind of support for gay rights. At a Creating Change Conference for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force she said:

We have a lot more work to do in our common struggle against bigotry and discrimination. I say "common struggle" because I believe very strongly that all forms of bigotry and discrimination are equally wrong and should be opposed by right-thinking Americans everywhere. Freedom from discrimination based on sexual orientation is surely a fundamental human right in any great democracy, as much as freedom from racial, religious, gender, or ethnic discrimination.

If the Black Church fails to change their views on the rights of the gay men and lesbians within their community, then they will become the stumbling block to the kind of change that needs to happen along the MLK Blvds of America.

Oh, and if you still want to read more about the Black struggle for civil rights and the connection that it has with gay rights, here is a fascinating link to a fringe story about Malcolm X.

* Photo could not be attributed to a specific source. It appears in dozens of on-line articles.

Indexing for This Topic:

"Black Church"